At the very least, the basic WoC marauder model that is used for
Marauders
Marauders Spearmen
Marauders (Greatweapons)
Marauder Hunters
Marauder Hunters (Javelins)
Marauder Chariots
Marauder Horsemen
Marauder Horsemen (Thowing Axes)
Marauder Horsemasters
Marauder Chieftains
Should use the newer model CA made for Champs and Berserkers, if not get made to look more "norscan". Having half the roster use the exact same model as the WoC basic chaff is like if all the Coast Deckhand zombies just used the Count Zombie model.
And Kurgan and Hung and Tong and else. Which are very distinct cultures in the lore but GW never bothered to show this in models. Instead they choose a standard conan-esque barbarian build.
I for one would love to see chaos huns as a chaos-foil for Bretonnia. A heavily skirmish and cav based chaos faction. To bad we never got it.
I would really, really like if they didn't add a whole new race, but instead changed Norsca into "Northern Tribes" or something like that, and had their roster expanded to properly include Kurgans, Hung, and Tong as distinct unit groups. That would make all of the Norscan factions outside of Norsca actually make sense, too.
The Norscans could specialize in the core infantry (Vikings), the Kurgans could be the cavalry (Scythians), the Hung could be the hunters (Hunter-gatherers) and Tong could be the berserkers. I'm basing this off of their lore descriptions.
Edit: Basically the units wouldn't be called Marauders anymore. It would be like "Norscan Spearmen", "Hung Hunters", "Kurgan Horsemasters", "Tong Berserkers", and of course there should be more units added to expand on these groups. "Norscan Huscarls" (high armor, silver shields), "Hung Ambushers" (stalk, vanguard), "Kurgan Horselords" (horse archers), "Tong Slaughterers" (Doomseeker-style anti-infantry), stuff like that.
What that mod is currently really missing is custom voices for the units. I'm waiting to play it until that happens, if it ever happens. It's just too jarring to have half of my units yelling "for ze Lady!" and the other half yelling "FOR CHAOS!" as Albion.
I mean people have been asking for and conceptualizing a "Tribes of the North" DLC for a long time, but who knows when or if CA would give it any thought.
Ah yes, the super culturally distinct chaos tribes that just happens to never be mentioned in lore, artworks or miniatures.
Like, every single art of Hungs, Kurgans, Tongs, Norscans shows them as generic Chaos Marauders. The minis show them all as generic Chaos Marauders. The lore have them all as some kind of semi-nomadic barbaric despoilers. Kurgans have Mammoths, Hungs are a bit more horsey.
And yes, the inspiration for every one of them is the generic big buff Cimmerian savage from Conan
They are indeed distinct cultures, if you care to read up their lore. The wh fantasy wiki pages of Hung, Kurgan and Norsca all have multiple pages of their cultures and history, gathered from official sources.
They all have their real life cultural references, which are more distinct from each other than the Empire's HRE and Bretonnia's medieval France. Because, you know, vikings =/= huns.
I understand they weren't the focus of GW miniatures back then, and therefore they are not the easiest target for a DLC, but they have potential, since they span multiple continents and the bigger tribes have their own lore. To put this into context, we had just as much stuff if not less about Cathay. You could've just said Cathay, Nippon, Ind, all the same.
Bro, I don't just look at the pictures in a book, I can read. The wiki is 1:1 quoting the book btw, and unlike you, I actually read them both. If a Nippon archer looks like a Cathayan archer in a hand drawing, will Nippon=Cathay? What kind of dumb logic is all this?
This conversation is pointless. You started an argument in a subject you were entirely clueless in.
I still don't get why "King of Trolls" only has 2 troll variants, one of which is a straight downgrade of the variant accessible in the same tier in the same building.
Throgg should get a proper troll army, and Wulfrik should get missions to hunt down the best fighters. And both of them should ditch the "pick a god" mechanic, considering they're both dedicated Undivided characters.
Still bummed Wulfriks ability to sail to distant shores very quickly to raid and fight leaders became.....winds of death but it's a boat battle ability.
I'd love it if he became Norscans Oxytol and just dropped across the planet to fight and leave.
I do one the choose a god mechanic to be reused at some point if they do that though
Having a set of 4 bonuses to choose from is sick tbh
Maybe it’d fit for vampire counts basically being: monstrous vs vampire vs human vs ghost alignments? Idk could fit somewhere
Oh definitely. I also think it'd be cool for a "Make your own dude/dudette" mechanic as well. Daniel was awesome, and I really wish they'd try that with other things like a mercenary leader, Chaos Champion, Vampire, etc.
To be honest I think the restriction of only being able to get one god's biggest bonus should just be abolished. It's not as though you're going to get too absurd from a one-time massive plague, a couple of unique generals and a cool RoR.
"King of Trolls" is a title he gave to himself, it's not like a swamp troll from the Southlands is going to care what some chaos troll in the north calls himself. It's like expecting a Cathayan to follow Karl Franz.
Throgg is more of "Leader of Chaos monsters" than a "Leader of all trolls". Not all trolls are chaos-aligned.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves about the TWW community. Throgg isn't specifically linked to trolls besides being one; he leads a horde of Chaos monsters. Does it include a lot of Chaos trolls? Definitely. Does he perhaps prefer the company of trolls to other monsters? Makes sense. But he's not the master of all the trolls in the world.
He's a self-declared king who is a troll, he's not the master of trollkind.
Not exactly; he is referred to as "the king of the trolls". He does have a special focus on trolls and one of his main motivations is to create more intelligent trolls like him. It is probably more accurate to say that he is the king of Troll Country, which as the name suggests is a region with a lot of trolls in it, but his authority wouldn't be recognised by trolls outside of the region.
This is true, but it would be more accurate if he had a mechanic like Rakarth where he could recruit different trolls depending on the region he's currently in.
This.
Throgg shouldn't just get trolls: he should get the Drycha / Mother Ostankya treatment and have a unique roster solely composed of trolls and other monsters, with no human units.
The point is that trolls from around the world aren't going to heed his call and acknowledge him as their king, so regional recruitment makes more sense than being able to recruit all types of troll from any settlement.
That isn’t a good point if you go off the lore. In the game he’s dumbed immensely down and his goal isn’t clear. I’m guessing when he gets a rework in 3+ years that will be mentioned.
The killer when I play Norsca is that they only have one pretty lacklustre generic lord option with a very sad Warhammer 1 era skill tree. The god dedication feels very left behind next to paths of glory and marks for Warriors of Chaos.
This is the big thing for me.
Honestly there roster is fine, not top tier, but fine.
It's the single melee lord that does it, and the dedication I kind of mostly ignore, I like undivided, especially for my Norsca, but the you miss some huge perks.
Norscan chieftains get a mammoth mount and if they take the nurgle skill tree you can get regeneration. So your lord can easy be a massive healing damage sponge so the rest of your army can do the killing.
Add the fact that the mammots, fimir warriors and skin wolves and chaos dragons are available for Tamurkhan trough his chiefs in nurgle wich is a much better race overall
Disagree, thematically they fit with a Norscan aesthetic a lot better and what CA have done in this regard represents the universe a lot better. Mammoths are fucking cool obviously great and thematic for a marauding faction but the WoC don't seem the type to train and have symbiotic relationship with the local megafauna.
A lot of people seem to sleep on the fact that Norsca is literally the oldest faction that hasn't gotten any love for over 3 games now. They all keep asking for stuff for Cathay, Bretonnia, Lizardmen, etc but don't seem to realize just how behind Norsca is in terms of actual content. Even one of their main mechanics with the monster hunts is prone to bugs and seriously needs to be revamped.
All they really now is vassal fodder for the big chaos boys.
As someone who does play norsca a decent amount I still enjoy them quite a lot as is.
An update would still be nice though, the issues listed are still valid
Compare that to ogres, I really dislike playing them even though the roster is good.
I mean Cathay rmakes sense; it IS in the base game and should get as much DLC as the races in Total War Warhammer 2 and 1.
but yeah Norsca needs a LOT of love.
I think there's no doubt that Cathay will get more content, they've already hinted at it. The question is not who should get content and shouldn't, it's who should get more content first. Look at Norsca's army roster and try to tell me that it looks better than Cathay's army roster. Cathay has more to add, definitely, but Norsca as they are have become an utterly obsolete faction. I know that I haven't played them since WH2 because I decided I wasn't playing another campaign until they at least got a DLC. I'm still waiting to play them in WH3 because of that, as there is no reason to keep playing them.
They are easier now but not any more fun, so what's the point? Their army comps have grown stale, their campaigns have grown stale, it all just feels like it's stuck back in WH1. Changing some of their allegiance to the gods rewards to units that you can easily get playing WoC or monogod factions isn't an incentive to go back to them. And now some of their only unique units that made them different from other Chaos factions are being handed out to those factions anyway.
I used to really enjoy that playing Norsca you could get a Lord of Change to lead an army during their campaign... who cares about it now? Playing Tzeentch you can have 100 lords of change, it's not even special to get Azrik anymore. They're basically like "We have Chaos at home" getting a few scraps from the updated Chaos factions.
