I hate horrors
 

In my current game my pretener God got a horror mark, and has now been killed six times! This god had level 5 magic in 5 areas, 6 gems each for each area, 140 guards, magic items, armor, nothing seems to work. My god is now a complete weakling.

Watching the horror attacks
The horror teleports right pass the guards, attacks and kills my god outright on the first turn, my god never casts spells, guards are useless. I've only see guards protect against minor horrors.

What will counter Horror Attacks?

Shouldn't the horror mark go away after my god is resurrected?

This seems to unbalace the game, once your god gets a horror mark, your god is useless.

Re: I hate horrors
 

The only things that can counter horror attacks are basically having some sort of meat shield surrounding the god so that there is no room for the horror to reach him first. Then a barrage of high precision spells like Incinerate, Soul Slay and such, but if the spells can be resisted, you need as much penetration as you can get from high paths and items.

Horror marks do not go away at all. As for how you got a horror mark, it's best to stay away from situations where you could get one.

Edi

Re: I hate horrors
 

Horrors attack people with horror marks. Not just on the strategic level, but also on the tactical battle map. Therefore, unless your bodyguards also have horror marks, (and not just any horror marks but horror marks in excess of your pretender) they will be ignored by the horror on the way to its marked target. As horrors also inflict horror marks on those they attack, there is a very tight vicious circle here.

Horror marking is, in the long term, the among worst things that can happen to your god (the other being decay, in that currently afflictions caused by old age cannot be reversed by any means, even if you have blood magic and reverse the aging). On the other hand, it's a spell that doesn't actually do anything to its target immediately - you can still use your pretender to win the battle in which they were horror marked. I'm glad it exists as an option in the game, even if it is horribly ugly - there SHOULD be something nasty and lasting you can do to even the toughest enemy pretenders, especially immortal pretenders (who, although they will keep coming back as long as they are getting killed in their dominion, will keep incurring higher and higher marks through astral claw attacks such that they'll be assaulted constantly).

Re: I hate horrors
 

For regular battles, you can surround your horror marked pretender with chaff troops set to guard commander. Then the horrors can't immediately get next to you to attack.

For strategic spells and random events, equip items that increase the number of allowable guards, then give yourself some size 4 guards; it will help some.

You can always use the hunter of heroes nerf mod and create your own that nerfs all the horrors.

Re: I hate horrors
 

the best way to survive horrors is to have a REALLY high magic resistance. All their attacks are MR negates.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Settting Troops to guard commander doesn't work!

In the last attack of a horror, my god had 144 troops set on guard commander, horror teleports right pass the guards, attacks and kills my god outright on the first turn, my god never casts spells, guards are useless. I've only see guards protect against minor horrors

This seems to unbalace the game, once your god gets a horror mark, your god is useless. My god had once been a level 4 magic caster in 4 different areas of magic, after being killed 6 times, my god is now only has level 1 magic in one area.

I think the horror mark should go away when a god is resurrected.

Re: I hate horrors
 

You are not reading what is being written for you, Ranger.

You must place the bodyguard stack on top of your god on the battlefield so that your god is surrounded on all sides by guards. Otherwise the guards are useless.

Repeating your opening post is not going to do much for you, nor is your insistence that horror marks must be removed upon resurrection. You've been given advice. It's up to you to try and act on it.

Edi

Re: I hate horrors
 

They call them HORRORS for a reason.

I'd hate to have to have them renamed "minor annoyances"

Re: I hate horrors
 

Can you READ E-N-G-L-I-S-H? Your advice doesn't work.

The horror bypass the 144 guards, attacks and kills my god, on turn one!

1. Guards don't work (only work on minor Horrors).
2. My God doesn't even get to cast any spells.
3. Magic Items (armor, weapons, etc.) so far havn't done any thing.

If something can kill a magic user with 144 guards, level 4 magic in four areas, with 4 gems each, good armor, and get's taken out on turn one of a fight I THINK THIS IS A LITTLE UNBALANCED, DUH!

Re: I hate horrors
 

Ranger,

I guess it's possible something really weird is going on, but in general Edi is correct. If you place your commander in the middle of a group on the battlefield setup there is no way a horror can attack. A space has to open on the battlefield for a troop to move into it. At least that is how it has always worked for me. Check your setup and make sure you got the army setup right.

