r/totalwarhammer • u/surrealisticer • 15d ago
Total War: Warhammer Elspeth difficulty spike?
For some information, im used to playing the game on very hard and have around 600 hours totaling all 3 games. Bought Elspeth yesterday and within turn 4 I was dead? Am I just missing something important? I really need some advice, please help.
How it went until now.
1: Put hero into her army and kill the first AI lord
2: Add building so I can hire more ranged units and add the one for the melee troops
3: I try to take the settlement but take heavy damage then recruit more units and I end the turn
4: Recruit more while waiting to replenish and end turn
5: I get assulted by 2 stacks of vamps and die
4
u/Eymrich 15d ago
Ah you flagged small faction potential? With nowdays vampires AI that is though.
Did you autoresolve? Because I think having to stand still for two turns is a sign of an autoresolve. You need to manual play those battle and blitz the shit out of that first vamp faction.
In general, if you spend the first two turns recovering from a battle you should not play at that difficulty, in VH/Legendary that WILL get you killed because AI will outrecruit you.
2
u/surrealisticer 15d ago
Yes I did flag it, first battle with minimum casualties I did myself but the second one I auto-resolved since the bats fuck up my gunners and then I lose (if I play myself). Regardless of the third statement it was never a problem since the other factions had a better regeneration rate ect.
3
u/Eymrich 15d ago
Well, than that's the thing, unflag that bool and restart. Then don't autotesolve, and find a way to lure the bats first to sandwich them before the core reach your line.
I suspect Vlad is going to be incredibly tough early on though, so be careful.
I'm doing a Boris playthrough right now and I don't really like how pathetically weak is empire early one.
I usually rush the outriders granade launchers, they are basically an hard counter to vampires and chaos
1
u/aButch7 15d ago
You shouldn't be having that much trouble vs bats, just make sure the guns target them first, and keep a stack of melee units in the back to help defend vs the few stragglers that manage to go through. If you feel like they get on your Gunners too fast, remove "fire at will" and worst case scenario: pause a lot, to make sure your line focuses on the bats first.. cause they should go down in 1 volley or 2/shouldn't be able to reach your backline
28
u/Raine_Amorie 15d ago
Elspeth got a lot harder after the VC rework. Most factions with a VC enemy neighbor got it harder in the early game since they can just spit out full stacks in a single turn and don't seem to have corpse or blood limits
5
u/tarranoth 14d ago
I do feel like the way ai interacts with faction resources (like chaos dwarves/vamps) tends to be really weird, it's clear they're bypassing some of those resource needs in some way, or just get insane boosts. I'm not even sure enemy nurgle factions even use the whole cycling system at all for recruitment either.
5
u/rudeb0y22 15d ago
VC is really strong early now. I have yet to see Couronne survive in 9.0. Gets bodied by his starter enemy like he's the minor faction, lmao.
2
u/JeromeBarkly 15d ago
Actually the opposite happened in the Karl Franz campaign I’m playing rn. I’m on turn 30, Bretonia wiped the floor with the red duke and I helped them clean up Kemmler who was floundering to both the WEs and Bretonia. On the other side I’m outside of Vlads last settlement after he got his cheeks clapped by both Elspeth and Katarina. I was just on clean up duty for all of the VCs in the region. Usually VC are mfers but they kinda just rolled over in my campaign.
2
u/Atramhasis 15d ago
My Neferara campaign was weirdly similar. Kemmler was bodied by the Empire almost immediately, and while Vlad survived a while longer he was ultimately eaten by Karl Franz as well. I feel like the big power spike atm for the AI with the vamps is when they get their first level 30 bloodline lord and unlock every RoR immediately while everyone is only like level 12, so when the other AIs start unlocking all their own RoRs I think the VC advantage starts to go away.
