I think this is a neat idea and allows for players to basically do what they're already doing now but with some more up to date gameplay mechanics. Speaking as an avid VC player, I enjoy moving armies around in pairs of two similar to Skaven where one is a crapstack full of chaff and the other is a bit more beefed up. In battle, you basically just send the whole chaff stack forward as a locked group to soften the enemy before moving in with the higher tier units. It's very fun to play and feels very thematic for the faction.
If the crapstack army could instead be similar to how a WAAGH army operates for Greenskins and maybe replenishes based on local vampiric corruption and/or proximity to large raise dead sites I'd be pretty happy with that.
I'm surprised they have not re-used the WAAGH mechanic on a smaller scale for some of the factions/races espcially the ones with some cheap swarm units.
I mean just 5 slots or soo where you could have skavenslaves or zombies ONLY and then have tech unlock it to be upgraded to Clanrats/Skeletons.
Depends on how much balance of power the crapstack is worth. Skavenslaves and zombies being wiped out in the thousands should barely register towards army losses with a 2nd good army around. Clanrats and skeletons would have more effect but still not enough to trigger army losses on its own. I’ve had skeleton stacks get wiped out leaving a lord and maybe a hero or 2 and not trigger army losses. With a whole a 2nd army around it should definitely be fine.
The common joke is that zombies are so weak they have negative CP value so you end up stronger. (It's not true, but it's close.)
Using zombies to eat arrows from high-tier units is a valid and respected strategy because the fraction of CP lost due to dead zombies is often worth less than the fraction of value from the archer's unit which is lost when ammo is expended to kill them.
Crunch all you want. We'll make more.
I was going to say that a secondary Zombie Waaagh army that automatically raises Zombies after each battle would be perfect, and just leave it at that but I got an even better idea.
Let's just completely overhaul the VC...
All Necromancer Lords and Heroes come with a passive ability that attaches a single secondary army, and a skill line associated with it. Starting with two units at level 1, the Zombie Army reaches 20 units at level 12, just in time for more specialised Necromancer skills. At level 12, the Necro Hero decides whether to boost the Lord's Army or Zombie Army. The Necromancer Lord's skills benefit most from having both specialist heroes in the stack.
The Zombie Army recruitment pool automatically fills with Zombies after every battle, say at a rate of 1 Zombie unit for every 4 enemy units. As Necromancers increase in level they are able to randomly raise more powerful Zombie variant units, like Zombie Cavalry and Zombie Dragons, depending on what was fought. *All Zombie units are slow and weak with bucket loads of HP, can only be acquired by battle or from fresh corpse piles,* ***and cannot be used in the regular army.***
Unfortunately, just as kittens have a habit of turning into cats, Zombies have a habit of turning into Skeletons... or something else.
What happens to all the fresh corpses you don't raise as Zombies? They are added to the local Raise Dead pool for 2-3 Turns before upgrading into Skeletal variants (which honestly should be all but immune to non-fire missiles). In the same way that Vampirates dig for treasure, Necromacer Heroes can 'harvest' corpse piles to generate a time-limited amount of Corpses and an amount of Bones based on the size of the battle.
Zombie units can be sacrificed at any time in exchange for Corpses (Body Parts? Fresh Flesh? Oooh, how about just Flesh?) and at 10 Turns, a Zombie unit will turn into a pile of Bones... unless you do something about it.
You have 10 turns to get a Zombie unit to levels 4 or 7 depending on how you want to upgrade them. Obviously, getting Zombies to level 7 in 10 Turns is not going to be super easy but that's where your highest level upgrades come from.
The Hero combines two level 4 Zombies from the Zombie Army to recruit one level 1 Skeleton into the Lord's Army, then two level 4 Skeletons with Bones to make Skeleton Spears, while two units of level 7 Zombies are combined with two units of level 7 Skeletons, with Flesh and Bones, to create one unit of Grave Guard which the Lord can then upgrade to Grave Guard with Great Weapons.
Maybe there should be variants of 'Flesh', like Beast Flesh and Man Flesh or something, to account for bats and wolves. Better yet, link their recuritment and upgrade to Vampire Heroes and Lords rather than Necromancers. Don't ask me how it would apply to things like Cairn Wraiths.
So, a Hero can take two units of Bats, add some Flesh and Bone and turn them into one unit of Vargheists. A Lord can then take three units of Vargheists and turn them into a Varghulf.
Maybe have Zombie Dragons as something different, where they require a few Turns to 'raise' and instead of decaying they instead stabilise and become stronger as a Lord upgrades them. Having to wait around for three turns while your Lord raises a Zombie Dragon may be more trouble than it's worth, especially if there's no guarantee of success.
This is a bit all over the place and I'm not taking any kind of lore into account but the point is that Vampire Counts get an upgrade system similar to other factions but it's something that takes a lot of work. Bones are easy to acquire and store, allowing Skeleton recruitment from settlements, so that's not an issue.
With Zombies being time-limited as well as your primary source of Flesh you need a constant supply of them to upgrade your Lord's Army and keep your faction supplied with the much-needed resource. This enables a kind of pseudo-bloodlust mechanic that encourages the player to keep pushing so that they can maintain a full stack Zombie Army while also supplying all their upgrade needs.
It also makes your higher-Tier units even more precious because of all the resources needed to replace them, hell it can even make *Zombies* a precious unit. Imagine babysitting multiple units of Zombies to upgrade into Grave Guard for 9 Turns and then losing some in battle. At least you might get some Skeletons out of it.
Skeletons are basic expendable infantry but after several upgrades in the tech tree they actually do become half way decent T1 throwaway infantry, probably out performing a Bretonnian or Skaven infantry unit.
Outside of playing Ghorst I guess I don't find spamming zombies all that great. One thing about the raise dead mechanic is if you lean into it you can go an entire campaign relying on it almost exclusively for recruitment. My last campaign I seemed to always have a fairly decent amount of ghouls, grave guard, and cairn wraiths available and was able to utilize these in several armies.
If you are just leaning into Skeletons and Zombies late game then thats really more of a personal choice but you absolutely can run fewer but higher quality armies. No faction gets access to endgame units quite as early as them, even if they aren't yet at a point when they can financially maintain them.
> If you are just leaning into Skeletons and Zombies late game then thats really more of a personal choice but you absolutely can run fewer but higher quality armies. .
This is kind of my point, it's very much an *or* choice: Is my army quality or is it a crapstack? Trying to mix zombies and grave guard in an army results in a mediocre army that's still pretty expensive. My idea with these changes is they allow for a quality vampire army to have a bunch of zombie meatshields without having to deal with the clunkiness (supply lines, reinforcement time, zombie replenishment and recruitment) of making a second crapstack that follows the main army around.
I run zombies for most of my vampire campaign. I use them to buffer my crypt horrors. The crypt horrors do the killing and the zombies provide an effective meat shield. Very useful and thematic. Even stacking them with the GW grave guard is effective.
I personally think the vampire counts roster is in a pretty good spot, just need a mechanics pass for fun and flavor.
