Bless Effects
 

So I'm thinking about going into another multiplayer game and I want to try out a bless effect.

My 1st inclination is to try it with a nation with excellent sacred troops like Vanheim.

So here are some pretenders:

Water Dragon W9 D4, dominion 5, Order 3, Cold 1, Misfortune 1, Drain 1, watch tower.

Moloch W9 F9, Order 3, Sloth 3, Cold 1, Death 1, Misfortune 2, Drain 1.

Ghost King F4, W4, D4, B4, dominion 6, Order3, Cold 1, Misfortune 1, watch tower.

Lich: F4, W4, D4, B4, dominion 5, Order 3, Sloth 1, Cold 1, Misfortune 1, watch tower.

Lich: F4, W4, D6, B4, dominion 5, Order 3, Sloth 2, Cold 1, Misfortune 1, watch tower.

I kind of like the lich I have to say, you get an imortal combatant and that's nice! Of course the Moloch's Van's will tear through troops like nothing else.

What do you guys think? Of these which would you go for? Or would you try something else?

Re: Bless Effects
 

I would trade death for cold 2 in moloch Version. Temperature is unstable enough that this is bound to have a much lower impact on the game. Maybe it would be better if you also trade cold 2 for drain in other Versions. But, that's just my preference.

Re: Bless Effects
 

If you REALLY want to go for bless with vans I would do something like this:

Moloch F9W9 Order 3, Sloth 3, Cold 2, Misfortune 2, Drain 2, Mausoleum.

Re: Bless Effects
 

Do you really think that the 10 admin of the Mausoleum is worth the 40 points?

I did test out the F9W9 blessing 1st and as expected it kicks ***.

I have not tried out the F4W4D4B4 blessing yet. I figure it will be less potent. However the pretender is in many ways better. Immortal rainbow-ish. has a lot of the cross requirements for a lot of the good blood summons and he can seach well.

Any other ideas? Anyone know of other really good bless targets ( Vanhiem has 2! ).

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It provides twice the gold bonus of the watch tower.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, rainbow bless can work, if done right it can give you good bless effects, a SC, AND a rainbow mage.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Marignon flagellents are great with fire, Man's Tuatha theme has some nice, cheap van-like sacreds.

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I probably play a mausoleum about 40% of the time.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Vanheim has two, not including comanders, but they are both very expensive.

As mentioned, Marignon is good. Jotunheim is popular with a nature blessing as well.

Personally, while I am not a huge fan of bless strategies, I have been playing with some base C'tis blessings. Dancers, with a water blessing, have a huge defense (like 21-22 ? can't recall offhand since some had xp stars) and, of course, the quickness (which means they keep up easier with the Elite Cavalry which do nice damage but die easily). I would expand on it but I don't want to sidetrack too much http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

- Kel

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What I found was that the F4W4D6B4 troops were just as good against mortal independents ( did not get to try against undead, I figure they will not be as good ) but they caused less casualties. Pretty much as expected.

So they will be as good against indeps, but not really as good against humans.

But you do get an SC and a rainbow. Which is *really* nice.

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think it's 20 defence. Assuming W9. The thing I found really useful with C'tis was better a good sized death blessing for the fear. The dancers are cheap so you can mass them and still have a normal army ( unlike Vans ) and the mix of fear invoking troops makes the other side break almost instantly.

Re: Bless Effects
 

I had some fun testing a Neifel Jarl Prophet with 9E 9N. Decent enough SC even at turn 3, and racked up 100+ kills in a few turns, however i ran into a large barb province which killed him in one round of combat. And then killed the second Neifel Jarl i sent. And then beat the small army i sent! No archers is bad manner.

Re: Bless Effects
 

For Vanheim I like the Phoenix with Fire 9 and Air 9. Vans already have a revoltingly high defense so I think that water 9 is kind of redundant especially with the glamour ability. You need them to survive arrow fire, which defense does nothing against, long enough to deliver their initial shock hit and since they don't carry lances the Fire 9 flaming weapons helps to make up for the lack of the initial shock impact from lances and the addition of increased attack makes sure their hits get through, plus the 8 ap fire damage is not just for the initial hits unlike lances. Add the additional 75% lightning resistance and the natural glamour mirror image and you have a unit with a lot of artillery protection till it drops its payload on rear or front line units. In other words, with this blessing you can just field Vans and not have to worry about lugging along fodder.

