Kirov Thunderbarge reporting

How I wish the Dread Saurian would make people worry as the Thunderbarge does.

The Dawi got a Terran Battlecruiser ... and I LOVE IT

"The followers of Nurgle entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to pox-bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them. At Barak Var, Karak Angazbar, and half a hundred other places, they put that rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind." - Malakai Makaisson

"With this airforce I'll make Zharr-Naggrund look like Dresden!" - Thorgrim before dealing with the great shame of the dawi. Also the gondola looks like something a three vikings would get lost in.

Cathayian Sky Junks: FINALLY, A WORTHY OPPONENT, OUR BATTLE WILL BE LEGENDARY!

The Khorne clip shows once more that bloodthirster suck and hitboxes/attack animations with flying units are a big issue

On the lore side, the reason dwarfs dont build many of them isn't because they are unreiable, they aren't built in numbers because they aren't cheap, and the idea of flight for most dwarfs is something they'd consider only slightly more reasonable then an elf fetish, when a thunderbarge fails, its like the indestructible, it just explodes

Flying low o'er the trees, grudgerakers shooting what they please dropping Gyrobombs on Skaven as they flee. Drakefire sticks to rats

Brace yourselves for an End Times level event worth of 'nam-posts: * How can you shoot snotlings? Easy, lad, ye don't lead them as much! * We've named the ship "Puff the magic fire-drake!" * The blood-suckers may command ghosts, but we have ol' "Spooky!" * Black Sabbath: Paranoid running on repeat. * "It ain't me, I ain't no brewmaster's son!" *"I love the smell of burning gobbos, smells like... settled grudges!"

Dawi Thunderbarge operational

The afterburn mode isn't the issue. The problem is that chasing units, whether flying or on the ground, struggle to hit enemies unless their speed is way higher. I'd rather not see the afterburn mode get nerfed because of a broader flaw in the mechanics.

Once again Total War NEEDS updated chase pathing/damage something. It looks straight up like the game isn't working when the flyers just chase the thungerbarge around but don't attack despite catching up.

Short of reworking how attacks in the air work, the best option might just be to put a max duration on the afterburners; using them to escape a bloodthirster is fine, but it should be to reposition and get help, not ignore it the entire match. That said, khorne might just be a big outlier. It kinda looks like massed archers will bring it down quickly

THOOOOONDABARGE

Main problem seems like the afterburner ability. It makes it too fast, in the Khorne video nothing could keep up. It either needs to go down in speed or deal way way more damage to itself.

For balancing afterburn could turn off the shooting, this way the player would need to make a decision if he wants to run or do damage

In a ''real-life'' scenario, a Bloodthirster could just cut open a hole in the balloon or grab the hull while dismantling it. It would actually make sense that the Thunderbarg will receive movement speed debuff when caught in the melee.

I think this partially just highlights an issue with airborne melee in general: Most flying units actually need to stop before they can start an attack animation mid-air and that means catching out a unit that is hellbent on retreating is really difficult. I think slightly reducing the speed boost you get from that ability or making it more punishing (I could maybe see a mechanic where the self-damage scales pretty much indefinitely the longer you keep it going, so you start out at 20 damage per second but get an extra point of damage for every second that it's running or something like that, coupled with a cooldown period after you turn the ability off so you can't just cheese it by turning it off and on again in order to reset the damage build-up) would certainly be a good start but at the same time, there's just a more general issue at play. On the ground, if you charge a fast unit into a slower unit, you will generally disrupt the slower unit and have a chance to get some hits in. In the air, that only works if you fully surround the slower unit and have enough mass to bog it down. I think flying melee units just need a charge animation for air combat and getting charged should cancel or temporarily disrupt movement orders.