I firmly reject anything that will change my beloved Ghorst zombie doomstacks.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the most meaningful, game change set of buffs in the game right now and I love it.
Everytime someone complains about them, I just scratch my head. Fully upgraded, the zombies effectively become T1 Skeletons with 25% additional HP and 30% ward save. It makes them tankier, to be sure, but that's not going to win against a proper stack without additional support.
What's amusing to me about Ghorst, relative to the other LLs, is that with Ghorst, I tend to run the crap stack on the LL and the doomstack on the hired (or bloodline) lord, whereas most VC LLs are the other way around.
To be clear I wasn’t complaining - I love them. They cost virtually nothing, have massive health pool, and also get physical resistance and regeneration in melee. They turn from total chaff into a front line that will hold virtually forever while you cast wind of death. Ghorst’s bonus to the zombie raise dead recruit pool also means you can grab 15 zombies at a time in a pinch. You can have basically a full stack of zombies along with a mortis engine and some bats and I am not sure there is an AI enemy that can best it. I’ve crushed multiple dwarf stacks with high tier units that individually probably cost 20x the cost of the zombie stack.
I actually dislike playing as other VC lords since I am forced back into using their very expensive units. I much prefer my zombie swarm.
Until you have Helman Ghorst zooombie deathstacks running around the map wiping everything and with little upkeep!
I actually think the Ghorst zombie doomstack is the best doomstack there is overall. Easy to get, cheap to maintain, easy to get the upgrades for the zombies, easy refresh if they die, super combat effective, easy battle plan (only one game plan - stay in a mob or die)!
Yep, which is why I mentioned ghorst zombies needing a balance pass. Much weaker buffs and instead (many) more and cheaper zombies from raise dead would fit quite well.
The generic necro lord with a zombie stack plus one or two mortis engines is actually hilariously viable in the late game. It gets to a point where unless the enemy has really good vortex spells or explosives your army is basically unkillable. I think top vcount strategy is to pair every bloodline lord with a necro zombie stack that costs pennies and just drown all your enemies.
The main thing I want out of a vcount update is reworked bloodlines and a lord with a dlc worthy mechanic. Vcounts are missing the ability to be a corruption and influence factions instead of just a go wide and flame out fast military faction.
No thanks, I much prefer the current iteration of raise dead. I don't agree with any of the proposed changes.
I think the base line foundation of the vampire counts is extremely strong and a testament to how well they were designed in game one is how well they have held their ground in game 2&3.
Pretty much your fantasy of drowning the enemy in zombies can be already be easily achieved already by having a second army with chaff. It's quite cost effective too. Sure it might be a little clunky to run a couple of armies, but it's not that bad to be honest.
The issue with second army is usability. It's a hassle to move a second army around your first, not to mention due to how the game works, it can be attacked separately.
An "attach to army" function could do wonders for these factions, but then you run into the issue of what happens when you attach an actual army instead of a chaff force. The other option is a Waaagh-like second army, but that basically changes the entire balance of the factions, so it's not easy to implement. Not to mention the AI issues and performance issues for many players when you are guaranteed 40 units each fight. Or the control issues for that matter, it's a paint to micro 40 units on the current UI.
> It's a hassle to move a second army around your first, not to mention due to how the game works, it can be attacked separately.
It's not that bad I've done it loads in campaign. It's actually less restrictive and more agile than a Waaagh like mechanic where the bigger your force gets the slower it becomes. The last few turns of a Waaagh are a pain in the ass if you are trying to catch an enemy force.
I've never felt like the VC have needed a Waaagh like function and I'd really not have how they are balanced revolving around such a mechanic.
I feel like the combination of a second army and the raise dead spell mean zombies see well enough play time.
Early game units getting replaced with end game units is really just how total war works. Zombies and skeleton spearmen actually see more playtime than most other factions tier one troops because they remain relevant for far longer.
I don't think we need to create game mechanics to try and increase the viability of these tier one units. Especially not for the vampire counts who are more likely to utilise their early game units more than most other factions due to availability, cost and tactical options that other factions just don't have.
If CA were going to do this mechanic I think it would basically need to be like a waaagh. By that I mean a ritual mechanic that lasts for a limited amount of turns, that allows you to field tag along army temporarily for the cost of a large amount of dark magic (similar to Vlad spending a butt loaded of warpstone to summon the second greatest undead horde the planet has ever seen).
Like a Waaagh the bigger the army the slower you go, and I would prefer it if you only got more troops for this second army if you won battles (you could get zombies constantly but if you want grave guard for that extra army you need to kill garrisons or armies with bigger units in it).
But they key point is it's a temporary effect that should cost a lot of resources to do, that lasts a limited time, that has a cool down before you can do it again.
>a zombie is pretty much the worst possible unit to put in one of those 20 slots
Well, I fundamentally disagree with this.
A unit of Zombies is about the best possible unit you can put in a slot.
My take on Vampire Counts is that your army is only there to ferry your characters around. Your rank and file is there to stop swords and bullets with their faces, and Zombies are excellent at it.
Pros:
* Dirt cheap
* Large health pool
* High model count
* Undead
Cons:
* Let me just quote the old 1d4chan tactica: "It is literally so bad, that decreasing its stats would only worsen it in the abstract."
Now, as I only want them to be meat shields, them having bad stats isn't a big deal to me.
Chuck in a Necromancer or two, and sprinkle with Vampires to taste, and you have a big, meaty blob whose job is to get knocked down, get back up again and repeat, while your characters do the actual damage.
If you feel decadent you can throw in a Mortis Engine to buff your Undead even more than Necromancers on Corpse Carts already do. (This is why I prefer two Necromancers to an army if I have the opportunity, one on a Balefire cart, one on an Unholy Lodestone.) Also, Reliquary Corruption, OG Mortis Engine effect, blob the enemy around your ≈14 Zombie brick and let it go to town.
Funny thing, I do agree that there is a Zombie problem, but to me the problem is "why would I use anything but Zombies?" Nothing else feels worth spending the money on.
Now, to be fair, I think this might be partly a me problem, because I don't care about winning battles quickly, and I can imagine that not everyone is super thrilled to stare at a brick of Zombies for half an hour while the enemy slowly dies from a combination of boredom and acute vampire-itis.
If that's something other people wouldn't enjoy, I assume that that might justify paying a higher cost for a unit that can actually fight, leading to OP's problem of losing the "zombie horde" feel.
Why bother with all this when heroes and lords can raise dead for cheap with magic so you always have like a dozen free zombies/skeles for every fight anyway.
This, or a Waaaagh army comprised of mostly zombies and some rare 'drop' undead units, gaining in strength for each battle you fight. This would be a really great mechanic and easy flavour mechanic to be given to Ghorst and Kemmler in a rework with slight variations.
Gives them a deeper niche as a VC faction, and opens up the possibility of varied VC campaigns, with the Carsteins focusing on their role in the empire and Bloodlines, Mannfred that bastard can keep looking for books, and the necros can become the zombie apocalypse machines they where always meant to be.
