Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

In regards to my last post, I'd like to add somewhat of a warning about the semi-immortal Black Sorcerers- when they "die" (change into spider form) their slots will also change temporarily. The spider seems to have both misc slots but you will lose the other items in the other slots. So just remember to swap them out when they are at 1 hp and put them back on next turn.

As a side note- I'd suspect this 2 form behavior also protects against seeking arrows and various other spells like that. However, I am only speculating and have not tested this.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I'd rather place the fetish on a scout and have him pass the gems to the mage... no reason for my mages in battle to be picking up random afflictions from disease like chestwound or feeblemind.

Also why place the fetish on a black sorceror when it can be placed on a sorceress who's cheaper and would also not die.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Sounds like a bug to me.

Not that I'm saying you shouldn't take advantage of it, but if it's fixed I'd probably have a back up plan. Just saying.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Well if you're fetishing, you're not too likely to have other gear sitting around on them, I wouldn't put a fetish on someone I was going to boost for forging/summons/globals. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif And I don't think I'd take them to combat.....

I was just checking them out, they have no national spells at all? That's a bummer.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Sorceresses would work as well since they have spider form too.

Yeah, the no national summons is kinda a bummer. But they have super easy access to fire arrows plus with the fetish trick it makes having those gems available even that much easier.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Well.... the Spider Lord has a second form and is available everywhere. For 100 gold, you have nearly forty hitpoints of fever fetish.

The fact that you've got the ear of the lord for spying (with a secondary effect of stealth preaching), the ear of the lord who can patrol as well as 15 humans for a third of the cost, and a pretty well equipped although capital only assasin doesn't hurt.

And with access to the Mother of Serpents, healing, I suppose you could rescue your investment if you really wanted to, but I'm not sure this nation really cries for healing.

These ape heroes are kinda lame. Are they multi-heros at least, of do they have any use aside from free monkey-spawn chaff?

Abasi? I don't see his use as a hero, but his description is very amusing.

edit: and on the spider kings... It's entirely possible to not expand outside of your starting province and end year three with 115 fire gems. With some actual effort, a cheap fort, and some witch-doctor manual site searching... Hell. If 100 gold really matter, you can heal the spiders with the Mother of Serpents. You only have to check once a year to keep the spider alive.

edit: and ears of the lord causing unrest while carrying bane venom charms in an enemy fortress might be fun and hard to counter. Especially with a couple assasins to move in later. Though of course, death isn't specially easy for this nation to bring in gems for. Not impossible..

edit: and I just realized what to do with my wasted earth gem income: forge dwarven hammer or two, really churn out fever fetish.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Do not underestimate spider knights. I faced Machaka under the command of the redoubtable Hadrian II awhile back and he fielded them in large numbers- like 60-120 at a time IIRC, and they were pretty awesome. Webs are a one-size-fits-all answer to a great many tactical problems. I was playing MA Man and it might have been easier if i'd have had astral mages or Charm i admit, but i was still very very impressed.

My Machaka pet peeves are low stealth on the assassin, death too low to make a skull hat, and no blood. It seems like blood goes with the spider/jungle theme.

I agree that the lack of death income is a pain and that the transforming mages should have long lifespans.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I was going to say that while a Bane Spider costs twice what he should at least his stealth was fixed, but I see that relatively it wasn't.

Edi, here's a clump of DB fixes (this is easy if you sort by the assassin column first):
443 Star Child is listed as Stealth 5, is actually 15.
585 Guild Master is listed as Stealth 5, is actually 25.
629 Stalker is listed as Stealth 20, is actually 40.
877 Bane Spider is listed as Stealth 5, is actually 10.
1436 Mujina is listed as Stealth 10, is actually 30.
1558 Tlahuelpuchi is listed as Stealth 0, is actually 15.
1744 Samanishada is listed as Stealth 10, is actually 20.
1879 Serpent Assassin is listed as Stealth 5, is actually 20.

