Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Rakarth - Dark Elves Campaign Overview, Guide And Second Thoughts Part 1
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, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuUNf7ly57I&list=PLZ32CBgKqEVBHAWCpcmXOI-YmNez8dnPC&index=83
If you prefer to read, here it goes:
VICTORY CONDITIONS:
Short victory:
Win the Whip of Agony quest battle
Maintain control of the Turtle Isles province
Occupy, loot, raze or sack 30 different settlements
The reward is +3 recruit rank to all your units, great to ensure you always get some nice upgraded troops as you are recruiting them.
Long victory:
Achieve the short victory conditions
Occupy, loot, raze or sack 75 different settlements
Control the Shrine of Khaine settlement
Destroy the factions of Avelorn, Eataine, Nagarythe, Order of Loremasters, Yvresse and the Knights of Caledor. All the main High Elf ones.
Maintain control of the province of Eataine.
The reward is +15% more income from slaves, which does help although it may arrive too late for you to benefit from it enough.
While the short victory is quite cool, and it allows a bit of a sandbox feel with the flexibility you have to decide where to go, the long victory is a monumental task requiring you to go around fighting Teclis and Imrik who are really far away. It is not unfeasable that you actually manage to complete domination before the long campaign victory.
Rakarth is Under the Lash, and has the benefits of:
Monster Pens: capture a variety of beasts and send them into battle;
Forces do not receive Vigour penalties from Raiding stance;
Upkeep: -10% for all monstrous units (all armies).
Very thematic idea here, so of course you should be fielding tons of monsters in your armies.
Climate is much better than other Dark Elf factions, definitely ensuring that Rakarth is a better choice to go for a domination or world map completion campaigns. A much simpler choice too, so do not hesitate to try him out.
STARTING LOCATION:
Your starting location is very good, very defensive and with a 4 settlement province. It allows you to either expand into Lustria or to use the nearby sea lanes to go elsewhere.
Typical expansion is of course to be in control of all of Lustria and later Ulthuan to get closer to that Long victory. Still, the fact you can use the nearby sea lanes gives you a nice replay value for this campaign.
DIPLOMACY AND OUTPOSTS:
Diplomatically you are part of the Evil tide. You are surrounded by Lizardmen, Dwarfs, Empire, some monogods... likely they will become your enemies.
Still, there are some choices in terms of Greenskins and even possibly Tzeentch as possible allies.
Good outposts therefore will come from them, and I would definitely jump at the opportunity to get Kairos in an alliance, though who knows he is trustworthy. Greenskins monstrous units and artillery, or Tzeentch heavy infantry or flyers could make up for a deadly combination for your forces.
MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:
Slaves are a main factor for the Dark Elves. It is used as a currency of sorts, giving you control and income bonuses, as well as some nice buffs if you obtain vast numbers of slaves.
They are used for Diktats, which can provide lots of control, treasury and control, or growth and less construction cost for a province. You can also use slaves to speed up construction of a building.
They can also be used for rites, including to:
1 - Black Ark that becomes available to be recruited;
2 - Lords having a chance to gain 2 Loyalty; Control +8 to all provinces
3 - A dilemma, that will allow the dispatch of hunters to secure additional units for your Monster Pens. The choice may incur additional costs.
4 - Casualties post battle +25%; income from post battle 50%; casualty replenishment rate +20%; army ability "dark conduit".
All your lords also have loyalty, which needs to be higher than 0 or you may have them revolt and taking their army with them.
Black Arks work as mobile horde style building/recruitment while at sea. They assist in recruitment, replenishment, and have bombardment abilities for armies that are in range, so staying close to them will give you an edge in the battles that are fought inland as well.
You are one of the few factions who can build the Shrine of Khaine and of course claim the Sword that way. It should be interesting as Rakarth, although he is already powerful on his own with his dragon.
One of the best mechanics is the names of power. At level 10 you can choose a name of power for your lords, with drastic implications for your lord and army composition as well as overall playstyle.
Rakarth specifically has the Monster Pens, as he fights battles you have a chance to have units added to the Monster Pens pool. You can then recruit them instantly. These are dependant on the climate that you are currently fighting on.
PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:
Edicts:
Control +4;
Income from all buildings +5%
Income from post battle loot +5% (factionwide); recruit rank +1; weapon strength +10% (armies in province)
Rush construction slave cost +10%; growth +20;
Enemy hero success chance -25%; Ambush success chance +20%; chance of intercepting armies +25%;
These were improved over the previous versions and are now more balanced, allowing you some good choices even into the lategame. Don't forget the factionwide post battle income, you can get some nice values with it.
Army stances:
Channeling costs 10% movement and enables replenishment, as well as giving you +15 winds of magic power reserves per turn
Raiding costs 25% movement, gives immunity to attrition, and also gives a chance for units to be added to the monster pens. Remember it does not give the usual vigor penalty to your army.
Ambush costs 25% movement
Forced march
The lack of encampment has always been quite an issue for the Dark Elves, so you always have to choose between being immune to attrition or replenishing, unfortunately.
Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Rakarth - Dark Elves Campaign Overview, Guide And Second Thoughts Part 2
BUILDINGS, RESEARCH:
One special building in the Chamber of Visions gives some small factionwide benefits, such as Magic item drop chance +5%, lord recruit rank +1, hero action success chance +3%, ambush defense chance +5%;
Military requires 7 buildings, 3 of which can be built in minor settlements, which is nice. Tier 3 units are already good, specially ranged stuff with fast infantry and cavalry units.
Infrastructure has:
1 - Growth and casualty replenishment rate
2 - Income
3 - control
4 - control reduced, but slaves used by buildings reduced and slave cost for diktats reduced too.
5 - campaign movement range, income from trade tariffs, income from all buildings and slaves increased.
Overall, very nice choices, improved from the previous idea, no longer affecting the slave population so drastically. You still have to balance those out, but now at a more manageable level.
The Dark Elves also have a great research tree, that adds a ton of buffs to campaign and units. I recommend you check it out initially to plan out a path so that you can synergize with the units you will want for your armies in the best way.
LORDS, SKILLS, ARMY COMPOSITIONS:
Blue line has reduced upkeep in the second part of the line, as well as replenishment combined with reduced attrition, which is useful for the Dark Elves.
Redline proves to be rather average to expensive, mostly because you have elite units separated and cavalry units also separated from monsters. The main issue is when you wish to have some variety within your armies.
The names of power will tremendously benefit you and make you rethink your army compositions. It is recommended that you adapt to them, as you will have a choice to choose between two of those names at random.
Rakarth gives some nice buffs to harpies to the point they can act as infantry, really, and all the monsters of course can come in and finish the job. You will have tons of micromanaging to do with all the breath attacks, but they are well worth it.
Note that you can always change these armies and include some of the monsters. However, given how they change in accordance to the climate and that itself implies you may not obtain them, I did not include the options here. But yeah, Mammoths are really cool to have with him 😉
A note for the Beastmaster Lords, as they have specific benefits for most monsters, including Cold Ones, so they are excellent to build up some armies focused around them.
Finally, good combinations of heavy infantry with shades and cavalry units, or with monsters to keep the theme. Nothing wrong with taking some armor piercing dark shards either.
The schools of magic are all very nice, focus on damage dealing and debuffs for the most part. The general concept of the faction is to dish out damage very fast, so you can create very quick mass routs if you plan it well.
FINAL NOTES:
Rakarth not only has a specific playstyle but has much better climate options, implying he is perfect to try and dominate the whole map with.
His starting position gives you quite unique enemies compared to other Dark Elf lords, and you have the possibility of having alliances with some factions that are not likely for anyone else. That alone adds some great replay value for this campaign.
Focusing on the beasts implies a great variety of armies that you can embrace, and of course you can always just go into the typical ones as I have shown.
Your army consists of:
1 - Great infantry
2 - Great missiles
3 - Great cavalry
4 - Great single entities
5 - Good flyers
6 - Armor piercing emphasis
7 - Lacks health
8 - Lacks some range
Replenishment is great, specially because of the climate, when compared to other Dark Elves.
Time to make your own Jurassic Park nightmare for others, with Rakarth of the Dark Elves.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3206586217
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