Best guards when horror marked?
 

My lord of the forest got horror marked repeatedly in a big fight with Ryleh. He is out of the water now.

Best guards spring hawks or ghosts? I have the spring hawks now since they fly and get a lightning attack. Also using the mage blade the claims it does it effect regardless of mr. We shall see.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

Make sure you get the first attack. I've never tried mage bane, but it's pretty much the ultimate 1-on-1 weapon... if you don't strike first though, the horror may never give you a chance to strike at all.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

ghost have life drain, its a magical weapon, and thus can hit ethereal. in truth the best guards are illithids who will paralyze the thing, with a little luck.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

Spring hawks fly and have a magical attack as well. Hard to decide. Man does not have those mind blasters heh.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

ah, yeah, was thinking black hawks. spring hawks can get right up to him and get that first attack in - but they leave the commander unprotected, and if they don't kill it, its toast for the commander....

on the other hand if you position the 5 guards right, they may be able to hamper the horrors ability to get close to the commander...

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

If you've researched petrification then spring hawks would be great(if the horror dies you win. if he is paralyzed your hawk fly in and beat on him)

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

My pretender in my dominion has 468 hps, i doubt horror can kill him too quickly. And the Mage bane sword may do in the horror, dunno. Lord of the forest, dom 10, gift of health.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

I could be wrong but i think some of the higher end horrors have insta-death attacks so hp may not help.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

The doom horrors have save-or-die attacks so you need lots of MR. Their high fear aura also means that a victim could rout and die very easily upon taking damage

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

Might want to check MR on potential guards -- Blood Vengeance and all, found on all but one of the Doom Horrors (not Scabiel). In particular everybody must have good MR to have any chance against Kurgi (BV +7).

Umor and the Hunter of Heroes both have Consume Soul, if memory serves, which is the save-or-die attack. MR also helps with Astral Claw, if memory serves, which is standard equipment on all but one Horror IIRC (again, Scabiel is the exception). All stock Pretenders have MR 18 in neutral dominion, 'tho.

Magebane does work, takes only one hand slot, and gives a nice MR boost as well. Only downside is the increased Horror Marking, really. Well, it doesn't do funky elemental damage, but +100 fatigue (AN, if memory serves) is even better in a 1:1 duel arguably except against somebody with absolutely massive reinvig and high defense. TThe Infernal Sword should also work.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

Get the Ring of Warning and you could have 10 guards, 5 Spring Hawks, 5 something else...

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

Lots of blood slaves. Not useful in combat, but keep the Horrors at a distance.

Of course, I believe the Doom Horrors nasty attacks are ranged.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

Would a hit from mage bane give the 100 fatigue and stop the horror acting? If so fly + high mr + high attack skill + attack orders (no spells) might well work.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

don't forget wraith crown - instant 4-10 or so undead in front of the commander. Usually a no-brainer on my main SC, so enough time for 3-4 buffs then no problem. Haven't really met a lot of the big horrors, so unsure if it would make a difference.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

Best Horror guards are two astral pearls and a returning script.

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

quoted for truth

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

You know his god is a lord of the forest, right?

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

This has been an interesting thread, but most of the comments above seem oriented towards a pretender w/ the likelihood of high level horror attacks. I'm also wondering about low level horror attacks. For example, if you're fairly sure you've got a low level horror mark (say your mage was using a lightless lantern, and he stopped using it after the first turn a horror mark showed up).

To be more specific, if you have a useful, but expendable mage with a probable low level horror mark, is there any point in guarding with 5 heavy infantry? If not, is there a not so very expensive way for a non-astral mage to protect himself?

Re: Best guards when horror marked?
 

Good question Hellboy.

Your best bet for small horrors is 5 (or 10 with a ring) flying units with the best offensive potential you can get. Non-magical weapons need not apply unless they've got multiple attacks or enough strength to get a 1-hit kill due to ethereality. Basically this means spring hawks are your only safe bet for most nations, and at 20 air gems for 5 it's probably not at all worth the investment. Blowing 20 gems to keep someone that's not that important alive is not a good deal, even if they could always kill a horror before it moved.

I guess if you have a slightly marked commander that was very important (Cast a global maybe, and got a mark from a booster you slapped on him to get the spell off, or a powerful battlemage you keep in the back where his bodyguards will be safe) you might want to try 5-10 spring hawks if you're rich in air gems and strapped for pearls, since empowering is a bit more expensive. 5 hawks have somewhere between a 50-75% chance of dropping a lesser horror before it moves from the few tests I just ran, I'd imagine 10 would be a pretty sure kill (but at 45 air gems that isn't cheap, especially given the low liklihood that you'll actually get attacked with a low-level mark. Worth it if you just sunk a couple hundred gems into a global, perhaps).

Any normal-HP mage is pretty screwed once the horror moves, since they have a 12AN damage attack with a 13 attack skill, which I think comes after their life drain shot, so that's at another -2 defense.

My slightly flippant earlier response was pretty much because it was true. Your choices when it comes down to horrors really do narrow down to the following in 99% of cases when you're not talking about an SC commander:

1. Hope the mark doesn't actually trigger an attack
2. Cast Returning
3. Invest far more resources protecting a commander than the commander is worth
4. Die

Kitting out certain SCs may be a good plan, especially if you're using non-cursed equipment that you can pull off of him before he meets a Doom Horror...the problem being that you can't give an SC flying guards because they'll die.

An SC that has high enough defense (not counting a shield, I think, since their astral hook attack is AN), or that flies and hits really hard (Enough to kill a 22 HP, 15 prot ethereal critter with 13 defense in a turn) are the only ones that will stand up to a horror, since anything that's relying on protection or any kind of shield-based damage will get hit, and marked more. (Unless it's an MR attack, I'm not sure on that...if you get an MR roll to avoid the marks any decent SC should be fine with lesser horrors, but that's still not addressing the "guards" question)