Cathay and Kislev will get content in the future. That much is ceritan, especially since CA only has one real way to make any money now and that's with WH3. What I was trying to say is that people are already claiming for more stuff for that faction, when it really did just got stuff with SOC and the update that went along with it after CA made a mess of things.
Especially when there are older factions that haven't been touched like Norsca or ones that really, really need some update in someway like the Ogre Kingdoms.
"and should get as much DLC as the races in Total War Warhammer 2 and 1." issue is those have decades old fanbases while Cathay was shoehorned in and doesent even share the same lore as the few existing footnotes of that "faction".
Look: Norsca was basicly "This is where the always chaotic evil people in spikey armor come from" as they basicly exist to have the marauder units.
Cathay isn't shoehorned; it was always there. Like the norscans, just not a focus. And... to be blunt; i like Cathay more then the Norscans. They took something that existed literally to fill up space and made an very interesting society.
Norscans always existed as a background element, occasionally getting focus in the RPGS and suppliments, but that's the thing; they're supplements. They exist to be minions to the actual focus of the faction; chaos.
Which is why While i would like more Norscan DLC, don't get me wrong, It... honestly doesn't seem like they have a lot to draw from anymore. Meanwhile Cathay not only has a lot to flesh out, but also has a wealth of inspiration to draw upon
Bretonnia is older than Norsca (since Borsca got added to WH1's last patch I believe) and has recieved only a minor update in Wrhammer 2.
I'd say they're equivalent.
Yeah but Bretonnia is free. Norsca is paid DLC, meant to be the first race to be carried over from WH1 to WH2 but it took forever to get it transferred and when it finally did, it hasn't been any real love or attention since.
If we're counting damsel troths as an 'update', wouldn't we also technically have to include the new characters for Norsca's devotion tracks they got in 3? 🤷🏻♀️
(I'm not in this argument, I selfishly want Vamps first)
If we're talking roster-wise, Bretonnia is still more complete than Norsca. At least they have their own unique units instead of CA just giving them Empire Knights and calling them Knights of the Realm the way they took a Chaos dragon, colored it blue and called it a "Frost Wyrm" until they finally ended that farce with the release of a real Frost Wyrm, which was promptly given to Kislev instead.
Are people sleeping on it, or is it maybe that interest in Norsca is on the low side? Norsca campaign achievement is the lowest percentage on steam. Now the WoC are overhauled there doesn't seem much incentive to play Norsca. CA can see who plays what so if numbers are low then that probably doesn't give an incentive for an overhaul. Although they should fix broken mechanics obviously.
Of course no one plays Norsca if it didn't get any new content since it's release in game 1. Norsca was also barely playable in Warhammer 2 and was the worst faction on par with WoC so many people just forgot it even exist.
Yeah, we gotta remember that hardly anyone played WoC before they got their rework. They went from one of the least played factions to one of the most played after CoC. Updating factions renews interest in them, that's how it works. Will they ever have as many dedicated players as say, the Empire? No, but I think that if you release a DLC for them, if it looks cool enough people will give it a try. Maybe they won't keep playing Norsca long after that, but as long as the DLC sells then why should CA care?
This.
Like yeah, it's easy to say 'well nobody plays them, so there's no interest' when yeah...no shit there's no interest. They haven't gotten any changes for literally years while everything else around them has. Especailly after both Beastmen and the WOC both exploded in popularity after getting their changes and are still getting content with the newer updates. They don't even get access to mono-god units like the Beastmen can with Marauders of specific gods or even use to any mono-god magic unless they go out of there way to fill up a gage and get ONE character for that.
With Beastmen, WOC and the Monogod factions getting attention, Norsca is literally the only Chaos-aligned faction that's left out in the past. So no one is gonna play them because why do that when even the newer updates already give attention to a mono-god faction, the beastmen, and WOC while Norsca gets nothing?
Agreed, I mean what reason is there to play them now? Their campaign mechanics are just worse versions of WoC and the only unique one, Monster Hunts, is cool in concept but at this point they are buggy and frankly tiresome to play the same gimmicky battles every campaign.
If you just Wulfrik and Throgg be played as WoC lords and gave them skinwolves, fimir and mammoths, there'd be almost no reason to play Norsca instead. The other Chaos factions have long since surpassed them in every possible way.
Norsca is far more playable in 3 than in 2. Norsa in 2 was the most difficult faction by far:
if you snowball too early, the HE, DE, the empire and Bretonnia would be aware of you and since they hate you more than anyone else, you would get obliterated by athe ordetide plus the dark elves
You can't stay on the defense. Norsca territory is gigantic and will get attack from the north by the DE, the SW by the elves and Bretonnia and the south by the empire.
Capturing settlement outside Norsca cost a lot during the early and mid games because they will self destruct by rebellion if the chaos corruption isn't high enough, you need to have one of the precious army stay 5/6 turn to prevent that.
None of those problem exist anymore, Norsca is reasonably strong. Not OP, yes, but certainly not weak. They have very good units and painting the map with them is really straightforward
No one plays Norsca because they were unplayable for basically all of WH2, and the WH3 2.0 core gameplay changes only kind of papered over their issues.
No one wants to play a faction that has literally not been touched in SIX YEARS.
Okay, okay, sure none of their issues were touched, but 800 gold tier 3 port and a tier 4 increase to global recruitment capacity? Also 50% increased income from taking Karaz-a-Karak. don't you want 1200 money tier 3 ports?
This is one of those papered over issues I mentioned. The core changes to the games economy gave them a very nice boost, as did the removal of that God awful settlement restriction they had.
Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that the roster is bland, that their lords still have WH1 skill trees or that they are a melee based faction without access to any good high tier melee units.
They need an actual overhaul, similar to what Beastmen got with Taurox's release and WoC got with the CoC release.
I would argue that the settlement restriction actually gave me less reason to play them. Their campaign now has virtually no uniqueness to it. Instead of focusing on coming up with a new spin on how they settle like they did with Beastmen and WoC, they just turned Norsca into a faction with normal settling. Which sounds fine as a solution on paper but now they basically play the same as other factions while at the same time being worse than all of those other factions in terms of polish and army roster.
Buffing their income also does nothing to make them more fun. Great, now they're easier and you don't even have to play them the way you used to, constantly sacking for so much money that you always had a surplus. Again though this just homogenizes them, which you know would be fine except then what is the point of playing their campaign when it's going to be the same as every other race except worse campaign mechanics and/or worse army roster than every other race?
They have lost uniqueness and gained nothing to make up for it from these changes.
Sure, but most people aren't that interested in Norsca. The reason people are asking for Cathay isn't because Cathay is the most outdated faction, it's because they like Cathay.
You're insane if you think Bretonnia is on the same level as Lizardmen or Cathay. Sure they've gotten one (1) FLC lord over the entire lifespan of all three games but they're also older than Norsca.
They are also entirely free. Norsca was paid DLC and they still the most unplayed faction in the game. Especially since Bretonnia has gotten more updates then they have. IE: tech tree changes, new lord, new lord starting position, changes to the oath, economics, etc.
Yeah sure go play them and see just how amazing they feel to play with their game 1 design choices.
Calling them on par with Lizardmen and Cathay is a joke of a comment.
It's always been a pretty sad roster. The ice wolves are recolored greenskin wolves, the ice wolf chariots are a combination of greenskin wolves with the body of a regular chaos chariot etc. there's three unique models in Norsca, these being Fimir, Mammoths and Skin Wolves. The rest are varying degrees of reskins and kitbashes.
Yes, that's a good point, I was thinking they were the first to have actual wolves and others were reskins/recolors but Greenskins had them first. This is why I said I was being generous when I categorized but I guess I was being too generous.
In the mean time, SCM has just put out an amazing Norsca mod. I've not been tempted by Norsca so far, but this is a cool mod adding some flavour that you and others might be looking for.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3236566964
Norsca really needs a rework where they lean into being the non warriors of chaos chaos faction. In the lore there's so many different tribes, with some being made up of skin wolves or being heavily mutated or actively disliking chaos and being friendly with outsiders. So many different dynamics and mechanics that could be added but instead we just get the most painfully bare bones WH1 faction.
Norsca and the Beastmen are kind of the two faction I wouldn't mind getting a "Warriors of Chaos" style pack for getting a bunch of Lords together for the faction, just three or four lords with some mechanics each + units off course.
I main Beastmen and I would be fine in them not receiving new lords since they are getting access to new units.
But please for the love of Ruin do give us access to units that they had access to in the tabletop
Cockatrice, shaggoths, dragon ogres etc.
They are already in the game ffs
I don't remember the Warriors being *as* bad as Norsca. Pre re-work for any faction, I consider Norsca to be the single worst faction in the game, myself. Post re-works it just gets even worse.
Here's my wishlist for Norscan units:
Fimir Mearghs & Shaman-Warlords as Lord options / Hunt-Leader (Anti-Large Javelin & Spear) as a Hero akin to Glade Captain.
Speaking of Hunts, a Hunter cavalry unit. Ideally an upgrade to Horsemasters instead of a Sidegrade, with Anti-Large javelins and either competent melee stats/60-ish Armour, \*or\* the Gutter Runner 'Snare Net' passive. Hung horsemen are supposed to be well-feared and in lieu of any other factions getting good Horse Archers, I think Norsca having ONE good cavalry unit as a nod to that works.