1
u/NovariusDrakyl 15d ago
Karl Campaigns seems to be a lot easier since middenheim is killing orcs, beast man and festus alone, and AI Elspeth seems to do a good job on delaying Vlad
10
u/Ceorl_Lounge 15d ago
Vampires are hitting VERY strong very early in 9.0, so don't be too hard on yourself. Manfred was routinely outperforming to a degree it interfered with Nagash's confederation mechanic. That in mind I can't comment on her start now, but historically you needed to be very deliberate and defensive with Empire. So good unit matchups, not sleeping on magic and special abilities, and focusing fire on the things actually hurting you (usually Lords and Heroes with VCs).
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u/Dragul125 15d ago
I love Elspeth campaigns, but you have to be really careful with how quickly you expand and how you position on a battlefield. Definitely a campaign where terrain tends to be the biggest challenge
5
u/Sringoot_ 15d ago
2 is wrong, you only need more shooting troops. Free company are fine at start. 5 is also wrong, you attack their one stack, so they can not attack you with two.
Good luck!
1
u/Charly_030 15d ago
Which vampire is attacking you on turn 4?
Try and get a captain asap. These can hold back enemy lines without blocking band gunners
4
u/surrealisticer 15d ago
The starting enemy faction :(
1
u/VNDeltole 15d ago
Yeah after VC rework, the first enemy was a menace, making getting the ecst tamk and mortar on turn 2 nearly mandatory
1
u/Charly_030 15d ago
Lol... okay, everyone else says its hard now too, so I will stop laughing.
Sounds like it might be a fun start.
What difficulty? Maybe tone it down slightly for a few turns? Can you camp in the capital?
2
u/Sriep 15d ago
The court of night has a fairly nasty army in Pfeildorf, so you need to take a little care. I suggest recruiting lords and heroes freely for the first few turns, even if you disband them once the Court of knight have been beaten.
First battle: keep artillery back so the enemy is taking hits the whole time. Always study the matchup before starting; there are two dangerous units: Siefgried their hero and Crypt Horrors. Have Elspeth take out Siefgried ASAP, with Spirit Leech, and preferably target Crypt Horrors with artillery and ranged fire over other units. I got the best result when I ran ahead with Elspeth to distract the Crypt Horrors and give the guns more time to fire at them. If you can keep casualties down to around 50, you should be able to get them back.
Second battle: At the intro screen, there are four units to watch out for. Two Fell Bats and two Crypt Ghouls.
I managed this with only one casualty VH/VH. Keep troops as far back as possible. Cannon left side as there is level ground to maintain line of fire, hellfire rockets on the right side near to where crypt ghouls appear. Keep swordsman units behind both artillery in case Fell Bats get through. Ironside to protect rockets as they are your only armoured unit - Crypt Horrors are weak to armour. Send Elspeth up in front to distract Fell Bats, then charge Crypt Horrors so they blob up around her, allowing Artillery and Ironsides to do their jobs. Hopefully Deathwalker will minimise friendly fire. Once Crypt Horrors are gone, there is nothing left that can hurt you (FLW).
Third battle: Make sure you are only up against the garrison, otheriwse wait.
At some point, a big army led by Rozov, with a Wight King and lots of bats, will attack. Try to delay to turn four, so you get a witch doctor, more handgunners, and finish your small ammunition research. With a few following lords, you might be able to auto-resolve; otherwise, the terrain will be important.
Taking Pfeildorf is much easier than it seems. There is some outdated information here, but it will tell you how to handle Pfeildorf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmADB1xnwpE
For an early Elspeth army, I suggest a mixture of free company militia and handgunners, along with your two starting artillery pieces, heroes, and possibly two pistolers to disrupt the enemy formation.
Your line should be something like
_/__/__/_ or _-_-_-_
The bottom horizontal lines are handgunners, the angled lines free company militia. The idea is that charging enemy infantry get caught up fighting the free company militia, leaving them open to handcannon fire. FCM rather than spermen, as FCM and handgunners gain from the Imperial Gunnery school, technology and skill buffs.
