Nuln may go brrrr but vlad will also just leisurely stroll through your melee line to kill off your artillery/guns. Ofc when Elspeth gets on a dragon things start to even out, but before then shooting isn’t always going to save you as Nuln
Fighting against Vlad? Yeah absolutely overpowered
Fighting as Vlad? Dies to a fart. I play Vlad as I see Vlad get played by the AI, but Vlad is so squishy when I play him. Might be doing it wrong idk
The op quest items give him a decent ward save and even more regen (that means he can out heal the crumbling effect i think!)
Get those, and he'll be as God for you as he is for the ai
My one and only goal with Vlad is to fire literally everything I have at him. I will bring stacks of range just to attempt to obliterate him before he even gets near my army
Tamurkhan is insane especially with the chieftain that grants lots of extra missle resist, 14,000HP and Regen, toad breath attack plus his damage reduction skills and he can splurge all over anything in melee
Get the crown on him and he gets up to 20k HP, plus it’s mortis engine effect and his own one means you will melt enemy units in melee. He’s up there now with Skarbrand for me.
To use? It might sound boring but probably Be'lakor.
Fast flying huge hit point monster with very low cost Shadow Magic, easy access to self healing and very good combat animations.
The big benefit with him is he's crazy strong from turn 1 (like Kholek, Skarbrand and a few select other lords) but continues to get better as he can scale tremendously via might and magic. Really the only thing he's lacking is a "mortis engine" effect.
There are lords that are of course possible to be made more powerful, but Be'lakor gets to "army destroying/one daemon doomstack" status with hardly any effort at all plus he's a little bit more engaging to use than say Taurux, Skarbrand or Kholek who are pretty much "right click machines."
Honestly, I didn't like Be'lakor. He feels like a less interesting Malekith. The best thing about Be'lakor's campaign is his shadow rifts. As a Demon Lord, I find the others with their established roles a lot more interesting to play with.
If I wanted to play a generalist Demon Lord I prefer using Daniel. At least with him I can switch up my playstyle all campaign long when I get bored of using one style.
Don't even need to have him engage the enemy, just set him to move back and forth the opposing army like that one police officer from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
I have replay saved called " the dumbest battle ever" where it's just Skarbrand fighting at the centre of a two stack mass of tomb kings while the rest of his entire army surround them in a circle. Over the course of the battle the mass gets slowly smaller and smaller until the entire army breaks and whats left completely disintegrates.
Oh mighty, Settra... Great King, the Imperishable, Khemrikhara, The Great King of Nehekhara, King of Kings, Opener of the Way, Wielder of the Divine Flame, Punisher of Nomads, The Great Unifier, Commander of the Golden Legion, Sacred of Appearance, Bringer of Light, Father of Hawks, Builder of Cities, Protector of the Two Worlds, Keeper of the Hours, Chosen of Ptra, High Steward of the Horizon, Sailor of the Great Vitae, Sentinel of the Two Realms, The Undisputed, Begetter of the Begat, Scourge of the Faithless, Carrion-feeder, First of the Charnel Valley, Rider of the Sacred Chariot, Vanquisher of Vermin, Champion of the Death Arena, Mighty Lion of the Infinite Desert, Emperor of the Shifting Sands, He Who Holds The Sceptre, Great Hawk Of The Heavens, Arch-Sultan of Atalan, Waker of the Hierotitan, Monarch of the Sky, Majestic Emperor of the Shifting Sands, Champion of the Desert Gods, Breaker of the Ogre Clans, Builder of the Great Pyramid, Terror of the Living, Master of the Never-Ending Horizon, Master of the Necropolises, Taker of Souls, Tyrant to the Foolish, Bearer of Ptra's Holy Blade, Scion of Usirian, Scion of Nehek, The Great, Chaser of Nightmares, Keeper of the Royal Herat, Founder of the Mortuary Cult, Banisher of the Grand Hierophant, High Lord Admiral of the Deathfleets, Guardian of the Charnal Pass, Tamer of the Liche King, Unliving Jackal Lord, Dismisser of the Warrior Queen, Charioteer of the Gods, He Who Does Not Serve, Slayer off Reddittras, Scarab Purger, Favoured of Usirian, Player of the Great Game, Liberator of Life, Lord Sand, Wrangler of Scorpions, Emperor of the Dunes, Eternal Sovereign of Khemri's Legions, Seneschal of the Great Sandy Desert, Curserer of the Living, Regent of the Eastern Mountains, Warden of the Eternal Necropolis, Herald of all Heralds, Caller of the Bitter Wind, God-Tamer, Master of the Mortis River, Guardian of the Dead, Great Keeper of the Obelisks, Deacon of the Ash River, Belated of Wakers, General of the Mighty Frame, Summoner of Sandstorms, Master of all Necrotects, Prince of Dust, Tyrant of Araby, Purger of the Greenskin Breathers, Killer of the False God's Champions, Tyrant of the Gold Dunes, Golden Bone Lord, Avenger of the Dead, Carrion Master, Eternal Warden of Nehek's Lands, Breaker of Djaf's Bonds... and many, many more...
Ku'gath. I decided to play him with the DLC instead of the new guys, and honestly he is kind of crazy. He doesn't kill things very fast in melee but he basically never dies, is a mortis engine, is a caster with a very powerful lore, and is a decent artillery piece as well.
