Overview
Strategies & tactics for Skaven nations in Total War: Warhammer 2 (Mortal Empires). I will be compiling notes and PLANS!! as I begin Long Campaign playthroughs with the Skaven lords.
THE MOST GARGANTUAN OF PLANS!! (Overview & First Impressions)
I have just begun playing as the Skaven (Lord Skrolk), but already I can tell that they take a lot of subtlety and preparation to play properly. Coming right from the Vampire Counts, I thought I knew what a long-term game was, but the Skaven take this to a whole new level. At least in the early game, they simply cannot match another army 1:1 (or sometimes, not even 2:1), so avoiding battle becomes a necessity rather than an option.
My plan for this, then, is to use a lot of heroes, Skaven Corruption, and establishing Under-Cities to work under and around my enemies, instead of through. (This is probably exactly how the developers want Skaven to play, and matches the lore of the Skaven race.)
UPDATE
I have started a co-op campaign with a friend of mine, and I chose Clan Skryre after purchasing The Prophet & the Warlock DLC for 50% off.
I love Clan Skryre. Lore-wise, they are probably my favorite Skaven Clan, and in TWW2, they are hands-down the best Skaven army, even surpassing Clan Pestilens. (Don’t tell Lord Skrolk that I said so!)(Seriously!)
With the DLC come numerous upgrades, including unlocking Skaven Weapons Teams for all of your Skaven factions. You will have to construct the Engineering building chain in order to get the weapons teams, and you do not get the special Clan Skryre bonuses if you play as any other Clan, but it was definitely worth the real-money investment. I will leave this overview of first impressions with one last word:
DOOMROCKET
Second Impressions
Now that I am a long ways into my Ikit Claw/Clan Skryre campaign, I am falling into the habit of fighting conventionally, and ignoring the basic Skaven strategies that made me successful in the early game. I am trying to keep planting more Undercities, and will have to use the Vermintide building chain more, especially against the Dwarfs. Why go through when I can go around and stab them in the back?
My alliances with other races are only rarely useful – I have a few trade agreements and two Military Alliances. My income is secure without the trade agreements, and the war-coordination power granted by the Military Alliance is pretty useless because my allies’ battlefronts are so far away from my territory (and one of those alliances is with a faction that has next to no power).
Don’t fall into the same trap as me, no-no! When playing as Skaven, make sure to keep using all the underhanded tricks you learned as a ratling! Use heroes to spread Skaven Corruption and cause rebellions! Assassinate heroes and block armies! Skeedaddle with Underway Stance! And especially, BRING THE FURLESS LOW WITH UNDERCITIES!!
DASTARDLY PLANS!! (Heroes & Abilities)
THE PLAN!!: Use Plague Priests to create Skaven Corruption in enemy provinces, cause rebellions, and take over weakened settlements.
Execution: SUCCESS SO FAR! With the Spread Corruption skill for the Plague Priest, Skaven Corruption increases over about 6 turns, until hitting 50% or higher. Public Order took about 15 turns to get to -100, when a Skaven Rebels army was spawned and attacked a lizard-thing town. Using the same strategy to infect the next lizard-thing town over.
Counsel: Also put points into the Wound skill for Plague Priests, to assassinate enemy Heroes before enemy Heroes kill the Plague Priest. Mere presence in a province is enough to start building Skaven Corruption. Recommend using “Damage Walls” campaign ability on cities to grind up levels for Plague Priests & other heroes. Damage Walls has a high base chance of success and prepares the city for invasion by an army (your own, or a Skaven Rebels army). Using this ability every turn is very expensive in the early game.
I have just read that one can accelerate rebellions by putting an Assassin with the “Public Order” skill in an enemy province. This applies up to a -4 penalty to local Public Order.
THE PLAN!!: Create many Warlock-Engineers, and seed them across the world to create Under-Cities for wealth generation.
Execution: Good success so far, yes-yes! Two Warlock Engineers spawned, one through the SCHEME OF DOOOOOM! Seeded a new Warlock Laboratory in the dead-thing lands of Khemri, and am going to seed more under all nearby cities when finances permit.
Counsel: This PLAN! becomes doubly effective if you build a Subterranean Pit in the Excavation chain in under-cities; this gives a 5-10% chance per turn to spread under-cities into nearby provinces with no further cost in money or Warlock Engineers! Create new under-cities in central areas that border several other provinces to take the most advantage of this strategy.
THE PLAN!: Divide & conquer enemy armies using the Lighting Strike campaign ability.
