MA Marignon
 

I was looking at Marignon for the first time last night. I had initially thought of taking Pythium for an MP game, but opted instead for the unknown Marignon.

Looking at their troops, I noticed a few things:

1) Their troops are resource intense. Looks like I will need Production 3 scales.
2) Most units do not have shields. Archers are going to love these guys.
3) Knights of the Chalice are nice. But, the more interesting sacreds are the Flagellants. They aren't all that great statswise, but with flails and the right bless they could cause some mayhem.
4) Royal Guard cav. have better base stats than Knights of the Chalice.
5) The pikeneers and halbardiers have long reaches.

From looking at these guys it appears that my typical army is going to have a front line of pikeneers/halbardiers with Swordsman there for the heavy lifting. Against heavy archer forces, Men at Arms will figure heavily in the battle.

The interesting decision is whether or not to go with a bless strategy for Marignon. A F9/A9 bless could be very interesting with them. The Knights of the Chalice with a F9 bless become Att 17 with flaming weapon horseriding wielders of death. With the A9, they ignore the first hit during each round of combat which adds quite a bit to their survivability. Flagellants actually become quite a viable and cheap force for Marignon with a F9/A9 bless. They are not going to be an incredibly powerful force, but against Ulm or another nation that uses shields, they can certainly be a great throw away unit to crack those lines.

The ultimate question with Marignon is what to do with your pretender. As previously mentioned, you can pursue a bless strategy with success, but this is not on the order of the Vanheim bless in MA. The problem with the bless is that it mirrors what your mages already know. Hence, you will be severely lacking in all other magic paths.

Re: MA Marignon
 

>With the A9, they ignore the first hit during each round of combat<

Hold your horses there. They don't get "luck" they get "twist fate" which is not nearly as good. Twist fate is still good, and I just used it recently for a nice A8/W9 bless for EA T'ien Ch'i, but it only works ONCE PER BATTLE and then is gone, not once every round.

Also, they changed the casting level requirement for fire arrows. Be aware of that!

Jazzepi

Re: MA Marignon
 

Hmmm... That changes some things. That raises the possibility of a F9/rainbow pretender. Have to check that when I get home.

Re: MA Marignon
 

My Advice, Go With Earth 9-10 and forget about the Flagellants. With earth 9-10 you get a wonderful revig bonus for all those lovely mages, all most all of which are sacred. Also helps when you want to thug those angels later in the game. I played a test game with a fire 9 bless and even then the Flagellents are worthless. Remeber they all come with afflictions out of the box.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I'm assuming you are speaking about s9. As jazzepi stated it only counts for the first hit of the battle not each round.

1) Not needed but if you can afford it, go for it.
2) They also have high protection, so they fair decently against archers
3) Flagellants also dies like flies, i dislike basing alot of design points on these. Basically you will use large crossbow armies and flagellant dies hard because of friendly fire.
4) Still very expensive for what they can do in base game.
5) I guess they have.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I'm also pretty anti flaggies. I used upgraded, domspawning, F9B9 blessed, affliction free flaggies in an Ulm Reborn game and they still weren't /that/ great.

I'd go for crossbow armies if you want the most effective strat, or whatever you want to do if you just like to have fun (that's the way I play).

Re: MA Marignon
 

I would not discount the A9/F9 dual bless (the Baphomet works well). It is very effective with Marignon, for the reasons that you have already outlined above.

Twist fate is great for flagellants. If they get hit, they tend to die, and with their def, they get hit a lot. Thus ignoring the 1st hit is every bit as nice (maybe nicer when rushing archers) than having a 50% of avoiding each hit.

However, with that bless, I find that I primarily recruit sacreds and mages. Gold is at a much higher premium than resources. I would go with order 3 and possibly sloth 1 or 2.

Re: MA Marignon
 

Marignon is a prety straightfoward nation;

Flaming Arrow crossbows as your basic army,
Royal Guard as front line tanks,
Flagellents as flankers, secondary support,
lots of fire mages,
some assorted infantry to taste.

Flagellants are easily a top-5 sacred (imo). They have two attacks, low resources/cost (almost free), can be recruited in any castle. You can easily make armies that contain hundreds of F9 flagellants, that will be decent against virtually every target. It's hard to think of another sacred unit per cost that has the Flagellant's sheer offensive potential.

