Expanding Existing T4 – High Elf v. Dark Elf

For my final expanded T4 experience I bring the battle to Ulthuan. This particular pairing poses some problems simply because T4 is so compact in the scale of the Warhammer world. It is hard to squeeze two more regions to fight in considering how close the existing locations are and how vastly Mythic diminishes their size. To be honest, geographically the HEvDE pairing is the most well composed, so well that this task presented a solution which slightly goes against my gut instinct.

Due to the fact of the compact nature of the T4 HEvDE campaign the choice I was left with was to create two new end zones. The main problem with this is that the forts would have to be relocated, and the secondary problem which bugs me is that the capitals are bypassed and returned to. But since that clearly isn’t an issue for the Chaos forces or the Greenskins, then the Dark Elves might as well do it too (silly Destruction bypassing capitals…)

• The first location I have which would be the new end zone for the Dark Elves is Tiranoc, once a wealthy kingdom of the Elves; ravaged by the Sundering, much of its lands fell into the sea. The battle could be waged both in the snow capped mountains of the Annulii and the broken shores by the sea. Since the Dark Elf capital is Malekith’s Black Ark, I see no reason why it cannot be moved farther up the coast for this to be a more linear assault.
• The second location I have chosen is the eastern half of Eataine, with the key landmark of the Shrine of Asuryan. This map would differ from western Eataine very little (and by this fact should be easy enough to reproduce) and additionally the fort could be simply flipped 180 degrees for easy zone connection. One thing which could be unique to this zone would be a complete lack of devastation (since western Eataine is under heavy assault) – the storyline could go ‘while the main forces of the House Akraneth and Uthorin assault Lothern from the west, the elite forces are sent to destroy the accursed Shrine of Asuryan and take the city from the east’… or something like that. The zone could be emphasized more with a dense urban cluster towards Lothern and more manorial estates and vineyards on the fringes.

Expanding Existing T4 – Dwarf v. Greenskin

Today I present my expansion to the Dwarf v. Greenskin pairing!

One of my peeves with the Greenskin v. Dwarf T4 campaign is that Karaz-a-Karak is bypassed (by a lot) to hit KV even though it lays pretty much right in between TM and KV. The two zones I’ve added try to narrow this gap between TM and KV and bypass Karaz-a-Karak more so it makes sense to go so far to the north to hit Kadrin Valley (it never really will, but hey).

• The northern-most of the two light blue dots is Mount Grimfang, formerly known as the Dwarven Hold of Mount Silverspear, which lay along the Silver Road connecting it to Karaz-a-Karak. Not only is this location strategically placed in the realm of the war against the Dwarves, but the map offers rich history and potentially great scenery. On one end you can have the fallen Hold of Mt. Silverspear – a vast network of dwarven chambers carved into a mountain, and on the other side the Dwarven defenses holding the Silver Road, a narrow pass snaking through the Worlds Edge Mountains. Not to mention beyond the Worlds Edge Mountains towards Mt. Silverspear are the desolate wastes of the east offering little protection from the elements.
• My next location I’ve thrown around the area of the Iron Rock and Mad Dog Pass – an area heavily infested with greenskins and night goblins. The Iron Rock is a heavily defended greenskin fort while Mad Dog Pass use to be one of the main roads connecting the Dwarven realms to the eastern mines, but now it is just a vast network of night goblin tunnels. The Iron Rock has a lot of potential into becoming a large orc fortress a top a mountain adding some elevation variety to the battlefield, while the northern face of Mad Dog Pass (which is closer to Karaz-a-Karak) could have a stronger dwarf ranger presence, as the rangers lead a guerilla war against the night goblins.