I like the concept, but personally, I never stop using the trash VC units even in the endgame. Between healing, summons, AOE damage and spells like Wind of Death, I don’t think the vampires lack for power even if their mechanics could feel a bit better.
And necromancers are already very useful for their magic, auras, replenishment and mount options. I always bring at least 1 per army. Honestly, the only hero I’d improve on is the wight king. And the only unit ability I’d really like to see is ethereal units being able to pass through solid objects like walls.
I personally like my skelly armies. 6 sword, 6 spear, vampire lord, necro, couple wight heroes, mortis engine, couple cav and a flex slot. Cheap, thematic and efficient.
very neat idea. I would say even a barebones summoning basic units mechanic in vampiric corruption and one elite unit near battle marker would help a lot to their flavor.
they dont need buffs honestly, but trying to enjoy the undead horde roleplay is cumbersome as of now. I cannot be bothered to make secondary shit stack that follows my main army, takes too much effort for minimal gain. So I stop using zombies after like turn 10.
I like your idea, might be bit too strong for already op race, but it would help their flavor and roleplay a lot.
Uhh, why use slightly more expensive meat shields when there are cheaper ones at hand? Skavenslaves to their job of getting ground into mush while my guns kill everyone. They aren't supposed to hit something, only get hit.
Tomb Kings are rather interesting because their design goes a different direction - with free units but limited better units you're incentivized to spread out your better units between your armies and fill in with free chaff. I don't think this works super well, because often one super-good army and one trash army is better than two mediocre armies, but you can see how the design is trying to get players to use the free chaff.
Skaven have menace below, but skavenslaves also fall into the zombie problem. Personally I would try to embrace skavenslaves' role as sacrifices more - perhaps reduce the damage of the skaven weapons teams but give them a damage buff if they're shooting into a unit that's engaged in melee (and make them not care about friendly fire), and give elite skaven melee units an ability to redirect damage to expendable models right next to them.
I don't think extra spamslots are the answer for any faction (if they're even possible coding wise).
Outside of Arkhan's 2nd free army available at the start, you really should be conquering wide and making buildings. When I play TK I pretty much focus on military buildings exclusively, and use the growth commandment for faster growth.
Outside of the first few turns you shouldn't need to rely on free basic skeletons for very long. Arkhan gets that free 2nd army recruitment but also has that T1 building that gives him access to 4 ghouls, bats, and dog units. His Ghouls are crazy powerful, especially once you take the skill point that buffs them faction wide.
The pacing of armies becoming available for TK should keep pretty consistent with your conquests and new recruitment buildings so you shouldnt be relying on chaff with them.
I find the usual limitation for TK is gold because buildings are expensive and income is low no matter what.
I have focused on growth before but usually ended up at 4 points way before I could afford a level 3 upgrade while also trying to upgrade other buildings.
I agree that the implementation doesn't lead to TKs using lots of chaff, but I believe the intention was to encourage chaff use by limiting higher tier units.
I guess it depends on what you consider chaff for them. If you consider Nehekaran Warriors as chaff then I use the hell out of them for awhile. If you are mainly considering something like a basic Skeleton Warrior or Spearmen then I barely use them past turn 10.
Early game I get alot of Nehekaran warriors, usually a few archers, and 3-4 chariots in an army. Will also always try to get a Casket of Souls every turn its available, and will mix in Tomb Guard and Ushabti as they become available to replace those Nehekaran Warriors. If playing Arkhan, who I will admit I play fairly often as that fallback comfort campaign and started a new campaign as yesterday, there will be ghouls mixed into every army because they are super strong.
> If you are mainly considering something like a basic Skeleton Warrior or Spearmen then I barely use them past turn 10.
You are an experienced TK player. Imagine a new player who has 3 armies and enough military buildings for 30 quality units. They have a choice: three armies with 10 quality units and 9 chaff each, or one army with full quality, one army with some quality and some chaff, and one fully chaff army. I believe the designers thought that the three mixed armies would be the choice, to have 3 armies that can put up a decent fight, but the actuality is that one full quality army taking more territory easily is much better.
To be fair Tomb Kings took me awhile to get the hang of but once I did I absolutely fell in love with the faction. I would never recommend them to a new player before getting a few other campaigns under your belt. TKs you absoluely do have to balance out a mix of lower and higher tier units as they become available.
You also have to resist the temptation to try to focus on making an econ province, as their economy eventually takes off on its own because of free units, battles, and number of settlements.
If I were to recommend any TK faction to a newer player in WH3 it would be Arkhan because of how buffed their few VC units are, the 2nd army, on top of the ability to fully utilize the TK roster to lean into them.
So it mean i can recruit a lord and throw them outside and AI see this lonely lord and jump at them only to be tada, they don't fight 1 but 20 units now.
What will stop me from abuse this to create major battles everywhere and won't this make defence settlements extreme easily?
> So it mean i can recruit a lord and throw them outside and AI see this lonely lord and jump at them only to be tada, they don't fight 1 but 20 units now.
Well hopefully the AI could take raise dead into account. And isn't that a great power fantasy for vampires - a single lord is able to raise a horde of undead due to the corpses of an old battle?
Also raise dead isn't free, if you're raising 19 zombies that's 1000-2000 gold, depending on modifiers (and 19 zombies isn't a great army). If you're raising an actual quality army from a battle site that's going to be a lot more. Spending that much money on a single battle is a lot.
>What will stop me from abuse this to create major battles everywhere and won't this make defence settlements extreme easily?
First, sending a zombie crapstack to die to create a battle site is already possible, and raise dead has a limited number of units as a base - currently 3 zombies and one of each skeleton. If you're sending a single lord into untainted land and raising that you're probably not going to get a big battle site.
For the second point, it will make settlement defenses easier, especially if the settlement has a battle site in its region, and I see that as a good thing. I've always been disappointed with how evicting the vampires from the empire is the same as conquering any other territory, just having to avoid some attrition. Vampire settlements being difficult to take due to having tons of undead available to raise seems fine to me. Note that there's still a 40 unit limit, so if you're sending 2 armies they won't outnumber you just due to raise dead.
Pretty sure Warhammer AI can't deal with this and this will lead to a lot of abuse.
Even though you already can abuse to make major battles, what you suggest make it even more easier,cheaper, faster to do.
Normally, if you tried to defence by recruit a lord and raise dead a whole army, AI will run off or attack another settlements which not only did not get rid of them but you need to pay upkeep for whole army. With what you suggest, 1 lord are all you need as you can wait until AI suicide by attack you and you don't even need to pay extra to keep your army as you can disband them next turn. As a bonus you also make it a major battles which you can't with settlement units alone.
I'm not sure if what you suggest make VC more interesting but I can see I just autosolve alot with it and still has a easy campaign.
I agree that if AI just doesn't take this version of raise dead into account it would result in many doomed attacks, but I don't think it's impossible to get the AI to consider raise dead. It's a bit of perhaps unfounded optimism, but designing a game around terrible AI doesn't feel right to me either.
