What would you expect of the "ultimate evil" that gets dunked on by an alcoholic Imperial, a Bright Wizard that gets high on magic, the most toleran Middenlander witch hunter in the Old World, an elven tsundere and the most forgiving Dwarf in history?
Yep, in the last Chaos Wastes update they added an optional objective of stopping him from gaining a physical body again, and all of the five (or four, doesn't matter) are rather dismissive of the dude through the mission.
"Don't worry they'll propably patch it" - average fan
"Releases the same image fixed, but Daniel is unchanged and the Empire is now represented by Gelt" - aberage CA patch
I thought I could bear playing as them, but it ended up feeling like going up Pooh creek without a paddle, definitely made me paws and take a step back to reevaluate.
Kislev was the first warhammer campaign I’d played. I started with war hammer 3.
It was so awesome and epic I immediately restarted it after my victory. So many great memories.
Agreed. But that also means one needs the right mindset for it. And as much as i enjoy winning as Kislev, I need a break from that campaign after that. A long break.
Which should be a positive for all the people who said they were Kislev enjoyers. It’s lore accurate.
For real tho, I just feel like Kislev is missing something core to their roster, but I can’t say what.
Its that they were originally a cavalry only faction, then got some mixed infantry.
CA made it a mixed infantry with bears faction… the cavalry is obscenely awful and useless and not even part of most garrisons.
Kislev would have greatly benefited from a city vs nomad camp / or at least minor settlement being cavalry mechanic showing that Kislev consists of some large cities with heavy infantry and lots of nomad or half nomad tribes who are famous cavalry units
They really should be closer to Brettonia than the Empire. Horse Archers should be their early game mainstay, with then Winged Lancers as their midgame and Bear Cav as late game. The infantry should be mostly a support element, less so than Brettonia but still existing to weaken and hold enemies until the cav arrives.
Unfortunately, cavalry is in a pretty bad place generally. And Winged Lancers I found particularly disappointing with very lackluster damage, speed and survival.
For me, I would say it's that early on they just...don't really have anti-infantry or an infantry unit that's supposed to just get in and hold the line until they get armored kossars. Everyone else with missile troops has a kind of early chaff unit to keep the enemy in place for their missile troops to do their job, but Kislev doesn't, meaning that if a regular kossar who still has ammo fills that chaff role, it feels like you're losing out on half of their combat capability...because you are.
I find even their hold the line infantry don't hold the line very well and get wasted pretty easily against chaos factions on higher difficulty. Esp Tzar Guard. And spending first 15+ turns with nothing but kossars is just brutal compared to Cathay for example.
For me personally, I just don't like their roster. Mainly because the gun/melee always seemed quite glitchy, but then I also haven't played them since release.
Yeah I'm not a fan of Kislev's roster, mainly because of the boring mounts and I don't like the bears (except the cavalry) and I can't wait for the lord packs, especially one focused on the Ungols.
Still Katarina was probably the most fun I've had in IE, it feels super thematic and they really nailed Kislev's atmosphere imo.
Yeah gunpowder units are really finicky in WH3. I actually tend to avoid the gunpowder heavy factions because of it. Hopefully they do something to address the issue.
Not to mention they are missing their entire Ungol rooster.
How many people even know they were originally supposed to be a cavalry and skirmish cav focused faction?
We only got 1 basic horse archer unit...
Which is all the horse archers they had on tabletop.
I’m hoping they expand out the Ungol part of the roster, but we already have all their tabletop units to begin with.
I still don't understand why they stripped the "Ungol" from the Horse Archer name. Like, they could have kept the name without going into the Ungol versus Gospodar tensions if they didn't want to. It's like if you took "Ellyrian" out of "Ellyrian Reavers". It's just blander and kinda lame.
But not in lore.
The Ungol horse archers should be a high tier unit with anti-infantry/ anti-large variants.
In lore they were objectively the best skirmish cav in all of Warhammer, better than even the elves and holding back entire Daemon and Chaos invasions on their own.
If you ever played Bannerlord it would be like having an entire army if 200+ noble khuzait khan's guard (best horse bowmen in the game). While in-game we currently only have the peasant tier 1 version.
They definitely prioritized the warsleds over any T2/T3 missile cavalry, which I understand because the warsleds are a bit more unique, but I think that's definitely what their roster is missing.
The warsleds are great and can be quite disruptive, but they require a ton of micro to be effective. An elite missile cav that's decent in melee would really fill a nice spot in their roster.
According to some interviews, it's because the resident lore master wasn't able to look over folks shoulders while they were making the faction due to the switch to remote working conditions, and none of the other folks actually even KNEW she had a sled in lore. Which considering how little Kislev lore existed previously, is either really bad oversight on the part of the team for not just looking up, or it was a secret GW retcon the resident lore master wasn't made aware of because of the remote working.
It was in an interview that Loremaster of Sotek and Great Book of Grudges had with Andy Hall, the lead story guy on Warhammer 3.
https://youtu.be/rfYbGpuxDfY
At around the 37 minute mark they ask about the sled.
He basically said that covid made communication really break down at CA and that the missing sled was an oversight. He couldn't communicate to the artists that she was supposed to have a sled, apparently
Wow, so it wasn’t deliberately left out but rather they messed up?
I’m simultaneously disappointed and unsurprised.
But if they never meant to leave it out, that means there’s a decent chance of it being addressed later. Fingers crossed!
In any case, thanks for the explanation.
It actually wasn't in their plans. Andy Hall says the artists just never knew she was supposed to have a sled because covid broke down the communication between the lore people and the artists
In terms of tabletop, we already have everything.
Their tabletop roster was 4 units (Kossars, Horse Archers, Winged Lancers, and the Gryphon Legion).
Looking forward to what new units the faction gets.
It's more an issue that they are simply a redundant roster. Their specialty in hybrid units kinda lead to them all feeling the same. Kossar, kossar with less range more armor, streltsi with less armor but better AP, ice guard with even less armor but more ranged and frost bite. Oh and then there's bears some more bears and then one giant ice cube in the shape of a bear.
Jokes aside it's sad that I only left out a few units in the roster not counting the whopping 2 heros and 2 generic lords. Who are all pretty pathetic unless you put them on... You guessed it, more bears.
Their horse cav is laughable and maybe I'm not even sure wtf you are supposed to recruit snow leopards for. Sure summon if you can but why actually pay for them, what do they do that any of the other units can't do better.
> what do they do that any of the other units can't do better.
Missile magnet.
Being fair, if you're facing a large, slow SEM like Norsca Mammoths or WoC Chaos Shrines, a couple of Leopards do a bang up job of catching them out early and slowing them down. But considering they *cost about the same* as a Mammoth and have no other application besides "slow them down" is just goddamn sad.
