If anyone sucks with throt they should just move on to a different game. He is much fun and his campaign mechanic is cake. And juiced mutant rat ogres are impossible to kill and you can field like 3 full stacks of juiced monsters and 6 full stacks of cloned slaves to follow the armies around by like turn 70 I had so many armies with throt I would forget about them until game would remind me to move entire groups of slave armies wandering around the southland cloned and juiced to th gills
I used your strategy and it works very well. Instead of going north, discovering more chaos and get to nonstop fighting them, I went all the way down south, beating Azag, taking out the Vampires east of the mountains, kicking out the mean Tree Lady, getting some ruins, killing the vampire counts and taking their gold, grabbing alot of empire cities and then going back north is the way to go. You come out absurdely stronger, have way more gold, have alot of safe cities in green temp and more and experienced armies. It worked out great for me too, I let the other Kislevs take the brunt of the force and I had no problems as long as you do not take a single step into the north. IF there is some problem in the north you can just spam some cheap kossars and bolster the garrison for like 1k for a half stack. Just pure arrow spam. The rest is very easy as you just steamroll norsca and chaos. I do think that this is the way this is meant to be played as the upper northern part of Norsca homeland SHOULD not be chaos waste but just Ice lands and chaos wastelands should only be the ones in the north and south, which, would make things way easier for Kislev., Kislev SHOULD have not red hab for the chaos wastelands but Orange to better hold onto the land and make it way more viable for people who just want to bullrush straight nord. Hoping this will happen with the rework as they are quite the unfinished race and some design choices that CA made are quite puzzling to me.
I always choose Boris, and abandon the Chaos Wastes asap, coming back to Kislev and taking Praag. You have high relations with Katarin, and you can cover the North, while she covers the south. And you get yellow hab for Chaos wastes, and more devotion. Plus, you don't have to worry about supporters. Eventually confed Katarin, and Gastaltyn even started liking me for kicking Throt's ass.
NOBODY expects the Kookaburra ! Their chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Their *two* weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Their *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...no... *Amongst* their weapons.... Amongst their weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise....
I just wanna say I saw Legend’s Katarin Livestream and he basically made the exact same decision as you about attacking Azhag first. At least someone agrees with you. You can also add me to that list😂
I loved the freshness and benefits of your strategy in the first video and I would go as far as to say it is objectively a better plan than going for Throt. Any type of argument against it i take as being "out of character" for Katarin. This game, however, is a sandbox.
That's it, I'll be dropping strategies to give people the best shot at having a successful campaign. Sometimes it's not very canon, but as you said, it's a sandbox, if folks want to take a tougher route to save the North, more power to them.
One of your rare female viewers! Kislev was my favorite Warhammer 3 campaign till the Chorfs and I agree about going for Azahg! I mainly love Kossars because of how cheap they are! I think they are the best bang for your buck crap tier unit in the game. If you research the techs that buff them, it makes a difference. When I play Kislev, I just spam cheap units till I can get war sleds and some Ice guard and Strelzi. Always spam growth and caravan cheese. Loved your first few turns of the Kislev campaign especially. I had never been able to kill Bearsonling so fast. Jump started my campaign. keep up the awesome content!
Doesn't matter what you do as Katarin, there's always a good chance the one army you can afford is on the wrong side of your territory and Drycha/Thrott/Ropsmenn/Azhag/Ungrim/Chorfs (who don't often but absolutely can underway in to your territory) declare war on you by turn 10 and raze all your undefended territory.
Ropesmenn is easily dealt with by using diplomacy, and between him and the Orthodoxy, Thrott never gets through in any of my campaigns and sticks to back and forthing settlements with both factions. Going through and wiping out Azhag and the Silver Pinnacle gets you enough positive reputation with Ungrim to get positive diplomatic deals that eventually turn into a military alliance. While you defend the Silver Pinnacle with a basic army that costs nothing, you use Katarin and another baseline army to wipe out Drycha because you have a shitload of money to support these armies. Taking out Drycha and taking the surrounding Empire settlements gets you even more money to push south into the vampire lands. They cannot beat your hybrid troops and you gain yet another load of money from taking their settlements with wine and gold. Use your diplomacy to gain alliances with the Empire, the move north to wipe out everything with 3 solid armies paid for by everything you have in the south, completed protected by your alliances with the dwarves and the empire. Really is a no brainer.
@@aaronstevens82 I have no clue what makes the AI act like that in your game, but this no-brainer approach is DOA. Thrott showed up at Kislev city in my campaign on turn 11, with 2 near-full stacks (including a Mutant Rat Ogre and his special hero of death). I had *just* taken Azhag's first settlement and clawed a tight win against his 1.5 stacks. 4 turns later, Drycha declares war and attacks me from the south with 2 full stacks of absolutely arrowproof treedudes. There's zero chance of ever *seeing* the Silver Pinnacle, cuz even if by a miracle you manage to stave off these invaders, Ungrim will almost always take Azhag's capitol before I can make it there, let alone go beyond. Not that it matters, cuz even though I dont share a border with the Chorfs in this case, they still declared war same turn as Drycha. Oh, and Ungrim had to be paid off with 3k gold for a *non-aggression pact*. The chance of that campaign surviving to a trade agreement is close to nil. I have never seen Ropesmenn survive 12 turns, and the Orthodoxy gets wiped in the first 20 by Azazel. They are *completely* useless. The best ally I have is that tiny Kislev faction with a little region in the middle of nowhere, as she at least distracts the enemy for 3-4 extra turns while they make their way there. Unless they dont bother. Which they usually dont.
