Patch 9.0.3

Hey folks,

We’ve just rolled out Patch 9.0.3, which brings with it:

• Updates to Nagash’s campaign based on your valuable feedback.
• Some tweaks to the Lords of the End Times factions to address some unintended behaviour.
• Wider battle balancing changes to various Characters, Units and Spells, including Lore of Nehekhara.
• A swathe of bug fixes and other adjustments, including:

• Legendary Lords and Heroes confederated after their faction is destroyed now retain their Items and Ancillaries.
• Nagash now has access to Unusual Locations and Ancillaries.
• Styrkaar is now available to Norscan factions.
• Warriors of Chaos can now continue recruiting after their Lord is defeated.
• Fervour is now correctly awarded after fighting settlements defended by a garrisoned army.
• Gotrek and Felix’s quest battle now resolves correctly.

Thank you to everyone for providing your bug reports and feedback on our forums and Reddit bug megathread. The work doesn’t slow down here, and the team are already looking into further fixes and changes for the next release which we’ll be rolling out as soon as we’re able.

As always, if you run into any new issues after updating to 9.0.3, please report them in our dedicated bug reporting sub-forum (and do include save files wherever possible - it helps massively!)

On to the notes…

Nagash Campaign Updates

Economy & Early Progression

Since release, we've been closely following your feedback and feel Nagash's economy still isn't hitting the right balance between challenge and enjoyment. These changes are aimed at easing early-game economic pressure by giving players more meaningful goals in the Black Pyramid, and increasing battle income on lower campaign difficulties.

• Added -40% upkeep for Nagash to an early Black Pyramid node.
• Added -10% upkeep to the early Tomb Kings, Vampire Coast, and Vampire Counts sections of the Black Pyramid. This only applies to units led by a matching lord type, or by Nagash himself.
• Post-battle income now scales with campaign difficulty:

• Legendary / Very Hard: No change
• Hard: +5%
• Normal: +10%
• Easy: +20%

Sigil Progression

We also felt players weren't able to empower Sigils as quickly as intended, particularly in the early game. These changes increase early-game Sigil generation and make progression through the Black Pyramid happen at a more rewarding pace.

• Increased the Legendary Lord subjugation bonus in the Mortarchs panel from 5 to 10 Sigils (Heroes and Nameless characters remain at 5).
• Increased Sigils generated by Nagashizzar and the Black Pyramid of Nagash from 2/4/6/8/10 to 3/6/9/12/15.
• Increased Sigils generated by standard Necropolises from 2/2/4/4/6 to 2/3/4/5/8.
• Reduced the Necromancy Panel’s Sigil unlock requirement from 200 to 100 Necromantic Energy. This change will affect new campaigns.

Necropolises & Local Recruitment

We’ve implemented several changes to Necropolises, making developing them more valuable. One primary issue we wanted to address was that players weren’t feeling the need to build recruitment buildings anymore once they had started to unlock a few Grave Call options, so we are adding both local and global benefits to recruitment buildings that aim to keep them useful throughout the campaign.

• Improved garrisons for standard Necropolises, Nagashizzar, the Black Pyramid of Nagash, and all Necropolis defence buildings.
• Added combat bonuses for units under siege to the Necropolis Garrison chain when the province is devastated.
• Added significant local recruitment cost reductions from military building chains while a province is devastated, making local recruitment a more attractive alternative to Grave Call.
• Military building chains now grant -1% factionwide upkeep for their associated unit types while the province is devastated.
• Corruption building chains now provide army movement bonuses in devastated provinces, spreading to adjacent provinces at the highest tier.

Mortarch & Confederation Objectives

One of the most consistent points of feedback we've received is that Mortarch subjugation objectives felt too restrictive and pushed players toward specific regions of the map.

Our goal is to give players greater freedom to expand where they want. In most cases, Mortarchs will now submit to Nagash's rule once he has clearly surpassed them in power, rather than requiring players to hunt them down across the map (however, doing so will speed up the process if they become too strong).

• The "own a maximum of 5 regions" requirement for Mortarch Lords has been replaced. Nagash must now control more than three times as many regions as the Mortarch.

• This change has also been applied to the Vampire Count confederation panel.

Most location-specific objectives, such as owning The Awakening or building the Blood Keep, have been removed and replaced with thematic objectives that can be completed from any location.

Legendary Hero objectives have been made easier, allowing earlier subjugation.

These new objectives will only apply to new campaigns, ensuring existing campaign progress isn't disrupted.

9.0.3 Release Notes

Performance & Stability

• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading certain campaign save files.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when using the Vampire Counts Confederation panel.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when attempting the Scheme battle for Bretonnia & Athel Loren as the Changeling.
• Fixed a crash that could occur upon the start of the Chaos Dwarf endgame crisis.
• Fixed a crash that could occur after defeating Helman Ghorst in battle.