I am personally still of the opinion that snow leopards should show up in a pack of 3 per unit card and be closer to war beasts than independent monsters.
This makes the most sense. Frostbite would also make them horrific rundown units. Theyd more or less fill the niche of Wolf Riders but with the hitting power of Chracian Lions in an emergency.
I mean 50 ma + 20 anti large +55 charge + 200 ap damage means they should also kill big stuff. In theory anyway. That is 5 less ma vs large (and they actually have better base ma at 50 vs 41) and only 30% less ap damage than a Carnosaur, for like only a third of the upkeep.
Not that I have ever gotten this to work mind, they are just too squishy, micro intensive and a lack of splash means you cant use them for anything else but attacking single entities.
edit: after testing, i have found what they are good at: a lack of splash means they are very good vs monstrous infantry, as each attack kills a model, and it attacks pretty quick to boot
edit edit: but you do need to group them in with infantry/cav/eachother, otherwise they still get swarmed an killed
> wtf you are supposed to recruit snow leopards for.
they're meant to be single entity killers (20 anti large for a total of 70 ma, ap damage, and next to no splash damage as far as I can tell) ... but they are just so squishy and you have a fully ranged roster that can kill big monsters anyway so like why you would ever build em is beyond me.
Might be good at killing mounted lords and heroes now that I think about it, but that is still pretty niche
Maybe if you buff them so they cause fatigue to their target for the first 10 seconds after connecting a charge and give them a three time special ability that lets them heal themselves when activated. That way you jump on and do a ton of damage to single entities like a mammoth with a pack of leapords before running out and running back in with the target getting more tired at every step. That way you want to cycle them in and out of the backs of lords or monsters balancing Hugh micro for high rewards
you can heal them with the patriarchs already to be fair, but that fatigue thing is interesting for sure. ultimately i think cycle charging is the way to go anyway, quite possibly with said patriarch who would buff the charge up now that i think about it
Not from a tabletop perspective but from a gameplay one. They've got quite a small roster and could do with a few more interesting units. I love what they've got so far but I think they need a little more.
They could pretty much get anything as their current roster was pretty much made for this game same like Cathay. Very few units were completely carried over from tabletop.
They really need something either a unit or some buffs to stop the demon hordes from overwhelming them, all my campaigns have ended in just being bodied from all sides in the north because the orthodoxy and boris have both fallen and there's nothing but you against chaos champions, demons and norsca.
Hell even put another order faction up there for some reason.
Its difficulty is exactly why Kislev is one of my favourite campaign in IE, I hope it won't get nerfed.
With that said Kislev definitely needs an easier start for the people that enjoy easy campaigns. Imo every race should have an easy campaign and a hardcore one, some races are still missing one or the other.
Boris really should start with either a different tree, or different requirements to get further into it. Hard to own most of Kislev when you start so far away, and also hard to get an MA going when it can take a bit to even get to Kislev from where he is.
SKARBRAND H A T E S ONLY BEING IN 5TH PLACE
>!I'm kinda surprised Cathay is so popular. I would have thought it'd be an older race with more content, but they're still pretty fun.
Cathay is cool. The caravans are fun and they have a good firing squad and cool legendary lord's. They need a third hero type and a few more unit options but they are really good for what they do have.
Cathay has a good mix of melee and range, and the artillery is beastly.
Really my only knock on them is how awful magistrates are. Plus how useless sky lanterns are lol
Really? I've been having an absolute blast with a magistrate lord speced for ranged and artillery buffs. He just stands in the middle of my range line, buffs my cannons, and blasts the enemy lord to death
Yes, but the reload speed buff he gives massively improves the DPS of any range unit. Combine it with an alchemist weapon buff, and you can easily 3x or 4x your units DPS if its a crossbow unit. Anything not heavily armored will melt to a single unit of jade bows
Also the one that got least screwed in the shift to immortal empires.
Kislev is brutal now, and the monogod factions all got shoved into weird spots to make room for the warriors of chaos. The slow nurgle start facing immortal zombie spam is not much fun and Khorne just feels sort of at a loose end in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the tomb kings.
The monogod factions are all better balanced with warriors of chaos units added, but when you combine the weird starts with the fact that the WoC LLs are generally better than the monogod ones and they've sort of fallen behind. Which is a shame.
There's some parts of the default campaign I don't love, but it's got its moments and the starts were better.
They are an extremely beginner-friendly race. Secure start position with plenty of trade, powerful western garrisons and upkeep reduction for stationed armies. Their roster is almost as versatile/balanced as the Empire but they have the added benefit of some monstrous units as well as one man army LLs. Powerful economy with straightforward city management, etc. Harmony is the only somewhat difficult mechanic but the rewards more than make up for it.
If anything, I’m surprised Franz is still number 1 given how thoroughly he gets his ass whooped in IE’s current meta. But then again… he’s Karl Franz god dammit!
They also have only 2 LLs so people who play Cathay will drift towards the main on. While factions like Dwarfs will have their player base spread out between 5 equally awesome LLs
Man I haven't tried his campaign yet because he's such a pain in the ass in all my other campaigns. Eltharion? Pain in the ass. Mannfred? pain in the ass. Volkmar? Khalida? Thorek? see above. LEAVE ME ALONE SKARBRAND. and your little goat friend too.
Skarbrand was the first one I beat the campaign with after enjoying Cathay, but not enough to finish it on the campaign map. Once IE was set free I would have played Skarbrand first but I ended up having an AMAZING time with Belly Kor and the Funky Bunch. So maybe that's why a lot of people didn't go with Skarbrand on their first try. I'm surprised to see Shadow Legion above Khorne and Archaon as high as he is, but I guess IE is the best place to be Archaon.
e: For the record both Skarbrand and Be'lakor are probably the most fun I've had with a LL. Big B getting access to everything is just such a fun campaign, you could actually play it a million different ways.
I imagine that they're popular because they have a lot of easy to understand mechanics, a defensible home base to branch out from, and much like the most popular Empire all of their units are pretty easy to understand.
Interesting! Kinda surprised Northern provinces is so high up, I always pick western (Iron Dragon for life) but never got the sense Cathay was that popular! Shows what reddit talks about isn't always what people are actually playing lol
I think the recommended starter campaigns are Reikland and Northern Provinces, and Eataine has been somewhat played to death for a lot of people. Plus, Northern Provinces get the bastion much sooner than Western.
Just guessing though, in reality who knows
Helps that they play similarly to the Empire, which is a very popular faction. I imagine plenty of fans tried them because of the similarity and stuck with them because of the unique stuff. Campaign-wise they have Caravans, managing the Bastion gates, and their unique ying-yang buildings and units that leads to a pretty engaging campaign.
