Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Aranessa Saltspite - Vampire Coast 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.
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VICTORY CONDITIONS:
Short victory:
- Destroy the faction of the Dreadfleet (Count Noctilus)
- Control the Galleon's Graveyard
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 30 different settlements.
The reward is +15% replenishment rate, which is great to ensure you keep going easily with your conquests at maximum force.
This is less of a sandbox campaign compared to other Vampire Coast lords, but still quite short.
Long victory:
- Achieve the short victory
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 75 different settlements
- At the start of your turn, have at least 25000 Infamy
The reward is +35 winds of magic power reserve capacity, great as always, particularly given how much you benefit from your magic in battle.
More of a sandbox idea, the long victory is quite simple in its goals, and it gives you a lot of replay value.
Aranessa has Piratical Ambitions, benefitting from:
- Diplomatic relations with Norsca -100;
- Chance of finding Treasure maps +25%
- Income from raiding +50%
- Income from sacking settlements +20%
These turn her into quite a pirate-like faction, income from raiding and sacking can just imply that sort of economy throughout your game.
In terms of climate, it is very good, only mountains and chaos wastelands really giving you some trouble. Other thatn conquering those Chaos Wastelands you can pretty much go anywhere without suffering any issues, good for a domination or even world conquest campaign.
STARTING LOCATION:
Your starting location is in the Island of Sartosa, a 1 settlement province. It is quite defensible, although not as much as the Galleon's Graveyard. You need to be on the lookout for any threats from the sea while you engage in the mainland.
Typical initial enemies will be the Empire factions and Skaven, due to current and past events, and proximity.
Typical expansion is thus to control a good area in the Estalia zone, and then decide whether to go North, South, or even into Ulthuan. If you follow the objective you have to go into the Galleon's Graveyard at one point.
It is still a good location for benefitting from any sea goodies, and you should do so at any given opportunity for some fast gold or advantages in your campaign.
DIPLOMACY AND OUTPOSTS:
Diplomatically, it is difficult to perceive. Your main enemies will be the order tide factions, such as Empire, Dwarfs, Bretonnia, and High Elves. However, Skaven is also an enemy...
Greenskins may prove to be your best bet for some allies, but it is tricky to ensure that the faction you do ally with remains alive for a long time. Vampire Counts are another possibility, mainly because of shared enemies.
Therefore, outposts will be great to obtain some cavalry that you lack, or some strong infantry.
MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:
Aranessa can recruit specific Sartosan units, including Sartosa free company and Sartosa militia. She can also obtain Maneaters and Maneater Pistols to bolster her ranks.
Raise the dead is pretty much as the Vampire Counts, although not as effective. It does allow quick armies to be summoned, particularly in the early game.
Treasure maps and pieces of eight are good and quite thematic. They could have better rewards, but... Typically, players have a hero going around the world to collect those treasures, and it is a good way to also meet up other factions and start trading and alliances.
Infamy gives you some fights, in essence, as whenever you reach a specific level, you need to fight for a Sea Shanty. Once you get all Sea Shanties, your army has a really powerful ability, since Melee defense and reload skill just implies much better ranged power and survivability, which is really your strength.
Port settlements allow the building of Pirate Coves. Unlike the Skaven Undercities, Pirate Coves cannot be discovered and are only destroyed if the settlement is razed.
The buildings in the pirate coves include:
1 - Infamy per turn, lord recruit rank, hero capacity;
2 - Infamy and Vampire Corruption
3 - Infamy and income
4 - Infamy, income, research rate.
Some lords, including your Legendary Lord Aranessa, have a Horde style construction, called Shipbuilding. This is similar to Black Arks, and allows you to quickly build infrastructure to recruit units, as well as receiving some important buffs. It is easier and quicker to develop these over your basic settlements.
Rites are very good:
1 - Curse of the Sea Mist, all regions causing attrition to enemies, and giving vanguard to a lot of different units.
2 - Curse of Eternal Service, ensuring Loyalty does not decline, Lords having a 50% chance of gaining 1 loyalty, and control +5
3 - Curse of the Queen's Cannon, giving you the possibility of recruiting the unique Queen Bess (max 1), and giving +15% casualty replenishment rate (!)
4 - Curse of the Bountiful Treasure, which costs nothing and just gives you treasure based on the amount of Buried Treasure buildings you have (which can be built only in province capitals)
Cool rites that always give you some extra possibilities to adapt to the campaign situation. Get Queen Bess as early as possible, she definitely helps against many enemies.
Offices provide many different bonuses that will help you throughout your campaign, and can help determine some army compositions given the traits it gives to the Lords. Just pay attention to what are the faction wide and the lord army effects, and you should be fine with your choices.
PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:
Edicts:
Growth +15, recruitment cost -10% for Zombie units, +1 local recruitment capacity;
Loyalty does not decline in the province, Infamy per turn -10; Control +5;
Attrition -7% when under siege; Global recruitment capacity +1 (factionwide!), Ammunition +25%
Enemy campaign movement range -20%, Vampiric corruption +2;
Overall interesting and different choices from the typical ones. The growht and control one should be the typical ones, with the others being circumstancial.
Army stances:
Dig for treasure is a specific one, it consumes all the movement but allows you to search if there is the treasure from the Treasure maps mechanics.
Encamp does NOT cost any movement. It enables replenishment and access to Global recruitment, as well as immunity to attrition.
Raiding costs 50% movement and immunity to attrition
Ambush costs 25% movement
Forced March
Typical ones, Encamp to be used at nearly every opportunity.
Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Aranessa Saltspite - Vampire Coast Overview, Guide And Second Thoughts(continuation)
BUILDINGS, RESEARCH:
Sartosa has a specific building, the Dragon Tooth Lighthouse, that causes all sea regions to be visible to your faction.
It also has the Peg Street Pawnshop, which provides a lot of resources production. Smithy's Tavern also gives some income, control, hero recruitment rank, local recruitment capacity and replenishment. All very good.
Military requires 6 buildings, but the biggest issue is that all of them must be built on the capital. You do have decent tier 3 units, so some may be built on minor settlements just for those tier 3 units, such as for Carronades.
In addition, if you have a port you can also recruit the Sartosan infantry and Ogre Mercenary units.
It is probably one of the few factions that only needs one building to be somewhat effective into the lategame, as the ranged building gives you a good hero, frontline, and anti-large and other ranged units.
Infrastructure:
1 - Growth and control, as well as debuffs for enemies;
2 - Income and control
3 - Corruption
4 - Income.
Overall, nice to get more income, and control will most likely never be an issue with two buildings available for it.
Research is amazing and useful. It gives great buffs for your troops to become really powerful, and it allows a great deal of variety. It is divided mostly into campaign bonuses, ranged units bonuses, Special Lords, and other mixed bonuses. The special lords have their own shipbuilding mechanics too.
LORDS, SKILLS, ARMY COMPOSITIONS:
Blue line has an interesting aspect: upkeep has NOT been reduced from Warhammer 2, so it is still -15%, and you get an extra -8% if you reach the last one. Talk about getting more armies.
Replenishment is also in the first part of the line, so it does allow quick expansion without having to invest too much.
You require a lot of skill points overall, since mostly everyone is a caster. You should plan wisely.
Redline can either be extremely effective, or not. It is a very good one to come up with different possibilities for your armies.
They enjoy some of the cheapest combinations, which is excellent because all lords have some casting abilities and you should have some choices for the other skills.
Gunnery Wights are invaluable, giving more ammunition (which reacts with the powder ability). Your caster heroes also give replenishment, which is excellent.
Aranessa gives a lot of bonuses to the Sartosan units, although they do not receive most stuff from research and redline skills, they can still be effective at least until midgame.
Since she is also giving bonuses to Rotting Prometheans and Leviathans, as well as artillery units, combinations using those are quite optimal for her. Nothing wrong of course of taking a more standard approach like in the third option I showcase.
For other armies, have some fun. Enjoy a frontline of only monsters and some missiles. A gunnery Wight is always good, as he has great abilities for the artillery and missile infantry.
Another idea is just the flyers mixed with some infantry or syreens, just be careful against armies with tons of magical damage.
Finally, some compositions with vanguard and flyers, monstrous infantry based too, and a fully ranged army for target practice. All of them are severely cheap in terms of how many redline skills are required (yellow number below).
Note as always that I only have one caster hero and one melee/support hero as placeholders. Feel free to chose whatever combination, I only advise that you do have a caster and another hero for variety and flexibility.
FINAL NOTES:
Once more, a completely different campaign with enemies different from both Luthor and Count Noctilus; Aranessa focuses on the old world, at least at the start.
Her unique units are not the best there are, but will certainly help in the early to midgame at least. There are plenty of combinations already for the Vampire Coast, which she enhances.
Like the other pirate nations you can just explore the seas and ensure that no one but you can sail the waters, and it is quite a fun campaign to do so.
Their army is crazy good after all the bonuses you can get, and the Sea Shanties make you a formidable force on the battlefield, nearly second to none. Beware, though, you rely a bit on range, so if you are moving while already in range... stop and fire!
Your army consists of:
1 - Good infantry
2 - Great missiles and artillery
3 - Good monstrous infantry
4 - Decent flyers
5 - Good single entities
6 - Lacks cavalry
7 - Somewhat slow overall
Replenishment is great, specially with good climate. Be wary of the Chaos locations though.
I believe now it is time for you to plunder, raze and sack following Aranessa Saltspite.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972225124
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