​This is one of the most iconic story lines in Warhammer fantasy which sadly did not translate well into the game. The vastness of K8P's and it's underway and vaults are not represented in the game. It's just a two settlement province who's incentive is more to remove a debuff than to gain a buff as in the case of Belegar's +50% upkeep for all units. What I'll be detailing is how I envisioned the race for Eight Peaks. 

1. Significant Map Changes:

- K8P would be completely changed on the campaign map and would be more akin to ChaosRobie's old world mod.

- There will be three underway entrances placed around K8P each one requiring a faction to control the settlement to be able to use (reskinned chaos portals) which would lead down to another layer of the campaign map.

- Underway entrances would be like Skaven undercities to your settlements and would be upgradable with different buildings for each faction which will help your expeditions (more on that below).

- Two new layers to the campaign map would be added which means K8P will consist of 3 levels with the second layer also having 7 or 8 settlements. 

- The Second Layer would have large gaps between settlements and three more underway entrances leading to the Third Layer. The reason for these long gaps is so you can't completely blitz the settlements in a couple of turns, but more importantly it is to allow space for random encounters to take place. For example, in the Second Layer you can encounter a greenskin army which, if you defeat, will award you with an item or a buff. Another could be a dangerous monster like the Norscan Monster Hunts, but the most dangerous and lucrative encounters would be found in the Third Layer e.g. the Chaos Troll Gotrek and Felix faced when they went K8P.

- The Third Layer would have no settlements. What the third layer would be is like how the chaos realms were in the Realms of Chaos campaign. When you send an army down there you would face dangerous monsters and armies in survival battles and keep marching forward to find an exit. Along the way, you can pick up insanely powerful items/ancillaries/banners or an armywide effect e.g. frenzy for all units. Like how you can find the chainsword in Khorne's realm. 

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2. There will be two new mechanics: Control and Expeditions.

Control:

- Control is just who owns the overall more settlements which means he is winning the race which will provide the current winner with a buff and the other two a debuff. All the current debuffs like Belegar's +50% upkeep would be removed and would exist no longer. Instead whoever is winning would give the other two a public order, leadership, and a +10% upkeep cost debuff.

Expeditions:

- Expeditions will be a new mechanic akin to the convoy system where it'll have it's own seperate tab over the end turn button. Clicking on it will open up a screen where you choose between preset armies. After you pick your army, you then choose what expedition level they are to undertake. 

- Expeditions will have 3 different levels to them which scales with difficulty based on the level you sent them on e.g. level 3 expedition would be longest and most dangerous but with the best awards. Each completed expedition will give you random rewards based on your chosen dilemmas and award your Expeditionary army with extra units and experience.

- Expedition routes would have threat level that increases incrementally with each expedition run and which compounds with the base threat level which is based on what level of expedition you sent them on. A threat would be an enemy army that spawns to attack and try to destroy your expedition like the Chaos Dwarf convoys and Cathay Caravans. So, a level 1 expedition enemy army would be, for example, 10 low tier units and a lord whilst a level 3 enemy force would be a full stack with higher tier units.

- You'll have dilemmas every turn which you pick between two choices. For example, a dilemma where you have to pick a path, one leads you to better rewards but you'll have to fight an army or the safer route. A dilemma to sacrifice a unit to heal your army so you can keep delving deeper down or pay a sum of gold for another races units like how mercenaries would show up to K8P in lore . Once every two turns you'll have a dilemma appear asking you if you want your Expedition to keep going, with the risk of being destroyed, or just comeback with what they earned so far.

- Your underway entrances would have buildings that will help your Expeditions like -1 turn for Expedition time etc.

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Yes, most of these are reskinned mechanics, however, this would be an FLC rework as all 3 factions that contest K8P are already in the game. Although, I think there are other necessary changes to the base game that need to be done for all of this to work. I would move all 3 factions to K8P and have them start the campaign immediately at war vying for control over K8P and have a minor faction take their original starting locations place. However, if the player isn't playing Clan Mors, Clan Angrund, or Crooked Moon then I would revert them to their original start locations and disable the extra Layers and expeditions mechanic so your machine wouldn't bear extra load for a mechanic only the AI will interact with. 

How I see it all working together when playing as one of the 3 factions:

The only way to enter into eight peaks to attack its settlements is through a few narrow one army wide passes so the player can easily defend and know when outside forces try to attack his settlement. The focus of the campaign is all about K8P and the other two enemy factions where you contest the settlements of K8P on the overworld campaign layer and on the second layer. Each settlement will be a tough nut to crack with strong garrisons it will feel like an actual war for dominance of the Eight Peaks. You'll simultaneously be organizing Expeditions and, when strong enough, sending armies down into the Third Layer as explained above.