Execution: Limited success! You must still be careful which army you attack in a given turn, because the enemy may still be strong enough to defeat you. Conserve your troops as best you can, because another nearby army will almost certainly attack you the following turn (even garrisoned units in a settlement!).
Counsel: Skaven have some nice campaign abilities, including “Corruptive”, which increases Skaven corruption in the current province, and “Bonded Service”, which reduces recruitment cost for the army – these will lead you to the Lightning Strike skill.
CUNNING PLANS!! (Army Movement & Strategy)
THE PLAN!!: Divide & conquer through use of Lightning Strike and Use Underway stance
Execution: Lightning Strike has already proven its usefulness, and I would highly recommend taking it on any aggressive Lord (in the blue campaign skills at the bottom of the tree). Even if your Ambush fails, Lightning Strike will still work.
Using Underway stance to maneuver around armies is a great way to plunder enemy cities while picking fights that you can (easily) win. The only danger is if you are intercepted, which is a fairly low chance against enemy Army Lords that are equal to or less than your Army Lord’s level. If their Army Lord level is higher, and they have a racial ability to intercept, then you are faced with an extremely risky battle, because if you lose, your army is wiped out.
Counsel: Theoretically, enemies can intercept Skaven armies who use the Underway – and if they do, only the successfully intercepting army attacks, meaning it’s a 1:1 army battle. Theoretically. You can use this in place of the Lightning Strike ability if you don’t want to spend the skill points to get it on your Army Lord. You may have to reload the game several times before an enemy can successfully intercept your army.
Enemies which can intercept using the Underway include: Skaven, Dwarfs, Greenskins. Potentially also Wood Elves, with their similar power, the Worldroots. Possibly any army can intercept you in the Underway Stance if they are extremely lucky.
Lightning Strike DOES NOT work against armies near towns – the garrison of the town will always join the defender’s side!!
THE PLAN!!: Send 2 cheap armies deep into enemy territory to capture/pillage/raze their cities out from under them & destroy their economy
Execution: In progress! Good-good results expected! Cities come in two flavors – hard and soft. (I know “hard and soft” are not real flavors! Shut your traitorous mouth, traitor-mouse!) “Hard” cities are those with very powerful garrisons including artillery. “Soft” targets have garrisons with mostly infantry. I think-plan to pillage & raze the soft targets with these cheap armies. I will save my powerful armies to counter enemy armies (preferably at least 2:1).
Counsel: These armies need to be just strong enough to consistently defeat garrisons – if a city is guarded by an army, move on to another target. The Underway Stance gives you almost unmatched army mobility, so use it! If these cheap armies die, make more! Keep churning out as many as you can afford. You’ll be getting your money back through pillaging villages, so your Army Lord should be putting points into mobility, casualty replenishment, and income from raiding and pillaging. If you can replenish casualties over a turn or two, you spend less down-time being a sitting duck. If you can spare them, put a Warlock Engineer (for mobility) and an Assassin (for replenishment) in each of these armies.
The Value of Ambushes
All Skaven army Lords have a base chance to Ambush an enemy army when attacking. This can be raised with Lord skills, research, and Undercity buildings in the local province. However, the ambush chance can be lowered through certain enemy Hero skills, research, and a large difference between the level of the attacking Skaven Lord and defending enemy Lord.
The exact kind of Ambush map varies on the terrain & climate, but generally you get 1 of 2 kinds of map: a wooded area with cliffs that block ground movement, or several hills with valleys in between. You can easily set up artillery on either kind of map, though you will have to change how you place infantry & ranged units to cover the artillery. In either case, you can position your troops to open fire on the enemy with extreme long-range weapons the moment the battle begins.
Once, when defending Fort Soll, I had 2 Skaven armies with some artillery and backup Heroes, facing 3 full Empire armies with artillery and some backup heroes. The odds were no better than 50/50 if I fought conventionally, and waited for the Empire to attack in a siege.
However, I used my non-garrisoned Skaven army to aggressively attack each Empire army in turn, and thankfully got an Ambush battle every time (using Ikit Claw with the Ancient Cunning blue campaign skill). Amazingly, it allowed me to attack from ambush with Ikit Claw and my garrisoned army led by a Warlord Lord, three times in a row. I auto-resolved all three battles with a 90%+ win chance (minimal losses, and replenished my troops with “Eat Captives”).
If a Skaven army with a sufficient amount of artillery and ranged units (such as 4 Warplock Jezzails and 4 artillery pieces) can trigger an ambush battle, there should be no real contest, since you can position your troops to fire on the enemy’s most powerful units from the first second of battle. If you can obtain a height advantage to slow down cavalry or draw ranged units in closer, the battle is even easier.
