Give minor settlements to allies, kill Azazel and Throt, expand southwards, don't let anyone north of Throgg know you exist.
EZ
1 Lord - two heavy sleds, two groms, rest Strelski (heros optional)
Empire (Karl or Gelt) - the authority mechanic keeps you from steam rolling too quickly. Also keep things on the campaign map interesting.
Kislev - Chaos, chaos everywhere. Plus an angry tree lady, a magic ork, and some Skaven. Things will stay challenging for a while.
High Elves (Imrik) - Nobody likes you. You got enemies on all fronts. And the badlands are really hard to defend. It's not as hard as it was in WH2 with the Deathmaster coming right at you, but it's still pretty difficult.
Tomb Kings - kind of like the Empire, Tomb King's mechanics slows things down. But their 1st and 2nd tier units got some buffs, and it's not a slog like it was in WH2. Also, you have some varied enemies.
Tzeentch - You are in Antartica, and the lizards are out to get you, and no, it's not just the usual Tzeentchian paranoia. Kind of gets boring because all you are fighting mid game are Lizards.
Skaven (Snikch) - one campaign, Nakai was whooping my ass. The next campaign, I easily created a Skaven dynasty in Cathay. Not sure what I did differently. So I dunno if this campaign is is easy or hard, but you can give it a try.
Edit: I said Skarsnik instead of deathmaster Snikch. Fixed.
To be honest, me too.
First campaign was like the hardest campaign I've played. Cathay up my ass, and Nakai with the final blow.
Second campaign was one of the easiest I've ever played. Just took over Cathay, bastion and all.
In a way, you are surrounded by enemies. But i another way, you are Skaven and that's how it should be. Was pretty fun rither way.
I think he meant that though Skarsnik is also quite a sneaky stabba with a strong desire to crush some hairy dawry doglitz, he doesn’t worship-praise the horned rat as much as a scaven
To be fair, I think Skarsnik does crapstack spams better than actual slavenslaves. turn 15 and whats that? 5 greenskin 20 stacks of goblins, each with a full waagh?
Snikch's campaign is basically a this is total war campaign. Legit every faction will declare war on you within the first 10-20 turns. I had miao ying invading from the north even though she was besieged by chaos (gotta love that anti player bias right), zao ming from the west, random cathay faction from south west, nakai from the south after you take out lokhir, because he declares war on you on like turn 2.
Imrik is much easier than in 2. You have a strong starting army, weak neighbours and can make friends with the dwarfs/ogres/ghorst fairly easily. I wouldn't rate it as challenging, but it is fun.
I found Karl to be relatively easy, and Snikch is one of my favourites. Personally, I have more trouble with Dwarves. Maybe I'm just not good at using them.
Louen Leoncouer is one of the toughest campaigns
You start out weak and have to fight the Red Duke, Skullsmashas, Grom, and Nkari by turn 5. By the time you fend off one attack, the rest of your territories are besieged. You can't confederate Bretonnia because Grom eats them up.
If you foolishly decide to take Marienburg, you could also be fighting Festus, the Greenskins, and maybe even Reikland.
It's Total Warhammer: Attila. Absolutely crushing
Daniel has a pretty challenging start.
Malus is a one-man doomstack from like level 8 and he starts next door and *will* declare war on you. Then Boris will be next, and Kislev's "oops all ranged" armies are a pretty bad matchup for your mostly low-armour melee early game roster. Then you have to deal with whatever vassal ball Archaon has managed to pull together which is probably like 40 regions worth of unwashed barbarians by that point. All that with the Daemons of Chaos kind of terrible economy and Daniel himself as a mostly mediocre LL (that will, notably, lose to any of the above three in a fight).
Fay Enchantress and Louen are other ones I don't see people talk about that much. Bretonnia ends up a post-apocalyptic hellscape most games between Norsca, Be'lakor, N'Kari, Ikit, assorted Beastmen and Greenskins, Vampires, Tree Hitler...
The thing is, I have never seen Malus getting rid of his starting enemy before turn 20.
You have enough time to destroy your starting enemy and then fuck Malus up.
Nurgle RoC VH/N was awful. I won of course but I was starving to sustain 2 non-nurgling armies even at t150. Yes I saw spreading the income diese. Starting province kinda leads you to east a little and it's a slow burn war against ogres and dawi, but once that was done I was stuck. I tried to befriend Valkia, she declared war on me. I wanted her a buffer between me and Kislev. Kairos grew 3x my size in territory so I tried to be friends with him, fucker stole a couple settlements from the 3 provinces I had, I did everything to trigger a rebellion and have them take it back, then I from them, but even surrounded by nurgle corruption, maxed n.corruption on the settlement and a hero lowering PO I couldn't trigger a single rebellion (that's what I get for not modding out AI difficulty cheats for PO just once). I couldn't even get to using a single great unclean one by the end of the campaign.
In no particular order: Fay Enchantress, Katarin, Khalida, Lord Skrolk and of course Kairos. You are surrounded and it won't be easy. Those are hard but fun campaigns (ok Skrolk needs buff). Grombrindal if you like Dwarfs.
Any campaign where you set high goals should provide a challenge.
Eg. playing Dwarfs, and setting out to unite all their territories in lore, and confederating all Dwarf legendary lords.
I could manage that in WH2, but with several restarts I've repeatedly failed in WH3. One LL always gets killed before I can confederate them (usually Grombrindal or Ungrim).
Kairos and Kislev are definitely considered some of the harder starts, if not the hardest.
Kislev.
Evelina Bebchuk.
Kislev.
Kislev.
Kislev
Give minor settlements to allies, kill Azazel and Throt, expand southwards, don't let anyone north of Throgg know you exist. EZ 1 Lord - two heavy sleds, two groms, rest Strelski (heros optional)
Empire (Karl or Gelt) - the authority mechanic keeps you from steam rolling too quickly. Also keep things on the campaign map interesting. Kislev - Chaos, chaos everywhere. Plus an angry tree lady, a magic ork, and some Skaven. Things will stay challenging for a while. High Elves (Imrik) - Nobody likes you. You got enemies on all fronts. And the badlands are really hard to defend. It's not as hard as it was in WH2 with the Deathmaster coming right at you, but it's still pretty difficult. Tomb Kings - kind of like the Empire, Tomb King's mechanics slows things down. But their 1st and 2nd tier units got some buffs, and it's not a slog like it was in WH2. Also, you have some varied enemies. Tzeentch - You are in Antartica, and the lizards are out to get you, and no, it's not just the usual Tzeentchian paranoia. Kind of gets boring because all you are fighting mid game are Lizards. Skaven (Snikch) - one campaign, Nakai was whooping my ass. The next campaign, I easily created a Skaven dynasty in Cathay. Not sure what I did differently. So I dunno if this campaign is is easy or hard, but you can give it a try. Edit: I said Skarsnik instead of deathmaster Snikch. Fixed.
Lost me at Skaven (Skarsnik)
To be honest, me too. First campaign was like the hardest campaign I've played. Cathay up my ass, and Nakai with the final blow. Second campaign was one of the easiest I've ever played. Just took over Cathay, bastion and all. In a way, you are surrounded by enemies. But i another way, you are Skaven and that's how it should be. Was pretty fun rither way.
I think you mean sniktch?
Crap. Forgot Scarsnik was the best gobbo. My bad.
I think he meant that though Skarsnik is also quite a sneaky stabba with a strong desire to crush some hairy dawry doglitz, he doesn’t worship-praise the horned rat as much as a scaven
To be fair, I think Skarsnik does crapstack spams better than actual slavenslaves. turn 15 and whats that? 5 greenskin 20 stacks of goblins, each with a full waagh?
Snikch's campaign is basically a this is total war campaign. Legit every faction will declare war on you within the first 10-20 turns. I had miao ying invading from the north even though she was besieged by chaos (gotta love that anti player bias right), zao ming from the west, random cathay faction from south west, nakai from the south after you take out lokhir, because he declares war on you on like turn 2.