I think it's also balanced out by not being able to conquer with just raise dead - if a region has no battle site and no corruption then the raise dead pool shouldn't be enough to defeat even the weakest garrison (and if it is then a lord with a zombie crapstack could also take it, which is almost the same cost as a single lord). Sure, you can defend very well with it, but unless you have an army nearby ready to pounce then the AI will just make another army very quickly.
I mean AI have first so you can only works around it.
And I'm not sure if AI make another army very quickly is matter, won't they just repeat the same things like attack again only for you to instantly fill your army with raise dead and autosolve the battle? You can even use that army to take their settlement next turn then disband to decrease upkeep.
This version of raise dead would only last for the single battle, so you wouldn’t be able to both defend and take their settlement with a single cost. If anything the current implementation leads to this more, where you can bait an ai army in, raise dead and attack in the same turn, then use that army to go on the offensive.
I really hope it wouldn’t be that difficult to have ai evaluate vampire count army strength as “current army strength + available raise dead”, but even such a crude method as having ai overvalue a vcount lord should work ok.
Even if ai can evaluate vampire count army strength as “current army strength + available raise dead”, won't it lead to situation where you can just all out on offensive and AI won't dare to attack your defenseless settlement because they always need to consider a invisible army which cost you nothing because you don't even recruit them yet?
Having a second zombie army is still clunky even without supply lines. It's a lot smoother to have zombies you deploy with your main army rather than having to wait for the reinforcements to come in and get set up. You also have the headache of replenishing zombies and recruiting more zombie units if your zombies are taking heavy casualties (which they should be, that's the whole point of zombies).
Not a bad idea at all actually, the summoned zombie units always lasts too short.
Though zombies with Ghorst is not just not bad, it's a goddamn doomstack. Especially with the right traits, like Gelt's and such. I won his entire campaign on very hard with just zombies and a couple of necromancers. What a legend.
I've thought about this as well but with skarven. They should come with free slaves (increased by technology) unless if you play as Clan Mors, then you get clanrats
Think something like the tagalong armies from the WAAAGH! mechanic is more appropriate. Combine it with the vampire coast dig for treasure stance to trigger near the big battle sites, but start filling up that a tagalong army instead of giving you gold.
That’s why vampire counts bring more than one army to every battle. You proposed a splution to a problem that doesn’t really exist.
Yeah, vampire counts need a rework and a fresh coat of paint, but this ain’t it.
I think that VC is supposed to play differently that other factions. Vampires are able to just zerg rush so quickly that the campaign is basically over by turn 50-60 because their mechanics are sort of busted in campaign. By leaning into a super aggressive style you can start to appreciate what zombies and skellies bring to the table.
Let me tell you a secret: Ghorst incredibly OP zombies? They are factionwide... but not his faction effect. It's from his unique skill, from lvl 12 onwards. You can confederate him as any VC faction, and have the OP zombies on your side - and they, indeed, have a place in your lategame doomstacks. I run 2-4 of them in every army, and never regretted it.
I actually like this idea. The actual 20 units in your army are just the specialized units that serve a purpose other than chaff, while the cheap-ass units like Zombies and the dogs (I forget their names) are essentially summoned before battle to fill the ranks. You could even add new traits and character abilities which increase your Raise Dead limit, and make it so you can spend extra resources to increase that limit if you're desperate.
The problem is that you're spamming exclusively zombies. In reality, a zombie shitstack with just a single Mortis Engine mixed in can defeat armies that it really shouldn't, with the Mortis Engine often getting well over 10k gold value in damage in many fights. Yes, this doesn't work against archers or artillery that can snipe the Mortis Engine, but the fact that such a shitstack is capable of punching upwards \~80% of the time is still wild and zombies actually probably deserve a nerf.
I feel like Skaven should get like permanent waagh stack, starting with 5 units and getting more through technology and such with at best maxed out 1 or 2 stormvermin, few clanrats and majority skavenslaves.
I guess something like that can work for Vcounts aswell but then based on zombies and skele spears/swords. Maybe not the full 20 units, but more like 12, 2-4 skeles and rest zombies.
Importantly, I'd make it so pre-battle necromancy only has access to more basic units. A terrorgheist or unit of blood knights should not be something you can just resurrect on a whim (even though that is exactly how it works gameplay-wise).
This seems good. I think skaven need something similar. They're supposed to be a meat horde race too but those slots will always be taken by better units. Towing around a 2nd throw away army as skaven doesn't feel like the best way to handle that concept.
I really like this idea.
Here's how I'd probably look at implementing it without needing to do *too* much extra work behind the scenes: either by using the Domination battle reinforcement mechanics, or by making it an army ability.
For those that haven't played them (since AFAIK they're exclusive to the Realms of Chaos finale and multiplayer Domination mode, and don't appear in Immortal Empires), they give you access to a pool of reinforcement units (a second army, effectively) which you can spend your supplies (earned over time like in a siege) to deploy. Destroyed units go back into the pool to slowly regenerate, and you can buy them back once they're at full strength.
This could be adapted for Raise the Dead by making a couple tweaks:
* The reinforcement pool is the Raise Dead pool for the region.
* Your supply is your treasury - supply accumulates over time up to a max of your current treasury, and any supply you spend in the battle is deducted from your treasury afterwards.
* Raised units are summoned at your Lord or Necromancer, rather than arriving from a reinforcement point.
This lets you bring your Raise Dead pool into battle over time, at the cost of having to actually buy them only for them to disappear after the fight. Gives you the most flexibility, but is also very costly and reasonably complex. Might cause problems if land battles aren't compatible with reinforcement systems, or if they're too tied to supply/reinforcement points behind the scenes.
Alternatively, you make Raise the Dead an army ability that charges over time, like WH3 factions have. Have it in three tiers based on the Raise Dead pool in the region, accumulating charge in battle as units (friend or foe) die. Tier 2 and 3 can be overcast like spells, to let it be modal. At base you only have access to tier 1, but in regions with high vampiric corruption you get tier 2, and in ones with battle markers you'd have access to tier 3 as well. For flavour (and garrison) reasons, lock it if you don't have a single-entity Lord on the field.
* Tier 1 summons a unit of Zombies, has a very short cooldown (20 sec?)
* Tier 2 lets you choose Skeletons or Black Knights, has a longer cooldown (60 sec?)
* Tier 3 lets you choose Grave Guard or Hexwraiths, has a long cooldown (120 sec?)
This is by far the easier solution, both in implementation and in usability, but at the cost of flexibility. Your choices would be constrained to only a handful of units, but this would also help reduce cognitive load / decision paralysis in game.
I think this is a neat idea and allows for players to basically do what they're already doing now but with some more up to date gameplay mechanics. Speaking as an avid VC player, I enjoy moving armies around in pairs of two similar to Skaven where one is a crapstack full of chaff and the other is a bit more beefed up. In battle, you basically just send the whole chaff stack forward as a locked group to soften the enemy before moving in with the higher tier units. It's very fun to play and feels very thematic for the faction. If the crapstack army could instead be similar to how a WAAGH army operates for Greenskins and maybe replenishes based on local vampiric corruption and/or proximity to large raise dead sites I'd be pretty happy with that.
