Question about Horrors
 

Can someone help me out?

I have had some success with Send Horrors, but have seen some conflicting results of horrors on the battlefield with me present. I have seen horrors attack my army as well. Does this happen all the time? I know false horrors never hurt me, but what about real ones? Are the targets of a horror random, or does it just keep on attacking until nothing is left, or are there other rules? Are certain things immune to it? Does being horror marked mean a horror will attack you out of the blue or only if one is summoned by an enemy on the battlefield you are on or if one is summoned by anyone? And if one is summoned and you are horror-marked, will it first attack you, then any other horror marked, then the enemy -- or then the nearest?
Wondering also, because some nice items give you horror mark and others let you summon them. Thanks.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">IIRC Horrors on the battlefield are a "neutral" party. They want to kille everyone. I think they prefer horrormarked units though.
If a unit is horrormarked there is a chance each turn that a Horror or Lesser Horror will attack like an assasination.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

The frequency of horrors attacking horror marked people is drastically increased when the astral corruption global is in effect. If you have powerful horror marked mages when that goes up you might as well kiss them goodbye - doom horrors are pretty much the deadliest one on one units that exist.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Do they have good magic resistance? I mean, disintegration could work while protecting your mage with other units. Maybe also casting a powerful high-damage spell

I've actually never been worried about horror mark. It's so rare to get attacked by a horror that I enjoy seeing it even if my mage dies... maybe that's just because of my lack of experience, i dunno.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

Their magic resistance is superior to a god's. They have a strength 25 armor-negating attack with an attack skill of 25 - and that's just one of their attacks. They fly, and thus will cross the entire battlefield in a single round, ignoring everything in their path to get to a horror-marked unit.

Maybe if you were a gigantic unit with immense regeneration and magic resistance (to try and resist the Soul Slay attack) you could survive long enough to kill a Doom Horror. Oh, did I mention their defense of 25 and their protection of 20? But basically, unless you use the Recall spell to retreat, you're dead.

Even Lesser Horrors are amazing supercombatants. Horrors are a large order of magnitude worse. Doom Horrors are an order of magnitude worse than that. I'm not sure what the King of the World is. I think that may be Kurgi. His stats seem pretty similar to a Doom Horror's.

I still need to wish for one of these babies sometime. An army might be able to wear them down. It would be interesting to watch.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

I played with them as my god. And even worse as my prophet. WAY too out of balance.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

A massive damaging fire, heat, cold, or electric attack would work. You never said Doom Horrors were immunute to the elements.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's what blood vengeance is for. Casting a spell on hit will cause your own unit the damage if it fails a magic resist check against a penetration bonus of 2. If it does get hurt, it can heal itself back up against non-lifeless targets with lifedrain. Put an amulet of antimagic and a regeneration item on it for good measure.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

The stats for doom horrors are:
Hitpoints: 74, size 6.
Protection: 25
Morale: 30
Magic Resistance: 20
Encumbrance: 0
Strength: 20
Attack Skill: 23
Defense Skill: 25
Move: 10/4
Leadership: 25
Amphibian
Fear +15
Magic Being
Need not Eat
Ethereal
Flying
Blood Vengeance +2

It's four weapons are:
Soul Leech: 0 armor negating damage. MR negates.
Life Drain: 0 Armor Piercing.
Consume Soul: Death. MR negates.
Astral Claw: 0, armor negating.

[ February 06, 2004, 05:39: Message edited by: Graeme Dice ]

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">nasty. Stay away, stay very far away ...

Re: Question about Horrors
 

And when using GoR has 2 Misc Slots. Good enough for a AMA and a Ring of Regeneration.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

So if summoned on a battlefield, do they kill everything until there is nothing left -- even your army if summoned by you? Then the only time you would ever want to summon one is if you would sacrifice your mage to kill a larger enemy army?

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, the chance of losing it to a soul slay goes from around 4% to around 1% if you raise the magic resistance to 24. It probably is a matter of determining what your enemies can do to counter it, since you've spent at least a hundred astral pearls to wish for it, and 20 nature gems to make it a commander, not counting the empowerment costs to get there.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's what blood vengeance is for. Casting a spell on hit will cause your own unit the damage if it fails a magic resist check against a penetration bonus of 2. If it does get hurt, it can heal itself back up against non-lifeless targets with lifedrain. Put an amulet of antimagic and a regeneration item on it for good measure. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">By attack i didn't literally mean ATTACK. I meant a spell.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That doesn't matter. Blood vengeance reflects spells as well, including ritual spells. It's part of the description that it will act against damage, regardless of the distance to the person causing it.