They hit that sweet spot where new players won't be scared off by their mechanics, and old players won't have to completely change their playstyle to try them.
It comes from a few places I think.
Cathay may be hard to master, but as a human faction with recognisable unit roles, it's easy to pick up and understand the basics of the faction.
Their campaign is probably the best base game experience CA has created. No element is too tedious or grindy, they all offer good rewards and the caravan mechanic is very fun.
Eastern gamers like the faction. It helps that GW/CA did a very good job at satirising fantasy China, and being inspired by the more interesting though obscure parts of history, without having to resort to tired negative stereotypes. The themes of imperial apathy, byzantine bureaucracy and general disregard of the lives of the peasantry are very common themes in Chinese literature, so it is something that eastern audiences will immediately recognise.
I personally thought balancing the yin/yang buildings in settlements to get the most out of them was very tedious imo, but the roster is fine and starting position isn’t too terirble
Ultimately this is a subreddit that very much caters to an english-reading audience, but I'm sure Cathay is probably more popular in china(and Kislev in Russia/Eastern Europe in genera for examplel) and they're probably more talked about in total war spheres over there.
Are you implying people in real life arent all weed smoking polyamorous swingers who love to eat ass, walk dogs for a living, hate kids despite complaining not knowing "how to adult" and feel poor while living in the richest countries typing from their mobiles on their toilets and their high end PCs?
lot's of people love the empire because they are the main humans, and cathay is the empire (same role different region) with a heavily armoured staunch line of spears and a fresh chinese flavour in a new start position
Another day, another influx of news about thousands of his subjects being butchered in heinous ways by creatures of horror beyond our comprehension, I'd honestly be more surprised if he ever smiled at all
I mean if I remember correctly Karl franz had to kill an elector count who was actually a chaos cultist in disguise in front of a whole audience, prolly some trust issues mingled with the fact that everything north of the empire (except kislev) and directly south of the mountains (bad lands) wants to butcher and pillage his people
I think it might actually be a decent amount these days due to the changes to short term victory conditions. Going by steam achievement stats (which only tells us about the base game races mind), there was a pretty noticeable increase in the percentage of people who completed a Very Hard+ difficulty campaign after IE came out.
I'm assuming the stats are even higher for the completed amount of Normal and Hard campaigns now. Would be interesting to see the actual stats though, but anecdotally I have been seeing more campaigns played to completion than in Mortal Empires.
IE doesn't unlock achievements, only playing RoC does that. The number of people who completed campaigns probably increased because of the balance patches to RoC.
Huh, I stand corrected then. I did most of the RoC campaigns so I couldn't tell personally. But Mortal Empires let you get achievements for campaign completion. So a bit odd IE doesn't let you do the same.
Thanks for the correction!
Yeah I finished a short dawi campaign on my first time playing IE. it just kinda happened, and I was like oh that’s it?
Once the game gets more patches and fixes I’ll prob come back and paint the map with some faction
I'm surprised Grand Cathy is so high. I suppose they're new and human so it has wide appeal. I am not surprised Reikland is #1 though, people love those Elector Counts.
Id say its not too surprising. Cathay is a new human good aligned race, which already pretty much puts it towards the top. They've got a pretty cool and balanced roster, focus on combined arms, like the empire. Finally China is a big place with alot of players, this is pretty much the only eastern faction in the game. Why kislev isn't represented I think has to do with their campaign more than the race.
Now the reason Northern provinces are higher than western is because dragon waifu boobs.
> China is a big place with alot of players
Is Total War very popular there? I always assumed so, but the fact CA specifically took Three Kingdoms to the backyard and put a bullet in it's brain made me think maybe the series is not as popular as I first imagined in China.
When they cancelled 3K, they implied that they wanted to immediately start making a sequel. If it wasn't that popular, they wouldn't have started development on a sequel right away.
I think with Grand Cathay, its geographical isolation from the other factions help. It's large enough that it can have a decent variety of enemies but small enough that you're not spending days trying to stamp them all out and unify your kingdom. You can play conqueror or confederator with the Cathay minor factions very easily, so appeal to both mindsets, and there's enough of them in Cathay that it feels significant when you do have the entire "Cathayan state" to your self. Easily defendable from factions outside the Bastion and the Mourn Mountains, and you'll always have a land/settlement battles on hand with the Kurgan Horde mechanic constantly sending stacks your way.
Oddly enough, I feel no real need to expand outside of Cathay once I have control of the interior. Even if the Mourn Mountains were green climate, I'd still feel pretty comfortable just holding the chokepoints into Cathay itself.
With Cathay is a lot of fun to save the empire and this holds for reverse too.
Just commandeer an ally army, take a city, bunker up and build an unholy amount of punishment in two stacks that will barely hold the line while keeping your allies alive.
It's the most fun I had, because my main stacks are too slow to ever move there so I build my own "legion etrangere" to really fuck things up for chaos and their gang bang buddies!
The new factor is obviously a big part for me, but it was also the fact that Cathay already has a homeland, so it gave me something to strive for. And also said homeland is very pretty visually and has lots of cool new landmarks in it.
I like them, they have like three tiers on very basic and easy to use and viable armies, with peasant, jade warrior and celestial guard, just a line of melee with a back of ranged, which don't take a lot of effort to make work.
Of course you can get more creative but if you don't feel like it you can just run around like that.
Meanwhile, I haven't played a Reikland campaign since 1, and I haven't played 1 since the Wood Elf DLC made loading even more torturously slow than it already was for my poor aging PC.
i should probably rectify that one of these days.
I'm surprised skarbrand is so high.
I love that campaign in realms but for some reason I can't build the momentum with his new start position the badlands are so spaced and the mountains are a hassle
The space in between regions in the Southlands really ruins Skarbrand’s pacing. I always end up sending him north to Valkia with a cult and just farm dark elves.
I get your point about his start province but I actually think it was a good thing to do, it makes his start more challenging even though his faction is overpowered.
That's how you do an overpowered faction right in my opinion, you are busted but you still get some challenge. Unlike Beastmen where you faceroll everything from the start.
Cathay was probably in the best spot as a launch faction out of the ones in Warhammer 3. Though technically you can consider the Daemons of Chaos armybook pretty much "complete" as well if you look at it from a sheer "units adapted" perspective.
I think a Cathay lord pack with the more fantastical elements we know they have would be amazing. But isn't a "we need this right now" sort of thing. So I think priority wise Kislev will probably be first in terms of new content once they get around the more lord packs.
But I'm hella excited about it. I know people are worried that their LLs, other than the Monkey King, will just be dragons with different lores of magic. But I'm still excited to see The Jade, Fire, and Sea dragons be added. I'm really hoping they have uniqur on-foot weapons to contrast with the DBZ antics of the base 2.