Campaign

General/Gameplay

• Fixed an issue causing Nagash to not have access to Unusual Locations.
• Fixed an issue causing Nagash to not have access to some Ancillaries.
• Fixed an issue where Beastmen Lords were spawning with 1.4k weapon strength.
• Styrkaar the Sortsvinaer is now available to all Norscan factions.
• Fixed an issue where Warriors of Chaos were unable to recruit after their Lord was defeated.
• Fixed an issue where the level of Vampiric Corruption was not correctly reducing the cost of Ritual of Undeath.
• Fixed an issue where razing Skavenblight as Thanquol prevented the quest “Steal the Plan-Prints” from being completed.
• Fixed an issue where the Clawmark Scribe would not gain experience when Thanquol gained a rank.
• Fixed all cases where Corpses and Blood resources were refunding units for more than they were recruited for. This includes a revision of some sources of recruitment cost reductions into increasing Corpses from battle.
• Fixed an issue where the Quest battle to acquire Gotrek and Felix would not end when all objectives were completed.
• The Bone Giant unit is now available to all owners of the Nagash DLC, regardless of whether you own the Tomb Kings DLC.
• Fixed an issue where mission objectives to control regions would show as not completed after a reload, even though they were.
• Fixed an issue where cancelling building construction would sometimes not refund Necromantic Energy.
• Fixed an issue where if Nagash subjugates a Mortarch that has a starting Hero, that Hero would be using Emil Valgeir’s model.
• Fixed an issue where a player playing with a Mortarch faction might suddenly get confederated by Nagash.
• Fixed an issue where Neferata was able to make peace with Khalida via regular diplomacy.
• Fixed an issue where missions that require moving to a specific region would abort if that region’s owner was vassalised.
• Fixed an issue where Vampire Coast factions could no longer trigger and benefit from battle site markers created after large battles.
• Fixed an issue where new armies could spawn endlessly during the Chaos Dwarf endgame crisis.

Victory Conditions

• Fixed an issue where Alarielle's long victory objective to control a Wood Elf settlement was not showing as completed despite controlling a Wood Elf settlement.
• Fixed an issue where Dechala's Pleasure Palace long victory condition was not counting settlements converted to Palaces after capture.
• Removed Arkhan the Black’s victory conditions “Hold the following settlement: Black Tower of Arkhan” and “Construct landmark: Black Tower of Arkhan”, and replaced them with "Control the following settlement either by direct ownership or through allies: Black Tower of Arkhan" to avoid having to go to war with Nagash to complete the objectives.
• When playing as Teclis, if the player choses to return to Ulthuan the victory objective for short victory now requires the construction of a landmark in either Hoeth OR Fortress of Dawn.

Skills, Abilities & Traits

• ​Fixed an issue where the Hounds of Ulricsberg (Hunting Hounds) Battle Howl ability was missing from Campaign.
• Fixed an issue where Immortal Empires campaign Points of Interest pins were not displayed.
• The Vampire Lair traits "The Commander" and "The Inflamed" no longer apply their negative effects to Lords and Heroes when the negative effect mentions "all units".
• The Vampire Lair traits "The Undeafeated" and "The Commander" no longer apply their positive effects to Lords and Heroes when the positive effect mentions specific unit ranks.
• Fixed an issue where the trait "The Endless Herald" would stop working after a Save/Load event.
• Removed the spell “Spirit Leech” from the Necrarch Vampire Lord’s Character info. (Dev note: Our intent was always for Necrarch Vampire Lords to be primarily a support-focused character without access to damage dealing spells at lower levels, so Spirit Leech was not intended to be part of their repertoire. Don't worry though, they still retain the direct damage spell of "The Fate of Bjuna".)

Items & Ancillaries

• Fixed an issue where Legendary Lords and Heroes confederated after their faction was destroyed were missing their Items and Ancillaries.

UI/UX

• Fixed an issue where the Masque of Slaanesh’s Dances UI was not visible in the top bar.
• Fixed an issue where the recruitment panel would sometimes automatically scroll all the way down to the bottom when selecting a unit higher up the list.
• Amended a small number of localised text strings.

Battle

General/Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where Fervour was not correctly awarded after fighting settlements defended by a garrisoned army.
• Increased the distance between Warp-doom Magma Cannons when grouped in formation.
• Adjusted the stats of all Vampire Lords mounted on Zombie Dragon to be in line with with the stats of the standalone Zombie Dragon unit. Their stats are now more consistent overall while still emphasising the differences of the riders.
• Added Wrathmongers, Skullreapers and Bloodwake Berserkers (Wrathmongers RoR) as available units for the Warriors of Chaos faction in Skirmish vs AI and Multiplayer battles.

Spells

• Hand of Dust Upgraded can now target the ground rather than snapping to units like other spells.

VFX

• Adjusted the force, timing and radius of Zefet-nebtar the Mortis Blade’s ability to more accurately match the visual effect.
• Adjusted the force and radius of Alakanash the Staff of Power’s ability to more accurately match the visual effect.

