Vampire Counts Blood Kisses bug + Some thoughts after fighting Drycha

Virosh

Hey there forum people,

Couple of things I wanted to share after playing 46 turns on ME with Von Carsteins (VH/H):

- Had the misfortune not to get any blood kisses after defeating faction leaders: After defeating Mannfred and Templehof's Zelig-whats-his-face couple of times noticed that I haven't generated any blood kisses. Zilch. Opening the Blood kiss panel also showed me that I can't awaken a bloodline, so it's not just a graphical bug, I had gained zero indeed. Not sure if someone else encountered this bug? Or have I missed something in the patch notes?

- Decided to carry on with the campaign a bit either way, wanted to fight Drycha couple of times, see how tough she was to beat as VC, and boy, was she a pain xD Vlad + Isa, 2 stacks of skelespam, the 2 initial vampires and 6 Vargheists did the trick, but you must either separate, or better yet, ambush her, if you even dream for a second your armies can beat her 1-on-1, you're in for a rude awakening. The 2 initial units of Crypt ghouls you get as Isa also might helped a bit with their poison debuff, but got very little value in terms of kills.

It seems the best strategy still remains to attack Mannfred, sack his last settlement until you get the 100% upkeep reduction tech for your choice of chaff, try to get the bonus relations with all surrounding Dawi high enough at least for a NAP (as you need to secure at least one of your borders), then wipe out Templehof. By that time Drycha comes to say hello and you need to have 2 full stacks and a healthy amount of Vargheists (or as much as your economy can support). After you defend her initial aggression it's business as usual, push through the Empire, kill Drycha, murder some Elector counts and start preparing for waves of Greatswords/Demi's and Artillery. Stopped playing at that point as the missing Blood kisses feature was annoying me beyond reason.

Some thoughts and conclusions: Vampire counts can make use of a low-tier AP unit that's not complete garbage in terms of stats (would help against Drycha and Dawi), or a slight buff to their early economy. Or a diplomacy rework, kek.

Also, while their garrisons are utter garbage, if you keep a defending army in ambush stance close by the vulnerable city, you can use this to your advantage. Very cheesy, I know, but the odds are a bit stacked against you until you get the economy rolling, which happens fairly late for VC.

DaGangster#8697

I don't consider parking an army in ambush by a weak settlement cheesing at all, let alone "very cheesy", that's just regular strategy. Works great when you are recruiting with an army park another next to it in ambush. Recruiting only heroes with one trait, 19 hero stacks, or just about anything you see Legend of Totalwar do is cheesing.

TheGuardianOfMetal#3661

DaGangster said:

I don't consider parking an army in ambush by a weak settlement cheesing at all, let alone "very cheesy", that's just regular strategy. Works great when you are recruiting with an army park another next to it in ambush. Recruiting only heroes with one trait, 19 hero stacks, or just about anything you see Legend of Totalwar do is cheesing.

it's even a realistic strategy. Have a smaller army as "bait" and the other in an ambush.

Considering how badly reinforcements work in TW, i can easily consider that an abridged version of having a larger part of the army for example take a roundabout way to strike at the enemy while he's engaging the smaller force left behind.

peabodyestate#9505

Vargeists will undoubtedly be key to beating Drycha woth one army. Kill everything, then kill the tier 3 treekin. Vargeists got smashing armour piercing.

Haven't actually done this myself of course, but it would be my approach.