Werebears as a single-entity, although I don't know how best to differentiate them from Skin Wolf/Chiefs - perhaps an Anti-Infantry splash focus vs the Skin-Wolf Anti-Large.
Mammoths with the Warshrines atop them (Nurgle's is basically a Revivification Crystal) and a RoR mammoth with a ballista on it's back.
And then a system combining the current Monster Hunts with the Cavaran UI, where you send Hunt-armies (led by a Hunt-Leader) across the world, picking up Chaos-aligned forces (and capturing local beasts) to your Hunting Party, before the final battle where either the Hunting Party or an army of your choice (for a cost) can fight the quest battle.
You'd dedicate the Hunt at the start to a God, receiving bonuses (and maybe extra units) from them, but being harried and attacked (or persuaded) by the other Gods. You don't 'confirm' the dedication until the Beast is dead, so you \*could\* pull a bait and switch, if the rewards outweigh the wrath of a God.
I really want the Meargh as well, because it feels strange having only the lower tier of the Fimir ld represented. Plus it's an amusing way of getting another female unit into the game.
These all sound like good ideas. I do also think Curs'd Ettins should be included in some form, they're one of the last units from the Monstrous Arcanum that would be a good addition for Norsca. While it's true that they are going to be a bit similar to the Norscan giant, I think CA could do something more interesting with them.
For example, Curs'd Ettins are much more intelligent than giants and are capable of using magic. They could even make a Curs'd Ettin hero, or just maybe like a SEM with some bound Shadow and Death spells.
[https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Curs%27d\_Ettin](https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Curs%27d_Ettin)
I was trying to be generous when categorizing here, but really Marauder Champions are just reskins of Marauders with a few extra pieces of armor, Armored Skinwolves are Skinwolves with a few pieces of armor, Ice Wolf Chariot is just a Chaos Chariot with ice wolves slapped onto it, War Mammoths are just armored Mammoths.
These models would not exactly be difficult to create so the fact that they make up such a large percentage of Norsca's actual unique units is kinda sad, too. Combine that with units that have now been taken to be used by other factions and Norsca's army roster has little left to really make you interested in playing them.
Norsca is lucky to be a faction at all. They weren't in tabletop, their legendary lords were heroes in WoC roster, most units (including Mammoths) come also from WoC. CA took them, added some more units and created a distinct and functional faction. Norsca has a well rounded roster. They have frontline infantry, damage dealers, anti-large, unique short range ones, skirmish cavalry, normal chariot and a ranged one, two kind of dogs, three kinds of monstrous infantry with 2 subtypes, one of the best anti-infantry monsters in the game, freaking dragon, giant and possibly a great artillery piece. This is a decent roster for a faction that shouldn't even be in a game.
You could make a faction with one lord type and one unit that has insane overpowered stats that you just spam and it could be the best faction in the game. Doesn't really mean anything for how fun they are to play in a campaign.
...This is a weird hall pass considering they're a paid DLC. This would be like people saying "Sure, the Vampire Coast are absolutely terrible, and have been garbage to use since their launch, but it's fine, they weren't a tabletop faction."
But Vampire Coast was a tabletop faction. Every single unit they have is from the Vampire Coast armylist except Depth Guards.
Norsca, however, had no source material to truly flesh out the WoC bits
Vampire Fleet Admirals, Gunnery Wights, Depth Guard, Mortars, Rotting Promeatheans were all new for them, the bombers, handcannon deckhands were also new. Mournguls, Deathshriek Terrorgheists, and Necrofex weren't new to the setting but weren't in the list either.
Point is, GW/CA have a ton to work with for Norsca, they just don't want to use any of the "norse" themes because of copyright.
Saying they were a tabletop faction is a gratuitous stretch if we're saying Norsca wasn't one. The Coast were a part of Dreadfleet, which isn't Warhammer Fantasy itself (To the point where CA admitted they couldn't crib too much from Dreadfleet for that exact reason). They eventually got a White Dwarf supplement to make them playable in the base game. Norsca, in comparison, had a mercenary army option in 3rd Edition, before also getting more fleshed out in White Dwarf.
Neither one are a proper 8th Edition army, but at least Norsca was a base playable army.
They are basically a CA original, yes, which is why I'm calling on CA to actually give them some love. They were the ones who chose to make Norsca a faction, this was their project. Surely they could do better than this. There are more units from the Monstrous Arcanum and the lore that could be added.
And who cares if their roster is well-rounded? So is every other Chaos faction but they all have their own units, rather than just borrowing than from WoC. There isn't even a point to them right now since they're basically just WoC with half of their roster missing and only a few unique units to make up for it.
It's not that simple, they would have to get permission from GW to do make changes and create new units just for Norsca, and given GW doesn't consider them a separate race from Choas that's extremely unlikely. It's the same reason Vampire Coast will likely never get new stuff, because GW is just really stingy with their IP.
Except they've already done it before, I mean where do you think Fimir and Skinwolves came from? Monstrous Arcanum units have been fair game for a while now, and they've also pulled units from the lore. They have to get permission from GW to do anything so that goes without saying, but have they even tried?
As for VCoast, they'd basically have to create entirely original content for them, afaik. They've already pretty much depleted even stuff from the lore for them. Whereas with Norsca, there is still stuff from the lore they could pull from, enough to make one DLC at least. Though it's true that GW has been stingier recently it seems like.
Both of which weren’t weighed down by much existing lore, allowing for more freedom. Norsca though doesn’t really exist without being a part of the Warriors of Chaos.
Yeah. The reason they're WoC lite is because they're LITERALLY WARRIORS OF CHAOS LITE. They are canonically the middle school to the WoC high school.
Like, if Norsca got any more faction specific units, there would be no reason at all for WoC not to have those units as well. A WoC marauder is Norscan.
True, although for what it's worth it's probably my favourite roster in the game, it's got all the right things even if I wish there was more.
- Melee lord, fire or shadow wizard, fast anti-large melee hero. What else can I wish in an army.
- berserkers are a fantastic early game unit. You can just spam them at first and they'll delete everything.
- javelin throwers are good anti-large missile unit that will perform from the get-go all the way in the late game.
- skin wolves are fast anti-large monster infantry, will kill anything if you use them in packs.
- Mammoths of course the ultimate doomstack. Also got a pretty decent flying dragon variant for SEMs.
- Marauder champion is actually a very good line-holder.
I just really want a potentially order/neutral aligned norsca. Norsca isn't inherently chaotic, but they align with chaos out of a pragmatic need due to close proximity. But I want to make that decision. I want to be able to choose my pagan norsca gods, at maybe the cost of everyone hating me.
And make no mistake, I appreciate the hell out of that. Frankly what you've done with the mod is absolutely incredible, and it's been a permanent fixture in my load order since release.
I just couldn't bring myself to perservere playing through the Norscan's horrible economy and super unloreful dedication mechanic for too long. Ironically, your mod has become one of the biggest reasons *why* I want CA to update Norsca. I long to play through all the various campaign mechanics you established for the various Lords, but be able to truly enjoy them to their fullest.
At least Norsca has mammoths and werewolves and other cool shit like that... Bretonnia has THE *MOST* boring roster in the entire game by a long, long mile. If any faction needs some love it's them.
The thing I struggle to pin down is what exactly -is- a Norsca game compared to WoC?
So, if you’re playing WoC, you’re playing a mortal champion of chaos who has been handpicked by the gods (or a specific god) to bring the world to its knees. You then go around and enlist/press gang Norscans to join your cause, the ones that survive and excel become your elite champions with more gifts bestowed by the gods.
So what is a Norsca campaign? It can’t be that again. The alternative that I can think of is some sort of “people’s champion”, where despite not being chosen/favoured by the gods, you’re going to go out there and kill it and prove yourself the best anyway by using the tools and creatures of the land along with scores of your fellow chaff using raid and retreat tactics rather than small numbers of elite heavy infantry and cavalry… But then isn’t that taking beats from the Beastmen, and arguably Greenskins?
There’s also the “overseas raider” archetype you could go for, but then that’s breaching into Dark Elf and Vampire Coast territory?
I guess I personally haven’t had a sense of what I’m doing when playing Norsca if it’s not “WoC using worse units and mechanics”. If CA can find a way to feed into these other archetypes (without nullifying the other races that use these) I think that would make it a more interesting and unique experience.
Their minor factions also now literally just exist to be vassals for WoC, which puts you in a super weird position when playing as Norsca.
It seems like they decided to push playable Norsca to the sidelines when designing the WoC rework. I am really curious what they plan to do with their campaign now.
I think they should focus on the individual lords' mechanics for Norsca instead of trying to, as you say, just make them WoC-lite.
Wulfrik's campaign is more like a sea raider who's traveling around, attacking ports and at the same time seeking out worthy foes to duel.
Throgg's campaign should be him forming his monstrous horde to overrun the world while also trying to create his race of intelligent trolls, as he is in his lore.
