Total War: Warhammer II — Drycha Mortal Empires guide

Total War: Warhammer II – Mortal Empires campaign basics

Let’s discuss the basics when it comes to Drycha’s Mortal Empires campaign in Total War: Warhammer II.

Faction mechanics and bonuses

Victory conditions

The Total War: Warhammer II short campaign victory requires the following:

• At the start of your turn, have at least 500 forest health in Athel Loren.
• Complete the “Defense of the Oak” final battle.
• Complete the Ritual of Rebirth in Athel Loren.

Note 1: As mentioned in our Wood Elves rework guide, the Mortal Empires campaign has eight magical forests and Athel Loren/the Oak of Ages is the “main” forest in the campaign. The other forests, as you heal them up, will also restore Athel Loren’s forest health over time.

Note 2: The only difference when you’re going for a long campaign victory is that you need to complete eight Rituals of Rebirth (basically all the magical forests in Total War: Warhammer II’s Mortal Empires campaign).

Staring location and units

Drycha starts in Gryphon Wood between the Empire’s provinces of Talabecland and Ostermark. She’s at war with Clan Kreepus (a minor Skaven clan that owns Mordheim, a city of the damned, apparently), as well as Ostermark.

As for units, you’ve got 4x Malevolent Dryads, 1x Malevolent Treeman, 1x Deepwood Scouts, and 1x Giant Wolves. For Malevolent-type units, the main difference from regular tree/forest spirit units is that they have the “Frenzy” attribute.

Likewise, Drycha has a Wood Elf Waystalker hero, so you probably want some perks that help with training your units and wounding/assassinating foes. You could also grab “Arrow of Kurnous” and “Prey of Anath Raema” to pin down and snipe lords and heroes. Lastly, don’t forget to recruit a Branchwraith (Lore of Life) later in your Total War: Warhammer II campaign. You’ll be focusing on a lot of tree units, which means “Earth Blood” and “Regrowth” are necessary spells (plus “The Dwellers Below” adds some AoE damage).

Drycha’s skills

You’ll want several blue line skills to increase your ambush chance and global recruitment capacity. For red line skills, go ahead and take “Ancient Bark” to boost your Treeman and Tree Kin units. “Wings of the Forest” (if you want to recruit Forest Dragons later) is probably better than “Piercing Thorns” (which boosts Dryads and Eternal Guard). You should be able to get “The Forest’s Roar” to increase the capability of your high-end forest units later.

As for the unique skills, they’re fairly straightforward and many also buff tree and animal units in your army. Likewise, Drycha has “Mantra of the Fallen” which lets her summon Dryads (this can be cast anywhere on the battle map, too). Oh, and once you get “Indoctrinator,” the combat penalties for elven units are removed, though they still remain expendable.

Regarding the Lore of Shadows spells, I tried to grab a couple until Okkam’s Mindrazor became available. I honestly preferred sticking a Branchwraith (Lore of Life) in Drycha’s army. Since I’d like to have lots of wooden pals, I’d need the mana for healing instead of other types of magic.

All right, let’s talk about Drycha’s campaign progression in Total War: Warhammer II‘s Mortal Empires campaign.