The tactics presented by you were perfect for me. Destroyed azhag really early, he was still level 3, and was ready when throt declared war much earlier than I anticipated
Also I just want to add as an avid complete world domination completionist: The North is always a terrible place to be in early game UNLESS you are an "evil" faction. From my experience, The evil factions in the North tend to always ally rather quickly and descend south almost immediately and is a constant occurrence regardless of what faction I play. The darklands however, has an interesting common route that factions there always take. Chorfs almost never leaves their place and if they do, they head up north or south, not east or west. Imrik also never expands aggressively and Grimgor always gets bogged down in the mountains fighting a war with an ogre-cathay alliance. If these factions happen to still be alive by turn 100 and Ghorst is not yet dead, his vampiric ascension WILL completely overturn the board and simply take the eastern mountain range for himself by force(courtesy of my 3 poorly attempts at ku'gath before I found the guides to him). This makes taking the western mountain range extremely safe compared to taking the northern mountain range. If you attack the north first, you will be at war with the entire north, while attacking eastward, will only result with you being only at war with factions AT the western mountain range. Giving you ample "core" territories. In the first place, the northern oblast and hellpit is NOT an easily defensible province. I honestly found it to be one of the worst. In any case, you don't want to be dealing with the Northern Wastes so early in the game that's why even if I wasn't particularly aware of the Azhag strategy, I completely agree with it the first time I heard of it because it was the strategically sound decision.
@@BlakesTakes420 sorry for the bad grammar. I did use your strategy, it worked well apart from the aforementioned, but I did it again with less auto resolve and it worked fine. Going for Azhag is the optimal strategy it seems.
@@samuelaylmer804 Yeah, one time as Franz, I disbanded my army after taking the rebel fort, because I wanted to build a new, upgraded army. Then Marianburg declared war on me. So I reloaded, and this time I only disbanded as many units as I was going to recruit that turn, gradually replacing my forces. And Marianburg didn't declare war. I think the AI definitely senses weakness, and always tries to capitalize.
Honestly i like the way you combine cheeky sarcasm with proper explanations, i am new to wh3 and is nice to learn while not dying of boredom. Of course i played kislev first and i was wiped. So i went to youtube to complain about myself and find out why i suck with Kislev. Ty!
The biggest perk of taking out Throt early is not the money, nor the territory, nor the convenience, it's that you don't need to deal with The Skaventide mid to late game. I take a slightly more challenging early game over fighting Skavens mid-game. Also, after taking Hell Pit, you don't keep it, you give it to the dwarf in the north for cash. While not a strong faction, it will keep them alive much longer. Between them and Kostaltyn, your North-West will be safer
Instructions unclear. Northern dorf dies turn 3-5 each campaign. Kostaltyn dies in turn 15-20 each time. There's nothing up north but Norsca, Skaven and Chaos Warriors.
Appreciate you making a follow up video. Explaining why certain strategies are better. I am looking forward to your next videos. Entertaining and informative.
I ignore both! When dealing with the starting enemy sometimes barely keep them alive to have buffer with Azhagand wait for him to start with the dwarfs or drycha and in all my campaigns i ignore throt and let him keep him to the crazy homeless priest while i deal with what i consider the main threat , the norscans( the ones near prague). even when throt declares on me, i just put an armoured kossars stack or winged hussars and destroy him because skaven melee suck and if you go through them next come ranged. anyway keep making these amazing videos love them even if disagree on certain points. You are definetly an amazing warhammer player and i would like to see you try to challenge the legend of total war.
Kislev never interested me much and i didnt really like their start position so I never bothered with them until I watched your video and it seemed fun. The start with going south first defenitely worked very well for me!
I didn't really disagree with your Azhag strategy, I was merely pointing out difficulties with the campaign itself that I have had. I haven't tried it out again yet but I will definitely take your advice to heart, thank you for the videos good sir.
You're most welcome for the videos my good man. Remember, Throt's only advantage is his numbers. Keep your Kossack stacks in convoy and you neutralize any chance he has of beating you. :)
honestly I agree going for Azhag first. In my first ice court campaign, I rushed for Throt because everyone I saw a legendoftotalwar campaign review telling me throt was really the biggest threat for her, but Azhag instantly declared war on me with a waaagh and pretty much ended the campaign. As well as Azhag having much better land for you to claim, Throt has a way stronger army than you at the start, as you are only given winged hussars, which aren't that good, and a snow leopard, which would probably lose to a unit of clanrats. Throt on the other hand, gets flesh laboratory (which in fairness the AI doesn't use that well), mutant rat ogre, rat ogres, the ability to summon rat ogres, menace below which is a pain in the ass, and a relatively defendable position.
Regarding Kossars, yes they're still a weak unit on the battlefield. However you missed an important point most comments about them mentioned: in auto resolve. Auto resolve overvalues Kossars' strength thus spamming armies of them and auto resolving is very much a viable tactic. It's like the good old Roman peasant only armies in Rome 2 Total War where such armies had ridiculous auto resolve strength for their cost that this strategy simply outclassed even the most elite of armies. It's a cheesy tactic, that's for sure, but it's very viable, especially if you're struggling with Kislev and aren't amazing at manual combat.
although going north and smashing skaven and norska feels more natural, getting a nice eastern border with gold and diamonds seems to be a decent (maybe even more optimal) approach
Still waiting for the dlc to get going on this campaign. I really think taking down Azhaag first and maybe go south is great to take easy lands for yourself to afford nice stacks of armies to beat chaos after it. We can see in your throt strat that you were already exposed to the chaos forces with a small chunk of economy, even if you take down Trogg and Azazael there will be others forces to surrond you. It's important to well plan your campaign in advance by guessing your ennemies position and agressiveness, nice lesson.
For real. Economy is the most important thing in Total War, and the Northern routes has terrible economy, especially since Chaos wastes are red for Kislev. It's always important to leave buffers between you and potential enemies. Legend of Total War wouldn't even take Marianburg as Karl Franz, because he didn't want to be attacked by the Norscans and have to go into that red hab quagmire. In my view, a similar experience is choosing to go south as Bretonnia, since you can get Estalia and Tilea from the Beastmen, Skaven, and Vampire Coast, and beyond that the green hab Desert from the Tomb Kings. Much better instead of going north to fight Norsca and conquer red hab frozen wasteland.
