Total War: Warhammer II guide – Athel Tamarha upgrades and Warden’s Cage interrogation

Eltharion the Grim joins the Total War: Warhammer II roster thanks to The Warden & The Paunch DLC. The Warden of Tor Yvresse focuses on Athel Tamarha upgrades, and interrogating prisoners after using the Warden’s Cage ability. Here’s our guide to help you out.

Note: This guide is based on a Vortex campaign playthrough on VH/VH difficulty. For more information, you can also check out our Total War: Warhammer II – The Warden & The Paunch guides and features hub.

Total War: Warhammer II – Eltharion the Grim and Tor Yvresse’s defenses

You’ll find a meter representing Tor Yvresse’s defense level at the top of your screen. Each threshold provides unique spells that can be used during battles. Now, the only way you’ll level-up these defenses is if you upgrade the Athel Tamarha panel (+5 defense points per upgrade). Your goal in your Total War: Warhammer II campaign, therefore, is to max out these defenses so you can complete one of the victory conditions.

Warden’s supplies

Each upgrade costs five warden’s supplies, and these are obtained through various means:

• Early-game missions.
• Completing preparation quests prior to fighting with Grom the Paunch.
• Granting a lord (other than Eltharion) or a hero a Mistwalker title once they reach level 15. Since each title you grant adds warden’s supplies, having a Loremaster of Hoeth to train everyone while embedded in an army is great.
• Razing a Greenskin settlement; also provides boosts to replenishment and global recruitment time for three turns.
• Indoctrinating or executing prisoners (more on this later).

Athel Tamarha upgrades

Note: There’s also an upgrade node in the center which increases your prisoner capacity to two characters.

Shrine of Loec is the most important one since it allows you to generate influence quickly to buddy up and confederate with the High Elves of Ulthuan. As for the Mists of Yvresse mechanic, you need to use the Invocation of Ladrielle rite before the mists are generated. Also, even after being fully upgraded, the mists will only have an effect on regions on the outer ring of Ulthuan. Sadly, given that Ulthuan is mostly safe, the mechanic isn’t very useful for Eltharion the Grim outside of reducing recruitment times for high-end units.

Warden’s Cage and Interrogation

Another important part of Eltharion the Grim’s Total War: Warhammer II campaign is the use of Warden’s Cage and prisoner interrogation in Athel Tamarha. First off, Warden’s Cage is a spell that greatly lowers a lord or hero’s melee defense and armor while completely stopping them from moving. It’s basically a death sentence.

However, Warden’s Cage only has one charge for each battle, and the effects have a 25-second duration. The idea is to use it once a target is a bit low on HP and then immediately beat them down. Wounding the target while they’re under the effects of Warden’s Cage imprisons them in Athel Tamarha.

Note: You can capture an enemy lord or hero when you auto-resolve a battle, but it happens very rarely.

While you have a character imprisoned, you’ll have a diplomatic malus with that character’s race, but you’ll also have extra leadership against them. Plus, it helps take some dangerous legendary lords off the campaign map for a while. You’ve got the following options for Athel Tamarha’s prisoners.

Indoctrinate:

• Releases the captured character back to their faction.
• Gain line-of-sight in the character’s region each turn.
• Steal 5% of the character’s faction’s gold each turn.
• +4 influence next turn
• +3 warden’s supplies

Execute:

• Kills the lord or hero; wounds them if they’re legendary
• +500 XP for Eltharion
• +8 influence next turn
• +3 warden’s supplies

Interrogation – This action is unlocked once you’ve upgraded Athel Tamarha’s Interrogation Chamber to level 1. Interrogating a character provides your Mistwalker units with “Mirror” abilities (seen below). After interrogating a prisoner, you can then choose to indoctrinate or execute them:

• Greenskins – “Mirror (Waaagh!)”
• Tomb Kings – “Mirror (Realm of Souls tier 1-3)”
• Beastmen – “Mirror (Bloodgreed)” and “Mirror (Primal Fury)”
• Dark Elves – “Mirror (Murderous Mastery)”

Note 1: It’s also possible for certain characters to be “insignificant” that you’ll automatically execute them once captured using Warden’s Cage. In these cases, you’re simply given +500 gold and +2 warden’s supply.

Note 2: There’s currently a bug where legendary lords you capture using Warden’s Cage don’t give you their unique traits as this doesn’t count as “defeating” them in battle.

Total War: Warhammer II – The Warden & The Paunch is available on Steam. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.