Re: Defeating Ashen Ermor?
 

My thoughts did go to assassination or charm right away (my favorite tactics) but its not one of the nations I remember having that ability natively.

Ermor does tend to have many troops led by few leaders so taking out the leaders and causing the troops to run away is a good tactic. I lacked a specific suggestion for that so I figured some more expert players would have one

Re: Defeating Ashen Ermor?
 

I think their big army had about 40 leaders. Might be hard without fliers.

Re: Defeating Ashen Ermor?
 

Yeah, Ermor gets all those freespawn commanders, so while they go down easy to assassination unless you reach some sort of "assassination attempts mass" you probably wont slow them down.

You have death casters, how high in death can you get?

I agree with Maerlande, don't let LA Ermor get big.

Do let us know how you go if you keep playing.

Re: Defeating Ashen Ermor?
 

A fire mage, guarded by fire snakes or summer lions, and casting Fire Storm.
That's my favorite way to take care of those endless undead hordes (in SP): the whole army gets burned to cinders in 3-4 combat turns!

Re: Defeating Ashen Ermor?
 

If you have a bit of construction you could forge herald lances. These weapons allows, say, an indy commander to spam an undead killing spell(Solar Rays?). Not powerful in and of itself but it is not resitable and a herald lance only cost 5S so you can spam them.

Re: Defeating Ashen Ermor?
 

Perhaps it is better to use those astral gems to forge penetration boosters for the priests. Not sure. But that advice was given by the IRC advice machine. herald lances just don't do enough damage.

Re: Defeating Ashen Ermor?
 

If you have immortal thugs, spam them. And while you're at it, get Flame/Frost Brand for them plus Luck and Etherealness. They can hold the line while you AoE spam, as well as take out a bunch on their own. Get them high protection and you'll get to a point where most undeads can't even touch them anymore. If that combination doesn't hold, it should at least deal serious damage.

Re: Defeating Ashen Ermor?
 

A simple defensive thug that can last until the auto-rout kicks in will annihilate any number of attacking mindless undead as long as their leaders don't magic you to death.

A lucky wraith lord with a vine shield and some extra prot and regen should be able to just stand there and soak hits for 50 turns IIRC...the AoE weapon is only useful for attacking provinces. Golems are a bit iffy in this role despite the 0 enc since they tend to collect afflictions since they can't be given regen or heal during the fight, but the idea is the same.

And firstorm is much more effective than wrathful skies for undead clearing, unless Ermor is rocking Army of Gold.

Re: Defeating Ashen Ermor?
 

Ow right, purgatory is also nice.

Re: Defeating Ashen Ermor?
 

Earthquake, rain of stones, firestorm, solar brilliance, undead mastery.
Purgatory, Flames from the sky, Wrath of God,
AoE heavy spells if you have loads of mages, fire cloud, wither bones, cleansing water, conflagation, magma eruption. Having precision spells for those helps.
Items such as heralnd lance given to commanders than casting quickness on those commanders so they cast a bit extra, or give them quickness items if you have gems to waste. Bell of cleansing, massed bows of war, also under quickness, bringing along the forbidden light artifact, using aegis (probably the best option for massive hordes of undead).
Thugs and SCs. I recommend kitting those WrathLords with a luck pendant, and as much defense as possible. Items like, vine shield, faithful, cat charm, chain mail of displacement, boots of quickness and such. You can also bring a few mages to cast one or two buffs on him and retreat. Like Micah said just keeping him around until turn 50+ is enough.
There are pretty much dozens of thugs and SC you can use with any nation. Just have enough defense, and buffs like luck, body ethereal, mistform, etc. I suggest looking up some thugging guides if you`ve never created such a unit.

And many, many, many more things...
Also I suggest listening to Calahans advice. Fighting the AI offers no chance for improvement. And MP games are easy to join, are and can be played under quite relaxed schedules and are immensely more fun.