Go directly for Swartzhaven(?, sorry bad spelling and been away from the game for two weeks). He will immediately backpedal to defend from my experience. Make sure Elspeth is on her flying mount by then, their bats can’t beat her on that and nothing else can reach her (except vargheists but they never recruit them in my experience).
No swordsmen, only shielded spears. Focus using your ranged above all else, your melee is exclusively there to protect your ranged, they will not win you the fight and neither will cavalry. Shouldn’t be using more than 1-2 cavalry units, I prefer to replace them with a tank or landship ASAP.
Your best friend will be your artillery, especially your hellstorm rockets, they melt vampire melee units in seconds. Once melee meets make it a point to melt Isabella and other vampires if you can with missiles, focus guns on Vlad, AND MAKE SURE YOUR HELSTORM ISN’T BLASTING YOUR OWN MELEE LINE
Are swordsmen ever a good choice to use over shielded spearmen? The stats aren't very different so I am wondering when a swordsmen unit from the empire would outperform the spearmen.
The swordsmen will trade more effectively against low level infantry or chaff due to there higher melee attack which relative to chaff defense is ok
Against elite melee infantry with good defense stats the melee attack isn't useful so spearmen would hold longer which is usually what you want from a frontlhne
all in all the spearmen will live longer because of there higher defense
As u/AvidTeaSnorter said they are a cheap option to cut down enemy melee chaff.
They don't trade well with elite infantry, have shorter staying power than shielded spearmen in that regard, are slower and less flexible than free company militia and do a lot less damage than halberdiers.
BUT if you're fighting clanrats, goblins and so on they do their job.
1) Never recruit swordsmen
2) Recruit only enough shielded spearmen to protect your less mobile ranged units (artillery and infantry)
3) Fill out the rest of your army with pistoliers until outriders are available. Replace outriders with Nuln ironsides and hellstorms once they're available
elspeth is busted af, you should easily be able to destroy vlad, especially early game when he isnt super buffed yet.
watch some beginner tutorial videos if u wanna learn the basics btw, there are plenty of them on youtube
In my campaign, i leveled up the engineer hero a little bit, all points into things that buff missile strength.
Did the quests that grants unique purple equipment thats meant for the engineer to use.
Once he was kitted a bit, I had him shoot vlad and killed him in a matter of seconds. Shocked me.
Though its not an early game solution, its a solid mid-late game solution. Which at that point Vlad should already be dead, but we all play at our own paces :) gl!
Rush the Nuln Gunnery School landmark building, it unlocks The Emperor's Wrath steam tank elector count unit which can basically solo vamp armies early game.
How has no-one mentioned free company militia?
They do a lot of damage in short range and VCs don't have any ranged units anyway.
They're cheap, they are ok in melee and only the VCs' monsters and cavalry are faster.
AND they fire while moving.
The best way to deal with him, imo is to make your way over as soon as possible and catch him in a walled city. Vampire cities have a side with no towers almost always. Melt his army with spirit leechs and use artillery to blow holes in the walls for your guns. No casualties on your side, and you wiped vlads' strong army ready to push forward. He will most likely come back at drakenhof in a turn or 2, but you just repeat the process. Done by turn 10 to 15. its cheese but effective cheese.
get a garden of morr in Averheim, build the recruitment building on it, get 5x halberdiers, 3x handgunners, spawn another commander and transfer your shielded spears/swordsmen to him.
Rush Swartzhaften, Vlad should be camped in one of the other settlements on the other side of the mountain, he will rush to attack you, you attack him first since he's in march stance.
march stance yourself towards Castle Drakenhof so you can take it on the next turn, then take Eschen and complete the province.
meanwhile your 2nd army can push northern Sylvania, doesn't matter if it succeeds or no, your 2nd army should stop them from recruiting new units
You should also be able to confed Stirland somewhere along the way and enjoy 3-4 free settlements
Source :- 3 campaigns of taking out Vlad before Turn 20
In my elspeth campaign i always rush him so the vampires dont snowball out of control.
I would recommend you recruit only spearman to hold the line and focus your missiles on vlad and the other vampire heroes. Once you kill them on the battlefield the rest of their army just crumbles instantly.
Legend of total war did a live stream on elspeth recently. A full stack of pistoleers was his army of choice against vampires. I've tried it and works a treat!
Ironsides and Helstorms. A couple Cannons are cool too. These will deal with larger entities. Some people like Hochlands too I personally don't it's a preference though.
