No changes were required for my other mods, as they remain fully compatible with the new patch. They have still been updated to reflect patch 8.1 compatibility, ensuring users of the standard mod manager no longer receive warnings about mods that haven’t been updated since the previous major patch.

HSP – Kislev & Norsca:
– reintroduced the location change of Throgg’s Cave of the Rocky Throne landmark, which was previously removed following CA’s changes in update 7.0. The landmark is now available in The Tower of Khrakk instead of Khazid Bordkarag, currently named Lair of the Troll King in the vanilla game;
– replaced the level 1 Troll Lair building in The Tower of Khrakk with a regular tier 1 Norscan barracks, to slightly curb Throgg’s early expansion. Both the player and the AI can still construct the Troll Lair in a free construction slot and have Troll recruitment available as early as turn 2;
– added a small compatibility change for Dead’s Akshina Hero. The Akshina hero spawned for Katarin on her turn 1 is moved closer to her modified start position.

HSP – Sayl in the Mountains of Mourn:
– removed the workaround that had Kholek start the campaign with The Narj as a vassal, as CA corrected the Norscan homeland layout in update 8.1;
– removed the alternate start position for Lothar, the faction leader of Khazag, in case Immortal Empires Expanded is being used, as IEE updated the Withering Grounds province to mirror the vanilla Mountain’s End province more faithfully.

The main changes of this mod are the following:

– Sayl starts the campaign in the Path to the East province of the Mountains of Mourn, at war with the local Tusked Sunz Greenskins, and Sabreskin Ogres if Immortal Empires Expanded isn’t being used;
– his new starting settlement is Sabre Mountain, a tier 2 settlement with an added tier 1 Norscan barracks;
– the Sabreskin, with the addition of an Ogre camp, have been moved to Blizzardpeak if IE Expanded is not being used. Alternatively, they own the entirety of the Cliffs of Death province added in IEE;
– Sayl’s starting mission objectives now focus on the Path to the East;
– Zhatan is now at war with Avag, who start with the Fortress of Eyes in Stonesky Foothills, besides the previously owned Rotten Stone and Desolation Ridge;
– Vilitch starts at war with Khazag, who now own the Red Fortress in the Red Wastes and the Dark Tower and Broken Mount in Mountain’s End;
– a previously unused minor Norscan faction, the Kuj, has been added and starts with Iron Storm and Bloodwind Keep in the Eastern Steppes (Steppe’s Edge in IE Expanded);
– the Kuj’s starting settlements from Immortal Empires Expanded have been given over to the Wei-Tu, while the Idol of Shaarnor has been given over to the Iron Wolves;
– Sayl, Zhatan and Vilitch do not start at war with their vanilla starting enemies;
– Khazag and Yusak no longer start at war with the Imperial Wardens;
– CA’s Kholek start position bug has been mitigated by Kholek having The Narj as a vassal at campaign start;
– various minimal tier buildings have been added to the settlements owned by minor factions in the eastern Chaos Wastes, as well as in Blizzardpeak in the Path to the East;
– the locations of Ogre camps in the areas affected by this mod have been optimised.

I recommend using this mod alongside Herald’s Start Positions – Skrag in the Mountains of Mourn and Herald’s Start Positions – Bhashiva near the Northern Chaos Wastes.

I also recommend using this mod together with other Herald’s Start Positions mods, and my mods in general, as they are all being developed in conjunction.

Herald’s Start Positions are now also available as a single subscription mod compilation, which will be continually updated with every future HSP mod release and update.

This mod is fully compatible with Mixu’s Unlocker and Immortal Empires Expanded. It was not developed keeping new faction mods in mind.

Herald’s Start Positions mod series should work with mods like SFO: Grimhammer III, which rebalance different aspects of the game, but generally do not touch the start positions of the factions.

Credits go to Porkenstein and Swissbob for the script framework which I’m using across my start position lua script mods.