That narrow corridor that is "easy to defend" is populated mostly by hostile races (greenskins, chorfs and skaven)that can bypass that choke-point with underway stance so it's defensive value is overstated.
@@BlakesTakes420 but they can, especially if their are multiple hostile factions. A lot of it is down to RNG as to which factions own certain provinces, and how successfully they expand.
I really like this video and the "Why you suck on Katarina". Are you planning videos like this for every LL? :-) Right now I'm playing the Yvresse campaign on VH/VH and find it a real challenge. I had decided to keep both starting regions. But now I doubt if that was the right decision, maintaining two elven armies is not cheap. Keep up the good work!
Any chance you could make a video on Norsca and Wulfrik. I can't seem to start the campaign in a favourable way. The confederation thingy that Norsca shares with Greenskins is handy but double edged sword cuz gaining too much territory at start opens me up to multiple wars as the AI is intent on ruining any chance I have of a fun campaign. I just need to see where the balance lies, what to focus on etc. Shadow legion is the biggest pain in the ass. In my 4-5 campaing starts they declare war on me by turn 5 even if i send some bribes their way. Idk, mebbe i just suck hard but would love to see your take on it. Great video as usual, keep it up!
Since you're on a roll, might as well talk about Boris' campaign. Kostaltyn is a nice meme but ultimately, the real Kislev LLs are Boris and Katarin - until that Baba Yaga LL shows up, of course. Alternatively, I support the other guy's motion and do Throt next. Hell, maybe you can keep linking episodes together this way, by doing one of the archnemeses of the previous vid.
What is best in Life? To build growth and economic buildings. To get your cities to level 3. To raid the trade caravans of the Cathayans! Gold and Silver are the sinews of war.
The issue with going with Streltsi is that they're very expensive. You can field 2 Kossars for 1 Streltsi. 2 armies of Kossars will beat 1 army of Streltsi.
The Kossar problem is an interesting one. Earlier in the history of WH3, the Kossar strategy was the dominant one because Kossars were just better than anything else for their price until you unlocked Light War Sleds. Then, you'd just use Light War Sleds and maybe Bear Riders once you unlocked them but honestly, their price is so ridiculous you shouldn't even bother. But anyway, that was before SoC. You see, SoC being the unholy pile of dung it is, it not only broke Kislev by giving it OP units such as Akshina Ambushers, but it also destroyed the competition by nerfing Kossars into the ground. So yes, nowadays, Kossars are shit, but they used to not be.
I agree with your take, Blake. Throt being Throt, he will attack you as Katarin, eventually. But no war gets by just on happy thoughts. You need a solid economy before going against any chaos faction, and Kislev has high unit cost+upkeep. Luckily, I'd say Kislev is one of the best settlement income factions in the game. There is zero logical reason to rush Throt over Azhag. Even comparing the two and what they can field against you is lopsided; Azhag gets a waaaagh, with potentially wyverns, Throt has some fairly basic monster units and low tier infantry units. Nothing that is an issue even for regular Kossars if you use them properly.
@@BlakesTakes420 Right. They're actually a pretty solid counter to early skaven units. I've used them even against valkia before, with her having trolls, chaos warriors and a fire wizard.
wanna see a take on belegar ironhammer.. and maybe one on miao ying.. i love all your takes. would love to see more mastery of various fctions that i suck noob balls with on legendary
There is a better way. You have two armies and two directions. Two front wars go burrrrrr. I always have at least 5 fronts going on or I feel like im underachieving.
My ideal Kislev start is: -Blitz Azhag -Rush down Throt -Grab a few Streltsi -Crush Drycha -Wipe out Vlad and take Sylvania After that you can push into Norsca and your pretty unstoppable.
@@BlakesTakes420 It’s all about knocking out the Azhag/Throt/Drycha trio. Make it through that and your fine. EXCEPT WHEN KARAK KADRIN DECLARES WAR ON YOU WITH A POSITIVE RELATIONS MODIFIER AND COMPLETELY KILLS A RUN.
@Blakes Takes Good vid. In comparison to say the YT channel Colonel Damnders, who is a good lad, informative and with a good sense of humour but his narration is at a pace of someone who has a predeliction (see what I did there?) for Bolivian marching dust. ;-) Meaning he speaks sooo fast that at times he blurs through his speech so you have to rewind his vids here and there to get what he's saying. Yours are much better in terms of clarity, pace and presentation, plus the humour of course. 🙂 Keep 'em coming. I'm still having fun trying out the different factions as I've only recently been giving WH 3 a go. It's been in my Steam library for months but I've only now had the time to get into it. My bias for Chaos is still strong so I will go back to spilling blood and collecting skulls soon enough but for now it's off to the mountains to have a go with Thorgrim.... there's grudges to be settled! ;-)
That's something I always want to do as Bretonnia or the Empire, is just to pick betray and expand into all that sweet sweet green hab territory. But I can never bring myself to do it. :D
Kostaltyn is actually useful for his skill that gives 10% for all buildings. Giving how aggressive Kislev needs to be and how many buildings boosted it is quite useful. As for downside: who cares.
For my sins, I only play vanilla. I like the idea of mods, but I hate that they break every patch, and make an already quite unstable game, less stable. Maybe in the future though.
My general rule at the start of campaigns is to treat my capital as a second army and go conquer on the opposite direction. AI cannot take your capital early game, they are too scared to siege it and will certainly lose on the battlefied. Just another reason on why i prefer going for Azhag.
personally. after trying the Boris start where you flee towards the the northern borders of kislev, and fight along to coast towards archaon, i cant go back to katrin. i dispise her confederation mechanic if kostaltin does survive.. and hero faction bonus's are meh at best. boris tho being able to settle in choas wastes as unpleasant terrain, make the inevitable fightng you must do in the choas wastes, far nicer. (half price defence buildings also very nice).