The only thing about Flagellants is that they can't be on the front line; you have to have a screen of cavalry/infantry to soak up spells and arrow fire to allow them to close.

Re: MA Marignon
 

The problem is for your regular military units, they have a 2.X to 1 resource to gold ratio. The only units that cost more gold than resources are flagellants, knights, and leaders. The knights cost 61 resources a pop which is pretty pricy as those things go.

Re: MA Marignon
 

When I play Marignon, I buy primarily flagellants, knights, and leaders. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

What is the point of recruiting heavy infantry in your castles? They are not much better than indies.

Also, because a dominion strat works well with Marignon, I end up buying many more priests and temples than with other nations. High gold is key.

Re: MA Marignon
 

On small maps, MA Marignon rocks… …I've found great success with Evo, fire mages, flagellants with crossbowman and stronger infantry to buffer flaggelants… …expands quick and once economic machine is churning in gear, makes it unstoppable… …typically roll up a pretender with F4 but main magic in another path (air/astral)…

Re: MA Marignon
 

I have to say I didn't find Marignon all that appealing. Sure it has decent (heavy) troops but its mages turn out not to be that great after all. Diversifying magic paths is a pain in the arse since Marignon's prima donnas only specialize in F and S. Also, decent mages start dying off like flies as soon you recruit them AND have never heard of communion.

IMO Pythium is a MUCH better choice if you have to choose between Ermor's descendants.^^ Heavy troops, magical diversity and power, angelic summons. Could you possibly wish for more?

Re: MA Marignon
 

Actually the troops aren't all that different. Summons are the same, the big difference is in the priests and mages.

The troops are cheaper and cost about the same in resources.

The more I look at it, the Royal Guard troops might be the best bet for Marignon. But, I still think att. 18 knights running around is pretty impressive.

Re: MA Marignon
 

Sorry but this is getting on my nerves now. A stands for air. S stands for astral.


On the subject of marignon i would not bother with a flagellant bless. Either go for an SC pretender+scales(always a nice choice), a rainbow pretender+scales(also nice) or maybe a bless for the knights/paladins/angels(E9 is good, N4+ is good, F9 is good, W9 can be helpful).

If you dont take a bless strategy armies consisting of some shields(men at arms/indy heavy infantry ect) back by crossbowmen with the flaming arrows enchantment are the way to go.

Re: MA Marignon
 

Don't forget the stealth--Marignon has spies, assassins, and stealthy preachers.

Also, if you're going to use a flagellant bless strategy, you have recruitable H3's with high leadership, which makes it a lot easier.

Re: MA Marignon
 

That was one of the reasons for thinking about the bless strategy, Marignon seems ripe for it.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I'm playing Marignon at the moment (turn 70 odd) and took an Air-4 Earth-3 Water-3 Nature-3 dormant frost father. For magical diversity it's been amazing. He can make a Winged Helmet and Earth boots, which you can give to your mages with randoms (which you end up with loads of) to get all your territory earth and air searched. You can make a thistle mace or two and give them to some indy shamen. And eventually you can summon a Naiad or a Sea Troll for more water access (I was lucky enough to find a magic site that allowed me to recruit water mages). The only magic I didn't have was death, for thematic reasons. Although recently I've found a Necromancer site and have ditched my morals.

So I went for a low-army high-magic strategy. In the early game I concentrated on Evo, and built hordes of mages (about 3 a turn quite early on). Fireball and Falling Fires are devastating, all you need to do with your army is distract them for long enough that your mages can incinerate them.

On the other hand I think I haven't played brilliant, and making better use of the troops would probably be an excellent idea.

Later on in the game the angels are amazing. I had one angel that almost single handedly captured about ten enemy provinces and killed army after army.

Marignon probably isn't as strong as Pythium - but then almost no-one is. Pythium's very strong indeed I think (good troops, very good magic, hydras, angels). But I don't know why anyone would think Marignon's mages are no good. I reckon they're fantastic.

Re: MA Marignon
 

This is actually paralleling my latest idea on a pretender. My problem is figuring out whether I go for a dormant or imprisoned pretender.

