Total War: Warhammer II – Lizardmen at the Looking Glass

[xroads]

How do I take Mirror Pools of Tepok?

I’m currently playing the Lizardmen with Lord Mazdamundi and I find myself staring enviously at the Mirror Pools. I just don’t seem to have the forces to take them.

The problem is that the pools have 3 forces of ratmen sitting there stinking up the pools (one garrison unit and two armies). And the numbers they can bring to a fight are just overwhelming!

I can’t lay siege because the moment I do they come out in force and attack my forces with a flood of rats. I can’t raid the province to provoke them to come out and play, because lizardmen don’t have the raiding stance. And money is a bit tight, so I can’t afford to recruit and support more units.

So what do I do? Everything I’ve read online implies taking the pools is important. But it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to take it any time soon.

Here’s are the cards I’m currently holding.

• I have the whole of Isthmus of Lustria under my control.
• I have Chotec's Causeway and Skeggi occupied.
• I have two armies and one hero (a saurus scar-veteran).
• My back-up army is sitting pretty in Hexoatl.
• My primary army (Lord Mazdamundi’s army), is sitting in the Causeway).
• If memory serves, the primary army has (1 x solar engine, 2 x cold riders, 4 x saurian maces, 1 x saurian spears, 2 x saurian spear & shields, and 3 x skink javelin units).
• Lord Mazdamundi flies the Sunburst Banner of Hexoatl. I still can’t believe the skaven fight was more harrowing the fight for the banner!
• I can't remember what the secondary has. I think a half-dozen saurian units with a couple skink javelins.

[Brookshw]

If you have or can get it easily, lighting strike the one not on garrison. Alternatively, lay an ambush and see if one will leave.

Do you have access to feral stegadon's? Rats have terrible moral, throwing terror units against them and gunning for their leaders can give you a good shot at easy routes.

Bring up your other army.

[Thomas Cardew]

Ok a few things.

1 Province is bit early to be running more than 1 army. You generally want 2-3 provinces per army. Because of the upkeep penalties, 2 10 unit armies cost more than 1 20 unit army. Consolidate everything onto Mazda. Don't disband units but make sure you've got a full 20 stack on him. You want all of your armies to be doing something each turn. One army just sitting in Hexotal doesn't do you any good.

What skills do you have on Mazda? Generally I like to go the first 7 points into the blue line to lightning strike on any lord because it makes dealing with multiple armies much easier. That's on basically any lord. If you didn't do that you should either have spells or army buffs. Which ones you have makes a big difference.

It sounds like you best bets are either to attack fallen gates or fight at mirror pool. If you attack Fallen Gates, you might pull out one of the skaven armies to either defend it or attack Chotec's Causeway. You might temporarily lose CC but that's fine. Fight the losing garrison battle doing as much damage as you can, then attack the occupying army with Mazda. If you fight at mirror pool you can either attack the city directly or one of the armies outside. Saurus warriors munch through skaven infranty. If you fight outside, fight on the edge or corner of the map against skaven not in the middle. This is because you can get them to break easily and then run off the map so you don't have to chew through the entire unit's hp.

Cold riders aren't really good units and they're hard for new players to use effectively. I definitely wouldn't recruit any more. What you'll want to do is send them very far out to the side, hide them in a forest during deployment if you can. Once the lines are actually fighting, charge them into the back of one of the flanks, ideally the one your dino is engaged on, fight for about 10 seconds, pull out and do it again till the enemy routs. Hopefully, the routing rats will run off the map if not they'll still flee and come back at lower hp. Keep rolling down the flank doing the same. The unit you just freed up turns and flanks, while the riders keep hitting the rear. Spam apothesis to keep you Suarus warriors hp up and they'll eventually chew through the entire skaven line. Particularly if it's just skavenslaves and clanrats.

[Incorrect]

Maybe put Mazda in ambush stance and use a small throw-away army as bate, just in front of him.
Hopefully the skaven will take the bait, and be ambushed by Mazda.
The AI loves to attack small armies, especially in forced march stance.

Consolidate most of your units in the ambush army.
If the bait army survives you should probably disband it or actively use it to conquer/raid something.

[GloatingSwine]

1. Get Lightning Strike.

Unless you're a faction that gets Stalk stance (Skaven, Beastmen, Nagarythe) or one that uses massive blobs of chod (Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings), Lightning Strike is the most potent tool in your arsenal, letting you fight one army at a time.

2. Ditch those cold one riders, they're rubbish. (Non-Bretonnian) Cavalry is rubbish in general in TWW2 because maps are too small compared to army sizes for consistent flanking, they don't do a lot of actual damage, and morale shock is only useful in niche circumstances (again tied to large armies compressed into small maps), but Cold One Riders are double rubbish because their stats are also bad.

Early game as Lizardmen just recruit javelin skinks. They're as good in melee as the normal kind (and at least as good as clanrats), have a ranged attack, and move fast.

Later on transition into a solid core of Stegadons (the normal ones not Ancient). You can use other things with them, but your main strength as Lizardmen is big fat dinos and Stegadons are the most versatile, combining artillery and a solid combat monster.

