LA marignon guide
 

I cannot find any good guide on LA marignon so I figured I would write one myself. Hopefully people will add enough feedback to make it decent. I'm no veteran on this specific nation, just played them a couple of mp games, but I will try my best. Note that it will be a work in progress and I will add more when time permits.
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Units:
crossbowman(10g/8r): Best unit available for recruiting. Good damage, and they can perform fair even in melee. These should be the unit you recruit most frequently.

swordsman/Halbardier/Pikeneer/Man at arms: All decent variations, with similar stats. I prefer the man at arms, since it has a shield, they perform well as meat shields for your crossbowmens.

Flagellants(10g/4r): Some people swear by flagellants with something like a f9s9 bless. I personally don't like that idea. To invest that heavily into sacred unit that dies like flies seems pointless. They will be massacred by your crossbowmen and they all have afflictions. No thanks.

Royal guard (50g/49r): Decent cavalry for those special needs (flanking/taking out commanders etc). Don't build many however, crossbowmen should be your core unit.

Commanders
Scout/spy/assassin - Basic scout/spy/assassin, not much to add, you know what these do.

Missionary(60g/1r) - A basic national priest, with one key difference. It has sailing, so it can be brought overseas.

Inqusitor/High Inqusitor - High level priest, especially good at preaching against enemy faiths. The high inquisitor also has H3, so it's good to use if you are going for a bless build (divine bless).

Diabolist(80g/1r) - A cheap blood hunter http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Key unit you will be mass producing later on.

Goetic master(190g/1r)- Sacred mage, 2f+ (fire arrows etc), and strong in blood (you will get a bunch with 3+ in blood). Overall a very good mage.

Captain(75g/6r) - Commander with sailing.

Chartmaker(70g/2r)- You can build this guy without a laboratory. If you have a lab you have better commanders available.

Royal Navigator(150g/2r) - Good for site searching in astral and air. Later on I tend to empower a few in blood to spam Infernal tempest. A nice mage to have but I seldom have more than a few.

Admiral(100g/6r) - Similar to the captain, a bit more expensive, but can command 2x the troops.
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Specific summons
Conjuration tree - Will cover these later. They are all really good if you have the astral gems to summon them up. Usually I prefer to go up the blood tree instead so I tend to neglect these for a while.

Bind Harlequin(1 blood) - Jebus these are a waste of mage time to summon. Get them if you are really desperate.

Reascendance(88 blood) - Excellent SCs or backup mages. If I remember correctly they have 3D3F3B. They are actually more cost efficient than the standard ice devils/arch devils (in the role as SC fighters). A script like phoenix pyre/soul vortex/etc works best. There are no limit to how many you can summon either.
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Design:
Build 1: Baphomet, dom 9 -F9S9
order: 3 - I like order, gold is always nice
Sloth: 3 - Well flaggies don't take much production
Heat: 3 - Would ideally like to avoid it, but we need the points.
Growth: 3 - I really like to have growth 3 since it offsets the damage done by blood hunting.
Misfortune: 2 - My usual setting for this scale.
Magic: 1 - Should allow for a rapid research

Comment:I would not recommend this build, but it deserves to be mentioned for a couple of reasons. It will allow you to build decent flagies early on that can dish out damage. It will also allow all conj summons later on. Also a pretender with S9 in late game is very nice to have. I would still not recommend it since it's alot of design points, and in my opinion flaggies are not that great.

Build 2: Awake cyclops, dom 10 -earth 4
Order: 3
Productivity: 3 - massing alot of crossbow men for a maximum expansion rate
Heat: 3
Growth: 0
Misfortune: 2
Drain: 2

Comment: Excellent early game, the cyclops should be able to expand on turn 1, if you send it into a forest province. The powerful early game should be turnable into a strong late game with heavy blood dependency. Also you should be able to start a blood stone economy and with your pretender setting up the forge can be a viable plan. You will have a harder time accessing high level astral spells however.
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Much more comming up.....soon

Re: LA marignon guide
 

i think you dismiss the flagellants too easily... many good strats can be based on them. sure, they die like flies, but are cheap enough - their big weakness is massed archers.

As to Build 1 - why would you take the oracle, and not the flaming head? redo the numbers... flaming head should give you a couple scales - increase the dominion, since a bless strat w/ flags is all about spamming them.

nice start at a guide http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

one comment, perhaps it is a bug, but you can recruit the chartmaker at a castle w/out a lab...