I am of the belief that maybe they don't need to go with the Knights of the Chalice and can instead rely upon the Royal Guard which will free up quite a bit of resources. The side benefit of this is you might be able to get away with a lower dominion which can be used to pay for the scales.

I was thinking about an Air-4/5, Earth-4, Water-4, Nature-4, and Fire-4 or Astral-4/5 pretender. Scales will be Order-3, Production-3, Drain-2, and Misfortune-3. Dominion will be dependant upon a variety of factors, pretender form, whether I take growth scales, etc.

Why the low dominion? A big bonus that Marignon gets is their inquisitors. They operate very well in "negative" dominion. So why focus on having high dominion? I can save those points and put those towards the pretender. Now, if I prefer, I can take higher dominion and go with an imprisoned pretender.

I think order is important for Marignon for the money. The good troops and leaders all require a good chunk of change. You are looking at 270 gold for your best mages and 210 for your best priest. The rest of the troops are a 2.5 resource to gold cost ratio. Therefore, if you want a large army, you need good production values. So production is a must. To pay for this, I go with drain and misfortune.

Now, this setup gives me the ability to cast The Wrath of God, Gift of Health, Purgatory, Arcane Nexus, etc. Purgatory and Wrath of God are very thematic for the nation. Plus, they eradicate undead and enemy armies nicely. The only problem with this is that I would need an imprisoned pretender to make it work with dominion costs. Or, I could skimp on the Nature and Water paths.

Early game research targets are Ench 4, for the Flaming arrows, and then Evo up to about lvl 4. Then const to lvl 4, evo to lvl 6, and then check to see what we need from there.

Re: MA Marignon
 

If it were me and I wanted to bless flagellants, I'd go with a W9 bless and get that quickness going-4 attacks a round is better than 2-the Def bonus won't hurt, and Air bless, because a huge army of flagellants in middle era is going to be hurt a lot more by crossbows than melee attacks-and, anyway, a melee attack commits an enemy unit, which is good for you when you've got knights.

Re: MA Marignon
 

...whereas, if I were planning to be the most -annoying- flag user, I'd go for death/blood blessing so that these mass-produced fast-attack clowns have a decent chance of causing afflictions, curses and horror marks to any poor SC who feels the urge to massacre them. They hit, ouch. They die, ouch.

Not every efficient, mind you. But perhaps handy if you're playing somebody who frowns upon having his units abused like that.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I would say dormant rather than imprisoned is quite important in a rainbow pretender. When he first wakes up you will want him to wander around site searching. It takes quite a while to cover ground site searching, and then bootstrap your way into the different magic paths, and being imprisoned is basically a 24-turn setback to that.

I went for level three in a number of paths because that's all that's needed for most things - for earth, water and nature, level 4 will only rarely be necessary, and level three is definitely enough to get going. Obviously level 4 gives you a minor bless, and is better if you can afford it. Air 4 is a good idea though, because the air boosters are level 4.

I haven't particularly missed having fire and astral on my pretender, with the odd exception (he can't make moonvine bracelets). Your mages can do most useful fire/astral stuff, such as forging fire/astral items, fire/earth items, and just high level fire and astral spells (I've had a couple of S4 guys, although that's very lucky, and of course F4 is very common).

For Evo, levels 3 and 5 are the major milestones in my opinion - fireball and falling fires respectively. Fireball is enough to make your mages very useful. If you have 10 or 20 fireballs flying towards your opponents every turn they won't last long. Phoenix power (Conj 3) is very important to make your mages more efficient though.

Re: MA Marignon
 

(casts reanimation)

There, I think I have it. Yeah, I'm bringing this thread back to life.

I recently got my tail kicked in a MP game using Marignon. There were a few items that I noticed in using them that I think need to be explored further.

1) The lack of any early summons was very damaging. I think it is necessary to get some early access to death magic if for nothing else than chaff for your crossbowmen.

2) Starting next to a nation that has large units that can trample is damaging to your health. An early possibility to counter this is paralyze. However, that is Thau-4 which means that you need to divert your attention from Ench-4 or Evo-4.

3) Which is a better research path, Evo-4 or something else early on in the game? Spamming Holy Pyre is nice, but is there something else my mages should be doing?