Underway Stance
Underway stance will be your saving grace in any area with large amounts of otherwise-impassable terrain, such as mountains, large forests (such as found in the north of the Empire, or the Lustrian jungles), and territory that you plain just don’t want to have to cross (such as an ally’s territory when you want to raid somebody).
Bonuses to campaign movement distance (such as “Route Marcher” in the blue campaign skills at the bottom of a Lord’s skill tree) also seem to affect Underway Stance.
ESCAPE PLANS!! (Dealing with Stronger Enemies in Battle)
THE BATTLE-PLAN!!
Artillery is your saving grace as Skaven; you first unlock Plagueclaw Catapults which, when upgraded through research or Hero abilities (Warlock Engineers), become your primary damage-dealers at extreme range. Use them against massed enemy troops and to pepper and demoralize the enemy while they are approaching.
Warp Lightning Cannon are tower-destroyers and monster-smashers. Just one unit of Cannon is useful in a siege, because they deal more damage per shot than Plagueclaw Catapults. Use them to destroy towers, while your Catapults damage the enemy cowering on top of or behind walls. In an open battle, use Cannon at extreme-to-mid range to target huge monsters such as Prometheans and Arachnarock Spiders.
The second most powerful Skaven units are the Heroes & Lords, and their abilities (such as Warp Lightning from the Warlock Engineers). These abilities can heavily damage weaker units within a good radius around the Hero or Lord.
THE PLAN!!: Surround the enemy and strike from all sides to cause morale damage!
Execution: LIMITED SUCCESS! (And more failure!) An effective tactic to use against units of large numbers of weak troops, like Orc Boyz or Skinks. Very limited effectiveness against armies with a strong leader-lord, or units with naturally high leadership. Skaven cannot out-damage other units enough to cause sustained morale damage.
Counsel: Divide your massed Skaven troops into many small groups, and use these to run around the major battle and strike from the sides and rear to prevent enemies from running away, and to cause better morale damage.
THE PLAN!!: Assassinate enemy Lords in battle to cause morale damage!
Execution: MOSTLY UNMITIGATED SUCCESS! Using a Warlord, Pestilent Priest, a Warlock Engineer, and two Assassins in a group, these units can assassinate an enemy Hero or Lord relatively quickly. The only real danger is losing members of your kill-squad to an enemy Lord or Hero who is good at killing them. A large group (4-5) of Lords and Heroes on your side lets them chew through enemy units (literally!) to reach the Lord.
Counsel: The Assassins can out-run almost any other Hero, so they can even chase down routed heroes. More Assassins is better! You can level up members of your kill-squad through using campaign skills such as Wound and Damage walls, then spend points in their combat abilities (yellow skills).
THE PLAN!!: Maintain army cohesiveness & high morale!
Execution: Mostly failure in the beginning! Even when the Skaven outnumbered the Orc enemy 2:1, and the Skaven units stayed mostly within the Leadership Auras of the lords, the orcs still out-damaged the Skaven and caused almost all units to rout, leading to defeat. The two Skaven Army Lords are the only units which never had their morale broken.
Counsel: Try to fight in the middle of the map, so routing Skaven units won’t reach the edge of the map and escape before they can recover their morale. Spec heavily into Leadership abilities for Warlord army Lord. Stronger troops such as Stormvermin also come with higher base leadership. Morale becomes manageable after acquiring research, Hero & Lord skills, and better units.
THE PLAN!!: Demoralize the entire enemy army by sniping down their Lords & Heroes with Warplock Jezzails
Execution: GREAT-GOOD UNPARALLELED SUCCESS, VERY MUCH YES! Having 3 Warplock Jezzails in my main army is more than sufficient to snipe enemy Heroes and Lords. This has been very effective against all kinds of Empire-based and High-Elf-based heroes & lords. (Dwarf lords are extremely tough, and take much more punishment than other lords.) After that, breaking the army with more conventional battle tactics becomes MUCH easier! Then I added the Warplock Jezzail Regiment of Renown, “Natty Buboes Sharpshooters”, and it got even better.
Counsel: Point and shoot! Jezzails are so accurate that they can snipe down hero units even if those units are engaged in melee. If fighting in heavy forest terrain, try to position your Jezzails in cover. If you are having a hard time spotting the enemy at maximum range, you can use Death Runners or other Stalking units ahead of your main army to give you line of sight. Use battle-skill-specced Warlock Engineer heroes in your army to give your Jezzails all necessary boosts – damage, range, and accuracy.