Bug:
863 Apostatic Warrior really is stealth 0, probably should be 15 or 20 if he's an "able assassin".

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

How well armored are those heavily stealthed units?

Anyways, IMO able assassins doen't necessarily equate high stealth, but means of getting the job done. If you think of the bane spider as a sort of mafia hitman, rather than a stubtle type, it makes a bit of sense.

The stealth can be a problem, but I find assassins work best as a defensive tool, anyways. Since patrolling is such an easy counter. An invading army doesn't have the time or pd to patrol, and after an assasination is most vulnerable to counterattack. And then, you could easily cause enough unrest with your priest to prevent any patrols from being effective, making it difficult for them to take and hold any territory or lines of reinforcement.

A fire pearl does a lot for this guy, as well as being easy to forge if you're fetishing. Specifically in reducing the number of shield hits and carving through chaff. I don't find this guy's stealth a problem, just his magic resistance. Strength boosters are nice as well, and easily forgable, but earth isn't as nearly free as fire, though still easier to come by then death gems.

It is nice that they needn't worry about ethereal units either.

Not that assassins are reliable or survive much, but it is nice to note that when the random Intor Vadul is sieging your capital, a Bane Spider with a fire pearl and lycanthropo's amulet can send him fleeing to his death at 16 hitpoints, even if your Bane Spider barely survives with one measly hitpoint just before,

Anyways, my big concern with them isn't 20 stealth, its a miserable 10 MR, which turns out to be their biggest weakness, very hard to counter with your national paths or without a lead shield. A lucky mage can be their undoing, or a few mandragora, but at least they aren't stalled by a few dispossed spirits.

PS. Or sleep or whatever... point is, with 10 MR, even a randomly casting mage has a good chance of ending that battle.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Has anyone tried using a bane spider with a bunch of spider warriors set to guard commander? It'd be interesting to see if they join in on the assassination attempt.

The reason the bane spider also has less stealth than other assassins is that he has leadership. Commanders that have stealth confer the same stealth bonus to all stealth units under their command (so for example a Vanherse with stealth(25) gives all those stealth(0) bakemono archers +25 stealth.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I thought (and I realise this is only the rulebook speaking) that a leader's stealth bonus was reduced if he led more than 10 0-stealth troops.

Although if he's leading 10 or less he gets the full bonus, so I see your point. If the guards went with him that'd be impressively nasty as assassinations go.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

KO said nothing about that when I asked about the Ranger Captain not having any stealth bonus, but it is possible he did not remember that particular mechanic at the time.

As far as what the manual says, there is no penalty if the following units have stealth(10) or better, otherwise it's -1 per unit. At least that's my reading of it.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Sadly no, if an assassin has guards they will not accompany him in the assassination attempt. They will, however, attack the province in a revenge attempt if the assassin leader gets himself killed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I guess that's why they're "not yet fully-trained assassins."

-Max

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Also consider that a squad of those spiders, and the leader being properly equipped, could probably deal with quite some PD as a raiding force. Though sadly, I'm sure gear for PD raiding would be somewhat different than preferred gear for assassination.....

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I would like to see the bane spiders recruitable everywhere as that would give machaka a whole new stealth attack strat to go with their spies.

it is too limited with them being capital only, and i would never miss recruiting a black hunter in any event as they are a great unit even in the endgame with web, poison.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Thematically, I don't like the idea of recruitable-anywhere Bane Spiders. I'm not opposed to cheaper, second-rate Bane Spiders being recruitable anywhere and the good ones being cap-only.

-Max

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Won't they auto-rout and die since they have no commander though? I guess at least you create a few points of unrest...

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Sorry, I wasn't clear. That's why I had the wink. They'll auto-route as you describe--pretty ineffective revenge there.

