My wish for DLC: Dwarves VS vampire counts + empire FLC; the reason i wish for this is because i think both dwarves and vampire counts would be cool on vortex. I also think both of those races need something different. Dwarves needs a mechanics rework. Vampire counts need a new starting position. Both factions ahve enough content for a lord pack.
empire as FLC because empire never received one. IMO giving away boris and his cult would be the perfect farewell for game 2.
My prediction Bretonnia VS Vampire counts; + lizardmen FLC. Bretonia received new lore in old world so maybe CA has access to something that they can use to spurr the faction a bit more. Personally bretonian roster is lacking lords, heros and RoR as well as niche units. I think the vampire counts are coming almost for sure in this DLC. The reaosn i believe this is because i think Nagash is coming in game 3. I assume CA will want to play around with the 9 Mortarchs with Nagash's rise to power. Currently there are 5 Mortarchs in the game leaving 4 for a new DLC. So I think that Neferata needs to get in so there are 3 left for game 3 (with Nagash himself it would make the 4LL for a campaign pack)
Lizardmen FLC because CA can "easily" create troglodon mount and feral version by slightly changing a carnossaur.
That said I basically missed most predictions so I am probably wrong again.
After 900 hours I finally decided to try out Lizardmen this weekend. Went completely blind with Mazdamundi.
1st try: 16 turns
Mazda has a cost reduction on his Rites so I decided to just pop the rite that brings in an entire Army turn 2. Conquered Skeggi, the east side humans and set out to fight the Skaven occupying my last settlement to the west. By this time, the Rite Army had used up all of my gold so had to disband them. I had some decent early units in Mazda's group so I attacked the rats -and lost. With no gold, what was left of my army suffered attrition and that was game.
2nd try: 150 turns
Ignored the instant-army Rite and played like Dwarfs (meat shield box and lizard artillery). Took out the humans and Morathi. My Sotek buddies took out everything else in Lustria so I had nobody to fight on the continent. Had good trade relations with the Elves and life was good. Mazda was just a lazy toad signing trade agreements and just sitting on his dinosaur for about 30 turns. After a while I begin to see my Elf trade agreements being dissolved. Something was up. Went up to investigate and discovered most of the map was Nagarond purple. Went to war with Malekith and, well -that went very bad. My Saurus frontline was deleted time and time again. Not sure if I was supposed to use dinos as my front line.
3rd try: ongoing
No peace, only war. I have 3 full provinces (including Quintex). I will not stop until the purple menace is obliterated.
Total newbie thoughts:
Lizardmen have so much going on. Theres a robust tech tree, Rites, some sort of take on the Empire's State Troops mechanic, and so many Dinos that feel like they overlap in function (Kroxigors -> Temple Guards ->Saurus, missle Hunting packs -> single monster missles, melee dinosaur vs bigger melee dinosaur). Did not see a use for any flavor of skinks. Love Mazda. His character model, his voice lines, his magic.
I love the lizardmen. THe idea i get from your post is that you are misundertanding the lizardmen army's strengths.
Lizardmen are slow tanky army with very strong and mobile damage dealers. Because of this i don't recomend Mazda has the LL to learn lizardmen. The reason for that is that his buffs are all late game stuff. Krog-gar and gor-rok are better to learn as they heavily buff early game units. Later you will see why this can heavily push battle to your favor. Tik taq toe is a flying unit focus and naki is a horde both interesting but with a weird gameplay. Tehen is the challenge as you are restricted to skinks for quite a while.
So how does the lizardmen roster work?
Skinks- > cheap, mobile ; they don't trade well but they have 3 free javelins that can deal a bit of damage as well as apply poison.
Saurus -> a formidable front like; despite being tier 3 they have incredibly high MD and HP. This means these lizards trade extremely well in any melee. These units can easily beat any tier 3 and tier 4 melee infantry on a 1-1 fight. Their problem is their high upkeep this means that you can only access them as your income grows. This is why kroq-gar and gor-rok are extremely good. THey make saurus almost as cheap as skinks. This means that you can bring them into your army early game and most other factions can't trade well against them.
Dinos -> Dinos are your key units in battle. these good boys fulfill both support and damage roles. Bastiladon offer support. stegadons can be both support to damage dealers. Carnossaurs are formidable Damage dealers, only matched by dragons and other elite units. If you have the DLC the Dread Saurian is the apex predator in the game and can basically easily hunt any unit in the game.
These 3 units are the core of the Lizardmen army. As long as you bring a line of saurus units (not only serve as an anvil but as i said above they will beat the enemy frontline), skink support (their mobility and ranged poison supports the flanks as well as hunts ranged units) and Dino damage (dinos hunt key targets; due to their high mass they don't need to flank, they just breakthrough the enemy center and hunt what you want;from harassing ranged units until skinks arrives to hunting the enemy Lord/key units).
Lizardmen has a few other units roles that can help you deal with some other threats
Skirmishers -> there are several skirmishing units from skinks that deal poison damage and can harrass the enemy frontline. Salamanders and razordons are damage dealers but their short range means that you need to pin their targets with skinks/saurus line.
Flying-> terradons can hunt enemy artillery and ranged units as well as harrass the enemy frontline. Riperadactyls are "flying glass canon cavalary". These giant pterodactils can deal incredible charge damage.
Cavalry -> cold ones and horned ones represent a similar role as cavalry however their low model count and slow speeds means they are extremely vulnerable to being hunt down when sorrounded. They are a very situational unit.
Monster infantry -> kroxigors and their variants serve as damage dealers; IMO they are heavily misunderstood in the web. Most people think they are AP support to the Lizardmen, and find they don't really do a good job on that part. The reason for that is they have low MA and high AP damage. What people forget is that they have AoE attacks. Combine high AP damage and AoE effect and you just need to bring them against low MD high number models; this means they are specially good to destroy low tier high model infantry. For example skaven, vampire counts, PoVC units are heavily damaged by kroxigors. While Lizardmen, HE,DE and WoC will make short work of kroxigors.
Alongside the above lizardmen heroes are very strong. Saurus heros can ride carnossaurs making them an almost unstoppable killing machine. Skink Priests ride massive stegadons thus being capable of charging into melee and beating the enemy in melee despite being spellcaster. Slans are formidable spellcasters.
Lastly i want to talk about Lord Kroak. This hero requires a quest (unless you are gor-rok which starts with him) to unlock. He is capable of wining any fight. He has a spell that intantly nukes any non single model unit.
Wonder if we might get a preorder DLC faction for 3 soon (like how Norsca came out for the first game)
Chorfs might be fun
I hope we dont' get chorfs as pre order DLC.
Both the pre-order DLC (WoC and Norsca) have heavily limited animations, models,etc. Personally Chorfs and ogre kingdoms deserve a higher budget that pre-order DLC; IMO both of those factions have several units and LL that don't fit a pre-order DLC.
For me a good pre-order DLC is a faction that requires small budget to make justice. Personally i think for example dogs of war faction would fit. they could use units from other factions with re-skins and could use Lu Bu/bandits mechanics from 3k.
What would celebrate the Skull Throne more than shadow-dropping the final TWWH2 DLC???
Can't see CA doing that as I imagine that the trailers and content crstor videos probably get more eyes on them instead of just releasing the DLC