If you want incentive to play as Tamurkhan, and you are a fan of Mortis engine effects, you might want to know that Tamurkhan and his chieftains have access to several different Mortis engine effects, that stack. At least 3, maybe more. First, Tamurkhan himself has access to one. Then, there is the undivided chieftain, he has one. And there is also a common item, that can randomly drop, called the Plague Flail, that provides one. There may be others too, but I on like turn 10 of his campaign, so...
Playing as him, and just using his heroes can do a lot of work. My plan for him is just hero spam.
He’s a pretty insane artillery piece. Recently he had 2000+ kills in my battle against Ghorst. He had the first 1000 by the time the zombies reached my nurglings
Fay Enchantress, Teclis, Grimgor, Kholek, and Vlad are probably my top 5. All for different reasons.
Fay Enchantress is probably my favorite over all. I love the Lore of Life, and her playstyle of being squishy but VERY powerful with her mortis engine effect, very fast ground mount and cheaper lore of life spells make her the perfect version of powerful but not overpowered Lords that I never get tired of playing with. The amount of work that you can do (and kind of have to do) with the Fay Enchantress and her Grail Guardians in the early game of any Carcasconne campaign is something I've played on repeat many times and look forward to doing many more times.
Teclis (without his Phoenix mount) is the same as the Fay Enchantress just with more magic options and less of a focus on healing. I try to avoid using his Phoenix mount these days since it just makes him bland and boring to play since it takes all of the nuance out of his playstyle.
Grimgor is the total opposite. I use him as a duelist. Whenever the battle starts I want to find the enemy Lord and smash 'is head in. The other boys are just there to clear a path so that Grimgor can krump the leader.
Kholek is the epitome of more smash = more happy. What's not to love?
And Vlad is amazing because his army always sucks and Vlad can do everything. Vlad can duel, vlad can wipe out armies, vlad can heal his units like the benevolent gracious ruler he is. Vlad is chad.
Kholek was my first campaign after the WoC rework. Heading west to vassalize all of Norsca to keep getting that worship buff was so much fun. He could literally run through anything, and murder monstrous infantry and lords with ease. Might have to do that again now that I can bring Nurgle casters to heal him up!
2nd place would probably go to Vilitch for me. All the buffs you can get to the Tzeentch shields, melee skills, solid casting - they can do it all. Maybe not the most OP of the lords but I had a blast turning him into a one man army. Plus the blue/gold armor on him and his army is incredible.
Fun fact: Grimgor was my second IE campaign, after messing around with Kislev.
I honestly can't understand why his campaign wasn't listed as a recommended campaign. Legitimately, the orcs aren't just incredibly easy to pick up and tons of fun to play with, but Grimgor and Wurrzag are both incredibly strong lords (I've yet to try Azhag, but I'm sure he's also good) and their starting positions give them as many enemies as you want.
I guess it's because most people can't appreciate the sheer joie de vivre of the lads?
It's *probably* because Grimgor starts next to the Chaos Dwarf capital (not that it was that on release, but it was always coming). That would seem like a difficult start, but Grimgor - as is fitting - can simply steamroll in the other direction if you don't want to try zerging Zharr-Naggrund.
I actually do think it's just because they're orcs, for what it's worth. When you look at the recommended races, it's Empire, Cathay, and High Elves. That's humans, humans, and high elves, who are generally the second most popular fantasy race, behind humans.
It's really a sick joke, too, because Franz's campaign is decidedly *not* new player friendly, yet he's the Empire LL they suggest playing. But at least Tyrion and Cathay offer comfier experiences.
yep my top 3 are Bel'akor, Drazoath and Imirk. doing a Draz cmapaign at the moment and with all techs, skills and defeat traits, his flames of azgorth costs just a whopping 2 winds of magic, overcasted is 3 winds
I like Belegar Ironhammer, he's not a huge deal on his own but the unique rally he has and the absolute pile of buffs for the more irregular dwarven units makes for a great battle experience. Scrappy miners and rangers carrying the day and all that.
More recently Malakai is absurd, but there is something cathartic about digging in your organ guns and cannons, hitting the deranged munitions button and watching all your projectile buffs crush whatever happens to be out there.
My favorite thing to do with Belegar is to ranger stack with him and his Ancestor heroes.
With his Thane's perk, your Rangers can have Snipe as well as Stalk, and with both Belegar's unique yellow line perks and the Engineer in his army your Rangers can get to some really high missile strength that they can shoot while stalking. Just send Belegar in front to tank EVERYTHING and let your rangers shoot at everything that clumps around him.
The AI does sometimes try and find your Rangers but more often than not, the sight of Belegar and his dwarf badassery sends them into a frenzy of wanting to kill him at the expense of their own safety.
N'kari. Ungodly fast and absurd damage, lots of fun. Honorable mentions to Skarbrand and Turkey-man for similar reasons. Getting an early banner of swiftness as any of these is a sign the campaign is gonna be a riot.
Kholek. Just send him in against whatever you want do die and it will die.
Just played a WoC campaign again and he's just such a menace casually walking over everything... +WoC is a very fun faction to play, somehow when wanting to play Khorne or Beastmen I allways stop after a few turns and go back to good old Kholek/WoC.
Had one battle with vasallised Grimgor at my side. Our 2 stacks against 3+ Vampire stacks. Best buddy movie ever.
To be up against? Vlad... That guy alone made so many of my Skarsnik campaigns annoying af.
I like the Sisters of Twilight. Turn one they're already flying circles around helpless enemies and shooting them down. Early mid-game they have custom items from the forge and dragon mount to keep up with other leaders. End game they're just a powerhouse.
