I have over 1.3K hours in this game and never knew that you can choose what your Arc Furnaces can produce! Is this new, or was this in the game the whole time?
I attempted a Thorgrim Campaign where i planned to turtle with 2.5 Provinces and scale up until i got enough money and armies to solo the map and crush the end times.
Well, the Lahmian sisterhood kind of crushed that dream because the second I met them they declared war on me and attacked a Bult Up Worlds Edge Archway reinforced with a Runelord and 3 Longbeards(shields) and 3 Quarrelers to around 21 Units the Sisterhood attacked it and I fought it manually since it was a defeat.
Since it was a settlement battle it had a lot of chokepoints and the one where the bulk of the enemy came from was held by 2 Longbeards and 3 quarrelers and they were supported and buffed by my Runelord, I naively believed that they could hold of a Lahmian Handmaiden seen above and some Skeletons while I microed another front.
Well, I was wrong not 30 seconds later and i noticed that some of my quarrelers were rapidly losing health and when I searched for the flying unit that must have sneaked past me i noticed that two of my longbeards were routed and my Lord was about to flee as well.
So, I paused had a little crash out because WTF they are not armor piercing on the unit card. So, I took a closer look and low and behold 25 ap attack + Okkams Mindrazor to buff that by 50% to ~38 ap.
For Comparison Longbeards with Greatweapons who can be recruited at the same Building level (at tier 3 but Lahmia can get them at tier 2 through a special building) have 26 ap weapon damage just one more than unbuffed Handmaidens and Empire Greatswords have 25 ap.
Their States are roughly on Par with Chosen (Great Wepons) (slightly better combat stats but worse Armor and Leadership) and whilst at first their 32 model count might seem low but each model has 208 Hp and regeneration whilst in mele. But hey maybe they balanced it through a massive upkeep like 600 souls/Gold a turn? Nope 275, Hammerers cost 300 and are worse in basically every stat except armor and morale. Add to that they are Undead so their relatively low morale is only an issue if they are losing a fight, they won’t, and debuff enemy Mele Attack by 8 and Morale through fear and have a Physical resistance of 20% (why they have that I don’t know no non Lahmian vampire has that one and it’s not a faction specific trait).
They have the statline of a Level 4 Settlement unlock at level 2 for Lahmia and 3 for all the other vampires.
edit: Ran it through a spelling checker.