Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

Yeah, or Shrouds of the battle Saint for their Scouts if you are doing a triple-bless *hint* *hint* and other stuff. Boom.

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

Yes, skratti and sacred jotun leaders are very thuggable. The skratti have quickness and breath of winter(and werewolf form) and the sacred leaders are already good commanders and warriors without a bless.

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

EA Ulm is particularly tasty at producing items on the cheap. Cheap mages with forge bonus + dwarven hammers. In my last game I got a construction magic site on top of that! While none of their units stand out as ‘thugable” they are well placed to summon and create well equipped thugs. On a large map, they could get the gem income and spend it cheaply to have multiple good thugs.

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

In Dom1, a Jotun Jarl made an excellent Thug. I haven't played the giants in Dom3 yet, but I don't think they've changed so much as to render the Jarls non-thuggable.

Lamia Queens aren't exactly Thugs, but a few of them with some decent equipment (especially Spell Focus & Ring of Sorcery) can be very good at slaughtering hordes of chaff with nasty evocations. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out how to equip them on the cheap.

Water bless. Lots of Nature and Death gems. Only Const 4 so far.
Horror Helm is obvious. Vine Shield, probably. Not sure what's best for the other slots. There isn't a lot of good armor I can make.

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

Lucky coin/pendant, horror helm, maybe ring of regen. Snake bladder stick is great for chaff killing.

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

True on that Snake bladder thing. Here's a fun setup with almost pure nature gem usage for the Bandars:

Siddha with 4x Snake bladder stick, Starshine Skullcap, Hydra Skin armor, Birch Boots, Amulet of Resilience
Script to Personal luck, Resist Magic, Body Ethereal, Mistform, Astral Shield (maybe replace with Blessing in case you're using a bless), attack rearmost

Battle reports are fun to watch. His mapmove 10 and flying plus the ability to Cloud Trapeze AND Teleport make him an awesome raider. You could drop the Birch boots, if you want. Maybe replace the Birch boots and Amulet of Resilience with Boots of the Messenger and some other misc item, experiment a bit. Weaknesses: Undeads, mass archers.

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

Replace birch boots with boots of quickness http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

Doesn't need them in case of thejeff's water bless, unless what I heard from somewhere is true: that the Quickness from blessing stacks with the Quickness from spells/items. I don't believe it, would need to try it out. Quickness is cool, true.

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

Oh its true, it stacks, you can have bless quickness, spell quickness and hall of fame quickness I believe. Triple quickness! Not got this yet personally.

Quickness
 

Awesomeness.

Re: Quickness
 

The bles quickness gives +50% ap, the spell quickness gives +3 attack/defence and lets you act twice per round(not spell casting). 8 Guarenteed snake bladder attacks per round+possible extras from the bless.

Re: Quickness
 

I've gotten the 3 quickness combination before, occasionally with a Niefel weilding an arena trident.
12 attacks per round is fun-fun-fun.
Could have even gotten 24 if I'd traded the trident up for 2 swords of swiftness and a ring of the warrior. That's about 720 points of magical damage per round, plus breath-of-winter, for the win.

Re: Quickness
 

Im having fun with EA Pangea. I am using a E9,N9 gorgon.
Minotaur lords with Shrouds of the battle saint makes these into great thugs.

My favorite is Mino Lord with Shroud of battle saint,The Blood Axe that gives a chest wound and beserking (forgot the name of it) Tanglevine shield, Horned helm,boots of the messenger, pendant of luck, bracer of protection (with the earth 9 bless gets 4 more armor) I like the huge beserk bonus they get. After they go beserk they end up with a stupidly high Armor, something like 28.

But really, even just a Mino lord with a Shroud, Horned Helm (need this for the AF modifier) and a Bracer of protection (AF modifier)makes a great thug. Beserk, regenerating, high AF (25+), High hits, low encumberance, fatigue regeneration, and the ability to heal afflictions. All for 15 gems and a cheap gold cost.

Re: Quickness
 

I love pangaea and the gorgon is a great bless pretender for them. If you like that strategy try LA Pangaea, they get sacred minotaur commanders with armour(you can replace it or leave it on but they dont need the shroud) and aswell as the sacred black centaurs they get dyrad hoplites(15 prot, 13 health, awe) who work great with that bless and dont get too much fatigue(7 enc with 4 reinvig).