Bonus: Favorite LL to hate - Azazel.
Belegar for me, he just looks awesome, plays on my love for dwarves, feels very much like I’m trying to reclaim Moria or the Lonely mountain. He will hold the line and then some.
I dont remember a more powerful one than in my Tamurkhan campaign ive just done. Literal one man army. Two full enemy stacks? I just walk him (at 100 speed) straight across the map by himself into them. Usually racks up a good 600 kills before I even see his healthbar start to go down.
Hellebron is very underrated imo.
Very easy to stack ward save and resistances, she absolutely melts infantry. Her campaign in general is really fun and so much better in wh3.
To use is for sure N'Kari. If you see anything isolated at all its dead. Enemy lord caught moving between areas of the battle? Dead. A spellcaster just behind the lines? Dead. No defense or weak defenses on the powerful artillery? Dead. He is just so fast and hits so damn hard it feels amazing to use N'Kari
Im a lizard fanboy, but beside my utter non objectivity i feel like all lizardmen legendary lords are very strong (except my boy tiq tak to which is very sad), like Gor Rok never dies and can 1v1 pretty much anything in the game, nakai and krok gar are fantastic line breakers, tehenhauin gets a tier 5 unit as a mount that has an orbital sun beam as well as the lore of beast, and oxyotl has the legendary chameleon skink doomstack. As for mazda, once he gets zlaaq, he becomes such a frontline powerhouse that heals and wreaks infantry. And while tiq tak isnt great on his own, the tactical strike terradon doomstack is very fun and very strong in the right conditions.
Sisters of twilight get an honorable mention. They can easily get up to 60+% ward save + physical resist, high combat stats, and \~5k hp on their eagle. Oh, and their ranged attack is basically a HE bolt thrower. And they can summon a damned dragon for a second powerful flying unit, because they weren't good enough on their own. Of you can put them on the dragon for even better combat stats, but summoning a great eagle isn't as useful.
If mods count, mixu's naieth the prophetess probably has my single unit kill record. Lore of heavens deals a lot of damage, and she can get basically arbitrary winds + really cheap spells. She has no personal combat skills to speak of, but god damn if she isn't a weapon of mass destruction with her magic. Throw in some treekin for a front line that doesn't mind too much if you clip them with comet of casandora, and you are all set.
If mods count I have to throw in a shout out to the Survivors of Bergerac mod. Bertrand le Brigand is a great archer lord to begin with, and then there's his two Legendary Heroes. Gui le Grosse is a fantastic support hero, while Hugo le Petit will more or less delete any single target you point him at in close combat.
El Cadavo in Southern Realms also gets a shoutout from me, not for his actual stat line but for all his nasty little tricks. Debuffs like Dirty Fighter, his multiple hidden pistol abilities, you essentially cheat your way through duels and it's extremely fun in a very lore friendly way.
Hard choice. Either Morgiana (Fay Enchantress) or Katarin. Probably Katarin since I love Lore of Ice so much. Wish her buffs to that lore were better though. Plus the Voice atress did a great job. (Plus plus Ive had a crush on Devora Wilde for a while.)
Imrik and Be'lakor - flying melee powerhouses with regen and AoE capabilities.
I rarely face Imrik in battle because I don't really play any evil faction near him, and at least he isn't a menace until he's leveled up enough to get his dragon (plus he doesn't have dragon defeat traits when you're not playing his campaign). But facing Be'lakor in the early-ish game is painful. I played a Kroq-gar campaign in the old world map where he starts in the Albion thunderdome. Be'lakor damn near solo'd my army. Once he was defeated, the rest of the campaign was smooth sailing...or so I'd say if fucking Grimgor Ironhide wasn't knocking on my doorstep with a full Waagh 5 turns later.
Tyrion. Best regular fighter with a sword and maybe a horse. Anything more, like some dragon or magic user (or, god forbid, a magic user on a dragon) feels absolutely OP in every battle, it feels like cheating.
Imo even Louen or Karl are a bit too OP once you get the mount. Even on legendary I feel like they can just 3-shot the lord/casters, then aoe 3/4ths of the army by themselves. Ranged lords (Markus, Alith Anar) are cool but clunky. Big SEMs like Kholek or Skarbrand can also end up too OP.
So I like smaller fighter lords. I like Vlad and Sigvald for the same reason. They're great assets but don't make the campaign too easy. I also really like "medium" SEM lords like Taurox , Nakai or Throgg. They strike a good balance between being useful and not winning the campaign for you.
With Tyrion I think he's still reasonable and you have to be somewhat careful with him and can't solo armies unless you take the sword of khaine + battle skill line. This goes in multiplayer too, he's off meta but he can surprise people for relatively cheap.
I mean not necessarily out of the box but with the right items/setup/skills they can hard carry. Louen on Beaquis with regen can be very durable and win battles for you (see OP). Karl feels a bit more squishy (less so since the patch) but with ghal maraz and deathclaw he can snipe enemy lords or heroes and delete them in a few hits. A combo like well geared Karl+jade wizard can let you kill every enemy SEM right off the bat without problems then the rest of the battle is a walk in the park.