Absolute fantastic content as always. Do you have a patreon? would love to donate after you made me an adept of Nurgle and a not-sucking-too-hard at Tzeench.
Just started a Kislev campaign and so far, I really enjoy it. Did play it last year in beta and hated it there. I follow mostyl your actual guide and I can say, it worked for me very well. Just one question: Has anyone any tips for the quest battle of Katatrin? The one were you get ambushed by Tzeentch? I played this game for many hours and did quite a few quest battles, but this one is the hardest by far. So pls if someone knows a trick or had the same problem, I´m open for ideas :D
@@BlakesTakes420 I also hate it when people like Azazel are around who raze crap so you dont know if its razed or not but there is actually a hero action called Scout Ruin which tells you if its a skaven ruin or not, it costs money gives no xp but still sometimes useful
Just tried this same strategy and ye the settlements moving around added another turn or 2 for me. I went to attack azhag however he had already killed the ogres and took a fight to drycha... which he lost as his strenght ranking was like 214 or something. I was going to take the rest of his land however thats when clan moulder attacked one of my minor settlements. This was around turn 8-9 i think. I reckon imma start it again and rush north to tear the skaven up. Not sure however how reliable azhag is to go attack drycha so early however so could just be luck based.
I followed your steps bur after I took out the greenskin, the dwarfs and drycha declared war on me wich derailed my campaign (even though it was on normal difficulty). Did this happen to you or somebody else? I'm still wondering what caused that. Would I have needed to wait until the greenskins and dwarfes were at war? Up until than your tipps worked perfectly and I felt much stronger compared to the campaign where I went after the skaven instead
It's strange that the dwarves would declare war. If you whack Azhag they should like you. Id have to see your campaign to make a call on it., if you want send it to my business Gmail account.
"recruit defeated legendary lords" completely nullifies the kostaltyn konfed konsideration- just let him get killed while you slaughter the slaghterer, and hit "accept refugees" when his faction death popup pops up
I don't think any of you suck in fact I think the route both you and the comments took are a natural evolution of exploring the early game. If you're grading success by how big your empire gets neither of you are correct. The best opening is starting war faction, Ostland, Drycha, Vlad, Throt, Averland, Festus, & Azaezel. All will be dead by turn 26 except Azaezel with 26 settlements although you'll have killed Azaezel's army. If you play well Azhag will never declare war on you and since you're almost always creating or ferrying troops half a stack to a full stack is never too far away. Only once out of 16 runs with Kislev did Azhag declare war. By turn 12 your faction STR should remain 4 - 1. So, he's very much deterred. The intention of this opening is to secure your western and southern borders. The north as a limited front and your east as a limited front as there are only a few openings where either can attack. All other forces are friendly unless played by human players and act as buffers as human players who start in Bretonnia. Once you have secured these borders it's time to push north into chaos with 4 - 6 armies and with all the early settlement eco...you can afford it. If you have any questions on how you can find me under the name DM2 on discord.gg/Xf5GTemS
Imagine if the next episode is "Why you suck with Throt" and he goes straight for Katarina
That was classified information!
If anyone sucks with throt they should just move on to a different game. He is much fun and his campaign mechanic is cake. And juiced mutant rat ogres are impossible to kill and you can field like 3 full stacks of juiced monsters and 6 full stacks of cloned slaves to follow the armies around by like turn 70 I had so many armies with throt I would forget about them until game would remind me to move entire groups of slave armies wandering around the southland cloned and juiced to th gills
Yup, Azhag first is the right call in my opinion as well. Fighting the rats with some higher tier units and more spells unlocked is a much easier task
hard agree. War sleds slaughter their infantry.
I used your strategy and it works very well. Instead of going north, discovering more chaos and get to nonstop fighting them, I went all the way down south, beating Azag, taking out the Vampires east of the mountains, kicking out the mean Tree Lady, getting some ruins, killing the vampire counts and taking their gold, grabbing alot of empire cities and then going back north is the way to go. You come out absurdely stronger, have way more gold, have alot of safe cities in green temp and more and experienced armies. It worked out great for me too, I let the other Kislevs take the brunt of the force and I had no problems as long as you do not take a single step into the north. IF there is some problem in the north you can just spam some cheap kossars and bolster the garrison for like 1k for a half stack. Just pure arrow spam. The rest is very easy as you just steamroll norsca and chaos.
I do think that this is the way this is meant to be played as the upper northern part of Norsca homeland SHOULD not be chaos waste but just Ice lands and chaos wastelands should only be the ones in the north and south, which, would make things way easier for Kislev., Kislev SHOULD have not red hab for the chaos wastelands but Orange to better hold onto the land and make it way more viable for people who just want to bullrush straight nord. Hoping this will happen with the rework as they are quite the unfinished race and some design choices that CA made are quite puzzling to me.
Glad you had a better time with it.
In fairness, uninhabitable terrain is still valuable to you because of the Attaman system. (:
I always choose Boris, and abandon the Chaos Wastes asap, coming back to Kislev and taking Praag. You have high relations with Katarin, and you can cover the North, while she covers the south. And you get yellow hab for Chaos wastes, and more devotion. Plus, you don't have to worry about supporters.
Eventually confed Katarin, and Gastaltyn even started liking me for kicking Throt's ass.
wasn't expecting the kookaburra
NOBODY expects the Kookaburra ! Their chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Their *two* weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Their *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...no... *Amongst* their weapons.... Amongst their weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise....
It's my successful ambush noise.
I see your point, mister Blake. I-ll try your strategy next time I play Kislev.
I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.
I just wanna say I saw Legend’s Katarin Livestream and he basically made the exact same decision as you about attacking Azhag first. At least someone agrees with you. You can also add me to that list😂
Gold and Diamonds are the sinews of war.
