The Rakarth Update

The Rakarth Update is an update for Total War: Warhammer II which released on March 18th, 2021. It comes alongside the Rakarth Free-LC and brings a host of content revisions, improvements and balance changes to existing factions, characters and units. The Thousand Maws and Rakarth are available for free through Total War Access.

Patch Notes
Link: https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-warhammer-ii-the-rakarth-update/

WOOD ELVES UPDATE: FORGE OF DAITH 2.0
This update sees a revamped version of the Sisters of Twilight’s Forge of Daith. Instead of being driven by dilemmas, the system will now have a bespoke panel that offers greatly improved visibility and choice regarding which items you’ll be able to get.

Now that the player has full agency over what items they can Unlock/Upgrade/Reforge and in what order, we have decided to tone down a few items due to the ability to chain Reforge them.


 * Dreaming boots
 * Speed 10 > 15
 * Campaign Movement 50 > 35
 * Twilight Standard
 * Recruitment Cost -50 > -30
 * Eagle Mask
 * Research Rate 100 > 75
 * Dreaming Bow
 * Construction Cost -50 > -33
 * Construction Time -50 > -33

We recommend that any in-progress Sisters of Twilight campaigns be restarted in order to avoid conflicts between the old and new systems.

CRONE HELLEBRON
We’ve changed the effects granted by the Death Night bar so that they provide more bonuses at high levels, and reduced penalties at lower levels.

We’ve also altered the way Blood Voyages work – it is now possible to sustain and replenish them by performing successive Death Nights. However, if the Death Night bar drops too low, the Blood Voyage will begin to disband.

DEATH NIGHT EFFECTS:

 * Level 1:
 * +2 Chaos Corruption (all provinces)
 * -4 public order (all provinces)
 * Starting Vigour for Crone Hellebron: Winded
 * Active Blood Voyages will take severe attrition damage from desertion
 * Level 2
 * -2 public order (all provinces)
 * Active Blood Voyages will take moderate attrition damage from desertion
 * Level 3
 * +5% Physical Resistance for Crone Hellebron, Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Death Hags, Khainite Assassins, and Har Ganeth Executioners
 * -25% vigour loss reduction for Crone Hellebron, Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Death Hags, Khainite Assassins, and Har Ganeth Executioners
 * +2 Public Order (all provinces)
 * +5 leadership (all armies)
 * Active Blood Voyages will take light attrition damage from desertion
 * Level 4
 * +10% Physical Resistance for Crone Hellebron, Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Death Hags, Khainite Assassins, and Har Ganeth Executioners
 * -50% vigour loss reduction for Crone Hellebron, Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Death Hags, Khainite Assassins, and Har Ganeth Executioners
 * On turn start, chance for Lords to gain +1 loyalty
 * +4 Public Order (all provinces)
 * +10 leadership (all armies)
 * Active Blood Voyages will take no attrition damage from desertion
 * Level 5
 * +20% Physical Resistance for Crone Hellebron, Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Death Hags, Khainite Assassins, and Har Ganeth Executioners
 * Perfect Vigour for Crone Hellebron, Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Death Hags, Khainite Assassins, and Har Ganeth Executioners
 * On turn start, chance for Lords to gain +2 loyalty
 * +6 Public Order (all provinces)
 * +10 leadership (all armies)
 * All your armies, and those of the Blood Voyage, will replenish slowly even in enemy territory.
 * All of these effects are also shared with the Blood Voyage

BLOOD VOYAGE

 * Now has greatly increased movement range
 * No longer Unbreakable, but instead receives force-wide Perfect Vigour and additional benefits depending upon Hellebron’s current Death Night level.
 * No longer unable to replenish

SKILLS

 * Greatest Bride of Khaine (innate)
 * Now grants +10% Weapon Strength to Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, and Har Ganeth Executioners
 * Champion of Khaine
 * Now grants +10% Missile Resistance to Witch Elves and Har Ganeth Executioners

LOKHIR FELLHEART
New Unique Agent – The Blessed Dread


 * Lokhir’s starting Black Ark is now a bespoke special agent type
 * It has the following special benefits:
 * Unique innate trait for its Admiral, Kraken’s Claw, which provides increased base Black Ark growth
 * Unique two-level landmark building, Tower of the Blessed Dread, which grants the Blessed Dread increased movement and additional bonuses to nearby armies
 * The variant model previously applied to all Black Arks in Lokhir’s faction will now just be applied to this one. As before, the Ark’s appearance will change as its main building tree is upgraded.