-Max

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

It is not unthematic at all to have Bane Spiders everywhere. Though they were trained at God Mountain, some have moved about the Kingdom and have trained others.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Usually units that refer to a location in their description are restricted to the corresponding magic site. It wouldn't bother me hugely, and from a gameplay perspective I like the idea, but I'd probably want to change the description at least. But I also like the idea of reserving the BEST assassins for God Mountain proper.

-Max

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

With a nation having a capitol only best mage and a capitol only most cost effective researcher, nobody will recruit a capitol only assassin, good or not.

To see bane spider used the options are : make all mages recruitable everywhere, burn the lab in the capitol, or make the bane spider recruitable everywhere.

I think the third is the best one.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Errm...could you not say this about virtually every capital only unit in the game?

I always thought capital only units were simply a, 'balance' issue rather than a thematic one.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Well, some of them have supernatural reasons why they have to come from the specific site.

...Actually, the Bane Spider is one of those, with their God Mountain-forged standard equipment.

The problem is as Twan points out, other capitol only units overshadow the bane spider, cool as he is.

There's a fourth option: allow recruiting of 2 commanders per fort, but only 1 can be a mage (because you have only 1 lab; on similar grounds you could limit only 1 priest, but it's not as important as a balance issue). It would require some recoding and affect balance for everyone, but I think overall the changes would probably be good, especially for nations with overshadowed non-mage commanders (many of which are mini-thugs or assassins that see little use because it's more important to spam mages).

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

From a gameplay, national flavor, I am actually opposed to Machaka having any stealthy non-capital troops or commander. I could go into that, but I don't have Dom3 in front of me at the moment, and would rather get my names right.

Anyways, the black hunter only overshadows the bane spider if you have enough dominion and funds. I find with high scales and low dominion that I can afford to regularly recruit some of the troop version (non-sacred) of bane spiders along with the black hunters who are sacred. After a few turns, I have enough stealth troops to warrant a bane leader.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Yes and no. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif Some commanders state in their description that they rarely leave their city/temple/site/thing, so it's kind of a blessing you can get them at all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Personally, I'd almost say that the biggest aid that could be done on that note, is to provide a second level of Lab and Temple that you can build AFTER the first (make it cost more, and possibly take more than 1 turn). This structure would make certain capital only casters available there, as you have invested the time and effort in creating a place of interest for scholarly study and research that one might visit after their training at home is completed.

Either that, or if there were some sort of Academy building you could build, that would allow you to build 2 commanders a turn. It would be really expensive of course, but would be a nice bonus for the capital, once it could be afforded.

It's just a shame when a nation has a cap only researcher that is far superior to their other mages, and yet also has other very useful capital only commanders.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

There's another potential option for scenarios (i.e. w/ map commands instead of mod commands): start with several provinces under your control, and have the Bane Spider-producing site in a different province. I'm not 100% sure it would work but I think it would--the game doesn't care where your "home" province is, it just keeps track of what provinces you start out with.

-Max

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I was a bit surprised when I noticed Machaka's Warriors and Archers have three movement, along with the chief. Throwing in forest survival, and they are strategically faster than most nation's cavalry. Anyone ever use this to any advantage, or are they just too flimsy to use even in border raid hit and runs?

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Flimsy hardly describes it..... You can make effective raids against moderate PD I'm sure, but you'll take losses, losses that you'll only not mind TOO much cause the little buggers are cheap and fast to train. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Im currently playing with Machaka and can say that all their regular light infantry suck... really bad.

Hopalites are much better but pseudo-hopalites in the face of Acrosphale's Hopalites or Ermor's Triarii. Machaka Commanders and Hunter Lords are good thugs with some additional equipment while Bane Spiders are crazy good assasins/thugs. They can even lead others in battle. Spider Riders would have been feasible units to be recruited with a gold reduction and a short bow added.

Spider Knights are really the only cavalry that works early-mid game. End game you'll probably go with a combination of Black Hunters and Spider Knights for your cavalry needs. Their cheap mages and solid priests are alright substitutions for inferior light infantry. The old age diseases still piss me off though. Twiceborn solves the problem but I really don't want to go to enchantment lvl 4 just to save a bunch of decent mages.