Expanding Existing T4 – Empire v. Chaos

Today I begin my last thread of how to expand the PvP experience in T4. There is one opinion that might as well be declared fact and inscribed in stone and that is – People want to fight and kill other players in new places. WAR has been out for going on 2 and a half years and we still are contained in the same 9 T4 zones + 2 cities. We did get LotD about a year into launch, but the zone had no RvR elements in it, in fact it locked out one realm at any given time so fighting there cannot be sustained. There are several approaches to expanding this arena into a larger field which I have approached –

• Adding a new racial pairing and by default three more T4 zones
• Add the missing capital cities (I incorporated them as high end PvE instances, but they could always be done as PvP)
• Expand existing T4 RvR lakes into the PvE lakes

Naturally adding a whole other pairing is the hardest task. Adding the remaining cities would be a difficult task depending on the state they were left at when they were pulled out. Expanding the RvR lakes would be seemingly the easiest of the options. But there is one more solution which is probably at a scale of difficulty between the cities and expanding the RvR lakes in existing maps, and that is to expand the T4 Campaign.

Bretonnians v Vampire Counts Campaign

Today I conclude my final campaign, and as per usual I must include maps because I love maps! Once again I am following the standard model of Tiers 1-4 as red/blue dots with capitals (even though Mythic hates capitals) and including my idea of locations for Tier 5 and a dungeon for the pairing. I hope I do my readers justice in designing this campaign – I know the Vampire Counts are a very popular Warhammer army and I have gone against the grain in my design of it. Despite Games Workshops focus on the Von Carsteins I have turned the focus west to the other Bloodlines with distinguishing characteristics; I compensate for this with my version of Tier 5 for this campaign. So without further ado…

Lizardmen v Skaven Campaign

So today I wrap up the saga of the Lizardmen and the Skaven – possibly the most called for pairing among the Warhammer Online community. Having presented my 8 classes I conclude with the Tier 1-4 campaign map; however, this concept alone poses several problems (even one I constructed for myself). I will do my best to tackle these problems and come up with a map that is reasonable.

• Problem 1: Lizardmen rarely go on the offensive. This means that the war would be confined to their ‘home territories’. In my Lizardmen Prelude I posed a scenario which would allow for the Lizardmen to go somewhat on the offensive, and that is an alliance with the High Elves (no mention of the Dwarves or Empire here although presumably they would be ‘allied’ with them as well, just not actively participating in their struggle).
• Problem 2: Only Clan Pestilens has a stake in Lustria/The Southlands. The other skaven Clans would not aid Clan Pestilens, they would much rather see them fail. In my Skaven Prelude I dug my own hold by having the Skaven join Destruction on the condition that they are taking Dwarven Holds. Arguably they can fight the Empire, Bretonnia, and Wood Elves as well – but Ulthuan has no Skaven presence and struggles against the aforementioned Order entities would again be one Clan versus that Order army. Potentially the biggest problem lore-wise is bending an alliance between the Great Clans.
• Problem 3: Any ‘capital’ of the Lizardmen is eons away from Skavenblight. With this in mind a tier 4 campaign stretching from Lustria to Skavenblight seems rather ridiculous.

Now if we follow for the concept of the Empire and Chaos that the path to victory is never a straight line and the concept of the Dwarves v Greenskins that no distance is too far, then having the Lizardmen v Skaven campaign stretch from Lustria to the Old World is no great issue. I am no particular fan of Mythic’s mind-boggling concept of cartography however and would prefer to follow the High Elf v Dark Elf concept of the most direct route leads to victory.

My solution to these problems – the struggle between the Lizardmen and Skaven in fact is the epitome of the struggle between Order and Destruction. Elements of all factions of Order besiege the home-front of the Skaven, while elements of all factions of Destruction besiege the home-front of the Lizardmen. This way the Lizardmen ‘home-regions’ are located in the lands of the Lizardmen as they fend off not only Skaven, but also other armies from Destruction; likewise, the Skaven ‘home-regions’ are located primarily in the Old World as they fend off the armies of Order. The result is a map more akin to the High Elf v Dark Elf paring which focuses the war on the south but (with Tier 5) spills the war over into the Old World. It’s not a solution I’m entirely happy with because I do not like having the entire campaign take place in the southern hemisphere while pulling these two armies into their respective alliances and following the High Elf v Dark Elf style where the ‘bad guy’s’ capital is thousands of miles away as safe. However for the purpose of this hypothetical scenario I will focus Tier 1-4 on the Clan Pestilens struggle  and throw all the other Clans in Tier 5.