RITES UPDATE

 * The Rite of Anath Raema has been re-worked.
 * Now grants the following for 5 turns:
 * +50% sacking income
 * +50% razing income
 * +10 Black Ark Growth
 * +20% movement range
 * Most of the previous effects of this Rite have been incorporated into Lokhir’s personal skill tree

SKILLS

 * Krakenlord (Innate Trait):
 * New effect: Causes Fear for Corsairs units (Lord’s Army)
 * New effect: Immunity to Deep Sea, Storm and Reef attrition (Lord’s army)
 * Bound By Blood:
 * New effect: +5 public order (local province)
 * New effect: +5 to favoured corruption  (local province)
 * Effect removed: +1 lord recruit rank (all provinces)
 * Corsair Noble:
 * New Effect: +100% armour-piercing missile damage for Corsairs (Lord’s Army)
 * Ahead of the Tide
 * New effect: Vanguard Deployment for Corsairs (Lord’s Army)
 * New effect: Stalk for Corsairs (Lord’s Army)
 * Master of the Blessed Dread:
 * New effect: +1 uses for Black Ark bombardment abilities (Lord’s Army)
 * Patriarch of the Fellhearts
 * Lord Recruit Rank bonus increased from +3 to +5
 * New effect: -75% Rite Cost for Sacrifice to Anath Raema and Sacrifice to Mathlann
 * New effect: +8 Melee Attack when fighting at sea (Lord’s Army)

MORATHI

 * Dark Manipulator (Innate Trait): now provides -50% cost and -5 cooldown to Sacrifice to Hekarti

SUPREME SORCERESSES

 * New Skill available at level 10: Student of the Dark Tower
 * -50% vigour loss reduction (self)
 * -10% cooldown to all spells (self)
 * Bound Spell: Arnzipal’s Black Horror
 * Supreme Sorceresses now benefit from any recruit rank or experience bonuses granted to regular Sorceresses, including those from the Sacrifice to Hekarti

HIGH BEASTMASTERS

 * ‘Whiplash’ ability now available without skill point investment in campaign. Old ‘Whiplash’ ability replaced with ‘Kindle the Fury’

OTHER

 * Corsair and Kharybdiss units now have innate immunity to Deep Sea and Reef attrition
 * All buildings in the Cult of Khaine and Hired Killers chains have had their main settlement level requirement reduced by one level. Their costs and effects have been adjusted accordingly
 * The cooldown for Black Ark bombardment army abilities will no longer increase in duration as the ability is upgraded
 * Reduced movement cost for entering raiding stance from 50% to 25% for all Dark Elf factions
 * Tweak the Black Ark map to improve line of sight and pathfinding
 * Technology changes:
 * ‘Driven by Vengeance’ technology now grants +4 Melee Attack to Bleakswords, Dreadspears, and Black Ark Corsairs
 * ‘Naval Training’ technology now grants +4 Melee Attack to all forces when fighting at sea

BUG FIXES

 * Sacrifice to Hekarti now affects Sorceresses of all Lores
 * Black Arks no longer have the immortality skill in their tree – they already received this by default, so spending a point on the skill had no additional effect.
 * Black Ark defensive forces will now spawn correctly on the high ground when the Black Ark is attacked.
 * There may be some edge cases where attacking a non-Black Ark force with a Black Ark will result in incorrect spawn positions. We will continue to investigate this issue further.

STANCES
We have added additional effects to various stances in order to allow for more varied counterplay against the Stalk stance.


