Nakai the Wanderer

"Not all who wander are lost "

– J.R.R Tolkien, "All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter"

"WHACK"

Nakai the Wanderer is a Kroxigor and Lizardmen character, who spends all his time walking around the jungle, hitting things on the head when they upset him. He is described as being large even for a Kroxigor and covered in battle scars from countless battles, and some sources also say he has Albino skin but others don't (his albinism may have been dropped after the writers realized he was already very similar to Gor-Rok). He was always more of a background character and got very little in the way of actual fluff and no actual rules, but this didn't stop him from getting a little cult following.

Overview

Nakai is the oldest living Kroxigor around, being part of the first spawning of Kroxigor meaning he probably spawned around the same time as Kroq-Gar putting him at around 8,000 years old. He is from the destroyed Temple city of Tlanxla and fought in its defense during the great catastrophe when chaos spilled from the polar gates. He walked away from Tlanxla the only known survivor and he just sort of... kept walking, with no one to order him what to do he had to figure out what to do on his own.

Fortunately Nakai seems to be smarter than the average Kroxigor and can more or less figure out where he needs to go and what to do on his own, without needing a skink to poke him every few minutes to move him in the right direction. Whether this higher intelligence is unique to Nakai or if it was something all first spawning Kroxigors had, or if it was more akin to a base instinct on where to go and what to do, rather than him making the conscious decision to go "here" and do "this", we don't know. Because GW never expanded on his lore.

Regardless of the reason why, Nakai will usually show up on a battlefield just before the start or during the battle and will usually be the tipping point for the lizardmen to claim victory, in a similar way to Grombrindal or the Legion of the Damned and because of this he is revered by the Skink priests as a spirit of Lustria given form, and often give him tributes of gold whenever he shows up. As the name suggest he tends to show up for battles all over the world and it is this part of his character that makes him so well liked, as it holds an outlandish amount of kick ass for a character whos entire written fluff is less than a page of A4.

His first major tale of kick ass was during the Great Catastrophe where he defended Itza and killed so many daemons during the battle that the forces of Chaos are outright fearful of the location where he fought and actively seek to avoid it. Yes, he spilled so much Daemonic blood while fighting at Itza, daemons are not just scared of him but also the area he was fighting at as well. This act alone puts him on a level of awesome comparable to a lot characters who got actual rules and made him a reptilian equivalent of Doomguy(that is impossible, doomguy is the god emperors shadow now he has no equivalent) . He also took part in the war against Clan Pestilens killing thousands of Skaven and fighting a giant plague filled rat ogre that poisoned him while they fought, nearly killing him after he ripped it in half, being put out of action by the plague until he was nursed back to health by some skink priests. In some older fluff, Nakai and Lord Mazdamundi traveled to Albion after some lost artifacts that the Old ones left behind were found there (The Old ones where apparently quite fond of Albion). They turned part of the island into a large jungle (because fuck the ecosystem of all those warm-bloods who where living there first) and built a temple city called Konquata on the island as well and helped keep the island hidden from the rest of the world.

Total War Warhammer

Nakai was added to Total War Warhammer 2 with the Hunter and the Beast DLC. He leads the Spirit of the Jungle sub faction and in an interesting twist; it's a horde-style faction for the Lizardmen. His main goal is to drive Markus Wulfhart from Lustria to keep it safe from him. Gameplay wise, he is a hard hitting and tough to kill beat stick while giving minor buffs to Kroxigors like Frenzy and horde building mechanics that strengthen his replenishment, meaning that he usually comes out of battles with a huge army no matter how desperate it actually was. He also comes with a quest item that gives him perfect vigour, which means he will never slow down when killing those nasty humans. His starting position in the Eye of the Vortex campaign is the Southwest of the creeping jungle, and his Mortal Empires starting position is Albion, which may seem weird at first, but as stated above, he does have some links to Albion. In Both the Vortex Campaign and Mortal Empires, you are able to give a vassal faction, known as the Defenders of the Great Plan, the settlements you conquer, gaining bonuses as you give them more and more settlements and cities in the form of a temple dedicated to one of the Old Ones, such as increased income from said vassal (Which for horde factions is stupidly important) and recruit Blessed Units, Heroes and Lords at higher ranks. The more temples you dedicate to an Old One, the greater the reward and/or bonus. So instead of burning everything you run across like you would as Chaos or Beastmen, you conquer it yourself and have somebody else manage the cities.