Oh yeah, the ancestor relics from the chaos dwarfs could be some of the ones available.

I have yet to try the K8P race in the Old World campaign mod. 

But your proposal seems a bit complex for the 3 layers. 

However the expedition would work very well for Belegar. I had a similar idea, where Belegar, in order to get access to various elite units, or get buffs, money, oathstone, runic things, should make missions given by several different dawi lords like Thorek, Ungrim and Thorgrim. 

I absolutely agree K8 race needs to be changed. Not sure what the best solution is though.

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Pr4vda#6038 wrote:

I have yet to try the K8P race in the Old World campaign mod. 

But your proposal seems a bit complex for the 3 layers. 

However the expedition would work very well for Belegar. I had a similar idea, where Belegar, in order to get access to various elite units, or get buffs, money, oathstone, runic things, should make missions given by several different dawi lords like Thorek, Ungrim and Thorgrim. 

It kind of is, but it is all built on existing tech like the chaos portal would be the underway portal and the other layers would be a smaller under layer of the map like how they did the chaos realms. However, this might absolutely nuke end turn times and campaign map performance.

Being a bit critical here, the extra layers and expeditions just seems bit too convoluted and not feasible for the IE map. The fact that the settlement works differently if you’re not playing one of the three factions also makes it just not feel like a very organic addition. 

These features feel like they’d be most at home on a separate narrative map. I don’t believe we’ll ever see a map change to K8P in a way that mimics the OW mod as it would require major stretching and warping of the current map to implement. Any changes would likely have to be mechanical.

I think the rework would mostly be based around making sure all the interested factions (Queek, Skarsnik, and Belegar) will build up and battle for K8P, and also that the struggle for it doesn’t end as soon as you capture K8P. 

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Passthechips#4366 wrote:

Being a bit critical here, the extra layers and expeditions just seems bit too convoluted and not feasible for the IE map. The fact that the settlement works differently if you’re not playing one of the three factions also makes it just not feel like a very organic addition. 

These features feel like they’d be most at home on a separate narrative map. I don’t believe we’ll ever see a map change to K8P in a way that mimics the OW mod as it would require major stretching and warping of the current map to implement. Any changes would likely have to be mechanical.

I think the rework would mostly be based around making sure all the interested factions (Queek, Skarsnik, and Belegar) will build up and battle for K8P, and also that the struggle for it doesn’t end as soon as you capture K8P. 

Aye you're right I just hope whatever CA does makes capturing K8P the central moment in the campaign of the three factions involved and make it a hard fight to win. Currently it's just a tacked on 'mechanic' which you mostly ignore except for Belegar and that's just to remove a debuff.

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bli-nk#6314 wrote:

I was not sold on the K8P area getting a huge amount of attention, more like how CA did with the CD around the Plain of Zharr but after seeing how the Bastion works (or doesn't work given lack of real enemies to the north) and the current size of the IE map, having K8P get more attention is sounding more and more interesting. 

Playing around K8P it feels as if the initial battle for control of the Badlands is over really, really quickly- but then, the options to go north, south, east, or west get more interesting and there are not many fallback positions other than the provincial capitals. 

Having a larger K8P that is not all minor settlements could be interesting- the extra bonuses should not be huge, minor trade boost and minor boost with diplomacy if controlling all of K8P but controlling entrances or passes into K8P with garrisons such as the forts between the Empire and Bretonnia would add quite a lot of interest strategically if those gates were the only way into or out of K8P with tunnelling blocked just inside of K8P as it is on Ulthuan. 

This would mean a central area of the Badlands was strategically important for map control rather than tunnelling armies hopping everywhere. It would also thematically separate the Silver Road and the northern mountains from the Badlands while making the rest of the Badlands distinct from K8P. 

Yes, the badlands is really lacking in that aspect. It's mostly just a free-for-all, but if there was a strong and easily defendable position, that races with underway stance can't jump straight into, it would make the area much more interesting. 

K8P needs some scripted battles where you fight Belegar/Queek/Skarsnik once you firstly occupy it. Similar to the how the Silver Pinnacle works for the Dawi now. 

As Belegar for example, regularly occupying K8P should just represent him securing the upper Levels as in the lore. 

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Pr4vda#6038 wrote:

However the expedition would work very well for Belegar. I had a similar idea, where Belegar, in order to get access to various elite units, or get buffs, money, oathstone, runic things, should make missions given by several different dawi lords like Thorek, Ungrim and Thorgrim. 

Always wanted retooled survival battles for Dawi expeditions into the lower deeps. Belegar might be a good place for this, undertaking survival battle expeditions into the deeps of K8P.

Also giving every participant an Eltharion batcave representing their part of the hold could be an option, maybe leading to the on-map settlement changing hands more frequently.