 * Stalk Stance now reduces Ambush Success Chance by 15%
 * This does not affect the Beastman equivalent
 * Various stances will now affect Ambush Defence Chance
 * Forced March: -25%
 * Besieging: +100%
 * Underway/Worldroots/Beastpaths: +25%
 * Encampment Stance: +75%

SKAVEN CORRUPTION
Skaven factions were generally able to passively produce very large quantities of Skaven corruption. Not only did this allow them to overwhelm the Untainted produced by other factions, it also meant that there was very little point for Skaven players to attempt to control Skaven corruption.

By shifting some Skaven buildings over to Untainted, we’re hoping to make being near Skaven less frustrating, as well as giving Skaven players more tools with which to manage their corruption.


 * Clan Warriors:
 * Now provides Untainted instead of Skaven Corruption
 * Assassins chain:
 * Now provides Untainted instead of Skaven Corruption
 * Order chain:
 * Now provides Untainted instead of Skaven Corruption
 * Plagues chain
 * Local Skaven corruption reduced from 2/4/6 to 2/3/4
 * Adjacent regions Skaven corruption reduced from 1/2/4 to 1/1/2
 * The Shattered Tower (Skavenblight landmark)
 * Reduced factionwide adjacent regions Skaven corruption effect from 6 to 3
 * Efficient Planning provincial edict:
 * Public Order effect increased from 2 to 3
 * Untainted effect increased from 1 to 2

MENACE BELOW
We have fixed various issues with the way that Menace Below charges were being calculated:


 * Skaven forces will no longer receive an undocumented ‘bonus’ charge of Menace Below from Skaven Corruption or similar effects, such as Queek’s Lord trait
 * Queek’s Lord Effect has been updated to compensate
 * Purchasing the first level of Menace Below in the pre-battle screen will now always grant the stated number of additional charges
 * Previously, if another effect granting Menace Below charges was active then the first level of the ability would have no effect
 * Fixed an issue where the ‘Warrens’ undercity chain would not grant additional charges if no other Menace Below-granting effects were present

Overall, this will mean a slight reduction to the number of Menace Below charges passively gained via Skaven Corruption. However, the player will more reliably be able to generate additional charges via Food purchases or Undercity buildings.

OTHER

 * Minor Skaven factions will no longer perform the Scheme of DOOOOM! or the Pestilent Scheme
 * AI Skaven factions are less likely to take skills that boost Ambush Success chance
 * Removed hidden modifiers to Plague duration and infectivity that only existed when playing on Hard difficulty
 * Clan Pestilens units will no longer take attrition damage from Skaven plagues (all Skaven factions)
 * Clan Pestilens units will now receive vigour loss reduction when afflicted by Plagues (Clan Pestilens only)
 * Reduced baseline number of charges of the Skaven Warpbomb army ability to 1. Additional charges can be gained by upgrading the garrison building in major settlements
 * Skaven will now use a walled settlement map when defending Empire Forts and High Elven gates
 * We will be investigating allowing them access to fort-specific maps in a future update

OTHER BUG FIXES AND CAMPAIGN BALANCE CHANGES

 * Fixed bug that caused growth requirements for development points to be lower on Very Hard and Legendary difficulties
 * Increased the base growth on most Tomb Kings buildings by around 20%
 * Fixed script error caused when reaching 100 favour with the Crow as Norsca
 * As part of this, adapted the Plague of the Crow implementation to make it consistent with Skaven Plagues
 * Throt the Unclean will now maintain his immortality when confederated in Mortal Empires
 * Drycha has calmed down a bit and will now scream less frequently on the campaign map
 * Reduces Drycha’s diplomatic hostility towards Vampire Counts
 * Improved display of effects on abilities that remove attributes from units
 * Wood Elf Waystalker heroes will no longer have a blue glow on the campaign map
 * Navies in the Full Speed stance will correctly start as tired in battle
 * The campaign map banners for the Wardens of The Living Pools, Clan Gritus, Lahmian Sisterhood, Itz-Itza Tribe and Creeping Death factions will now more closely match the colours of their icons
 * AI armies can no longer trigger Forest Encounter markers
 * Fixed script break caused by fighting sea battles as Wood Elf factions

UNIT BALANCE CHANGES
Missile Chariots Missile Strength Changes:

Adjusted all Missile Chariots Shots per Volley stat to better reflect the number of riders firing from the same chariot.