4) The Evo path makes the most sense so that my Astral mages can start casting Mind Hunt at Evo-6. Is this a good mid-game strat?

5) What is the best mix of troops? Crossbowmen make plenty of sense, but how many Men at Arms, Swordsmen, and Pikeneers should I be using?

6) Bless troops and a bless strategy, are they worth it with Marignon? Knights of the Chalice are nice and they can recuperate. With the right bless they can be very capable troops. What would the best bless be for them? How would that work with your flagellants? My guess is that a W9 bless or a F9 bless would be best. I could take an imprisoned pretender and go for a W9E4D4B4 bless and hope for the best. That would give a +4 defense, additional attacks, added strength, reinvigoration, and increased chance of affliction (great for flagellants). The blood would give additional summons, but how powerful would this be with only your pretender able to blood hunt and the like?

7) What scales work best for Marignon? You need cash for your mages, priests, and Paladins/Knights. Your other units, are high resource units. Death is definitely a no, no with your old mages.

Any thoughts about any of this? I know some of it has been mentioned before, but I am trying to take a fresh look at this.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I usually end up with a S9F9 bless for Marignon for one reason, the Baphomot pretender chasis who starts with S1F1. He's imobile but costs 0 pretender points. Which is good. He has a base of D3, which is also good for buying masses of flaggelants. And the Twist fate bless bonus works out fairly well with flaggelants, who with very low protection are likely to die quickly when exposed to arrows or frontline action. Meanwhile, they get two attacks per turn so when combines with a high fire bless they deal incredible amounts of damage. Yeah, you'll loose alot of them, but they're pretty cheap and can be obtained at any fort. Also, since the sacred calvary get multiple attacks they work out very well with a F9 bless.

Thats just a side show though. The core of Marignon's offense is going to massive numbers of crossbowmen enhaced with flaming arrows (which you should have a Grand Master availabe to cast with out any additional enhancements. Be sure to place some melee troops in front to keep them safe, though.

As for scales, I'm always sure. I usually go for the money (order 3, growth 3) no matter what nation I play. With Marignon, this translates into very large crossbow armies.

For an end game, though, always look to use your national angel summons. The Seraph is probably the most powerful SC chasis in the game, provided you use the right equipment and spells.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I'm not really familiar with Marignon, but you should take into account that Mind Hunt attacks with either Mind Burn or Soul Slay, depending which you have researched, so it basically requires you to have Thau4 as well. You'd also need Con6 for Starshine Skullcap so that your S3 Grand Masters can cast it. (Spell Focuses wouldn't also hurt)

But if prepared correctly, Mind Hunting is an awesome stragedy. But it takes some time to set up so you won't fend off any rushes with it. When I play Abysia (which also has the Astral + Fire combo to some scale), I start with evocation 3 to get fireball (this also gets you Astral Probing quickly) and then Thaumaturgy 2 to get Radars (Augury, Auspex you know). The more early you find the gem sites in your territory, the more gems you get from them during the game. Then I see who my neighbours are and change my research accordingly to get the right spells.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I'm not too worried about rushes. Rushes are going to be fended off with our troops. I think I made some errors in judgement with the standard Marignon forces.

I think Marignon IS a bless nation. I just need to figure out the best way to do that. Flagellants and your old mages are very good candidates for a N4+ bless. The Knights of the Chalice and the mages are good candidates for an Earth bless. The Knights of the Chalice can also readily accept both a Fire and a Water bless. Flagellants can benefit greatly from an Air bless, but I'm not sure that taking an Air bless specifically for that is a good idea.

The only downside to a Fire bless is the lack of magic diversity that Marignon has. Therefore, my pretender should have at least Water, Death, Nature, Air, and Earth magic.

So the question comes down to what is the best major bless for Marignon?

Re: MA Marignon
 

I think that marignon is best served by focusing on it's most potent offensive weapons: Crossbows and Flaming Arrows. The crossbows are recruitable everwhere and do heavy damage. The Grand Masters are only recruitable in the home province, but you only need 1 per army.

By focusing on crossbows this leaves you free to go for an SC pretender that you can use from turn 1, like the Wyrm. This allows you to get a good jump in provinces which allows you to make more crossbows.

