Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Nakai The Wanderer - Lizardmen 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, here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIMN04cenFM
If you prefer to read, here it goes:
VICTORY CONDITIONS:
Short victory:
- Destroy the factions of the Blessed Dread, the Dead Flag Fleet, and the Jiangshi Rebels.
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 30 different settlements.
The reward is +3 hero capacity for all heroes, which is good to ensure you have some extra heroes without wasting too many buildings.
It is a very nice and straight up victory condition, easy to obtain, and mostly you are expanding in the same direction. What more can we want?
Long victory:
- Achieve the short victory conditions;
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 70 different settlements;
- Destroy the factions of the Blessed Dread, Dead Flag Fleet, Jiangshi Rebels, Clan Eshin, Puppets of Misrule, Caravan of Blue Roses, Poxmakers of Nurgle, Clan Pestilens.
The reward is +10 hero recruit rank, great so that your heroes, specially casters, are already powerful once you recruit them.
Up until Clan Pestilens, everything about this victory condition was great. Clan Pestilens is located on the other side in Lustria, so either you get lucky they are destroyed by someone else or you have to get there. You do have the sea lanes, but still, lengthy campaign indeed. The best part is that it is rather unique.
Nakai is the Wanderer, and he benefits from:
- Nakai's horde unlocks units, while the other hordes use global recruitment to get access to units.
- Nakai's vassals occupy the settlements that are conquered. More settlements controlled have increasing rewards.
- Recruit rank + 3 for Kroxigor Ancients.
A very nice set of mostly different mechanics, with the Kroxigor Ancients being a focus of the faction.
Climate is excellent for Nakai. One of the best factions to try and actually paint the map, although it is a horde, it is refreshing considering how much climate typically affects Lizardmen.
STARTING LOCATION:
Your starting location is very defensible, and you can really only go into the North or the East. Therefore, early expansion is rather easy to conduct, and you simply have to follow in a straight line for your short victory objectives.
Typical enemies will be anything that is Evil or Chaos, but you may run into some trouble with the Cathay factions as well. Proceed with caution and always ensure you are prepared for a fight.
DIPLOMACY AND OUTPOSTS:
Diplomatically you are part of the Order tide. For the most part, Cathay will likely be your best bet for an ally, for quite sometime.
Enemies will also include Cathay almost for sure, but try to ensure that only applies to minor factions. Vampires, Dark Elves, Skaven, Chaos, all will soon become your enemies and you shall have plenty of them to fight against.
Outposts therefore should be tried with Cathay for their artillery and single entities, perhaps the flyers too.
MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:
First, of course, Nakai is a horde faction. Remember to always ensure that Nakai's force is always ready for a fight and all should go very well.
Rites are fairly decent and modified heavily for Nakai:
Rite of Mastery: Recruit rank +2 for Kroxigor Ancients; Recruit rank +1 for Kroxigor and Sacred Kroxigor units; Weapon strength +15% for Kroxigor and Sacred Kroxigor units; Armor +20 for Kroxigors and Sacred Kroxigors units. These are really significant in ensuring Nakai gets a lot of worth from those crocs.
Rite of Allegiance: All regions belonging to the Defenders of the Great Plan cause attrition to their enemies. If you are under attack, consider popping this one up.
Rite of Rebirth gives you an army of Blessed units to protect the Defenders of the Great Plan at their capital. It does not replenish, though.
Rite of Awakening is a good way to get a caster lord. Your Slann Mage-Priests are very effective, and rather inexpensive as you do not pay for this rite.
Blessed Spawnings are given after specific missions, and provide great versions of the units as well as another pool for instant recruitment. In the specific case of Nakai, you can also get them from the Temples of the Old ones mechanic.
The Temples of the Old Ones are in essence a series of buffs that you can obtain by gifting regions as you fight to Qutzl, Itzl, or Xholankha. These range from stat boosts to spawning blessed units, to army abilities. The more you expand, the better these get.
These also work to give you Old One's favor, a sort of currency used for some rites, technologies, and temple rewards.
Lord Kroak, finally, is just... insane. A Legendary Hero that you can have on any army, I like using him on a secondary army for him to shine on his own, but by all means, join him with Nakai for a great duo.
PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:
Being a horde, Nakai does not have any edicts.