So I present my ‘solution’ to this terribly difficult problem –

Beastmen v Wood Elf Campaign

“I had a dream that a terribly dark storm was on the horizon and it was moving toward Athel Loren. I saw lightning strike a tree and from the scar blood gushed forth, and from this blood Cyanathair the Corrupter was reborn. The forests of Athel Loren went from being covered in snowfall, to being covered in blood-washed snow. I fear what will happen to Athel Loren when this dark storm reaches our borders…” Excerpt from the Journal of Ariel, Queen of Athel Loren

So to conclude the Wood Elf and Beastmen storyline I wanted to put up maps, because I am in love with maps! So plotted out I’ve labeled tiers 1-4 using the standard set up that Mythic has and including my own additional dots for tier 5. This is all entirely hypothetical fluff considering 1) this pairing doesn’t exist and 2) the concept of tier 5 doesn’t exist. But for those who want to become more geographically aware….

Eka’s Tier 5 – High Elf v Dark Elf

Happy Tuesday! For today I present to you a poll regarding the removal of friendly player collisions on the Bioware Social Network (boo to them). Recently Mythic has tested removing friendly collisions and their impact on server performance and its implications in RvR. As a range dps I could care less for friendly collisions, as a tank/mdps they bug the hell outta me. Its like getting cut off on the road. Anyone who drives knows exactly how this feels. You’re in hot pursuit of the ice cream truck and then ‘wham!’ a slayer cuts you off and you are now that much further from the ice cream truck. What do you do? You try to circle around the stupid slayer and get the ice cream truck BUT by the time you reach it, the slayers eaten all your ice cream. Hrm, back to WAR, it seems that the majority of players would like to keep friendly collisions in. Read the thread, become enlightened!

Ok on to the post… in my final segment of the T5 map locales I bring to you the High Elves and the Dark Elves. For this particular episode I have two maps because I do not feel that Ulthuan can contain many more locations simply because Mythic has already dumbed down its size and made it a rather compact pairing. As you can see of the eleven elven provinces, eight are used in the storyline. You can argue that the Shadowlands is huge on this map but consider that the Dark Elf PvE lake stretches from Anlec (its entrance to the zone) to the Griffon Gate (its exit). My solution: The High Elves go on the offensive! This rarely happens in lore and when it does no survivors return but what the heck, Mythic doesn’t care much about lore anyway so lets do it!

Eka’s Tier 5 – Dwaves v Greenskins

Before I launch into another colorful map of ‘I wish I could go there’ locations, I wanted to quickly redirect you to Gaarawarr Gab’s Transcript of the Q&A a few nights ago. Personally I didn’t find anything helpful in it – a lot of questions about SMs, Zealots & RPs and a few about WEvWH and Mauraders. In terms of the hypothetical future we’ve gotten a definite no on the other cities. -insert sad face- Some curiosities thrown out as maybes – player housing, more crafting, and barber shops! Yay for more fluff =P

Anyway, onward to the matter on hand! Today I would like to explore the realm of the Dwarves and the treasures that be hidden there!

Eka’s Tier 5 – Empire v Chaos

Ok I admit it, I’m totally hung up on an additional tier OR hell just new maps in the existing tiers. New lands to explore please! So today I shall present the map of the Empire again, but this time with new additions!