I loved the freshness and benefits of your strategy in the first video and I would go as far as to say it is objectively a better plan than going for Throt. Any type of argument against it i take as being "out of character" for Katarin. This game, however, is a sandbox.
That's it, I'll be dropping strategies to give people the best shot at having a successful campaign.
Sometimes it's not very canon, but as you said, it's a sandbox, if folks want to take a tougher route to save the North, more power to them.
One of your rare female viewers! Kislev was my favorite Warhammer 3 campaign till the Chorfs and I agree about going for Azahg! I mainly love Kossars because of how cheap they are! I think they are the best bang for your buck crap tier unit in the game. If you research the techs that buff them, it makes a difference. When I play Kislev, I just spam cheap units till I can get war sleds and some Ice guard and Strelzi. Always spam growth and caravan cheese. Loved your first few turns of the Kislev campaign especially. I had never been able to kill Bearsonling so fast. Jump started my campaign. keep up the awesome content!
So glad it helped you, and thank you for your kind words. (:
Comparing two different starting strategies like this is excellent content, I'll need to try to play Kislev again with these in mind.
Thank you so much for saying so!
That bird clip was excellent, fits perfectly lol
**Happy Blake noises**
Doesn't matter what you do as Katarin, there's always a good chance the one army you can afford is on the wrong side of your territory and Drycha/Thrott/Ropsmenn/Azhag/Ungrim/Chorfs (who don't often but absolutely can underway in to your territory) declare war on you by turn 10 and raze all your undefended territory.
Ropesmenn is easily dealt with by using diplomacy, and between him and the Orthodoxy, Thrott never gets through in any of my campaigns and sticks to back and forthing settlements with both factions.
Going through and wiping out Azhag and the Silver Pinnacle gets you enough positive reputation with Ungrim to get positive diplomatic deals that eventually turn into a military alliance. While you defend the Silver Pinnacle with a basic army that costs nothing, you use Katarin and another baseline army to wipe out Drycha because you have a shitload of money to support these armies. Taking out Drycha and taking the surrounding Empire settlements gets you even more money to push south into the vampire lands. They cannot beat your hybrid troops and you gain yet another load of money from taking their settlements with wine and gold. Use your diplomacy to gain alliances with the Empire, the move north to wipe out everything with 3 solid armies paid for by everything you have in the south, completed protected by your alliances with the dwarves and the empire.
Really is a no brainer.
@@aaronstevens82 I have no clue what makes the AI act like that in your game, but this no-brainer approach is DOA. Thrott showed up at Kislev city in my campaign on turn 11, with 2 near-full stacks (including a Mutant Rat Ogre and his special hero of death). I had *just* taken Azhag's first settlement and clawed a tight win against his 1.5 stacks. 4 turns later, Drycha declares war and attacks me from the south with 2 full stacks of absolutely arrowproof treedudes. There's zero chance of ever *seeing* the Silver Pinnacle, cuz even if by a miracle you manage to stave off these invaders, Ungrim will almost always take Azhag's capitol before I can make it there, let alone go beyond. Not that it matters, cuz even though I dont share a border with the Chorfs in this case, they still declared war same turn as Drycha.
Oh, and Ungrim had to be paid off with 3k gold for a *non-aggression pact*. The chance of that campaign surviving to a trade agreement is close to nil.
I have never seen Ropesmenn survive 12 turns, and the Orthodoxy gets wiped in the first 20 by Azazel. They are *completely* useless. The best ally I have is that tiny Kislev faction with a little region in the middle of nowhere, as she at least distracts the enemy for 3-4 extra turns while they make their way there. Unless they dont bother. Which they usually dont.
The tactics presented by you were perfect for me. Destroyed azhag really early, he was still level 3, and was ready when throt declared war much earlier than I anticipated
excellent - I'm glad to hear it.
Also I just want to add as an avid complete world domination completionist: The North is always a terrible place to be in early game UNLESS you are an "evil" faction. From my experience, The evil factions in the North tend to always ally rather quickly and descend south almost immediately and is a constant occurrence regardless of what faction I play. The darklands however, has an interesting common route that factions there always take. Chorfs almost never leaves their place and if they do, they head up north or south, not east or west. Imrik also never expands aggressively and Grimgor always gets bogged down in the mountains fighting a war with an ogre-cathay alliance. If these factions happen to still be alive by turn 100 and Ghorst is not yet dead, his vampiric ascension WILL completely overturn the board and simply take the eastern mountain range for himself by force(courtesy of my 3 poorly attempts at ku'gath before I found the guides to him). This makes taking the western mountain range extremely safe compared to taking the northern mountain range. If you attack the north first, you will be at war with the entire north, while attacking eastward, will only result with you being only at war with factions AT the western mountain range. Giving you ample "core" territories. In the first place, the northern oblast and hellpit is NOT an easily defensible province. I honestly found it to be one of the worst. In any case, you don't want to be dealing with the Northern Wastes so early in the game that's why even if I wasn't particularly aware of the Azhag strategy, I completely agree with it the first time I heard of it because it was the strategically sound decision.
To be honest when I attacked Azhag Ungrim declared war on me ruining my run. But then it was probably because I lost so many men…
You received many Skaven trophy-medals for your victories, yes-yes?
@@BlakesTakes420 sorry for the bad grammar. I did use your strategy, it worked well apart from the aforementioned, but I did it again with less auto resolve and it worked fine. Going for Azhag is the optimal strategy it seems.
@@samuelaylmer804 Yeah, one time as Franz, I disbanded my army after taking the rebel fort, because I wanted to build a new, upgraded army. Then Marianburg declared war on me. So I reloaded, and this time I only disbanded as many units as I was going to recruit that turn, gradually replacing my forces. And Marianburg didn't declare war. I think the AI definitely senses weakness, and always tries to capitalize.
Honestly i like the way you combine cheeky sarcasm with proper explanations, i am new to wh3 and is nice to learn while not dying of boredom. Of course i played kislev first and i was wiped. So i went to youtube to complain about myself and find out why i suck with Kislev. Ty!
You're most welcome sir. It's comments like these that make it all worthwhile. Have a great Christmas 🫶
The biggest perk of taking out Throt early is not the money, nor the territory, nor the convenience, it's that you don't need to deal with The Skaventide mid to late game.
I take a slightly more challenging early game over fighting Skavens mid-game.
Also, after taking Hell Pit, you don't keep it, you give it to the dwarf in the north for cash. While not a strong faction, it will keep them alive much longer.
Between them and Kostaltyn, your North-West will be safer
Instructions unclear. Northern dorf dies turn 3-5 each campaign. Kostaltyn dies in turn 15-20 each time. There's nothing up north but Norsca, Skaven and Chaos Warriors.
Nah, I take mid-game AI Skaven armies over the endless Waaagh army spam from Greenskin factions any time of the week.
Appreciate you making a follow up video. Explaining why certain strategies are better.
I am looking forward to your next videos. Entertaining and informative.
Glad it was helpful! thank you for your kind words sir!
@@BlakesTakes420 little hint on which faction you are covering next?
@@Nijlandboy the next faction has not yet been ratified.
🐀
Blake your videos are so incredible it blows me away!
You're very kind for saying so! Thank you!
I ignore both! When dealing with the starting enemy sometimes barely keep them alive to have buffer with Azhagand wait for him to start with the dwarfs or drycha and in all my campaigns i ignore throt and let him keep him to the crazy homeless priest while i deal with what i consider the main threat , the norscans( the ones near prague). even when throt declares on me, i just put an armoured kossars stack or winged hussars and destroy him because skaven melee suck and if you go through them next come ranged. anyway keep making these amazing videos love them even if disagree on certain points. You are definetly an amazing warhammer player and i would like to see you try to challenge the legend of total war.
I have a friend who is obsessed with saying “It was all a UNCLEAN dream!”
I just want to be pure.
I’d love an Ikit Claw campaign guide, that or a Tomb Kings guide on Settra The Imperishable.
Kislev never interested me much and i didnt really like their start position so I never bothered with them until I watched your video and it seemed fun. The start with going south first defenitely worked very well for me!
I didn't really disagree with your Azhag strategy, I was merely pointing out difficulties with the campaign itself that I have had. I haven't tried it out again yet but I will definitely take your advice to heart, thank you for the videos good sir.
You're most welcome for the videos my good man. Remember, Throt's only advantage is his numbers. Keep your Kossack stacks in convoy and you neutralize any chance he has of beating you. :)
honestly I agree going for Azhag first. In my first ice court campaign, I rushed for Throt because everyone I saw a legendoftotalwar campaign review telling me throt was really the biggest threat for her, but Azhag instantly declared war on me with a waaagh and pretty much ended the campaign. As well as Azhag having much better land for you to claim, Throt has a way stronger army than you at the start, as you are only given winged hussars, which aren't that good, and a snow leopard, which would probably lose to a unit of clanrats. Throt on the other hand, gets flesh laboratory (which in fairness the AI doesn't use that well), mutant rat ogre, rat ogres, the ability to summon rat ogres, menace below which is a pain in the ass, and a relatively defendable position.
Regarding Kossars, yes they're still a weak unit on the battlefield. However you missed an important point most comments about them mentioned: in auto resolve. Auto resolve overvalues Kossars' strength thus spamming armies of them and auto resolving is very much a viable tactic. It's like the good old Roman peasant only armies in Rome 2 Total War where such armies had ridiculous auto resolve strength for their cost that this strategy simply outclassed even the most elite of armies. It's a cheesy tactic, that's for sure, but it's very viable, especially if you're struggling with Kislev and aren't amazing at manual combat.
although going north and smashing skaven and norska feels more natural, getting a nice eastern border with gold and diamonds seems to be a decent (maybe even more optimal) approach
Still waiting for the dlc to get going on this campaign. I really think taking down Azhaag first and maybe go south is great to take easy lands for yourself to afford nice stacks of armies to beat chaos after it. We can see in your throt strat that you were already exposed to the chaos forces with a small chunk of economy, even if you take down Trogg and Azazael there will be others forces to surrond you. It's important to well plan your campaign in advance by guessing your ennemies position and agressiveness, nice lesson.
For real. Economy is the most important thing in Total War, and the Northern routes has terrible economy, especially since Chaos wastes are red for Kislev. It's always important to leave buffers between you and potential enemies. Legend of Total War wouldn't even take Marianburg as Karl Franz, because he didn't want to be attacked by the Norscans and have to go into that red hab quagmire.
In my view, a similar experience is choosing to go south as Bretonnia, since you can get Estalia and Tilea from the Beastmen, Skaven, and Vampire Coast, and beyond that the green hab Desert from the Tomb Kings. Much better instead of going north to fight Norsca and conquer red hab frozen wasteland.
That narrow corridor that is "easy to defend" is populated mostly by hostile races (greenskins, chorfs and skaven)that can bypass that choke-point with underway stance so it's defensive value is overstated.
As I said in the video, they never did use underway to circumvent it.
@@BlakesTakes420 but they can, especially if their are multiple hostile factions. A lot of it is down to RNG as to which factions own certain provinces, and how successfully they expand.
I really like this video and the "Why you suck on Katarina". Are you planning videos like this for every LL? :-)
Right now I'm playing the Yvresse campaign on VH/VH and find it a real challenge. I had decided to keep both starting regions. But now I doubt if that was the right decision, maintaining two elven armies is not cheap.
Keep up the good work!
That certainly is my intention sir!