News & Updates

You can find the list of all of my upcoming mods in my complete mod collection‘s description.

If you’d like to know when the newest mods and mod updates drop, you can follow me on the Steam Workshop, Facebook and X.

If you’d like to browse news about my mod releases and updates, find links to my social media and more, you can now access everything in one place on my website, Herald’s Journal.

Feedback & Support

If you enjoy this mod, be sure to like it and add it to your favorites. 

To discuss any aspect of my mods, report a bug, or drop by for a chat, feel free to join my Discord server. I’ve also started making videos about TW: Warhammer III, so consider subscribing to my YouTube channel. For those who’d like to support financially, contributions via PayPal are greatly appreciated.

Any form of support means a lot. Thank you!

Michael, the channel owner, will be playing as Mother Ostankya, using my start position mod compilation, which includes HSP – Mother Ostankya in Kislev, and an assortment of other mods. Most notably, he will be using the renowned SFO (Simply Fun Overhaul) mod, which touches most aspects of Total War: Warhammer III, but luckily for my start position mods, it does not change the start positions of factions.

Besides these two mods, the livestream will be featuring the SFO edition of Cerb’s War of Attrition. It reduces the casualty replenishment of armies across the board, while reducing recruitment costs, making army planning more impactful. This mod brings Warhammer III closer to how older Total War games worked, such as my beloved Medieval II: Total War.

Michael’s campaign will also include some other mods, such as cosmetic ones, on which he will decide in the meantime.

If you will have time in the afternoon in the Americas, in the evening in Europe etc., I invite you to watch Gaming for Immersion’s livestream. As it will be featuring my start position mod compilation, especially Mother Ostankya in Kislev, I will be there as well, ready to answer any questions about my mods in the chat. 🙂

This mod was first imagined as a part of HSP – Skrag in the Mountains of Mourn. However, given the scope of the changes it introduced, I decided to release it as a standalone mod to improve the visibility of those changes and give players the option to enhance their Bhashiva experience, while keeping Skrag in his vanilla start position.

The main changes of this mod are the following:

• Bhashiva starts the campaign in the Ancient Giant Lands province of the Mountains of Mourn, at war with the local Mountaineaters Ogre minor faction;
• she starts without a settlement for a better campaign flow in a 2-settlement starting province, and is compensated with the addition of a unit of Tiger Warrior Stalkers in her starting army;
• the Mountaineaters now have an Ogre camp south of Titan’s Notch;
• if you’re not using HSP – Skrag in the Mountains of Mourn, the Vale of Titans in the Bone Road is turned into a ruin;
• in the same scenario, Bhashiva remains at war with the Blood Guzzlers as in vanilla, otherwise you’d get a reputation penalty if you happen to attack them as the player in the first 10 turns (a quirk of start position modding through script);
• if you use Skrag in the Mountains of Mourn, Bhashiva is no longer at war with the Blood Guzzlers, as they are Skrag’s new starting enemy and usually get destroyed before she can reach them;
• Bhashiva’s starting mission objectives now focus on Ancient Giant Lands;
• the locations of the starting relics have been adjusted to her new starting position: Bloodpeak to Yhetee Peak, Titan’s Notch to Karak Vrag, Gorger Rock to The Challenge Stone, while Sabre Mountain has become one of the three revealed relic locations in the north instead of Zharr-Nagrund, even though the Chaos Dwarf capital still holds a relic. I wasn’t able to adjust the camera to pan to these new locations, so the new locations are sadly revealed without a camera pan (if someone has more scripting knowledge, I’d appreciate some help with this);
• Bhashiva’s victory conditions have been adjusted to focus on her battle against Chaos in the north, including Archaon, comparing to the peculiar Chaos Dwarf-focused objectives in vanilla;
• six new relic locations have been added to the northern Chaos Wastes, from Karak Dum to the Red Fortress;
• Bhashiva’s climate suitability has been tweaked to facilitate her expansion north: Frozen and Chaotic Wasteland climate suitability has been improved from Uninhabitable to Unsuitable, while regular Wasteland has been degraded from Suitable to Unsuitable.
  