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I simply seem to have less losses if I invest in crossbowmen instead against most types of indies at least. The flaggies are nice when you are up against heavy cavalry I must say.
Forgot about the flaming head - guide updated.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

the revised build 1 is worse... if you do go for a flagellant bless strat you need high dominion in order to produce masses of them... dominion 6 just sets you up for failure, as you will be losing tons of them. You don't need the production, as your primary unit is the flags.


f9 s9 baphomet. imprisoned, dom 10 ord 3 sloth 2 heat 1 growth 2 misf 2 drain 2

or go magic 1 and lower production/growth/temp

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Just a quick edit. Wasn't done with it yet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. But you are of course right, dom 6 is way to low for flaggies.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Demon Jesters used to be awesome in Dom II. Why are they considered so crappy now? Assuming it's the changes to the VQ?

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Demon Jesters were trash in Dom2 as well. It's not so much that they're bad (for the cost), it's that they're weak, cheap units, but you can only summon them one at a time.

Generally better to leave those mages blood hunting or researching and summon more expensive, but better demons.

No idea what VQ changes would have to do with them.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I think that if you are to use flagellants, you'd better go F/B, to death curse ennemies, which is usefull as they die massively.
I think it is Sombre's idea

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I don't know whether it is a bug, but ANY mage with random picks only (Tien Chi minister of magic, Bakemono shaman, Marignon chartmaker, Vaetti hag and any others that don't have predefined magic paths opened) can be built without a lab. It's a common approach to build a fortress, then such a mage who will build a lab himself next turn.
Whether it is a bug or not, I think we should ask developers:)

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Whoah there. That's a strategy I used once for Ulm Reborn and their penitent. Ulm Reborn gets penitent in greater numbers than Marig can ever hope to get flaggies. I've actually posted a few times before about how bad an idea I think it is to use flaggies with a tailor made bless. They just aren't very good sacreds - especially if you're taking blood bless to go with them - that death curse is nice in theory, but in reality it does pretty much nothing.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I am doing very nicely in Marmoset with a penitent-based strategy. They are basically all I have. And mine are only S9E9F4, with the E9 doing the penitents almost no good at all (I took that for the heavily armoured sacreds, who are almost invincible with it).

However, it must be said that one of the main reasons they are so good is their vast numbers and freeness, which don't apply so much to flagellants. Still, I do think Marignon can probably do pretty well with S9F9 flagellants.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I wouldn't do it(reading their stats made me sweat the first time), but as EH says it can be relatively efficient, I thought about this idea (+5 strength is nice with +5 attack), and, as it was not mine (I haven't tested it), I aknowledged my sources.
So sorry if you was disturbed by my petty chatting.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I don't know that F9B9 isn't overkill. With all those attacks the flaggys shouldn't need the high attack value, and if they have AP damage from F9, why get the extra strength from Blood?

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I think F9S9 is much more efficient than F9B9 personally.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Flaggies, Pros and Cons:

Pros,

Very Cheap for Sacred,
Buildable at any fort with temple,
Flails provide two attacks per round,
Good Synergy with H3 inquisitors,
High Morale (which gets even higher with Bless and Sermon).

Cons,

Low Protection,
Come with Afflictions,
Little Synergy with Crossbowmen.

I'm much more familiar with Flaggies from MA Mary, but they are largely the same late era, I think. Remember, they get two attacks with their Flails, making F9 an incredibly appealing bless for them. However, as has been said before, they don't have much in the way of survivability. The best way to give them this is either W or A (in particular W9 combines with F9 and flails to devastating effect). However, neither of these paths has much in the way of synergy for Marignon (I think). This is where S comes in. S9 gives them a bit more surviability, and when combined with fire summons Mary's angels. Furthermore, Mary gets the Baphomat Chasis, which makes getting F9S9 cheaper than any other Chasis I can think of. So, its a trad off.

Alternatively, you can buy fodder elsewhere to use as a screen so flaggies can get into melee range where they tend to win out right, especially for their cost.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

What kind of scripting do you use for initial expansion? The script I've tried that was recommended in the other guide was
1: Crossbowman at top of battlefield, just set to fire closest.
2: Melee troops set front and center, with orders to guard commander.
3: The captain set in the bottom back corner, set to hold X5, stay behind troops.
What happens when I do this is either A)the melees retreat, crossbowman pick off some of the pursuers, then when the commander and melee troops head up, the crossbows take the brunt of the enemy attack, sustaining major casualties, or B) The poorly armored Marignon commander dies since there aren't enough troops between him and the enemy, causing the whole army to rout.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Try an f9A9 bless with a phoenix (or any pretender really) if you want to combine with your crossbowman.

