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 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.

Event	Mutagen
Conversion
Growth Vat (see Growth Vat section)	+100 to +120

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.

Event	Mutagen
Unit augmentations (see Augments section)	-12 to -50
Mutagen Degeneration	Any Mutagen over maximum capacity
Flesh Lab upgrades Unclean Energy Bar (each)	-10

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.

Event	Growth Juice
Recycled units Units with Ability: "Instability I" Units with Ability: "Instability II" Units with Ability: "Instability III"	+50 to +150 +50 +100 +150
Buildings Depths of Hell Pit (Hell Pit landmark) Lower Levels of Hell Pit (Hell Pit landmark) Exotic Animal Market Exotic Animal Pen Exotic Animal Tamer	+10 to +20 +20 +10 +10 +5 +2
Passive Gain	+60
Battles (per victorious battle)
Raze settlement (per settlement)	+10

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.

Growth Juice range	Growth Vat monsters generated	Growth Juice level	Growth Juice level effect	Mutagen by-product
500 - 649	Wolf Rats Cluster	I	Receive a batch of units with guaranteed Wolf Rats	+100
650 - 799	Rat Ogres Cluster	II	Receive a batch of units with garanteed Rat Ogres	+105
800 - 899	Brood Horror Cluster	III	Receive a batch of units with a guaranteed Brood Horror	+110
900 - 999	Mutant Rat Ogre Cluster	IV	Receive a batch of units with a guaranteed Mutant Rat Ogre	+115
1000	Hell Pit Abomination Cluster	V	Receive a batch of units with a guaranteed Hell Pit Abomination	+120

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.

Batch quality	Effect
Optimum Batch!	+1 guaranteed unit of the chosen batch
Superior Batch!	+1 guaranteed unit of the lower chosen batch
Normal	Nothing

You have emptied the Growth Vat to revel an < batch quality > 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.

Upgrade	Requirement	Effect	Cost	In-game description
Abnormal Growth Cultivation	Claim 4 Growth Vat batches	Food generated from recycling units: +5 Augments applied to growth Vat batches: +1	10 food 4000 gold	Growing test-tube monsters is an unpredictable business, so it is wise to have a contingency plan to enable the harvesting of any unforeseen results.
Bio-Recycle Chamber	Claim 4 Growth Vat batches	Increases food generated per Growth Vat batch from +10 to +15	10 food 4000 gold	Those who fail to adequately serve Throt will end up as a genetic goop to feed something infinitely more useful and horrible.
Clone Warfare	Claim 1 Growth Vat batches	Skavenslave units are recruited with between 1 to 5 random Augments Skavenslave units no longer grant Growth Juice when recycled	5 food 3000 gold	The means to replicate the genetic sequence of the best fodder-troops also saves the considerable cost involved in augmenting them.
Deep Freezer	Claim 4 Growth Vat batches	Increases Flesh Lab Mutagen capacity from 100 to 200 (Mutagen over 200 is lost over time)	10 food 4000 gold	A monstrous sized walk-in refrigerator allows Mutagen (and other creature parts) to be stored at sub-zero temperatures in copious amounts.
Enlarged Growth Vat	Claim 8 Growth Vat batches	Add an additional unit to Growth Vat batches (excludes Skavenslave units)	15 food 5000 gold	Throt's obsession with growing nasty abominations can only be sated when the vat is large enough to match his twisted ambitions.
Genetic Filtering	Claim 1 Growth Vat batches	Recruit rank: +3 for all Growth Vat units	5 food 3000 gold	As the weak perish in a pool of genetic sludge, the strongest specimens endure, and Throt's foul herd grows ever stronger.
Harvest Organs	Turn 2	Casualty replenishment rate: +200% for Wolf Rats, Rat Ogres, Mutant Rat Ogres, Brood Horror and Hell Pit Abomination units (all armies) Effects duration: 2 turns Cooldown: 10 turns (shared with Mutagen Buy-Back and Unclean Energy Bar)	20 food	No self-respecting Master Mutator is without their own organ farm, with regular transplants keeping the fighting monsters in tip-top shape.
Mutagen Buy-Back	Turn 2	+100 Mutagen Cooldown: 10 turns (shared with Harvest Organs and Unclean Energy Bar)	5000 gold	Every Moulder mutant sold to other clans comes with a carcass buy-back clause so Throt can ensure no genetic material goes to waste.
Mutagen Distillation	Claim 8 Growth Vat batches	Upkeep: -25% for each Instability on Unstable units	15 food 5000 gold	Purging the mutagen of impurities and unwanted biological waste makes it easier for Throt to keep his genetic freaks in working order.
Sample Collectors	Claim 1 Growth Vat batches	Growth Juice gained from battles: +5%	5 food 3000 gold	With a bit of prodding from Throt's things-catcher, the Throtlings hastily sweep up all battlefield speciments left behind by Moulder's warmongering.
Steroid Infusions	Claim 8 Growth Vat batches	Ward save: +10% for units with 4+ Augments	15 food 5000 gold	The only thing better than a steroid is a potent cocktail of several steroids mixed together to achieve more desirable results.
Unclean Energy Bar	Turn 2	Casualty replenishment rate: +200% for Lords Leadership aura size: +50% Ability number of uses: +2 for "Beast Pack" Effects duration: 5 turns Cooldown: 10 turns (shared with Harvest Organs and Mutagen Buy-Back)	10 mutagen	Though highly beneficial to him, Throt prefers not to waste his tasty Mutagen on himself if he can help it - the problem is, he often can't!