  

I recommend using this mod alongside Herald’s Start Positions – Skrag in the Mountains of Mourn and the upcoming Herald’s Start Positions – Sayl in the Mountains of Mourn, mods which return their respective featured characters much closer to home, which happens to be rather close to Bhashiva’s new start position in both cases.

I also recommend using this mod together with other Herald’s Start Positions mods, and my mods in general, as they are all being developed in conjunction.

Herald’s Start Positions are now also available as a single subscription mod compilation, which will be continually updated with every future HSP mod release and update.

This mod is fully compatible with Mixu’s Unlocker and Immortal Empires Expanded. It was not developed keeping new faction mods in mind.

Herald’s Start Positions mod series should work with mods like SFO: Grimhammer III, which rebalance different aspects of the game, but generally do not touch the start positions of the factions.

Credits go to Porkenstein and Swissbob for the script framework which I’m using across my start position lua script mods.

News & Updates

You can find the list of all of my upcoming mods in my complete mod collection‘s description.

If you’d like to know when the newest mods and mod updates drop, you can follow me on the Steam Workshop, Facebook and X.

If you’d like to browse news about my mod releases and updates, find links to my social media and more, you can now access everything in one place on my website, Herald’s Journal.

Feedback & Support

If you enjoy this mod, be sure to like it and add it to your favorites. 

To discuss any aspect of my mods, report a bug, or drop by for a chat, feel free to join my Discord server. I’ve also started making videos about TW: Warhammer III, so consider subscribing to my YouTube channel. For those who’d like to support financially, contributions via PayPal are greatly appreciated.

Any form of support means a lot. Thank you!

I first intended to slightly relocate Bhashiva as a part of this mod, but considering I’ve made more changes to Bhashiva than what is usual for a start position mod, I opted to make a standalone mod, HSP – Bhashiva near the Northern Chaos Wastes, which will be a requirement for Skrag in the Mountains of Mourn.

Since I was visiting the Mountains of Mourn with my mods again, I prioritised creating another mod from my to-do list, HSP – Sayl in the Mountains of Mourn, which also brings a list of changes to the eastern Chaos Wastes.

All of my mods have been updated again to save the players from CA’s scary yellow triangle appearing in their mod manager(s), with the actual changes summarized in my start position mod compilation‘s change notes:

Updated for 8.0.2 – the following changes have been made.

Two new mods have been added to the compilation:
Bhashiva near the Northern Chaos Wastes,
Sayl in the Mountains of Mourn.

Ostankya in Kislev:
– when Mother Ostankya isn’t controlled by the player, Ropsmenn Clan does not start at war with the Kurgan Warhost anymore, to prevent Ropsmenn Clan from occupying a part of Mother Ostankya’s starting province;
– in the same scenario, Grigor Kyriakin’s army receives the previously removed starting units.

Skrag in the Mountains of Mourn:
– after TW: Warhammer III update 8.0, this mod now requires another mod to work as intended, HSP – Bhashiva near the Northern Chaos Wastes, which will be released as a singular mod in the near future;
– the faction leader of the Blood Guzzlers has been moved in between Fire Mouth and Bloodpeak, after being moved south by CA in update 8.0;
– the Blood Guzzlers camp introduced in update 8.0 has been removed;
– Greasus Goldtooth no longer starts at war with Sons of the Mountain and Karak Azorn if controlled by the AI.

The two new mods are included in the update of my start position compilation, and I will release them as singular mods in the next few days. The maps showing the changes included in the HSP compilation have also been updated.

The first video to explore Herald’s Start Positions, besides my own videos, was from MightBeRuku, also a TW: Warhammer III channel, but Gaming For Immersion’s video overview is the first one to be dedicated entirely to my mods.