Yes, you sacrifice magical diversity for the long term. This is a problem. Lucikly you can use Astral gems as a substitute for death gems for you Thugs/SC's. Angels are simply not as efficient as Banelords as when used as thugs but hey, at least you have something.

Anyway, give me LA Marignon any day of the week over MA Marignon, what a nation!

Re: MA Marignon
 

Why a Nature bless for Flagellants?

Flagellants die. In masses. That's what they do. I see blesses for flagellants as a way of keeping them alive long enough to reach the enemy (Air, Astral9) and doing more damage when they do (W9/F9). What does Nature get them? Regen on their low hps won't help much. It'll keep them from getting more afflictions, but they start with afflictions and often die on the first hit anyway?
For the ones who start with disease? Throw them into battle and let them die.

Fire doesn't help with diversity, but it is thematic.
Maybe W9,A4? Water helps both sacreds, even the small Air bless helps Flags. A minor Earth bless is nice but not very helpful even for the mages.
A minor Death bless might be good, but it's so unthematic for Marignon, I don't use it.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I noticed with the nature bless that not all flagellants had afflictions. The affliction "bonus" also helps your old mages from getting any as well. That is a great boon in and of itself, even taking flagellants out of the equation.

You're right about the Earth bless. I can change that to an Air bless. That also takes care of the lack of air booster problem. A1 on a mage can't do much, but A2 or A3 is pretty nice.

The problem with water is that it does not help your Knights' or flagellants attack skill. The flagellants are going to get hit even with a good water bless, so the +4 attack seems more appealing to me. But, you are right it is limiting as far as diversity goes.

Now, what might be good is a W9F4A4D4. I need to check chassis and see what will work.

Re: MA Marignon
 

What the water helps the Flagellants with is the extra AP. Obviously extra attacks, but the movement lets them spend less time crossing the fields getting pelted with arrows.

I didn't know about Nature bless helping with starting afflictions for flagellants. How sure are you of that? Not all flags start with them anyway, just most...

I'm also pretty sure it doesn't help with mages getting old age afflictions. Growth scales help, maybe. Nature magic on mage increases max age, but the bless should only affect them when they're blessed, not with aging checks.

Re: MA Marignon
 

If the Nature doesn't help the mages then the points there might be better spent on Growth scales.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I still think F9/S9 is where it's at if you want to take a bless with Marignon. The Twist Fate is basically doubling a Flagellant's life span, the flaming weapons are great for their and the Knight's multiple attacks, and the Magic Resist is great for your angels when you start summoning them.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I'm playing a MP game with MA Marignon and have done some tests prior to starting it. I have come to consolidate the following opinions about this nation (in no particular order or importance):
1. Its not really a bless nation. The knights of the chalice are nice but capitol only. The falgelants are crap.
2. Mundane armies are xbows, infantry screens ( pick and choose depending on the opposition there's an answer for opposing cavs, archers and infantry). Those should be backed up by mages and inquisitors. Mages mostly spam evoc. fire spells and priests boost moral and possibly banish/smite.
3. Magical diversity is bad (S+F almost exclusively). Rainbow mage is almost a must on this nation. Its possible to use a hybrid SC/Rainbow chassis or a full SC but I dislike those options as both have negative impact on end game.
4. Astral. Surprisingly Marignon is not the king (at least not when nations such as Pythium, Bandar, R'lyeh, MA Ermor are involved). So special care needs to be taken when facing a strong astral nation.
5. Dominion kill is a viable strategy. It takes some managing investment but sneaking preachers and inquisitors may pull this off.
6. Angels are one of this nations prominent powers. Plan to use them often and well. All the angel types have their uses as SCs/ anti SCs/ Raiders.
7. Blessable mages benefit from earth bless.
8. The above makes research order clear. Evoc. 4 (holy pyre, fireball). Summon. 7 (angels). Alt. 3 (SC buffs). Const 4 (SC basic items). Thaum 3 (elemental search, mind burn, teleport).
9. The above makes optimal pretender clear. Cheap rainbow mage (don't worry about high dominion due to good preachers). E4-6, N2-4, A2-4, W2-4, D2-4, the rest are optional. Dominion 5-7.

Re: MA Marignon
 

can you detail the 6. about the use of angels ?

