Flesh Laboratory

The Flesh Laboratory is a Skaven campaign mechanic unique to Clan Moulder introduced in Total War: Warhammer II The Twisted and the Twilight DLC. It allows the player to upgrade infantry and monster units with poweful bonuses at the risk of crippling unstable augmentation debuffs. This mechanic is, in true Skaven lore, risky and craven.

Description
If you open the Flesh Laboratory screen, you’ll notice three panels (Infantry Augments, Monster Augments, and Laboratory Upgrades). You’ll also notice that many of the augments (for the infantry and monster panels) are still locked. That’s because we need to spend mutagens on units.

The mutations have tiers (uncommon/green, rare/blue, and unique/purple). Only the first three uncommon/green types are available at the start. To unlock the rest, you’ll need to apply an available augment to a unit and the “connecting branch” unlocks others. Once an augment has been unlocked, it can be applied faction-wide across all units and armies.

Note: You can also shift+click or ctrl+click multiple units of the same type to apply the same augments just to save time.

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Mutagen Mutagen.png
"Mutagen is used in the Flesh Lab and enables Clan Moulder to apply Augmentations to units to make them more effective in battle. It is produced mainly in the Growth Vat, collected as a by-product whenever the vat is emptied to claim batches of units. A maximum of 100 can be stored at once - any excess Mutagen degenerates and is lost over time. Mutagen capacity can be increased by upgrading the Flesh Lab."Initially, you can only store 100 Mutagen. However, once you upgrade the Flesh Laboratory with the Deep Freezer (see Flesh Laboratory upgrades section below), the maximum storage capacity increases to 200.

Mutagen is primarily obtained via Growth Juice with the Growth Vat. Mutagen is primarily spent on unit augmentations and Flesh Laboratory upgrades. Should you produce more Mutagen that the one you can store, the surplus will decay with the Mutagen Degeneration! event."Some of your excess Mutagen which could not be properly stored has decayed into uselessness! Mutagen is an unstable substance that must be kept under careful conditions and the Flesh Laboratory has limited storage space. Your standard capacity is 100, but can be expanded to 200 once the Flesh Laboratory has been upgraded." Tip to manage Mutagen more efficiently: Any Mutagen over the maximum capacity decays over time so do not generate more Mutagen than the one you can store.

Growth Vat
"The Growth Vat is where Clan Moulder grows abominable creatures to join their unclean ranks. Growing specimens requires Growth Juice, which naturally accumulates but is consumed whenever the vat is emptied to claim units. It can also be collected by fighting battles or recycling Augmented units afflicted by Instability."The Growth Vat is displayed in the top left hand side of the Flesh laboratory screen as a bar which fills green as Growth Juice accumulates. There are a few ways to generate Growth Juice. You can empty the Growth Vat to claim instantly recruitable units available from a panel next to the local and global recruitment menus but only when in friendly territory. The units are permanently added to the pool and do not disappear or decay over time. Each claimed batch also grants different amounts of Mutagen in addition to 10 food which can be increased to 15 food by upgrading the Flesh Laboratory with Bio-Recycle Chamber (see Flesh Laboratory upgrades section below). You need a minimum of 500 Growth Juice to empty the Growth Vat and you cannot accumulate more than 1000 Growth Juice. You can only empty the Growth Vat once per turn and when, you do so, it is emptied entirely - the value is reset to 0. Each time you empty the Growth Vat, you receive the Growth Vat Batch Available! event which also provides guidance regarding efficient Mutagen production and monster batch quality."Fully grown monster specimens have formed within the Growth Vat and are ready to be released, should you wish. The longer a batch is left to grow, however, the better quality of the units grown. More advanced batches will only result in negligible increases of Mutagen by-product.""Releasing Growth Vat batches more frequently maximises Mutagen production.""Waiting for better monsters results in less efficient Mutagen production." "You have emptied the Growth Vat to revel an batch of monstrous specimens! Your freshly grown units are now ready for immediate recruitment from the Growth Vat recruitment panel along with some surviving Skavenslavers that had been thrown in as a feed."

Tip to increase Mutagen more efficiently: The best way to generate Mutagen is to empty the Growth Vat with 500 Growth Juice (ratio: 5 Growth Juice to 1 Mutagen) rather than fill up the Growth Vat to the maximum, 1000 Growth Juice (ratio: 8.3 Growth Juice to 1 Mutagen). This way, you get more Mutagen for your Growth Juice.

Flesh Laboratory upgrades
You can upgrade the Flesh Laboratory to provide additional bonuses and effects by investing food, money and Mutagen - see table below.

Unstable augmentations
Augmentations are not without risk! With each augmentation, units have an increasing chance for it to be unstable which results in a negative passive "Instability" that deals constant damage to its hit points up to a certain cap. In general, each augmentation increases the likelihood of an unstable augmentation by 10%. The rarity of the augmentation has no bearing on the probability of maluses being granted. Please note that augmentations that grant, themselves, two other augmentations count as giving three augmentations in total (itself and the two bonus ones). This will increase the likelihood of future unstable augmentations by a huge amount so it should be factored in when considering viable augmentation strategies.