The only thing I'm not sure about is if it reflects instant death effects such as soul slay and mind duel.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

Doom horror is why there are no sneak items. Could you see a Doom Horror with a "sneak ring" and a "black heart"?
*shiver* a Doom Horror Assassin.

[ February 06, 2004, 14:16: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Question about Horrors
 

Why bother with stealth & assassination when you can just jump in from 10 provinces away and kill everyone in sight. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Question about Horrors
 

I've never even seen a Doom Horror in action, but I've seen Lesser Horrors, and their capacity to kill was scary. Doom Horrors dwarf Lesser Horrors, so...

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you can get doom horrors, then you can also get a lord of the night, and he's stealthy, flying, autogenerates two fiends of darkness, and is size 6.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

I played with wishing for doom horrors, and equipping them with amulet of antimagic and ring of regeneration. I lost one to a province with 50 mandragoras - undead, lifeless(?), 12 attacks doing 33 stun damage (mr negates). Neither life steal or blood vengeance is particulary usefull in that situation. It took a long time, but eventually the doom horror and half the enemies were dead.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'd go for unicorn pendant over AMA, it already has ridiculous MR. Why not negate half the hits that are going to get past its etherealness, to make it even harder to overcome regen and life drain? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">so a lucky pendant is a better choice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

i had my doom horror killed by 7 bard. yes...Man Bard,nature 1 magi. Haunted forest+Swarm,repeat*n...horror gone.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

even without slots, a doom horror still could destroy a huge force,something equal to 120HI..

my favorite is a lucky pendant and a rockybird/dancing fork ^^

[ February 06, 2004, 12:47: Message edited by: void ]

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you have to deal with large amounts of undead, then you would probably be better off summoning archangels with your pearls as a first guess.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

It's a SUPRISE. ^^

Never noticed that the haunted forest has been created, and the military report told me that the defenders are "LONGBOW*30"(it's a rich province near enemy' capital, far away from the battleline). It's a good target for a doom horror i believe, so i attack...and lose it.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

It's worth mentioning that Doom Horrors appear to cause Bad Events to occur. In my most recent game, after hearing all about Doom Horrors, I set up a Doom Horror Factory where I would mass produce Doom Horrors at 2-3 per turn.

Unfortunately, horrible things would constantly befall the aforementioned province. And the lab would burn down every other turn. Convinced that the AI was somehow responsible for this, I went with my classically heavy-handed overkill approach: I stuck up all of the arcane shielding domes I could cast, 4 or 5 or so. NOTHING was going to get through that.

The woes continued. Often multiple times per turn. I was utterly perplexed, and was planning on reporting this as a bug...right after I finished that game.

It all came to a head at the end game, where my masses of Doom Horrors congregated in massive packs of 20-30 in the home provinces of my enemies....

And immediately, about 8 bad events occurred in that province. It *HAD* to be the Doom Horrors. I'm sure of it now.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ February 09, 2004, 06:02: Message edited by: Kristoffer O ]

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">how many hundreds of turns did you play to have such doom factory?

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think the correct phrase, given his experience, is "doomed factory". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Question about Horrors
 

So apparently, Doom Horror isn't just a name. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Question about Horrors
 

I was making Doom Horrors every other turn by turn 50, and Gift of Reasoning them. Good stuff . . . and they never were in my provinces for more than a turn, to give them Gift of Reason and the lucky charm that cancels half of all hits. I focused on other stuff after about 5 of them, since my enemies (all normal AIs) were using infantry armies, which were completely annihilated by my horrors in each and every battle. Pythium had one super-elite army. Took two Doom Horrors dying to kill that one, lead by the pretender.

Doom Horrors . . . are there better units out there? Vastnesses don't seem to match up, what with their lack of misc. slots for items . . . http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I've never seen a Doom Horror, but I have used Vastnesses. I empowered one in Water (for quickness) and Nature (for regeneration) and it was nearly unstoppable... but it still got killed, though I cannot remember how. A couple like that died. One of them, I do remember - it was killed in the Orania indy province by Frost Fiends and Ice Elementals, which are mindless. Frost Fiends are really strong for the cost.

[ February 10, 2004, 05:07: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Question about Horrors
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My own experience with Vastnesses agrees that their biggest weakness is strong, mindless opponents. And those with very high MR.

Re: Question about Horrors
 

I'd agree with that. I once took down a pair of Vastnesses with a horde of Soulless. (Not to be confused with a Bag O' Zombies . . .) Nothin' like taking down the mighty with the puny to put things in perspective! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif