Skarbrand, The Most Overhyped Legendary Lord - Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires

One of the most overhyped Legendary Lord in the entire game: Skarbrand.

Donate to Support the Channel!

Special Thanks to:

Alain of Deathwatch
Alexander
Yolosapien
Fred
JKPrimative
Kurtis
RatEmperor
connor
Sean
Sinnelleos
Anton
Phillip
CB
Crix
Mederic
NL
Lina
Dan
Filip
Christopher
Whale
8GREENC
Vlad
Konda
RhadigarTV
Martin
Gabriel
KJF
Lorem

#immortalempires #totalwarwarhammer3 #warhammer3 #totalwar

[minidude]

I agree (even though I actually like Skarbrand AND I would argue that in realms of chaos it was one of the easiest campaigns on higher difficulties..) -> Here is why:

It seems for me quite a few of the disagreeing people here missed the premises of Costins ranking system. There is nothing wrong with that, but that would indeed change up a few things. The premise is valuing auto resolve as a factor of dice 4 I would say. Lower score than this in auto resolve would start to HALF the ranking of said faction or lord. There is multiple reasons for this and one of them is keeping the game fresh for those not in love with manual battles. I reckon this is true for most people. Remember the discussion is for the hardest of difficulties AND for optimal or close to optimal play. The latter is in order to enjoy a campaign longer that 40 turns. There is of course exceptions to this as for ex. really loving the playstyle etc. However those exceptions is not a part of this ranking and in my opinion, it should not be either. If you really love the playstyle in battle OR really like manual battles then this is a good campaign. That does however - not - make it generally a good campaign for most people though.

The only argument against this would be that Skarbran can be considered OP in battle which can be fun and further more kind of a toilet gaming theme. No magic, trade etc. to think of. And there is nothing wrong with that - but it is all you got. It is an OK argument, but far from winning the discussion. This is because skarbrand want the movement from razing, the money from sacking, and the units from occupying. It may be a good campaign for you, but strategy/ campaign map wise it is not in any manner or form an efficient campaign. Sorry :)

[joseamadorrosaaragon]

I disagree, i think is the strongest faction because you can conquer most territory in less time than the other factions (like chaos). And you can get free armies easy. Also they're so powerful in battle. And they're economy is based in sacking not in building, so its only a different play style, more aggresive. But yeah its reasonable than not everyone likes it.

[VikingsNeverDie]

"You're wrong and you don't know what you're talking about".

[yadav]

i play on very hard. after first 5 battles in campaign, i stop manual fighting with skatbrand or bloodhosts. from then on in 10 or so battles i have to manual fight one battle. at turn 10 i am no.1 in power ranking on world map. never used the charge exploit. played skatbrand campaign atleast 20 times. won long campaign victory in 55 turns, with 400k gold and 12 plus bloodhost armies. he is a juggernaught faction.

so i dont know what you are talking about bro

[AlexanderTheGoodEnough]

I start recruiting lord's instead of going with bloodhosts. Usually get 3 or 4 (and never recruit units into them). If you keep them all together and abuse the hell out of sacking cities, you can get some really good growth per turn and rush for bloodthirsters. By then those lord's are usually near/at their transformation to greater demons as well.
Then, usually near turn can paint the map.

[darkrite]

I really do not agree with this video, Skarbrand's faction is one of the strongest factions in the game, many people agree on this statement. Legend of Total War is by far the best Total War player, and he says Skarbrand is great. I also have used Skarbrand and had no issues with him, even when auto-resolving I can beat the game with ease. I've been playing Total War since Medieval 2 and Shogun 2, and I regularly play on the hardest difficulties. It's gotten so easy for me that I find no challenge in facing the AI anymore, as there's nothing the AI can do to remotely beat me, I've tried using mods that improve the AI or give them more buffs, yet it is still not enough. So tell me, how is Skarbrand weak when I've had the easiest time with him. I've played every race in Warhammer, and of them, Skarbrand's faction has been the strongest, especially since Dark Elves got mega nerfed in WH3.

Also I want to know what you consider cheesy tactics, Skarbrand, or rather Khorne in general, only has one real tactic, and that's charging. Now sure you can exploit the cycle charging, but you can do that with other units as well, is it easier with Skarbrand than most other units, sure, is it significantly better, not really. And also in the late game, I don't have money problems, the only difficulty, even remotely is early on, which is true of every faction in the game. You can justify sacking, because if you're able to earn 10k or more (sometimes up to 50k or more) from sacking a settlement, I'm gonna sack it, and then raze it next turn. I can in a campaign expand faster than even my friend (who's roughly equal to me in terms of skill in Total War) when we do head to head style campaigns, I end up with most of the map, by the time he's exited the mountains of mourn and taken over the dark lands. And because his internet isn't the best, I don't play optimally, I auto most battles, and I'm still doing just fine. If I did somehow lose Skarbrand's army I always have more armies to keep going. I don't really need to use blood hosts most of the time cause I'm not in any real danger.

That's just the thing, from the perspective of my friend, I am a nigh unstoppable force as Skarbrand. Meanwhile I know that Miao Ying and Zhao Ming both can beat Skarbrand due to their higher hp pool (because double regen pools). But that's why I have a full stack of minotaurs in Skarbrand's army, hard to take any damage when you doomstack. So the only real downside to playing Skarbrand is that you have to be aggressive, and the money you earn is mainly from battle rather than buildings. But as I said, I have no issues, I can auto, I can fight manually and just send in the bloodletters or bloodcrushers, or minotaurs. It all ends the same, with the enemy force dead, and me able to replenish any losses I take with ease. So honestly the only thing I can conclude, is that you don't know how to play the faction well enough. Go watch Legend play it, hell I'd play it and show you that you can manage to get all these things just fine.

Now I do know that the hyper aggressive style of campaign that Skarbrand is isn't for everyone. Generally speaking I prefer to turtle, which means factions like Tomb Kings, or the like are more my style. But I can manage just fine with Skarbrand. These days I don't play vanilla too much because vanilla is relatively boring to me now, so I add in mods, and I know there are mods that both make the game harder, or easier, depending on what you decide to use. Don't get it twisted I've played the game plenty on vanilla, and on harder difficulties, like very hard or legendary (in fact I usually play on very hard by default, cause I like to save in the middle of my turn, go watch a show, and then wake up the next day to continue). But I do usually play with Radious mod on, since I make a bunch of submods for it. And if anyone wants to say Radious makes the game easier, I wouldn't blame you, it kinda does. But I'm mainly playing it for the extra units, and because when playing against the AI I don't have any trouble anyway so the only thing Radious does is give me and my friend more options for killing each other. Oh and also bringing back settlement battles because it makes no sense to leave a fortifiable position to engage an enemy. I understand people don't like the supply system, not saying that system is good, just saying that there are many ways CA could've fixed the issue, removing settlement battles straight up was not the right one.

So yeah, I just don't agree, you can have your opinion on the matter, but I don't think it's correct. And that's the crux of the issue, you believe your opinion is a objectively correct statement, I do not. And there's others who would not and do not agree with you either. So that from that what you will, you already labelled your opposition as a "certain type of people" which sure there are people that will rage over the smallest things, but in this instance I would say the anger might be justified, if only because it'd be very thematic for Khorne.

[taylank]

why does his campaign mechanic have to be called a gimmick? its his unique campain mechanic bro and its okay if hes strong because of it, so many lords are strong for so many different reasons.

[aldirnila]

I am not sure why you are assuming that people are abusing the collision/charge of Skarbrand, you are exaggerating how much this affects the faction as a whole. Skarbrand is already very strong even without any exploit, and it's far from needed to do well when Khorne's units are so strong...

Skarbrand's campaign is fine as is, not all campaigns should feel/play the same or be as difficult/safe/risky as others.
Still it's an incredibly powerful faction when you know what you are doing and I like that he plays so differently compared to other factions, much more aggressively which is fun.