Environment

• Fixed an issue where some terrain and weather effects (snow/sand/wetness) were not rendering on some battle maps.

Multiplayer

• In Multiplayer, the Changeling can no longer move the Black Pyramid to another settlement if it's owned by a another player as Nagash.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed an issue where Voice Actors Credits were not appearing when using non-English languages.

Lords of the End Times Battle Balancing Changes

Empire

We've seen your feedback that the new Empire units are performing a bit under expectations, so have bumped up their overall viability. This includes changes to the Teutogen Guard, which many of you have been particularly passionate about.

Crush the Weak

This ability has been reworked to be intensity-based, increasing in strength the longer the unit remains in melee combat and granting up to +15% Weapon Strength and +8 Melee Attack. The effect is only active while the unit is winning combat.

This affects the following units:

• Teutogen Guard
• Order of the Axe (Teutogen Guard)
• Warriors of Ulric
• Wolfkin
• Knights of the White Wolf
• Boris Todbringer
• Emil Valgeir
• Priest of Ulric
• Seneschal of the White Wolf

Teutogen Guard and Order of the Axe (Teutogen Guard)

• Replaced a melee attack animation that was sometimes not dealing damage with a new attack animation
• +5 Armour
• +2 Armour Piercing Weapon Damage

Knights Panther

• -50 gold cost

Celestial Hurricanum

• -100 gold cost
• Increased damage of Lightning Strike explosion from 18 to 24.

Seneschal of the White Wolf

• +4 Melee Attack
• +9 Charge Bonus
• +5 Armour
• Standard of the White Wolf: Increase Missile Resistance bonus from +10% to +15%
• Storm Hammer: +5 seconds duration

Skaven

There have been a few cases where we’ve seen some of the Skaven roster behaving in a way that doesn’t match our intentions, so our goal with these changes is to reign them in a little!

Verminlords and Skreech Verminking

• Protection of the Horned Rat: Max Missile Resistance Bonus lowered from +60% to +30%.

Stormfiends

• Increased hitbox to better represent the actual size of the entities.
• Warp-Doom Magma Cannon:

• +150 gold cost

Virulent Batteries (Plagueclaw Catapults)

• -3 Armour Piercing vortex damage

Undead

Lahmian Handmaidens (Shadow and Death)

The Handmaidens knock-back power was such that sometimes Lords paled in comparison, which is not our intention! With the change below our goal is to make them act, look and feel more natural alongside characters.

• Reduced attack knockback strength

Lore of Nehekhara

Neru's Incantation of Protection

• Added Immune to Contact Effects to base and upgraded variants.

Ptra's Incantation of Righteous Smiting

• Both regular and upgraded variants now grant +15 Reload Skill effect (down from +40 for upgraded)
• Duration of upgraded variant increased from 32s to 64s.

Sakhemet's Incantation of the Skullstorm

• Base damage reduced to 15.
• Added 4 armour-piercing damage (21%).

Usirian's Incantation of Vengeance

• Cooldown increased from 38s to 45s.
• Winds of Magic cost reduced to 9.
• Upgraded variant Winds of Magic cost reduced to 12.

Usekhp's Incantation of Desiccation

• Added a Vigour debuff of +1%/s.
• Winds of Magic cost reduced to 13.
• Upgraded variant effect radius increased from 35m to 55m.
• Upgraded variant no longer grants the greater melee attack effect.
• Upgraded variant Winds of Magic cost reduced to 17.

Additional Battle Balancing Changes

We had amassed a list of fixes to a variety of issues, bugs and oversights reported by our community, as well as many discovered by ourselves. With this balance pass we are addressing those cases where units and their balance did not properly reflect our intentions.

Characters & Units

Blessed Field Trebuchets

• Now have Disorganized! contact phase effect (-6 Leadership; removes Charge Defence vs. Large and Expert Charge Defence).

Chaos Dwarf Trains

• Acceleration reduced to 150%.
• Additional 25% charge speed added.
• Cooldown increased to 120s.

Deepwood Scouts

• Calibration area reduced to 3.4.

Dread Maw

• Cost increased by +100.

Exalted Seeker Chariot (including mount version)

• Herald of Slaanesh mount now causes Terror.
• Added Feasting on Fear passive.
• Health increased by +500.

Fiends of Slaanesh

• Entity radius increased to 2.2.
• Radii ratio reduced to 0.55.
• Melee attack interval increased to 4.4.

Forsaken of Slaanesh

• Cost increased by +25.

Gor Herd (Dual Weapons)

• Cost increased by +25.

Hellstriders of Slaanesh (Spears)

• Armour-piercing melee damage reduced by 2.

Marauder Bearmen (both variants)

• Health reduced by 4 per entity.

Marauder Horsemasters (Norsca & Warriors of Chaos)

• Cost increased by +50.

Marauder Horsemen (Dual Weapons)

• Weapon strength reduced by 5 (-2 base, -3 armour-piercing).