Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

A little birdie told me to say "MA Ermor."

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

MA Mictlan is still very much a top tier bless nation, vastly better than Man in every way. Honestly, Jags in the cap and eagles out is better than the other way around, since eagles are best mid and late game, and you still have all the jags you want early. It takes a bit more work for MA Mictlan to get to all those lovely sacred blood summons, but the nature jaguar summons are still quite a bit more decent than Cu Sidhe.

Vanheim and CBM Bandar Log are easily better bless nations than CBM Man. Sure, Ashdod no longer has good sacred troops, but their sacred commanders are still worth a high bless, same for Eriu.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

True. So the other bless nations might be:

Mictlan (while good is not EA or LA mictlan)
Bandar Log
Vanhiem
Ashdod
Eriu (commanders only)

Am I missing any? So is Man a better bless nation than these guys? None are as limited magically as Man so they don't have that handicap. I think it may be somewhat questionable to claim that man is a "better" bless nation than these guys.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

You are just plain wrong; CBM 1.92 wardens are better than jags and eagles in EVERY way.

They are harder to counter, have better attack and defence, better morale, better magic resistance, suffer less attrition and do more damage.

Mictlan may have wider path access, but it's even harder to get them up to usefull levels and blood with MA Mictlan without rods only works if your opponents are asleep or if you build a pretender to get you into blood; which means no bless.

Vans and Tiger Riders may seem to be comparable bless chassis to wardens, until you realise that your going to have at least twice as many wardens to work with.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Oh for God's sake, again, bless nations need a good sacred, but that's not all they need. Mictlan has low resource needs, free points from temp preference, wide magical diversity allowing for an imprisoned pretender at little cost, and recruitable flying H3s. In addition, it has tons of sacred summons that benefit from exactly the same blesses as its recruitables, and which can take over in the late game.

Bandar Log has as many problems as Man blessing its sacreds, but again, low resource requirements, and free points from temp. Its magical diversity isn't the greatest, but what it has is far more useful, with communions and mind hunt. And like Mictlan, it too has tons of sacred summons for the end game should it manage to bootstrap into blood.

Vanheim has sacred thuggable commanders for when its sacred troops stop being the greatest. Ashdod and Eriu don't actually have good sacred troops, but their commanders are thuggable very early with a good bless.

And wardens are harder to counter? How do you think sacreds are countered? Evocations murder wardens as well as it does anything else. Jags and Eagles on the other hand, are harder to deal with using evocations since the former has 2 lives and the latter has flight. The other nations listed all have thugs/SCs/high hp summons to lean on once evocations make human hp sacreds obsolescent. What does Man have?

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

It's worth noting that of those only Vanheim has definitively better access to magic; with both wider and higher paths than Man.

Only Ashdod has both astral and death...

Only Vanheim has usable blood...

So, I'd say of those the only nations with significantly better natural spell access are Ashdod and Vanheim.

The others all have their own diversity or scaling issues with magic.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

The slight points advantage doesn't even make up for the inferior choice of pretender chassis.

And you don't need flying H3's to run bless strategies, it just makes things a little easier if your lazy.

Those Couatl's that your relying on to bless by the way can and will be taken out by a decent player. Possibly before they get divine blessing off; you should be using priest kings.

Getting much mileage out of the Mictlan, Ashdod or Bandar Log summons without an awake blood pretender or clams in CBM is a pipe dream; your not going to get them in numbers or early enough.

Vanheim and Eriu thugs scale into mid game a bit better, at the cost of gems, but the wardens catch back up when battlefield enchantments come in.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Against Mictlan? Indy slingers will do the job.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Why do you say that coutal's are easier to take out than priest kings? Large size? But you can summon jade serpents (good hitpoints, so well suited to this purpose) or monster toads as decoys. Magic being? Opposition and Control are only range 20, and the coutals are hanging out in the back dropping buffs and evocations. Other than that, I don't see why they would be more vulnerable than priest kings.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Since when did glamour, mistform and air shield start costing gems? BTW, Sidhe Lord with barkskin tops Lord Warden in protection.
What enchantments? Arrow Fend, Fog Warriors and Growing Fury? Of all those only Fog Warriors is universally useful. You can`t have Army of Lead without either empowering+forging+summoning with E1 crone for 90 E gems total, or being lucky with super-rare E2 Crone AND still spending 60 E gems for forging+summoning. Add 50 E for every Weapons of Sharpness caster.