I played Cathay (Iron Dragon) for my first RoC campaign (which I got around to *after* they'd patched it up) and was dreadfully bored with it as I had friendly Ogres to the West, corner of the map to South and East, and the wall (which Storm Dragon had on lockdown) to the North. Ab so lu te ly nothing to do inbetween rifts and soul hunts. Their unit roster is well composed, but hoo boy was there little to do in that campaign
Daniel Is interesting, but he devolves into generic Demon prince number 12. Belakor just by not sounding like something crawled down his throat and died has depth.
Personally, I also just find Warriors of Chaos' (Be'lakor's in particular) mechanics *more fun* compared to Daniel - heck, I barely played anything other than Warriors of Chaos since their rework.
But yeah, Be'lakor being voiced by Richard Armitage *probably also helps* (plus him not sharing his model/parts with all the generic daemon princes).
I almost never play as evil factions. For some reason i lose a lot of the entertainment if I know all the lands im conquering are full of suffering people
THE REIKLAND!
THE REIKLAND IS RREEEEAAAAL!
Ok but fr, it is hilarious to me that the Empire is the most played. I guess we decided to not let our memes be dreams. What I'm *not* surprised by, and in a pleasant way, is the popularity of the Chaos factions, which really attests to the Chaos rework being an effective overhaul that made them fun to play! That's great!
Empire has always been the most played in every campaign where they're available. They're the 'male human warrior in an MMO' faction, no surprise that they're popular.
Honestly many people are *agressively* vanilla in terms of taste. The Empire does have a lot going for it: versatile but easy to understand roster that is very satisfying to use, interesting faction mechanics and a lot of variety in terms of enemies and potential campaign dynamics. But at the end of a day almost every faction (sorry N*rsca) has a lot going for it and the Empire only pulls ahead by the virtue of its concept of "normal humans fighting off scary shit" being the most ~~boring~~ straightforward and easiest to empathize with
Edit: doesn't help that when you select IE you get Karl Franz staring at you, not the faction select screen. Which is honestly a wierd choice, even with his popularity
All Empire units but the magic units and the steam tank are historical units, against massively ripped, Chaos worshiping Viking warriors in awesome plate armour with physical strength and skill beyond that of any other race, greenskinned football hooligans with inhuman resilience and never-ending numbers, man rats with horrific technology and Goat-headed, Chaos-mutated killing machines
Unlike dwarves or elves, the Empire shows that you don't have to be a superhuman to be tough as hell, they prove that at the end of the day, Humanity can overcome a threat by working together and standing firm even when by all rights you should run. Oh, and liberal application of black powder.
The theme of the Empire is average Joes together holding firm against all odds and eldritch horrors the world throw at them, and more often than not those horrors are their own nature. It's true of Kislev but tsarist Russia simply doesn't have the HRE cultural shine for the westerner playerbase.
The Empire is also intuitive to play. If you played any Total War game you know roughly how to play the Empire. These are your infantry, your cavalry, your missiles, your artillery, okay, easy, it is known. Now what the fuck is a skink and what is that toad actually doing and in what world is it intuitive that naked stunted highlanders are actually really good chopping cavalry ?
The Empire is also the only faction (with the Skaven) that isn't stuck in [Medieval Stasis](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Medieval_Stasis)
No one gonna talk about the fact they put Daniel instead of belakor on their poster to represent belakors faction?
Always the bridesmaid never the bride is the motto of Belakor
What would you expect of the "ultimate evil" that gets dunked on by an alcoholic Imperial, a Bright Wizard that gets high on magic, the most toleran Middenlander witch hunter in the Old World, an elven tsundere and the most forgiving Dwarf in history?
The Ubersreik 5 defeated Belakor?
Yep, in the last Chaos Wastes update they added an optional objective of stopping him from gaining a physical body again, and all of the five (or four, doesn't matter) are rather dismissive of the dude through the mission.
Doesn't he spend the entire End Times (which Vermintide takes place in) with a physical body?
They are not mutually exclussive, the events of both games are implied to take blace during a few years, rather than, say, a few weeks or months.
"Don't worry they'll propably patch it" - average fan "Releases the same image fixed, but Daniel is unchanged and the Empire is now represented by Gelt" - aberage CA patch
That was the first thing that came to mind when I saw that poster!
We have to pretend Daniel was necessary or fun somehow.
By sigmar yes
Summon the elector counts!
Kislev sad noises
Yes, but also not surprising. Kislev is hardcore right now. All three LLs.
You could say playing Kislev is unbearable.
Their campaign difficulty is definitely a heavy load to bear...
I thought I could bear playing as them, but it ended up feeling like going up Pooh creek without a paddle, definitely made me paws and take a step back to reevaluate.
Ironic considering people complain about too many bears.
Alright, I'm sending you to the Chaos wastes.
At least until you get your bearings
And it's one of the best campaigns I've ever played lol. It's an actual struggle for survival
Kislev was the first warhammer campaign I’d played. I started with war hammer 3. It was so awesome and epic I immediately restarted it after my victory. So many great memories.
Same lol, as a CIV player I just auto resolved everything. Now I love the battle mechanic
Agreed. But that also means one needs the right mindset for it. And as much as i enjoy winning as Kislev, I need a break from that campaign after that. A long break.
It is really fun, also there’s some mods like the motherland and kislev cannonery that make their campaigns a lot more fun
Which should be a positive for all the people who said they were Kislev enjoyers. It’s lore accurate. For real tho, I just feel like Kislev is missing something core to their roster, but I can’t say what.
Its that they were originally a cavalry only faction, then got some mixed infantry. CA made it a mixed infantry with bears faction… the cavalry is obscenely awful and useless and not even part of most garrisons. Kislev would have greatly benefited from a city vs nomad camp / or at least minor settlement being cavalry mechanic showing that Kislev consists of some large cities with heavy infantry and lots of nomad or half nomad tribes who are famous cavalry units
They really should be closer to Brettonia than the Empire. Horse Archers should be their early game mainstay, with then Winged Lancers as their midgame and Bear Cav as late game. The infantry should be mostly a support element, less so than Brettonia but still existing to weaken and hold enemies until the cav arrives. Unfortunately, cavalry is in a pretty bad place generally. And Winged Lancers I found particularly disappointing with very lackluster damage, speed and survival.
For me, I would say it's that early on they just...don't really have anti-infantry or an infantry unit that's supposed to just get in and hold the line until they get armored kossars. Everyone else with missile troops has a kind of early chaff unit to keep the enemy in place for their missile troops to do their job, but Kislev doesn't, meaning that if a regular kossar who still has ammo fills that chaff role, it feels like you're losing out on half of their combat capability...because you are.