My total review
Infantry-Lame
Cavalry-Decent
Priests-Good
Mages-Decent

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Double-Post

So one last addendum(sp?). PD is atrocious. Your better off spending the 200 gold on spider knights, which is only 4... and they die off pretty quick anyway.

Someone should make a replacement mod for them; at least to improve their units and lack of death sites at their capital.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I'm testing them now. I have played with them before, but not frequently. I like the Colossal Fetish, Machaka's unique pretender, so I took this:

Colossal Fetish (Body 1346, 120 hits)
Magic: Earth 6 Astral 4 Death 3 Nature 4
Dominion 4
Scales: Order 3 Sloth 3 Heat 3 Growth 3
Dormant

I know that my basic units either (a) suck or (b) are too expensive to be truly useful, but I also know that I have these things:

1: Hunter Lord: This little thug has a base protection of 20 without making gear, 14 hp, and 13/13 attack/defense which seems like a good thug chassis.

2: Bane Spider: Another thug chassis, but stealthy and has magic weapons to start. 14 hp, 18 protection, attack 13, but has awful defense skill, 9.

1: Black Sorcerer: 2f2ed +110 fedn. Fire/Earth mages are offensive battle mages. 1/4 can spam undead.

2: Sorcerer: fd2n + fedn. This would be our defensive battle mage casting nature buffs. Like the Black Sorcerer, 1/4 can spam undead.

Why I took these scales:

Order-3: I always take Order-3 unless I'm working with a nation that gets lots of free units or doesn't need money or that uses scales to attack (LA Ermor for example).

Sloth-3: I'm not planning on using the natives extensively except as cannon fodder.

Heat-3: 40 Extra points for pretender over my preferred heat scale and further boosts the power of my evocation magic.

Growth-3: Keeps my old mages alive longer. They have fire magic.

What I see immediately as far as research targets:

I have Earth, Nature, Fire, and Death magic and my units suck, so I want to get thugs and summoned units on the floor ASAP. I don't have any death gem income.

What is the obvious solution?

Construction-5: Mandragora and Manikin can be summoned by Sorcerers and I get level 4 magic items to equip my thugs.

Alteration-5: If I have stronger nature magic opposition to taking the Mother Oak, I can't go for it, so if I have Man, Pangaea or Oceania on the map, I am unlikely to be able to take it. If, however, none of these 3 nations are present, then I will have an even shot at taking the Oak, and Alteration-5 gives us Wooden/Iron Warriors as well.

Enchantment-3: Skelespam, Regeneration, Heal.

Evocation-3: Magma Bolts, Sleep cloud.

Those are the 4 immediate targets I can see, but I don't early evocation for Machaka. Which one should I start with? Let's see....

Alteration-5: If I have an even shot against the other nations (i.e. no nations with 3N or more basic income), I can take a pretender with Nature-5, to start, but in MP, taking the Oak that early is going to make me a target for destruction, and I will have nothing to protect myself other than Wooden/Iron warriors and my crappy units which I cannot produce because of the Sloth.

Construction-5: I get 5 different things to summon, 3 mass summons: Clockwork Horrors, Manikin, Mandragora, and two non-healing lifeless, mindless thugs: Wooden Construct and Crusher, all of which I am sure to be able to field depending on how my site searching goes. I also get Level 4 magic items to equip thugs. The non-heals are only useful defensively since I need to keep them in range of a lab preferably at the lab site, or begrudgingly within 1 turn-step.

Enchantment-3/Evocation-3: This one is an easy target and I won't have a problem hitting it, but I don't want to go for it first because it means taking my mages off of research to go into the field, but of these two, I tend to favor Enchantment-3 because of the big bonuses I get Regeneration and Heal in addition to my Skelespam for my recruit-anywhere Sorcerers which I much prefer to attack magic for my cap-only Black Sorcerers. Because I'm using thugs, short range, small aoe external buff spells have heightened usefulness.

