More thinking on S&A
 

Recently I was playing a strat with S&A according to one of qm's games I was watching.

Basically he focused on a dual bless strategy taking advantage of the water demons/fire demons with body ethereal to beat stuff up. N9W9 style.

So here are some thoughts I was having with this theme. Perhaps S&A is really meant to just be a conjuring theme. Their gem income is usually higher than the others while their gold is practically minimal and their troops really aren't worth it since nobles have no leadership. However, the problem with the conjuring strat is usually the mages often don't have enough path to do some conjuring and you'd need lots and lots of master of the five elements to hope to roll lucky and get either e2 for clockwork, n2 for a thistle so you can get vine ogres, etc etc. The main reliable summons seem to be the demons and spirits, neither of which are bad and probably can use a healthy support of the archers that TC gets. But what about the astral gems? What use do you guys use for them?

Further, what are the thoughts on w9n9 for demons bless? Ideally it seems to be that w9e9 would be better but TC doesn't have access to it. Perhaps Earth Mother's E9N9? But let me also point out, while EM is a better thug, Lady Fortune's ability is actually quite quite useful. I was literally seeing a good event combined with luck 3, turmoil 2, every turn.

What're current thoughts on this? Strats? Also what about even a rainbow great sage to research and cast summons with to use up TC's gem income for an early army?

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

w9e9 is actually I think not as useful was w9n9, since it is the regen that with ethereal that makes the demons so tough to wear down. And they generally don't need the reinvig.

For spending astral, early and mid game it usually goes to alchemy for the gem types you do need.

The leadership problem is not so huge, it is pretty easy to recruit a few indy commanders most of the time.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

I tried the n9 bless with S&A. It was nice on the Water Demons, but I lost too many mages (and fire demons) berserk charges.

Sacred mages and nature blesses don't mix.

F9W9, now that's sweet...

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

w9 is good if you plan mainly on using fire demons but i agree with qm that w9n9 is better for both. best of all it adds to water demons berserk. and while nobles may not have much leadership they are great at trampleing indies if you set themn to attack archers and place them on the flanks

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

I mix them all of the time and it is almost never an issue. With a fragile mage there is not much margin between a hit that berzerks them or one that kills them.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

not to mention the fact that unless your jotun or something if your mages start getting hit your in trouble

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

I'd have to chime in, I used to think berserk sucks for mages but after watching a master of the five elements get killed by one stinking arrow, I think it's not a worry ...

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

exactly, almost all non jotun mages get killed by something that hurts them unless they are heavily armoured. and imo any vunerable mage should be placed so that they will not be targetted

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

And jotun mages aren't sacred (except for the niefel jarls, and it's not exactly a tragedy if one of those guys charges into combat).

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

Hmm. Guess I got in the habit of thinking "no nature bless with sacred mages" back when I was always playing CW Pangaea, who has the sacred undead Pans. Probably also from sacred mages taking a single point of damage from spells (or because they had mistform up).

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

Let's not stray off topic ~_^. What're people strats and experiences with s&A?

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

I've had mages survive being hit by arrows many times. If it's melee attacks, then yeah, they're in trouble already. Berserk won't make a difference.

It's worse with the fire demons, since they're more likely to be targeted with arrows. Tough enough to take a shot, but quite fragile once they've closed.

Are they the only sacred ranged unit? (Not counting javelins and the like)

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

well a flying cm with boosters along with maybe 40 w9 fire demons (and 4-5 water demons as a shield) does wonders for me (and costs too much) but then again i clam alot with S&A (even under cb)

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

I never get to a stage where I can field 40 w9 fire demons.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

lol, for my expansion i usually get 2 nobles with horror helms+shields of valour/airshield ammy on my flanks to hit archers backed up by archers of my own, while this is out my mages clam and site search.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

Hierophants, Saggitarian archers, Pegasus riders, Demons of heavenly fire,... that's all I can think of.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

Vanir and Mictlan's Sun Warriors have Javelins. They benefit from the Fire 9 bless, and would fly farther with Blood bless, but aren't of much use.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

for an outdated thread on S&A I thought this discussion was pretty interesting.

" http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...art=3&vc=1 "

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

ranged attacks don't gain anything from an F9 bless. all melee attacks do, however.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

I don't actually really consider F9 that great for TC as a blitz. W9 completely overshadows it IMO for S&A.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

w9 quickening those mages is good but quickening fire demons is priceless

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

I really like E9 or E10 with S&A. Not so much for the Demons (although +4 protection doesn't hurt -- they could use the help on protection) but for the mages.

I played against QM a few times with E9W9, but I've subsequently realized that my mages can just cast Quickness instead...

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

Ah yes, my old discussion that S&A was the strongest TC nation under the heavy hand of luck.

For blitz people what are your feelings on blessings. An effective way in the early and a weakness in the late?

What paths seem like a fair advantage considering that TC doesn't have any recruitable sacred troops.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

i like earth with tc (as said its only for the mages) and i also like astral because its a decent bless and has pretty good spells

of course one of the bonus's of these 2 paths for S&A is the ability to make dwarven hammers which allows you to forge rings of wizardry cheaply (they really boost TCs multi-path mages)

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

I'm pretty fond of n9/w9 for S&A but I do question a bless strat involving the demons. Summoning them seems entirely too slow and I'm beginning to think a w9 or w10 dragon is just the way to go for blesses. The quickness is incredible and the defense is nice for the water demons.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

w9 e9 is very nice for the mages

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

They don't have a pretender capable of that effectively.

Re: More thinking on S&A
 

true, but w9 e6-8 would work well too