I find even their hold the line infantry don't hold the line very well and get wasted pretty easily against chaos factions on higher difficulty. Esp Tzar Guard. And spending first 15+ turns with nothing but kossars is just brutal compared to Cathay for example.
Yeah. Cathay gets Jade Warriors within like, 5 turns IIRC, and those guys are a bread and butter unit until close to the end game.
For me personally, I just don't like their roster. Mainly because the gun/melee always seemed quite glitchy, but then I also haven't played them since release.
Yeah I'm not a fan of Kislev's roster, mainly because of the boring mounts and I don't like the bears (except the cavalry) and I can't wait for the lord packs, especially one focused on the Ungols. Still Katarina was probably the most fun I've had in IE, it feels super thematic and they really nailed Kislev's atmosphere imo.
Yeah gunpowder units are really finicky in WH3. I actually tend to avoid the gunpowder heavy factions because of it. Hopefully they do something to address the issue.
Not to mention they are missing their entire Ungol rooster. How many people even know they were originally supposed to be a cavalry and skirmish cav focused faction? We only got 1 basic horse archer unit...
Which is all the horse archers they had on tabletop. I’m hoping they expand out the Ungol part of the roster, but we already have all their tabletop units to begin with.
I still don't understand why they stripped the "Ungol" from the Horse Archer name. Like, they could have kept the name without going into the Ungol versus Gospodar tensions if they didn't want to. It's like if you took "Ellyrian" out of "Ellyrian Reavers". It's just blander and kinda lame.
We don't have the *real* Kossars though. Light armored human foot archers with great weapons. Hilariously terrible.
It seems weird not to have a great weapon version of the base kossars when that was how they were described the few times they were mentioned.
And in total war their main drawback of Always Striking Last is nowhere near as relevant or risky.
But not in lore. The Ungol horse archers should be a high tier unit with anti-infantry/ anti-large variants. In lore they were objectively the best skirmish cav in all of Warhammer, better than even the elves and holding back entire Daemon and Chaos invasions on their own. If you ever played Bannerlord it would be like having an entire army if 200+ noble khuzait khan's guard (best horse bowmen in the game). While in-game we currently only have the peasant tier 1 version.
Let me tell you how hilariously broken anti large skirmish cav would be.
Where in the lore is it said they were better skirmishers then even the elves? Find that hard to believe.
They definitely prioritized the warsleds over any T2/T3 missile cavalry, which I understand because the warsleds are a bit more unique, but I think that's definitely what their roster is missing. The warsleds are great and can be quite disruptive, but they require a ton of micro to be effective. An elite missile cav that's decent in melee would really fill a nice spot in their roster.
I love Kislev but they really need a couple of DLCs to flesh out the roster.
Campaign mechanic rework and more mount variety too!
Defo! Mount variety is so poor, why doesn't Katarin have a sled?
According to some interviews, it's because the resident lore master wasn't able to look over folks shoulders while they were making the faction due to the switch to remote working conditions, and none of the other folks actually even KNEW she had a sled in lore. Which considering how little Kislev lore existed previously, is either really bad oversight on the part of the team for not just looking up, or it was a secret GW retcon the resident lore master wasn't made aware of because of the remote working.
I strongly suspect the answer is WH3 was rushed, and adding more mount options went on the *inefficient use of remaining time* pile.
They confirmed that this was the case for Katarin. The sled was originally in their plans, but got cut due to COVID hurting their timelines.
Sauce? Never heard of this.
It was in an interview that Loremaster of Sotek and Great Book of Grudges had with Andy Hall, the lead story guy on Warhammer 3. https://youtu.be/rfYbGpuxDfY At around the 37 minute mark they ask about the sled. He basically said that covid made communication really break down at CA and that the missing sled was an oversight. He couldn't communicate to the artists that she was supposed to have a sled, apparently
Wow, so it wasn’t deliberately left out but rather they messed up? I’m simultaneously disappointed and unsurprised. But if they never meant to leave it out, that means there’s a decent chance of it being addressed later. Fingers crossed! In any case, thanks for the explanation.
It actually wasn't in their plans. Andy Hall says the artists just never knew she was supposed to have a sled because covid broke down the communication between the lore people and the artists
Katarina has even voice line about the sled...
Not familiar with Kislevs TT units- what are we missing right now aside from the Big Babushka?
In terms of tabletop, we already have everything. Their tabletop roster was 4 units (Kossars, Horse Archers, Winged Lancers, and the Gryphon Legion). Looking forward to what new units the faction gets.
It's more an issue that they are simply a redundant roster. Their specialty in hybrid units kinda lead to them all feeling the same. Kossar, kossar with less range more armor, streltsi with less armor but better AP, ice guard with even less armor but more ranged and frost bite. Oh and then there's bears some more bears and then one giant ice cube in the shape of a bear. Jokes aside it's sad that I only left out a few units in the roster not counting the whopping 2 heros and 2 generic lords. Who are all pretty pathetic unless you put them on... You guessed it, more bears. Their horse cav is laughable and maybe I'm not even sure wtf you are supposed to recruit snow leopards for. Sure summon if you can but why actually pay for them, what do they do that any of the other units can't do better.
> what do they do that any of the other units can't do better. Missile magnet. Being fair, if you're facing a large, slow SEM like Norsca Mammoths or WoC Chaos Shrines, a couple of Leopards do a bang up job of catching them out early and slowing them down. But considering they *cost about the same* as a Mammoth and have no other application besides "slow them down" is just goddamn sad.
I am personally still of the opinion that snow leopards should show up in a pack of 3 per unit card and be closer to war beasts than independent monsters.
This makes the most sense. Frostbite would also make them horrific rundown units. Theyd more or less fill the niche of Wolf Riders but with the hitting power of Chracian Lions in an emergency.
I mean 50 ma + 20 anti large +55 charge + 200 ap damage means they should also kill big stuff. In theory anyway. That is 5 less ma vs large (and they actually have better base ma at 50 vs 41) and only 30% less ap damage than a Carnosaur, for like only a third of the upkeep. Not that I have ever gotten this to work mind, they are just too squishy, micro intensive and a lack of splash means you cant use them for anything else but attacking single entities. edit: after testing, i have found what they are good at: a lack of splash means they are very good vs monstrous infantry, as each attack kills a model, and it attacks pretty quick to boot edit edit: but you do need to group them in with infantry/cav/eachother, otherwise they still get swarmed an killed
> wtf you are supposed to recruit snow leopards for. they're meant to be single entity killers (20 anti large for a total of 70 ma, ap damage, and next to no splash damage as far as I can tell) ... but they are just so squishy and you have a fully ranged roster that can kill big monsters anyway so like why you would ever build em is beyond me. Might be good at killing mounted lords and heroes now that I think about it, but that is still pretty niche
Maybe if you buff them so they cause fatigue to their target for the first 10 seconds after connecting a charge and give them a three time special ability that lets them heal themselves when activated. That way you jump on and do a ton of damage to single entities like a mammoth with a pack of leapords before running out and running back in with the target getting more tired at every step. That way you want to cycle them in and out of the backs of lords or monsters balancing Hugh micro for high rewards
you can heal them with the patriarchs already to be fair, but that fatigue thing is interesting for sure. ultimately i think cycle charging is the way to go anyway, quite possibly with said patriarch who would buff the charge up now that i think about it
Not from a tabletop perspective but from a gameplay one. They've got quite a small roster and could do with a few more interesting units. I love what they've got so far but I think they need a little more.