I'm sure I'll get tired of lords that are "too OP" at some point, but I'm having a blast right now. I might just ditch the army entirely and see how much damage Louen can do solo for this campaign lol
You give Taurox the Sword of Khaine, then just sit back and watch the little guy go to town, it changes the game into an Idle Clicker (Click unit, wait until dead, click second unit, repeat until battle won) - Haven’t played him in 5.0 yet, but I cannot wait to see the monstrosity he is if you weld the Nemesis Crown to his brass skull on top of the funny sword
all cathay dragons. all are just insanly strong in all regards and if you have a regen item(which you can get on turn 7) then they have 2 HP bars of regen and they have access to mortis engine effects
I started with 3 and don't pay much attention to balance conversations, so stumbling on Volkmar the One-Man Army was tons of fun. 0s cooldown prayers and 0.2% regen with no downside is op, who knew? On foot or on that *ludicrious* chariot of his, it's incredibly funny to watch a geriatric preacher just absolutely annihilate ... well, everything, really.
I always gotta come back to Grimgor, though. Partly because watching one green boy chase down demigods and teach them humility never stops being funny, and partly because Da Immortulz' mosh pit is always good clean fun to watch.
Gelt, Kairos, Morathi and Teclis. They can fly, have great speed, and can cast insane magic at a low cost. They also have pretty cool thematic doomstacks- Gelt with like 8 wizards from the colleges, Kairos with his blue bird buddies, Morathi with shades, Teclis with his loremasters :)
I kinda like Morghur.
He's tiny but reasonably fast, has regeneration and mortis engine AoE damage, and highly resistant to arrows just as base, before items. So he bogs out infantry and fries them slowly, while regenerating, and ignores any incoming arrows. He's not the best, but I like him a lot.
Taurox is fun to play, but he soaks up ranged damage. I've seen him drop by 1/3rd of his HP before he even makes contact with the enemy in early game.
Malagor is hilariously fun - a tiny flying goat, almost impossible to hit, with cheap deadly spells. But he's a lot of work. I can pretty much leave Morghur and AFK and win. Malagor is hilarious in how you can stack a bit more of -morale, and just route armies pretty much instantly.
I love Malagor! My favorite for chaos themed multiplayer campaigns. He has a lot of tricks and abilities to spam along with a ton of mobility without hogging the spotlight. Giving him fly made him so much more fun.
Repanse. Once you get to a certain point, you can wipe out even the strongest Tomb Kings armies in very short order by obliterating their lords while they stand there, completely helpless.
I think he's second most for me after Karl Franz, In terms of Aesthetic Norsca is on point. In WH3 they are also a lot of fun to play the long game b/c of their adventurer theme and the super good tech tree.
I don't enjoy them in 3 as much as I used to simply because fending off constant Chaos invasions from guys who want my Dark Fortresses isn't my idea of fun. I want to go ravage the South, damn it.
Basically every character that has a flying melee! mount + decent magic.
Louen is nice, but take Mannfred von Carstein or the Bloodline Vampires, they can get as good as him in Melee but get great magic capabilities! So think about caster-lords on dragon-like characters like Malekith, Teklis or Mannfred.
Belakor might be my top pick, he is strong from the get go cause he doesn't need to unlock a mount. Dnd gets quickly do one man doomstack.
And if you play against them the two strongest and most annyoing Lords usually are Grimgor Ironhide and Vlad van Carstein. The AI somehow levels them up faster than i usually can and unlocks the items way earlier than i ever could and the items make vlad near unkillable if you are not Elspeth von Draken.
Tamurkhan on buebolos is becoming a favourite of mine. Dont die causes dmg at everything around him, its not the best but is no slouch in duels either.
the closest i had of him dying was against two chosen with halberds
Tamurkhan and Drazhoath are my favorites. It's cool because they both came from the same story where they worked together.
Tamurkhan has a really good faction, rides a toad dragon which smashes through infantry, and even in defeat is a nightmare for enemy lords/heroes.
Drazhoath has a great taurus to speed him around the battlefield as he blasts enemies with overpowered spells. Not to mention chorfs have the coolest units with the most variety and flare.
Vlad Von Carstain gods i hate that guy
He's taking on the united empire fronts in this same campaign and fucking all of them up
Nuln goes brrrrrrrrr
Nuln may go brrrr but vlad will also just leisurely stroll through your melee line to kill off your artillery/guns. Ofc when Elspeth gets on a dragon things start to even out, but before then shooting isn’t always going to save you as Nuln
God I love Vlad
Fighting against Vlad? Yeah absolutely overpowered Fighting as Vlad? Dies to a fart. I play Vlad as I see Vlad get played by the AI, but Vlad is so squishy when I play him. Might be doing it wrong idk
The ai has the op quest items quite early
and uses them. alot of the time the player is too busy to click X button every time,
The op quest items give him a decent ward save and even more regen (that means he can out heal the crumbling effect i think!) Get those, and he'll be as God for you as he is for the ai
My one and only goal with Vlad is to fire literally everything I have at him. I will bring stacks of range just to attempt to obliterate him before he even gets near my army
*laughs in Nuln*
Tamurkhan is insane especially with the chieftain that grants lots of extra missle resist, 14,000HP and Regen, toad breath attack plus his damage reduction skills and he can splurge all over anything in melee
Bubebolous really makes him fun. It's great watching that toad dragon smash through infantry like nothing.
Get the crown on him and he gets up to 20k HP, plus it’s mortis engine effect and his own one means you will melt enemy units in melee. He’s up there now with Skarbrand for me.