You asked for the advice. Please try to be a little more respectful of the answers. Edi may not be the most diplomatic poster, but he is very helpful and almost always correct, and his English is much better than my Finnish. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: I hate horrors
 

Horror marking is designed to be a balance for the otherwise horribly powerful supercombatant strategy. It won't instakill an enemy, but it allows a chance that the horror will get them before the SC can overrun an empire. Horror marks are not that common; they'll sometimes show up from bad luck (ai scripting, or magic sites) but this is very rare. Mainly they're because of items (controllable by the player, items that horror mark are clearly labelled as such in the manual) or because of an anti-SC strategy from a human player.
Because horror marks are designed to counter big, expensive, powerful SCs they cannot be removed easily (plus, it's thematic that they can't) and the horrors have to be tough enough to challenge SCs.

I don't think it can be considered 'unbalanced'. Horror marks are not very dangerous unless you rely on one or two powerful units, and as I said, they are supposed to be a counter for this.

As for fighting horrors... it partly depends on what your god is. If it's a puny human mage then you can't expect to beat much in melee. As for magic, remember that you can only cast 1 spell per turn. Having lots of magic in lots of areas won't help unless you have spells scripted that will kill the horror.


Anyway, I've not had to challenge a major SC yet... The doom horrors are extraordinarily powerful and I doubt you can reliably beat them. As for normal horrors, here's my thoughts on the subject:

1: I'm not sure, but it's possible that horror attacks may be tied to scales. Does anyone know if magic/drain or luck/unluck affect this?



2: Horrors bypass most defences. Many of their attacks are AN or AP, they have many attacks with good Att so high def won't help. They have magic attacks so ethereality is useless. Equip your pretender with this in mind. If he's just an archmage though, then melee equipment won't help.

3: Horrors always attack horror-marked individuals first. Bodyguards will only stop this if they are horror marked (unlikely) or if they completely surround the pretender. I believe that horror attacks count as assasination attempts so you are limited to 5 bodyguards.

4: Sorry, wish-for-blood-slaves, but I believe that horrors have at least some attacks that are not negated by magic resistance. Life drain comes to mind. However, MR is very important against some of their tougher attacks

5: Your mage does get to cast a spell. The defender acts first. If he is not casting it means that he cannot cast whatever spell you have scripted first for him

6: Armours, weapons and so on will only work against a horror, which is designed to be able to challenge large monsters with a complete selection of items, if they are very well chosen and if your base pretender is tough enough to stand a chance. If he's a big demigod with full slots then you can probably equip him to kill horrors if you are careful, although I can't give specific advice.

Re: I hate horrors
 

I understand why Ranger is frustrated. Even if you stick a horror marked unit in the mist of a ton of soldiers, a lot of times the horror will still "fly" into the middle of your tight stack and attack the horror marked individual.

The only times I have seen a horror not bust even the tightest stack is when your using send horror and he is just bouncing around randomly attacking people on the battlefield because no one was horror marked.

Re: I hate horrors
 

This is not what I'm seeing, The horror appears kills my god, end of combat! I've tried settings cast spells and cast specific spells, I didn't see a difference.

I've only seen guards work and my god cast spells at minor horrors!

My god was killed six times, after each kill the god loses one level in each area of magic, my god has de-evolved to a non magic user.

Once your god starts to lose magic levels it can never regain them because of the constant attacks. There is little point in trying to build him/her backup because they will just lose them again in the next attack.

What's the point to keep re-killing a god once they de-evolved to a non-magic user?

I see little point to this and why I think it's unbalanced.
Maybe the horror needs to be rebalanced to some level of the god/magic user that's being attacked.

Re: I hate horrors
 

If you need your god to be effective in the current game, then stop playing - you've lost. If you can go on without him, don't bother calling him back anymore. He's done, either way. If it's really driving you insane, try playing an imprisoned pretender with a powerful bless - you are 100% safe from horrors while imprisoned.

There are ways to avoid horrors (Returning, for example, should work unless you're hit at home), but the best advice is that which you already got - don't get marked in the first place. Horrors are supposed to be the nastiest things in the game. Insisting they need to be weakened because a spellcasting pretender is getting repeatedly obliterated by them misses the point - they are a counter to the nastiest things in the game (SCs, and especially immortal SCs), and if they were weakened so a moderate pretender could deal with them they couldn't fulfill their main role.

Re: I hate horrors
 

I thought MR negated lifedrain. guess not, well anyway it is armor piercing, but thats only half the armor off, so a high protection will still help. (a lot of HP will help more.)

but a lot of the other attacks are MR negates.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Life drain isn't negtaed by MR. You can find all the weapons MR protects against by looking at the Weapons DB and filtering out everything that doesn't have a value of TRUE in the mres column.