THE PLAN!!: Compress the enemy into a central ball, and obliterate them all with a single Doomrocket
Execution: In progress! The Plan! is to hire many stacks of expendable troops such as skavenslaves or clanrats, and make sure they are easily replenishable. This tactic seems expensive in terms of Doomrockets, so a consistent source of Warp Fuel will be needed.
Counsel: Two of the few advantages Skaven units have in battle are their plentiful numbers and their speed, both of which seem useful for this strategy. This seems like an opportunity to test and see if shields help deflect Doomrocket AOE damage at all.
Expected Results: Poor to negligible. Unless the enemy army is primarily infantry, then their cavalry, artillery pieces, and monstrous infantry will probably never oblige by piling up into a big central ball.
I HAVE had SOME luck with the following tactic: As the enemy army approaches, spawn a unit of Clanrats with the Menace Below ability right into the middle of their lines (or somewhere where the enemy is likely to gather to defend, such as artillery units or the Lord). If and when the enemy closes in to surround and destroy the Clanrats, launch a DOOMROCKET on their massed troops. You can usually clear out several enemy units this way (and your Clanrats, but who will miss a bunch of clanrats, hmmm? You see-see what I mean!).
KILLER PLANS!! (Battling Specific Races)
“Morale” refers to a given unit’s or army’s leadership.
Most tactical advice and army compositions presume that you have “The Prophet & The Warlock” DLC, which gives access to Weapons Teams. If you do not have Weapons Teams, you can use artillery (Plagueclaw Catapults or Warp Lightning Cannon) or poison wind globadiers instead.
In any battle situation, make sure to TURN OFF “Skirmish Mode” on your Warplock Jezzails, Ratling Guns, and Poison Wind Globadiers. If Skirmish mode stays on, these units will pull back away from the enemy right when you need them to do damage the most.
AGAINST THE LIZARD-THINGS!! (Lizardmen)
Threats: Tough units, giant monsters, occasionally powerful spells & abilities
Weaknesses: some units can “frenzy”, which means they attack anything nearby (including other Lizardmen untis), but this does not happen nearly often enough to really exploit it
Tactics: I have not yet found a really good counter to the numbers of giant monster units (carnosaurs and bastilodons) fielded by Lizardmen. I will set up a pile of Stormvermin Halberds or Clanrat Spears, and hope that stalls the monsters long enough for Warp Lightning Cannon to get off a few good shots. Even when I ambush a Lizardman army, these heavy monsters sometimes still cause enough havoc to make me regret engaging in battle. I will have to test whether the Hell Pit Abominations can hold their own against Lizardmen monsters.
Fighting the main body of a Lizardmen army can turn into a slugfest if I let it. I MIGHT win a slugfest if I have higher-tier units, but my army won’t be in good shape. I rely on the tried-and-true Skaven tactics of dealing as much damage as I can with artillery, Warplock Jezzails, and globadiers before closing with the Lizardmen. Shields count for nothing against explosive catapult shells!
AGAINST THE FURLESS MANS!! (Empire, Border Princes, Estalia, Tilea)
Threats: Artillery, shock cavalry, high morale
Weaknesses: often weak in melee
Tactics: Bombard them from a distance as much as you can; you can easily out-power their artillery if you bring twice as much as they do. Use the “Menace Below” army power to take out their artillery if left unprotected. In siege battles against Man cities, they usually protect their artillery with cavalry, lords & heroes, or ranged units. I have often damaged the artillery enough by using “Menace Below” so that they dropped their artillery pieces, before the Clanrats fled or were slain.
I snipe down their leaders with Warplock Jezzails whenever I can – this breaks most of their morale. Failing this, I’ll send a couple of Assassins after one of their lords or heroes at a time. I have had some success separating their army into parts by splitting mine, so the lords & heroes don’t offer morale boosts to their whole army. The drawback is, my lords & heroes can’t offer morale bonuses to my whole army, either.
A unit of Clanrats, Stormvermin, or a melee version of Runners can hold their own against an average unit of Spearmen or Greatswords. I tie down their more valuable units with swarms of melee units while damaging them from range with a backup unit. If I can get their army locked into a defensive position, I have all the advantages.
AGAINST THE FURLESS RIDERS!! (Bretonnia)
Threats: shock cavalry, armored units, lords & heroes
Weaknesses: Low morale (especially infantry or those outside the leadership aura of a lord)
Tactics: Bretonnian AI usually fields high amounts of cavalry, so keep a strong defensive line of Stormvermin or Clanrats Spears & Shields. After stalling the charge, toss some Death Wind Globadiers and poison-melt their stupid helmets off!
