Re: Ermor vs Pythium Hydras, help!
 

Oh yeah, get slingers! They're really good against hydras I believe, and very cheap.

Re: Ermor vs Pythium Hydras, help!
 

Slingers and/or flail-wielding gladiators should make short work of the smaller heads, communion up to power of the sepulcher if you can and toss that on your undead spam as outlined earlier.

Edit: Reverse communion for animate and the master will probably wind up spamming 0 fatigue holy once his animate skeleton script runs (and the slaves are fatigued) so you aren't risking the slaves.

Re: Ermor vs Pythium Hydras, help!
 

Yes, hydras are large targets and will be easier to hit and they also got quite low protection. With a hundred slingers set to fire large monster supported by your regular troops and undead as blockers you will do well.

Re: Ermor vs Pythium Hydras, help!
 

Well, you can either go the research route (which means running for Paralyze as fast as possible, and should be easily attainable by turn 15-20) or the Undead HORDE route. The rulebook's 'default strategy' for Ermor is surprisingly good. To really leverage MA Ermor, you need to be recruiting the Thaums. For your first few turns, I would suggest sending out your forces with a Thaumaturg so that he can reanimate the corpses left after the battle (Reanimate Soulless). Once there are no more corpses left in a province, move the Thaumaturg to the 'freshest' province (the one with the most bodies). Rotating three or so Thaumaturgs through this should give a good 'income' of Undead to throw.

Since Ermor doesn't really have much difficulty in expanding, I would suggest a rainbow Pretender, so that you have some research going on. If your goal is Thaumaturgy-4 (which is where Paralyze is, I believe), that's 360 RPs. If you need this by turn 15 or so, that means you need 24 or so research on your pretender. This should be easily possible. This frees all of your Thaumaturgs for Undead-raising.

Unless CBM has changed it, Paralyze is only Astral-2, which means that all of your Grand Thaumaturgs can cast it, and if you have a Banner of the North Star (which I doubt), or the equivalent spell, _all_ of your Thaums can cast it. I can't foresee how an Undead-shielded Paralyze push can fail to stop any reasonable number of Hydras.

I doubt you're playing a Single Era mod, but _if_ you're fighting the Serpent Cult and not the Theurg Pythium (that is, LA Pythium rather than MA Pythium), then laugh all the way to the bank as you Apostacize the Hydras.

I'm sorry that I forgot that Terror is unavailable to all of your Mages.

If he's using non-Poison-immune troops along with the Hydras, then your best choice is to put your Longdead Horsemen front and center and charge the Hydras. Sure, they'll die. However, it'll stop his line as close as possible to their starting points, and the infantry doesn't know enough to stay out of the poison. End result is that they'll die to 'friendly poison'.

Now, another research goal for MA Ermor is Evo-7, for Nether Darts. So you may want to investigate spells in that tree that you can use for that purpose.

Oh yeah, Poison em all.

Frighten isn't bad, since all of your Mages can throw it. Terror is of course preferable.

5 or 6 Thaumaturgs spamming Frighten may be able to deal with the Hydras, but I doubt it. If you have 6, and can Communion, then 2 sets of 3 Thaumaturgs can throw Paralyze.

Re: Ermor vs Pythium Hydras, help!
 

All these options are tactically excellent - now use some strategy.


Two things come to mind:

1. Hydras are hard to mass. Counter attack where he isn't. SPlitting hydras singly makes them easy to defeat -so he wont do that.

2. Hydras are expensive. Hit his economy. Hit his capital or other forts with things like blight, baleful star - not once - but 5-6 times a turn. Once the unrest gets high enough - he won't be able to build them.

Everyone that doesn't get built is one you don't have to kill.

3. Thirdly, tactically, hydras are slow. Things like curse of stone, sleep cloud, terror+prison of fire (esp under cbm), can prevent hydras from ever getting to the front - so now you just need to make sure yours don't walkinto the poison cloud: set them to guard commander. Let your commanders spam undead or illusions.

Let him lose to time out....

Re: Ermor vs Pythium Hydras, help!
 

CP: The first two are good strategic options. The tactical option, though, isn't when you consider that the player is playing Ermor. Where exactly would he get the ability to cast the spells you list, excepting Terror?

Re: Ermor vs Pythium Hydras, help!
 

I mention it for options if he has run into indy sites that allow enchantresses, or a pretender, or la Ermor. etc.

Tactically, the approach is sound, even if the tools to take advantage of it may vary.

Re: Ermor vs Pythium Hydras, help!
 

Gloves of the Gladiator+stone bird+quickness=20 attacks per turn in CBM. Buff 3-4 Banes with luck/body ethereal/flight then order them to attack large monster.

Re: Ermor vs Pythium Hydras, help!
 

This is a really bad idea. Players using Hyrdas tend to use time out strategies themselves since surviving is what hyrdas are really good at. You could find yourself playing the waiting game while your enemy has just cast Foul Vapors and then you are totally screwed.

Re: Ermor vs Pythium Hydras, help!
 

How is a 4-5 ermorian mages - with poison rings, and undead guards necessarily a bad idea. As long as your mages can spam skellies faster than the hydras can kill them its a very good idea - and will likely end in hydra death.

Especially at time out, where the attacker (him) routes and gets the -4, and breaks Zoc, getting a free swing? Even better if you cut off his retreat.