To make matters worse, the passive "Instability" can be worsened with more augmentations.

Unit Augmentations
Infantry and monster units may be augmented by spending mutagen although each category has their own set. Augmentations vary in rarity: uncommon, rare and unique. Rare and unique augmentations tend to have a malus associated such as a debuff or a negative ability to the unit itself and allies.

Augmentations are locked at the start of the game and are unlocked when a unit is augmented accordingly. Since the augmentations are linked in pairs, the player is effectively forced to unlock uncommon augmentations to be able to reach the rare ones and so on.

Units can be augmented in neutral and enemy territory.

Infantry Augments
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Uncommon/Green Augments

 * Stalker Senses	Vanguard Deployment; Stalk
 * Cancerous Carapace	+15% magic resistance; +20 armor
 * Mors-tosterone	Frenzy
 * Muscle Enlargement	+5 melee attack; +5 armor-piercing
 * Soldier Serum	Gives the unit +5 ranks/chevrons
 * Accelerated Mitosis	+2 random uncommon augments applied (only from those you’ve unlocked)
 * Enhanced Muscle Fiber	+15% speed; +5 melee defense; Strider
 * Smart Feeding	+15% casualty replenishment; -15% upkeep

Rare/Blue Augments

 * Spider Senses	+20% physical resistance; -5 melee attack
 * Mind Control	+5 defense; immune to Psychology; -5 melee defense
 * Nasty Inbreed	+20 charge bonus; +5 armor-piercing; Rampage
 * Hideous Disfigurement	Causes Fear; Causes Terror; -5 leadership
 * Bone Elongation	+10 bonus vs. large; +20% weapon strength; -5 melee attack
 * A Second Brain	+5 leadership; Encourage; “Death Frenzy” spell; -5 melee defense
 * Imperfection Removal	+40% weapon strength; +20 melee attack; -10 melee defense; -100% casualty replenishment

Unique/Purple Augments:

 * Necroparasites	Gain the “Necroparasite” ability
 * Troll Spleen	Regeneration; Perfect Vigor
 * Final Evolution	+3 random rare augments applied (only from those you’ve unlocked)

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Monster Augments
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Uncommon/Green Augments

 * Lobotomy	“Warp Lightning Rod” ability
 * Warp-Fuel Infusion	+5 leadership; Vanguard Deployment
 * Razor Claw Grafts	+4 melee attack; +10% weapon strength
 * Deadly Momentum	+20% base weapon damage; +25% charge bonus
 * Forced Aneuploidy	+2 random uncommon augments applied (only from those you’ve unlocked)
 * Synaptic Response Stimuli	+10% speed; +10% physical resistance
 * Advanced Neuropathy	Guardian
 * Autotomy	+15% casualty replenishment; -15% upkeep

Rare/Blue Augments
Propane Perspiration	Enables flaming attacks; Propane Perspiration ability; -5 leadership

Weeping Bone Spines	+20% weapon strength; “Weeping Blade” contact effect (-50% armor); -100 armor

Mammoth Skin Cloning	+15% magic resistance; +30 armor; -20% speed

Cellular Instability	Cellular Instability; -10% casualty replenishment

Pestilens-tial Glands	+10 bonus vs. infantry; “Contaminated” contact effect (-10 leadership); -5 melee attack

Skryre Nanobots	Stalk; Unspottable; +15% upkeep

Imperfection Removal	+40% weapon strength; +20 melee attack; -10 melee defense; -100% casualty replenishment

Unique/Purple Augments
Acidic Fear Musk	Acidic Musk Glands ability

Ultimate Mutagen	+3 random rare augments applied (only from those you’ve unlocked)

Blood Worm	Attribute: Undead; gain The Hunger, Crumbling, and Disintegrating passives

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Strategy
Throt The Unclean Flesh Laboratory Mutations Augments Guide Total War Warhammer Ii Warhammer 2 1b

Bear in mind that, while having a couple of mutations on a unit is fine, adding more might lead to instabilities. This occurrence is totally random, by the way.

When units gain instability, their unit card will have a red highlight. The most common instability reduces their casualty replenishment rate while making future augments more likely to cause further instabilities. On the flip side, future augments are also cheaper, and you could recycle units to earn growth juice (more on this later).

Note: Blue/rare augments provide a buff as well as a penalty as outlined below. These are separate from actual instabilities.

Whoa! Those are quite a lot, eh? Don’t worry because green and blue augments are fairly cheap. They only cost 25 mutagens. Meanwhile, the purple ones tend to cost 50 mutagens. Don’t forget that the costs of these mutations get cheaper if a unit already has instabilities.

Anyway, you start your Total War: Warhammer II campaign with 100 mutagens. This is your soft cap and going over this limit makes the value degrade over time. You can increase this limit (and get some extra mutagens) through certain Laboratory Upgrades

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