AGAINST THE PRETENDER-BEASTS!! (Beastmen)
Threats: tough & strong units
Weaknesses: masses of weak troops, low morale
Tactics: The only true threats in Beastmen armies are Minotaurs, Cygors, and lords & heroes. I usually auto-resolve any battle against the Beastmen even early in the game. Wipe these abominations in the eyes of the Horned Rat from the face of the earth!
AGAINST THE BEARDY THINGS!! (Dwarfs)
Threats: armored units, unbreakable units, lords & heroes
Weaknesses: slow speed for most units
Tactics: While Dwarfs have artillery, it’s usually only a few pieces of nothing special. I use the “Menace Below” ability to kill as many artillery workers as I can, and to tie up the already-slow Dwarf army. while pelting them from extreme range. (With any luck, the artillery workers will drop their artillery pieces to confront the Clanrats, and never pick them up again.)
I field as many armor-piercing units as I can, such as Death Wind Globadiers, Warplock Jezzails, and Stormvermin Halberds.
Since Dwarfs can use the Underway, I can sometimes force a 1:1 army confrontation by having one army intercept another. Typically, the Dwarfs fight very defensively unless they have an overwhelming advantage, so this gives me time & space to bombard them in my favorite ways, such as with artillery, armor-piercing ranged units, spells, or a DOOMROCKET.
AGAINST THE BLACK DEAD-THINGS!! (Vampire Counts)
Threats: flying units, healing/reanimation
Weaknesses: often weak morale, weak masses of units
Tactics: Don’t give these dead-things any breathing room! (So to speak – it’s a metaphor, small-brain!) Wait to attack their flying units until they are engaged on the ground. While they are flapping about in the air, in ways the Horned Rat never intended, they are surprisingly hard to hit even with Warplock Jezzails.
AGAINST THE DRY DEAD-THINGS!! (Tomb Kings)
Threats:
Weaknesses:
Tactics: In this campaign, the dead-things of Khemri have played it smart-wise and chosen to ally themselves with me-me! I have not had an opportunity to see-test their battle skills.
AGAINST THE WET DEAD-THINGS!! (Vampire Coast)
Threats: powerful monsters, ranged units, healing/reanimation
Weaknesses: masses of weak units
Tactics: Take out their lords & heroes ASAP. You can snipe them down with Warplock Jezzails or send an assassination squad after them. If you can, chances are the entire army will disintegrate shortly.
The only other real threats are the large monster units such as Necrofex Colossi and Prometheans. Warplock Jezzails do pretty well against these large monsters, particularly if you can get 2-4 units of Warplock Jezzail on the same target. Warp Lightning Cannon are also extremely useful against these large targets.
Ranged Vampire Coast units are actually not much of a problem if you can out-range them with Plagueclaw Catapults or Warplock Jezzails. If you can damage them enough, they may very well rout or disintegrate before they get your troops in range.
AGAINST THE GREEN THINGS!! (Greenskins)
Threats: strong in melee, tough & armored units, lords & heroes
Weaknesses: sometimes weak morale
Tactics: Avoid melee as much as possible. I’ve had decent success with an all-ranged Skaven army made of Warplock Jezzails, Death Wind Globadiers, Ratling Guns, and Plagueclaw Catapults against infantry. If the orcs are fielding huge units such as Giants, replace a few of the Plagueclaw Catapults with Warp Lightning Cannon.
AGAINST THE SHINY POINTY-EARS (High Elves)
Threats: ranged units, magic, shields, lords & heroes
Weaknesses: They do not always slaughter us poor rats from range
AGAINST THE SPIKY POINTY-EARS (Dark Elves)
Threats: ranged units, morale damage
Weaknesses: occasionally low morale
AGAINST THE WILD MANS!! (Norsca)
Threats: mobility, decent melee, monsters
Weaknesses:
AGAINST THE WARP-TAINTED ONES!! (Chaos Warriors)
Threats: armored units, monsters, lords & heroes
Weaknesses:
TRAITOROUS PLANS!! (Politics & Diplomacy)
I had to restart my Clan Skryre campaign in order to take advantage of the DLC from “The Twisted and the Twilight” pack, including new Clan Moulder-themed units.
In this campaign, I miraculously avoided most wars, and ended up being able to pick and choose my enemies for the most part.
Things I Did Do:
- I did exterminate the Beastmen wherever I found them! This gave me small diplomatic bonuses with most race-nations of the Old World.
- I did only provoke active enemies with Hero actions, increasing diplomatic bonuses with the enemies of my enemies, and saving my money long-term.