I'm nervous that it's gonna be "sends in three units of bats, it dies" but it looks dope and seems to function well. Send in three of these with two gyrobomber squadrons and play ride of the Valkyries

I think the simple fix is to lower afterburner speed and lower the units mass so it can't push through furies and such. It's a balloon not a tank

We need a unique animation for a bloodthirsty taking this thing down power creep here is very real

Spiffing Brit video incoming with how "Perfectly Balanced" the thunderbarge is.

90 speed is a bit much LOL

Man, the reflecting spell is gonna work wonders on it

While I want it to be strong, it might be slightly over-tuned at the moment. 😬

Time to blast the skaven into kingdom come for all those pesky DLCS they got, it is now time of the Dwarf.

Supernice to see some battlevideos from you again :D ! Keep up the good work friend!

even the full slayer armies seem rather viable with the variety now

I'd say that that battle vs. Khorne justifies a rethink of close combat flying animations - units that have them need to be able to attack while on the move so that other flying enemies moving at a crawl aren't functionally unhittable.

You can tell the massive DLC creep, the entire unit alone feels so op with its massive fire rates, on any "normal" unit or old dwarf unit the fire rate would be so much lower

Kirov reporting.

Thunderbarges float using a combination of Dwarfen engineering and Runic inscriptions. The large, egg-shaped structure above the vessel is actually for storing enough beer to last the voyage. One could probably travel for a day straight before needing to stop for refills.

Wow. I was already thinking of putting Rune of Speed on It to have it drop some quick payloads - but is has an after burner too?? Such a cool unit. I really like the speed boosts for hefty pieces like this - they make the Chaos Dwarf trains that much more fun too.

Looking gooood. Wonder what the modders will do with the already existing thunderbarge mod. That thing is very unique too with active broadside abilites that require you to turn for the cannons on the side to unload. Hope they will keep that and just make it a different variant.

If you roll all the qualities of dwarfs, their resilience, peak armouring, devastating firepower and incredible accuracy into one giant behemoth and make it freaking fly, you deserve to strike fear into the hearts of not just the enemies but the enemy player, too!

The governor spinning on the back is fun.

Initial reaction: Wow that looks awesome! After watching it completely ignore any flying melee damage: Huh. That seems a pretty bonkers oversight in it's design, might want to fix that...

glad a happy Indy is back on the scene!! welcome back bro

I’m glad I’m playing chaos dwarves right now instead of a month or so from now because the dwarves would destroy me and my military economy so quickly.

Great video. Agree that the thunder barge appears to only need to be tweaked down a bit. I suggestion that I have is when the thunder…booster(forget the name) is turned on the barge’s dps is curtailed, like the cannons and bombs are disabled.

As you say, balancing afterburner with a much higher DoT would work. But the real issue is that the Furies and Bloodthirster were sitting right next to its hitbox the whole time and have absolutely no moving, aerial attack animations. They have to come to a dead stop, and pull out a full swing. If they were able to do damage while within range of the Thunderbarge's hitbox, it would have gotten ganked almost immediately. Another unfortunate casualty of "flying units can't do what they're supposed to" shimmy. 😢

Dwarf Airship is amazing! Good time to return to the Dwarves again.

Why does a blimp have as much armor as a giant stone Sphinx

also so happy to see Doomseekers have their chain weapons. the new Dwarf units are just way too cool

You could break up the afterburn into two abilities with a slower version and the current damage and a second version with the current speed and increased damage. Alternativley giving the ability a start up time before the speed kicks in, or making it a acharge up ability like the norscan berserker passive, so that flyers can get in attacks before it gets away. Or CA could just fix aerial combat.

Mad props to the Medieval 2 Total War battle music in the background of the cleanup of the final battle.

Im glad the airship is actually useful instead of being a big showy way to expensive unit

I am very excited after seeing the Dwarf rework details and footage like this. Finally the Dawi are getting some real focus and they look like they will be a ton of fun going forward!

I think just making the afterburners do a percentage damage like healing effects would be better balancing. Then you could still use it, but you wouldn't want to keep it on the whole time. And if the front cannons were less accurate would help.

