Re: Helheim dirty tactic
 

Good idea. They still lose their items even with Twiceborn, though, right? If so I might reserve Twiceborn for Hangadrottir.

-Max

Re: Helheim dirty tactic
 

they do, thats why don't send them in with items, just have them earth power up, and stick around to die.

Re: Helheim dirty tactic
 

But he was saying this because getting hit on the head would ignore the shield, while blade wind wouldn't, and that's a huge difference. Of course, I have no idea what an Ambibate Noble is and whether they have shields or not, lol. Obviously I'm assuming. Also, that one instance of the guy being killed is obviously a high roll. Check the debug log, it will explain everything if you're really curious.

=$= Big J Money =$=

Re: Helheim dirty tactic
 

Is it just conjecture that a head hit bypasses the shield? The manual sounds like all ranged attacks go through the opposed roll calculation and doesn't mention anything about exceptions for head hits--I've never seen any mechanics for how head hits work but I assumed hit location was generated after damage had already been rolled (but before checking Prot, obviously, and before generating afflictions). And it's quite thematic that a shield could be raised overhead as easily as it could shield you from missiles from the front.

After a little bit more experimentation, I'm pretty sure that the one guy getting killed was a moderately high roll combined with a critical hit from spellcasting fatigue.

Thanks for the tip about the debug log, I will check it out.

-Max

Re: Helheim dirty tactic
 

In a recent SP game I played MA Ulm, augmenting my protection 20 troops (head to toe + tower shield) with "legions of steel" (+3 prot to every "part"), and still I got the odd 9 - 11 damage from slings (damage 9) while advancing. It was VERY rare though.

Re: Helheim dirty tactic
 

That's understandable; one out of 36 sling hits will have a +10 bonus because of the open-ended roll. I've tried the Rain of Stones thing a couple more times, though, and ended up with Ironskinned-but-dead Svartalfs fairly frequently. (25%-50%?) It does look like the fatigue is causing critical hits, and possibly Rain of Stones does more than 14 damage. I'll check out the debug log to know for sure.

-Max

Re: Helheim dirty tactic
 

Update, since I've learned a lot since I first tried this.

1.) If a Svartalf has A2 for Cloud Trapeze he also has A2 for Mistform, right? Much better choice than Invulnerability because now Rain of Stones will *never* kill you, you'll simply take 1 point of damage.

2.) Helheim has good access to Bloodstones because it starts out with B1 mages. Blood is an unusual path in that because it's fairly trivial for 4 B1 mages with Sanguine Rods or whatever they're called to be collecting 20 mages per turn, it's really not infeasible to empower up to B3. Thus, you can forge Bloodstones (Empower a Svartalf up to B3E2). Now you don't even need to forge Bags of Wind to play the Cloud Trapeze/Mistform/Rain of Stones game. Since 1 Hangadrott in 4 in has E1, with a Bloodstone that's E2, which lets him cast Summon Earthpower to get E3, which lets him cast Rain of Stones since he already has A2. Voila! And since your Bloodstone produces 1 earth gem per turn, you can go raiding without any micromanagement hassle. 1 Hangadrott for Rain of Stones plus 2 more for Raise Dead (or else scouts with Skullfaces if it's cheaper for you) makes a fun raiding party. Cloud Trapeze deep into enemy territory and have fun romping and stomping all over his PD.

Obviously there are counters, but it's a fun tactic that most other nations couldn't pull off.

-Max

Re: Helheim dirty tactic
 

there is a similar tactic with Argatha and Earthquake.

Re: Helheim dirty tactic
 

Hmmm. I guess I can see that, but Agartha will have a hard time replicating the mobility. You'll need a Ktonian Necromancer (S variant for teleport) with a Crystal Coin and Skullcap in order to Teleport (I'm assuming it's not worth blowing 15 points and risking death on a Stygian Paths just to carry out a raid). Then you need Earth Boots and 3 earth gems for the spell proper, and a script <Summon Earthpower, Blessing, Earthquake>. You'll wind up with 200 fatigue, so there's negligible chance of surviving even if you script Ironskin or something in there too. It doesn't seem really feasible to me because it's so expensive and you end up losing the mage and the items. I suspect Agartha has to deploy this tactic quite differently, maybe in pitched battles or with an Earth Necromancer to bolster PD. (The Earth random + no Teleport requirement means you can do it with no magic items, just gems.)

I love Agartha but they're not very mobile/agile for the most part.

-Max

Re: Helheim dirty tactic
 

I'm doing hellheim is SP now, and since this is the only thread in the strat index about them (no guide http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.. would be nice) I'm asking a question/placing a remark here.

I agree the sacreds and the sacred commanders are VERY nice and a dual bless works wonders.

There are 2 problems I encountered though

1. Hellheim has no decent researchers/combat magicians outside the capitol

2. small armies of sacreds can't siege castles.

The 2nd one is dealt with relatively easily (though a bit of a hassle) by recruiting indies and indie commanders naturally but the first point is kinda annoying. I create about 1 hangadrott and 1 swartalf every 2 turns and the swartald the researches. But that doesn't leave much for combat and later in the game it kinda sucks for research too.

Last point: what magic is best used on the battle field with just the regular paths commanders have. (the specialized and taking a lot of organizing heavy hitting magic tactics above are nice and I'll use them but I need my regulars to do stuff too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

I see the D2 skelleton raising for the hellheim commanders, if needed shadow blast too and bladewind for E3 swartalfs (the only ones I send to combat really, the rest had to research.) THey can buff nicely too.
For F1 swartalfs magmabolts might be used but I think they might be better of researching then

A2 doesn't give that nice spells for the vans (probably better of going in melee with a W9/F9 bless) except personal buffs

what other spells can you pplz advice?

(and in that same line, which research goals.)