So, I'm probably going to do this as my opening:

Construction-5
Alteration-3
Enchantment-3

Now I have well-buffed thugs which is what I'm going to need to survive, and I'll be able to equip my fetish well so that no one will be able to survive very long in my dominion under his 0-Enc SC feet.

My next target will be to get a thug chassis that I don't have to recruit--the Sleeper, or:

Conjuration-3

which also nets me Summon Earthpower and Phoenix Power which brings my Black Sorcerers into their element, so our next target can now be:

Evocation-6

Falling Fire, Magma Eruption, Bane Fire, Earthquake, Stream of Life, Poison Cloud, Blade Wind, etc... Evocation has now become useful, and now that I have Sleepers and Black Servants, there is no reason for me to hire any recruitable thugs, so it's Black Sorcerer every turn instead of just most turns. By this time I should have a modest death gem income at least unless I was very unlucky on my site searches.

Now I will start shifting my thugs from Hunter Lord/Bane Spider to Sleeper/Black Servant, and if no one else has taken it yet, I can push the Mother Oak with confidence in my defenses, otherwise, I'm going to try for Construction 7 to 9 and the Earth Blood Deep Well (Enchantment 7) and Forge of Ancients and the associated benefits of high construction (Mechanical Men which I can summon lots of and Golems that my pretender can make), and once I get 9, Iron Dragons should be easy to find with my 3E Black Sorcerers and Poison Golems with the 2D versions. If I have enough death gems, I can go for Spectre, Mound Fiend, and Wraith Lord chassis as an alternative (Conjuration 6/7), but Lichcraft and Ritual of Rebirth are in Enchantment, and since I'm in the business of making thugs, I should have at least a couple on the leader board.


Keep in mind that all of this is untested and theoretical.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Spider riders cost that much for a good reason.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I have seen Machaka PD commit mass suicide and rout before the enemy did deal a single point of damage.

The enemy thug was buffing up. Machaka PD rushes forwards to contact. The second wave of the PD rush forwards, chucks the javelins at the backs of the first wave. Machaka troops rout. The enemy thug was still buffing up when the PD had legged off from the field...

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Well, the "Kill rider, free spider" mantra works well, too.

When another nation spends 30 gold on a unit they get:

Arcoscephale: Chariot (40g) (trample)
Ermor: Shadow Vestal (35g) (ethereal)
Pythium: Emerald Guard (23g) 17 pro 13hp 13atk 15def
Marignon: Royal Guard (30g)
Mictlan: Jaguar Warrior (25g) magic weapon sacreds
TC: Imperial Horseman (32g)
C'Tis: Sacred Serpent (30g)
Vanheim: Skinshifter (25g)
Jotunheim: Most of Jotunheim's units are around 30g
Bandar Log: White One (23g) sacred
Shinuyama: Dai Bakemono (30g)
Eriu: Daoine Sidhe (35g)

Really?

30g and more expensive units eat upkeep quickly. However, the reason that I can take a Dormant SC pretender is that, for the short term, I can use the spider riders (which, as you say, are nice) for the early game until I can get my thug farm operational. As the game progresses, my spiders will become less and less viable since the upkeep will start to limit both their population and cramp my magical expansion. Since regular spider riders don't have a high resource cost, I can hire lots of them even with my Sloth scales.

Now if I wanted to do Hunters, even with Sloth-3 I can still hire about 4 of them per turn from my capitol once I've captured my neighbors.

I'm not hiring any of the high resource spider knights, though... they have a lot of attacks, sure, but I'd need production scales to get them and they cost more resources than the hunters and for just 1gp more upkeep (3.33 vs 4.16).

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

All the more reason to go for Mechanical Militia, another Construction benefit (not that I would necessarily go that route). Defense with many castles might be better, but unfortunately, Machaka is a Fortress/Fortified City nation so they don't get cheap castles like Man.