- I did declare war on some small, far-off rogue armies (Doomseekers, in northern Naggaroth, for example) to gain diplomatic bonuses with several race-nations.
- I did let other powerful race-nations do their thing, taking out other powerful enemies. I was able to bribe certain race-nations to stay on their friendly side so they would not declare war.
Things I Did Not Do:
- I did not ally myself with every Brom, Dickie, and Hairy who asked (especially not the rogue armies or tiny factions). This meant I did not take any diplomatic penalties to large race-nations.
Things I Took Advantage Of
- I took advantage of Reikland getting killed off super-early by the Vampire Counts, so they were never a threat to the north.
- I took advantage of Bretonnia fighting with the Vampire Counts in the later game to sneak in from below them and position armies so seize several of their cities on the same turn. I did take some diplomatic penalties for trespassing, but they were so occupied with the Vampire Counts that they did not declare war.
Avoiding War
Hero actions seem to be more provocative than trespassing, so in order to avoid war, carefully pick and choose your targets of hero actions. If you keep a low number of heroes, and only perform actions against active enemies (ones you are at war with), you might not ever get war declared on you.
This strategy worked very well against Bretonnia, Tilea, and the High Elves until other powers had whittled them down or exterminated them.
The Ultimate Weapon!
When all else fails, use the DOOMROCKET to settle diplomatic grievances.
THE PLAN!!: Be at war with the Beastmen & rogue armies to gain diplomatic bonuses with potential allies
Execution: Moderate success! I had to be at war with several Rogue Armies at once before the diplomatic bonuses started adding up, so I committed Hero Actions against the rogue armies and Beastmen to add to those bonuses.
Counsel: Kill-slay the beastmen wherever you find them! They are useless as allies, since they do not have the strength or cunning to be a threat to more than isolated towns.
Rogue armies that spawn from defeated race-nations are usually no trouble either. You can declare war on anybody on the map, so when a rogue army spawns, you can declare war on it and murder-kill-kill with no remorse! The only race you might not get a diplomatic bonus with are those that share a race type with the rogue army (for example, if you declare war on the Doomseekers [Dwarfs] you might NOT get a diplomatic bonus with Dwarf race-nations).
GREEDY PLANS!! (Wealth Generation & Management)
THE GET-RICH-QUICK PLAN!!
Skaven seem to make great traders, as several research options (“Masters of Infiltration” under Oppressive Plans) and Hero skills (“Envoy of the Council” for your Legendary Lord & Grey Seers) increase relationships (especially with other Skaven), and one very nice under-city building (Subterranean Strip-Mine) gives faction-wide trade bonuses. Each Warlock Engineer Hero has a skill, “Arms Dealer”, that can improve Income Through Trade by 3%each!
The difficulty is in getting other race-nations to like you enough to start a Trade Agreement, so use these PLANS! to get enough money to bribe them into liking you!
THE PLAN!!: Use one province as wealth-generation, use another province as recruitment center.
Execution: VERY MUCH SUCCESS, YES-YES! After securing the entire province, and regions around it, using the Headhunters Jungle province for wealth generation has been extremely successful. The ports at Mangrove Coast and Chupayotl give great income, and is boosted further with the Energy chain buildings in Oyxl. Most Skaven buildings provide small boosts to income, but a few in the early game give large bonuses (+300 income from Corrupted Spawning Pool at Oyxl, or up to +300 from each port).
Counsel: Secure the entire province both for protection, and to use the Efficient Planning or Exploitative Planning commandments.
THE PLAN!!: Bribe the things with gifts, and create a massive trade under-empire!
Execution: Poor success! Most effective only with fellow Skaven (who tend to get themselves killed off sooner or later) and other “evil” races, who either do not have a capitol (necessary to trade) or who do have the ability to trade (as a minor faction).
Counsel: Seize a port (an anchor symbol next to the city banner) before turn 20 or so, to gain knowledge and location of all port-holding civilizations. Bribe potential allies with large gifts to overcome the natural Aversion to Skaven, or use Hero skills or Research to improve relationships with other Skaven nations. Taking the city of Itza gives +100 trade goods with the Emerald Pools building (tier 4).
THE PLAN!!: Seed Warlock Engineers throughout the world to create under-cities and generate wealth!
Execution: GREAT-STUPENDOUS SUSCCESS! All I need is a constant source of Warlock Engineers! (Also see DASTARDLY PLANS!!) So far, the under-cities I have established have been very good aditions to my money and food income. The only draw-back is that I have not found any interface to keep track of my undercities, so I have to manually go back and spot the green Skaven symbol that shows an Undercity, and upgrade each of them individually.