The video describes the features of the mod series using the examples of Malakai and his start position changes from HSP – Kislev & Norsca, as well as the changes to Balthasar Gelt from HSP – Gelt in the Empire. It is an engaging introductory video for anyone looking to explore or revisit my start position mods.

Gaming For Immersion’s channel also explores other games, such as Age of Wonders 4 or XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but it is focused mainly on Total War: Warhammer III and its news, mods and let’s plays, as mentioned earlier. I’ve been a viewer and subscriber of the channel for a longer while, as it is a very useful resource, which helped me discover great TW: Warhammer III mods, many of which I use in my playthroughs.

I’m using this opportunity to thank Michael from Gaming For Immersion for this awesome video, which is now featured in the media preview of Herald’s Start Positions – Mod Compilation on the Steam Workshop.

Consider subscribing to Gaming For Immersion on YouTube, as well as joining his Discord server, where I also interact with other Total War: Warhammer III modders and players.

The first image of the mod preview shows the starting positions of all the Legendary Lords affected by this mod compilation, even in the slighest way. One such example is Wulfrik the Wanderer who has only been affected by an additional starting war with the Skaeling when he’s controlled by the AI. The faded grayscale faction icons represent the LL’s vanilla starting positions which have been changed, and faded coloured icons represent player-only starting positions, which is the case only for Wulfrik.

The second image, created using nopeace.net, shows the starting regions of ALL the factions in Immortal Empires. Legendary Lords which start without a settlement are represented owning the region they start the campaign in.

The following changes have been made to the mod compilation.

Three new mods have been added to the compilation:
Skarbrand in the Empire,
Skrag in the Mountains of Mourn,
Belegar in the Badlands.

Athel Loren:
– removed 2 units from Malron Eyebiter’s starting army, as he tends to occupy Karak Azgaraz early on instead of defending or attacking Karak Norn, resulting in border gore. This remains open to further changes.

Drycha in the Forest of Gloom:
– compatibility polish for use with Mixu’s Legendary Lords, these two mods should be used together only if you disable Wychwethyl the Wild in Mod Configuration Tool options for Mixu’s Legendary Lords.

Morghur in Bretonnia:
– if you’re using Mixu’s Legendary Lords, all changes affecting the Bastonne faction take place for Montfort instead, as Mixu’s Legendary Lords moves the Bastonne faction to the Darklands.

Ostankya in Kislev:
– made the change to Grigor Kyriakin’s army happen in all cases, not only when using Mixu’s Unlocker.

The main changes of this mod are the following:

• Belegar starts the campaign in the Western Badlands, at war with the Teef Snatchaz Greenskins;
• his new starting settlement is Stonemine Tower, which has been upgraded to a tier 2 settlement with a tier 1 Dwarfen Barracks;
• Belegar’s starting mission objectives now focus on the Western Badlands;
• Teef Snatchaz have taken over the Dragonhorn Mines;
• the Skaven minor faction Clan Verms has been moved to Zarakzil;
• Feastmaster Ogres have been moved next to Valaya’s Sorrow in the Eight Peaks province;
• Crooked Moon Mutinous Gits have received garrison upgrades in both Valaya’s Sorrow and Karak Eight Peaks, making the capture of Karak Eight Peaks a bit more difficult;
• Clan Volkn has been introduced into Immortal Empires by owning Spitepeak and Dringorackaz in the Eastern Badlands. This change was made to reduce the size of the realm of Karak Azul, as Mixu’s Unlocker already introduces this faction into Spitepeak as well;
• Belegar is no longer at war with the Broken Nose Greenskins;
• Broken Nose is now at war with Karak Hirn;
• Teef Snatchaz and Clan Verms are no longer at war;
• Belegar’s confederation dilemma no longer rewards the player with the option of confederating Karak Hirn, but Karak Azul; no longer for two victories against Broken Nose, but against the Crooked Moon Mutinous Gits.
  
  

To retain geopolitical balance in the south of the Old World, I recommend using this mod alongside Herald’s Start Positions – Volkmar in the Border Princes.

I also recommend using this mod together with other Herald’s Start Positions mods, and my mods in general, as they are all being developed in conjunction.

Herald’s Start Positions are now also available as a single subscription mod compilation, which will be continually updated with every future HSP mod release and update. This mod will be added to the compilation quite soon.

This mod is fully compatible with Mixu’s Unlocker and Immortal Empires Expanded. It was not developed keeping new faction mods in mind.

Herald’s Start Positions mod series should work with mods like SFO: Grimhammer III, which rebalance different aspects of the game, but generally do not touch the start positions of the factions.

Credits go to Porkenstein and Swissbob for the script framework which I’m using across my start position lua script mods.

News & Updates

You can find the list of all of my upcoming mods in my complete mod collection‘s description.

If you’d like to know when the newest mods and mod updates drop, you can follow me on the Steam Workshop, Facebook and X.

If you’d like to browse news about my mod releases and updates, find links to my social media and more, you can now access everything in one place on my website, Herald’s Journal.

Feedback & Support

If you enjoy this mod, be sure to like it and add it to your favorites. 

To discuss any aspect of my mods, report a bug, or drop by for a chat, feel free to join my Discord server. I’ve also started making videos about TW: Warhammer III, so consider subscribing to my YouTube channel. For those who’d like to support financially, contributions via PayPal are greatly appreciated.

Any form of support means a lot. Thank you!

Herald’s Start Positions – Skrag in the Mountains of Mourn is a lua script start position mod which moves Skrag the Slaughterer from the Border Princes to the Mountains of Mourn in Immortal Empires and IE Expanded.

The main changes of this mod are the following:

• Skrag starts the campaign in the Bone Road province of the Mountains of Mourn, at war with the local Blood Guzzlers Ogre minor faction;
• his new starting settlement is the Vale of Titans, which has been turned into a tier 2 settlement with an Ogre Barracks of the same tier;
• Skrag’s starting camp has been moved to the same region, but to a more central position in the Mountains of Mourn;
• Blood Guzzlers have received another army to try and defend against Skrag’s onslaught;
• Skrag’s starting mission objectives now focus on the Bone Road;
• the ownership of Karak Angazhar in the Eastern Border Princes depends on the other mods you might use: if you don’t use Cataph’s Southern Realms, Karak Angazhar switches ownership to the vanilla minor faction of the Border Princes. If you use Cataph’s Southern Realms, Karak Angazhar and Akendorf both switch to the local Creeping Death Greenskins, and if you happen to use HSP – Drycha in the Forest of Gloom as well, they switch ownership to Clan Kreepus introduced into the area by that mod instead. Valmir Gausser’s starting mission objectives have been adjusted to these changes;
• Skrag is no longer at war with the Border Princes;
• his victory conditions have been adjusted to the Mountains of Mourn.
  
  

To repopulate the south of the Old World with Legendary Lords, I recommend using this mod alongside Herald’s Start Positions – Volkmar in the Border Princes and the aforementioned Herald’s Start Positions – Drycha in the Forest of Gloom.

I also recommend using this mod together with other Herald’s Start Positions mods, and my mods in general, as they are all being developed in conjunction.

Herald’s Start Positions are now also available as a single subscription mod compilation, which will be continually updated with every future HSP mod release and update. This mod will be added to the compilation quite soon.

This mod is fully compatible with Mixu’s Unlocker and Immortal Empires Expanded. It was not developed keeping new faction mods in mind, with the exception of Cataph’s Southern Realms. The Victory Conditions Overhaul mod overwrites the vanilla victory conditions, including the changes made by this mod.

Herald’s Start Positions mod series should work with mods like SFO: Grimhammer III, which rebalance different aspects of the game, but generally do not touch the start positions of the factions.