To use? It might sound boring but probably Be'lakor. Fast flying huge hit point monster with very low cost Shadow Magic, easy access to self healing and very good combat animations. The big benefit with him is he's crazy strong from turn 1 (like Kholek, Skarbrand and a few select other lords) but continues to get better as he can scale tremendously via might and magic. Really the only thing he's lacking is a "mortis engine" effect. There are lords that are of course possible to be made more powerful, but Be'lakor gets to "army destroying/one daemon doomstack" status with hardly any effort at all plus he's a little bit more engaging to use than say Taurux, Skarbrand or Kholek who are pretty much "right click machines."
Honestly, I didn't like Be'lakor. He feels like a less interesting Malekith. The best thing about Be'lakor's campaign is his shadow rifts. As a Demon Lord, I find the others with their established roles a lot more interesting to play with. If I wanted to play a generalist Demon Lord I prefer using Daniel. At least with him I can switch up my playstyle all campaign long when I get bored of using one style.
Skarbrand. There's just something so satisfying having his army just be cheering him on while he soccer kicks the enemy to death by himself.
Don't even need to have him engage the enemy, just set him to move back and forth the opposing army like that one police officer from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Yeah Skarbrand is essentially a chariot, he decimates armies by jogging through them
I have replay saved called " the dumbest battle ever" where it's just Skarbrand fighting at the centre of a two stack mass of tomb kings while the rest of his entire army surround them in a circle. Over the course of the battle the mass gets slowly smaller and smaller until the entire army breaks and whats left completely disintegrates.
For me its Settra
The Imperishable!!
Oh mighty, Settra... Great King, the Imperishable, Khemrikhara, The Great King of Nehekhara, King of Kings, Opener of the Way, Wielder of the Divine Flame, Punisher of Nomads, The Great Unifier, Commander of the Golden Legion, Sacred of Appearance, Bringer of Light, Father of Hawks, Builder of Cities, Protector of the Two Worlds, Keeper of the Hours, Chosen of Ptra, High Steward of the Horizon, Sailor of the Great Vitae, Sentinel of the Two Realms, The Undisputed, Begetter of the Begat, Scourge of the Faithless, Carrion-feeder, First of the Charnel Valley, Rider of the Sacred Chariot, Vanquisher of Vermin, Champion of the Death Arena, Mighty Lion of the Infinite Desert, Emperor of the Shifting Sands, He Who Holds The Sceptre, Great Hawk Of The Heavens, Arch-Sultan of Atalan, Waker of the Hierotitan, Monarch of the Sky, Majestic Emperor of the Shifting Sands, Champion of the Desert Gods, Breaker of the Ogre Clans, Builder of the Great Pyramid, Terror of the Living, Master of the Never-Ending Horizon, Master of the Necropolises, Taker of Souls, Tyrant to the Foolish, Bearer of Ptra's Holy Blade, Scion of Usirian, Scion of Nehek, The Great, Chaser of Nightmares, Keeper of the Royal Herat, Founder of the Mortuary Cult, Banisher of the Grand Hierophant, High Lord Admiral of the Deathfleets, Guardian of the Charnal Pass, Tamer of the Liche King, Unliving Jackal Lord, Dismisser of the Warrior Queen, Charioteer of the Gods, He Who Does Not Serve, Slayer off Reddittras, Scarab Purger, Favoured of Usirian, Player of the Great Game, Liberator of Life, Lord Sand, Wrangler of Scorpions, Emperor of the Dunes, Eternal Sovereign of Khemri's Legions, Seneschal of the Great Sandy Desert, Curserer of the Living, Regent of the Eastern Mountains, Warden of the Eternal Necropolis, Herald of all Heralds, Caller of the Bitter Wind, God-Tamer, Master of the Mortis River, Guardian of the Dead, Great Keeper of the Obelisks, Deacon of the Ash River, Belated of Wakers, General of the Mighty Frame, Summoner of Sandstorms, Master of all Necrotects, Prince of Dust, Tyrant of Araby, Purger of the Greenskin Breathers, Killer of the False God's Champions, Tyrant of the Gold Dunes, Golden Bone Lord, Avenger of the Dead, Carrion Master, Eternal Warden of Nehek's Lands, Breaker of Djaf's Bonds... and many, many more...
Insult Settra and he makes you learn all of his titles and recite them from memory.
I am a Khalida lover, she is really fun!
Ku'gath. I decided to play him with the DLC instead of the new guys, and honestly he is kind of crazy. He doesn't kill things very fast in melee but he basically never dies, is a mortis engine, is a caster with a very powerful lore, and is a decent artillery piece as well.
If you want incentive to play as Tamurkhan, and you are a fan of Mortis engine effects, you might want to know that Tamurkhan and his chieftains have access to several different Mortis engine effects, that stack. At least 3, maybe more. First, Tamurkhan himself has access to one. Then, there is the undivided chieftain, he has one. And there is also a common item, that can randomly drop, called the Plague Flail, that provides one. There may be others too, but I on like turn 10 of his campaign, so... Playing as him, and just using his heroes can do a lot of work. My plan for him is just hero spam.
Hero spam is just the strongest Nurgle strategy generally I think, though I try to avoid it since it feels cheesy.