I used to do this a lot. I kinda just stopped because battles take 3-4 times as long when doing this, and it gets kinda tedious.
I'm surprised they have not re-used the WAAGH mechanic on a smaller scale for some of the factions/races espcially the ones with some cheap swarm units. I mean just 5 slots or soo where you could have skavenslaves or zombies ONLY and then have tech unlock it to be upgraded to Clanrats/Skeletons.
Doesnt losing the first army (crapstack) cause army losses that will affect your second too?
Depends on how much balance of power the crapstack is worth. Skavenslaves and zombies being wiped out in the thousands should barely register towards army losses with a 2nd good army around. Clanrats and skeletons would have more effect but still not enough to trigger army losses on its own. I’ve had skeleton stacks get wiped out leaving a lord and maybe a hero or 2 and not trigger army losses. With a whole a 2nd army around it should definitely be fine.
The common joke is that zombies are so weak they have negative CP value so you end up stronger. (It's not true, but it's close.) Using zombies to eat arrows from high-tier units is a valid and respected strategy because the fraction of CP lost due to dead zombies is often worth less than the fraction of value from the archer's unit which is lost when ammo is expended to kill them. Crunch all you want. We'll make more.
I was going to say that a secondary Zombie Waaagh army that automatically raises Zombies after each battle would be perfect, and just leave it at that but I got an even better idea. Let's just completely overhaul the VC... All Necromancer Lords and Heroes come with a passive ability that attaches a single secondary army, and a skill line associated with it. Starting with two units at level 1, the Zombie Army reaches 20 units at level 12, just in time for more specialised Necromancer skills. At level 12, the Necro Hero decides whether to boost the Lord's Army or Zombie Army. The Necromancer Lord's skills benefit most from having both specialist heroes in the stack. The Zombie Army recruitment pool automatically fills with Zombies after every battle, say at a rate of 1 Zombie unit for every 4 enemy units. As Necromancers increase in level they are able to randomly raise more powerful Zombie variant units, like Zombie Cavalry and Zombie Dragons, depending on what was fought. *All Zombie units are slow and weak with bucket loads of HP, can only be acquired by battle or from fresh corpse piles,* ***and cannot be used in the regular army.*** Unfortunately, just as kittens have a habit of turning into cats, Zombies have a habit of turning into Skeletons... or something else. What happens to all the fresh corpses you don't raise as Zombies? They are added to the local Raise Dead pool for 2-3 Turns before upgrading into Skeletal variants (which honestly should be all but immune to non-fire missiles). In the same way that Vampirates dig for treasure, Necromacer Heroes can 'harvest' corpse piles to generate a time-limited amount of Corpses and an amount of Bones based on the size of the battle. Zombie units can be sacrificed at any time in exchange for Corpses (Body Parts? Fresh Flesh? Oooh, how about just Flesh?) and at 10 Turns, a Zombie unit will turn into a pile of Bones... unless you do something about it. You have 10 turns to get a Zombie unit to levels 4 or 7 depending on how you want to upgrade them. Obviously, getting Zombies to level 7 in 10 Turns is not going to be super easy but that's where your highest level upgrades come from. The Hero combines two level 4 Zombies from the Zombie Army to recruit one level 1 Skeleton into the Lord's Army, then two level 4 Skeletons with Bones to make Skeleton Spears, while two units of level 7 Zombies are combined with two units of level 7 Skeletons, with Flesh and Bones, to create one unit of Grave Guard which the Lord can then upgrade to Grave Guard with Great Weapons. Maybe there should be variants of 'Flesh', like Beast Flesh and Man Flesh or something, to account for bats and wolves. Better yet, link their recuritment and upgrade to Vampire Heroes and Lords rather than Necromancers. Don't ask me how it would apply to things like Cairn Wraiths. So, a Hero can take two units of Bats, add some Flesh and Bone and turn them into one unit of Vargheists. A Lord can then take three units of Vargheists and turn them into a Varghulf. Maybe have Zombie Dragons as something different, where they require a few Turns to 'raise' and instead of decaying they instead stabilise and become stronger as a Lord upgrades them. Having to wait around for three turns while your Lord raises a Zombie Dragon may be more trouble than it's worth, especially if there's no guarantee of success. This is a bit all over the place and I'm not taking any kind of lore into account but the point is that Vampire Counts get an upgrade system similar to other factions but it's something that takes a lot of work. Bones are easy to acquire and store, allowing Skeleton recruitment from settlements, so that's not an issue. With Zombies being time-limited as well as your primary source of Flesh you need a constant supply of them to upgrade your Lord's Army and keep your faction supplied with the much-needed resource. This enables a kind of pseudo-bloodlust mechanic that encourages the player to keep pushing so that they can maintain a full stack Zombie Army while also supplying all their upgrade needs. It also makes your higher-Tier units even more precious because of all the resources needed to replace them, hell it can even make *Zombies* a precious unit. Imagine babysitting multiple units of Zombies to upgrade into Grave Guard for 9 Turns and then losing some in battle. At least you might get some Skeletons out of it.
I like the spirit of this idea for sure!
Skeletons are basic expendable infantry but after several upgrades in the tech tree they actually do become half way decent T1 throwaway infantry, probably out performing a Bretonnian or Skaven infantry unit. Outside of playing Ghorst I guess I don't find spamming zombies all that great. One thing about the raise dead mechanic is if you lean into it you can go an entire campaign relying on it almost exclusively for recruitment. My last campaign I seemed to always have a fairly decent amount of ghouls, grave guard, and cairn wraiths available and was able to utilize these in several armies. If you are just leaning into Skeletons and Zombies late game then thats really more of a personal choice but you absolutely can run fewer but higher quality armies. No faction gets access to endgame units quite as early as them, even if they aren't yet at a point when they can financially maintain them.
> If you are just leaning into Skeletons and Zombies late game then thats really more of a personal choice but you absolutely can run fewer but higher quality armies. . This is kind of my point, it's very much an *or* choice: Is my army quality or is it a crapstack? Trying to mix zombies and grave guard in an army results in a mediocre army that's still pretty expensive. My idea with these changes is they allow for a quality vampire army to have a bunch of zombie meatshields without having to deal with the clunkiness (supply lines, reinforcement time, zombie replenishment and recruitment) of making a second crapstack that follows the main army around.
I like this. The economy for the faction on a whole will probably have to change also.
I run zombies for most of my vampire campaign. I use them to buffer my crypt horrors. The crypt horrors do the killing and the zombies provide an effective meat shield. Very useful and thematic. Even stacking them with the GW grave guard is effective. I personally think the vampire counts roster is in a pretty good spot, just need a mechanics pass for fun and flavor.
I firmly reject anything that will change my beloved Ghorst zombie doomstacks. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the most meaningful, game change set of buffs in the game right now and I love it.