As for how to avoid horrors with a rainbow mage: Make sure you have astral magic and some astral gems and script the spell Returning. That'll get him out of the combat and leave only the possible bodyguards to be slaughtered.

Edi

Re: I hate horrors
 

What's truly terrible about the horror marks is that every time the pretender or mage is attacked by a horror then most horrors have an attack which add additional horror_mark levels!! Its those astral claws.
There's no chance of hope or healing those horror marks... even the spell of WISH will not work. There's also nothing special about winning a battle against the horrors. There is no light at the end of the tunnel with horror marks... these things are just black holes of death.

I agree this is a huge annoyance... and there's not a single creature which can be summoned which arrive with horror marks. If gamers could summon creatures which had horror marks then they would be excellent guards for a pretender!
If the developers add a few ritual summonings which provide creatures with high horror marks then at least the gamer could try protecting its pretender. Hopefully we're given these creatures within a patch to at least have something.

Unfortunately death doesn't remove horror marks... in fact many horrors have those astral claws which INCREASE the number of horror marks! As I mentioned earlier your pretender, SC or mage enters this black hole of death which has no hope.
As far as countering horror marks... the first step is to avoid being horror marked. Pretenders of large size will be more likely to receive a horror mark on a battlefield..... the same as when casting curse usually the largest creatures are targeted. Countering means either killing the horror very quickly or quickly retreating using a spell like Returning. If you want to try quickly killing these horrors then use weapons which do extra or special damage to magic beings like the moon blade because Horrors are considered magic beings.

Basically it means your pretender has entered this black hole of death... sure precautions and commands can be set to help him stay alive, but his/her overall effectiveness will never return to normal.


We can only hope the developers create a few summoning creatures which arrive with high horror marks to help protect those pretenders or mages with the horror marks.

Re: I hate horrors
 

It's true that if your pretender somehow gets a very high horror mark, he could die any turn, including the one in which he is recalled. However, getting a high horror mark is very, very hard. It can happen, of course, e.g. if your pretender has very good regeneration and lots of hitpoints, and can survive dozens of turns against one of the Doom Horrors, while still being hit by the Astral Hook attackss during most of those turns. However, it's a very rare occurence. AFAIK, players can't intentionally cause horror mark that would be strong enough to cause this. As it is, this is one of the few "bad luck, you're screwed" events that have always existed in Dominions.

I agree in that some kind of a counter would be nice, similar to taking Luck and/or Growth to protect you from early plagues. However, personally I don't think this is an important issue.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Well, a lone pretender against a group of mages (and some chaff probably) hitting him with multiple Astral Geysirs might do it.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Astral Geysers deliver 2 levels of horror marking apparently and can be cast by a lvl 2 astral mage, so I should imagine its very easy to give a pretender high level horror marking making a potential god useless.

A potential god should have someway to counter horrors but it should be very difficult to do, carry out.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Have you tested it? The last time I tested Horror Mark (the spell), it took several mages almost 20 fights (each fight consisting of [5xHorror Mark, Retreat] for every mage) to cause a Doom Horror attack. I never tested Astral Geyser, and I'm afraid I don't have time to do it now.

A mod with the following:

#modname "Test"
#selectspell "Astral Geyser"
#researchlevel 0
#pathlevel 0 1
#fatiguecost 10
#end


and any 5-to-10 province map with e.g. Pythium and Bandar Log, and you controlling both nations, is enough. It doesn't take much time to set the test up, and it's easy to change the mod to test various other things.

Re: I hate horrors
 

No I have not tested it.

I will assume that Horror Mark delivers 1 level of horror marking so based on your previous test it will take several mages almost 10 fights to cause a doom horror attack with astral geyser.

So I agree with you Endoperez, its not a big problem, as its very hard to do.

However it would be nice if you could for example wish 'purification(name)' which would remove all negative effects from the named being, ie...all horror marking, curses, old age, old age afflictions etc...

Yes that would be very, very nice. It would also not unbalance the game.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Mildly off topic, I was playing around with the Astral Corruption global last night and had a bit of a humorous turn. I had the spell up, but wanted to forge a ring of wizardry with my pretender, so I gave him some blood slaves and scripted him to cast "life for a life" (no MR save, 999 damage, 100 precision).

Then the doom horror showed up. Stupid +7 blood vengence, level 9 in blood magic couldn't overcome that...

Anyway, that was the first time I've seen a doom horror (Theft of Reason, or something like that). I couldn't think of any reasonable way to kill him, has anybody actually killed him outside of freakish luck? This is a SP game I'm just goofing around with and I thought it'd be fun to try and craft a SC that could take him out in a rematch, but even best case scenario it seems you'd end up collosally horror marked by taking more than a turn or two to kill him...kind of a pyrrhic victory for an expensive SC. Hmmmm, maybe that incineration wand plus boots of quickness, plus fire resistance, plus penetration bonus items (does that help against blood vengence? Or is it your own MR?). I assume blood vengence covers ALL the damage types: poison, paralyzation, etc. Does anybody know if those "unresistable" blood spells which send you to hell circumvent blood vengence? What about other non damage dealing spells, like hell bind heart (I'm assuming you can't actually keep him, can you?), confligration, numbness, etc. ? What about stuff that causes a delayed damage, like fire/death clouds, does that damage track back to the caster? What about reactive damage like a fire shield, aegis, etc.?

Re: I hate horrors
 

I once killed the eater of heroes (who was on an indy province) with a well equipped Lord of the Night - using that sharpest tooth or whatever (the really poisonous one) as the weapon.

He wasn't marked so the horror spent some time on the skeletons from the wraith crown and the doom bats.

also i think blood vengence is the sort of thing you need MR to overcome... always risky though.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Horrow mark is a S2 Thau 1 spell...So why haven't a group of S2 wizards just overthrown the pretenders by spamming horror mark,letting the horrors/doom horrors do the work for them and taken over?

Re: I hate horrors
 

Why don't the horrors/doom horrors just move in fullstop, destroy the gods, slaughter everything and turn the world into doom horror paradise?

Would'nt be too difficult for them really given there power.

Re: I hate horrors
 

It's tougher than it sounds for a couple of reasons. First, the logistics of getting a bunch of S2 wizards into combat with the enemy pretender is problematic, especially if he isn't a SC.
Second, horror mark will target the highest HP unit in the opposing army. If the pretender is a little guy like an archmage (ripe for horror mark), he'll probably get passed over in favor of that elephant on the back line.
Third, sending in suicide squads of S2 wizards is wasting a lot of S2 wizards. Horror mark x5 is pretty much conceding the battle, and you'll need chaff to buy them the time they need. It gets expensive pretty fast.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Magic skill doesn't matter, if the spell would harm him without blood vengeance, your own MR determines if you or him gets the pain. Equip all the MR items you can forge and have slots for.

They're too far out into the astral dimensions to be able really see the world unless someone light a target flare/horror mark.

Or, they like it the way it is, so they can come in and feast on magical energies now and then.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Maybe you could do something with Mage Bane... A flying (to get the first hit), high MR, high attack SC could presumably get a hit in. I've never used it, but I seem to recall reading that the extra fatigue from mage bane is unresistable.
Plus, it gives horror marks, so you'd get lots of chances to duel the doom horrors.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Mage Bane is even better because not only does it cause extra fatigue (linked weapon), but the extra fatigue has anotehr linked weapon named Slay Magic which causes 9999 damage to magic beings that fail MR. So, boots of quickness, mage bane and high defense might get you somewhere.

Just better make damn sure that your SC isn't a magic being, because otherwise that Slay Magic bit could bite you in the arse big time via blood vengeance...

Edi

Re: I hate horrors
 

does blood vengeance do a 1 for 1 damage redirection or does it swap targets?

what I am saying is would it matter if your mage was magical or not?

Re: I hate horrors
 

Swap targets. I'm not sure how mage bane treats mages, if it considers them magic beings or not, or if the slay magic weapon has a trigger that activates only on targets that possess magic.

Edi

Re: I hate horrors
 

Slightly out of topic. Has anyone managed to enslave a Doom Horror with spells or items like "Tartarian chains" ?

The setup would ofcourse need a pretty rock solid SC, or a mage with lots of guards.

I have tried this in a singel player game, but havent had any horror visits on my prepared SC yet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: I hate horrors
 

I've heard that wished-for doom horrors tend to randomly disappear. I suspect enslaved ones might do likewise. Doom horrors presumably have huge MR so enslaving them would be difficult.

Oh, is the 'slay magic' ability the same as from the 'elf bane' weapon? From the description, I believe that only works on creatures with the 'magic being' trait.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Yes, it is, so it should only work on magic beings.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Claws/Prison always work - at least, I've never seen them fail. And if you can't beat them, join them - come over to Blood.