His DLC brought Sacred Kroxigors, Ancient Kroxigors, Razordons, and the fucking Dread Saurian to the game.

Unfortunately for anyone that wants to capture him with a pokeball (aka confederation button) as of the current patch, he dies almost immediately in the early game just like any other horde faction (Beastmen and Chaos) and he won't ever respawn for the rest of the campaign. In fact, his AI is so stupid, it is incapable of making any diplomatic treaty and will get himself killed out of idiocy and assholery by randomly waging war against his Lizardmen allies (or the opposite because said vacuous crocodile did not sign a military access treaty and is trespassing, such is the way of the Wanderer), Blue Viper Savage Orcs, the Vampire Coast, his mega warmblood nemesis Markus Wulfhart, and even-may the Old Ones forgive me for saying this-THE FUCKING SKAVEN. In case you were wondering, confederating his useless vassal faction doesn't allow the player to use him, so good luck until CA patches it. Fortunately, there are several workaround Mods available that allow the player alternative ways of "confederating" him, namely one that allows players to force confederation upon besting them in a war or allowing players to recruit Legendary Lords from defeated subfactions (the best/only real option).

Not only is Nakai hard to confederate from an AI perspective, but he is also a terrible lord for any player. On the campaign, you are constantly conquering cities for the Defenders of the Great Plan, which acts as an actual faction that holds cities in place of your own. Though those cities give you buffs and a small trickle of income, the faction you grant cities to doesn't do anything. You have to spend your own resources to summon armies for them that cannot replenish their losses, and though they have pretty big garrisons in their cities, those cities never grow stronger and the AI tends to steamroll them. Since you can't play your allied faction as they are getting sieged, you will just watch helplessly as a raiding faction destroys your cities. Another thing is even if you have great diplomatic relations with other factions, guess who has their own relations with other factions and will drag you into war if war gets declared on them. That's right, Defenders of the Great Plan. Combine all of this with Nakai's mediocre abilities as he levels up, then you are likely to just watch Nakai barely scrape by in any battle as more powerful lords like Malekith slam into him with crazy anti-large and armour-piercing bonuses.

In multiplayer, Nakai is currently considered the worst legendary lord for the Lizardmen. He's slow, swings his weapon extremely slowly, and has a small hit box with said slow weapon. Though he can be upgraded to have perfect vigour, he is almost always going to fail in terms of damaging your opponents units to make up for his cost. He also gets targeted a lot because getting a lord snipe early on is really debilitating, and his main purpose is to be in the thick of the melee. He is a silly crocodile that bounces as he charges though, and most people will consider any army with Nakai to be a meme build. If someone still wants to run a crocodilian beatstick as the leader of their armies, Nakai still tends to get passed over by his generic Kroxigor Ancient counterpart. Kroxigor Ancients are cheaper, have more "stable" animations that allow them to connect attacks more frequently and in competitive play, can be upgraded with an Amulet of Itzl, which grants them a one-use Ward Save buff for a not insignificant period of time (ideally for character duels or to bunker down from a nasty onslaught of burst damage) and is otherwise virtually identical in form and function to Nakai.

Gallery

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  Nakai the Wanderer as he appears in Total Warhammer

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  "Warm-bloods, BTFO!"

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  Except Nakai. Nakai is lost as shit.

Characters of the Lizardmen Empire
Gods and revered entities:	Old Ones - Sotek
Slann:	Lord Kroak - Lord Mazdamundi
Kroxigors:	Nakai the Wanderer
Saurus:	Gor-Rok - Kroq-Gar - Chakax
Skinks:	Oxyotl - Tehenhauin - Tiktaq'to - Tetto'eko