Machaka also gets the Eye of the lord, so I can boost tax revenues by patrolling by 10-20% (again as much Order-3 scales), and they're almost as good as the judges of LA Man, so money shouldn't be a problem. This also has the added benefit of making it very difficult to spy on me... Something I very much like. 10 PD and an Eye and you've got a nice counter-intelligence operation in every province worth gold farming. Putting a few spider riders, free spiders, or even just some indie heavy infantry would shore up the defenses.


Which actually brings up a point that I missed....

Machaka is a patroller nation which means that it should have massive tax revenues. This means that I can hire lots of high-gold units which means that Spider Riders (still not Knights) are viable basic forces and I can still take Sloth-3. I still think that Machaka will need to use Fortresses for primary defense without a mod to their PD.

If PD was modded to be primarily hoplites and spiders, they would be more viable.

The problem with a castling strategy is that since I actually like my recruitable sacred, unlike LA Man, I can't castle every square surrounding my capitol without harming my Hunter production.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Ah, spiders without the rider have no upkeep. Spam the everloving daylights out of them.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Ok, I just ran two tests, and the spider's riders die very, very easily leaving a much better and no upkeep spider behind afterward, so what you end up with is a bunch of upkeep free spiders and a whole crapload of money to keep hiring them so there is no upkeep curve on spiders as long as you keep them on the offensive. Obviously, though, if you try to save them up it won't do you very much good.

I did find a use for Machaka's infantry, too... It's hard to breach castles with a spider horde, so I hired a ton of the cheap *** infantry and had them sit in the back. That way, when I get to a fortress, I can breach it quickly.

Machaka makes formidable thugs as well having access to Charcoal shields, fire brands, regeneration and rejuvenation items. Only thing they're missing is Boots of Quickness which isn't too difficult to manage and of course items to enter the water. Both tests I got their 2S1N ape commander on hero draw as well giving me access to astral items without using my pretender. Random, I know, but still.

The Colossal Fetish is an excellent pretender chassis as well. I was thinking giving him 2 Air would provide access to both Air magic's lovely Alteration spells and a method to enter the water. However, I wasn't sure what I'd exchange for it because the 6E4N is for blessing the Hunter spiders (and the Bane Spider prophet thug that I tested and was still unsure of). I suppose sacrificing the 3D for 3A would be ok since we can get that on our regular mages and it doesn't affect the bless while making the pretender a significantly stronger SC. His immunity to most astral and death magic is pretty cool, too, btw.

That makes my next pretender:


Colossal Fetish (Body 1346, 120 hits)
Magic: Air 3 Earth 6 Astral 4 Nature 4
Dominion 4
Scales: Order 3 Sloth 3 Heat 3 Growth 3
Dormant

This also means that he'll be able to make Elemental Staves which are of great use to a F/E race.

The Sloth scales did not significantly impact the amount of Spider Riders I could hire, of course, that being limited by my gold supply which allowed for a very high spider production rate. You just have to keep putting them into the mill... Placing the "new" spiders in front of the free ones (despite the fact that they have bows) works nicely, besides, you need Machaka archers to siege castles anyway...

As for castles...

The best spots for castles in Machaka is on a Hill as the Hill Fortress is only 800 gold and you usually get pretty good production as well. The increase cost of the 1000 Fortresses that pop up frequently was insignificant. I was usually able to plop down a castle every couple turns.

Lots of forts, money, free spiders, and good thugs...

Nah, Machaka didn't get screwed...

One weird problem did occur, though. I wasn't really able to use the Colossal Fetish as an SC because he kept getting surrounded by the massive swarm of spiders (I didn't want to send him off on his own for some reason). He ended up being just a buffer--Legions of Steel and Earth Might. It probably would have been more productive to separate him into another group. I sent a little group of Mandragora with him as body guards. He can only lead 10 normal units, but he has a lot of Magical leadership.