3. Recruit one army per front you are actually fighting on (at least until later in the game). It's better to concentrate your experience onto a few lords to get all the useful skills (lightning strike, good spells, and the red skills for the units you want to use). As Lizardmen your best option for lords is to do the Rite of Awakening and choose a Life slann. Big Dinosaurs + Healing Magic is an extraordinarily potent combo. Corollary to this, try and be fighting the fewest number of wars at one you can. The more wars you are in, the more enemies will dogpile you. Use Ambush stance to hide your army from enemy eyes and always build walls wherever you might be attacked, walls will delay the opponent and let you move an army to lift the siege. You never want an army just sitting around with nothing to do.

[xroads]

Thanks for the tips everyone!

1 Province is bit early to be running more than 1 army. You generally want 2-3 provinces per army. Because of the upkeep penalties, 2 10 unit armies cost more than 1 20 unit army. Consolidate everything onto Mazda. Don't disband units but make sure you've got a full 20 stack on him. You want all of your armies to be doing something each turn. One army just sitting in Hexotal doesn't do you any good.

Interesting. I assumed that I needed to keep an army sitting in a province to defend it against sneaky assaults. Is this not the case?

What skills do you have on Mazda? Generally I like to go the first 7 points into the blue line to lightning strike on any lord because it makes dealing with multiple armies much easier. That's on basically any lord. If you didn't do that you should either have spells or army buffs. Which ones you have makes a big difference.

I grabbed the leadership buff and one that increases the army's marching distance. After that I started climbing up the spell tree.

Sounds like I should have grabbed the lightning. The rat wizard at Mirror Pool certainly has it.

If you fight outside, fight on the edge or corner of the map against skaven not in the middle. This is because you can get them to break easily and then run off the map so you don't have to chew through the entire unit's hp.

Yeah, I think I'm going to try that next time. I tried the infantry square technique, but the skaven just spawned their bonus units inside my square!

Maybe put Mazda in ambush stance and use a small throw-away army as bate, just in front of him.
Hopefully the skaven will take the bait, and be ambushed by Mazda.
The AI loves to attack small armies, especially in forced march stance.

Good to know. Since it sounds like I only need one army for now, I may just swing my back-up army up, grab the bulk of his troops, and then send him charging forth. For that is the Old One's plan of course.

2. Ditch those cold one riders, they're rubbish. (Non-Bretonnian) Cavalry is rubbish in general in TWW2 because maps are too small compared to army sizes for consistent flanking, they don't do a lot of actual damage, and morale shock is only useful in niche circumstances (again tied to large armies compressed into small maps), but Cold One Riders are double rubbish because their stats are also bad.

These were the free units you get when you play through the tutorial. But I'm surprised to hear that they're considered garbage units.

So far they've accounted for themselves. They were the ones that took out the hell cannons at the battle of the banner. And during my unsaved battle against the skavens at Mirror Pool they were surrounded and still managed to route a few units before being destroyed.

Later on transition into a solid core of Stegadons (the normal ones not Ancient). You can use other things with them, but your main strength as Lizardmen is big fat dinos and Stegadons are the most versatile, combining artillery and a solid combat monster.

I have a Stegadon currently sitting in a Blessed Spawning Pool. I'd have grabbed him already except I can't yet afford his upkeep.

[Keltest]

Interesting. I assumed that I needed to keep an army sitting in a province to defend it against sneaky assaults. Is this not the case?

While it can be if youre at war with several factions and control lots of territory, right now you really probably want to be concentrating all your force on seizing important territory. The big cities will have walls and garrisons to hold off anything other than an overwhelming assault long enough for reinforcements to get there, and you dont really care about the smaller ones so much that you want to devote an entire army to their defense.

Also, as far as the cold one riders, most of your infantry will be too slow to catch skaven units like the gutter runners and slingers, some of whom can fire while moving. They arent amazing cavalry units, but they have a job until you can get bigger tech units that can just shoot the darn things without having to run them down.

[Aeson]

As to taking the Mirror Pools, if I recall correctly a besieged army cannot support a field battle but a besieging army can.

You have two armies; use one to lay siege to the settlement and send the other after the rats outside the walls. If they fight, they'll at least not have their third army or the garrison; if they run, you now only need to beat the besieged army and garrison, or you can lift the siege and take your armies after the ones that ran away to destroy them.

[Thomas Cardew]

Thanks for the tips everyone!



Interesting. I assumed that I needed to keep an army sitting in a province to defend it against sneaky assaults. Is this not the case?

Generally no. First, if you're only fighting on 1 front, you'll be on the offensive and moving to destroy the attacking army anyway. Even as you start to engage on more fronts, you'll generally have 1 army on each front moving to intercept/attack. Enemies will always declare war on you before attacking, this gives you at least a few turns to prepare, combined with garrison forces this means it's usually better to just raise an army to deal with any unexpected invasions. Particularly if you build walls in each settlement, this will force the AI to burn at least 1-2 turns besieging it. You should always build walls.