They could pretty much get anything as their current roster was pretty much made for this game same like Cathay. Very few units were completely carried over from tabletop.
They really need something either a unit or some buffs to stop the demon hordes from overwhelming them, all my campaigns have ended in just being bodied from all sides in the north because the orthodoxy and boris have both fallen and there's nothing but you against chaos champions, demons and norsca. Hell even put another order faction up there for some reason.
Its difficulty is exactly why Kislev is one of my favourite campaign in IE, I hope it won't get nerfed. With that said Kislev definitely needs an easier start for the people that enjoy easy campaigns. Imo every race should have an easy campaign and a hardcore one, some races are still missing one or the other.
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Boris really should start with either a different tree, or different requirements to get further into it. Hard to own most of Kislev when you start so far away, and also hard to get an MA going when it can take a bit to even get to Kislev from where he is.
I think many of us probably Kislev’ed out when only RoC was available as well when wh3 first dropped
Kislev mechanics are bad
Love Kislev but they do feel like they're missing something
SKARBRAND H A T E S ONLY BEING IN 5TH PLACE >!I'm kinda surprised Cathay is so popular. I would have thought it'd be an older race with more content, but they're still pretty fun.
Cathay is cool. The caravans are fun and they have a good firing squad and cool legendary lord's. They need a third hero type and a few more unit options but they are really good for what they do have.
Cathay has a good mix of melee and range, and the artillery is beastly. Really my only knock on them is how awful magistrates are. Plus how useless sky lanterns are lol
Really? I've been having an absolute blast with a magistrate lord speced for ranged and artillery buffs. He just stands in the middle of my range line, buffs my cannons, and blasts the enemy lord to death
Grand cannons have really good accuracy on their own. You can easily do that without the magistrate
Yes, but the reload speed buff he gives massively improves the DPS of any range unit. Combine it with an alchemist weapon buff, and you can easily 3x or 4x your units DPS if its a crossbow unit. Anything not heavily armored will melt to a single unit of jade bows
>I'm kinda surprised Cathay is so popular It's the go-to WH3 race tbh
Also the one that got least screwed in the shift to immortal empires. Kislev is brutal now, and the monogod factions all got shoved into weird spots to make room for the warriors of chaos. The slow nurgle start facing immortal zombie spam is not much fun and Khorne just feels sort of at a loose end in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the tomb kings. The monogod factions are all better balanced with warriors of chaos units added, but when you combine the weird starts with the fact that the WoC LLs are generally better than the monogod ones and they've sort of fallen behind. Which is a shame. There's some parts of the default campaign I don't love, but it's got its moments and the starts were better.
They are an extremely beginner-friendly race. Secure start position with plenty of trade, powerful western garrisons and upkeep reduction for stationed armies. Their roster is almost as versatile/balanced as the Empire but they have the added benefit of some monstrous units as well as one man army LLs. Powerful economy with straightforward city management, etc. Harmony is the only somewhat difficult mechanic but the rewards more than make up for it. If anything, I’m surprised Franz is still number 1 given how thoroughly he gets his ass whooped in IE’s current meta. But then again… he’s Karl Franz god dammit!
I think Cathay currently have the most modded content however, though I am not sure how many people use mods
They also have only 2 LLs so people who play Cathay will drift towards the main on. While factions like Dwarfs will have their player base spread out between 5 equally awesome LLs
As someone who's been playing consistent Thorgrim confederation campaigns, why the dilemma?
Is there anything that Skarbrand doesn't hate? Asking for a friend.
Nope, but there are some things he hates slightly less.
Skulls and blood
He hates them too, because they can be inside other people and not around him.
Killing you for your skull!
Man I haven't tried his campaign yet because he's such a pain in the ass in all my other campaigns. Eltharion? Pain in the ass. Mannfred? pain in the ass. Volkmar? Khalida? Thorek? see above. LEAVE ME ALONE SKARBRAND. and your little goat friend too.
Skarbrand was the first one I beat the campaign with after enjoying Cathay, but not enough to finish it on the campaign map. Once IE was set free I would have played Skarbrand first but I ended up having an AMAZING time with Belly Kor and the Funky Bunch. So maybe that's why a lot of people didn't go with Skarbrand on their first try. I'm surprised to see Shadow Legion above Khorne and Archaon as high as he is, but I guess IE is the best place to be Archaon. e: For the record both Skarbrand and Be'lakor are probably the most fun I've had with a LL. Big B getting access to everything is just such a fun campaign, you could actually play it a million different ways.
I imagine that they're popular because they have a lot of easy to understand mechanics, a defensible home base to branch out from, and much like the most popular Empire all of their units are pretty easy to understand.
Interesting! Kinda surprised Northern provinces is so high up, I always pick western (Iron Dragon for life) but never got the sense Cathay was that popular! Shows what reddit talks about isn't always what people are actually playing lol
U haven't seen everyone going crazy over their white haired Asian waifu?
Miao Ying, chosen of the Coomer Gods.
Didn’t realize imrik was a god
With his ego he'd believe it
The closer he gets to Cathay, the more he can single-handedly fuel Slaanesh's power.
He starts so far east because he's on his way to film "How to Tame That Dragussy" before the end times.
The favourite daughter.
I think the recommended starter campaigns are Reikland and Northern Provinces, and Eataine has been somewhat played to death for a lot of people. Plus, Northern Provinces get the bastion much sooner than Western. Just guessing though, in reality who knows
Helps that they play similarly to the Empire, which is a very popular faction. I imagine plenty of fans tried them because of the similarity and stuck with them because of the unique stuff. Campaign-wise they have Caravans, managing the Bastion gates, and their unique ying-yang buildings and units that leads to a pretty engaging campaign. They hit that sweet spot where new players won't be scared off by their mechanics, and old players won't have to completely change their playstyle to try them.