Counsel: The Scheme of DOOOM! can only be used every 30 turns, at most, so building the Engineering chain in a few cities should give more than enough Warlock Engineers to seed across the world. Then the only issue becomes affording to spread the Under-Empire everywhere! (the Excavation chain in under-cities gives a +5% or +10% chance per turn to expand into nearby towns, creating new under-cities for free).
Playing as Clan Skryre with The Prophet & The Warlock DLC makes recruiting and utilizing Warlock Engineers more efficient. A special building in Skavenblight, your capitol, The Shattered Tower (tier 5), will also allow you to expand Under-Cities at an increased rate!
SUBTLE PLANS!! (Undercities & Their Functions)
The major campaign mechanic of the Skaven is developing “Undercities” underneath any city you do not already own.
Undercities have numerous benefits – in the short term, they generate wealth & food. In the long-term, they provide excellent bonuses to your local armies, and can even raze the city they are built beneath.
Money & Food
Local Army Bonuses
CRAFTY PLANS!! – Clan Skryre Developments
If you have The Prophet and the Warlock DLC, you have access to Clan Skryre as a playable faction. Clan Skryre is the Clan of ingenious dastardliness and Warpstone-powered engineering. They can build a unique Warlock Laboratory in any of their undercities, which gives intellectual-themed bonuses to your faction, such as +5% Research rate. Undercities built with a Scheme of DOOOM! Warlock Engineer can also build a unique Warlock Laboratory that gives +10% Research rate.
EXPLOSIVE PLANS!! – Attacking an Over-City
Destroying the over-city can happen one of two ways: The first way is to craft a bomb and completely raze the city (though your Undercity will be revealed as soon as you finish the first bomb-construction building, no matter how many sneaky buildings you have constructed). The second way is to spawn a Vermintide army, and fight a battle to seize the city.
The Vermintide
Throughout the research tree, you will see technologies that “add XYZ unit to the army summoned with the Vermintide Undercity building”. This means that when you build the right buildings in an Undercity, and after those buildings are finished constructing, it will automatically summon a Skaven army of your faction, made up of pre-determined units. The more technologies you have unlocked, the better the army functions. There are a handful of Lord skills that also grant bonus units to Vermintide army.
THE BOMB
“AHAHAH! AHAHAHAHAH! AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAA!” – Ikit Claw, Chief Engineer of Clan Skryre
THE PLAN!!: Use Raiding Stance and sieges to lock a city down so its owner cannot get enough money or wiggle room to destroy an Undercity that is building up the Warp-Bomb or a Vermintide
Execution: To be determined! I plan to use this strategy against the Dwarf-things of the eastern mountains. In theory, raiding will cut off income from that province, which might be enough to make the AI think twice about spending money to destroy an Undercity. Sieging a city blocks that city from further interaction until the siege is lifted. This will hopefully prevent the owner of the city from being able to destroy the Undercity before the Warp-Bomb or Vermintide is complete.
Counsel: I have my suspicions that the AI will still be able to destroy my Undercity even if the over-city is being besieged, because the AI is full of sneaky tricks like that. I have another, nastier suspicion that if I use the Warp-Bomb in a besieged city, the Warp-Bomb will also damage the sieging army. I will squeak-tell more after I try this a couple times.
Discovering Undercities
Any time you finish building in an Undercity, your “discoverability” rating goes up. This means that the faction whose over-city you are tunneling under has a chance to realize what you are doing. They can discover this with a Lord garrisoned in the over-city, with a Hero action, and by constructing special garrison buildings.
If discovered, it costs a significant amount of money for the enemy to destroy your Undercity – completely, in one turn. Not only does this undo all of your hard work, it also cuts off any resources that you were getting from that Undercity (natch).
If you carefully manage your buildings, you should not have to reach 100% discoverability (when the enemy automatically discovers your Undercity, with or without special actions). Constructing food & wealth generation buildings shouldn’t ever put you over the edge – but if you are getting close, you can construct two chains of buildings that lower your discoverability by a good amount.
To avoid being discovered, therefore, construct only the buildings you need. I decide whether I want to use the Undercity for wealth generation, or for attacking, and only construct those buildings. I also usually build the Deeper Tunnels to lower my discoverability, and still have 1 construction slot left over.
See “Explosive Plans” above if you plan to attack the over-city. Your Undercity will be discovered while doing so.
