Danger dwarf’s doldrums drag diffidently  ~

Lloyd Sabin, 16 July 2018

We have now entered the summer doldrums. How do I know this? Because I have become bored and restless with my current gaming. Roughly about 150 turns in to my Total War: Warhammer 2 campaign, and I began to lose interest. Why? Perhaps the units and setting are just a bit too fantastical to me. Or maybe it’s because I suck at the tactical battles. Or there is the chance that I have been playing fantasy games for the last 3-4 weeks and I just need something new. Most likely it is a combination of all these factors and more that have turned my Tomb Kings campaign in to a long slog, with an end in sight, but far away.

Well after a short siege of their fortress city called The Awakening, their garrison and one full stack of bloodsuckers came at me, and totally bitch-slapped me

The Tomb Kings are not recommended for new players, by the game itself, in the faction selection screen. I am not a new Total War player but I am new to Warhammer, so I suppose there are a lot of intricacies to the Tomb Kings that I need to brush up on. I liked what I saw during this campaign – but there was a ton of lore…a little overwhelming and a bit unforgiving. So this carried over in to the tactical battles. I never felt 100% confident in what I was doing and always felt I did not know the full capabilities of my lords or my troops. Not the fault of the game, but my own fault for not studying up enough.

At this point I had two of the five Books of Nagash I needed. I gathered three full-stack Tomb King armies and declared war on the Vampire Counts, and went straight for the jugular in an attempt to grab the third book. Well after a short siege of their fortress city called The Awakening, their garrison and one full stack of bloodsuckers came at me, and totally bitch-slapped me. I lost every thing and was reeling back to my own dark, sandy domains. It was that embarrassingly complete loss that had me put aside the game for now, because it probably set me back another 150 turns until I could gather strength again and attempt to snatch another three Books of Nagash. So for now I put aside the fantasy war grind.

If you read last week’s installment you saw that Steam was not behaving well for me and I could only grab a small hand full of shots. I make up for that this week with as many as I can squeeze in here before I say good bye to the Tomb Kings…for a while.

My next target, the Vampire Counts. I was not nearly strong enough to take them on, which I learned the hard way.

Rites are world-affecting spells that have long standing effects. There are several available to each faction as they level up.

Cairn Wraiths. Great sounding units…not available to me but to the Dark Elves. My unit roster was very slowly improving, but was never a match for my enemies.

There are customizable weapons, armor, and spells for each faction, some of which take half a campaign or more to get.

Crypt Horrors – more fear-inducing units, also not available to me but the Vampire Counts. How could my rinky-dink skeletons hope to have a chance?

Corpse Carts! For the Vampire Counts. It was here where I began to lose hope. And for good reason. Vampiric units proved to be very difficult to kill…moreso than the Dark or High Elves, which were difficult enough.

Diplomatically I was faring much better, allying with other Tomb King factions who were very strong. But what would happen later in the campaign when the weaker civilizations were wiped out? My undead Tomb King bones shivered to think about it.

Here we go…the siege of the vampiric fortress at The Awakening begins. Three full armies should be enough, eh? Not when they are comprised mostly of musty-boned grave walkers.

On paper and by the numbers this looks open-and-shut…I should win easily. Not when unit quality is revealed, though.

My dead legions prepare to…piss me off.

Fell Bats…I was not afraid. I had flying horror units as well. I probably should have been more afraid because these bastards tore my lines of undead apart.

Well I didn’t get a decent screen shot of the Vampire Counts beating the crap out of me but rest assured they did. Whatever was left of my three full stacks reeled and stumbled away from the fortress at The Awakening and in to the swamp wilderness around it…The Pox Marsh. Lovely.
Another battle that, when viewed on paper, looked potentially winnable…except for the large collection of special units the Vampire Counts brought with them. Not good.

The one great big shining star for my Tomb Kings during this vampire war was my artillery. It scored some serious shots against the enemy in both battles. If I had more pieces maybe they could have turned the tide.

And so it was that I decided to put the Tomb Kings aside for a bit.The campaign could easily turn out to be 300+ turns or more, and it was bogging down in to a repetitive turns that began blending in to each other…build armies of less than stellar units, use heroes to try to weaken enemy armies, cities, and fortresses, get my ass handed to me (more often than not) and try again for another 25 turns. I did seize two Books of Nagash but I was exhausted. Time to switch it up a bit and play something else…no offense to Total War: Warhammer 2. I just need a break. It’s me, not you.

Thanks for reading!

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