Additionally, enemies you're at war with won't always attack you right away. For example, I had the TK exiles north of my Mazda start declare war on me early say T15 and only attack once in the next 50 turns, which I was able to defeat with just the city garrison. This was because I was able to use the DE minor faction as a buffer meaning I could leave my whole North front undefended. You'll also want to start using heroes for the vision and actions they can provide. Saurus warrior heroes in particular are more useful outside of your army providing vision and global public order buffs for your empire since they can't ride giant Dino's like your skinks can. This means you can really get advance warning of any incoming armies.

The exceptions to this are when you want to start doing the rituals. Each ritual selects 2-3 cities that you get to know about in advance as ritual sites that you need to hold to finish the ritual. If you don't hold these cities/settlements at the end of the 10 turn timer your ritual fails. The game will spawn in several random chaos or skaven armies that are only attack-able by your armies to attack these cities. It's generally a good a idea to have an army near each of the ritual cities before starting. It's also a good a idea to wait to start the ritual until you feel comfortable doing it. There's no real need to rush. Even if the AI gets ahead of you in the race, you'll be offered a quest battle to defeat them and stop them from winning the game.

I grabbed the leadership buff and one that increases the army's marching distance. After that I started climbing up the spell tree.

Sounds like I should have grabbed the lightning. The rat wizard at Mirror Pool certainly has it.

Lightning strike is a blue line ability that lets you attack without letting the AI get reinforcements. It also makes occupying armies in cities tired. Every Lord in every faction has access to this skill if they chose to get it. Warp lighting is spell skaven wizards get, no one else can get it. We're recommending that you get the blue line skill since it lets you attack 1 army out of several without the other armies reinforcing. This lets you use 1 strong army to beat 2-4 enemy armies in the same turn when they're close together. This becomes much more important later on, especially with the ritual invasions.

Good to know. Since it sounds like I only need one army for now, I may just swing my back-up army up, grab the bulk of his troops, and then send him charging forth. For that is the Old One's plan of course.

So you can use an empty Lord stack for a couple really useful things. 1. Bait, if you put your main army in ambush stance it becomes invisible and the AI just sees a weak army it will attack. 2. Send it to sea! Even without an army, although it's better with a cheap one. There's lots of free gold and buffs you can get sailing the sea

These were the free units you get when you play through the tutorial. But I'm surprised to hear that they're considered garbage units.

So far they've accounted for themselves. They were the ones that took out the hell cannons at the battle of the banner. And during my unsaved battle against the skavens at Mirror Pool they were surrounded and still managed to route a few units before being destroyed.

I have a Stegadon currently sitting in a Blessed Spawning Pool. I'd have grabbed him already except I can't yet afford his upkeep.

That stegadon costs like 370 in upkeep while your 2 Cold ones cost 200 each for 400 total. But that stegadon would be worth more than the 2 Cold ones in your army.

Calvary has 3 real roles, 1) beat other cavalry 2) flank and kill archers/ artillery, 3) flank and rear charge to break morale and cause enemy units to rout.

Cold ones suck at 1, they just don't have the stats and lose to most other cavalry. They don't have any anti large bonus so they're really just for anti-infantry. Against skaven that's not really an issue, since skaven have no cavalry, but they'll straight up lose to say Silver Helms when you start fighting elves.

They do okay at 2, but there's other options for dealing with archers or artillery. Such as magic or just bringing more Stegadons which can either straight up kill them in a ranged duel, or generally tank and it ignore them.

They suck at 3, they do okay but they generally don't have the stats. You have to keep cycle charging them to get any value out of them. But they are squishy and have a low model count, they'll lose units and effectiveness really fast. Meanwhile, you could just use another Saurus unit which would have more health and be better in consistent melee letting you put your micro attention elsewhere.

[Aeson]

Calvary has 3 real roles, 1) beat other cavalry 2) flank and kill archers/ artillery, 3) flank and rear charge to break morale and cause enemy units to rout.

Running down and destroying routing units, or chasing them off the battlefield to ensure that they won't return to this fight, is another useful application of cavalry, though of course it also takes the unit out of the main fight for as long as it takes to chase something off the map or destroy it and probably isn't that helpful against hordes of cheap crap.

[GloatingSwine]

Running down and destroying routing units, or chasing them off the battlefield to ensure that they won't return to this fight, is another useful application of cavalry, though of course it also takes the unit out of the main fight for as long as it takes to chase something off the map or destroy it and probably isn't that helpful against hordes of cheap crap.

Not in Total War Warhammer 2 it isn't, because cavalry have crap animations that mean they hardly do any damage whilst pursuing units.

Skirmish archer cavalry is good for rundowns, and most fast melee infantry also is, but cavalry is not. Lizardmen are generally not terribly good on the rundown, but if you've got a Life Slann and big dinosaurs it does give you plenty of time to heal them up for the next fight.

[Thomas Cardew]

Also chariots or mobile monster units do that MUCH better for the races that get them. It's one of the best uses of things light fliers such as eagles or harpies which wouldn't last long on the ground against melee infantry but are decent at rear charging units to break them early, then chase them off the map. That function also matters a lot more in MP were you can effectively use a low gold cost unit to free up a high gold cost unit. For campaign where your army isn't really limited by gold in the same way it makes less sense to waste army slots.