I absolutely love the constant dps coming from the thunderbarge.

Great vid. On the 'Needs To Simulate Unreliability' for the Thunder Barge, that's the Skaven's whole shtick. Yet, they have no unreliability and are the sweethearts of the franchise. Don't see them finally implementing it on one unit for the Dwarves. Although, if they introduce such a mechanic, then modders can repurpose it for Skaven. That would be awesome.

All great points Indy! I’ll be waiting for everything to be balanced before getting this one.

I can only imagine the thunder barge with an airforce supporting it - holy holy. Id still like Golems to be back but under very specific conditions - you cant make em, but you can find/reactivate them. Needs specific cities, specific artifacts and some quests. BRING BACK THE GOLEMS

I'm imagining a campaign build for this. Lots of melee heroes on the ground to blob up that infantry for bombing, some brimstone gyrocopters/gyrobombers + 2 mercenary large flying units (dragons or hippogriffs or moonbirds or something alike) to defend it + some artillery to deliver damage to ranged enemies. It should be able to steamroll the campaign

Either doubling the self damage on the afterburn or adding a wound mechanic to it should help bring it more in line. Something like losing accuracy and/or reload speed when brought below certain health brackets. -10% to both when under 50% health and -25% to both when under 25% health for instance. But the higher afterburn self damage and the bracketing together might be too heavy handed.

Big ass Balloon airships that are super hard to kill and also drop Bombs on the enemy gotta be one of my fav Genders

Dear god, all those weapons firing looks phenomenal. I usually don't play dwarfs but I might have to when this gets released

I'm finaly again so hyped for total war Warhammer 3

Thanks for the video

This is quite fascinating to give to dwarves and surprised they didn't have this sooner since game 2. But if dwarves are getting an arial uber unit, despite Empire getting a landship to help bring them up to speed with game 3 factions where more and more factions are getting large size entities, I personally feel empire could make do with light flying cavalry like gryphon riders except heavy emphasis on light, no armor, maybe have riderless variants for less, with some armor.

Excited for the thunderbarge stack video the community will give us XD.

Watching it tank those attacks from the Bloodthirster while stationary makes me suspect that its melee hitbox is a bit wonky.

This would make dealing with "Good Range" units and artillery a lot more bearable

I think the issue isn't with the 90 speed itself but rather how flying units have a hard time hitting anything that's moving. The bloodthirster was able to keep up almost the entire time but all it did was sniff its ass for 5 minutes. You could give BT 30 more speed and it would still not land any hits.

Its one of my must go mods i use in zhe previous games when i go dwarf. So they are adding it? Nice.

This seems related to the issues with attacking fleeing units. If you have similar or slightly higher speed often your units just refuse to attack (especially single targets).

Balthasar Gelt looking on at the Dwarfs in envy when he deploys on his next mission into Estalia...

WE GOT SLAYER PIRATES?! i never even knew we got those as one of the units thats so cool :D

This film made my day, not gonna lie. And Ill see it in tournaments for years to come

I could be wrong but could you not fly troops ahead to intercept it? I usually do that to deal with the whole chasing without landing hits issue, or does it just have enough mass to break through any blockade of bodies you put infront?

I absolutely love epidemius moving animation, dude just wobbles

-Guns -Tanky -mobile -no line of sight issues what more can you ask for, in a Total War game? It's the perfect unit.

what factions do you say will have issues with it? more specifically how many of those have nets? i assume nets plus strong ranged firepower or fling SEM/anti large will mess it up

wood elf dragon : poison time ! get slow down for the eagle to get you ! or maybe the Hawk Riders?

The reason it's OP is because air units don't get blocked like land units. A big unit on the ground, even with a lot of mass, can be blocked with cavalry and then surrounded and take a lot of damage. In the air, that doesn't really happen. Air units also don't get a speed buff when charging, so they can't catch it, even when their speed is above 90.

feels a bit like the old empire war wagons, but even harder to kill/counter

isnt the dlc content supposed to be posted from the 23th and onward from what the great book of grudges said ? or is the thunderbarge and new units included in todays embargo for the reworks ? im actually curious

Hi Indi, thanks for the content. Can you manual aim anything on the barge?

