Campaign balance; Volkmar the Grim/Cult of Sigmar suggestions

TeNoSkill

Volkmar is among the oldest Legendary Lords in the game and it shows. Since I put forth suggestions for Helman Ghorst
https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/283161/campaign-balance-helman-ghorst#latest,

it is fair that I do so for Volkmar /the Empire side of the "Grim and the Grave".


General problem is an unhealthy fetish focus on flagellants

Faction effects (Volkmar)

+20% magical item drop chance is good as it is.


+30% Weapon strength for flagellants....
not good, flagellants are not exactly a staple in campaign and making them into supersoldiers, who can do anthing is not exactly better.

I´d suggest giving the "faiths bastion" ability to Huntsmen General, General of the Empire and Empire captain instead.

+2 recruitment rank for warrior priests.....
it´s an "ok" skill, nothing special
so´d suggest instead giving the Volkmar faction bonus public order (maybe up to +5) from % untainted, basically a mirror to the Vampire Counts race ability.

That would give the play at least an incentive to rout out corruption.


-30% upkeep for flagellants
not good because you rarely use flagellants and it gives you no combo options.
so I´d suggest

reducing it to 20% and making reduced upkeep for flagellants, free company and Empire Knights(including the Electorial state troops)/ Knights of the blazing sun (for the crusader vibes)



Lord effects (Volkmar)

+30% replenishment rate
not good, as flagellants are a niche unit you cannot recruit until much later in the campaign. So I´d suggest

make it affect free company and melee state troops (Swordsmen, Spearmen/shields, halberdiers) aswell. These units usually take the heaviest casualties and this way they can stay viable throughout the campaign.

+ 14 attack and 12% physical resistance for flagellants is "ok"




The 3 unique skills for arch lector and Volkmar


Blessed holy war

Should apply to all units in the army

War eternal

Should give all embedded units of the army "strength of the penitent", additionally to the 30% charge bonus for flagellants.


The Work of god

Should be nerfed to 20% and apply to all units embedded into the army, making it more useful in general.


These changes would make the lectors /Volkmar a lot better in in terms of distinctiveness and effectiveness.



What do you think?

RawSugar

i like the idea of making flagellants the focus the army, its similar to other legendary lords with similar effects on less used units. the problem is twofold;
first flagellants arent balanced for campaign, they and other 0 armor unbreakable units are decent in quickbattle but take way too many casualties to be worth it in campaign. the bonus ungrim gives is a good way of handling it and should be a general thing for all. such units. barring that the bonus needs to be bigger to make flagellant armies useful, especially the upkeep since you'll be buying new units all the time
Second infantry is boring to play and just 1 unit is boring as well. Skarsnik is probably the lord that does this kind of thing best (him and drycha i guess) and the bonus is for a bunch of units not just 1. At the very least there needs to be one more unit getting a bonus, maybe a smaller bonus or one capped like an ROR unit that can be recruited a few units for each army, preferably a ranged unit or maybe a chariot of some sort, either that or steam tank or luminark, but neither really fits the lore, altho steam tank might if you stretch it a little, something like a ROR/campaign only steamtank for every 5 flagellants with same bonuses as flagellants. still not quite a fun army but at least better than infantry only

TeNoSkill

Yeha, flagellants are a niche unit that needs support from other units, even with all of the buffs.

GreenColoured

CA could go a more creative approach and maybe create unique flagellant variants just for Volkmar.


Then give him his own god DamN Faction to lead already and make the variants exclusive his Faction

Godefroy_de_Bouillon

I don't any problem with that alberic improves Kotr and FS again not end tier units either. As many other lords.

Ninaran

He should be able to recruit Flagellants a tier earlier, kinda like Alarielle with her Sisters. So Tier 2 Flagellants. That way his buffs would help greatly since they're not awful in the early game, especially with his buffs.

RawSugar

a workaround btw is simply to use the mod supply lines rework which adds supply lines based on unit tier and treats flagellants as lowtier, with that the bonuses are enough to make them worthwhile. its still boring as **** to play infantry heavy armies though.

Captain_Oz

+20% magical item drop chance is good as it is.


+30% Weapon strength for flagellants....
not good, flagellants are not exactly a staple in campaign and making them into supersoldiers, who can do anthing is not exactly better.

I believe that the +20% magic item drop chance should be reduced. It provides too much utility in the mid-and late game. Remember that it ensures that you collect items as well as followers. The high drop rate makes it very likely that you acquire the purple and blue items which have a major impact on your combat performance. Maybe the bonus could be reduced to +15% instead?

I think that the +30% weapon strength is okay. It provides damage increase to a unit that already performs very well versus vampires, skaven and other races that depend on low-armour troops.

I haven't made up my mind about your other suggestions yet, so I'll leave it at that.

epic_159736119942eBLSIJy

RawSugar said:

a workaround btw is simply to use the mod supply lines rework which adds supply lines based on unit tier and treats flagellants as lowtier, with that the bonuses are enough to make them worthwhile. its still boring as **** to play infantry heavy armies though.

Empire has this problem way more than any other faction I have played. Between their weak early economies vulnerable settlements and expensive buildings my early armies are unfortunately just swordsmen, spears, and crossbows for way too many turns.