Re: MA Marignon
 

I can throw some ideas off the top of my head but I'm sure its far from covering all their uses. Those are ideas I have already used and know to work well. Angels:
1. Harbringer. Awe is good vs. low moral units. A2 gives him air shield for archers, mistform and mirror image. Equip it with vine/charcoal shield, fire/frost brand, cheap armor, boots of stone/quicknes, lucky pendant/amulet antimagic, cat charm/ring of regen. It can and should bless self or an angel of fury partner. It can also cloud trapez, giving it invaluable strategic movement (teleport to front lines or on top of an annoying army).

It can be used to blast undead with heavenly horn/banishment as well. This chasis can get down with any mundane army easy enough. I have seen it chow down armies many a times both in SP and MP. For mere 25S I consider it a bargain.

2. Angel of fury. Heavy duty flying killing machine. Good SC/Anti SC chasis. His base stats are generally better than those of the harbinger and he has fear and blood vengeance.
As an SC you could equip him as the harbringer but remember that it is relatively vulnerable to ranged fire (xbows come to mind) so either pair him with an air shielded harbringer decoy or give him robe/amulet of missile protection. He is blessable so if you have a nice bless pair him with another angel that can bless him.
More HP (around 50 IIRC) on him means he benefits from regen.
The blood vengeance is good for both crowd control (pair with charcoal shield and rime hauberk), retaliate vs. mages and inflict additional damage on opposing SCs.

3. Angelic host. very good vs. undead SCs (banelords, wraithlords and tartarians) due to flambaeu. put the host on guard commander and the angel on phoenix pyre, fire shield, attack rear. BTW, flambaeu costs 20F and the summons 50s, so in situations where its used the summons become quite cost effective.

4. Heavenly choir, I have yet to summon one not in SP nor MP. The above three were always enough to secure victory (or defeat). But the stats do seem to suggest the seraph to be one of the supreme critters in the dominions universe.

5. All angels fly which makes them good at raiding. The host can be summoned to an enemy province (though I usually wouldn't recommend it - the AI will make bad use of it). The harbringer and seraph teleport.

Re: MA Marignon
 

thanks for explanation, do you think gift of reason Heavenly choir units is worth it ?

Re: MA Marignon
 

I think this is situational, mainly depends on the availability of nature mages and more importantly nature gems. If you're relatively short on the astral gems and have plenty of nature gems then GORing angels from the choir is probably worth it. AFAIK harbringer is better than angel of the choir so GOR him. About angel of the choir I've no idea yet, I'll try to GOR one in an SP game and see what comes out of it.

Re: MA Marignon
 

If you are talking about GoR a seraph, let me tell you, it is worth it. This is what you get:

Re: MA Marignon
 

I thought Seraphs were naturally commanders from that spell? I think he is talking about GoRing the other angels that heavenly choir gives you.

Re: MA Marignon
 

that makes sense. nevermind

Re: MA Marignon
 

I have to agree with Wraith on all points. I like Marignon and have had some success with them in MP. One of the things i like about them is that they have an easy plan for the early, mid and late game. There is a strategy there for Flagellants with a heavy offensive bless, but it seems to me to be an art project. Why go to all that trouble when you have an excellent easy path available? To me it seems like they have a very straighforward progression:

X-bows
X-bows + Fireballs
X-bows + Fireballs + Astral Fire
Angels

Cav and High Inquisitors have a place as well, but your infantry is four flavors of crap and their only job is to hold the line long enough to let you destroy the enemy with massive firepower. That should get you through to the late game so you can summon angels, and make no mistake- Angels are grade A late game whup.

The two straightforward options are rainbow god or a weak god with excellent scales and dominion strength.

A few random notes-

Excellent PD. By itself it's ok, but reinforced with a small contingent of linemen and a few Witch Hunters it can really take bite out of your enemies without risking much of your own. (subject to match up issues of course)

Harbingers get you into air magic, so it might be a good idea to have air on your god to search for gems so the Harbingers have something to spend when you get them. Even better to take 4 air so you can make powerup items.

A bunch of Inquisitors working together can do some amazing things- I once fliped a provence from -2 to +5 in a single turn.