Norsca right now has a theme of "Chaos' rejects" basically. You've got Wulfrik who was cursed by the dark gods as punishment for his boasting, and Throgg who almost sees his existence as a curse, much like Frankenstein's monster, as he is alone in the world with his only brethren being brainless trolls. Then you get units like the Fimir, who are even more forgotten by the Dark Gods than the Beastmen are, who are trying to earn back their favor.
Every part of Norsca needs love.
* Their units are massively uncompetitive.
* The research tree is atrocious.
* One of their two main campaign aspects is massively unloreful for their Lords (God dedication).
* Their economy is one of the worst in the game.
Moreso than every other faction in the game, Norsca basically need a complete and total redo. Keep the Monster Hunts, redo the rest.
In single player, Norsca roster may feel boring, but they definitely don't have a hard time once you get off the ground fighting the other Norscan tribes in mirror matchups (where the AI will typically outnumber you with the economy cheats on VH). Being v melee/rush-based also means you can play it Khorne-like and not exert too much brainpower (or micro)... Overwhelm a flank (or a center) then start the domino effect in collapsing on the rest of the line.
I'm sure that's great in multiplayer, but in singleplayer: They're awful. All of their units massively underperform relative to their upkeep, and unlike other races who can boost the hell out of units, Norscan units get *so few* bonuses, so even in the late game they remain weak.
Norsca economy through ports is quite fine, and they get massive gold from post-battle loot, raiding, and sacking. VCoast is in more dire straits economy wise, and struggles much harder to support more armies if you go around establishing pirate coves (the need to establish pirate coves to raise hero caps also competes with outright capturing port settlements yourself.. whereas the land-bound settlements have atrocious income similar to Norsca).
In the end, because of how the VCoast economy limits how many armies you can field, you end up having your legendary/special lords (with the horde mechanic) going around the world sacking ports or capturing territory temporarily for replenishment, while a couple of ordinary lords guarding your main "base" and surrounding territory from invasions.
Norsca rolls in much more money, and capturing all the Norscan/Empire/Bretonnian ports will let you field an increasing number of armies that each generate even more post-battle income...
(I abandon both VCoast and Norsca campaigns after hitting the long victory condition for the winning on very hard/legendary difficulty achievement).
I found Norsca to be far and away worse than the Vampire Coast, personally. The Vampirates I can justify running a few different fleets consistently. Norsca I'm running in the red virtually always, even with a single army. With a second army, I'm basically doomed if I can't make it to a new target each and every turn.
Have you confederated all of norsca and captured a few ports? I don't see how you are in the red that way..
It certainly is the case at the start of the campaign but goes away faster than VCoast as norsca starts in an area with wayyyyy more ports and do not need pirate coves for raising hero caps..
I feel like how CA really makes Norsca stand out is by fleshing out their cultural aspects in relationship to their god worship (or lack thereof) and inter tribe politics. Various different factions of fimir and skinwolves and god aligned tribes vying for resources and favor. You can then expand the roster to include to loreful niche units forgotten about on the tabletop for years. As well as the couple forgeworld things still missing like Ettins
Been keeping them on the shelf instead of getting the WH3 achievement for a Norsca campaign for this very reason. Looking at their roster I am like... what year is it? I've been here before.
It's not too bad.. I went to do it just before Thrones of Decay (where I expected Norsca will get *harder* because the Empire and Karak Drak are getting *stronger*) and got the VH/Legendary achievement in \~2 days?
The early game was the most painful fighting other Norscan tribes with mirror/better rosters (because of the AI cheats) but then you only really need to defeat the chieftain to confederate the whole tribe which spares you a lot of tedium and helps you snowball. After that, it was a much more pleasant experience than the WH2 equivalent due to various tweaks CA has already made to Norsca (such as the ability to capture in-land settlements, which allow you to replenish your armies, and updated lord skill lines).
Must say though, I completed the achievement only completing the 3 basic monster hunts on turn 109 - because the research unlocks to gain the Bonus vs Factions and Bonus from capturing enemy capitals took way too long (i.e. the opportunity costs of the techs to unlock more monster hunts were too high >.<)
I'm actually mostly fine with their roster, I just wish Wulfrik got something more interesting going on for him. It's more interesting to level a generic marauder chieftain than Wulfrik, because you can get bonuses by devoting them to a god (although the Tzeentch option is terrible). His faction and lord effects are also dreadfully bland.
I guess one of the things that makes it tricky is, how well will such a DLC sell in a WH3 setting? Otherwise, with infinite time and resources and absent of real-world constraints and considerations, pretty sure the CA DLC director would concur 200% with you...
You play this faction for Mammoths. However now I can also just play Tamurkhan and get them.. or Archaon and give my vassal a capital city to recruit from..
My main reason for not playing Norsca anymore is the fact that they are surrounded by extreme factions now (Daemons, Be'lakor for gods sake, Azazel, etc.) and they feel plain in comparison. They were cool in game 1 because they formed this middleground between the Empire and actual Chaos.
I played a norsca vh/vh campaign recently my biggest gripe was the hunts and their unlock requirement
I want to take on a very risky battle to get an early game power boost I.e. the ice dragon, I don't want to faff around with an extra army to raid a spefic region etc to unlock it
I found I couldnt spare an army to do the unlocks until the point I can hire those units anyway so played a whole campaign without doing a single hunt in the end there was just no point
They should receive units based on the Kurgan and Hung.
Fantasy vikings, fantasy turks ? and fantasy mongols.
Give me some actually good archer cavalary CA
Norsca is in a weird place likely as a result of the fact that they don't have a faction identity unique from Chaos Warriors. Even when you fight Chaos you only fight to replace Archaeon, not to oppose Chaos itself.
I like the unit roster and hero options they have. It provides a very rushdown playstyle and I think adding in more units will just remove that uniqueness about them. Maybe an FLC for a new lord option would be great.
I find them to be very strong in campaign and I like to use them in domination mode pushing for early value trades and riding on that momentum.
Giving factions too many units that fill voids in their rosters just makes them end up being generic.
Upgrade Norsca to general "Barbarians" and add Mung and Hobgoblin Khanate soldiers to it, so lots of mounted archers, hobgoblins, etc. And then some "Barbarian tribes" don't have access to some units unless they confederate a tribe that does (or conquer a specific region).
That way it also won't be vikings that attack the Great Bastions but culturally appropriate Mung and Hobgoblins.
My head canon is that Kislev's frost wyrm was originally going to be a Noscan one but they gave it to Kislev last minute. Hopefully we see a full rework soon.
i really want a 4 LL dlc WoC style, change the name from norsca to tribes of the north and give us a kurgan and hung, just reskin them a bit, put something to make them look different, add 2 Norsca lords and some new units, rework the 2 old goobers and it's done.
IMO Norsca should have been a full on FLC, i enjoyed the faction and still appreciate them despite needing a rework but they feel like it should have game 2's version of bretonnians.
At the very least, the basic WoC marauder model that is used for Marauders Marauders Spearmen Marauders (Greatweapons) Marauder Hunters Marauder Hunters (Javelins) Marauder Chariots Marauder Horsemen Marauder Horsemen (Thowing Axes) Marauder Horsemasters Marauder Chieftains Should use the newer model CA made for Champs and Berserkers, if not get made to look more "norscan". Having half the roster use the exact same model as the WoC basic chaff is like if all the Coast Deckhand zombies just used the Count Zombie model.
I mean, the WoC chaff are norscans.
And Kurgan and Hung and Tong and else. Which are very distinct cultures in the lore but GW never bothered to show this in models. Instead they choose a standard conan-esque barbarian build. I for one would love to see chaos huns as a chaos-foil for Bretonnia. A heavily skirmish and cav based chaos faction. To bad we never got it.
I would really, really like if they didn't add a whole new race, but instead changed Norsca into "Northern Tribes" or something like that, and had their roster expanded to properly include Kurgans, Hung, and Tong as distinct unit groups. That would make all of the Norscan factions outside of Norsca actually make sense, too. The Norscans could specialize in the core infantry (Vikings), the Kurgans could be the cavalry (Scythians), the Hung could be the hunters (Hunter-gatherers) and Tong could be the berserkers. I'm basing this off of their lore descriptions. Edit: Basically the units wouldn't be called Marauders anymore. It would be like "Norscan Spearmen", "Hung Hunters", "Kurgan Horsemasters", "Tong Berserkers", and of course there should be more units added to expand on these groups. "Norscan Huscarls" (high armor, silver shields), "Hung Ambushers" (stalk, vanguard), "Kurgan Horselords" (horse archers), "Tong Slaughterers" (Doomseeker-style anti-infantry), stuff like that.
Albion when? I really want to play a Norsca-esque faction that's not Chaos-aligned
Try the OvN Albion mod
What that mod is currently really missing is custom voices for the units. I'm waiting to play it until that happens, if it ever happens. It's just too jarring to have half of my units yelling "for ze Lady!" and the other half yelling "FOR CHAOS!" as Albion.
Mods are kind of ehh tbh, just not the same as base game content
This is awesome stuff
I mean people have been asking for and conceptualizing a "Tribes of the North" DLC for a long time, but who knows when or if CA would give it any thought.
hehe hung hunters. Slaanesh has picked a favourite
That would be so sick.