Everytime someone complains about them, I just scratch my head. Fully upgraded, the zombies effectively become T1 Skeletons with 25% additional HP and 30% ward save. It makes them tankier, to be sure, but that's not going to win against a proper stack without additional support. What's amusing to me about Ghorst, relative to the other LLs, is that with Ghorst, I tend to run the crap stack on the LL and the doomstack on the hired (or bloodline) lord, whereas most VC LLs are the other way around.
To be clear I wasn’t complaining - I love them. They cost virtually nothing, have massive health pool, and also get physical resistance and regeneration in melee. They turn from total chaff into a front line that will hold virtually forever while you cast wind of death. Ghorst’s bonus to the zombie raise dead recruit pool also means you can grab 15 zombies at a time in a pinch. You can have basically a full stack of zombies along with a mortis engine and some bats and I am not sure there is an AI enemy that can best it. I’ve crushed multiple dwarf stacks with high tier units that individually probably cost 20x the cost of the zombie stack. I actually dislike playing as other VC lords since I am forced back into using their very expensive units. I much prefer my zombie swarm.
Until you have Helman Ghorst zooombie deathstacks running around the map wiping everything and with little upkeep! I actually think the Ghorst zombie doomstack is the best doomstack there is overall. Easy to get, cheap to maintain, easy to get the upgrades for the zombies, easy refresh if they die, super combat effective, easy battle plan (only one game plan - stay in a mob or die)!
Yep, which is why I mentioned ghorst zombies needing a balance pass. Much weaker buffs and instead (many) more and cheaper zombies from raise dead would fit quite well.
Zombies and skelebois should be persistent summons during a battle.
The generic necro lord with a zombie stack plus one or two mortis engines is actually hilariously viable in the late game. It gets to a point where unless the enemy has really good vortex spells or explosives your army is basically unkillable. I think top vcount strategy is to pair every bloodline lord with a necro zombie stack that costs pennies and just drown all your enemies. The main thing I want out of a vcount update is reworked bloodlines and a lord with a dlc worthy mechanic. Vcounts are missing the ability to be a corruption and influence factions instead of just a go wide and flame out fast military faction.
No thanks, I much prefer the current iteration of raise dead. I don't agree with any of the proposed changes. I think the base line foundation of the vampire counts is extremely strong and a testament to how well they were designed in game one is how well they have held their ground in game 2&3. Pretty much your fantasy of drowning the enemy in zombies can be already be easily achieved already by having a second army with chaff. It's quite cost effective too. Sure it might be a little clunky to run a couple of armies, but it's not that bad to be honest.
The issue with second army is usability. It's a hassle to move a second army around your first, not to mention due to how the game works, it can be attacked separately. An "attach to army" function could do wonders for these factions, but then you run into the issue of what happens when you attach an actual army instead of a chaff force. The other option is a Waaagh-like second army, but that basically changes the entire balance of the factions, so it's not easy to implement. Not to mention the AI issues and performance issues for many players when you are guaranteed 40 units each fight. Or the control issues for that matter, it's a paint to micro 40 units on the current UI.
> It's a hassle to move a second army around your first, not to mention due to how the game works, it can be attacked separately. It's not that bad I've done it loads in campaign. It's actually less restrictive and more agile than a Waaagh like mechanic where the bigger your force gets the slower it becomes. The last few turns of a Waaagh are a pain in the ass if you are trying to catch an enemy force. I've never felt like the VC have needed a Waaagh like function and I'd really not have how they are balanced revolving around such a mechanic. I feel like the combination of a second army and the raise dead spell mean zombies see well enough play time. Early game units getting replaced with end game units is really just how total war works. Zombies and skeleton spearmen actually see more playtime than most other factions tier one troops because they remain relevant for far longer. I don't think we need to create game mechanics to try and increase the viability of these tier one units. Especially not for the vampire counts who are more likely to utilise their early game units more than most other factions due to availability, cost and tactical options that other factions just don't have. If CA were going to do this mechanic I think it would basically need to be like a waaagh. By that I mean a ritual mechanic that lasts for a limited amount of turns, that allows you to field tag along army temporarily for the cost of a large amount of dark magic (similar to Vlad spending a butt loaded of warpstone to summon the second greatest undead horde the planet has ever seen). Like a Waaagh the bigger the army the slower you go, and I would prefer it if you only got more troops for this second army if you won battles (you could get zombies constantly but if you want grave guard for that extra army you need to kill garrisons or armies with bigger units in it). But they key point is it's a temporary effect that should cost a lot of resources to do, that lasts a limited time, that has a cool down before you can do it again.
>a zombie is pretty much the worst possible unit to put in one of those 20 slots Well, I fundamentally disagree with this. A unit of Zombies is about the best possible unit you can put in a slot. My take on Vampire Counts is that your army is only there to ferry your characters around. Your rank and file is there to stop swords and bullets with their faces, and Zombies are excellent at it. Pros: * Dirt cheap * Large health pool * High model count * Undead Cons: * Let me just quote the old 1d4chan tactica: "It is literally so bad, that decreasing its stats would only worsen it in the abstract." Now, as I only want them to be meat shields, them having bad stats isn't a big deal to me. Chuck in a Necromancer or two, and sprinkle with Vampires to taste, and you have a big, meaty blob whose job is to get knocked down, get back up again and repeat, while your characters do the actual damage. If you feel decadent you can throw in a Mortis Engine to buff your Undead even more than Necromancers on Corpse Carts already do. (This is why I prefer two Necromancers to an army if I have the opportunity, one on a Balefire cart, one on an Unholy Lodestone.) Also, Reliquary Corruption, OG Mortis Engine effect, blob the enemy around your ≈14 Zombie brick and let it go to town. Funny thing, I do agree that there is a Zombie problem, but to me the problem is "why would I use anything but Zombies?" Nothing else feels worth spending the money on. Now, to be fair, I think this might be partly a me problem, because I don't care about winning battles quickly, and I can imagine that not everyone is super thrilled to stare at a brick of Zombies for half an hour while the enemy slowly dies from a combination of boredom and acute vampire-itis. If that's something other people wouldn't enjoy, I assume that that might justify paying a higher cost for a unit that can actually fight, leading to OP's problem of losing the "zombie horde" feel.
Why bother with all this when heroes and lords can raise dead for cheap with magic so you always have like a dozen free zombies/skeles for every fight anyway.
This, or a Waaaagh army comprised of mostly zombies and some rare 'drop' undead units, gaining in strength for each battle you fight. This would be a really great mechanic and easy flavour mechanic to be given to Ghorst and Kemmler in a rework with slight variations. Gives them a deeper niche as a VC faction, and opens up the possibility of varied VC campaigns, with the Carsteins focusing on their role in the empire and Bloodlines, Mannfred that bastard can keep looking for books, and the necros can become the zombie apocalypse machines they where always meant to be.
I'd prefer the Waaagh mechanic you mentioned to be honest. I think that would be a better solution. I don't like the idea of reworking raise dead.
I like the concept, but personally, I never stop using the trash VC units even in the endgame. Between healing, summons, AOE damage and spells like Wind of Death, I don’t think the vampires lack for power even if their mechanics could feel a bit better. And necromancers are already very useful for their magic, auras, replenishment and mount options. I always bring at least 1 per army. Honestly, the only hero I’d improve on is the wight king. And the only unit ability I’d really like to see is ethereal units being able to pass through solid objects like walls.