A Lesson in Geography – High Elves v. Dark Elves

After two episodes of mind boggling cartographic messes today we step into the realm of perfection. If the designer of the Empire v Chaos pairing cut up the map and chose places with pretty names, and the designer of the Dwarf v Greenskin pairing was a sadistic bastard who had no concept of distance and wanted to make the most oppressive RvR lakes, then the designer of the High Elf v Dark Elf pairing was either someone from Games Workshop or someone very lazy who wanted to keep it simple. Irregardless, the Elf pairing is the only map that makes sense! I suspect the main reason for this is that the two campaigns run side by side in the same direction unlike the other two campaigns which run in opposite directions and criss-cross. I suppose in the EvC and DvG pairings War is truly more visible as you cross paths and compete in conflict PQs, but the result is a campaign map which is… well… what you saw. In the HEvDE pairing your storyline never goes into the opposing faction – in fact the maps are so divided that it is often a task to find an access point to the opposing factions PvE lake. Here is the map –

Now this ones straight from the High Elf army book so we know its legit. For some reason paint wouldn’t let me do colored dots so you’ll have to forgive me and accept black=evil=destruction and dark gray = conniving = order.

• Tier 1 – The entire campaign is essentially a progression south towards Lothern, the High Elf capital, and naturally it starts in the north, as every Dark Elf invasion does. So for this storyline the invasion begins in the Blighted Isle – sight of the Shrine of Khaine (our beloved scenario) and continues south to Chrace. If you take the time to read the entire High Elf storyline (I don’t have any destro toons so I can’t comment on their storyline, although I’d love to see it) the entire campaign is a defensive retreat until you hit more or less Caledor. You secure the Blighted Isle but have to move south to Chrace because something isn’t right with the ley-lines. My only beef with the entire High Elf story is that all the cool locations in High Elf lore are on the Destruction side, and we never get to defend them. The first victim of this Mythic plan is Tor Achare, capital of Chrace and home of the White Lion Charioteers, but alas Order has no hand in the fight for Tor Achare.
• Tier 2 – Moving south continuing with the retreat/tactical offense we enter the Shadowlands with the dreaded city of Anlec, which is again on the Destruction part of the storyline. My biggest beef with this map is the gates you fight over, which if you look on the map you will see their locations. Five gates to hold in the evils of the Shadowlands, and somehow Mythic managed to shift them making the Dragon Gate Order’s entrance into Ellyrion. You know what, fine its a little bit off, I’ll forgive them… Moving south we head into Ellyrion with its capital of Tor Elyr, once again in the Destruction storyline.
• Tier 3 – The retreat turns into  guerrilla warfare as we enter Avelorn, home of the Everqueen. Destruction is trying to find her, lo and behold so is Order! You never do find her in the storyline until you hit the big 40 and enter Lost Vale and save her from N’Kari, which is actually located in Avelorn! No great leaps and bounds across maps to access the dungeon. Order moves south to Saphery to seek the council of wise mages and Destruction moves south to find and assault the Tower of Hoeth – which in lore you can’t find if you are not pure of heart. How the Dark Elves find it when it is shrouded in powerful magic only Mythic knows.
• Tier 4 – Order heads to Eataine, right by Lothern to rally the troops in the final battle and Destruction heads to Caledor to start the invasion to smash Lothern. Dragonwake consists of the mountains between these two provinces where the armies meet, both with the goal of hitting the Isle of the Dead and unleashing the Vortex within, which would destroy Ulthuan. All in all this campaign is straight forward, no backtracking to capitals or crossing other tiered zones. However, it isn’t until Saruthil sacrifices his life to seal the Vortex and Order enters Caledor that the storyline slightly picks up, but in truth it never really does. Even the last pq is left in limbo with some type of rhetoric that essentially says ‘I hope we can win outnumbered 10 to 1’.

Geographically, I am happiest with the progression of the High Elf v Dark Elf storyline. It is a clear progression and the paths never cross (take that Empire!), my only beef is that all the cool places are on the Destruction half of the storyline and I wanna smash their faces and defend the Tower of Hoeth.