[taylank]

Bro Ive learned about skarbrands collision just the other day and I've seen been dominating without it. You can just get him to go kill the enemy lord in 10 seconds and destroy what's left

[HeyWhatsUpHelloLetsplay]

I think hes a very easy fun and layed back campaign idk what your talkin bout and ive never needed any exploits (after 7 campaings with him) and auto resolving pretty often, basicly just use tons of blood host armies... let them take the dammage once they are low just disband and raise more and its so easy to curb stomp the whole map

[AdLev]

i am assuming you've played Skarbrand. He is a very different kind of campaign. If you play the campaign right you should not run out of money...you are moving all the time. You can sack settlements and then have a bloodhost destroy it or create another bloodhost. Skarbrand is always in the red...you don't make any money from buildings or settlements...its all from battles and sacking. Being in the red doesn't matter if you are getting lots and lots of money

[ToniCur]

Skarbrand could benefit from valkia's WoC playstyle. Insta recruiting and upgrading units such as bloodletters to exalted bloodletters and so on. He is not a empire building faction instead he cripples your empire. This is what he does, zero fux Skarbrand. Hopefully a minor dlc together with LL Skulltaker might spice them up a bit. And the exalted bloodthirster has got to be the most epic lord in the game though. So well done.

[ap_ace]

I mentioned this during the poll but I got long campaign victory by like turn 40 with 400, 000 reserve favor and I was negative 16, 000 per turn. Doesn't really matter if I'm losing that much money per turn when a single victory with skarbrand would pay that off for me. I've pushed my campaign to turn 70 now and am finally in the green but by now I have 80 settlements and have wiped out most of the map. I think for most people that try and play khorne like other factions they may struggle because of the lack of economy but if played aggressive enough I really think he is one of the strongest factions in the game

[aersla]

I think what kills this campaign for me is that bloodhost cost upkeep. They can't replenish and they can't recruit. I think if they got rid of the upkeep it would make them significantly better or allow them to move when they spawn so they can be used to reinforce you. The funny thing is that in realms of chaos I found this campaign the funnest but in immortal empires I just didn't enjoy it. It could be cause there just wasn't that many good campaigns in realms of chaos but idk.

[veermudambi]

Not gonna lie, I like the character discussion of Skarbrand’s campaign. Not sure if it’s new or not but I haven’t seen it before - and I’m here for it.

[diogobortolin]

I mean.. I really don't care about balance in campaign. I want the game to be lore friendly and nice! If i'ts too hard, just put on normal/easy. o.^

[pktrd]

If badlands are too difficult one can teleport Scaryboy to the North and start empire here using his cult mechanic.

[dococ]

I think you’re jaded with this game and are letting your subjective opinions and frustrations get the best of you. This is objectively false. Is this really the route you choose to take with making content?
You objectively have been a great source of advice and breakdowns for this game and battling, now you choose to constantly condescend and rant then wonder why people argue with you.
Skarbrand is his factions gimmick, objectively powerful on the campaign map as a constantly mobile freight train, and objectively powerful in battles even without “cheese”.
You do not provide objective facts or opinions based on those facts you just hate on most peoples favorite hero’s and condescend a majority of the player base and potential audience by reiterating constantly you don’t make content for them and talking down your nose at everything.

Don’t argue with a hundred people that the red looks green, you just might be colorblind. Not WRONG to your perspective, just you only acknowledge your perspective and that is wrong.

[Streetbroker]

I haven't played this game since Shogun. I jumped into Immortal Empires and purchased all of the DLC. I haven't played another Lord : ) I love Skarbrand, I build up my settlements and I have high tier units in my armies. I love this campaign so much. When you have a number of settlements you start to make passive income to support your efforts, however, I agree that I get my major loot from sacking. I am running around the High Elves getting about 60-80k gold per settlement. My ancillary armies are powerful as well. My other lords have ascended and have access to more skills. In my current campaign I actually allied with a Slaaneshi faction and recruited their dragons into my army. I guess it depends on what you enjoy. I wanted to learn how to fight so I chose the melee faction : )

[facehugger]

you don't need to use his mass or charge spam exploits even on very hard battle difficulty he is a solid melee lord without doing all that if not one of the best melee legendary lords except maybe scaling kholek or malus darkblade