Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

legowarrior, then why not getting a rainbow pretender instead? You`ll get better magic diversity with roughly the same combat effectiveness.
What exact bless are we talking about? Becayuse counters against E9 wardens are available earlier.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Technically, since each crone is independent of the crone before her, your chance at any one time of getting A4 is always going to be 1.5%. On the other hand, using binomial distribution of getting at least 1 a4 in the first 25 turns is 31%, which is still pretty low.

But again, I'm just curious if you can base a strategy around wardens, since they can be hired everywhere now (which I'm not a huge fan, but it does buff Man).

So, the point is, as man you need to break into A4 right? You can try to get a Crone with A4, you can have have A4 on your pretender, you can try for S4 to get the rings, or you can get either A4/E4 or F4/W4 for the staff. Does that sum it up?

Which bless would work best with Man is a secondary question to this. If we can find a Bless that will get us the Air Booster we desire, wouldn't we be one step closer to an effective bless strategy for man? Than we have to find a Chassis that will do that for us.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Yes, that is how I calculated it.

I do rather like F4W4 myself, as a part of a general minor bless. You can take a sleeping Archdruid with F4W4E4N4 with a bonus D2 and A2 for dom6 and plus 2 scales.

Wardens are kind of hard to heavy bless for. The only thing obvious is E9 for neutral fatigue and super heavy armor. None of the others are obviously beneficial, since they are very tough for a human, but not nearly as tough as giants, pretty high encumbrance, and very hard hitting with only a single attack.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Is it possible for you to make any statement at all without misrepresenting me. Limited support means you deploy battle magic when you need to, but you shouldn't need much.

As for what bless is best, that depends a lot on how you intend to play, the best 2 for them, in my opinion, would be W9 or D9, they both have pros and cons, but that's the case with all bless strategies.

And I think your vastly overestimating the effectiveness of mistform and etherial against a base of 23 damage and 17 protection, can it work, sure, but it has to be on something pretty damn tough to begin with.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

This is slightly off topic, but frankly spending points on your pretender for A4 just for boosters is worse than just empowering a crone. In game reality is that unless your doing poorly, you will easily have the income to afford it.

Taking S4-S6, and making it a priority to take over a lizzie province, is a different story, and gives you a far more usefull expenditure of pretender points; it is worth considering.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Well, if Thunder and Lightning are your main spells, Shock Resistance MAY be worth it. I like Air 4 gives me the Staff of storms, and the flying ship. Still, a Fire/Water bless will also help you boost your crones to 4.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

BTW, fire/water also works for Cu Sidhe.
Mother if Rivers is dirt cheap, but I`ve tried it, and, frankly speaking, wasn`t really impressed with W9 wardens. Their base defence is not that high, and fatigue can be a problem. OTOH, it also works for Cu Sidhe...
BUT WHY?
Only if you have a gem factory stached somewhere. Or play with like 70 sites. You can never have enough air gems when you play as Man.
In fact, N4 is very nice with super-heavy armor, since when you get hit through it, it`s usually only a couple poibnts of damage, unless you are getting hit by a giant.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Haven't tested it myself, but I've read that the A bless shock resistance does not stack with spells, which makes it pretty useless for anything.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

I've tested it and it does stack.

I've enjoyed playing man with a W9N4 bless.

The fatigue is actually rarely an issue. The wardens simply kill things fast enough that they never rack any significant amounts up, and there's always a nice leap frog effect where the guys behind jump in front of those who were on the lines. And once you get in really big battles you always have relief up. An N3 daughter with a mace can cast it and you should have those coming out of your ears.

True they don't have super high base defense, but they rack up stars like crazy. Once they have a couple you're talking about a defense of 17 which makes them very hard to hit, and the little bit of regen makes them very hard to kill. I went with an imprisoned lady of springs, O3C3G3Mis1M1.

Empowering a crone to A4 is really not that much of an issue. True Air gems are very valuable, but as Nightfall has pointed out, an Air booster already costs 25 gems. Just view the empowerment as a double priced booster that you cant switch to a different mage and it seems a lot more reasonable.

You basically have 3 options for guaranteed A4 as man:
1. Empowerment
2. A4 on pretender
3. S4 on pretender

As someone else has correctly pointed out, 1 and 3 are really the only viable options. Taking A4 on a pretender for a nation that otherwise has no use for it is a whole lot more expensive than 60 Air gems (really only 35 if you view it as just forging an extra booster to get another crone to A4).

This build expands FAST. A lord warden and 5 wardens can take pretty much any indi, including barbarians and knights, with minimal loses.

The biggest problem is obviously the lack of magic diversity, and you are hurting in this regard. The key however is to just expand fast, win early wars with your wardens and keep expanding. Man is not a late game powerhouse, trying to cram a little death onto your pretender is not going to make them a late game powerhouse. I say its better to leverage your strength as an early game powerhouse and roll with it. Expand fast and try to find some good indy mages to cover you for diversity. True its a gamble, but even with the buffed wardens man is not a nation you win with without gambling.

And nature is actually not that bad especially when combined with air. One obvious option is false horror and panic spam in conjunction with a few raiding bands of wardens. Or just panic spam in conjunction with kithriotic lion spam (they now have fear, and have been buffed along with the other animals) and are conveniently size four to go along with your size 2 wardens. Air also gives you confusion very early which when spammed by your A2 mothers can create some fun results.

You also have all the big buffs at the end. Fog warriors + relief + mass regeneration + blessing of gaia + a couple weapons of sharpness from the E mothers with boots you've scraped together or foul vapors + serpents blessing + everything else.