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.

Number of augmentations	Chance of an unstable augmentation
0	10%
1	20%
2	30%
3	40%
4	50%
5	60%
6	70%
7	80%
8	90%
9+	100%

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.

Unstable augmentation abilities	Effects
Ability: "Instability I"	Constant damage up to 75% of the unit's hit points
Ability: "Instability II"	Constant damage up to 50% of the unit's hit points
Ability: "Instability III"	Constant damage up to 25% of the unit's hit points
Ability "Explosive Instability"	Unit explodes when engaged in melee combat

Unit Augmentations

Infantry and monster units may be augmented by spending mutagen (half the cost if the unit is unstable) 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.

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Infantry Augments

Augments for infantry units (melee and ranged), non-monstrous, ex: skavenslaves.

Augments	Effect	Cost	Rank	In-game description
Stalker Senses	Unit gains Vanguard Deployment and Stalk	25 mutagen	Green	Cutting-edge genetic engineering techniques allow one to transplant the nervous systems of the most clandestine Eshin Assassins.
Cancerous Carapace	+15% magic resistance and +20 armor	25 mutagen	Green	Bone-hard tumours filling the body make it more likely that enemy attacks are deflected- their blows tend to glance off, leaving little damage behind.
Mors-tosterone	Unit gains Frenzy	25 mutagen	Green	The Skaven born into Clan Mors possess genomes that give them elevated levels of aggression, the code for which Throt has expertly replicated.
Muscle Enlargement	+5 melee attack and +5 armor-piercing	25 mutagen	Green	In Throt's extensive experience, bigger is always better - strength is increased through sheer muscle size.
Soldier Serum	Unit gains +5 ranks	25 mutagen	Green	The means to isolate and exploit the genomes of individuals who innately excel at war enables fast-tracking of others combat training.
Accelerated Mitosis	+2 random uncommon augments applied (only from those you’ve unlocked)	25 mutagen	Green	The faster cells replicate, the higher the chance of mutation - in other words, roll the dice enough times and you'll get the desired result eventually.
Enhanced Muscle Fiber	+15% speed, +5 melee defense and Strider	25 mutagen	Green	Muscle fiber has been deliberately mutated to increase its owner's speed and agility.
Smart Feeding	+15% casualty replenishment; -15% upkeep	25 mutagen	Green	Failed experiments can yield useful results, even if those results are little more than a living food supply for the rest.
Second Brain	+5 Leadership, -5 melee defense, unit gain Death Frenzy and Encourage	25 mutagen	Blue	Additional brains, harvested from rival Warlock Engineers and transplanted into troops, bring altogether different personalities alongside the subject's own.
Spider Senses	+20% physical resistance; -5 melee attack	25 mutagen	Blue	Implanting a spider within a host's skull can help it to predict oncoming threats, with the side effect of a persistent urge to scratch.
Mind Control	+5 defense; immune to Psychology; -5 melee defense	25 mutagen	Blue	By drilling directly into their brains, Throt is easily able to remove the useless emotion of fear from his minions.
Nasty Inbreed	+20 charge bonus; +5 armor-piercing Rampage	25 mutagen	Blue	Throt's state of the art inbreeding procedure produces hideous, repulsive, misshapen rats, the downside being that they are even less likely to understand orders than usual.
Hideous Disfigurement	Causes Fear; Causes Terror; -5 leadership	25 mutagen	Blue	When a glance in the mirror reveals such abominable deformities, there is nothing in the outside world that can frighten you.
Bone Elongation	+10 bonus vs. large, +20% weapon strength, -5 melee attack	25 mutagen	Blue	Limb lengthening grants a longer reach, a larger swinging arc for handheld weapons, and less of a height discrepancy when facing larger foes.
Imperfection Removal	+40% weapon strength; +20 melee attack; -10 melee defense; -100% casualty replenishment	25 mutagen	Blue	The antidote to inexact science must always be more, and better, science - in this case, unstable mutations are removed on the fly, resulting in a more deadly all-round proposition in battle.
Necroparasites	Gain the Necroparasites ability	50 mutagen	Purple	Throt's special breed of genetically-engineered parasites have been specifically breed to take over the bodies of dead Skaven, that they might live - and fight - again.
Troll Spleen	Gain the Regeneration and Perfect Vigor	50 mutagen	Purple	Through generation upon generation of intensive breeding, Throt has successfully reprodruced bio-tissue that regenerates in a similar way to that of the hardly, nigh-on unstoppable Trolls.
Final Evolution	+3 random rare augments applied (only from those you’ve unlocked)	50 mutagen	Purple	This is the answer. This is... the future...

