AoW4 Factions, 26

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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Much better concept for a mole faction than my previous attempt. Instead of viewing them from outside as diggers, it's more fruitful to get into their perspective on those above who do not dig. From there, the drip-drip-dripping wrote itself. Plus they're already sporting Nosferateeth.

 

With the vamp release, AoW4's gamut of options obviously began running dry, so if they try milking it after one more big DLC I may not bother. Newer spells, town options, etc. are falling more and more into overpowered freebies. But at least it gave me an unexpected burst of inspiration for a second mole race, of all things, and the dungeon/lightless motif mixed well with my turtling tendencies. I had expected materium vamps would yield another unkillable terminator faction like my evil dwarves from last time. In practice, their bonuses triggering on death and the moles benefitting from brinksmanship resulted in a small core of elite units throwing skeleton and freebie animals in to soften the enemy up. But those few elites benefited greatly from a mix of every possible type of life gain/regen/drain. Lifesteal mixed with death bonuses, nature affinity heals, plus self-rezzing bat swarm heroes. Rite of Vivisection proved overpowered in the long run, less effective than other army nukes but manaless, and it only costs thralls to get more thralls so I spammed it every single turn unless I needed casting points for something else. I need to play around with the tome of dungeonneering more too, lots of defensive/economic options for us turtle strategists. Overall, this was less a vampire faction than an underground faction.