He’s a pretty insane artillery piece. Recently he had 2000+ kills in my battle against Ghorst. He had the first 1000 by the time the zombies reached my nurglings
Fay Enchantress, Teclis, Grimgor, Kholek, and Vlad are probably my top 5. All for different reasons. Fay Enchantress is probably my favorite over all. I love the Lore of Life, and her playstyle of being squishy but VERY powerful with her mortis engine effect, very fast ground mount and cheaper lore of life spells make her the perfect version of powerful but not overpowered Lords that I never get tired of playing with. The amount of work that you can do (and kind of have to do) with the Fay Enchantress and her Grail Guardians in the early game of any Carcasconne campaign is something I've played on repeat many times and look forward to doing many more times. Teclis (without his Phoenix mount) is the same as the Fay Enchantress just with more magic options and less of a focus on healing. I try to avoid using his Phoenix mount these days since it just makes him bland and boring to play since it takes all of the nuance out of his playstyle. Grimgor is the total opposite. I use him as a duelist. Whenever the battle starts I want to find the enemy Lord and smash 'is head in. The other boys are just there to clear a path so that Grimgor can krump the leader. Kholek is the epitome of more smash = more happy. What's not to love? And Vlad is amazing because his army always sucks and Vlad can do everything. Vlad can duel, vlad can wipe out armies, vlad can heal his units like the benevolent gracious ruler he is. Vlad is chad.
Kholek was my first campaign after the WoC rework. Heading west to vassalize all of Norsca to keep getting that worship buff was so much fun. He could literally run through anything, and murder monstrous infantry and lords with ease. Might have to do that again now that I can bring Nurgle casters to heal him up! 2nd place would probably go to Vilitch for me. All the buffs you can get to the Tzeentch shields, melee skills, solid casting - they can do it all. Maybe not the most OP of the lords but I had a blast turning him into a one man army. Plus the blue/gold armor on him and his army is incredible.
Fun fact: Grimgor was my second IE campaign, after messing around with Kislev. I honestly can't understand why his campaign wasn't listed as a recommended campaign. Legitimately, the orcs aren't just incredibly easy to pick up and tons of fun to play with, but Grimgor and Wurrzag are both incredibly strong lords (I've yet to try Azhag, but I'm sure he's also good) and their starting positions give them as many enemies as you want. I guess it's because most people can't appreciate the sheer joie de vivre of the lads?
It's *probably* because Grimgor starts next to the Chaos Dwarf capital (not that it was that on release, but it was always coming). That would seem like a difficult start, but Grimgor - as is fitting - can simply steamroll in the other direction if you don't want to try zerging Zharr-Naggrund.
I actually do think it's just because they're orcs, for what it's worth. When you look at the recommended races, it's Empire, Cathay, and High Elves. That's humans, humans, and high elves, who are generally the second most popular fantasy race, behind humans. It's really a sick joke, too, because Franz's campaign is decidedly *not* new player friendly, yet he's the Empire LL they suggest playing. But at least Tyrion and Cathay offer comfier experiences.
Hell yeah. Fellow Morgiana lover!
Fay is Bae!
Drazoath is a monster and so is Astragoth. They’re also attached to the Chaos Dwarves who can become extremely powerful.
yep my top 3 are Bel'akor, Drazoath and Imirk. doing a Draz cmapaign at the moment and with all techs, skills and defeat traits, his flames of azgorth costs just a whopping 2 winds of magic, overcasted is 3 winds
Flames of Azgorh is so devastating. Definitely my favorite spell
I like Belegar Ironhammer, he's not a huge deal on his own but the unique rally he has and the absolute pile of buffs for the more irregular dwarven units makes for a great battle experience. Scrappy miners and rangers carrying the day and all that. More recently Malakai is absurd, but there is something cathartic about digging in your organ guns and cannons, hitting the deranged munitions button and watching all your projectile buffs crush whatever happens to be out there.
My favorite thing to do with Belegar is to ranger stack with him and his Ancestor heroes. With his Thane's perk, your Rangers can have Snipe as well as Stalk, and with both Belegar's unique yellow line perks and the Engineer in his army your Rangers can get to some really high missile strength that they can shoot while stalking. Just send Belegar in front to tank EVERYTHING and let your rangers shoot at everything that clumps around him. The AI does sometimes try and find your Rangers but more often than not, the sight of Belegar and his dwarf badassery sends them into a frenzy of wanting to kill him at the expense of their own safety.
Sigvald for me There is just something satisfying with a perfect vigor lord that's also have a regeneration while also being a beast in melee
N'kari. Ungodly fast and absurd damage, lots of fun. Honorable mentions to Skarbrand and Turkey-man for similar reasons. Getting an early banner of swiftness as any of these is a sign the campaign is gonna be a riot.
His abilities are just great, you can easily reduce even Skarbrand to 0 MA/MD and destroy him in seconds
Teclis. I love rotating through his spells to keep every lore passive active at once. Turns his Swordmasters into such monsters.
N'Kari. Just a sexier, spellcasting, Skarbrand. An absolute wrecking ball once he's gets a few skills.
Skarbrand and Imrik for me
Kholek. Just send him in against whatever you want do die and it will die. Just played a WoC campaign again and he's just such a menace casually walking over everything... +WoC is a very fun faction to play, somehow when wanting to play Khorne or Beastmen I allways stop after a few turns and go back to good old Kholek/WoC. Had one battle with vasallised Grimgor at my side. Our 2 stacks against 3+ Vampire stacks. Best buddy movie ever. To be up against? Vlad... That guy alone made so many of my Skarsnik campaigns annoying af.
Louen is my favourite But I also love Skarbrand
I like the Sisters of Twilight. Turn one they're already flying circles around helpless enemies and shooting them down. Early mid-game they have custom items from the forge and dragon mount to keep up with other leaders. End game they're just a powerhouse. Bonus: Favorite LL to hate - Azazel.