Army stances:
Astromancy has Vanguard to some units, chance to intercept increased, as well as ambush success defense. Use this one defensively, specially vs Skaven or Tzeentch.
Channeling gives you magic reserves and it costs 10% movement range.
Encamp does not cost any movement, and makes you immune to attrition, casualty replenishment rate increased, and a 75% ambush defense chance.
Ambush costs 25% movement range.
Forced March.
Notice the lack of a raid stance. Astromancy is very useful against Skaven and Tzeentch, but remember how Encamp costs no movement points so that you are always replenishing with Nakai's force.
Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Nakai The Wanderer - Lizardmen Campaign Overview, Guide And Second Thoughts Part 2
BUILDINGS, RESEARCH:
Buildings change into Nakai's horde and other hordes.
Nakai has 7 buildings for full military, and you really need them in your horde. This is because you cannot build those anywhere else.
In terms of infrastructure:
1 - upkeep and casualty replenishment rate;
2 - Army capacity, hero capacity and corruption;
3 - upkeep and horde growth
4 - recruit cost and horde growth
5 - casualty replenishment rate and horde growth
For the most part, the initial two are the ones you need to have in the lategame, to ensure you have the extra army capacity and reduced upkeep. Note that plenty of buildings and technologies have increased army capacity or hero capacity or upkeep reduction, so you have several options.
The other hordes can only build stuff that reduces global recruitment duration of the units, and have buildings that increase hero capacity, as well as three minor infrastructure buildings.
Research is changed for Nakai:
you have two main lines, one that keeps increasing army capacity, which is very important, and another that increases the tribute from vassals, equally nice.
There are many important buffs around for the campaign and of course the units. Special attention to Kroxigors having terror, for example.
You should study it a bit to ensure you have a plan for the beginning and midgame.
LORDS, SKILLS, ARMY COMPOSITIONS:
Blue line includes upkeep and replenishment, but in the second part. Note that it has horde growth in the first part, which is good and Nakai will have enough skill points to accomodate it.
Redline has very good choices, rather cheap, but you basically go into skink units or saurus units.
Dinosaurs are nearly all based on one redline skill set, which is excellent and it allows a lot of variety with the big ones.
A special not to heroes is that your Skink Chiefs provide replenishment, so they are a must for most armies.
Every lord has specific buffs for specific units, which ensures you can also vary a bit and have different army compositions throughout the game. You are incentived to use more Kroxigor Ancients due to how the faction works, though.
Magic is very important and the Slaan Mage-Priests now have even more lores of magic, giving them amazing value.
Nakai is all about the Kroxigors, so of course you should go into them heavily. Then you can go into missile units, flyers, cavalry if you wish, or single entities, and all of them are rather inexpensive in terms of redline skills.
Other Kroxigor lords can have the same idea, but I would add in the Temple Guards to have better choices vs large units, and either into single entities, flyers, or missile units for support.
Saurus Old-Bloods may have the most typical compositions that I like to do, Temple Guards with Kroxigor support and missiles or Dinosaurs.
Nothing wrong with having some Skink based armies and they may surprise you with some specific lords buffing them.
Finally, I add in some nice unit compositions based on Saurus warriors, and missile troops, flyers, dinosaurs... note how they are effective in terms of how many redline skills you are spending for a rather balanced out composition.
FINAL NOTES:
Nakai offers a unique campaign with the Lizardmen and with Warhammer 3 overall. Conquering settlements and gifting them to your vassal is already quite unique, but having a horde be your main one, while the others draw their power from you, makes Nakai a one of a kind faction. Lategame, your decisions will feel very important.
The new mechanics and research feel very fresh, and you still have access to all of the Lizardmen units to ensure a lot of variety. Still, definitely a campaign around the Kroxigors.
Your army consists of:
1 - Good infantry
2 - Good skirmishers
3 - Good cavalry and flyers
4 - Good Monstrous infantry (great for Nakai)
5 - Great and vast array of single entities
6 - Lacks typical artillery
7 - Lacks range overall
Replenishment is great, mostly due to climate really. You have many solutions to get even more replenishment which is always very important as a horde faction.
Time to wander around the world of Warhammer, as Nakai, the Wanderer.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3216322076
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