Yeah I feel like you're right about the self dmg that should be way higher than this. If something tries to go melee with your thunderbarge, you should either think about preserving your barge at the cost of a huge chunk of HP or play around the fact that the enemy is going to do this and use your ground troops to shoot the hell out of whatever tries to take your barge out. A bloodthirster tries to rush your barge? Well then shoot the damn thing with 4 thunderers and 1 cannon or lose the barge is what I mean. You either go all in about keeping it alive or don't even recruit it at all.

Dwarf Air Force has been my desired play style for a very long time

Perfect look at what the KO could look like in a AOS TW

I think Afterburner damage should ramp up over time, so the player still has the ability to use it as a quick maneuverability tool in a pinch, but leaving it on for too long is much more costly and can potentially outweigh the benefit if unregulated.

*laugh-chuckles in AP Ikit Claw firing line*

i think the solution may just be when you afterburn you can't use the big guns or fire at all or just have the afterburn damage scale with how long its turned on and have a cooldown when you turn it off

great grandpa of kharadron airship, awesome!

IMO best option would be to limit the jet engine, like change it from toggle to 10-15 sec ability with cooldown. Ofc its too early to tell but it would be lore friendly to avoid overheating right?

Damn, this thing is worthy an alliance with those knife ears for 2 dragon mercenaries to defend it

It needs to be slowed melee, so when flyers attack its like being boarded

How long do you reckon before people start completing that this new dawf air unit is to powerful and get neathed?? Asking out of curiosity

I don't remember the stat card effect icons by heart, but does it have a fire weakness? Hopefully it doesn't get reduced to a Blunderbarge by some update or other, but some factions will definitely be screwed by this thing.

I'm super excited for this DLC, which is a first in a long time. In particular, as a Dwarf-lover, of course I'm LOVING the additions to their roster. They've needed a centerpiece unit for quite a while, and I think the Thunderbarge fits that bill nicely. I'm not a huge fan of the totally passive nature of it, but compared to trying to use gyrocopters it's definitely less micro. And the doomseekers have some awesome animations too. And maybe what I'm most excited for with the DLC is that SO FAR at least, nothing seems horribly overtuned (though admittedly the afterburner on the thunderbarge might need some tuning... I'll mark myself in the book lol) and no faction seems to have been beaten with the crap-stick in favor of another as CA has done so often in the past.

I'd love a Vampire coast mod of this airship where it loses the bombs and harpoon, and instead has a bloated hold that drops "bombs" of zombie units below it. They would not be added to your army post game, but would act as any basic zombie unit in battle once they hit the ground. Letting this slow thing fly around spawning zombies slowly over time could get bad. Perhaps another take on this mechanic would just give it a regenerating aura under it in about the same radius of the bomb zone of the normal unit. This regen zone would replenish all undead armies in it. You just have an animation of dropping corpses still for flavor. I'd still like zombie pirate gunners on the deck of the ship. Maybe a single vampire as a "captain" on the ship as well.

Maybe something like an overcast chance when activating afterburner that potentially could deal an additional burst of self damage?

15:50 ; either more punishing in damage, or on a timer, kinda like foe-seeker.

If they don't feel like upping the damage of afterburner, maybe nerfing the speed boost so it caps the speed out around 75-80 would help, that way fliers can catch it more reliably?

Indie taking advantage of the fine print. I love it!

This may be the best dlc EVER ca really seems to have righted the barge with this dlc super excited for drawrves and nurgle my 2 favorite factions

Not a theorycrafter or balance expert by any means, but one thought would be to force disable all of the Thunderbarge's attacks while afterburner is active.

*“Not when I shift into MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE!”*