Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Arkhan The Black - Tomb Kings 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.
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VICTORY CONDITIONS:
Short victory:
- Destroy the factions of Khemri (Settra) and the Courty of Lybaras (Khalida).
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 30 different settlements.
The reward is +15% casualty replenishment rate, which is excellent to ensure your armies are able to continue conquering without an issue, or to compensate the attrition in uninhabitable places.
Short campaign, very doable, Lybaras is a bit far away but still in the same direction which is nice.
Long victory:
- Achieve the short victory;
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 75 different settlements;
- Hold 11 specific settlements, mainly desert locations. In addition, build 7 pyramids located in those settlements;
The reward is +35 winds of magic power reserve capacity, which is always nice to ensure your casters get better outcomes and influence the battle.
Arkhan is the Mortarch, and he benefits from:
- Has recruitment capability of certain enhanced Vampire Counts units;
- Army capacity +1 (!);
- Diplomatic relations -50 with Tomb Kings;
- Diplomatic relations +60 with Vampire Coast and Vampire Counts.
These benefits are amazing, specially the army capacity. It is one of the early game weaknesses of the Tomb Kings, and Arkhan just has around the best early game possibility because of it. Adding to this, diplomacy is fairly locked but allows some nice allies very soon.
Climate is quite average, really. Most is either unpleasant or uninhabitable, making it a rather bad faction to try and dominate the whole map with.
STARTING LOCATION:
One of the few factions to start off with 2 settlements, on a 3 settlement province. You are located near the sea, which implies taking advantage of all the goodies there, and you have plenty of enemies early on to conquer while you pursue your other goals.
Typical expansion will always be into the desert, taking out Bretonnia, Dwarfs, Ogres, and into Khemri. Manfred may prove quite an ally early on, but soon you will need to decide whether keeping him or taking his lands is better overall.
DIPLOMACY AND OUTPOSTS:
Diplomatically, the Tomb Kings are usually quite neutral. However, Arkhan is different, since he will mostly be allied with Vampire Coast and Counts, with his evil side being chosen for him. Therefore, count on having Tomb Kings as your main enemy, and the Order tide will soon follow.
Outposts should therefore seek out flying units which you lack for the most part, and some heavier cavalry. From the Vampire Coast, anything with range is quite good for your armies.
MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:
Ready for this one? No upkeep. Zero. Lategame, you can support as much as you can muster.
Instead, what the Tomb Kings have is limits to the number of units you can recruit depending on the number of buildings you have. Research, traits and skills may also provide you with some unit capacity.
Hero capacity used to be a problem but has since been solved. You can now increase it with the Mortuary Cult.
Speaking of which, you can use the unique currency, the Canopy Jars, to get items for your Lords and Heroes. These range from simple to very good and even unique ones.
Rites:
1 - Great Incantation of Tahoth, giving you the recruitment of a Casket of Souls unit, Lord recruit rank +3 and Recruit rank for units +2;
2 - Great Incantation of Ptra, giving you a unique Necrotect Hero, which can colonize ruins at level 3.
3 - Great Incantation of Khsar, giving attrition to enemies in your territory, Ambush success chance +50% and the Army ability Sand Veil.
4 - Great Incantation of Geheb gives 1 Canopic Jars per turn, +30 growth, -25% construction time to all buildings, and the army ability "Tomb Swarm".
You are one of the factions who are collecting the Books of Nagash. These can be obtained by completing the objective, and provide great bonuses that effectively change the overall gameplay. You start with the 9th book, which allow you to recruit certain Vampire Counts units.
Army capacity is increased via Research or via the Mortuary Cult. It may prove difficult to increase it after a certain point, or it may just be expensive to do it.
PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:
Edicts:
Campaign movement +10% for your armies; growth +25;
Control +5, corruption -2;
Ambush success chance +15%; melee defence +5;
Casualty replenishment rate +20%; recruit rank +1;
Construction cost -10%; income from all buildings +5%;
A couple of defensive edicts here, together with the rites, make you very good at defending your territory and ambushing within it.