Re: MA Marignon
 

The seraph seems to be entangled or under darkness or something. His att and def are quite subpar http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: MA Marignon
 

With marignon, as with many human nations, it is good to plan a path to anti-aging objects. I usually add B4 to my pretender, so that he can start a blood economy as soon as he awakes/break free.

Marignon, with it's mages dabling in fire magic, especially needs those objects. Without, your senior mages (capitol only) won't last more than two or three years (for the lucky ones). It allows you to empower them, so as to diversify into W/N/D/E.

I think the knights of the chalice allow for a rush early on, but if you go this way you'll need prod 2/3, which will be almost useless in late game.(I do recommend F/S bless too)

Re: MA Marignon
 

Prod 3 is nice for this nation´s early game.
They have ok troops
Youll have enough resources to make crossbows + infantry every turn.

The Inquisitors of holy 3 are awesome at smiting those blessable tough guys that could cream your troops. But your bes commander by far is the spy that brings quick grief to your agressors creating unrest in their capitol.

I find the knights to be a luxury of later on. Unless you go with F9S9 and flagellants where perhaps you wont be using so many crossbows.

probably would go conj up to phoenix power and evoc up to holy pyre. If facing hordes a little more on evoc to falling fires.

Re: MA Marignon
 

I have found taking a growth 3 scale to significantly reduce aging mortalities in Marignon mages.

I fully agree about prod scale (not needed). Xbows are relatively low on resources and the infantries are only required to hold the enemy long enough for mages and Xbows to finish him so you don't need much of those. I'd recommend putting the scales in Order/Growth/Magic.

Re: MA Marignon
 

utterdark

Re: MA Marignon
 

Very interesting reading this. It seems there are so many strategies possible with Marignon.

Re: MA Marignon
 

Hi all,

Thx for the interesting posts.

I am struggling with Marignon myself. Other than the flagellants, the upkeep and resource costs seem very high. The other problem is my old mages keep dying constantly.

What do Marignon players think of using the Phoenix as a Marignon Pretender?

---Ray

Re: MA Marignon
 

The phoenix has a great potential with margnon. The fire bless will be great for flagellants, and while giving it enough air magic to mostly make boosters, you are giving your flagellants a much needed air bless at the same time.

Marginon is a good nation because it has a lot of diversity, to help it deal with almost any situation. It has xbows, knights, soldiers with sheilds, soldiers with big weapons, and sacreds to give an extra impact. And Late game they have the very usefull angels.

Re: MA Marignon
 

A growth scale should help with your mages, but just don't make too many Grand Masters. You could try a communion of Witch Hunters, with one cast of Phoenix power and Power of the Spheres by communion masters, to get F4 on all your slaves. That's plenty for some nasty falling fires.

Maybe script something like this:

Slave, Fire Darts, Falling Fires x 3, spells
Slave, Fire Darts, Falling Fires x 3, spells
Slave, Fire Darts, Falling Fires x 3, spells
Slave, Fire Darts, Falling Fires x 3, spells
...
Slave, Fire Darts, Falling Fires x 3, spells
Master, Power of the Spheres, Body Ethereal, ...
Master, Phoenix Power, Personal Luck, ...

Re: MA Marignon
 

The problem I have seen with Marignon in MP is their vulnerability to an early rush (I have been on both ends of this stick).

Many good long-term Marignon strategies call for rainbow pretenders and/or good scales. Their sacreds are not that strong as to make them a real bless / rush nation. Taking a strong bless may get them to survive the early game, but then takes its toll later on since you didn't spend points on scales and magic diversity. So then you're stuck in mid-game with (at best) average scales / magic diversity, old mages, and blessed but still average sacreds.

Their problems are magnified in hard research games as some of their more obvious strenghts lie in the higher evocation/conjuration paths.

I have given up on finding a coherent optimal strategy that helps them through all stages of the game - it's impossible. The best thing seems to be taking a gamble for the early game and bet on a lucky starting position with no rush-neighbours, allowing you to research your way safely into midgame. Once you get there with your good scales/magic, things change and you could quickly become very strong indeed, but its a gamble as you can easily be killed in the early phase.

Taking an awake SC pretender or a strong bless for your sacreds may or may not save you against an aggresive early rush. But then you will most likely die in midgame because of the lack of magic/scales.

Thougher choices then faced by many other nations. Have made me turn away from Marignon for a while now.