Re: Carrion Woods ideas please
 

I'd choose the horror helm - sure, the CD has fear, but adding +5 fear makes the fear affect a much larger area (something like 1 hex for every + to fear above 0) and makes the fear more difficult to resist. One of the other possibilities is the starshine skullcap, mostly for the bonus to magic resistance.

Re: Carrion Woods ideas please
 

Isnt there one that gets a free cast? Basically an added action every round of combat.

Re: Carrion Woods ideas please
 

Yeah, the one that casts lighting. But its 20 air gems, right? I'm not sure its worth it, since your carrion dragon is probably doing enough damage by itself.

Re: Carrion Woods ideas please
 

Fear increases in power and radius? Good to know. I will have to look at how I use it then. Against indies, I want them to run away. But often against real nations, I want to kill them all and fear does not help in that endevour.

Hmm, against that Mitlan castle I was thinking about storming, fear on a SC would be great. Scare them out of the gate, then eat the commanders at the back. The rest of the troops just break down the walls, but do not storm, saving them from the arrow fire.

Thanks again, I see why you beat Norfleet!

Re: Carrion Woods ideas please
 

An extra action would be nice, but I suspect I need either water or air magic. Right now I am F,N,D, and E.

Re: Carrion Woods ideas please
 

Long term luck is very good for a pop-killer because you get income sources popping up. Those mines are nice and with a decent empire at high luck you will see several. They become your only source of income if you take a setback and get driven back a bit from the frontier.

Re: Carrion Woods ideas please
 

Think of it like this, if a normal battle is going to last 5 turns, the hat is probably going to kill 4 people (thanks to uber precision) after 20 battles that's 80 people. Since most will probably be weakling indies I'll say an average cost of 10 gold apiece, that comes to 800 gold worth of kills. 20 gems => 800 gold is better than alchemy IIRC (but not by much)
I'd say this makes the hat a decent investment if you haven't got anything better (and were going for the required research anyway).
However, if you find that your battles last longer than that changes things.
I think you should just make a test game and see how effective the hat works with your pretender and chosen spells and work out if its worth it.

Re: Carrion Woods ideas please
 

But something like the Starshine Skullcap or Wraith Crown will help keep your expensive pretender alive. As Oversway said, the carrion dragon is going to kill a lot of units, especially if it has water or fire for BoW / Fire Shield. That is, of course, as long as it stays alive : I've lost CDs to a sleep spell (which the SS might have prevented) and to mass XBow fire, which the WC probably would've prevented.

Re: Carrion Woods ideas please
 

starshine if you will be facing mages, wraithcrown for (expensive) all purpose and horror helm for routing (horror helm gives+5 fear, carrion dragon has good fear base AND death magic adds fear). for the misc's give him luck and something (maybe reinvig)

Re: Carrion Woods ideas please
 

Also, bear in mind that many of the units killed by the helm would have been killed anyway, either by hurling themselves at a fire shield, freezing to death, being souldrained, or being picked off by a spare attack when they're the last unit in base contact with the carrion dragon.

Edit: Oh, and do factor in the forging time, plus the fact that gems are often worth much more than their alchemy value, as well as the fact that Dominions isn't exactly short on summons, spells and items that give you a 100% return on investment in a full 20 or more turns.