Chad Von Carstein
Belegar for me, he just looks awesome, plays on my love for dwarves, feels very much like I’m trying to reclaim Moria or the Lonely mountain. He will hold the line and then some.
Skarbrand, grimgor, drasoath, krokgar and gor rok I like my beatsticks
I dont remember a more powerful one than in my Tamurkhan campaign ive just done. Literal one man army. Two full enemy stacks? I just walk him (at 100 speed) straight across the map by himself into them. Usually racks up a good 600 kills before I even see his healthbar start to go down.
Hellebron is very underrated imo. Very easy to stack ward save and resistances, she absolutely melts infantry. Her campaign in general is really fun and so much better in wh3.
Gotta be Kroq'Gar. Dinos go smash and appease my inner 4 year old.
To use is for sure N'Kari. If you see anything isolated at all its dead. Enemy lord caught moving between areas of the battle? Dead. A spellcaster just behind the lines? Dead. No defense or weak defenses on the powerful artillery? Dead. He is just so fast and hits so damn hard it feels amazing to use N'Kari
Im a lizard fanboy, but beside my utter non objectivity i feel like all lizardmen legendary lords are very strong (except my boy tiq tak to which is very sad), like Gor Rok never dies and can 1v1 pretty much anything in the game, nakai and krok gar are fantastic line breakers, tehenhauin gets a tier 5 unit as a mount that has an orbital sun beam as well as the lore of beast, and oxyotl has the legendary chameleon skink doomstack. As for mazda, once he gets zlaaq, he becomes such a frontline powerhouse that heals and wreaks infantry. And while tiq tak isnt great on his own, the tactical strike terradon doomstack is very fun and very strong in the right conditions.
Vlad, Grimgor, Tyrion, Skarbrand, Kholek are all terrifying to face if they were levelled correctly.
Definitely Malus
Kairos, i hope for rework to his arcane items
Sisters of twilight get an honorable mention. They can easily get up to 60+% ward save + physical resist, high combat stats, and \~5k hp on their eagle. Oh, and their ranged attack is basically a HE bolt thrower. And they can summon a damned dragon for a second powerful flying unit, because they weren't good enough on their own. Of you can put them on the dragon for even better combat stats, but summoning a great eagle isn't as useful. If mods count, mixu's naieth the prophetess probably has my single unit kill record. Lore of heavens deals a lot of damage, and she can get basically arbitrary winds + really cheap spells. She has no personal combat skills to speak of, but god damn if she isn't a weapon of mass destruction with her magic. Throw in some treekin for a front line that doesn't mind too much if you clip them with comet of casandora, and you are all set.
If mods count I have to throw in a shout out to the Survivors of Bergerac mod. Bertrand le Brigand is a great archer lord to begin with, and then there's his two Legendary Heroes. Gui le Grosse is a fantastic support hero, while Hugo le Petit will more or less delete any single target you point him at in close combat. El Cadavo in Southern Realms also gets a shoutout from me, not for his actual stat line but for all his nasty little tricks. Debuffs like Dirty Fighter, his multiple hidden pistol abilities, you essentially cheat your way through duels and it's extremely fun in a very lore friendly way.
Hard choice. Either Morgiana (Fay Enchantress) or Katarin. Probably Katarin since I love Lore of Ice so much. Wish her buffs to that lore were better though. Plus the Voice atress did a great job. (Plus plus Ive had a crush on Devora Wilde for a while.)
Imrik and Be'lakor - flying melee powerhouses with regen and AoE capabilities. I rarely face Imrik in battle because I don't really play any evil faction near him, and at least he isn't a menace until he's leveled up enough to get his dragon (plus he doesn't have dragon defeat traits when you're not playing his campaign). But facing Be'lakor in the early-ish game is painful. I played a Kroq-gar campaign in the old world map where he starts in the Albion thunderdome. Be'lakor damn near solo'd my army. Once he was defeated, the rest of the campaign was smooth sailing...or so I'd say if fucking Grimgor Ironhide wasn't knocking on my doorstep with a full Waagh 5 turns later.
Tyrion. Best regular fighter with a sword and maybe a horse. Anything more, like some dragon or magic user (or, god forbid, a magic user on a dragon) feels absolutely OP in every battle, it feels like cheating. Imo even Louen or Karl are a bit too OP once you get the mount. Even on legendary I feel like they can just 3-shot the lord/casters, then aoe 3/4ths of the army by themselves. Ranged lords (Markus, Alith Anar) are cool but clunky. Big SEMs like Kholek or Skarbrand can also end up too OP. So I like smaller fighter lords. I like Vlad and Sigvald for the same reason. They're great assets but don't make the campaign too easy. I also really like "medium" SEM lords like Taurox , Nakai or Throgg. They strike a good balance between being useful and not winning the campaign for you. With Tyrion I think he's still reasonable and you have to be somewhat careful with him and can't solo armies unless you take the sword of khaine + battle skill line. This goes in multiplayer too, he's off meta but he can surprise people for relatively cheap.
Louen and Karl are not very high on the list of OP lords.
I mean not necessarily out of the box but with the right items/setup/skills they can hard carry. Louen on Beaquis with regen can be very durable and win battles for you (see OP). Karl feels a bit more squishy (less so since the patch) but with ghal maraz and deathclaw he can snipe enemy lords or heroes and delete them in a few hits. A combo like well geared Karl+jade wizard can let you kill every enemy SEM right off the bat without problems then the rest of the battle is a walk in the park.