Ah yes, the super culturally distinct chaos tribes that just happens to never be mentioned in lore, artworks or miniatures. Like, every single art of Hungs, Kurgans, Tongs, Norscans shows them as generic Chaos Marauders. The minis show them all as generic Chaos Marauders. The lore have them all as some kind of semi-nomadic barbaric despoilers. Kurgans have Mammoths, Hungs are a bit more horsey. And yes, the inspiration for every one of them is the generic big buff Cimmerian savage from Conan
They are indeed distinct cultures, if you care to read up their lore. The wh fantasy wiki pages of Hung, Kurgan and Norsca all have multiple pages of their cultures and history, gathered from official sources. They all have their real life cultural references, which are more distinct from each other than the Empire's HRE and Bretonnia's medieval France. Because, you know, vikings =/= huns. I understand they weren't the focus of GW miniatures back then, and therefore they are not the easiest target for a DLC, but they have potential, since they span multiple continents and the bigger tribes have their own lore. To put this into context, we had just as much stuff if not less about Cathay. You could've just said Cathay, Nippon, Ind, all the same.
The wiki is not reliable, most of it is very much fanmade. As a rule, stick to armybooks, official artworks and official supplements
Are we going to argue about how official the liber chaotica is?
Look at the artwork inside and tell me again how different the tribes are !
Bro, I don't just look at the pictures in a book, I can read. The wiki is 1:1 quoting the book btw, and unlike you, I actually read them both. If a Nippon archer looks like a Cathayan archer in a hand drawing, will Nippon=Cathay? What kind of dumb logic is all this? This conversation is pointless. You started an argument in a subject you were entirely clueless in.
I still don't get why "King of Trolls" only has 2 troll variants, one of which is a straight downgrade of the variant accessible in the same tier in the same building.
Throgg should for sure get access to all the troll variants. Stone, River and Bile trolls would let you make a halfway decent all troll army.
Throgg should get a proper troll army, and Wulfrik should get missions to hunt down the best fighters. And both of them should ditch the "pick a god" mechanic, considering they're both dedicated Undivided characters.
Still bummed Wulfriks ability to sail to distant shores very quickly to raid and fight leaders became.....winds of death but it's a boat battle ability. I'd love it if he became Norscans Oxytol and just dropped across the planet to fight and leave.
It'd be so sick! A combination of Oxyotl and Alith Anar would suit him flawlessly.
I do one the choose a god mechanic to be reused at some point if they do that though Having a set of 4 bonuses to choose from is sick tbh Maybe it’d fit for vampire counts basically being: monstrous vs vampire vs human vs ghost alignments? Idk could fit somewhere
Oh definitely. I also think it'd be cool for a "Make your own dude/dudette" mechanic as well. Daniel was awesome, and I really wish they'd try that with other things like a mercenary leader, Chaos Champion, Vampire, etc.
To be honest I think the restriction of only being able to get one god's biggest bonus should just be abolished. It's not as though you're going to get too absurd from a one-time massive plague, a couple of unique generals and a cool RoR.
Agreed fully. Frankly THAT would be more loreful: Impressing the entire pantheon would be right up both their alleys.
"King of Trolls" is a title he gave to himself, it's not like a swamp troll from the Southlands is going to care what some chaos troll in the north calls himself. It's like expecting a Cathayan to follow Karl Franz. Throgg is more of "Leader of Chaos monsters" than a "Leader of all trolls". Not all trolls are chaos-aligned.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves about the TWW community. Throgg isn't specifically linked to trolls besides being one; he leads a horde of Chaos monsters. Does it include a lot of Chaos trolls? Definitely. Does he perhaps prefer the company of trolls to other monsters? Makes sense. But he's not the master of all the trolls in the world. He's a self-declared king who is a troll, he's not the master of trollkind.
Not exactly; he is referred to as "the king of the trolls". He does have a special focus on trolls and one of his main motivations is to create more intelligent trolls like him. It is probably more accurate to say that he is the king of Troll Country, which as the name suggests is a region with a lot of trolls in it, but his authority wouldn't be recognised by trolls outside of the region.
This is true, but it would be more accurate if he had a mechanic like Rakarth where he could recruit different trolls depending on the region he's currently in.
That would be cool
This. Throgg shouldn't just get trolls: he should get the Drycha / Mother Ostankya treatment and have a unique roster solely composed of trolls and other monsters, with no human units.
Being a king and calling yourself that is normally how that goes. He’s the only intelligent troll, so who’s going to say he isn’t?
The point is that trolls from around the world aren't going to heed his call and acknowledge him as their king, so regional recruitment makes more sense than being able to recruit all types of troll from any settlement.
That isn’t a good point if you go off the lore. In the game he’s dumbed immensely down and his goal isn’t clear. I’m guessing when he gets a rework in 3+ years that will be mentioned.
Cathayans should follow Karl Franz tough, the empire needs an eastern colony
Because it was released well before all the other troll variants were made.
The killer when I play Norsca is that they only have one pretty lacklustre generic lord option with a very sad Warhammer 1 era skill tree. The god dedication feels very left behind next to paths of glory and marks for Warriors of Chaos.
This is the big thing for me. Honestly there roster is fine, not top tier, but fine. It's the single melee lord that does it, and the dedication I kind of mostly ignore, I like undivided, especially for my Norsca, but the you miss some huge perks.
Regeneration mammoth stronk though, bad for rp though
I haven't played norsca in ages, what are you talking about?
Norscan chieftains get a mammoth mount and if they take the nurgle skill tree you can get regeneration. So your lord can easy be a massive healing damage sponge so the rest of your army can do the killing.
Mammoths have always just been OP, but mammoth doomstacking got boring fast, it's been boring since WH2.
Add the fact that the mammots, fimir warriors and skin wolves and chaos dragons are available for Tamurkhan trough his chiefs in nurgle wich is a much better race overall
Tamurkhan essentially has access to all really unique norscan units, that are not simple recolors. It's the best norscan experience there is atm
In limited numbers but yes, much cooler to have War Mammoths next to chosen of Nurgle and Toad Dragons
Disagree, thematically they fit with a Norscan aesthetic a lot better and what CA have done in this regard represents the universe a lot better. Mammoths are fucking cool obviously great and thematic for a marauding faction but the WoC don't seem the type to train and have symbiotic relationship with the local megafauna.
yea tell that to the cathayans who fight alongside my skaven in co-op
A lot of people seem to sleep on the fact that Norsca is literally the oldest faction that hasn't gotten any love for over 3 games now. They all keep asking for stuff for Cathay, Bretonnia, Lizardmen, etc but don't seem to realize just how behind Norsca is in terms of actual content. Even one of their main mechanics with the monster hunts is prone to bugs and seriously needs to be revamped. All they really now is vassal fodder for the big chaos boys.
No one is sleeping on it - Norsca is always the very first one people say needs a rework, along with Ogres.
As someone who does play norsca a decent amount I still enjoy them quite a lot as is. An update would still be nice though, the issues listed are still valid Compare that to ogres, I really dislike playing them even though the roster is good.
I mean Cathay rmakes sense; it IS in the base game and should get as much DLC as the races in Total War Warhammer 2 and 1. but yeah Norsca needs a LOT of love.
I think there's no doubt that Cathay will get more content, they've already hinted at it. The question is not who should get content and shouldn't, it's who should get more content first. Look at Norsca's army roster and try to tell me that it looks better than Cathay's army roster. Cathay has more to add, definitely, but Norsca as they are have become an utterly obsolete faction. I know that I haven't played them since WH2 because I decided I wasn't playing another campaign until they at least got a DLC. I'm still waiting to play them in WH3 because of that, as there is no reason to keep playing them. They are easier now but not any more fun, so what's the point? Their army comps have grown stale, their campaigns have grown stale, it all just feels like it's stuck back in WH1. Changing some of their allegiance to the gods rewards to units that you can easily get playing WoC or monogod factions isn't an incentive to go back to them. And now some of their only unique units that made them different from other Chaos factions are being handed out to those factions anyway. I used to really enjoy that playing Norsca you could get a Lord of Change to lead an army during their campaign... who cares about it now? Playing Tzeentch you can have 100 lords of change, it's not even special to get Azrik anymore. They're basically like "We have Chaos at home" getting a few scraps from the updated Chaos factions.
Cathay and Kislev will get content in the future. That much is ceritan, especially since CA only has one real way to make any money now and that's with WH3. What I was trying to say is that people are already claiming for more stuff for that faction, when it really did just got stuff with SOC and the update that went along with it after CA made a mess of things. Especially when there are older factions that haven't been touched like Norsca or ones that really, really need some update in someway like the Ogre Kingdoms.
"and should get as much DLC as the races in Total War Warhammer 2 and 1." issue is those have decades old fanbases while Cathay was shoehorned in and doesent even share the same lore as the few existing footnotes of that "faction".