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Monster Augments

Augments for monster units, ex: wolf-rats.

Augments	Effect	Cost	Rank	In-game description
Lobotomy	Unit gains Warp Lightning Rod ability	25 mutagen	Green	Having long experimented with replacing brain lobes with Warpstone, Throt knows the difference between enhancing a monster's suitability for war and accidentally making it braindead.
Warp-Fuel Infusion	+5 leadership and Vanguard Deployment	25 mutagen	Green	When one's blood runs green with the volatile, liquefied form of the physical manifestation of the Winds, strange things happen...
Razor Claw Grafts	+4 melee attack, +10% weapon strength	25 mutagen	Green	One of Throt's simpler enhancements involves simply grafting sharp weapons onto the host's hands.
Deadly Momentum	+20% base weapon damage, +25% charge bonus	25 mutagen	Green	Given enough unnatural mass, a creature can be as destructive as a wrecking ball on legs- however many legs that may be.
Synaptic Response Stimuli	+10% speed, +10% physical resistance	25 mutagen	Green	Better reflexes by design make for a more effective monster, able to move faster and avoid more of what enemies throw at it.
Forced Aneuploidy	+2 random uncommon augments applied (only from those you’ve unlocked)	25 mutagen	Green	Intentionally changing cells during duplication by increasing the number of chromosomes produces most interesting, if experimental, mutations.
Advanced Neuropathy	Unit gains Guardian	25 mutagen	Green	Those that feel no pain tend to take the brunt of the enemy's attacks, acting as veritable meat shields for more important individuals.
Autotomy	+15% casualty replenishment, -15% upkeep	25 mutagen	Green	The ability to discard mangled limbs and regenerate them means that even those with fatal injuries can live to fight another day.
Propane Perspiration	Enables flaming attacks, Propane Perspiration ability, -5 leadership	25 mutagen	Blue	Diabolical genius! Skin is mutated to perspire flammable gas that consumes and burns the foe to a horrible, screaming death.
Weeping Bone Spines	20% weapon strength, Weeping Blade, -100 armor	25 mutagen	Blue	This painful surgery results in razor-sharp protrusions jutting out from the monster's flesh, weeping with venom stolen from the armoury of Deathmaster himself.
Mammoth Skin Cloning	+15% magic resistance, +30 armor, -20% speed	25 mutagen	Blue	Grown artificially and grafted onto subjects, mammoth skin is covered in incredibly coarse hair that makes it cumbersome yet highly protective.
Cellular Instability	Cellular Instability, -10% casualty replenishment	25 mutagen	Blue	With a virulent fever running high and its very cells literally breaking down as it moves and fights, damage is bound to be caused to everything around it.
Pestilens-tial Glands	+10 bonus vs. infantry, Contaminated, -5 melee attack	25 mutagen	Blue	Surgically inserting these special glands into a subject enables them to emit contaminants that briefly causes Oozing Eye Syndrome, a favourite of Clan Pestilens.
Skryre Nanobots	Stalk, Unspottable, +15% upkeep	25 mutagen	Blue	Tiny robots purchased from Clan Skyre make even the monstrous hard to spot, injected to reactively manipulate skin pigment and fur colour to blend subjects into a battlefield.
Imperfection Removal	+40% weapon strength; +20 melee attack; -10 melee defense; -100% casualty replenishment	25 mutagen	Blue	The antidote to inexact science must always be more, and better, science - in this case, unstable mutations are removed on the fly, resulting in a more deadly all-round proposition in battle.
Acidic Fear Musk	Gain the Acidic Musk Glands ability	50 mutagen	Purple	This creature has mutated fear musk glands that constantly produce highly-corrosive acid. Painful as this is for the subject to bear, the armor of nearby foes is melted clean away.
Blood Worm	Attribute: Undead, Gain The Hunger,Crumbling and Disintegrating passives	50 mutagen	Purple	A horrendous, blood-hungry parasite is introduced to the creature's intestinal tract causing an insatiable lust for blood and a constant, unreachable itch.
Ultimate Mutagen	+3 random rare augments applied (only from those you’ve unlocked)	50 mutagen	Purple	With some suspiciously obtained samples (involving a especially-weird Troll Hag no less), these monster gains additional, unpredictable features.

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Strategy

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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

There is a tradeoff in emptying the Growth Vats prematurely versus letting them max out for higher-tier units. Empty the vats early to obtain mutagen more frequently to augment your existing units. Higher-tier growth vat units come with random augments and are recruitable for any army like Regiments of Renown. Keep the growth vat units in reserve should you need to immediately reinforce an army on the same turn or outside friendly regions.

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See also

• Forbidden Workshop, the Clan Skryre equivalent.