You've done Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle....now it's time for you to do my Slaaneshi king
Oh don't you worry. They're coming. 💦
Any chance you could make a video on Norsca and Wulfrik. I can't seem to start the campaign in a favourable way. The confederation thingy that Norsca shares with Greenskins is handy but double edged sword cuz gaining too much territory at start opens me up to multiple wars as the AI is intent on ruining any chance I have of a fun campaign. I just need to see where the balance lies, what to focus on etc. Shadow legion is the biggest pain in the ass. In my 4-5 campaing starts they declare war on me by turn 5 even if i send some bribes their way. Idk, mebbe i just suck hard but would love to see your take on it. Great video as usual, keep it up!
I attacked azag first and then the dwarfs declared war on me and relieved me of two of my settlements before I could get peace
Props to the lasagne guy
Since you're on a roll, might as well talk about Boris' campaign. Kostaltyn is a nice meme but ultimately, the real Kislev LLs are Boris and Katarin - until that Baba Yaga LL shows up, of course.
Alternatively, I support the other guy's motion and do Throt next. Hell, maybe you can keep linking episodes together this way, by doing one of the archnemeses of the previous vid.
What is best in Life? To build growth and economic buildings. To get your cities to level 3. To raid the trade caravans of the Cathayans! Gold and Silver are the sinews of war.
Build growth, your economy is the Cathay trade caravans. 😉
Followed your vid. Helped me alot thanks❤
You're most welcome.
Great strategy out there
The issue with going with Streltsi is that they're very expensive. You can field 2 Kossars for 1 Streltsi. 2 armies of Kossars will beat 1 army of Streltsi.
Please do a Why you Suck with Imrik!
all in good time friend.
Nobody plays that schmuck, anyway.
The Kossar problem is an interesting one. Earlier in the history of WH3, the Kossar strategy was the dominant one because Kossars were just better than anything else for their price until you unlocked Light War Sleds. Then, you'd just use Light War Sleds and maybe Bear Riders once you unlocked them but honestly, their price is so ridiculous you shouldn't even bother. But anyway, that was before SoC. You see, SoC being the unholy pile of dung it is, it not only broke Kislev by giving it OP units such as Akshina Ambushers, but it also destroyed the competition by nerfing Kossars into the ground. So yes, nowadays, Kossars are shit, but they used to not be.
I agree with your take, Blake. Throt being Throt, he will attack you as Katarin, eventually. But no war gets by just on happy thoughts. You need a solid economy before going against any chaos faction, and Kislev has high unit cost+upkeep. Luckily, I'd say Kislev is one of the best settlement income factions in the game. There is zero logical reason to rush Throt over Azhag. Even comparing the two and what they can field against you is lopsided; Azhag gets a waaaagh, with potentially wyverns, Throt has some fairly basic monster units and low tier infantry units. Nothing that is an issue even for regular Kossars if you use them properly.
Kossars, in enough numbers, have the firepower to remove almost all skaven threats, exactly that.
@@BlakesTakes420 Right. They're actually a pretty solid counter to early skaven units. I've used them even against valkia before, with her having trolls, chaos warriors and a fire wizard.
wanna see a take on belegar ironhammer.. and maybe one on miao ying.. i love all your takes. would love to see more mastery of various fctions that i suck noob balls with on legendary
dwarfs will have their time in the sun ;)
any order factions really! dwarves would be great! thank you@@BlakesTakes420
I suck with the Bretonnians. Specifically the Fay Enchantress. Help.
There is a better way. You have two armies and two directions. Two front wars go burrrrrr. I always have at least 5 fronts going on or I feel like im underachieving.
Man I'd love to see a why you suck with boris since he starts far from the homeland(I know it's not that far but it feels like it)
My ideal Kislev start is:
-Blitz Azhag
-Rush down Throt
-Grab a few Streltsi
-Crush Drycha
-Wipe out Vlad and take Sylvania
After that you can push into Norsca and your pretty unstoppable.
there's definitely a tipping point with Kislev when you have so much money you're practically unstoppable.
@@BlakesTakes420 It’s all about knocking out the Azhag/Throt/Drycha trio. Make it through that and your fine. EXCEPT WHEN KARAK KADRIN DECLARES WAR ON YOU WITH A POSITIVE RELATIONS MODIFIER AND COMPLETELY KILLS A RUN.
@@dabbingtoast7743 this is true. Best bet while you're smashing Azhag is to constantly check diplomacy for NAP with Karak kadrin
@Blakes Takes
Good vid.
In comparison to say the YT channel Colonel Damnders, who is a good lad, informative and with a good sense of humour but his narration is at a pace of someone who has a predeliction (see what I did there?) for Bolivian marching dust. ;-)
Meaning he speaks sooo fast that at times he blurs through his speech so you have to rewind his vids here and there to get what he's saying.
Yours are much better in terms of clarity, pace and presentation, plus the humour of course. 🙂
Keep 'em coming.
I'm still having fun trying out the different factions as I've only recently been giving WH 3 a go.
It's been in my Steam library for months but I've only now had the time to get into it.
My bias for Chaos is still strong so I will go back to spilling blood and collecting skulls soon enough but for now it's off to the mountains to have a go with Thorgrim.... there's grudges to be settled!
;-)
Thank you so much for your kind words sir, they're much appreciated. 🫶
@@BlakesTakes420
Nae bother.
Yes yes, but have you considered abandoning Kislev and taking the Empire to the shed??
That's something I always want to do as Bretonnia or the Empire, is just to pick betray and expand into all that sweet sweet green hab territory. But I can never bring myself to do it. :D
Just listen to the voices in your head
PLS Consider Settra's campaign, Manfred in particular is massive troublemaker there (at least for me)
Kostaltyn is actually useful for his skill that gives 10% for all buildings. Giving how aggressive Kislev needs to be and how many buildings boosted it is quite useful. As for downside: who cares.
Erengrad go brrrr
I'd Love to see a Noctilus Tour, also have you considered Grimmhammer Mod ? I cant play vanilla anymore
For my sins, I only play vanilla.
I like the idea of mods, but I hate that they break every patch, and make an already quite unstable game, less stable. Maybe in the future though.