ACQUISITIVE PLANS!! (Unique Building Chains)
Subterranean Sanctums
Ghrond city, The Chill Road province, northern Naggaroth, extreme N of the New World
Ransacked Convent of Sorcery
Ghrond city, The Chill Road province, northern Naggaroth, extreme N New World
Vault of Nagash
Black Pyramid of Nagash city, Great Mortis Delta province, central Khemri / Lands of the Dead, S Old World
Copper Mountain
Karak Izor city, The Vaults province, central Old World
The Oak of Ages (Pacified)
The Oak of Ages city, Yn Edri Eternos province, W-central Old World
[[previewicon=21718040;sizeThumb,inline;Oak 01.png][/previewicon]
Peg Street Pawnshop
Sartosa city, Sartosa province, SW-central Old World
Warpstone Tractor Beam (only available as Clan Skryre, Skaven)
Skavenblight city, Skavenblight province, SW-central Old World
Council Chamber of the Thirteen (only available as Skaven??)
Skavenblight city, Skavenblight province, SW-central Old World
The Shattered Tower (only available as Skaven??)
Skavenblight city, Skavenblight province, SW-central Old World
Corrupted Spawning Pools
Oyxl city, Headhunter’s Jungle province, extreme S New World
Stellar Pyramids of the Southern Skies
Hexoatl city, Isthmus of Lustria province, south-central New World
MOST MUTABLE OF PLANS!! (Throt the Unclean, Hard Campaign)
Watch out – even though Frozen is a suitable climate for Clan Moulder, most of the Norscan cities have a “Chaos” climate.
THE PLAN!!: Bide my time until I harvest-take a good batch of Vat creatures.
Execution: Good-great! Waiting until I get a batch of 1 Hellpit Abomination, 1 Brood Hororr, and 3 Rat-Ogres gives me the armor-piercing units I need to attack-gnaw the heavily-armored Kraka Drak dwarves, and the heavier units among the Norsemen and Kislev.
Counsel: Bide-wait until you have an army with several armor-piercing units (which include all of the heavier Clan Moulder units). Since you can recruit Vat units for free, your recruitment buildings at Hell Pit can be focused on ranged units such as Plagueclaw Catapults and Poison Wind Globadiers to give your armies even more of an edge.
THE PLAN!!: Seize a port city to raid far-far away, such as the rotten-ripe lands south past the Empire.
Execution: By the time I got enough armies to afford to send one off to the south, the Empire and Dwarfs had declared war, and my relationship with Norsca wasn’t the best. I did take Erengrad, which is a great port city, but had to confine my explorations to the Sea of Claws in order to keep my armies closer to home in case the Empire made a push. Then Chaos invaded…
Counsel: The closest port-city is Sjotkraken, just to the north-east across the mountains. It is controlled by the puny Goromadny Tribe, which you should be able to easily quash for little or no diplomatic penalty with the other Norsemen tribes. However, the Kislev city of Erengrad to the south-west, or the World-Walkers city of Bay of Blades to the west are better targets, since they give you access to the Great Western Ocean faster. In the early game (before Chaos spawns), the World-Walkers are probably an easier target, since the Tribes always fight amongst themselves. Attacking the World-Walkers might also give you diplomatic bonusess with Kislev and/or the Empire (if such alliances strokes your whiskers the right way).
Seizing the Bay of Blades also gives you direct access to other port-cities such as Longship Graveyard and Norden, which can dramatically increase your income in the early game. Since you will have declared war on Kislev or the World-Walkers anyway, you may as well seize their other port-cities.
THE PLAN!!: When in need of a powerful strike-force, recruit units from the Growth Vats for no base cost, attack a given target, then recycle the recruited units before having to pay upkeep.
Execution: In progress!
Counsel: Theoretically will work. The only drawback is having to wait for the Growth Vats to recharge with powerful units in between strike forces.
Like Regiments of Renown and Raise Dead, the Growth Vat can be used while an army is on the move, allowing for sudden reversals on a pursuing enemy, or city assault.
THE PLAN!!: Heal units after battle by giving units time to regenerate while enemies finish fleeing the field, and by using the Thirteenth Scheme to summon the Moulder Clanstone to heal groups of units en masse.
Counsel: If you really feel like waiting after every battle for an extra 5 minutes, your units WILL recover health, but the amount of health recovered by regeneration is negligible at best. The Moulder Clanstone dramatically increases healing for a very short period of time, so if you can save up 1-2 uses of this until after the battle, your units will be healthier by the time the battle concludes. The Clanstone is also supposed to be able to resurrect dead units, but I have not seen-smelled proof of this yet! After-battle waiting is a great-good time to get some snack-meats and fizzy drinks!
Counsel: Always-never forget the option to “Eat Captives” after a battle, for extra replenishment!