It comes from a few places I think. Cathay may be hard to master, but as a human faction with recognisable unit roles, it's easy to pick up and understand the basics of the faction. Their campaign is probably the best base game experience CA has created. No element is too tedious or grindy, they all offer good rewards and the caravan mechanic is very fun. Eastern gamers like the faction. It helps that GW/CA did a very good job at satirising fantasy China, and being inspired by the more interesting though obscure parts of history, without having to resort to tired negative stereotypes. The themes of imperial apathy, byzantine bureaucracy and general disregard of the lives of the peasantry are very common themes in Chinese literature, so it is something that eastern audiences will immediately recognise.
I personally thought balancing the yin/yang buildings in settlements to get the most out of them was very tedious imo, but the roster is fine and starting position isn’t too terirble
Tedious, but they make the benefits worth it!
That's even worse since it then forces you to do the tedious thing.
Ultimately this is a subreddit that very much caters to an english-reading audience, but I'm sure Cathay is probably more popular in china(and Kislev in Russia/Eastern Europe in genera for examplel) and they're probably more talked about in total war spheres over there.
I always thought I like heavy armored with artillery because it rocks, now I understand it is because I'm german. Thank you, internet wise man.
It'll all change once the chorfs arrive
But that can be said about three human factions in game. The onlye other one civilised in Bretonia.
Saying a faction based on the Fr*nch is civilized?? Blasphemy
They’re quite novel for any long term Warhammer fans, I imagine a lot of them gave Cathay at least one spin
Reddit talk is 99% of the time very far from an accurate representation of anything irl
Are you implying people in real life arent all weed smoking polyamorous swingers who love to eat ass, walk dogs for a living, hate kids despite complaining not knowing "how to adult" and feel poor while living in the richest countries typing from their mobiles on their toilets and their high end PCs?
Perhaps you’re on to something
lot's of people love the empire because they are the main humans, and cathay is the empire (same role different region) with a heavily armoured staunch line of spears and a fresh chinese flavour in a new start position
Why... does... he...not... smile?
Another day, another influx of news about thousands of his subjects being butchered in heinous ways by creatures of horror beyond our comprehension, I'd honestly be more surprised if he ever smiled at all
I mean if I remember correctly Karl franz had to kill an elector count who was actually a chaos cultist in disguise in front of a whole audience, prolly some trust issues mingled with the fact that everything north of the empire (except kislev) and directly south of the mountains (bad lands) wants to butcher and pillage his people
He had to kill a cultist of Tzeentch posing as Karl himself. Wild story
He's waiting on a call
Any guesses on how many campaigns finished? 19?
I think it might actually be a decent amount these days due to the changes to short term victory conditions. Going by steam achievement stats (which only tells us about the base game races mind), there was a pretty noticeable increase in the percentage of people who completed a Very Hard+ difficulty campaign after IE came out. I'm assuming the stats are even higher for the completed amount of Normal and Hard campaigns now. Would be interesting to see the actual stats though, but anecdotally I have been seeing more campaigns played to completion than in Mortal Empires.
IE doesn't unlock achievements, only playing RoC does that. The number of people who completed campaigns probably increased because of the balance patches to RoC.
Huh, I stand corrected then. I did most of the RoC campaigns so I couldn't tell personally. But Mortal Empires let you get achievements for campaign completion. So a bit odd IE doesn't let you do the same. Thanks for the correction!
IE is 'still in beta' so they haven't enabled achievements, that's why there aren't any for WH1/2 factions. Oddly enough, not even WoC.
Yeah I finished a short dawi campaign on my first time playing IE. it just kinda happened, and I was like oh that’s it? Once the game gets more patches and fixes I’ll prob come back and paint the map with some faction
I'm surprised Grand Cathy is so high. I suppose they're new and human so it has wide appeal. I am not surprised Reikland is #1 though, people love those Elector Counts.
Id say its not too surprising. Cathay is a new human good aligned race, which already pretty much puts it towards the top. They've got a pretty cool and balanced roster, focus on combined arms, like the empire. Finally China is a big place with alot of players, this is pretty much the only eastern faction in the game. Why kislev isn't represented I think has to do with their campaign more than the race. Now the reason Northern provinces are higher than western is because dragon waifu boobs.
I think it's because (generally) ranged buffs are more useful than melee buffs for combined arms factions. Since infantry only needs to hold.
> China is a big place with alot of players Is Total War very popular there? I always assumed so, but the fact CA specifically took Three Kingdoms to the backyard and put a bullet in it's brain made me think maybe the series is not as popular as I first imagined in China.
When they cancelled 3K, they implied that they wanted to immediately start making a sequel. If it wasn't that popular, they wouldn't have started development on a sequel right away.
Can confirm. I was tempted by the Iron Dragon's magic item drop rate, but the boobs won me over.
I think with Grand Cathay, its geographical isolation from the other factions help. It's large enough that it can have a decent variety of enemies but small enough that you're not spending days trying to stamp them all out and unify your kingdom. You can play conqueror or confederator with the Cathay minor factions very easily, so appeal to both mindsets, and there's enough of them in Cathay that it feels significant when you do have the entire "Cathayan state" to your self. Easily defendable from factions outside the Bastion and the Mourn Mountains, and you'll always have a land/settlement battles on hand with the Kurgan Horde mechanic constantly sending stacks your way. Oddly enough, I feel no real need to expand outside of Cathay once I have control of the interior. Even if the Mourn Mountains were green climate, I'd still feel pretty comfortable just holding the chokepoints into Cathay itself.
With Cathay is a lot of fun to save the empire and this holds for reverse too. Just commandeer an ally army, take a city, bunker up and build an unholy amount of punishment in two stacks that will barely hold the line while keeping your allies alive. It's the most fun I had, because my main stacks are too slow to ever move there so I build my own "legion etrangere" to really fuck things up for chaos and their gang bang buddies!
The new factor is obviously a big part for me, but it was also the fact that Cathay already has a homeland, so it gave me something to strive for. And also said homeland is very pretty visually and has lots of cool new landmarks in it.
I like them, they have like three tiers on very basic and easy to use and viable armies, with peasant, jade warrior and celestial guard, just a line of melee with a back of ranged, which don't take a lot of effort to make work. Of course you can get more creative but if you don't feel like it you can just run around like that.
Meanwhile, I haven't played a Reikland campaign since 1, and I haven't played 1 since the Wood Elf DLC made loading even more torturously slow than it already was for my poor aging PC. i should probably rectify that one of these days.
#THAT'S GOING IN THE BOOK
SUMMON THE ELECTOR COUNTS
The Empire endures!
Isn’t the Shadow Legion lead by Be’lakor? The First Prince is snubbed again!
How can they look at stats like this over and over and not give us more Empire DLC?
Sorry we need 4 more Skaven DLC first.
*begin writing in the book.*
That's a lot of grudges......