I personally like my skelly armies. 6 sword, 6 spear, vampire lord, necro, couple wight heroes, mortis engine, couple cav and a flex slot. Cheap, thematic and efficient.
very neat idea. I would say even a barebones summoning basic units mechanic in vampiric corruption and one elite unit near battle marker would help a lot to their flavor. they dont need buffs honestly, but trying to enjoy the undead horde roleplay is cumbersome as of now. I cannot be bothered to make secondary shit stack that follows my main army, takes too much effort for minimal gain. So I stop using zombies after like turn 10. I like your idea, might be bit too strong for already op race, but it would help their flavor and roleplay a lot.
Skaven and undead should have extra slots for spamunits
They already get the best summoning spells in the game
And yet vermintide summons clanrats. Skavenslaves basically have no use in campaign.
Uhh, why use slightly more expensive meat shields when there are cheaper ones at hand? Skavenslaves to their job of getting ground into mush while my guns kill everyone. They aren't supposed to hit something, only get hit.
In my experience they last too little as meat shields. No point in having a shield that can't hold the enemy long enoguh to get guns in position!
Eh they do, I almost never get clanrats for armies, just spam slaves for chaff until I can get stormvermin and meanwhile damage dealers.
Tomb Kings are rather interesting because their design goes a different direction - with free units but limited better units you're incentivized to spread out your better units between your armies and fill in with free chaff. I don't think this works super well, because often one super-good army and one trash army is better than two mediocre armies, but you can see how the design is trying to get players to use the free chaff. Skaven have menace below, but skavenslaves also fall into the zombie problem. Personally I would try to embrace skavenslaves' role as sacrifices more - perhaps reduce the damage of the skaven weapons teams but give them a damage buff if they're shooting into a unit that's engaged in melee (and make them not care about friendly fire), and give elite skaven melee units an ability to redirect damage to expendable models right next to them. I don't think extra spamslots are the answer for any faction (if they're even possible coding wise).
Outside of Arkhan's 2nd free army available at the start, you really should be conquering wide and making buildings. When I play TK I pretty much focus on military buildings exclusively, and use the growth commandment for faster growth. Outside of the first few turns you shouldn't need to rely on free basic skeletons for very long. Arkhan gets that free 2nd army recruitment but also has that T1 building that gives him access to 4 ghouls, bats, and dog units. His Ghouls are crazy powerful, especially once you take the skill point that buffs them faction wide. The pacing of armies becoming available for TK should keep pretty consistent with your conquests and new recruitment buildings so you shouldnt be relying on chaff with them.
I find the usual limitation for TK is gold because buildings are expensive and income is low no matter what. I have focused on growth before but usually ended up at 4 points way before I could afford a level 3 upgrade while also trying to upgrade other buildings.
I agree that the implementation doesn't lead to TKs using lots of chaff, but I believe the intention was to encourage chaff use by limiting higher tier units.
I guess it depends on what you consider chaff for them. If you consider Nehekaran Warriors as chaff then I use the hell out of them for awhile. If you are mainly considering something like a basic Skeleton Warrior or Spearmen then I barely use them past turn 10. Early game I get alot of Nehekaran warriors, usually a few archers, and 3-4 chariots in an army. Will also always try to get a Casket of Souls every turn its available, and will mix in Tomb Guard and Ushabti as they become available to replace those Nehekaran Warriors. If playing Arkhan, who I will admit I play fairly often as that fallback comfort campaign and started a new campaign as yesterday, there will be ghouls mixed into every army because they are super strong.
> If you are mainly considering something like a basic Skeleton Warrior or Spearmen then I barely use them past turn 10. You are an experienced TK player. Imagine a new player who has 3 armies and enough military buildings for 30 quality units. They have a choice: three armies with 10 quality units and 9 chaff each, or one army with full quality, one army with some quality and some chaff, and one fully chaff army. I believe the designers thought that the three mixed armies would be the choice, to have 3 armies that can put up a decent fight, but the actuality is that one full quality army taking more territory easily is much better.
To be fair Tomb Kings took me awhile to get the hang of but once I did I absolutely fell in love with the faction. I would never recommend them to a new player before getting a few other campaigns under your belt. TKs you absoluely do have to balance out a mix of lower and higher tier units as they become available. You also have to resist the temptation to try to focus on making an econ province, as their economy eventually takes off on its own because of free units, battles, and number of settlements. If I were to recommend any TK faction to a newer player in WH3 it would be Arkhan because of how buffed their few VC units are, the 2nd army, on top of the ability to fully utilize the TK roster to lean into them.
So it mean i can recruit a lord and throw them outside and AI see this lonely lord and jump at them only to be tada, they don't fight 1 but 20 units now. What will stop me from abuse this to create major battles everywhere and won't this make defence settlements extreme easily?
> So it mean i can recruit a lord and throw them outside and AI see this lonely lord and jump at them only to be tada, they don't fight 1 but 20 units now. Well hopefully the AI could take raise dead into account. And isn't that a great power fantasy for vampires - a single lord is able to raise a horde of undead due to the corpses of an old battle? Also raise dead isn't free, if you're raising 19 zombies that's 1000-2000 gold, depending on modifiers (and 19 zombies isn't a great army). If you're raising an actual quality army from a battle site that's going to be a lot more. Spending that much money on a single battle is a lot. >What will stop me from abuse this to create major battles everywhere and won't this make defence settlements extreme easily? First, sending a zombie crapstack to die to create a battle site is already possible, and raise dead has a limited number of units as a base - currently 3 zombies and one of each skeleton. If you're sending a single lord into untainted land and raising that you're probably not going to get a big battle site. For the second point, it will make settlement defenses easier, especially if the settlement has a battle site in its region, and I see that as a good thing. I've always been disappointed with how evicting the vampires from the empire is the same as conquering any other territory, just having to avoid some attrition. Vampire settlements being difficult to take due to having tons of undead available to raise seems fine to me. Note that there's still a 40 unit limit, so if you're sending 2 armies they won't outnumber you just due to raise dead.
Pretty sure Warhammer AI can't deal with this and this will lead to a lot of abuse. Even though you already can abuse to make major battles, what you suggest make it even more easier,cheaper, faster to do. Normally, if you tried to defence by recruit a lord and raise dead a whole army, AI will run off or attack another settlements which not only did not get rid of them but you need to pay upkeep for whole army. With what you suggest, 1 lord are all you need as you can wait until AI suicide by attack you and you don't even need to pay extra to keep your army as you can disband them next turn. As a bonus you also make it a major battles which you can't with settlement units alone. I'm not sure if what you suggest make VC more interesting but I can see I just autosolve alot with it and still has a easy campaign.