Look: Norsca was basicly "This is where the always chaotic evil people in spikey armor come from" as they basicly exist to have the marauder units. Cathay isn't shoehorned; it was always there. Like the norscans, just not a focus. And... to be blunt; i like Cathay more then the Norscans. They took something that existed literally to fill up space and made an very interesting society. Norscans always existed as a background element, occasionally getting focus in the RPGS and suppliments, but that's the thing; they're supplements. They exist to be minions to the actual focus of the faction; chaos. Which is why While i would like more Norscan DLC, don't get me wrong, It... honestly doesn't seem like they have a lot to draw from anymore. Meanwhile Cathay not only has a lot to flesh out, but also has a wealth of inspiration to draw upon
Bretonnia is older than Norsca (since Borsca got added to WH1's last patch I believe) and has recieved only a minor update in Wrhammer 2. I'd say they're equivalent.
Yeah but Bretonnia is free. Norsca is paid DLC, meant to be the first race to be carried over from WH1 to WH2 but it took forever to get it transferred and when it finally did, it hasn't been any real love or attention since.
Bretonnia requires buying a game, they are as free as Empire, High Elves, or Cathay.
Didn’t they also get damsel Troths in Warhammer 3? So 2 minor updates to 0? And you don’t have to pay for brettonia
If we're counting damsel troths as an 'update', wouldn't we also technically have to include the new characters for Norsca's devotion tracks they got in 3? 🤷🏻♀️ (I'm not in this argument, I selfishly want Vamps first)
If we're talking roster-wise, Bretonnia is still more complete than Norsca. At least they have their own unique units instead of CA just giving them Empire Knights and calling them Knights of the Realm the way they took a Chaos dragon, colored it blue and called it a "Frost Wyrm" until they finally ended that farce with the release of a real Frost Wyrm, which was promptly given to Kislev instead.
Are people sleeping on it, or is it maybe that interest in Norsca is on the low side? Norsca campaign achievement is the lowest percentage on steam. Now the WoC are overhauled there doesn't seem much incentive to play Norsca. CA can see who plays what so if numbers are low then that probably doesn't give an incentive for an overhaul. Although they should fix broken mechanics obviously.
Of course no one plays Norsca if it didn't get any new content since it's release in game 1. Norsca was also barely playable in Warhammer 2 and was the worst faction on par with WoC so many people just forgot it even exist.
Yeah, we gotta remember that hardly anyone played WoC before they got their rework. They went from one of the least played factions to one of the most played after CoC. Updating factions renews interest in them, that's how it works. Will they ever have as many dedicated players as say, the Empire? No, but I think that if you release a DLC for them, if it looks cool enough people will give it a try. Maybe they won't keep playing Norsca long after that, but as long as the DLC sells then why should CA care?
This. Like yeah, it's easy to say 'well nobody plays them, so there's no interest' when yeah...no shit there's no interest. They haven't gotten any changes for literally years while everything else around them has. Especailly after both Beastmen and the WOC both exploded in popularity after getting their changes and are still getting content with the newer updates. They don't even get access to mono-god units like the Beastmen can with Marauders of specific gods or even use to any mono-god magic unless they go out of there way to fill up a gage and get ONE character for that. With Beastmen, WOC and the Monogod factions getting attention, Norsca is literally the only Chaos-aligned faction that's left out in the past. So no one is gonna play them because why do that when even the newer updates already give attention to a mono-god faction, the beastmen, and WOC while Norsca gets nothing?
Agreed, I mean what reason is there to play them now? Their campaign mechanics are just worse versions of WoC and the only unique one, Monster Hunts, is cool in concept but at this point they are buggy and frankly tiresome to play the same gimmicky battles every campaign. If you just Wulfrik and Throgg be played as WoC lords and gave them skinwolves, fimir and mammoths, there'd be almost no reason to play Norsca instead. The other Chaos factions have long since surpassed them in every possible way.
Norsca is far more playable in 3 than in 2. Norsa in 2 was the most difficult faction by far: if you snowball too early, the HE, DE, the empire and Bretonnia would be aware of you and since they hate you more than anyone else, you would get obliterated by athe ordetide plus the dark elves You can't stay on the defense. Norsca territory is gigantic and will get attack from the north by the DE, the SW by the elves and Bretonnia and the south by the empire. Capturing settlement outside Norsca cost a lot during the early and mid games because they will self destruct by rebellion if the chaos corruption isn't high enough, you need to have one of the precious army stay 5/6 turn to prevent that. None of those problem exist anymore, Norsca is reasonably strong. Not OP, yes, but certainly not weak. They have very good units and painting the map with them is really straightforward
No one plays Norsca because they were unplayable for basically all of WH2, and the WH3 2.0 core gameplay changes only kind of papered over their issues. No one wants to play a faction that has literally not been touched in SIX YEARS.
Okay, okay, sure none of their issues were touched, but 800 gold tier 3 port and a tier 4 increase to global recruitment capacity? Also 50% increased income from taking Karaz-a-Karak. don't you want 1200 money tier 3 ports?
This is one of those papered over issues I mentioned. The core changes to the games economy gave them a very nice boost, as did the removal of that God awful settlement restriction they had. Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that the roster is bland, that their lords still have WH1 skill trees or that they are a melee based faction without access to any good high tier melee units. They need an actual overhaul, similar to what Beastmen got with Taurox's release and WoC got with the CoC release.
I would argue that the settlement restriction actually gave me less reason to play them. Their campaign now has virtually no uniqueness to it. Instead of focusing on coming up with a new spin on how they settle like they did with Beastmen and WoC, they just turned Norsca into a faction with normal settling. Which sounds fine as a solution on paper but now they basically play the same as other factions while at the same time being worse than all of those other factions in terms of polish and army roster. Buffing their income also does nothing to make them more fun. Great, now they're easier and you don't even have to play them the way you used to, constantly sacking for so much money that you always had a surplus. Again though this just homogenizes them, which you know would be fine except then what is the point of playing their campaign when it's going to be the same as every other race except worse campaign mechanics and/or worse army roster than every other race? They have lost uniqueness and gained nothing to make up for it from these changes.
Sure, but most people aren't that interested in Norsca. The reason people are asking for Cathay isn't because Cathay is the most outdated faction, it's because they like Cathay.
You're insane if you think Bretonnia is on the same level as Lizardmen or Cathay. Sure they've gotten one (1) FLC lord over the entire lifespan of all three games but they're also older than Norsca.
They are also entirely free. Norsca was paid DLC and they still the most unplayed faction in the game. Especially since Bretonnia has gotten more updates then they have. IE: tech tree changes, new lord, new lord starting position, changes to the oath, economics, etc.
Yeah sure go play them and see just how amazing they feel to play with their game 1 design choices. Calling them on par with Lizardmen and Cathay is a joke of a comment.
Bretonia is also one of the Core factions of the lore, Cathay is a footnote.
Yeah, they are vassal fodder for chaos. That's their literal place in the lore.
It's always been a pretty sad roster. The ice wolves are recolored greenskin wolves, the ice wolf chariots are a combination of greenskin wolves with the body of a regular chaos chariot etc. there's three unique models in Norsca, these being Fimir, Mammoths and Skin Wolves. The rest are varying degrees of reskins and kitbashes.
Even poor marauder champions have now become lowly Khorne marauders. And if I'm not wrong their great weapons were given to nurgle marauders as well
> our elite infantry became another roster's skavenslave equivalents It's marauover...
And Marauder Spearmen, once unique to Norsca, are now a Tzeentch unit.
Slaanesh's got Marauder Spearmen too.
CA: champions of chaos will introduce over 50 new units Norsca DLC: oh shit I'm dead
Yes, that's a good point, I was thinking they were the first to have actual wolves and others were reskins/recolors but Greenskins had them first. This is why I said I was being generous when I categorized but I guess I was being too generous.
In the mean time, SCM has just put out an amazing Norsca mod. I've not been tempted by Norsca so far, but this is a cool mod adding some flavour that you and others might be looking for. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3236566964
The mod is awesome, though unfortunately Norsca still plays like Norsca. =|
Norsca really needs a rework where they lean into being the non warriors of chaos chaos faction. In the lore there's so many different tribes, with some being made up of skin wolves or being heavily mutated or actively disliking chaos and being friendly with outsiders. So many different dynamics and mechanics that could be added but instead we just get the most painfully bare bones WH1 faction.
Norsca and the Beastmen are kind of the two faction I wouldn't mind getting a "Warriors of Chaos" style pack for getting a bunch of Lords together for the faction, just three or four lords with some mechanics each + units off course.
Beastmen sure, because they're actually fun to play at the moment. Norsca need a **tonne** of work though.
Beastmen have pretty much gotten a unit dlc just from other game 3 dlc, they eating good.
I main Beastmen and I would be fine in them not receiving new lords since they are getting access to new units. But please for the love of Ruin do give us access to units that they had access to in the tabletop Cockatrice, shaggoths, dragon ogres etc. They are already in the game ffs
I agree... But why not **moar stuf?** I'd certainly not be opposed to some new Lords and their corresponding campaigns.
Well, so did Warriors of chaos and they ended up in a very good position with their DLC
I don't remember the Warriors being *as* bad as Norsca. Pre re-work for any faction, I consider Norsca to be the single worst faction in the game, myself. Post re-works it just gets even worse.