I'm also sticking by my opening research paths. They worked out quite well.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I'll also add that, IMO, the critical paths for any pretender build for Machaka are:

Air
Astral

Machaka doesn't have either path available from a recruitable unit.

You need Astral to get certain protective items most notably Pendant of Luck and Amulet of Anti-magic. It also gives access to the rings of power which, I must admit, I hate trying to play without.

On CBM, Tomes of Water Breathing are path 1N, so that gives Machaka access to the water. Spiders are big, though, and that makes tomes less palatable than Barrels which, are the most gem-efficient water travel items available. Air Magic is not as useful in attacking underwater, but on an SC pretender, gives access to better buff spells. Obviously, a rainbow pretender will probably have both. Adding the ability for the pretender to forge the Staff of Elemental Mastery to further boost the Black Sorcerer's paths (since they don't do Communions) and, secondarily, the Staff of Storms is probably more useful than any benefit conveyed by water magic on the pretender.

Oh! The Black Sorcerer is the perfect caster for Earthquake as well since his transformation allows him to survive it quite nicely. ^_^

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I think you are missing a few tricks with machaka. I'm doing it by heart so I may be wrong. Somewhere or other I did a test of what happens when the sorcs change shape. Find my previous tests - but so long as a caster is berserk * (yes, you WANT a berserk caster) or have elixirs of life etc. you have a buffed and angry spider.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I'm not sure what you mean by that. What's the advantage?

If you buff the sorcerer send him berserk and "kill" him, sure, you'll have a berserk buffed spider. If you just buff him, have him attack and "kill" him, you'll have an attacking spider. Is berserk such a huge advantage here? Are you just trying to avoid a solo wounded sorcerer routing due to 75% rule or am I missing something?

I'd also be worried about fatigue on the minimally equipped spiders. Berserk adds fatigue and, in CBM, the spells use gems and thus much fatigue.

How does elixir of life interact with the second form?

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

It removes all the fatigue, and, iirc it ends the berserk.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

That's a 6 gem per battle thug and it means that the Black Sorcerer can't have any items in slots other than the 2 Misc slots. Is there really that much advantage over just buffing a hunter spider?

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Even without the elixir, berserk means the spider will not route upon transformation.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

I have discovered what I think is probably a bug with the Colossal Fetish. If the fetish is in an army when it routs, it dies instantly kinda like a regular mindless unit.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Well, I happen to agree it is not the kind of behaviour I'd like to see in a pretender.

But its well known behaviour. Still if you send it in to illwinter, maybe they'll fix it.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

Here would be a similar pretender based on the Titan chassis that works strangely well in this build. He gets a good boost to air magic over the fetish but isn't quite as capable an SC.

Titan (Body 602, 90 hits)
Magic: Air 5 Earth 6 Astral 4 Nature 4
Dominion 4
Scales: Order 3 Sloth 3 Heat 3 Growth 3
Dormant

Still... I like him. Not as thematic though which is why I took the fetish initially. The Air-5 is a welcome addition both for battle magic and interesting rituals.

I suppose the Lords of the Desert Sun and Summer Plague would be thematic, but their basic magic paths aren't as useful as the Titan.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

There are a few other ways to handle the problem with the fetish.

Berserker pelt works pretty well.

I dont know if you read my take on machaka ver, but I like giving berserker pelt, and trample boots to the fetish.

Re: Machaka screwed more than ever ?
 

an SC with S4 is just asking for magic duels. even lowly S1/S2 mages will often times get through thanks to the RNG. astral is important alright, but Lizard Shamans, Onyx Sorceresses, etc aren't too uncommon, and there are the more uncommon ones in Loremasters, Enchantresses, Metallic Orders, etc. so finding astral mages shouldn't be too much of a hustle. than just empower said mages in whatever magic combination you need, assuming they don't already come with it, and you can remove the astral component from your pretender to make him much more reliable while SCing.