Overview
Brief guide to Grom the Paunch’s Vortex campaign on Very Hard/Very Hard, primarily focused on answering questions you might have not explained or emphasized elsewhere. Enjoy.
Work in Progress
Adding info I discover as I play through the campaign.
RESOURCES
LegendofTotalWar created an excellent first 20 turns guide for Grom’s Vortex campaign, watch it at least to the point where he starts sacking Oreon’s Camp, like he says if you reach that point without a major mistake you are in a great position for the rest of your campaign:
Grom Overview guide with links to various aspects of the Greenskin update:
[link]
Guide to recipes:
[link]The above is excellent, but be sure to support fellow Steam user “Not a Suspicious Person” by reading and upvoting his guide:
[link]Secrets & Answers
—–
Nasty Skulkers DO count as Goblins for the purpose of Lord skills and technology. If the skill or technology says “goblins” but not “night goblins”, then Night Goblins do NOT benefit. That is why Nasty Skulkers can have like 50 Melee Attack while Night Goblins only have 33 Melee Attack with tech researched and every lord skill buff taken.
No, if you spend scrap on a unit and that unit is lost for any reason, disbanded, merged, or killed, the scrap you spent is NOT refunded. Spent scrap is spent.
NOTE: Be careful merging a unit upgraded with scrap with a non-upgraded unit; the non-upgraded unit count needs to be smaller than the scrap-equipped unit, otherwise it is the scrap unit that will be merged into the non-scrap unit.
Scrap Upgrade Choices:
+Range (Winged Ammo) is best for Night Goblin Archers (gives them something 135 range vs 115 which is essential, 115 range for non-First whilst Moving units is terrible).
+Armor is the best choice for Goblin Spears.
+400% AP Damage is best upgrade for Goblin Archers (Update: used to be that the AP upgrade stacked with Harpy Heads food to create absolutely ridiculous AP damage output that was supposedly better than Dragon’s Breath ammo. That was nerfed, so now not sure if +AP is as good as extra ammo. However, I can make the choice easier, I wouldn’t bother upgrading Goblin Archers because you want to replace them with Night Goblin Archers with Winged Ammo ASAP)
WAAAGH! Key Point
—–
Some things to be emphasized because even when stated the meaning can be lost amongst a tide of information.
When you start a WAAAGH!, your EXISTING armies get the attached stack of WAAAGH units, and the number of units in the attached stack will match the number of units you had in the army when you started the WAAAGH!.
Therefore:
Any armies created after the WAAAGH! was started will not get the free attached WAAAGH units.
if you only had 5 units in an army when you started the WAAAGH!, the maximum number of WAAAGH! units in your attached stack will be 5.
WAAAGH! units do not fill the attached stack immediately, they automatically recruit themselves into the stack over a number of turns, possibly up to 5 turns for a 20-stack.
SUMMARY:
Figure out how many full 20-stack armies you can maintain without negative income (even if all 19 units are Goblin Spears, because the additional WAAAGH! units are going to give you tremendous potential battle and siege success), and make sure each of those armies is a full 20 stack, THEN start the WAAAGH!
TROLLS Best Scrap and Food Buffs
——
There are 2 buffs in Grom’s Cauldron that impact Trolls, very important you know them if you plan to use Trolls.
Stunty Ale: Reduces Recruitment Cost by -50%, and also gives Trolls “Dulled Senses” which makes them UNBREAKABLE.
Monster Goo: Gives +2 Recruit Rank, and gives “Monstrous Disease” which means it gives them +12 Bonus vs Large, +8 Leadership, Immune to Psychology, and it is Imbued them with what Reddit called “Discouraged”, the tool-tip says it caused their attacks to inflict “Burnt” which causes -8 Leadership.
For Scrap Upgrades, they get “Liquor Flasks” (+15 Leadership) and “Reinforced Weapons” (+25% Weapon Damage), both costing 50 Scrap.
—–
SUMMARY
Stunty Ale is essential if you run lots of Trolls, they have terrible leadership normally and in the absence of Stunty Ale would make Liquor Flasks the Scrap Upgrade choice, however, why would you give extra leadership to an UNBREAKABLE unit. Also the reduced cost to recruit the trolls. Stunty Ale all the way.
The 50 scrap cost is high, and a Reddit user stated Trolls have good enough Weapon Damage to not need “Reinforced Weapons”, so that is nice that you can save scrap for other purposes. But if you have spare scrap, I would definitely go with “Reinforced Weapons”, assuming you run them with Stunty Ale active. Stone Trolls start with 120 Weapon Strength, and Rank 9 and with Reinforced Weapons, my starting Stone Trolls now have 191 WS. Pretty Sweet.
Dragon’s Breath Ammo!!!
—–
Dragon Tail food gives “Dragon’s Breath Ammunition” which gives Goblin and Night Goblin missile units Explosive Missile.
1) This ammo is absolutely ridiculous at deleting enemy units. Combine with Night Goblin Archers with their poison and upgraded with “Winged Ammo” for further range, and you can just run full stacks of Night Goblins Archers that delete enemy armies, particularly if you use a few heroes to tank the enemy.
2) They do tremendous friendly fire damage. Best strategy would be to have 2-3 Black Orc Big Boss (ideally due to their 110 Armor) and or leveled Giant River Troll Hag’s to stand out front and bunch up the enemy while your NGA’s rain absolute hell down upon them. Being tough solo units should allow them to survive the heat while the enemy gets wrecked.
Other options are Arachnarok Spiders, Rogue Idols, Stone Trolls (possibly, they have 70 armor but I don’t know if that is tanky enough).
Doomstack suggestion
—–
One of the things I try to figure out with each race is what their best Doomstack is to handle all situations, so you don’t have to fuss with replacing losses or being destroyed by an army that counters yours.
Grom built and food buffed correctly with upgraded Night Goblin Archers w/ Dragon’s Breath ammo is a doomstack until himself, but a large reason for that is because Grom himself is a wrecking ball and he has the Food Buffs, and I wanted to figure out a Greenskin army composition that should work for all his other armies and the other Greenskin Lords.
—–
DOOMSTACK
Goblin Great Shaman on a Catchweb Spidershrine mount (if not your Legendary Lord). Note – This is basically having your caster lord on an Ararchnarok Spider, which is brutal. To get this mount by the way, you need to sign up for Total War Access and tie that account to your Steam account.
4 Tank units: Ararchnarok Spiders, Rogue Idols, Black Orc Big Boss
15 Doom Diver Catapults.
—–
You could also do just 10-12 Doom Divers and add more overpowered heroes or single monster units or even Black Orcs, Stone Trolls, Orc Boar Chariots or maybe Orc Boar Boy Big Uns to counter enemy cavalry/large units.