Add all the above together with an immortal pretender that only costs 50 points and has flying or cloud trapeze for point defense or mass destruction spell raiding in friendly dominion without fear of pretender loss. Plus innate fire resistance and awe helps out with staying power. Only a head and two miscellaneous slots kind of bites but at least you can pop whatever resistance miscellaneous fits the bill for the situation and a helmet slot is just icing.

An added bonus to this is that because this blessing combination allows Vans to operate effectively without fodder to take missile hits you can fire up 5-10 man deep cover raiding parties that can pound any province defense out there including Jotun. With the super stealthy glamour ability and small size you can get deep into enemy territory and coordinate raiding strikes in several locations and all hitting at the same time.

The blessing strategy with the Phoenix Air 9, Fire 9 is my all time favorite and it is fairly cost effective for a double bless.

[ June 27, 2004, 16:46: Message edited by: Anglachel ]

Re: Bless Effects
 

lately my favorite vanheim bless strategy has been a W9E9 cyclops building nothing but van commanders as opposed to troops. With evocation 2 for shockwave and lightning bolt, and alteration 2 for resist lightning and phantom warrior you can have quickened, reinvigorated van commanders casting a constant barrage of spells as the enemy approaches, easily surviving the first round of combat with 22 defense, 17 prot, and glamour (defense varies slightly depending on which commander it is) and then shockwaving the unholy feck out of the enemy when they get close. The air 9 blessing would be a bit superfluous because they can all cast air shield on themselves straight out of the box anyway. It takes some time to get enough commanders for real arse beating, but once it gets going its ridiculously easy to take out indeps with 0 losses. I have 2 mp games going with this strategy and both are still in the early stages but its been fairly successful.

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The Mausoleum has a better layout, too, when the enemy comes to storm it (walled, with opening, might be wider than a castle's, though).

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The Mausoleum has a better layout, too, when the enemy comes to storm it (walled, with opening, might be wider than a castle's, though). </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Except that the Mausoleum doesn't have any towers, so doesn't fire any missiles. And the walls often serve to keep the defending troops inside when you'd rather have them charge the enemy. Far better for Carrion Woods, undead Ermor, anyone else with hordes to take the battle to the invaders, rather than sit bunched up for arrows and spells to decimate.

Re: Bless Effects
 

I've been playing Vanheinm a lot recently, experimenting with different strategies. When it comes to the single lvl 9 bless for vanheim, Water 9 beats anything else, hands down. It benefits both Vanheims' caster and regualr troops, not to mention any scared mages that you'll find.


You can try different pretenders to get this blessing. Personally I like Odin with A2/3 D2/3 W9.

Sure it is expensive, but he really rocks with such setup, so I think it worth it. Most imortent is that you can still get pretty decent scales with it, as well as 2 magic schools not avaliable to Vanheim's national mages for forging/casting.

For significantly ceaper but less powerfull pretender you can get something like Water Dragon W9, if you want to have more points to spend on the scales.


Important thing though, I strongly recomend trying to get good magic scale for Vanheim. And by no means don't take drain, unless you are feeling masohistic. Your reseach suck as it is, 1 capital only dwarw who is decent reseacher, and 2 types of not-capital Vans who cost leg and half to buy.

Finding indep mages is crytical to vanheim, both for reseach as well as to accsess to crytical items for your commanders, wich you can forge cheaply with dwarven hammers made by your capital dwarfs. Vanheim magic is powerful but extremely unflexible, which is the main weakness of standart Vanheim theme. You should try your best to cover it with your pretenders and agressivley pursuit of indep mages.

Good luck with Vanheim, it is fun antion and can be quite powerful if played correctly.

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So stick some banefire archers inside.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Patrol, then.