Army stances:
Channeling costs 10% movement and gives you +15 Winds of Magic power reserve per turn;
Entomb beneath the sands is your "encamp" style stance. Costs 50% movement, gives replenishment and enables global recruitment, as well as giving you immunity to attrition. It also provides the army ability Sand Veil and vanguard deployment to some units.
Raiding costs 50% movement, gives immunity to attrition too.
Ambush costs 25% movement
Forced march.
A very basic set with a twist with the Entomb stance, which should be taken advantage of whenever possible.
Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Arkhan The Black - Tomb Kings Campaign Overview, Guide And Second Thoughts(continuation)
BUILDINGS, RESEARCH:
In the Land of Assassins Arkhan can build an Ancient Burial Mound, which gives you access to some of the Vampire Counts units, including Fell Bats, Dire Wolves, Crypt Ghouls and Hexwraiths.
Note that, similar to the Greenskins and Skaven, every settlement in a province increases the local recruitment capacity by +1;
As for military, you have 10 specific buildings. These are all intended to force you to build more to support extra forces. At tier 3, however, you already have Catapults, Chariots, Infantry, Necropolish Knights, Tomb Scorpions, Ushabti... Most of these can be used for a lot of armies, which gives you great flexibility. The top tier buildings are mostly for single entities, your best constructs.
Infrastructure:
1 - Control and corruption, as well as the Carrion building;
2 - Growth, replenishment and corruption denial;
3 - Income and campaign movement (adding to the edict, your armies move very fast to defend)
4 - Mixed building with corruption, lord and hero benefits, and Canopic Jars production.
Research is slightly different, being a mechanic in itself.
Each Dinasty will give you a unique lord and unlock some specific research. It also increases your army capacity, but decreases your research. A common tactic is to research all until the very last turn, and start another. Only finish it when you absolutely need another army.
All the Lords are quite unique, and will benefit from having specific bonuses for specific units, so you might want to have them lead very different army compositions.
Finally, we have plenty of Heralds that can be used to change and enhance units in your army. Plan these out as they massively alter them.
LORDS, SKILLS, ARMY COMPOSITIONS:
Blue line has replenishment on the very first part of the line, and I rarely go into the second part. Perhaps a case can be done for attrition, but as always, up to you.
Redline skills are decent and relatively inexpensive, which helps as Arkhan is a caster and needs to devote some skills to that too. You have a tremendous amount of variety with few units, though, so you can generate decent armies and buff them all up if you wish.
Should be noted that both low tier and elite tier units of the same type benefit from the same skill. This is excellent as it allows you to upgrade and still use that skill for the early game.
Arkhan has the unique factor of encouraging you to use some Vampire Counts units. Therefore, here are some army compositions that make use of that idea, compensating any weaknesses with other Tomb Kings units.
Then I give you some different army types, based on Monstrous infantry, constructs, frontline + missiles, etc.
You can also have some armies with Bone Giants (now much better) and one full monstrous infantry and constructs army with double necrotect for those heals and benefits.
Liche Priests provide replenishment, and Necrotects heal the constructs, which is excellent.
FINAL NOTES:
Arkhan has the unique factor of having already great outposts and allies determined for him. Unless you really take drastic measures to change this, Vampire Coast and Counts will be your friends, which implies a nice variety of units that you will certainly benefit from.
Adding to this he starts with a secondary army, which enhances the early game. Definitely one if not the easiest Tomb Kings start. Adding the Vampire Counts units that he begins with and this is as solid as it can be.
Your army consists of:
1 - Good infantry
2 - Average missiles
3 - Good artillery
4 - Good monstrous infantry and cavalry
5 - Great single entities
6 - Lacks some flyers
7 - Weak early game units
Replenishment is good, but climate may be an issue. Arkhan suffers the same fate as Settra, having to stay in the desert for teh most part to be effective.
I believe now it is time to play with Arkhan the Black of the Tomb Kings.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3019289368
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