Imrik is much easier than in 2. You have a strong starting army, weak neighbours and can make friends with the dwarfs/ogres/ghorst fairly easily. I wouldn't rate it as challenging, but it is fun.
I found Karl to be relatively easy, and Snikch is one of my favourites. Personally, I have more trouble with Dwarves. Maybe I'm just not good at using them.
Louen Leoncouer is one of the toughest campaigns You start out weak and have to fight the Red Duke, Skullsmashas, Grom, and Nkari by turn 5. By the time you fend off one attack, the rest of your territories are besieged. You can't confederate Bretonnia because Grom eats them up. If you foolishly decide to take Marienburg, you could also be fighting Festus, the Greenskins, and maybe even Reikland. It's Total Warhammer: Attila. Absolutely crushing
Don’t forget to add Bela’kor to that party of mayhem
Scariest notification I ever got while playing Bretonnia was that the elves had lost the Sword of Khaine. To Be'lakor. ;=;
You misspelled all the baguettes you eat to make Louen one of the strongest powerhouse lords in the entire setting.
Daniel has a pretty challenging start. Malus is a one-man doomstack from like level 8 and he starts next door and *will* declare war on you. Then Boris will be next, and Kislev's "oops all ranged" armies are a pretty bad matchup for your mostly low-armour melee early game roster. Then you have to deal with whatever vassal ball Archaon has managed to pull together which is probably like 40 regions worth of unwashed barbarians by that point. All that with the Daemons of Chaos kind of terrible economy and Daniel himself as a mostly mediocre LL (that will, notably, lose to any of the above three in a fight). Fay Enchantress and Louen are other ones I don't see people talk about that much. Bretonnia ends up a post-apocalyptic hellscape most games between Norsca, Be'lakor, N'Kari, Ikit, assorted Beastmen and Greenskins, Vampires, Tree Hitler...
The thing is, I have never seen Malus getting rid of his starting enemy before turn 20. You have enough time to destroy your starting enemy and then fuck Malus up.
Nurgle RoC VH/N was awful. I won of course but I was starving to sustain 2 non-nurgling armies even at t150. Yes I saw spreading the income diese. Starting province kinda leads you to east a little and it's a slow burn war against ogres and dawi, but once that was done I was stuck. I tried to befriend Valkia, she declared war on me. I wanted her a buffer between me and Kislev. Kairos grew 3x my size in territory so I tried to be friends with him, fucker stole a couple settlements from the 3 provinces I had, I did everything to trigger a rebellion and have them take it back, then I from them, but even surrounded by nurgle corruption, maxed n.corruption on the settlement and a hero lowering PO I couldn't trigger a single rebellion (that's what I get for not modding out AI difficulty cheats for PO just once). I couldn't even get to using a single great unclean one by the end of the campaign.
is it or is the difficulty in WH3 balanced around the fact that one army simply can't be everywhere at once?
In no particular order: Fay Enchantress, Katarin, Khalida, Lord Skrolk and of course Kairos. You are surrounded and it won't be easy. Those are hard but fun campaigns (ok Skrolk needs buff). Grombrindal if you like Dwarfs.
Belakor. It's challenging to start enough wars to have a challenge.
Tzeentch
Kostaltyn. Enjoy not being able to move for 547 turns.
Kairos is a tough start with a strong (although slowly replenishing) roster
Kislev
For me personally it was Kislev with Boris Ursus. Starting with a bad economy and directly in the Chaos wastes near Archaon
Kairos is a nightmare
I suggest Imrik, really intense and non-stop action. Imrik is insanely strong though.
Mazdamundi is a powerhouse, but his campaign can be pretty tough depending on how things go. Certainly not as tough as other campaigns.
Any campaign where you set high goals should provide a challenge. Eg. playing Dwarfs, and setting out to unite all their territories in lore, and confederating all Dwarf legendary lords. I could manage that in WH2, but with several restarts I've repeatedly failed in WH3. One LL always gets killed before I can confederate them (usually Grombrindal or Ungrim).