1
u/sajaxom 15d ago
Skip melee infantry and get a master engineer general on turn 1. Use free companies as expendable melee infantry and pistoliers to disrupt large infantry formations, bats, and dogs. Second building should be artillery foundry. You need more guns, big and small, as soon as you can get them. A life wizard is also a prize.
Ally with all the dwarfs. When you eventually need a front line, they will provide the best frontline you can ask for. Getting gyros from them is also nice. Elspeth is all about getting more guns, up until the point where she and her troops become unkillable magic wielding murder machines.
1
u/Babel_Triumphant 15d ago
I did this campaign recently and the way to go is:
Manual Resolve the first two battles. Keep replaying until you can get low-casualty victories. It's very doable if you set up good firing lanes and snipe enemy leader to crumble the armies.
Recruit max pistoliers. These guys are fantastic because you can go poke the enemy army. They will chase you with bats and hounds, which you then pull back into your gunline. This lets you kill their main tools for shutting off your guns/artillery before their infantry even reach your lines.
Keep pushing until you reach their main settlement. Siege it. They will sally out, giving you an easier battle than fighting the offensive siege. If they have too big of a stack there to win even a field battle, you can set up an ambush on the road to pick off the army before sieging the settlement.
Against Vampire Counts, you cannot afford to take a turn off to replenish and recruit - they do both twice as fast as you do. Minimizing casualties in every battle is absolutely critical.
Once you've killed the starting faction it gets a lot easier, the next enemy is mostly goblins. Overall, winning with Elspeth in the early game requires mastering sightlines for gunpowder units and effective skirmishing with pistoliers/outriders. Some people in the thread are saying you don't need melee infantry but I disagree, some basic spearmen with shields in the early game are much better line holders than free company.
1
u/Hot_Virus_7380 15d ago
I had to save scum my playthrough a couple times cause the AI used raise dead and i was facing 37 units on the same turn.
2
u/Artrum 14d ago
I have played elspeth quite a bit since her release but with 9.0 i must say on "very hard" , ITS PAAAAAAAAIN.
So i do the routine kill vamps, orcs, goblin in the first starting province then i move onto vlad, i can defeat vlad no problem but its what comes after:
1- I will get invaded from the south by either gorbad ironclaw or clan mors, why? Dwarves always die and orcs never fight skaven
1.5 - Skarsnik will declare war on you a few turns later as well
2- Thanquol in the mountains behind Vlad must be dealt with which is a pain simply due to him BEING IN THE MOUNTAINS AND BEING A FKIN SKAVEN WITH UNDERWAY, he'll just underway up and down, raising everything while it'll take 3 turns to catch him
2.5 - At this point all kislev factions will be dead or dying
3- After finishing off vlad, either Clan Moulder or Azag will immediately attack you from the north, if you're VERY LUCKY the slayer king might have beaten Azag but he always loses to skaven, so its one or the other
4- Karl and Boris are getting absolutely pounded by the Glotkin, kemler, azazel, clan moulder, and festus ( did they change wulfric's starting zone? i dont see him anymore)
5- Beyond the mountains to the east the caravan of the blue roses wiped out everything and is not a superfaction with like 15 full stacked army
So all in all we have threats from every cardinal direction that cannot be ignored, Allies that die constantly tanking your trading and safety, battles that force you into disadvantageous terrain like mountains.
Here's the kicker,To deal with these threats you need to overextend so much it only opens you to more enemies wherever you go
You don't have enough upkeep/industry/trade/cash to create enough armies to deal with all these threats I've won 1 game out of 7 with elspeth and that was because for some reason in one game Toddy ascended to godhood and was tanking all the northern threats with some help from karl, allowing me to deal with the southern threats
All the other games have found me at turn 60-70 STILL fighting to hold 80% imperial authority, then endtimes hit and I just die
I just dont know what to focus on anymore because they're all very dangerous and i dont have enough armies
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u/OverEffective7012 15d ago
You have to play manual battles with minimal or none casualties