Made a start with the Beastmen today. Went with Khazrak One Eye for faction leader. Of the 3 legendary lords available, he has the best starting position. We begin in the lands of Estalia, a human faction, and have two armies - one lead by Khazrak and another lead by a chief called Ghorros. As we're a horde faction, each army also has buildings available to build when they set up camp, and the loss of an army is like losing a settlement. Unlocking buildings takes time though, as faction growth is really slow.

Turn 1. We immediately moved to attack the nearest human settlement, which fell easily to Khazrak's herd. Afterwards we split our turns between raiding and recruiting. While Khazrak laid siege to Estalia's primary settlement, our second army took another settlement before rejoining Khazrak to finish the humans off.

Now we're moving north, into the lands of Bretonnia (cavalry-based humans) and the Wood Elves. Each of my armies has raised a brayherd, and then lost the brayherd to attacks from Wood Elves. We'll get revenge eventually, but a quest battle to the north is more important for now.

Map at the start of turn 1

Minotaur and Gors

The humans of Estalia

The humans advance under arrow fire

Minotaurs certainly know how to make an impact

A shot for size comparison - Gors are taller than humans, Ungors are smaller.

Khazrak pushes ahead

The humans retreat

Pursued by my Gorebull (hero)

The first settlement to fall

What can men do against such reckless hate?

Lol, those humans are looking *fabulous*!

I so want a Gorebull...

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 27 2017, 09:40 PM

Continuing with the Beastmen. I spent all my time today carving my way through human settlements, hitting the Empire pretty hard before turning back to sow chaos in Bretonnia. Now I'm heading back to Imperial lands for a quest.

I've started unlocking some better units, but upkeep costs are preventing me from recruiting much right now. Fortunately there are plenty of enemies nearby, and the humans and Wood Elves are pretty quick to resettle razed settlements once I leave an area. Thanks to me clearing the area, the Wood Elves have managed to almost triple the number of settlements they started with. Once I'm bored with the Empire, I'll head to the Elf lands and see how they're doing.

Some screenies from a selection of battles:

Centigors

Razorgor

Unlocked a unique Minotaur unit

Centigors at work

Blue-clad Imperials are surrounded by my Brayherd

Advance

The Gorebull always has fun

The details are awesome in this game! Your new Minotaur soldier has spots like certain real bovine, lol!

Centaur-Minotaurs! This is Madness!

The Razorgors kind of look like Fenrir/The Beast from Senua's Sacrifice.

The Centigors live up to their name.

Wow, that is a brayhorde!

That's a very phallic statue, and look, it's gushing water. I hope it's water...

The Gorebull's axe is bigger than the humans!

Before I forget, here's the campaign intro video for Beastmen. The old man is your advisor (gives you tutorials and whatnot during the campaign) and has a unique video for each faction.

Had a couple of tough fights today while moving towards the Empire lands.

The first attack, from two Wood Elf forces, came just after Khazrak destroyed a Bretonnian settlement. We took a bit of a beating but managed a close victory. We even defeated one of their legendary lords, which should keep them off our back for a while.

The second attack came in the form of an ambush by three vampire armies as we were moving through a mountain pass. Fortunately I'd made sure to take time and replace any casualties so we managed another victory here.

Both attacks occurred when Khazrak's herd was too far away from our other army to get reinforcements. The wood elves would have won if they'd had one or two more units, while the undead could have fared better if they attacked all at once, rather than each army taking turns during the battle. I've started replacing my Gors with elite Bestigors, so Khazrak's herd is pretty powerful now.

First, shots from the wood elf battle:

Cygor - big ranged unit, the closest thing to artillery I can get.

Harpies

Durthu, legendary lord of the Wood Elves

Gorebull engages Durthu

Durthu falls, thanks to the intervention of some Gors - the Gorebull had barely any health left after this. Durthu was tough!

Centigors clash with Wood Elf cavalry


Next, from the Undead ambush:

Direwolves hit our column first

Followed by hordes of zombies

Minotaurs vs skeletons

Harpies vs giant bats

Reforming the line to meet the second army

Bestigors hold back yet more zombies

I love those big battles where you face army after army. Well, I love them to come rarely. But they really test you. My favorite of those was in Amazon Total War, where I had an Amazonian army that was attacked by 4 Sarmatian armies on the steppe. 3 of the Sarmatian armies were full stacks of 20 units. The last was only a half stack. As in your case they came at me staggered, one army at a time. But since more were constantly coming up, I had to defeat each army quickly so I would be ready for the next. I lost one of my two generals, and was completely out of ammo for my archers in the middle of the 3rd army. My army was breaking up from exhaustion and losses, and the final Sarmatian army finally began coming on line. So I threw everything I had forward into the attack. I even sent my archers into melee. That sent the Sarmatians packing. In the end I wound up killing about 10,000 of them.

Durthu is a Wood Elf!!!

The Gorebull finally found something bigger than he is.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 29 2017, 11:03 PM

The Wood Elves really had me worried, though I was lucky to face Durthu rather than their Elven legendary Lord. Durthu gives bonuses to Tree-Kin, dryads, Tree Men etc and the force I faced was primarily elves. I thought I was going to lose my Gorebull there too - Durthu is definitely as strong as he looks, and could send the Gorebull flying with each attack.

I know what you mean about the big battles. They were both really fun, though I was disappointed in the undead. 3 entire armies, full stacks, an ambush setting, and a legendary vampire lord should have been way more challenging. Their lord came at me straight away, rather than hanging back and buffing his troops - as soon as he died his necromancy was broken and his army literally fell apart. The other two armies just staggered into a line of angry Bestigors and Minotaurs - if they'd waited to group up I would have been in real trouble.

Funny that you were thinking about playing as them!

Continued the Beastmen march through human lands today, destroying several more settlements including two capital cities.

We also met the forces of Warriors of Chaos, lead by Archaon the Everchosen. Fortunately they were friendly (as friendly as chaos can be, anyway) so we left each other alone and continued hunting the remaining humans. Only a couple more factions to go before I unlock the final quest battle and can finish the campaign.

Preparing for a siege against the undead

A victorious Khazrak in the undead's city

Bray-Shaman

The Bray-Shaman's spells decimate the enemy

Preparing to assault the human city of Talabheim

Didn't need to bring a battering ram

Harpies on the walls

The defenders tried their best

Gors surge into the city

The Gorebull and Minotaurs claim the central plaza

The city is ours

Silly humans should just run whenever they see a horde of your guys approaching their city!

It's great when your troops are your battering ram. Wow, aerial units taking the walls is a fantastic idea!

Thought I'd give everyone a head's up - TW:WARHAMMER and some of the DLCs are 33% off on steam right now, and historical TW titles are 75% off.

Oh boy!! Thanks for the heads up!
*Runs to PC to look*

Got Attila, the Celts DLC, and Viking Forefathers DLC as WarHammer was still a bit more than Khajiit wanted to spend.

Good choice. You can find Warhammer slightly cheaper elsewhere, but it's only a year old so the price will likely stay high for some time (especially with Warhammer 2 coming soon). Unless you're a big Warhammer fan, Attila is the wiser choice.

Yeah I started the prologue and it's taking some getting accustomed to after playing Rome. Still pretty fun though!

So we started a campaign in Attila as the Ebdanians (Irish), and the very first thing we did was go take Segontium from the Western Romans. Now, we need to be able to raise and retrain troops on the main island but as far as Khajiit can tell, there's no way of doing that. Is there something this one is missing? We are aware that troops will replenish over turns, but recruiting more troops doesn't look possible.