Re: Owl Quills
 

Thanks to there being three lucky items, Luck is one of the easiest abilities to move around. Faithful, Lucky Coin and Pendant of Luck are almost always interchangeable to suit your needs.

Re: Owl Quills
 

It's true, in almost all cases the Hydra armor is greatly superior. However, of nature amours green dragon skin at least has the distinction of having significantly higher protection than other armors, even if in 99% of cases it amounts to little. So in the end I guess we arguing the rather theoretical concept of levels of uselessness. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

On the crystal shield, yes I suppose in rare spellcasting situations it has a niche, especially since it got a good sized discount from dom 2 to dom3.

Re: Owl Quills
 

crystal shield is really effective with undead caster, because no encombrance at all

Re: Owl Quills
 

Sorry, that's not the case. Undead (and other Enc 0) casters take extra fatigue from casting spells with armour on.

Click on the Encumbrance stat, the popup will say something like:

Basic Encumbrance: 0
Melee Encumbrance: 0
Spell Casting Encumbrance: 7

Re: Equipment: which to use and what to avoid?
 

Star of Heroes is not so bad (at least when playing MA Ulm).

Pros
* +4 attack (against shields +6)
* Destroys all armor except magical)
* Quite good damage (12 + strength)
* One handed and not so long (2) for ambidextrous use
* Cheap 5E (even cheaper for master smiths)

Cons
* -2 defense. But this is not really a con when playing MA Ulm as your defense is abysmal anyway. Just go offense and more armor.

Re: Equipment: which to use and what to avoid?
 

Ooh, I just tried Star of Heroes - yeah, it's not too bad. Two attacks as well! I gave some Black Knights two Stars each, nd they ended up with 4 attack-14 damage-26 attacks, which I think isn't bad for 6 gems (or 4 with hammers, I think).

Re: Equipment: which to use and what to avoid?
 

Just to point one thing out again that is easily forgotten: Maces/Morningstars/Flails/Whips (magical and non magical) gives +2 EXTRA attack against ALL shields. This is not seen when you click on "attack".

Thus the flail gets 2 attacks (+1) + -2 defense on the target in the second attack + if shielded +2 on all attacks.

Example:
Unit A attacks unit B

Unit A
Base 10 attack
With flail 11

Unit B
Base 10
With shield 14

Unit A
First attack
Attacks 11 + 2 against shield = 13
Defense 14
13 against 14

Second attack
Attacks 11 + 2 against shield = 13
Defense 14 - 2 for second attack = 12
14 against 12

Flails damage is only +3 though. So don't try them against heavy infantry with shields. Instead use morningstars +6 damage. Against heavy infantry without shields use battle axes or mauls depending on defense.
But you can clearly see flail guys rock against light infantry.

All weapons in the game have their niche I believe. MA Ulm's infantry pretty much covers them all. My tip is to recruit units with the weapons able to most easily deal with the defense you expect to be up against. If possible that is.

Re: Equipment: which to use and what to avoid?
 

This still does not really stack up even against weapons of sharpness. The destroy armor effect is fun, but anything you are paying to equip should have enough punch to kill most things with non-magical armor in one hit.
Armor piercing is just much more useful against tough opponents than destroying non magical armor and the anti-shield effect, while in most cases the attack bonus is easily canceled by the defense hit. Another good weapon to compare it to is the fire sword, again a trinket, with very similar stats but much easier on the defense.

As for every weapon having a niche, I invite you to compare battle axes and mauls, or short bows and longbows. Unless by niche you simply mean you are often don't have the full selection of weapons available. Or for forgable weapons, take a look at the vine whip, even the star of heroes looks good next to it. I actually agree flails and morning stars have a niche (on troops), but I think such generalizations are just aren't realistic.

Re: Equipment: which to use and what to avoid?
 

Yes, I agree Quantum, some weapons are worse than others in every way except one - in cost. In some cases cost is a factor, in others not so much. That is what I mean with niche as well. Now and then you don't need that extra damage or that extra attack, you will be better of with more troops or more weapons instead. Quantity over quality if you will.
But that isn't black or white, quality will conquer quantity with hardly any loses at some levels. So few loses will it take that it would have been better to go with quality. The key word is of course efficiency, but that is relative to a number of things.

As always it is good to come up with an example:
What do you prefer:
4 Black lords kitted with low class magic items.?
Or
1 Black lord kitted with high class items?

The answer is of course: "it depends". Maybe you could take 4 provinces at once with the low class BL, and only one with the one BL. But maybe the four low class BL can't take one thug? What do you prefer? With those extra provinces you might find gems faster to kit out an even better BL.
So you looking at the whole picture and from there drawing good conclusion (not the best because it is almost impossible to predict exactly how humans will react to your decisions) on how to act seems like a good way to play. Trying to approximate what is the perfect move.

Re: Equipment: which to use and what to avoid?
 

Well, the advantage of the Star of Heroes over the Fire Sword is you get two attacks!