Lord of games 12: Rakhart (Patreon)

Quick note, before we continue:

For LoG 11, dunno if i would do it, kinda loosed the envy over time, they plan to release an add on on the game, so if they do i'll maybe find the envy again and draw it, but till then, don't expect to see it finaly =x (sorry if you waited it)
Also, in the end didn't finished P4, still on hold, so it's why no LoG on it
As i had said, LoG is a thing i do for my fun before all, and was a way to make sure you had fun with my games too, so i hope no hard feeling on this  =)

For the others and newcomers, what the HECK is LoG?
Well i'm a gamer, i play a lot of games, mostly strategy ones, and as anyone, as i finish a game i feel sometimes a bit bad, like "oh i could have been working/training/cleaning the house/ gardening, instead of playing games, it's not good!"
So to make it better, i write  a resume of the game, then a vote based on the resume, and later a sketch out of this vote.
That said, let's begin!

Lord Of Games 12 : 

Rakhart in Total War Warhammer 2

First a bit of resume of the Total War Warhammer game:

In this game you take control of a faction set in the Warhammer  universe, and take control of it armies and settlement. Sometimes your  campaign is based about an objective, be it collect a certain number of  things, or destroy a specific enemy. Some other times about control of  the map and specific settlement.
In the game you control first,  armies as block, manage your economy, deal with diplomacy. Then in  battles, take direct control of the army, give orders to the units and  heroes, in real time.

Faction:

Rakhart is a dark elve, mean he is like any elves, a presomptuous thing, that can spend 2 thousands years doing the same things over and over cause he is obsessed with it, and can't do anything he find lower than his birth position, like building, tending crops, mining riches etc etc.
So how do they build shits? Simple, as any elves faction do own slaves.
Wood elves (the Asrai) capture human babies they raise to become their "hommes a tout faire"
High elves (Asur ) capture ennemies to make them menial workers, but it's 100% not slavery, they're the good guy after all, they're life prisoners with jobs, that's all.
The dark elves, or Druchii, are more a mix of 18° century slaves in america and BDSM sex slave, in the way they're treated. Mean they're labor slaves, many die from the bad treatment and they're seen only as merchandise. The whole wearing creepy bdsm attire and ball gags.
It's a lil resume, but you see where it goes.
In the lore, elves got the bad habbit to be obsessed with things and doing it forever when they find their secret me place. Problem, after a war with demons that was over centuries lenght, many veterans were now addicted to pain/violence/debauchry you find on a battleground. Many things happened, a civil war broke the peoples in half, and now they're edgy bdsm elves living on a slave based empire in north america (at least it Warhammer map equivalant)
The good guy as you can see in this official Warhammer art

Rakhart was born and raised in such society, and as a child was already quite a .... monster to be honnest.
Young, his father showed him a black dragon, savage blood thirsty beast that no one could tame, and just like that, by looking it in the eye, Rakhart became it soul mate, cause the dragon could recognize that the little brat was at least as bloodthirsty mad machine as it was.
Since then Rakhart grew up, became a sort of psychopat, get a big face scar, and went into the world, playing a giant game of Pokemon. Exept he use cattleprod fantasy equivalant instead of pokeball to catch them all.
In game it show by a specific mecanic, that make you able to capture beast related to where you are fighting into the world. wining on a Norsca army? Get a mamoth or ice wolves. Fighting lizardmen? Here s a T-Rex, raiding High elves? You win a dragon, etc etc.
In second mechanic, you can raid more easy, and your troops aren't wasted when caught in a battle in the middle of a rampage. i mean, sack and loot take it toll on you when you're out of redbull!

That said, let's start the campaign resume

Resume:

Rakhart started his journey on Albion. The equivalant of england in warhammer universe. In fact, looking a bit like the perfid Albion IRL.
Mud everywhere, abominable weather, and the peoples are celtics savages barelly able to speak two words without shooting "FREEEDDDDOOOOOOMM" ... so closer to Scotland tbh, but anyway, not the best place to be. You're close to Norsca, so close in fact that you got to kill some Norscan man before you built your cities around the place.
Because they're highly advanced, the Druchii managed to build walls there ( a thing the Norscan can't do for shit!) and turn their gaze to the Old World.

You see, i played in High difficulties, and the Empire is quite a big big big thing to chomp in the late game if you let it grow.
It ll blob, and ll become the first power in the world. And in higher difficulties, the AI cheat... like for true, they got super cheap armies super fast, recruit at higher rate, get better economics, so basicly they can grow 3 armies when you can only one.
So after sacking and taking Marienburg, one of the wealthiest human cities ever, that is linked to a minor faction, i had to move fast and take down the Empire!

And it was hard, cause with the AI cheat they already had tier 3 units when i had only my base ones.... exept i had also a few Bigemon (like Pokemon but Huge ones) A mamoth, a T-rex, a dragon, a Charybdis (a sort  of Hydra that would have fucked cthulu) and an Hydra. Won't lie, it costed a LOT to upkeep this, i mean, the meat they chomped!... yeah the Mamoth too... but to be fair i get it at Norsca and it height 20 m tall, so you know, chaos and mutant...
But it was ok, raiding everywhere gave me a lot of slaves, and enough to sustain my beast with that!....

...

Yeah, gross, but well, it was this or getting PETA on my  back.
So, packed with all those Huge monster i crossed my fingers and attacked the Empire. i managed to get 2 of their armies in triky ambush, then to raid and get each of their minor settlement. To my chance, the Emperor, Karl Franz, was at war with the vampires, and i could take down the capital, Altdorf quite easy. in the meantime he had called for arms, and 2 more Imperial faction, the Nordland for exemple, had  joined the war.
Rakhart sent two armies there and after many sack and loot, some battles and a funny game of hide and seek to find the last humans armies hidding in the bushes, i ended for good the imperial menace.

(source : warhammer wiki)

Following that it was the Vampire time. They wage war on me, to reclaim Altdorf, the former Imperial capital, as theirs.
I never intended to take their land tough. Would have put myself too far inland and closer to eastern powers i wanted to avoid attentions off. So i just defended my key cities, before counter attacking. In the process, getting a LOT of slaves. Certainly alive peoples from the local now vampire owned lands, seeking refuge to any living kingdom... To be fair i'm still quite sure that even in deep mine, the life is easyer than being a meat lolipop for a vampire teen

After some weeks of slaping undead peoples and feeding rotten meat to my beast (wich they surprisingly find good enough for them) i managed to get a peace treaty, and pack of gold to thanks me to letting them brea... aliv.... getting away.
It was time for serious business! It was time to get Bretonnia.

The Bretonnian are noble horse peoples, that got a dirty habit to be super hard on land battle, but also to see the AI being super duper shitty at making armies with them. I mean, their strengh is cavalry, all their ground combat unit are shit level. The AI get armies made at 80% of those meat sacks and put a bunch of heroes on it. So when you come with big scary monsters, they know it's for their asses. Once you wiped the one or two decent made armies, it's done. They ll lock themselves in their castle and you'll have to siege them. because the few knight they got into the siege is enough for the AI to think they ll insta win, they never let you do the auto battle, wich is when the AI see both army strengh and generate an auto battle.
So it force you to do EVERY siege battle... and they're.. not really good. It's always the weak part of the game, and it meanded that for 30 turns, as i was hunting every Bretonian on the map, i had to do, over and over and over, the quasi same siege battles, that i easy win each time, but i would loose if i let the AI do the auto battle.
Won't lie, in the end, when i hunted down to Arabia, the few remaining of those knights, it wasn't for the victory anymore, just by dire hatred of those full plated cowards!

(Bretonnian swordsmen, trying not to die, failling at it)

And it's while i was sending Rakhart down south, that the Chaos legion attacked. They quasi whipped all the other Druchii, and after many sieges, destroyed Karond Kar, my city deep in the North. The center of my slave trade. It kinda made me quite bad on the economy, by chance i had a black arch close to Ulthuan, and High elves island, and i could replenish my gold by looting theirs! They didn't liked it, but who care for high elves anyway!

The chaos war was long and hard. They got one of the strongest infantery in the world, and when they manage to get in close combat, you feel it. It was a hard defense, as the Chaos waste released 20 of their armies at the same moment. By luck, the Vampire were able to destroy them in the East, but they went so far that i sent an army to Altdorf, in case they failled at holding the line.
In the end, the Chaos managed, i turned my gaze to Ulthuan. Isolated, the whole 4 remaining Druchii faction had turned their gaze to them, me included. My beast ravaged the North of the island, while Morathi took the west and south, and  Malekith took care of the few stronghold Highelves that remained in Nagaroth

And with the fall of the last of the Azur cities, the war was one, and the campaign was finished. Now Rakhart had ponygirls from every race and faction, a dream he had always plan to fullfill!

(yeah, 100% like this)

Afterwords:

Playing Dark elves is always a rollercoaster. Their units ain't the strongest in the game, but they got strong magic and some quite ok long distance. So most of Druchii armies are, 1 or 2 fast units, a bit of line to hold, couple monsters and full long distance.
Rakhart get a LOT of monsters. like in the end, in my bag of holding had like 5 dragons and 4 Kharibdis ready to be instant recruit by any armies, and god know how many harpies and wolves.
So it change a lot the way you play. You go more on the monster rampage side, and force you to hit fast and strong. never had more than 4 long range unit in any of my armies, and it was quite fun.
Also, i love harpies and wolves now. They ask micro management, but those beast clean the back line like nothing. Often i ended my battles with each of them over 100 kills each. Sadly, the auto battle think they're shit, so they quasi everytime kill them, even with 95% of chance of win, they were whipped out of my army. So in the end i stopped getting harpies, but seriously, in early games, they can really take any long range unit, and with wolves, are life savior for your bigger monster, when they wipe everything that should have turned them into pin cushion.

So Rakhart is fun for this, it force you to change the way you play, and it's quite fun to do. Was super annoying at some point, and i almost dropped it when Bretonnia forced me to do siege battle over siege battle.  But in the end was fun to do and i regret nothing!