I've been trying to enslave horrors with Hellbind Heart, and it doesn't work - the battle ends when the spell goes off successfully, but you don't get to keep the horror. I think it's more about the assassination format, though - I've definitely gone for the Dreams of Rl'yeh / Enslave Mind combination in the past, and the same result - you're considered the victor, but you don't get the commander.

BUT I too have been having a great time in a LA Mictlan game with Astral Corruption - I beelined straight to it after a slight diversion for SDRs and Jaguar Toads. Then I finished out Blood Magic so I could have access to Claws of Cocytus and Infernal Prison. These work 100% of the time on horrors, just like they do everything else (at least, I've never seen them fail, and that includes on Kurgi and several other Doom Horrors). Trouble/opportunity is, horrors are tough - especially the kind of horrors (like, say, Kurgi) who show up looking for trouble when you have cast a 100+ gem global spell under Astral Corruption. So they eventually find their way out of Inferno, and once they do they are regular units in the world. So at that point you've got a shot at enslaving them.

I haven't pulled it off yet - one time I brought too large an army and my commander decided that it would be a waste of resources to hellbind a horror, and fighting Kurgi my placement was off and my commander didn't advance into hellbinding range. But I'm convinced it's possible, and I think blood magic is the way to do it - it's the lowest level domination spell in the game in terms of path requirements, therefore you can get the highest amount of bonuses for going above and beyond, and bloodslaves are accessible in much larger numbers than other gem types. They also make a nice human shield around your spellcaster.

I haven't yet gotten to the point of casting Send Horror at my own army, but I'm getting there. Since that's a battle format, not assassination, and yet the horrors normally go away at the end, I'm not sure what the net result will be.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Actually, whether the mage bane instakill works against your commander or not is pretty irrelevent... if the fatigue gets redirected onto you from blood vengeance while you're fighting a doom horror then you're dead meat anyway I'd imagine.
Interesting about Infernal prison. I haven't used in yet in DOms3. Where do the horrors return to when they get out?

Re: I hate horrors
 

What makes you say that?

Looks like a 1 for 1 damage redirection is more accurate, since for example arrows need to get through the target's protection before blood vengeance can hurt the archer.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Aleph (or anyone), have you played around with the Horror Seed spell? The description seems horribly cool for the cost (20 blood slaves?!?), but it's kinda hard to see an effect and knowing how some of the other spells are bugged I'm wondering how well it works. I cast it a couple times on my own provinces/armies, but given I've got astral corruption and a bunch of lightless lanterns its a bit hard to tell what, if any, effect it has since there are horror attacks every few turns anyway.

Hmmm, I wonder, if the doom horrors are actually in a special state while they're in hell (as would seem to be the case if they find thier way back to the "real" world), I wonder if you can send them all to hell so they no longer are available to attack people (might be worthwhile if you've got a very horror marked pretender you'd like to call back who can't deal with the doom horrors himself). As they are unique so there are a presumably a finite number of them. I'm guessing that if you can actually hellbind one of them the result would be similar to if you wished for one...he'd disapear a few turns later.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Nick - It seems to be like getting lost in the void - they just pop out wherever. Certainly a bunch have shown up in places I've never cast any spells from. If they show up over a fort of yours they will start sieging it - the first time it happened to me I was like "what paratroopers could have eaten through my PD" and was stunned to see that Kurgi was sieging a fort of mine.

Baalz - I've used Horror Seed a bit but, as an SP player, I don't get feedback on how it works - and, like you, I'm using it in conjunction with Astral Corruption, so I don't know where all the horror marks on my enemies are coming from. The only thing I've noticed is that sometimes after using it extensively I'll be fighting a big enemy army and sometimes after I kill someone a Horror will pop out. Whoops! Seems much less effective than a nice mix of Infernal Disease and Send Horror, overall, and it's usually only my pretender who can cast it, so it's a low priority for me compared to the other nastiness he can be throwing around.

I've also noticed what I believe you refer to in your second paragraph - I'm pretty sure I've cast massive 100+ gem spells and only been attacked by a regular Horror, which would imply that the Doom Horrors are all busy elsewhere. If so, you're weakening your hold on the world through the Claws/Prison combo, but it's still a small price to pay to be able to continue normal spellcasting and forging. Even a regular Horror is good enough to wipe out most commanders (as the OP is so stricken by).

