Re: use of bane lords
 

OK, here was my use for a bane lord.

Equipped with:
Woundflame
Lead Shield
Ivy King crown
Sandals of the Crane
Luck amulet
amulet of resilience or barkskin

Champion's Skull while waiting to buff up attack, etc.
Watched one battle go on insanely long while an enemy army of 600+ tried to chase my bane around the battlefield while the Plague slowly whittled them down to nothing.

Also tried giving a bane a robe of shadows or bone armor, but the bane's natural armor gives prot 20, so it almost seemed to be worse than no armor.

Downside: it seems pretty hard for Woundflame to actually start the plague process.

Re: use of bane lords
 

Just so happens that I was playing around with woundflame last night...gave it to a water queen and her recuperation/regeneration stayed solidly ahead of the disease (she stayed diseased but always had full hp and I only ever saw one affliction that went away after one turn). Anyway, seems like the plague infection is based on a MR check, so to get it started you need to hit the unit, not kill them, AND have them fail a MR check. The cool thing though is once it is started, it seems to spread fairly rapidly even in high MR units, I'm guessing maybe they have to make a MR check for each plagued unit next to them so they're quickly making half a dozen checks a round. Quickness is a good thing to get, obviously it doubles your chances of starting a plague each round.

One interesting side note, the plague not only causes 1 hp/round of damage, it also causes a mild amount of fatigue damage each round. Pretty annoying when my 0 encumbrance water queen went up against a large group of skin shifters and everybody ended up just taking a nap while their regen stayed ahead of the plague...:/

Re: use of bane lords
 

Yeah, the problem with Woundflame is that it usually kills anything it hits, so there's no one to spread the plague. It's worth trying against heavily protected units (Ulm, LA Man) or big units (Niefelheim, Lobo guards/shamblers) but for smaller armies it may be better to just cast plague with a D4 caster.

-Max

Edit: that is, smaller in terms of individual unit hit points. Plague works wonders against large armies. Here's two necromancers and some meat shields against 1000 R'lyeh chaff in a SP game: http://students.cs.byu.edu/~mdw45/plague.jpg. That's far better than I would have expected from any map killer. You still have to survive long enough for the Plague to take effect, but combined with Army of Lead it's great. Of course there's still the matter of "friendly fire" plague casualties. You can either kamikaze your units, use undead units (which are immune to plague), or get a small amount of regen through a Nature bless or Mass Regeneration spell.

Re: use of bane lords
 

Or to use a shadowbrand which, with quickness, completely decimates enemies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: use of bane lords
 

Or just use a defensive SC (such as a wraithlord with gleamingshield, fearhelm/mrhat, elementarmor, stonefeet, and stuff like that)

Re: use of bane lords
 

I didn't read the whole thread, so excuse me if I am repeating this;

What is better, a bane lord, or a Shura (ghost general) from Yomi?

The Shura is basically the same thing, but half the size/hp, a few less protection and a few less strength. It is less gems and it gains fear, etherealness and 3 defense though. I want a reliable thug, not really a SC, so I am not going to outfit these guys with much. Which is the biggest bang for the buck? (factoring in survivability) Is hp and prot more important than defense and etherealness?

Re: use of bane lords
 

Less strength is good if you're using Woundflame.

-Max

Re: use of bane lords
 

Here's an alternate strategy then.
Beef up a bane lord with the sandals of the crane again, but instead give him a wraith sword or similar (for added HP). Perhaps a holy weapon (if you are up against a lot of undead who won't be affected by the plague), or the default bane sword (if you are up against regenerators). The point is not to give him power to damage, but just constantly heal and bounce around the battlefield.

THEN have another mage cast plague, maybe twice. That way, the purpose of the bane lord is to just make sure the battle lasts long enough for the plague to do its job, and it doesn't matter if the necromancer lives or not.