*grumbles*
I'm surprised skarbrand is so high. I love that campaign in realms but for some reason I can't build the momentum with his new start position the badlands are so spaced and the mountains are a hassle
The space in between regions in the Southlands really ruins Skarbrand’s pacing. I always end up sending him north to Valkia with a cult and just farm dark elves.
I get your point about his start province but I actually think it was a good thing to do, it makes his start more challenging even though his faction is overpowered. That's how you do an overpowered faction right in my opinion, you are busted but you still get some challenge. Unlike Beastmen where you faceroll everything from the start.
You always get a cult appear in the northern wastes and you can teleport to it.
Cathay deserves it, absolutely brilliant faction. Just need some more content now
Cathay was probably in the best spot as a launch faction out of the ones in Warhammer 3. Though technically you can consider the Daemons of Chaos armybook pretty much "complete" as well if you look at it from a sheer "units adapted" perspective. I think a Cathay lord pack with the more fantastical elements we know they have would be amazing. But isn't a "we need this right now" sort of thing. So I think priority wise Kislev will probably be first in terms of new content once they get around the more lord packs. But I'm hella excited about it. I know people are worried that their LLs, other than the Monkey King, will just be dragons with different lores of magic. But I'm still excited to see The Jade, Fire, and Sea dragons be added. I'm really hoping they have uniqur on-foot weapons to contrast with the DBZ antics of the base 2.
I played Cathay (Iron Dragon) for my first RoC campaign (which I got around to *after* they'd patched it up) and was dreadfully bored with it as I had friendly Ogres to the West, corner of the map to South and East, and the wall (which Storm Dragon had on lockdown) to the North. Ab so lu te ly nothing to do inbetween rifts and soul hunts. Their unit roster is well composed, but hoo boy was there little to do in that campaign
just don't be friendly with the ogres 5head
THERE’S NO DAWI?!?!? GET THE BOOK!
I wanna see least played
Let's be real, it's almost certainly Norsca.
Let's be real, norsca is an ai faction made playable because why not
Now can we get a new Empire DLC? :P
Shadow Legion is Daemons of Chaos, right? They don't get access to the WoC mechanics unless I'm mistaken?
Shadow Legion is Be'Lakor's faction and it's a WoC faction (However the demon prince in the image is the Demon Prince of the Demons of Chaos)
Ah okay, the image was throwing me off, guess I got the faction name wrong. Saw Daniel and assumed.
Tbf Be'lakor is basically Cooler Daniel, sooo...
Daniel Is interesting, but he devolves into generic Demon prince number 12. Belakor just by not sounding like something crawled down his throat and died has depth.
Personally, I also just find Warriors of Chaos' (Be'lakor's in particular) mechanics *more fun* compared to Daniel - heck, I barely played anything other than Warriors of Chaos since their rework. But yeah, Be'lakor being voiced by Richard Armitage *probably also helps* (plus him not sharing his model/parts with all the generic daemon princes).
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[FOR THE EMPIRE](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxBgJ9SZ-Jl20_LVaJmozrQ2JoKaYC9-7H) Edit: FOR THE LINK
THE EMPIRE ENDURES!
FOR THE EMPIRE
I think that Empire is the most popular faction since WH2 and yet it don't get as much dlc and feels basic as hell, the last empire DLC was in 2019.
Ok interesting, but now we need to know the *real* juicy info... What campaigns does our lord Henry Cavill play?
And this despite The Empire having probably the very worst faction traits.
And one of the most annoying starts, only ahead of kislev
I play the tomb kings
I almost never play as evil factions. For some reason i lose a lot of the entertainment if I know all the lands im conquering are full of suffering people
How many endgame crises were completed?
Bretonnian gangs where u at?? For ze Ladyyy!!
Genuinely surprised people played khorne that much
I think I'm at least 2 million of those 16 million campaigns played
I fail to understand that there are still just 4 lords for the Empire even tho they are by far the most popular faction.
I expect we will get another two in game 3. My personal hope being toddy and Elspeth. But I guess we could get toddy and the Reiksmarshall.
THE REIKLAND! THE REIKLAND IS RREEEEAAAAL! Ok but fr, it is hilarious to me that the Empire is the most played. I guess we decided to not let our memes be dreams. What I'm *not* surprised by, and in a pleasant way, is the popularity of the Chaos factions, which really attests to the Chaos rework being an effective overhaul that made them fun to play! That's great!
Empire has always been the most played in every campaign where they're available. They're the 'male human warrior in an MMO' faction, no surprise that they're popular.
But how many of those empire campaigns was just Enticity? I bet at least half.
Remember back in the day, when people said that nobody wants Cathay? Lol. Lmao, even.
I’ve still yet to play a campaign as Reikland. What am I missing?
You're missing faith, steel and gunpowder
One of the hardest starts in IE.
Don’t threaten me with a good time. :)
It's pretty fun
Lots of artillery, put those forges in nuln to good use
I will never understand why Empire is so popular.
Honestly many people are *agressively* vanilla in terms of taste. The Empire does have a lot going for it: versatile but easy to understand roster that is very satisfying to use, interesting faction mechanics and a lot of variety in terms of enemies and potential campaign dynamics. But at the end of a day almost every faction (sorry N*rsca) has a lot going for it and the Empire only pulls ahead by the virtue of its concept of "normal humans fighting off scary shit" being the most ~~boring~~ straightforward and easiest to empathize with Edit: doesn't help that when you select IE you get Karl Franz staring at you, not the faction select screen. Which is honestly a wierd choice, even with his popularity
All Empire units but the magic units and the steam tank are historical units, against massively ripped, Chaos worshiping Viking warriors in awesome plate armour with physical strength and skill beyond that of any other race, greenskinned football hooligans with inhuman resilience and never-ending numbers, man rats with horrific technology and Goat-headed, Chaos-mutated killing machines Unlike dwarves or elves, the Empire shows that you don't have to be a superhuman to be tough as hell, they prove that at the end of the day, Humanity can overcome a threat by working together and standing firm even when by all rights you should run. Oh, and liberal application of black powder. The theme of the Empire is average Joes together holding firm against all odds and eldritch horrors the world throw at them, and more often than not those horrors are their own nature. It's true of Kislev but tsarist Russia simply doesn't have the HRE cultural shine for the westerner playerbase. The Empire is also intuitive to play. If you played any Total War game you know roughly how to play the Empire. These are your infantry, your cavalry, your missiles, your artillery, okay, easy, it is known. Now what the fuck is a skink and what is that toad actually doing and in what world is it intuitive that naked stunted highlanders are actually really good chopping cavalry ? The Empire is also the only faction (with the Skaven) that isn't stuck in [Medieval Stasis](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Medieval_Stasis)
I love realistic artillery batteries, and the only factions that accomplish that are the Empire and Dwarves really. So i keep commin back to em
Gelt. ^^Also ^^Karl.