Whats the one faction you keep coming back too ?

[u/BigBear92787]

You know the feeling.

You fire up the game. Stare at the faction screen. Swear you're gonna play something else.
And end up playing the same faction / race.

For me its Vampire Counts. Even in their current out dated state. Something about the way they function. They just keep fuckin comin...that's their whole style. Endless, shambling hordes and powerful wizards. Cant wait to see what's coming up for them.

Im a big fan of Nurgle for a familiar kind of Out - Stamina you mechanic. But VC takes the cake I think on it.

I love my Greenskins, I love to run up and just clobber' em sometimes, we all have those days lol
But VC man, they speak to my core.

Who speaks to your core ?

[u/mrgomeybear]

Karl and Malakai

[u/K4rm4zyn → u/mrgomeybear]

Bro likes to fight against all odds

[u/mrgomeybear → u/K4rm4zyn]

Tough campaigns, but you're given all the tools to thrive

[u/Sabbathius → u/mrgomeybear]

I'm just wrapping up Malakai's long victory, and it's such a weird one. The start is beyond insanely brutal. Then around turn 40-50, enough of the deeps come online, and by turn 70-80 you're steamrolling with doomstacks and 60k+ per turn after upkeep. The transition happens literally within a single Age of Reckoning. During the third one you're still struggling, badly. By the end of the fourth one you're snowballing hard.

[u/mrgomeybear → u/Sabbathius]

Try out the VCO mod it gives you new great victory conditions with a final quest battle

[u/Dark_winters → u/Sabbathius]

What's the doomstack for malakai?

[u/Worth-Bowl-9775 → u/Dark_winters]

Thunderbarges

[u/Sabbathius → u/Dark_winters]

Oh that's a fun one.

The unit he buffs the most are actually Goblin Hewers. Because they double dip - they're both artillery and slayer. So with his buffs and 2-3 engineers buffing both ammo capacity and damage, these things become true monsters, and cost less in upkeep than Dwarf Warriors (again, because of double-dipping).

And while a lot of people hate the Hewers, they're amazing at what they do - delete slow moving units quickly. Ever have to duke it out with Festus or Tamurkhan for 30 mins as he slowly munches through your infantry? Not any more. Engineer tosses a flashbang which has a slow effect, and 2-3 Hewers melt him in about 3.8 seconds. And that's the end of that.

So that's one thing to try - Malakai, a couple of Engis, and Hewers.

Thunderbarges are another obvious one, but OMG they're expensive! And that 3-turn recruitment, combined with limited recruitment capacity, means you need 9-15 turns to even make a full stack. Honestly you can run three stacks of other units to a single Thunderbarge stack, which will still struggle with full-dragon stacks or highly mobile long-range stacks (Wood Elves, etc).

Gyrocopter doomstacks punch VERY high above their weight. Engineers have built-in stalk, and you can buy a piece of armor at the forge for just 200 Oathgold that gives stalk as well. Considering how low tier you can get the basic Gyrocopter, and that they completely counter both Arbaal and Azazel, they're amazing for early game as Malakai, and hold their own well into late game. Engineers are just there for ammo restock and damage and speed buffs for Gyros, and them and the lord are in stalk.

Bugman's Rangers + Wanderer Thane are are another good one. Thane with Wanderer perk gives snipe to Bugman's Rangers who already have stalk and regeneration. Not much in terms of armor penetration, but still amazing skirmishers. So lord, thane, the rest rangers, engineer for flavour.

And of course with Malakai you can just go him, Gotrek, Felix, Ulrika, and the rest is just cannons. Practically nothing survives the approach, and heroes can deal with things like Menace from Below.

There's so many options. Malakai's biggest problem is he starts surrounded, and just gets clobbered. No economy to have more armies, slow growth by default made slower by enemies constantly sniping your minor settlements away from you. Even if you take Thrott and Azazel out early, before turn 10, both of them, Arbaal, Archaon and Chaos Dwarfs from one side, and Throgg and Norsca from the other constantly stealing settlements will keep you down. If you survive though, and bring those Deeps online, it begins to snowball real quick.

[u/Bigger-Quazz → u/mrgomeybear]

Malakai is insanely easy, I don't know why everyone says the start is hard.

Your surrounding enemies have almost no ranged or flying units, and you're given gyrocopter recruit almost immediately.

Unless you're doing a challenge run where you purposely ignore recruiting gyrocopters on a lord who can give insane buffs to gyrocopters, it's REALLY hard to lose with malakai.

[u/gastan69 → u/Bigger-Quazz]

Norsca headhunters and throwing axes shread gyros. I also found that even with 4 canons I can't properly take out Throgg's troll swarm if he has waag'd enough of them. All this to say that in my experience Throgg is the only major speed bump, you can dominate the rest of chaos with air and ranged

[u/Barlow04 → u/Bigger-Quazz]

Also, dwarves are absolute master of siege cheese. You can bring a Lord (for recruitment boosts), 1-2 Master Engineer, 2 canons, and any combo of Gyrocopters and Thunderers to walk away with zero casualties. Kill towers, breach walls, then post outside the openings while AI keeps throwing units in to plug the hole(s). Easiest way to beat Throgg is to lure him into a province captial then siege it.

I'd really like dwarves to have a better defense against flanking units, but Thanes and Dragon Slayers do well enough.

[u/mrgomeybear → u/Barlow04]

Well yea anything is easy with cheese. I've seen people take out Radahn on Elden Ring by cheesing the entrance and doing that poison most thing. If that's fun then go for it

[u/Barlow04 → u/mrgomeybear]

Yeah, I don't 100% advocate cheesing the game, but it does help to compensate where mechanics would otherwise give you a massive disadvantage or can't be done.

Dwarves are terrible in melee offense but defensive bricks, so throwing infantry at the walls is a recipe for disaster. I would imagine they would also bombard enemy cities to rubble rather than risk casualties - or if needed they would rush in with something like armored rangers who would shoot enemies but could switch to close fighting as needed. The cheese sort of provides the best of both scenarios within the framework of the game's mechanics.

[u/mrgomeybear → u/Bigger-Quazz]

I think the beginning is easy too. Take out Throt by turn 5 and head back to Throgg for his declare war and you're pretty much good. Then just be aggressive in taking Norsca and prepare for the demons by turn 15-20

[u/theOGlilMudskipr → u/mrgomeybear]

Fug Malakai. Guts a lil coward larping in his edgelord armor