Does anyone know the timing on Astral Corruption? That is, if you throw a Dispel at it, will you be attacked by a horror if the Corruption is dispelled? Not that there's much chance of any blood spell being dispelled unless you're in a large MP game and people gang up to dispel it, given the prevalence of blood slaves compared to most other gem types.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Off-hand, I'm not entirely sure that you -want- to enslave Kurgi, anyway. An experiment some time ago with a preplaced, player-owned Kurgi suggested that he is not responsive to commands, and has a tendency to adversely affect the minds of those in the province where he's stubbornly parked himself.

Re: I hate horrors
 

both true

luckily kurgi doesn't hang out long.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Of course, my really twisted sense of humor suggests that if Kurgi sticks around somewhere for a while, you should at least try to horror-mark it just to see whether horrors get attacked by horrors.

Interesting that he appeared. Without Astral Corruption -- I've seen only the Eater of Gods and the Hunter of Heroes, -maybe- the Eater of Dreams but I can't recall. Never saw Kurgi or Scabiel appear in 'ordinary' play.

Re: I hate horrors
 

It would be fun to return Kurgi's gift if you take control of him.

Perhaps it will be like eating anti-pasta before your spaghetti... and wondering why you still feel hungry after dinner.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Taqwus - Actually, I'd definitely want to enslave Kurgi, just to do it. That province be damned - I've got me some Kurgi!

But then, it's these experiments that keep me entertained on the large maps once I've effectively won, which for Mictlan is usually when I have Construction 4, Blood 9. At this point, you can go bombing through the other research ranks tossing out valuable globals as you go with your commanders protected by your banishment spells, while other nation's mages are dying hand over fist just trying summon vine men.

Re: I hate horrors
 

I'm with ranger here with thinking that the people responding to this thread haven't quite grasped a part of what he's saying.

I recently ran an EA Abyssia SP game with a F9B6 Moloch, got Malphus on the second turn, and decided to start Devil spamming with soul contracts. The horror marks didn't start showing for a while so I was cheap about it and used regular infantry to guard the contract holders. A few years later, I was getting a fresh horror attack on somebody each month, and started paying attention to them. They with little variation went like this;

Turn 1 (me): Contract-holder either casts Astral Shield or Fire Shield, depending if he's an Anthamat or a Warlock. Size 10 Bodyguard squad travels forward their full movement trying to come to grips with the Horror.

Turn 1 (horror): The Horror flies up to my now uncovered contract-holder and kills him.

Variations were those intances where the horror didn't manage to fully kill the contract-holder on the first turn and killed him on the second turn before the bodyguards could turn around and get to the fight, and that one time where the mage survived long enough for his bodyguards to get back to where the fight was and eventually kill the horror.

When it got annoying I started assigning Devils as bodyguards. That didn't actually work as well as I thought it would... they fly out and attack the horror well enough, but if they don't kill it on the first turn, you're back where you started.


Bodyguards in a Special Attack fight where the oponnent flies have a glaring weakness (although you probably weren't going to even be a speedbump to that Vastness anyway...). I can't really think of a way to fix it beyond positioning your gaurds so that they're a full movement behind the commander. But that's easy to screw up.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Bodygaurds I've found work the best against horrors are ones that fly and have magic weapons. Devils may have a hard time killing the horror on the first turn, but (Mictlan) fire blessed Eagle warriors do a knock up job. I imagine spring hawks, for instance, would do equally well.

But yes, in general bodyguarding against horrors is a bit difficult.

Re: I hate horrors
 

I don't think it's a problem that a basic human (or something similar) will practically always die to a horror attack. You can avoid getting marked, and once marked the attacks are rare.

Just accept that the commander will die when the horror comes. It's not like Soul Contracts need to be made any better.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Well you could try providing the horror marked mage/pretender with blood slaves... yes they die easy but they will stay next to the commander.

Re: I hate horrors
 

Normalphil - You could have scripted the Warlock to cast Returning and made sure he had a couple astral gems on him at all times. I think you have to store him away from your capital, but besides that it's a foolproof way to keep your Devil factory going indefinitely. And the other solutions listed above work fine as well.

I think we understand just fine, though - we just disagree that it's a problem. Don't intentionally horror mark anyone you want to survive in the long term. Heck, even the astral corruption stuff I was describing on the previous page didn't cause horror marks - it just caused predictable horror attacks under certain circumstances.

Aside: Do horrors fly or teleport? If they fly you could drop a staff of storms into the picture.