On the 11th of September, Creative Assembly will release The Hunter and The Beast, the third Lord Pack DLC for Total War: Warhammer 2. Featuring the Empire and Lizardmen, The Hunter and The Beast brings two new Legendary Lords to the game; Markus Wulfhart and Nakai the Wanderer, respectively. (Lizardmen players can also look forward to Gor-Rok coming as a Free-LC Legendary Lord on the same day.) Among the new Lords, Nakai the Wanderer is a massive brawler who features a total redesign of Horde-style gameplay, not to mention a very intriguing Mortal Empires starting position…
Nakai the Wanderer in ‘The Hunter and The Beast’: Abilities and Effects
In his role as a Lizardmen Legendary Lord, Nakai the Wanderer is a very strong and durable close-combat powerhouse. Hulking even larger than a standard Kroxigor, the Wanderer boasts high health and armour, as well as weapon strength and melee attack. Of course, he doesn’t have any ranged abilities, nor does he have access to mounts, but his sheer size gives him enough mass to move about the battlefield without getting bogged down. Nakai also excels as a leader of Kroxigors, especially since he grants all Kroxigor and Sacred Kroxigor units in his army gain +5 Melee Defence and a -10% Recruitment cost reduction. In campaign, Nakai also increases the Recruit Rank of Kroxigor Ancients by +3.
Able to use Primal Roar to boost the durability and strength of nearby units and Miasma of Despair to debuff enemy speed, leadership, and vigour in an area, Nakai also has access to two unique magic items; Golden Tributes and The Ogham Shard. Of course, when it comes to unique skills, Nakai the Wanderer has another set of useful tools. Creative Assembly has shared details for six of Nakai’s unique skills so far:
- Adornments: This unique skill grants Nakai’s entire army +3 Horde Growth and also a +5% casualty replenishment rate.
- Cold-Blooded Reflexes: A very powerful skill for breaking enemy leadership, Cold-Blooded Reflexes causes Nakai’s attacks to apply “Discouraged,” which reduces the leadership of anybody he hits. Furthermore, the skill lets Nakai cause Terror.
- Daemon Crusher: This powerful combat buff skill gives Nakai a +10% bonus to Weapon Strength and a +10 Charge bonus.
- First Spawning: Another great skill for buffing Nakai’s army, First Spawning gives his entire army a +10% Speed bonus. Plus, Kroxigor and Sacred Kroxigor units in his army gain Frenzy.
- Legendary Warrior: This general leadership buff skill grants Nakai +5 to his leadership aura. Furthermore, it increases the size of that aura by +20%.
- The Sacred Wanderer: A simple but powerful skill, The Sacred Wanderer makes Nakai Unbreakable.
Nakai the Wanderer’s Campaign Start Positions
Nakai the Wanderer is a very rare Legendary Lord who has two campaign starting positions that are almost entirely different. Most Legendary Lords have roughly the same starting locations in both the Eye of the Vortex and Mortal Empires campaigns. However, not so with Nakai. In fact, his starting positions make reference to his lore. In the Eye of the Vortex campaign, Nakai will start in northern central Lustria, in the south of The Creeping Jungle. Interestingly, this puts him very close to Markus Wulfhart’s new starting position. However, his Mortal Empires starting location is even more interesting, because Nakai will start just off the coast of Albion, far to the north. For the first time, this could give the Lizardmen a direct route into both Norsca and The Old World.
Nakai the Wanderer’s Campaign Mechanics: Spirit of the Jungle
Nakai the Wanderer leads the Spirit of the Jungle faction, which will be the first true Horde faction to be introduced in Total War: Warhammer 2. The game features several Horde factions already, of course. However, all of these are DLC content from the first game. Nakai, therefore, will feature a new approach to Horde-style gameplay. With this style, only Nakai’s army will be able to unlock new units to recruit. Other armies can build various infrastructure buildings, but not unit recruitment ones. However, once Nakai has unlocked a unit with his core army, all of his other armies will be able to recruit it through global recruitment, and will have access to buildings which reduce the time it takes to recruit from the global recruitment pool.
Another key difference between Nakai and other Horde factions is what he does with settlements that he conquers. Instead of razing them to the ground, as the Beastmen and Chaos hordes do, Nakai can instead gift the settlement to the Defenders of the Great Plan; a faction which are automatically Nakai’s vassals. When he does this, he can dedicate the settlement to one of the Old Ones and gain specific rewards. Each settlement he conquers this way produces Old Ones’ Favour; a resource which he can spend on Blessed Spawnings or recruiting powerful Lords.
Nakai has three unique Rites which he can use in campaign which differ to those available to other Lizardmen factions. The Rite of Allegiance gives a replenishment bonus to all of his Hordes while boosting his income from vassals. The Rite of Mastery, meanwhile, improves the recruitment rank, armour, and weapon strength of Kroxigors, Kroxigor Ancients, and Sacred Kroxigors. Finally, the Rite of Rebirth increases Horde Growth for all of Nakai’s Hordes, lowers construction costs, and also reduces all recruitment and upkeep costs.
Who is Nakai the Wanderer?
Nakai the Wanderer is a very old character, both canonically and in reality; his origins trace back to some of the earliest Lizardmen rules in the Warhammer tabletop game. In fact, he was largely abandoned in favour of other, newer characters in later editions of the rules. Although the lore does mention him here and there, he didn’t have official rules in the 7th or 8th editions of the game. However, Nakai is still a very interesting character, not to mention one of the oldest Lizardmen in existence.
The Wanderer is the last living Kroxigor from the ‘First Spawning’; the first time that Kroxigors were ever brought into existence. This makes him the oldest Kroxigor alive. In fact, this makes him one of the oldest characters in Total War: Warhammer 2, given that he is at least 7,500 years old (and probably even older)! His home city of Tlanxla was destroyed during the Great Catastrophe thousands of years ago, and ever since, Nakai has wandered the world, lending aid wherever he is needed to safeguard the Great Plan. One notable instance, in fact, was when he led the Lizardmen to Albion during the Great Reckoning. Although this lore was largely forgotten in more recent editions, Creative Assembly evidently did their research. After all, they decided to place Nakai’s Mortal Empires start on the Isle of Mists itself.