Credits go to Porkenstein and Swissbob for the script framework which I’m using across my start position lua script mods.

News & Updates

You can find the list of all of my upcoming mods in my complete mod collection‘s description.

If you’d like to know when the newest mods and mod updates drop, you can follow me on the Steam Workshop, Facebook and X.

If you’d like to browse news about my mod releases and updates, find links to my social media and more, you can now access everything in one place on my website, Herald’s Journal.

Feedback & Support

If you enjoy this mod, be sure to like it and add it to your favorites. 

To discuss any aspect of my mods, report a bug, or drop by for a chat, feel free to join my Discord server. I’ve also started making videos about TW: Warhammer III, so consider subscribing to my YouTube channel. For those who’d like to support financially, contributions via PayPal are greatly appreciated.

Any form of support means a lot. Thank you!

By expanding into Averland, AI Skarbrand becomes a threat that demands the attention of all surrounding factions, while the player can enjoy wrecking the Empire using the mighty forces of Khorne when controlling Skarbrand.

The main changes of this mod are the following:

• Skarbrand starts the campaign in Black Fire Pass, in the vicinity of laxly defended Grenzstadt, at war with Averland.
• Averland has received a new starting force guarding Black Fire Pass (not for long), while Marius Leitdorf’s starting army defending Averheim has been reduced;
• Skarbrand’s starting mission objectives now focus on Averland;
• the minor Skaven faction Clan Gnaw has been introduced into Immortal Empires by owning the entirety of The Barrier Idols province. This facilitates multi-layered expansion of the surrounding Legendary Lords into the Badlands, as the Top Knotz Greenskins now own only the Southern Badlands province;
• Black Venom Greenskins now control Pfeildorf, becoming the sole owners of Solland, thus allowing other factions cleaner expansion into this province;
• Skarbrand is no longer at war with the Top Knotz;
• if neither Elspeth nor Skarbrand are controlled by the player, Elspeth starts at war with Black Venom, and there is a 75% chance that Skarbrand declares war on Elspeth at turn 10 through script. This solution facilitates Elspeth’s expansion path towards Sylvania or her earlier ruin, and the avoidance of the usual border gore in the south of the Empire. Skarbrand and Elspeth otherwise tend to ignore each other when they are both controlled by the AI, so this small script should help with immersion.
  
  

If you don’t enjoy having the south of the Empire and its surrounding area be completely covered in red because of other factions, and would like to be able to differentiate between the various region owners on maps, I recommend using Herald’s Faction Map Colours – The Empire alongside this mod.

I also recommend using this mod together with other Herald’s Start Positions mods, and my mods in general, as they are all being developed in conjunction.

Herald’s Start Positions are now also available as a single subscription mod compilation, which will be continually updated with every future HSP mod release and update. This mod will be added to the compilation quite soon.

This mod is fully compatible with Mixu’s Unlocker and Immortal Empires Expanded. It was not developed keeping new faction mods in mind.

Herald’s Start Positions mod series should work with mods like SFO: Grimhammer III, which rebalance different aspects of the game, but generally do not touch the start positions of the factions.

Credits go to Porkenstein and Swissbob for the script framework which I’m using across my start position lua script mods.

News & Updates

You can find the list of all of my upcoming mods in my complete mod collection‘s description.

If you’d like to know when the newest mods and mod updates drop, you can follow me on the Steam Workshop, Facebook and X.

If you’d like to browse news about my mod releases and updates, find links to my social media and more, you can now access everything in one place on my website, Herald’s Journal.

Feedback & Support

If you enjoy this mod, be sure to like it and add it to your favorites. 

To discuss any aspect of my mods, report a bug, or drop by for a chat, feel free to join my Discord server. I’ve also started making videos about TW: Warhammer III, so consider subscribing to my YouTube channel. For those who’d like to support financially, contributions via PayPal are greatly appreciated.

Any form of support means a lot. Thank you!