First off I would go out and admit that I am relatively new to playing this mod, but certainly have enjoyed my time with it thus far. However, I have found that I have run into a bit of a wall regarding some units playing as the Empire. First off are cairn wraiths (although I suspect the same might apply for other ethereal units), dragons, and to a slightly smaller extent, Arachnarok spiders. While playing the Balthasar Gelt's second quest battle (Dragon Tomb I believe it was called) both on the campaign and from the main menu the first big problem I ran into was the Cairn Wraiths.

I'll limit to discussing the battle in the campaign because there at least I can switch units. I went into the battle with 2 mortars, the Sunmaker, the Hammer of the witches, the son's of sigmar, 4 swordsmen units, six halberdiers, 1 greatsword, 1 outrider, and 2 pistoliers. My artillery barrage worked wonders of the enemy infantry save for the cairn wraiths. They pretty much made a beeline for the center of my line with not so much as a dip in their healthbar. I tried using Gelt's Hound's spell and bombardment spell but that did not phase them either.

Just as the Cairn wraiths started working on my line, my artillery killed the starting necromancer, and thus spawning the Dragon riding vampire lord. Needless too say my artillery was I'll prepared for facing a dragon and my Hammer of the Witches did neligible damage to the dragon before it got to my main army body and pretty much started a chain rout within moments of landing.

I tried a couple of custom battles to see if I could find something to counter th wraiths but thus far nothing short of killing their lord seems to be able to stop their onslaught (which makes sense in a normal battle but didn't really seem to matter in the quest battle). The bombardment battle prayers from Volkmar and a Warrior priest did almost nothing and the Banishment vortex from a light wizard which I was hoping would do something, was little more than a mere delay to them.

@ Omega

Interesting description, and I know exactly the battle you are talking about and have beaten it in VH (although I reloaded about 4 times I beleive). Two key parts to the battle.

1. Magical attacks, and/or magical attacks with high ap. Our ethereal units have gotton quite an overhaul (including I might add a very limited campaign cap...which does help u in this case :) ) and are VERY good. However any uinit with a migical attack (or a spell which gives a unit migical attack) can cut through these guys like butter, especially if they have a high ap damage output as well. The empire is quite well placed here. Do note that you need to time you attcks for when the enemy caster has not just case the healing spell, othwise they a borderline unkillable, but with the correct tools, I have seen them go down in mere seconds.

2. A vampire lord riding a dragon is about as tough as it gets, these are trulty terrifiy foes. At the very least you need 3-4 gun units to focus fire on him (and not as he approaches, better that he lands and attack so unit (hopefully not the gun units) and then open fire a point blank range, and if possible chuck some fire damage in as well (vampire on a dragon still have somthing liek 70% fire weakness). As with the wraiths, if he is under a healing undead spell, its almost not worth it either as he will be almost unkillable. If things go right, a massive initial hit can also send him into the crumble/disetergrate mechanis which is a nice icing on the cake to finish him off.

Hope this helps.

I was running a few more tests in customs when I had an Alexander Flemming moment and discovered a hard counter on sheer accident. Since its description indicated it's weak against multiple opponents I hadn't really bothered with the Final Trasmutation spell or other similar spells, but while targeting the enemy general with it, the unit of Cairn Wraiths were caught in the AOE of the spell and were affected by it as well. To my suprise it was a one shot situation for both the general and the wraiths. The general was Ghorst without any spells, abilities, mounts or items so real battles will sureley vary with healing spells and what not. I decided to try it out against a unit of Hexwraiths with identical results. I also tried out the Witch Hunter's Accusation ability with the same results on both Cairn and Hex wraiths being one shotted (provided the Witch Hunter didn't die first)

Against Vampire counts I like the RoR handgunners for their magic AP damage (they kill the scary stuff easily). I find a fire mage also very important, vampire fire weakness means they get hit super hard from all the spells and the burning blade spell can be used to make Flagellants hard counter ethereal units. Flagellants are pretty amazing with their very high AP damage, make it magical and they can hurt alot of the more threatening units pretty significantly. They really shine against Vampire counts that do not have range troops that hard counter them hard. Soul leech, final transmutation, etc, are all great against high health troops/monster groups as the chance to activate on target is rolled on each model in a unit until it goes off. So on a single model you have 10% to take damage from soul leach once every 2 seconds but on a troop unit you now have (model count)*10% chance to get damage once every 2 seconds.

if you like monsters, just wait for lizardmen XD

Hahaha. Looks more like an oversized turkey to me....

XD 'try to emagine yourself in the Lustrian jungle, you get your first look at this carnosaur' etc.
YOU DIE !!! XD

Well that's the beauty of Total War... I can turn the tables and be the one sending monsters... After my run ins with Wraiths as the Empire, I decided to start a campaign as Kemmler... And boy do I love the using the wraiths as my litlle special forces hit squad... And chain rout starting squad...

In any case... The Skaven and the Dark Elves have ways to deal with monsters in the form of obscenley powerful weapons and other monsters respectiveley

When it comes to giant monsters I found the best solution to most is the same on the Table Top: cannons, cannons, and cannons will tear through the enemy monsters with ease. Don't have cannons? Sned in YOUR giant monsters.

@ Warlord

Indeed. I remember somone complaining that cannon's were crap (vs infatry as opposed to rockets) but everything has its purpose. I remember a nasty fire (me empire, two stacks of ai VC) and the ai had like 7 units of crypt horrors. Without the cannons I would have lost. The bigger the monster, the better the cannons. Other then wall smashing, that exactly what they are for.

@zoommooz11

That person complaininng about cannons doesn't sound like they even played vanilla. Cannons have never been very good against infantry. Even in vanilla I think the Grudge thrower outperformed the Great Cannon.

They can be useful against infantry with dense formations, but more times than not you are better off using arty like mortars and catapults for anti-infantry duty.

Haven't posted in a while due to not having played but I discovered something yesterday that I had begun suspecting since the last time I played:

Regarding Emperor Karl Franz *titles titles...* and surprising Monster Hunter. Even without points allocated to the Anti-Large skill, Karl Franz seems to be surprisingly adept at killingmonstrous infantry when supported by spear men or halberdiers. Spearmen engaging from the front and Karl Franz taking a flank, seems to go to town on monsters. It's still not as fast as flanking with a handgun unit, but this is an engagement that I think if initiated correctly can result in the defeat of the monstrous unit before your regular infantry is rendered useless due to losing so many models.

Originally posted by Wakelessrex:

XD 'try to emagine yourself in the Lustrian jungle, you get your first look at this carnosaur' etc.
YOU DIE !!! XD

How much did you enjoy that Grymloq reveal?

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