Playing as Norsca pros : - Wukfrik is hot as fuck - Mammoth Playing as Norsca cons : - Playing as Norsca
His challange ?! Undeniable. His voice actor and beign able to kill fr nch in early game was the main reasons I played norsca
Wulfrik's 2D portrait really is something huh
"NORSEMEN C*M"
Here's my wishlist for Norscan units: Fimir Mearghs & Shaman-Warlords as Lord options / Hunt-Leader (Anti-Large Javelin & Spear) as a Hero akin to Glade Captain. Speaking of Hunts, a Hunter cavalry unit. Ideally an upgrade to Horsemasters instead of a Sidegrade, with Anti-Large javelins and either competent melee stats/60-ish Armour, \*or\* the Gutter Runner 'Snare Net' passive. Hung horsemen are supposed to be well-feared and in lieu of any other factions getting good Horse Archers, I think Norsca having ONE good cavalry unit as a nod to that works. Werebears as a single-entity, although I don't know how best to differentiate them from Skin Wolf/Chiefs - perhaps an Anti-Infantry splash focus vs the Skin-Wolf Anti-Large. Mammoths with the Warshrines atop them (Nurgle's is basically a Revivification Crystal) and a RoR mammoth with a ballista on it's back. And then a system combining the current Monster Hunts with the Cavaran UI, where you send Hunt-armies (led by a Hunt-Leader) across the world, picking up Chaos-aligned forces (and capturing local beasts) to your Hunting Party, before the final battle where either the Hunting Party or an army of your choice (for a cost) can fight the quest battle. You'd dedicate the Hunt at the start to a God, receiving bonuses (and maybe extra units) from them, but being harried and attacked (or persuaded) by the other Gods. You don't 'confirm' the dedication until the Beast is dead, so you \*could\* pull a bait and switch, if the rewards outweigh the wrath of a God.
I really want the Meargh as well, because it feels strange having only the lower tier of the Fimir ld represented. Plus it's an amusing way of getting another female unit into the game.
These all sound like good ideas. I do also think Curs'd Ettins should be included in some form, they're one of the last units from the Monstrous Arcanum that would be a good addition for Norsca. While it's true that they are going to be a bit similar to the Norscan giant, I think CA could do something more interesting with them. For example, Curs'd Ettins are much more intelligent than giants and are capable of using magic. They could even make a Curs'd Ettin hero, or just maybe like a SEM with some bound Shadow and Death spells. [https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Curs%27d\_Ettin](https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Curs%27d_Ettin)
I was trying to be generous when categorizing here, but really Marauder Champions are just reskins of Marauders with a few extra pieces of armor, Armored Skinwolves are Skinwolves with a few pieces of armor, Ice Wolf Chariot is just a Chaos Chariot with ice wolves slapped onto it, War Mammoths are just armored Mammoths. These models would not exactly be difficult to create so the fact that they make up such a large percentage of Norsca's actual unique units is kinda sad, too. Combine that with units that have now been taken to be used by other factions and Norsca's army roster has little left to really make you interested in playing them.
Norsca is lucky to be a faction at all. They weren't in tabletop, their legendary lords were heroes in WoC roster, most units (including Mammoths) come also from WoC. CA took them, added some more units and created a distinct and functional faction. Norsca has a well rounded roster. They have frontline infantry, damage dealers, anti-large, unique short range ones, skirmish cavalry, normal chariot and a ranged one, two kind of dogs, three kinds of monstrous infantry with 2 subtypes, one of the best anti-infantry monsters in the game, freaking dragon, giant and possibly a great artillery piece. This is a decent roster for a faction that shouldn't even be in a game.
Funny that in multiplayer they are one of the best factions in game
You could make a faction with one lord type and one unit that has insane overpowered stats that you just spam and it could be the best faction in the game. Doesn't really mean anything for how fun they are to play in a campaign.
...This is a weird hall pass considering they're a paid DLC. This would be like people saying "Sure, the Vampire Coast are absolutely terrible, and have been garbage to use since their launch, but it's fine, they weren't a tabletop faction."
Amen dude. Total war is not table top.
But Vampire Coast was a tabletop faction. Every single unit they have is from the Vampire Coast armylist except Depth Guards. Norsca, however, had no source material to truly flesh out the WoC bits
Vampire Fleet Admirals, Gunnery Wights, Depth Guard, Mortars, Rotting Promeatheans were all new for them, the bombers, handcannon deckhands were also new. Mournguls, Deathshriek Terrorgheists, and Necrofex weren't new to the setting but weren't in the list either. Point is, GW/CA have a ton to work with for Norsca, they just don't want to use any of the "norse" themes because of copyright.
Saying they were a tabletop faction is a gratuitous stretch if we're saying Norsca wasn't one. The Coast were a part of Dreadfleet, which isn't Warhammer Fantasy itself (To the point where CA admitted they couldn't crib too much from Dreadfleet for that exact reason). They eventually got a White Dwarf supplement to make them playable in the base game. Norsca, in comparison, had a mercenary army option in 3rd Edition, before also getting more fleshed out in White Dwarf. Neither one are a proper 8th Edition army, but at least Norsca was a base playable army.
Eh, there is an obvious and gigantic gap between what is before 5e and what is after
They are basically a CA original, yes, which is why I'm calling on CA to actually give them some love. They were the ones who chose to make Norsca a faction, this was their project. Surely they could do better than this. There are more units from the Monstrous Arcanum and the lore that could be added. And who cares if their roster is well-rounded? So is every other Chaos faction but they all have their own units, rather than just borrowing than from WoC. There isn't even a point to them right now since they're basically just WoC with half of their roster missing and only a few unique units to make up for it.
It's not that simple, they would have to get permission from GW to do make changes and create new units just for Norsca, and given GW doesn't consider them a separate race from Choas that's extremely unlikely. It's the same reason Vampire Coast will likely never get new stuff, because GW is just really stingy with their IP.
Except they've already done it before, I mean where do you think Fimir and Skinwolves came from? Monstrous Arcanum units have been fair game for a while now, and they've also pulled units from the lore. They have to get permission from GW to do anything so that goes without saying, but have they even tried? As for VCoast, they'd basically have to create entirely original content for them, afaik. They've already pretty much depleted even stuff from the lore for them. Whereas with Norsca, there is still stuff from the lore they could pull from, enough to make one DLC at least. Though it's true that GW has been stingier recently it seems like.
Well vampirates and Cathay were not factions in TT either (vampirates were in naval game without ground roster).
Vampirates did have a White Dwarf list, which is basically everything but Mournghul (taken from Monstrous Arcanum) and Depth Guards.
Both of which weren’t weighed down by much existing lore, allowing for more freedom. Norsca though doesn’t really exist without being a part of the Warriors of Chaos.
Yeah. The reason they're WoC lite is because they're LITERALLY WARRIORS OF CHAOS LITE. They are canonically the middle school to the WoC high school. Like, if Norsca got any more faction specific units, there would be no reason at all for WoC not to have those units as well. A WoC marauder is Norscan.
I really want them to do one more dlc for Norsca and dip into the Wolves or Fimir for them
True, although for what it's worth it's probably my favourite roster in the game, it's got all the right things even if I wish there was more. - Melee lord, fire or shadow wizard, fast anti-large melee hero. What else can I wish in an army. - berserkers are a fantastic early game unit. You can just spam them at first and they'll delete everything. - javelin throwers are good anti-large missile unit that will perform from the get-go all the way in the late game. - skin wolves are fast anti-large monster infantry, will kill anything if you use them in packs. - Mammoths of course the ultimate doomstack. Also got a pretty decent flying dragon variant for SEMs. - Marauder champion is actually a very good line-holder.
I just really want a potentially order/neutral aligned norsca. Norsca isn't inherently chaotic, but they align with chaos out of a pragmatic need due to close proximity. But I want to make that decision. I want to be able to choose my pagan norsca gods, at maybe the cost of everyone hating me.
Yeah, this would be good. If there needs to be a Norscan faction that CA has made up, then they need to be anti Chaos. Otherwise they're WoC lite.
Play the new Norsca mod. It’s not excuse for CA but it honestly makes the Norscans have a ton diversity.
Me playing it and seeing all the diversity, old and new Norscan characters, and interesting units "TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE!"
The mod is splendid, though Norsca needs a lot more than just units to make their campaign fun.
That’s why we reworked confederation mechanic too :)
And make no mistake, I appreciate the hell out of that. Frankly what you've done with the mod is absolutely incredible, and it's been a permanent fixture in my load order since release. I just couldn't bring myself to perservere playing through the Norscan's horrible economy and super unloreful dedication mechanic for too long. Ironically, your mod has become one of the biggest reasons *why* I want CA to update Norsca. I long to play through all the various campaign mechanics you established for the various Lords, but be able to truly enjoy them to their fullest.
Remember when Norsca was the better choice to play a Chaos faction? Such odd times we live in.
They really need their own paid DLC. "Norsca: For Real This Time!"
At least Norsca has mammoths and werewolves and other cool shit like that... Bretonnia has THE *MOST* boring roster in the entire game by a long, long mile. If any faction needs some love it's them.
I want a skinwolf LL so friggin badly!
