Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - Chaos Campaign - Chapter 2, Mission 2

Here are general tips for playing the Chaos Champaign in Warhammer: Mark of Chaos on HARD Difficulty. At the end of Chapter 1, Mission 6, we chose Nurgle instead of Khorne. A list of all our Warhammer: Mark of Chaos articles can be found here.
We won't be hand-holding you through absolutely everything, but instead just give tips on situations that we found tricky or that you might not have considered.

Chapter 2: The Wrath of the Rat-Kin

Mission 2: RatMaster

Overview

• This is an easy mission and you can bring in a lot of regiments, so your real objective is to level up some of the the units you might not normally bring, and have minimal losses, if at all.
• The basic dangers here are infiltration (Clan Eshin Gutter Runners) and poison (if you engage them in melee), and the initial rush of enemy troops.
• Breaking Skaven morale seems quite easy, so watch your regiment movements and keep them focussed on the enemy regiments that you want to engage instead of having your regiments wander off in pursuit.
• The enemy receives constant reinforcements of Stormvermin from a north-east-east passage just below their staging area. However, the interval between reinforcements seem to be very long. Reinforcements continue even after the Clan Eshin assassin hero has been defeated.
• These reinforcements DO count as mission objectives and need to be destroyed if they have entered the map.
• You can hit your allies with spells (such as Steal Soul) and they will not turn hostile.
• Because of the Warpstone Pinnacles that Clan Eshin control, you can level up your heroes to the limit for Chapter, which is 25. Once you have levelled up Thorgar to level 25, you can buy the two heroes in this chapter and immediately get access to all skills.
• It's important to do that here because the Chaos army won't get to move until much later, and the experience point opportunities in the last two missions are very small. Mission 6 is a duel, mission 7 has a hidden time limit.
• There may be items on the ground nearer the Clan Skrye staging area. Unless you get them, they will not be picked up and will be marked as picked up by the allies on the mission summary. However, when you switch to play the Skaven, none of those items will be in your inventory.

Walkthrough

This mission is a really easy one if you let your sorcerer take point and keep your missile troops in the back -- the same setup as most missions where you fight out in the open. We will split it into three phases because our "secret objective" is to level up our heroes (just Thorgar, who generally falls behind in level compared to the Chaos Undivided Sorcerer, who does most of the fighting).

Phase 1 - Initial Skaven Assault

• Once you have advanced slightly out of the staging area, you will draw a horde of skaven. Hold ground and clear them. Let broken regiments flee.
• Do NOT advance too closely to the Warpstone Pinnacles. We need those to level up Thorgar.

Phase 2 - Eastern Warpstone Pinnacle

• After the initial assault, advance slowly forward. The area should be clear except for reinforcements that may be coming in from the north-east-east passage. Also, there may be some regiments to the west, below the western Warpstone Pinnacle. If so, that means you did not advance far enough ahead initially to get their attention. Do so now and destroy them.
• There are three Warpstone Pinnacles. Two in the big chamber you are now in (which we will refer to as the Western and Eastern Pinnacles), and a third near the Clan Eshin staging area (Northern Pinnacle). Everything north of a row of bonfires on the ground is scripted to be on hold until you approach. There is an initial skirmish in the far northwest corner, but nothing happens after that.
• At the Western and Eastern Pinnacles, there are two regiments of skaven who will approach if you get too close, and return to their initial guard position if you retreat AND they don't see any non-retreating regiments to attack. This is key to milking this area for XP.
• Leave the Western Pinnacle alone. The guards will not leave their post if you are far enough away. Because one of the win conditions is to wipe out all Eshin forces, if we leave those there, we can clear the rest of the map without fear of a "sudden win".
• For the Eastern Pinnacle:
• Pull back your main force, possibly all the way back to the staging area. Send Thorgar (if he needs XP for level 25) in alone cautiously.
• Move toward the Pinnacle until you see one of the skaven regiments. The stop. The other regiment is a hidden Gutter Runner regiment. Position Thorgar so that the skaven must walk past the Pinnacle to get to him. Whenever they are not yet "in combat", being in the aura of the Pinnacle will heal them and start topping up their model count, until the Pinnacle's energy is down to 0.
• Walk Thorgar forward until the skaven start to advance. Stop, and maybe retreat a bit. But let them approach him, then fight. Do NOT break their morale because broken units flee the map entirely, and we instead need the regiments to regenerate using their pinnacle. Instead, run Thorgar away until they stop pursuit and turn back, hopefully to walk past their pinnacle and recover their numbers. They will not linger there, but instead walk back to their guard post.
• Repeat this until the Pinnacle has 0 energy (can't do any more resurrection), then wipe out that area plus the Warpstone Pinnacle.
• Since this takes a long time, you could periodically use the Ring of Change to make some daemons from the skaven (the Ring has a 5-minute cooldown). You'll have an excess of them, so sell some for cash after this mission, especially if you are low on cash.

Phase 3 - Northern Pinnacle

• The northern pinnacle is past the row of bonfires. When you go past that boundary, the skaven war starts in earnest and you need to be ready. Not because it is hard, but because there are specific things we need to do:
• Clan Skrye will move a few regiments toward the Northern Pinnacle. If you don't stop them they will destroy it and either continue down to the other two, or attract the attention of Clan Eshin.
• If they get Eshin's attention, they will fight, get beaten back, possibly draw Eshin all the way back to their staging area, and destroy Eshin with their cannons, superior forces, endless reinforcements, and their hero Kasqit, who is scripted to not have less than 6 HP.
• When you see the Clan Skrye strike force, destroy it using friendly fire from your own spells -- Wind of Death and Steal Soul. They will not send another attack force and the warpstone pinnacles will be safe for whatever you want to do. The Northern Pinnacle is mostly useless for farming XP so you might as well destroy it toward completion of the optional objective.
• Position your forces to face Clan Eshin and between them and Clan Skrye. Destroy the Clan Eshin forces. Because there are regiments near the Western Pinnacle, doing this will not yet end the mission.
• If you have any injured regiments, attach them to the sorcerer and go to Clan Skrye's staging area and use Steal Soul on them until you have recovered all your losses.

Phase 4 - Western Pinnacle

• Now that the rest of the map is clear, send Thorgar to use up the Western Pinnacle in the same way we milk the Eastern Pinnacle for XP. Destroy the empty pinnacle and regiments there to win the mission.