This means several Missile Chariot units Missile Strength stat will increase, this does not mean their performance has increased – this change is just a better representation of the performance they always had

HIGH BEASTMASTER

 * Melee Attack changed from 60 to 50
 * Charge Bonus changed from 45 to 40
 * Melee Defence changed from 45 to 55

HIGH BEASTMASTER (SCOURGERUNNER CHARIOT)

 * Charge Bonus changed from 70 to 40
 * Armour-Piercing Weapon Damage changed from 100 to 120
 * Base Missile Damage changed from 12 to 15
 * Armour-Piercing Missile Damage changed from 40 to 50

HIGH BEASTMASTER (MANTICORE)

 * Melee Bonus vs Large changed from 25 to 15

ARIEL

 * Leadership changed from 100 to 90
 * Removed Unbreakable
 * Entity Mass changed from 1300 to 1800

GLADE LORD (GREAT STAG)

 * Base Weapon Damage changed from 260 to 130
 * Armour-Piercing Weapon Damage changed from 100 to 250

GLADE LORD FEMALE (GREAT STAG)

 * Base Weapon Damage changed from 260 to 130
 * Armour-Piercing Weapon Damage changed from 100 to 250

LOST SYLVAN KNIGHTS (GREAT STAG KNIGHTS)

 * Additional hit points changed from 174 to 157

GIANT WOLVES

 * Melee Building Damage changed from 40 to 5

NORSCAN ICE WOLVES

 * Melee Building Damage changed from 40 to 5

SOOPA-SQUIG!

 * Additional hit points changed from 110 to 660

THROT THE UNCLEAN (BROOD HORROR)

 * Melee Defence changed from 55 to 45
 * Mount Entity Mass changed from 3500 to 2000

PACKMASTER (BROOD HORROR)

 * Melee Defence changed from 40 to 30
 * Mount Entity Mass changed from 3500 to 2000

WARLORD (BROOD HORROR)

 * Mount Entity Mass changed from 3500 to 2000

BROOD HORROR

 * Melee Defence changed from 32 to 30
 * Missile Resistance % changed from 15 to 0
 * Entity Mass changed from 3500 to 2000

WOLF RATS

 * Melee Defence changed from 21 to 19

WOLF RATS (POISON)

 * Melee Defence changed from 21 to 19

ANCIENT SALAMANDER

 * Entity Mass changed from 3500 to 2000

DARK ELVES
Whiplash


 * Ability can now only target Large entities but is no longer prevented from targeting Lords and Heroes. Seraphon quails in fear!

ALL BLACK ARK ABILITIES

 * All Black Ark abilities have 60 second cooldown, no longer increasing cooldown as ability is upgraded

SQUIGS GO BOOM!

 * Damage to self from 60 to 1000 (this is to account for increased Soopa Squig HP)

CELLULAR INSTABILITY

 * AP damage from 54 to 30
 * Added phase that damages self (~600 total damage to self)

INSTABILITY IV

 * AP damage from 63 to 60

WARPBOMB

 * AP damage from 72 to 45

PESTILENT BIRTH

 * Winds of Magic cost from 14 to 16

POISONED WIND CONTACT PHASE

 * Damage chance from 0.5 to 0.375
 * This effectively means to get full value the target will need more entities in the unit
 * Effective entity count from 56 to 75

ACORNS OF THE OAK OF AGES

 * AP damage from 12 to 10
 * Wind-up time from 1 to 3 seconds

CONJOINED DESTINY

 * Number of uses from 1 to infinite

ROUSED TO WRATH

 * Number of uses from 2 to 1

TRANSFORMATION OF KADON (EAGLE)

 * Winds of Magic cost from 18 to 14

ANCIENT’S PROTECTION

 * Duration from 10 to 12 seconds

CLOAK OF ISHA

 * Physical Resistance from 44% to 20%