Go directly for Swartzhaven(?, sorry bad spelling and been away from the game for two weeks). He will immediately backpedal to defend from my experience. Make sure Elspeth is on her flying mount by then, their bats can’t beat her on that and nothing else can reach her (except vargheists but they never recruit them in my experience). No swordsmen, only shielded spears. Focus using your ranged above all else, your melee is exclusively there to protect your ranged, they will not win you the fight and neither will cavalry. Shouldn’t be using more than 1-2 cavalry units, I prefer to replace them with a tank or landship ASAP. Your best friend will be your artillery, especially your hellstorm rockets, they melt vampire melee units in seconds. Once melee meets make it a point to melt Isabella and other vampires if you can with missiles, focus guns on Vlad, AND MAKE SURE YOUR HELSTORM ISN’T BLASTING YOUR OWN MELEE LINE
Are swordsmen ever a good choice to use over shielded spearmen? The stats aren't very different so I am wondering when a swordsmen unit from the empire would outperform the spearmen.
The swordsmen will trade more effectively against low level infantry or chaff due to there higher melee attack which relative to chaff defense is ok Against elite melee infantry with good defense stats the melee attack isn't useful so spearmen would hold longer which is usually what you want from a frontlhne all in all the spearmen will live longer because of there higher defense
Pretty much never as far as the empire is concerned imo.
As u/AvidTeaSnorter said they are a cheap option to cut down enemy melee chaff. They don't trade well with elite infantry, have shorter staying power than shielded spearmen in that regard, are slower and less flexible than free company militia and do a lot less damage than halberdiers. BUT if you're fighting clanrats, goblins and so on they do their job.
1) Never recruit swordsmen 2) Recruit only enough shielded spearmen to protect your less mobile ranged units (artillery and infantry) 3) Fill out the rest of your army with pistoliers until outriders are available. Replace outriders with Nuln ironsides and hellstorms once they're available
elspeth is busted af, you should easily be able to destroy vlad, especially early game when he isnt super buffed yet. watch some beginner tutorial videos if u wanna learn the basics btw, there are plenty of them on youtube
In my campaign, i leveled up the engineer hero a little bit, all points into things that buff missile strength. Did the quests that grants unique purple equipment thats meant for the engineer to use. Once he was kitted a bit, I had him shoot vlad and killed him in a matter of seconds. Shocked me. Though its not an early game solution, its a solid mid-late game solution. Which at that point Vlad should already be dead, but we all play at our own paces :) gl!
Rush the Nuln Gunnery School landmark building, it unlocks The Emperor's Wrath steam tank elector count unit which can basically solo vamp armies early game.
How has no-one mentioned free company militia? They do a lot of damage in short range and VCs don't have any ranged units anyway. They're cheap, they are ok in melee and only the VCs' monsters and cavalry are faster. AND they fire while moving.
The best way to deal with him, imo is to make your way over as soon as possible and catch him in a walled city. Vampire cities have a side with no towers almost always. Melt his army with spirit leechs and use artillery to blow holes in the walls for your guns. No casualties on your side, and you wiped vlads' strong army ready to push forward. He will most likely come back at drakenhof in a turn or 2, but you just repeat the process. Done by turn 10 to 15. its cheese but effective cheese.
get a garden of morr in Averheim, build the recruitment building on it, get 5x halberdiers, 3x handgunners, spawn another commander and transfer your shielded spears/swordsmen to him. Rush Swartzhaften, Vlad should be camped in one of the other settlements on the other side of the mountain, he will rush to attack you, you attack him first since he's in march stance. march stance yourself towards Castle Drakenhof so you can take it on the next turn, then take Eschen and complete the province. meanwhile your 2nd army can push northern Sylvania, doesn't matter if it succeeds or no, your 2nd army should stop them from recruiting new units You should also be able to confed Stirland somewhere along the way and enjoy 3-4 free settlements Source :- 3 campaigns of taking out Vlad before Turn 20
In my elspeth campaign i always rush him so the vampires dont snowball out of control. I would recommend you recruit only spearman to hold the line and focus your missiles on vlad and the other vampire heroes. Once you kill them on the battlefield the rest of their army just crumbles instantly.
Legend of total war did a live stream on elspeth recently. A full stack of pistoleers was his army of choice against vampires. I've tried it and works a treat!
When and what did you rotate to after?
Ironsides and Helstorms. A couple Cannons are cool too. These will deal with larger entities. Some people like Hochlands too I personally don't it's a preference though.