Another way to play LA Pangaea is an uber bless, completely trash your scales and take a W9E9N9 Gorgon. Your pretender makes a terrifyingly powerful SC when she breaks free(18 prot and 19 defence from the bless+great regen from personal regen) and until then unstoppable minotaur thugs and powerful sacreds can keep you safe.

Re: Quickness
 

To Rytek + Sheovah32:-

Good Pangaea thugs, thanks for those, I like Pangaea but have been seriously struggling with them in the early game, first 20 turns. Those ideas of yours should help me out.

I foolishly rejected the gorgon as it looked too weak... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: Quickness
 

It has ****ing built in petrification! If you fail your mr check when attacking it you die. E9N4 or E9N9 are great pangaean blesses(both for commanders and troops) and the gorgon just makes it that much sweeter(good stats, 18 prot and good regen from casting personal regen/strength of gaia). Try to get some of the good earth/nature globals up asap and for expanding just crank out white centaurs(maybe with a meatshield of satyrs)

Re: Quickness
 

Yes I know, it was the low hps that put me off, I think.

Re: Quickness
 

I prefer EA Pangea over LA Pangea for this strategy for a number of reasons. Blood magic has the heartfinder axe which adds to the beserk bonus and it also has the heart that makes assasins out of your stealthy Pans. Sloth 3 is a no brainer because White centaurs are so cheap resource wise compared to black centaurs and the white centaurs are just as effective vs independents for early expansion.

Also, the thing that makes the above mino thug so great is they are self sufficient. They dont need another along to bless them. That and they have very little encumberance. Finally, not being sacred is great because you are not slowed down by needing a temple to recruit them at a castle.

The one drawback (and it is a big one) you cant get this going until you get some astral mages. I was lucky in my game I started next to a lizard province which is fairly common in early age (another bonus of ea pan over la pan)

By mid game with dwarven hammers built it is easy to pump out 3 minotaur thugs every turn. Recruit 5 regular minotaurs to guard. 1 turn to consolitate. Put the 3 thugs in the front with attack orders. the 15 bodyguards in the middle with guard orders.

MA Ulm help
 

I normally just play singleplayer, so Im not very good at most MP tactics, like thugging, raiding, SCing, etc. However, I gave it a try as MA Ulm, thinking it would be a nice change of pace. I normally play with indys set to 9, so, they had a little bit of trouble, but they did good raiding the enemies lands. This is what I used
Black Servant(Summoned by pretender)
Firebrand
Charcoal Shield
Black Steel Full Plate (Should I go elemental armor instead?)
Black Steel Helmet
Boots of Giant Strength
Medallion of Vengeance
Girdle of Might
What changes should I make to this? What are some other effective Ulm Thug strats?

Re: MA Ulm help
 

Black Servants have life drain right? I'd drop Firebrand and stick with the native life drain.

Luck Amulet instead of the Medallion. Horror Helm if you can.

Re: MA Ulm help
 

Correct me if im wrong but black servants still have only 13 MR correct? Not a particularly good idea to invest alot in a low health, low mr undead unit.

Re: Quickness
 

nitpick: black and white centaurs are *identical*. And both cost 12 res. LA lacks the sweet non-sacred 12-resource centaur warriors though.

Ydirbut - an amulet of antimagic is nice if facing priests or astral nations.

Re: Quickness
 

Amulet of antimagic is nice, period, when building any kind of thug, sc, etc. just for the fact that so many deadly abilities-petrification, charm, etc. are blocked by high MR.

If you've got a unit under 15 MR minimum, you shouldn't build it (give it items, make it a prophet, empower it, etc.) without including atleast 1 MR boosting item.
Personally, I like my SCs to have over 20.

Re: Quickness
 

22 Seems a fairly good number. Its certainly not unstoppable(as my batteries of magic monkeys casting soul slay will tell you) but it makes you resistant to most basic mages and pretty much makes sure you wont get blasted to death when raiding(unless they are prepared for 22 MR they probably wont have anything on hand straight away to deal with it).
It is annoying, however, when one of your SCs with 22 MR, full resistances, regen, huge reinvigoration and various other buffs goes against a single B3F1(or W1) caster and dies at the cost of 2 blood slaves.

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

forgive my noobness but how does this guy cast charm? It takes nature 3 right?

Re: Thuggity Thug [efficient thug builds]
 

It's the helmet. The guy is wearing the artifact Crown of Overmight or somesuch, which allows you to cast the charm spell.