Re: Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)
 

I used to believe that gems were limited to one for fatigue reduction purposes. Squirrel provided a turn that proved that wasnt' so.

He also had an F4 oracle burning 6 gems (1 the spell, 2 for fatigue). the same turn documented another case of the same thing.
Others have shown shark attack to do the same thing.

So I don't believe this is correct. However, without testing it.. who knows.
Still, 5-6 Leo's blowing up 1-2 times would be enough to take out many medium armies.

Re: Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)
 

Wait, I knew there was some debate about burning extra gems to reduce fatigue, but I thought it was pretty solid that a mage couldn't use more gems for anything than he had levels in the path?

Re: Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)
 

And if you are offering to burn gems and add a reinvigoration-heart - why not add heart, gem, then script, say, Phoenix Power-attack-Immolate-Immolate-Immolate?

Re: Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)
 

Sure, or give him a medallion of vengeance on top....

immolate is a great spell - but it requires surviving to use, and if you are attacking naked, its quite likely that you will not be surviving to cast it.

whereas phoenix does not have that requirement.

Re: Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)
 

Tested in SP, they survived in close combat for some time. As I said, thei have above-average stats & are armored...

Re: Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)
 

In a game as LA Pythium I wanted to get rid of a Leo for whome I found no use (and the bastard was killing my dominion in the border areas), I put him at front with the troopers (slightly aside of them) in an army which was attacking an AI controlled nation. Scripted IIRC Fire Shield, Fireflies, Burning Hands x 3, Attack rear.

When I was viewing the battlereport, to my suprise he had dutifully burned quite a few enemies (those Leo's apparently can take a beating with just their standard equipment), but was killed when, after he had charged forwards and passed out, got surrounded and killed.

Didn't think of it more then except as a quirk, but now that it was mentioned, maybe a few Leos at front would indeed be nice flamethrowers together with for example fire drakes or some such?

Hmmm... have to test this out at some point :)

Re: Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)
 

As I said in my pythium guide... I'm quite fond of both of the fire throwers.

Re: Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)
 

I think you have the right idea using the leos to cast burning hands. The fire shield seems to me to be pointless, because with all that fatigue the second they touch melee they die horribly.

Re: Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)
 

probably very much like shockwave, the question is how do you position and script for maximum efficiency.

Re: Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)
 

It actually works, when there is somebody to catch the arrows, at least against indies. Tried with three Leo's soloing a weak indy province, got trashed. Took two Leo's, added in the 15 Comitatense from the starting army, and no indy province (at Indy strength 5) seems to be able to stand against them.

Against Cavalry I start way back, slightly right from center, with the comitanense with Hold and Attack closest, the Leo's starting on both flanks and slightly more to left. Leo's are scripted Hold,Hold,Attack,Burning Hands x2 (and nothing after that). Works wonderfully.

Against everything else the Comitanense is scripted Attack Closest, starting as far right as they can. The Leo's start slightly to left on each flank, with Attack, Attack, Attack, Burning Hands, Burning Hands (and nothing after that). Even Barbarians are burned and routed fast.

I attacked 8 indy provinces with that army, lost one Comitanense (against a province with knights and crossbowmen) in the process. In practically all the fights the Leos were also hit (the other one lost an eye somewhere along the road), but they seem to be quite tough indeed. I am frankly quite amazed at how efficient killing machines they turned out to be.

Then again, just a test vs indy provinces with easy research and an awake Great Sage pretender, so Burning Hands was available on Turn 2. So can hardly be extrapolated that far, but still, under right circumstances the Leo's certainly could be used as front line damage dealers.