I played Katarin a few times and I end up fighting either skaven or orcs depending on what factions end up declaring war on me
My general rule at the start of campaigns is to treat my capital as a second army and go conquer on the opposite direction. AI cannot take your capital early game, they are too scared to siege it and will certainly lose on the battlefied. Just another reason on why i prefer going for Azhag.
*Thrott and his 38 units have entered the chat*
I don't know how to deal with chaos dwarfs and they come over the mountains later on, and right over there in ROC. 😢
As kisliv
It’s just so fucking good 😂
🫶
Cool!
personally. after trying the Boris start where you flee towards the the northern borders of kislev, and fight along to coast towards archaon, i cant go back to katrin. i dispise her confederation mechanic if kostaltin does survive.. and hero faction bonus's are meh at best. boris tho being able to settle in choas wastes as unpleasant terrain, make the inevitable fightng you must do in the choas wastes, far nicer. (half price defence buildings also very nice).
Absolute fantastic content as always. Do you have a patreon? would love to donate after you made me an adept of Nurgle and a not-sucking-too-hard at Tzeench.
Funnily enough I've just set one up, it can be found here, if you're interested: patreon.com/user?u=98073522
Thank you for your kind words.
Just started a Kislev campaign and so far, I really enjoy it. Did play it last year in beta and hated it there. I follow mostyl your actual guide and I can say, it worked for me very well. Just one question: Has anyone any tips for the quest battle of Katatrin? The one were you get ambushed by Tzeentch? I played this game for many hours and did quite a few quest battles, but this one is the hardest by far. So pls if someone knows a trick or had the same problem, I´m open for ideas :D
It's a rough fight for sure because your ambushed.
You need to focus the flamers. If you have an infantry heavy army you're in for a fair bit of pain.
Stalk from my knowledge doesnt hide your armies it just gives you a chance to ambush while attacking, its ambush stance which hides the army
Yeah I think you're right. They hide in ambush or in ruined settlements.
Nevertheless they're very hard to track.
@@BlakesTakes420 I also hate it when people like Azazel are around who raze crap so you dont know if its razed or not but there is actually a hero action called Scout Ruin which tells you if its a skaven ruin or not, it costs money gives no xp but still sometimes useful
Just tried this same strategy and ye the settlements moving around added another turn or 2 for me. I went to attack azhag however he had already killed the ogres and took a fight to drycha... which he lost as his strenght ranking was like 214 or something. I was going to take the rest of his land however thats when clan moulder attacked one of my minor settlements. This was around turn 8-9 i think. I reckon imma start it again and rush north to tear the skaven up. Not sure however how reliable azhag is to go attack drycha so early however so could just be luck based.
The extra addition of the new settlement may have changed the pace of things a bit. Might be worth taking Praag on the way up there.
@@BlakesTakes420 thanks dude, will try that tomorrow, keep up the guides, very Informative and interesting.
@@Danoramics you're most welcome sir.
I followed your steps bur after I took out the greenskin, the dwarfs and drycha declared war on me wich derailed my campaign (even though it was on normal difficulty). Did this happen to you or somebody else? I'm still wondering what caused that. Would I have needed to wait until the greenskins and dwarfes were at war? Up until than your tipps worked perfectly and I felt much stronger compared to the campaign where I went after the skaven instead
It's strange that the dwarves would declare war. If you whack Azhag they should like you.
Id have to see your campaign to make a call on it., if you want send it to my business Gmail account.
Thank you, that would be awesome! I tried to send it to you, but I have never send a savefile before so I hope I made no mistake.
"recruit defeated legendary lords" completely nullifies the kostaltyn konfed konsideration- just let him get killed while you slaughter the slaghterer, and hit "accept refugees" when his faction death popup pops up
So whats the goal line to follow in short terms?
guy here. just being a dude
Yo my dude, same.
👍🔥
I killed throt like forty ish turns in. I feel like it mostly depends on the AI choices.
I’d rather deal with Azag, I hate dealing with Throt
Hey Blake. Any idea why i suck with Catay? Wink-wink.
oh I have some ideas alright ;)
I don't think any of you suck in fact I think the route both you and the comments took are a natural evolution of exploring the early game. If you're grading success by how big your empire gets neither of you are correct. The best opening is starting war faction, Ostland, Drycha, Vlad, Throt, Averland, Festus, & Azaezel. All will be dead by turn 26 except Azaezel with 26 settlements although you'll have killed Azaezel's army. If you play well Azhag will never declare war on you and since you're almost always creating or ferrying troops half a stack to a full stack is never too far away. Only once out of 16 runs with Kislev did Azhag declare war. By turn 12 your faction STR should remain 4 - 1. So, he's very much deterred. The intention of this opening is to secure your western and southern borders. The north as a limited front and your east as a limited front as there are only a few openings where either can attack. All other forces are friendly unless played by human players and act as buffers as human players who start in Bretonnia. Once you have secured these borders it's time to push north into chaos with 4 - 6 armies and with all the early settlement eco...you can afford it. If you have any questions on how you can find me under the name DM2 on discord.gg/Xf5GTemS
Do a why you suck with ikit claw or clan moulder
you should make a new video now that theres a new settlement in the start
Haha, if only it were that easy
@@BlakesTakes420 i cant handle kislev i tried for 9 hours yesterday
@@adrianlassen7948 what's causing you issues?
@@BlakesTakes420 its the time it takes to kill the norscans in time before i can take azag on before the skaven dude arrives
mass kossar should be enough to deal with early game skaven, I'd have to grab the save file off of you and take a look
Azhag not declaring war on you is very RNG, it's better to just wipe him out and not have to worry about it.
Agreed.
7:14
Guy here, just being a dude too.
Yeah man, I gotta say its pretty terrific.
lasgne
Youre not my Mum? Sad....
sorry boo
Why do you listen to these curs who doubt your wisdom!
Thank you!
I like the comment section keeping me honest, I've learned a lot from you lovely folks.
wow first