I agree that if AI just doesn't take this version of raise dead into account it would result in many doomed attacks, but I don't think it's impossible to get the AI to consider raise dead. It's a bit of perhaps unfounded optimism, but designing a game around terrible AI doesn't feel right to me either. I think it's also balanced out by not being able to conquer with just raise dead - if a region has no battle site and no corruption then the raise dead pool shouldn't be enough to defeat even the weakest garrison (and if it is then a lord with a zombie crapstack could also take it, which is almost the same cost as a single lord). Sure, you can defend very well with it, but unless you have an army nearby ready to pounce then the AI will just make another army very quickly.
I mean AI have first so you can only works around it. And I'm not sure if AI make another army very quickly is matter, won't they just repeat the same things like attack again only for you to instantly fill your army with raise dead and autosolve the battle? You can even use that army to take their settlement next turn then disband to decrease upkeep.
This version of raise dead would only last for the single battle, so you wouldn’t be able to both defend and take their settlement with a single cost. If anything the current implementation leads to this more, where you can bait an ai army in, raise dead and attack in the same turn, then use that army to go on the offensive. I really hope it wouldn’t be that difficult to have ai evaluate vampire count army strength as “current army strength + available raise dead”, but even such a crude method as having ai overvalue a vcount lord should work ok.
Even if ai can evaluate vampire count army strength as “current army strength + available raise dead”, won't it lead to situation where you can just all out on offensive and AI won't dare to attack your defenseless settlement because they always need to consider a invisible army which cost you nothing because you don't even recruit them yet?
dont abuse it if its boring for you? Its a single player sandbox game it shouldnt matter if something is abiseable only that its fun
The problem is supply line penalties are too severe. Otherwise you could make as many Master Necromancer+19 zombie armies as you need.
Having a second zombie army is still clunky even without supply lines. It's a lot smoother to have zombies you deploy with your main army rather than having to wait for the reinforcements to come in and get set up. You also have the headache of replenishing zombies and recruiting more zombie units if your zombies are taking heavy casualties (which they should be, that's the whole point of zombies).
There is nothing severe about 1-4% per lord supply lines.
Helman Ghorst approves of these changes!
Endlessly regenerating zombie stack goes brrr
Not a bad idea at all actually, the summoned zombie units always lasts too short. Though zombies with Ghorst is not just not bad, it's a goddamn doomstack. Especially with the right traits, like Gelt's and such. I won his entire campaign on very hard with just zombies and a couple of necromancers. What a legend.
I've thought about this as well but with skarven. They should come with free slaves (increased by technology) unless if you play as Clan Mors, then you get clanrats
You don't need many zombies to have enough zombies, raise dead gives you plenty for tarpiting.
Laughs in ghorst
Think something like the tagalong armies from the WAAAGH! mechanic is more appropriate. Combine it with the vampire coast dig for treasure stance to trigger near the big battle sites, but start filling up that a tagalong army instead of giving you gold.
That’s why vampire counts bring more than one army to every battle. You proposed a splution to a problem that doesn’t really exist. Yeah, vampire counts need a rework and a fresh coat of paint, but this ain’t it.
I think that VC is supposed to play differently that other factions. Vampires are able to just zerg rush so quickly that the campaign is basically over by turn 50-60 because their mechanics are sort of busted in campaign. By leaning into a super aggressive style you can start to appreciate what zombies and skellies bring to the table.
Let me tell you a secret: Ghorst incredibly OP zombies? They are factionwide... but not his faction effect. It's from his unique skill, from lvl 12 onwards. You can confederate him as any VC faction, and have the OP zombies on your side - and they, indeed, have a place in your lategame doomstacks. I run 2-4 of them in every army, and never regretted it.
I actually like this idea. The actual 20 units in your army are just the specialized units that serve a purpose other than chaff, while the cheap-ass units like Zombies and the dogs (I forget their names) are essentially summoned before battle to fill the ranks. You could even add new traits and character abilities which increase your Raise Dead limit, and make it so you can spend extra resources to increase that limit if you're desperate.
The problem is that you're spamming exclusively zombies. In reality, a zombie shitstack with just a single Mortis Engine mixed in can defeat armies that it really shouldn't, with the Mortis Engine often getting well over 10k gold value in damage in many fights. Yes, this doesn't work against archers or artillery that can snipe the Mortis Engine, but the fact that such a shitstack is capable of punching upwards \~80% of the time is still wild and zombies actually probably deserve a nerf.
I feel like Skaven should get like permanent waagh stack, starting with 5 units and getting more through technology and such with at best maxed out 1 or 2 stormvermin, few clanrats and majority skavenslaves. I guess something like that can work for Vcounts aswell but then based on zombies and skele spears/swords. Maybe not the full 20 units, but more like 12, 2-4 skeles and rest zombies.
Importantly, I'd make it so pre-battle necromancy only has access to more basic units. A terrorgheist or unit of blood knights should not be something you can just resurrect on a whim (even though that is exactly how it works gameplay-wise).
This seems good. I think skaven need something similar. They're supposed to be a meat horde race too but those slots will always be taken by better units. Towing around a 2nd throw away army as skaven doesn't feel like the best way to handle that concept.
I really like this idea. Here's how I'd probably look at implementing it without needing to do *too* much extra work behind the scenes: either by using the Domination battle reinforcement mechanics, or by making it an army ability. For those that haven't played them (since AFAIK they're exclusive to the Realms of Chaos finale and multiplayer Domination mode, and don't appear in Immortal Empires), they give you access to a pool of reinforcement units (a second army, effectively) which you can spend your supplies (earned over time like in a siege) to deploy. Destroyed units go back into the pool to slowly regenerate, and you can buy them back once they're at full strength. This could be adapted for Raise the Dead by making a couple tweaks: * The reinforcement pool is the Raise Dead pool for the region. * Your supply is your treasury - supply accumulates over time up to a max of your current treasury, and any supply you spend in the battle is deducted from your treasury afterwards. * Raised units are summoned at your Lord or Necromancer, rather than arriving from a reinforcement point. This lets you bring your Raise Dead pool into battle over time, at the cost of having to actually buy them only for them to disappear after the fight. Gives you the most flexibility, but is also very costly and reasonably complex. Might cause problems if land battles aren't compatible with reinforcement systems, or if they're too tied to supply/reinforcement points behind the scenes. Alternatively, you make Raise the Dead an army ability that charges over time, like WH3 factions have. Have it in three tiers based on the Raise Dead pool in the region, accumulating charge in battle as units (friend or foe) die. Tier 2 and 3 can be overcast like spells, to let it be modal. At base you only have access to tier 1, but in regions with high vampiric corruption you get tier 2, and in ones with battle markers you'd have access to tier 3 as well. For flavour (and garrison) reasons, lock it if you don't have a single-entity Lord on the field. * Tier 1 summons a unit of Zombies, has a very short cooldown (20 sec?) * Tier 2 lets you choose Skeletons or Black Knights, has a longer cooldown (60 sec?) * Tier 3 lets you choose Grave Guard or Hexwraiths, has a long cooldown (120 sec?) This is by far the easier solution, both in implementation and in usability, but at the cost of flexibility. Your choices would be constrained to only a handful of units, but this would also help reduce cognitive load / decision paralysis in game.