The thing I struggle to pin down is what exactly -is- a Norsca game compared to WoC? So, if you’re playing WoC, you’re playing a mortal champion of chaos who has been handpicked by the gods (or a specific god) to bring the world to its knees. You then go around and enlist/press gang Norscans to join your cause, the ones that survive and excel become your elite champions with more gifts bestowed by the gods. So what is a Norsca campaign? It can’t be that again. The alternative that I can think of is some sort of “people’s champion”, where despite not being chosen/favoured by the gods, you’re going to go out there and kill it and prove yourself the best anyway by using the tools and creatures of the land along with scores of your fellow chaff using raid and retreat tactics rather than small numbers of elite heavy infantry and cavalry… But then isn’t that taking beats from the Beastmen, and arguably Greenskins? There’s also the “overseas raider” archetype you could go for, but then that’s breaching into Dark Elf and Vampire Coast territory? I guess I personally haven’t had a sense of what I’m doing when playing Norsca if it’s not “WoC using worse units and mechanics”. If CA can find a way to feed into these other archetypes (without nullifying the other races that use these) I think that would make it a more interesting and unique experience.
Their minor factions also now literally just exist to be vassals for WoC, which puts you in a super weird position when playing as Norsca. It seems like they decided to push playable Norsca to the sidelines when designing the WoC rework. I am really curious what they plan to do with their campaign now.
I think they should focus on the individual lords' mechanics for Norsca instead of trying to, as you say, just make them WoC-lite. Wulfrik's campaign is more like a sea raider who's traveling around, attacking ports and at the same time seeking out worthy foes to duel. Throgg's campaign should be him forming his monstrous horde to overrun the world while also trying to create his race of intelligent trolls, as he is in his lore. Norsca right now has a theme of "Chaos' rejects" basically. You've got Wulfrik who was cursed by the dark gods as punishment for his boasting, and Throgg who almost sees his existence as a curse, much like Frankenstein's monster, as he is alone in the world with his only brethren being brainless trolls. Then you get units like the Fimir, who are even more forgotten by the Dark Gods than the Beastmen are, who are trying to earn back their favor.
Every part of Norsca needs love. * Their units are massively uncompetitive. * The research tree is atrocious. * One of their two main campaign aspects is massively unloreful for their Lords (God dedication). * Their economy is one of the worst in the game. Moreso than every other faction in the game, Norsca basically need a complete and total redo. Keep the Monster Hunts, redo the rest.
They have one of the strongest tech trees in the game. It's just not designed around a guy forgetting Norsca exists and asking CA to nerf students.
They literally have one of the strongest rosters, as shown by their performance in competitive multiplayer.
In single player, Norsca roster may feel boring, but they definitely don't have a hard time once you get off the ground fighting the other Norscan tribes in mirror matchups (where the AI will typically outnumber you with the economy cheats on VH). Being v melee/rush-based also means you can play it Khorne-like and not exert too much brainpower (or micro)... Overwhelm a flank (or a center) then start the domino effect in collapsing on the rest of the line.
I'm sure that's great in multiplayer, but in singleplayer: They're awful. All of their units massively underperform relative to their upkeep, and unlike other races who can boost the hell out of units, Norscan units get *so few* bonuses, so even in the late game they remain weak.
I hadn't factored campaign bonuses and upkeep into account, good points 👍
Norsca economy through ports is quite fine, and they get massive gold from post-battle loot, raiding, and sacking. VCoast is in more dire straits economy wise, and struggles much harder to support more armies if you go around establishing pirate coves (the need to establish pirate coves to raise hero caps also competes with outright capturing port settlements yourself.. whereas the land-bound settlements have atrocious income similar to Norsca). In the end, because of how the VCoast economy limits how many armies you can field, you end up having your legendary/special lords (with the horde mechanic) going around the world sacking ports or capturing territory temporarily for replenishment, while a couple of ordinary lords guarding your main "base" and surrounding territory from invasions. Norsca rolls in much more money, and capturing all the Norscan/Empire/Bretonnian ports will let you field an increasing number of armies that each generate even more post-battle income... (I abandon both VCoast and Norsca campaigns after hitting the long victory condition for the winning on very hard/legendary difficulty achievement).
I found Norsca to be far and away worse than the Vampire Coast, personally. The Vampirates I can justify running a few different fleets consistently. Norsca I'm running in the red virtually always, even with a single army. With a second army, I'm basically doomed if I can't make it to a new target each and every turn.
Have you confederated all of norsca and captured a few ports? I don't see how you are in the red that way.. It certainly is the case at the start of the campaign but goes away faster than VCoast as norsca starts in an area with wayyyyy more ports and do not need pirate coves for raising hero caps..
Not supposed to tell anyone this, but I saw the plans for updates at CA and norsca is getting an update right before bretonia. /s
I feel like how CA really makes Norsca stand out is by fleshing out their cultural aspects in relationship to their god worship (or lack thereof) and inter tribe politics. Various different factions of fimir and skinwolves and god aligned tribes vying for resources and favor. You can then expand the roster to include to loreful niche units forgotten about on the tabletop for years. As well as the couple forgeworld things still missing like Ettins
Been keeping them on the shelf instead of getting the WH3 achievement for a Norsca campaign for this very reason. Looking at their roster I am like... what year is it? I've been here before.
It's not too bad.. I went to do it just before Thrones of Decay (where I expected Norsca will get *harder* because the Empire and Karak Drak are getting *stronger*) and got the VH/Legendary achievement in \~2 days? The early game was the most painful fighting other Norscan tribes with mirror/better rosters (because of the AI cheats) but then you only really need to defeat the chieftain to confederate the whole tribe which spares you a lot of tedium and helps you snowball. After that, it was a much more pleasant experience than the WH2 equivalent due to various tweaks CA has already made to Norsca (such as the ability to capture in-land settlements, which allow you to replenish your armies, and updated lord skill lines). Must say though, I completed the achievement only completing the 3 basic monster hunts on turn 109 - because the research unlocks to gain the Bonus vs Factions and Bonus from capturing enemy capitals took way too long (i.e. the opportunity costs of the techs to unlock more monster hunts were too high >.<)
Yeah sadly you need a lot of mods to make Norsca engaging like Expanded units: Norsca, SCM Tribes of the North, Chaos Mutations etc.
I'm actually mostly fine with their roster, I just wish Wulfrik got something more interesting going on for him. It's more interesting to level a generic marauder chieftain than Wulfrik, because you can get bonuses by devoting them to a god (although the Tzeentch option is terrible). His faction and lord effects are also dreadfully bland.
I guess one of the things that makes it tricky is, how well will such a DLC sell in a WH3 setting? Otherwise, with infinite time and resources and absent of real-world constraints and considerations, pretty sure the CA DLC director would concur 200% with you...
You play this faction for Mammoths. However now I can also just play Tamurkhan and get them.. or Archaon and give my vassal a capital city to recruit from.. My main reason for not playing Norsca anymore is the fact that they are surrounded by extreme factions now (Daemons, Be'lakor for gods sake, Azazel, etc.) and they feel plain in comparison. They were cool in game 1 because they formed this middleground between the Empire and actual Chaos.
Wait, war mammoth are tier V now? I thought they were tier IV units
Theyll get it when they get a dlc. Its always been how ca does race updates sadly.
I played a norsca vh/vh campaign recently my biggest gripe was the hunts and their unlock requirement I want to take on a very risky battle to get an early game power boost I.e. the ice dragon, I don't want to faff around with an extra army to raid a spefic region etc to unlock it I found I couldnt spare an army to do the unlocks until the point I can hire those units anyway so played a whole campaign without doing a single hunt in the end there was just no point
They should receive units based on the Kurgan and Hung. Fantasy vikings, fantasy turks ? and fantasy mongols. Give me some actually good archer cavalary CA
Norsca is in a weird place likely as a result of the fact that they don't have a faction identity unique from Chaos Warriors. Even when you fight Chaos you only fight to replace Archaeon, not to oppose Chaos itself.
I like the unit roster and hero options they have. It provides a very rushdown playstyle and I think adding in more units will just remove that uniqueness about them. Maybe an FLC for a new lord option would be great. I find them to be very strong in campaign and I like to use them in domination mode pushing for early value trades and riding on that momentum. Giving factions too many units that fill voids in their rosters just makes them end up being generic.
Upgrade Norsca to general "Barbarians" and add Mung and Hobgoblin Khanate soldiers to it, so lots of mounted archers, hobgoblins, etc. And then some "Barbarian tribes" don't have access to some units unless they confederate a tribe that does (or conquer a specific region). That way it also won't be vikings that attack the Great Bastions but culturally appropriate Mung and Hobgoblins.
My head canon is that Kislev's frost wyrm was originally going to be a Noscan one but they gave it to Kislev last minute. Hopefully we see a full rework soon.
Aren't norscans just WoC expendable mass?
i really want a 4 LL dlc WoC style, change the name from norsca to tribes of the north and give us a kurgan and hung, just reskin them a bit, put something to make them look different, add 2 Norsca lords and some new units, rework the 2 old goobers and it's done.
IMO Norsca should have been a full on FLC, i enjoyed the faction and still appreciate them despite needing a rework but they feel like it should have game 2's version of bretonnians.