Black heart
 

1. is there any way to remove the chest wound associated with black heart surgery? I do not see why this would be worse than an being ran through with a sword, but it seems imperious to gift of health.

2. Can you think of a better black heart assassin than a Pan.

I am thinking of using a blood summoned creature and gift of reason. Fiend of darkness gets every slot when given reason.

Anyone think of a better one?

Re: Black heart
 

1:You can't remove the chest wound by any means unless you also lose the heart. It's the same as the eyeloss afflictions from the various magical eyes.

2: Better, as in more powerful? Maybe a heliophagus?

Re: Black heart
 

Fiend of darkness flies, and has 30 hp, gave him a fire brand, astral shield, boots quickness, regen armor and ring.

Horned helm, let me see how he does.

Re: Black heart
 

Heliophagus is definetly a favorite of mine.

Pan isnt a GOOD assassin. I just find it useful because you dont have to use other units to test and see if you have all the commanders out of the way. For clearing indepts on a large map they speed things up.

Re: Black heart
 

Pan is an excellent assassin. What can they not kill? Give them a fire brand, a shield, armor, ring regen, and they are good. they can cast invulnerability and regeneration.

But the fiend flies, and just killed a grand master, who summoned 2 fire elementals during the fight. Fiend won, had 50 percent fr with fire brand, and 2 regen items, but it annoyed me he didnt kill mage 1st.

Re: Black heart
 

I have never summoned that high level blood guy. he is so far down the blood chain. Fiend of darkness is early, and i like his mobility flying. With items he seems to be able to kill most things.

The pan, is a good caster, with a lot hps and high mr. So with good items, he can self buff and win a fight. His low attack and defense become pretty good when he has a good weapon and a shield.

And if he uses gems, he can summon earth elementals. He really kills most commanders with no gems though.

Re: Black heart
 

Ghost looks like he may be tough as well, with items. 20 hps, life drain attack. he gets all 7 item slots with gift reason also.

Re: Black heart
 

Do Pans still drop Maenaeds every turn? If so I imagine they're not great in MP because your opponent will know where they are and can take action against them. Of course, in SP it's very rare to lose an assassin in a 1-on-1 battle. Most of my losses are when patrolling enemies detect them and they try to fight 100s of enemies.
In Doms2 I used to use succubi with boots of quickness & rods of the phoenix. 2 casts of incinerate per turn will kill almost anything that isn't fire immune very quickly. They're very expensive though so if they get caught by patrollers you lose a big investment.

The annoying thing with the fiend is that you have to cast 'gift of reason' - you need a turn from a N4 mage and an extra 20 nature gems for it. Of course, the need to research blood 8 means that heliophagi are pretty hard to get.
Of course, if you can get them the heliophagi are just plain better than the fiends - I don't think the fiends have any advantages except price, but as you say, they're hard to research.
What's the stealth value on a fiend of darkness? If it's stealth+0 then I wouldn't recommend investing lots of gems on equipment & GoR as they'll get caught fairly soon even by province defence. Most assassin units have high stealth - I think succubi are +30 or something.
Actually, what stealth do pans have? They're quite expensive especially if equipped - the question with assassins for me is "Will he kill enough enemies to more than justify his cost?". If the enemies only cost gold, but he needs lots of gems then assassination becomes about fun rather than an efficient tactic.


(edit) use a spectre rather than ghosts. You save a lot of gems from not needing to GoR and the spectre has magic as well

Re: Black heart
 

Good points Nik, but I play MA pangaea, so nature games, gift of reason are all of what i do anyway. reseaching blood 2 for a flying assassin is not to bad, and cheap cost. I usually have so many nature gems i cant use them all anyway.

So i make items with them. Assassins are expensive for nations that have them without using black heart. And I have never lost a pan to one. pan just owns regular assassins, with 27 hp, invulnerability and regen.

I am not sure the province defense can beat a ghost that regenerates, i will test. etheral, life drain, high morale and high mr. Boots quickness. shrug.

I really have not done much with assassins until this game.
Just toying with them. The pan does not seem to attract the maeoeds stealthed in enemy territory.

Re: Black heart
 

I summoned a succubus, the protection zero, and no chest slot worries me. I doubt i would ever go blood 5 for her any way.

Re: Black heart
 

Fairy queen is stealth 25, but only 15 hps.

Re: Black heart
 

They definitely do. As Gandalf has described before, they essentially become stealth bombers dropping naked ladies as they slip by. Catch a province with no defenders, and poof, it is yours. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Black heart
 

Give her a Wraith Crown. Ethereal + a horde of zombies = great protection.

I had a Succubus in one game who was really sticking it to Caelum. She only died when she tried to seduce the Dragon pretender by accident. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif Still, I got a lot of fun (& value) out of her before that ugly incident....

Re: Black heart
 

shoot you could just give her two bottles of living water and script her to hold. it'll take out most of the commanders she goes up against.

