Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Be'lakor - Warriors Of Chaos Campaign Overview, Guide And Second Thoughts
Hello everyone. In this guide I will cover:
- Victory conditions, faction and climate;
- Starting location;
- Diplomacy and outposts;
- Mechanics of the race and faction;
- Province edicts and army stances;
- Buildings and research;
- Lords and skills;
- Army compositions;
And give you my final notes on the specific faction. Hope you enjoy it.
If you prefer to watch the video, it also helps to support me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOxBQdtoJfk
If you prefer to read, here it is:
VICTORY CONDITIONS:
Short victory:
Destroy or vassalise the Seducers of Slaanesh (N'Kari), the Decadent Host (Sigvald) and the Sightless.
Control at least 4 of a long list of settlements, mostly close Dark Fortresses.
Occupy, loot, raze or sack 35 different settlements.
The reward is +30 Winds of Magic reserves, perfect since the faction enjoys some destructive magic power.
This is quite a tricky campaign to be honest. You do need to expand on rather different locations, and it will take time to manage to destroy or vassal those factions.
Long victory:
Achieve the short victory;
Occupy, loot, raze or sack 80 different settlements;
Control at least 13 of a very long list of settlements, mostly capitals from other Legendary Lords.
The reward is +10 Lord recruit rank, very good to ensure your armies have capable and competent generals right away.
Be'lakor is the Harbinger, and he benefits from:
Human lords can be corrupted into becoming Daemon Princes when defeated in battle or targeted by Heroes.
Starts with all Chaos God Gift slots.
Upkeep - 25% for all Daemon units.
Although Be'lakor can really use nearly any unit from the vast roster, it is incentived to go further into the Daemon units factionwide. This is quite a nice set of benefits.
Climate is non-important. Chaos factions can go anywhere, wonderful faction to try and dominate the whole map with.
STARTING LOCATION:
Your starting location is a 3 settlement province, very easy to hold and defend, but not easy to actually decide what is next. You have some freedom of choice, going into Norsca, Bretonnia, Empire, Ulthuan, etc. You also have access to the sea and all the nice goodies there.
Typical enemies therefore are difficult to pinpoint, so let's go with the objectives then. For the most part you need to go against other Warriors of Chaos and Monogod factions, but of course you are also hated by the Order and Dark forces, so... it will be difficult to find some early allies except maybe Norscan factions or those you vassalise by force.
DIPLOMACY AND OUTPOSTS:
Diplomatically you are Chaos, however, other than Norsca, you will have some troubles having some typical Warriors of Chaos allies. Therefore, most of your allies will come from the vassals or forced ones that you subjugate.
The entire Order tide and Evil tide should likely be after you. You have some choices here in terms of typical enemies, but do not expect too many allies around.
Typical outposts therefore should be with Norsca, maybe Skaven as you will be fighting their enemies. You may obtain a quick vassal out of Bretonnia, therefore, let me include it in the outpost possibilities so you can have some options and see what you like.
MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:
Souls are a unique currency, harvested by fighting anything that is not Daemons. They are used for Heroes and Lords to achieve Marks of Chaos, and also for the Gifts of Chaos mechanic.
Speaking of the Gifts of Chaos, they consist of a series of benefits you can have active, that cost upkeep in terms of souls. These may grant you gifted units to recruit into your armies.
The Path to Glory is a nice way to grant traits to your Lords and Heroes, or even have them ascend into Daemons. Very useful and customizable idea.
Authority is a way to grant cheaper upgrades and upkeep, as well as replenishment for a specific alignment (counting undivided as specific). Very cool way to customize your armies in the long run to whatever you prefer. As Be'lakor you can do anything, really.
Your units recruit instantly from a pool of units, and you can upgrade them into a specific alignment or undivided. This has a cost and will require technology to unlock.
In terms of buildings, you can only build up everything in the Dark Fortress locations.
Vassals should be noted as a mechanic itself. This faction will work immensely with them, receiving tribute, and focusing down enemies.
Unholy manifestations are a great way to obtain specific daemonic infantry units as well as some nice bonuses overall, including the possibility of creating a rift that only your faction can use. You can obtain more uses by fighting against the specific Chaos God armies, or you can pay souls for it.
PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:
Edicts:
Chaos undivided corruption +3; chaos in adjacent provinces +1;
control -4; Local warband recruitment +20% chance for undivided marauders; construction cost -10% for all buildings;
Campaign move range for enemies -20%; Enemy hero action success -20%; Attrition -20% when under siege; Melee defense +5;
Chance of a plague spreading -40%; hero recruit rank +2; recruit cost -10%;
As with other Chaos factions, it really suits the play style and has some nice options.
Army stances:
Channelling gives +15 Winds of magic and costs 10% movement.
Encamp allows replenishment and immunity to attrition, costs 50% movement.
Raiding costs 25% movement and gives immunity to attrition, as well as granting unit experience per turn.
Ambush costs 25% movement.
Forced march.
Very straightforward, but with some twists like the unit experience, make sure you benefit whenever possible to add it up.
Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Be'lakor - Warriors Of Chaos Campaign Overview, Guide And Second Thoughts Part 2
BUILDINGS, RESEARCH:
A very unique approach because of the Warband upgrades mechanic.
What you unlock is just the basic version of the unit, to be easier to upgrade from that. It also provides you unit capacity for those units, with some income benefits.
Special building exists in Konqata in Albion, giving you control +9, Winds of Magic reserves +20 (factionwide), and income from buildings +10% for the province. Cool one, specially with the factionwide bonus.
You have 6 military buildings, and infrastructure ones:
Growth and replenishment that can reach some insane levels;
Income and factionwide post-battle and sacking income;
Control, income from buildings, and corruption;
All of these are very good, but you are limited where you can have a Dark Fortress.
As for the Minor settlements, they do provide some province wide buffs:
Winds of Magic and replenishment
Warband upgrades cost decrease
Magic drop chance and souls gained from battles
Garrison building, with defensive style bonuses.
Useful to have at least one or another in some provinces, but definitely not necessary to have everywhere. Trade or gift settlements as you can to your vassals or allies.
Research changes for Be'lakor, as he has some unique approach. He needs to tech up to upgrade specific units, and he is typically more about the Daemon side of the units. He can get everything, though, which is excellent for amazing and crazy army compositions.
LORDS, SKILLS, ARMY COMPOSITIONS:
Remember that authority is what gives you replenishment and upkeep reduction. Replenishment also exists in the blue line.
Blue line also includes some benefits for the Warband Upgrades, which is good. Increased experience gained is rather important for the Warriors of Chaos because you need that experience to upgrade your troops.
Redline is one of the best and less expensive. You can benefit entire balanced armies, it is split mostly into Mortal and Daemon units, so it gives you some great combos and you spend very few skills there.
Be'lakor focuses more into the Daemon side (have I said that before?) giving them some nice benefits. Of course it makes sense to use some of those units. He can still go up to Chosen units, of course, or you can have some fun and have a Soul grinder stack for that matter. All in all, it is such a diverse roster anyways that you will have time committing to one specific army.
Then we have the Chaos lords with their typical benefits, and some nice compositions can be used for them. One deal here is to take advantage of the Warshrine buffs, so having one even for physical resistance or for heals just feels great overall.
Finally, Sorcerer Lords are quite perfect to just have some left over units there, really. The combo of Nurgle forsaken and Tzeentch Spawn is cool, they reduce the armor, you have a cheap stack to go around and cause some damage while your main forces deal with the enemy. You can also go into Aspiring Champions and Spawn of Slaanesh to reduce enemy stats and just some Trolls, if you have them... why not?
It was a mess trying to come up with different army compositions because there are so many possibilities and I just did not want to go into having just Chosen or just Exalted "X" units. So my advice is to have fun with it, create your own, plan it out and show those around to see what other players think of.
A reminder: heroes are placeholders, I only advise for 1 caster hero and 1 melee/support hero, but which type, how many, is really up to you. I merely advocate for the flexibility given by that combination.
FINAL NOTES:
Be'lakor is once more an interesting Warriors of Chaos campaign. This time, mostly for his mechanics, including the rifts, and converting Lords into Daemon Princes (yes, sorry I did not include that one in the mechanics).
In addition, he is the most customizable in terms of army compositions. You can get anything you want really, it just may take sometime to get it, but it gives you a nice chance of checking everything out and making up crazy cool compositions throughout the game.
Your army consists of (bear with me, this is difficult):
1 - Great infantry
2 - Great cavalry
3 - Good missiles
4 - Great monsters and single entities
5 - Good flyers
6 - Relies on upgrading units
7 - Requires time for the elite troops
Replenishment is great, no issues with climate, so go forth into world domination with Be'lakor.
Time to follow him, to conquest!
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3216468882
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