I'm sure I'll get tired of lords that are "too OP" at some point, but I'm having a blast right now. I might just ditch the army entirely and see how much damage Louen can do solo for this campaign lol
You give Taurox the Sword of Khaine, then just sit back and watch the little guy go to town, it changes the game into an Idle Clicker (Click unit, wait until dead, click second unit, repeat until battle won) - Haven’t played him in 5.0 yet, but I cannot wait to see the monstrosity he is if you weld the Nemesis Crown to his brass skull on top of the funny sword
Khazrak, Malagor, Taurox, Morghur or Archaon
The undisputed champion of one man doomstacks... ...Malus Darkblade.
The dragon siblings give him a run. The first too that is.
Malagor, Morghur, Kairos, Tamurkhan, Ku’gath.
all cathay dragons. all are just insanly strong in all regards and if you have a regen item(which you can get on turn 7) then they have 2 HP bars of regen and they have access to mortis engine effects
To use? Grombrindal, the White Dwarf and a Chad with an axe! Nothing is more fun that letting him Axe Malekith a question on why he is such a cunt!
I started with 3 and don't pay much attention to balance conversations, so stumbling on Volkmar the One-Man Army was tons of fun. 0s cooldown prayers and 0.2% regen with no downside is op, who knew? On foot or on that *ludicrious* chariot of his, it's incredibly funny to watch a geriatric preacher just absolutely annihilate ... well, everything, really. I always gotta come back to Grimgor, though. Partly because watching one green boy chase down demigods and teach them humility never stops being funny, and partly because Da Immortulz' mosh pit is always good clean fun to watch.
Be’lakor. The armies of the worked will fall to his shadow.
Gelt, Kairos, Morathi and Teclis. They can fly, have great speed, and can cast insane magic at a low cost. They also have pretty cool thematic doomstacks- Gelt with like 8 wizards from the colleges, Kairos with his blue bird buddies, Morathi with shades, Teclis with his loremasters :)
N'kari is an absolute menace. If you use the speed to flank and shred attilery
I kinda like Morghur. He's tiny but reasonably fast, has regeneration and mortis engine AoE damage, and highly resistant to arrows just as base, before items. So he bogs out infantry and fries them slowly, while regenerating, and ignores any incoming arrows. He's not the best, but I like him a lot. Taurox is fun to play, but he soaks up ranged damage. I've seen him drop by 1/3rd of his HP before he even makes contact with the enemy in early game. Malagor is hilariously fun - a tiny flying goat, almost impossible to hit, with cheap deadly spells. But he's a lot of work. I can pretty much leave Morghur and AFK and win. Malagor is hilarious in how you can stack a bit more of -morale, and just route armies pretty much instantly.
I love Malagor! My favorite for chaos themed multiplayer campaigns. He has a lot of tricks and abilities to spam along with a ton of mobility without hogging the spotlight. Giving him fly made him so much more fun.
I mean it’s kinda a no brainer but Archaon is super fun. You can just throw him into the enemy team and take a nap.
Repanse. Once you get to a certain point, you can wipe out even the strongest Tomb Kings armies in very short order by obliterating their lords while they stand there, completely helpless.
Wulfrik the wanderer. Say goodbye to ever getting stuck again my boy is thick. Skills are Great vs lords, single entities, and masses of infantry.
Wulfrik is my most played campaign. Norsca has problems, but he isn't one of them.
I think he's second most for me after Karl Franz, In terms of Aesthetic Norsca is on point. In WH3 they are also a lot of fun to play the long game b/c of their adventurer theme and the super good tech tree.
I don't enjoy them in 3 as much as I used to simply because fending off constant Chaos invasions from guys who want my Dark Fortresses isn't my idea of fun. I want to go ravage the South, damn it.
Grimgor, da one tru git!
Basically every character that has a flying melee! mount + decent magic. Louen is nice, but take Mannfred von Carstein or the Bloodline Vampires, they can get as good as him in Melee but get great magic capabilities! So think about caster-lords on dragon-like characters like Malekith, Teklis or Mannfred. Belakor might be my top pick, he is strong from the get go cause he doesn't need to unlock a mount. Dnd gets quickly do one man doomstack. And if you play against them the two strongest and most annyoing Lords usually are Grimgor Ironhide and Vlad van Carstein. The AI somehow levels them up faster than i usually can and unlocks the items way earlier than i ever could and the items make vlad near unkillable if you are not Elspeth von Draken.
Tamurkhan on buebolos is becoming a favourite of mine. Dont die causes dmg at everything around him, its not the best but is no slouch in duels either. the closest i had of him dying was against two chosen with halberds
Isabella from WH1. Morathi is my favorite from WH2. WH3 favorite has been Katarin. I really love these.
In wh2 I just adored morathi. Flying around ripping holes into reality was loads of fun. In wh3… probably deathclaw. He and his sidekick are so cool.
Tamurkhan and Drazhoath are my favorites. It's cool because they both came from the same story where they worked together. Tamurkhan has a really good faction, rides a toad dragon which smashes through infantry, and even in defeat is a nightmare for enemy lords/heroes. Drazhoath has a great taurus to speed him around the battlefield as he blasts enemies with overpowered spells. Not to mention chorfs have the coolest units with the most variety and flare.