Re: Black heart
 

...and for some RP, give a whip to your succubus http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

I tried a few assassins with summons+randged attack and it's quite fun and effective.

The last one i did was a Jotun scout+black heart+lifelong protection+Shroud of the battle Saint(E9/N9 bless) scripted to fire rearmost...

Re: Black heart
 

This only works on provinces that have a province defense of 0. If your opponent has bought a single point of province defense, then the only thing that occurs is 5 or 6 points of unrest.

You can accomplish exactly the same effect on undefended provinces using 20 gold scouts.

Re: Black heart
 

Not with Pangaea, but Spectres, Umbrals, and various heim stealth leaders. I hada Heliophagus with the Sword of Slaying Everthing Except Squid (aka Mage Bane) once, but he never got into action.

Re: Black heart
 

Vanherse assassins sound just... brutal.

Re: Black heart
 

I like the vamp count, hoburg priest (incin+quick), blood pans or pandemaniacs(?) for hellbind or even later charm. I've tried the fairy queen with that helm that does charm + quickboots (flyer with boot slot), but her morale just sucks so I only got to try her once http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I play a very random old faerun, so there are a whole bunch of big nasties around. Half the fun of my current game is trying to hellbind the big nasties, then have the big nasties survive the combat. Only the strong survive! And very few http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Got a dracolich that way and 2 titans. I think I've wasted about 8 assassins trying to get the big demon lord that produces the militia. Going to try with a green eye+focus and see if it beats his MR. Not efficient at all, but fun fun.

Re: Black heart
 

It is not the same. The scout has to spend a turn attacking & not moving, whereas the pan can just keep moving and does not risk encountering enemy forces that happen to move into the "unguarded" province on the same turn as the attack.

Try it, you'll like it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Black heart
 

It's good against stupid opponents.

Only stupid opponents won't have at least 1 PD. And there are plenty of ways to beat stupid opponents. Even the AI doesn't leave many provinces with no defenders.

Using 300gp mages to pick up a rare undefended province isn't very efficient. A scout wasting a turn is far cheaper. And the maeneads show where your pans are heading.

Re: Black heart
 

Using the pan you also get to see what forces and scripting the enemy has in the area without wasting a commander in an attack.

Re: Black heart
 

I admit to once running a (single-player; not MP-suitable, I'd think) Succubus with the Tartarian Chains. Actually, one could use both a whip AND the chains, because they're all one-handed weapons, but a Luck Shield or Faithful is probably a better use of the second hand slot.

Boots of Stone are going to be less effective than the Wraith Crown's ethereal + longdead, against many things, and prevent use of Boots of Quickness, but are a lot cheaper. Barkskin Amulet is a cheaper alternative for protection, at the cost of a misc slot and a penalty to fire resist.

Re: Black heart
 

Never use two long weapons(the chains are long right?) as the attack reduction on most commanders is pretty big.

Re: Black heart
 

Not quite exactly the same. The Pans at least province a check every turn to see if you have won the province. If there are no commanders then you can take it without having to test it with a commander. And if you slink a few provinces away before trying the trick again then you arent too easy to catch. Its not a foolproof tactic but its definetly a handy one.

Re: Black heart
 

How about a Call of the Wild and use a werewolf. Blackheart, Lycanthrope Amulet,Heartfinder sword is a nice start to an assassin that cant be routed. And if you lose they get a chance at picking up the lycanthrope amulet.

Re: Black heart
 

Not quite exactly the same. The Pans at least province a check every turn to see if you have won the province. If there are no commanders then you can take it without having to test it with a commander.

[/quote]

This only works on independent provinces, and human controlled provinces with any province defense. A single point of province defense provides a commander is immune to assasination.

Re: Black heart
 

The pan generates maenads even if you dont tell it to. IF you have ANY followers, even stealthy ones, the maenads will go into the pans assigned units. They are not stealth so you will immeadiately have a full fight including the pan and all of its units.

IF you have no units assigned to the pan then the maenads go to the assignment queue. If you dont own that province, they end up fighting. By themselves. Witohut un-hiding the pan (probably no such word but you get what I mean)

The werewolf cant quite do the same thing because if I remember correctly, you cannot tell it to generate wolves in a province you dont own.

Although.... Im required by my own tendencies to debate my own answer and at least consider this....
Hmmmm...
the werewolf would be fairly cheap. It would replenish its own army when its far afield if its given a turn or two in a province its taken. It would have supporters if its found sneaking around. Those are all things that make me use them now. Giving it the black heart... Im not sure if you could make a cheap assassin out of it. I think it would take some awfully expensive equipment to get it so it can kill commanders.

Maybe if you tried to turn it into a mage-killer. Lots of MR (magic resistance) equipment. It would be random whether you got a mage or not but it might become a tactic worth keeping in the toolbox if you find yourself facing armies where the mages are whats holding it together. Being cheap might make it worth trying.