I went an entire game building just those two units.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I don't want to limit myself to a dual bless. I want to be able to take a rainbow or scales pretender that can help in the late game.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I'm pretty sure that if you want to use Flagellents to expand, you want to use a small squad of Men-At-Arms in front set to Hold and Attack, with the Flags to the side and just behind, set to Attack Closest/Rear. This way all enemies (specifically missiles) will target the guys with heavy armor and shields, while the crazy Flailers run in and smash everything. Though, I'd think that with a proper strategy, they'd actually come into their own later, against your human neighbors.

That said, I tried a test some time ago using mostly Flags (I think I did the F9/W9), and I won pretty much all my indie fights, with such high losses that I had to reinforce for the next attack. :p Bearing in mind this was before I really understood the math behind shields, etc etc, so they had no blockers. ;)

Re: LA marignon guide
 

To be honest I think flags are pretty awful and aren't worth a big bless. They're not bad with a minor bless though, as chaffy high morale troops. Something like F4 B4 is nice for them.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I also think they are awful, but if I was going for a bless I'd take F9S9 bless for them so I could also summon Seraphs.
Other than that, either a pretender to help with magic, getting those blood stones started and other needed paths and items or give a bless for those blood angels since they are so cheap.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I'm looking for help scripting your starting army and others of similar size for expansion. I'm not interested in a bless for such crappy sacreds.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

One thing I was thinking of. The blood curse also causes horror marks, right? It might be worth considering the battlefield call horror spells in conjunction with flags designed to free up mages from having to constantly horror mark.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Blood Curse can be resisted, and only comes into play when Flagellant dies. The horrors wouldn't attack anything you'd need them against, because it would have high magic resistance, and even if something was horror-marked the horror would fly right next to your flagellants and probably kill them next.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Blood Curse is garbage. It very rarely seems to do anything and what it does do (curse and horror mark) doesn't amount to much. Even with apparently tailor made sacreds like the hundreds and hundreds of sacred freespawn chaff with Ulm Reborn in one game, it wasn't worth having.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

ya, even if it wasn't resistable, still wouldn't be worth having.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Errr, if it was unresistable, you could completely ruin people in early-mid game.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Nah Jim.

Look at the economics of it. One archer can kill several flagellants. Who really cares if he gets horrormarked in the process.

On the plus side, it would be fun to watch the SC's run away...

Re: LA marignon guide
 

How so? Why would you care that your random troops are cursed or horror marked? Clearly you'd rather they weren't, but considering your opponent took a poor 9 bless and got a load of their sacreds killed for it to happen,... not exactly scary. Like I said, I had the perfect troops for a B9 bless to be great when I was dueling llama with hundreds upon hundreds of penitent (improved freespawn flaggies) and it just sucked completely. He didn't even notice for a long time.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

No. you might mess them up a bit while you were being destroyed, though :)

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Well I'm just not going to quote any of you then. :p

ru⋅in
   /ˈruɪn/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [roo-in] Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
6. something that causes a downfall or destruction; blight: Alcohol was his ruin.
7. the downfall of a person; undoing: the ruin of Oedipus.
9. the act of causing destruction or a downfall.
11. to bring (a person, company, etc.) to financial ruin; bankrupt.
12. to injure (a thing) irretrievably.


Here's what I'm getting at. Unresistable Blood Curse. Awake SC pretender? Ruined. High cost, low number, high bless Sacreds? Ruined. Mages casting -any- kind of Evocations? Ruined.

You're going to pigeon-hole him into only using cheap disposable troops, and once you can do that, you are leading the dance. Even if you lose the war, he is the victor, but is still ruined.


I guess I seem to remember that someone said Horror Marked units aren't visited outside of combat - even so, it wouldn't take too much trickery to get his valuable commanders Marked.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

None of the above are ruined.

screen with archers.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

I'm ok for the B and D blesses being not-that-good, having a mage of that power in that path highly compensates for this imho. Like an high F and W mage might not be that great but the bless is worthy.

What I don't get is Air :D

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Well the beauty of the high D or B pretender, is that their collateral benefit is gained through Rituals, safely cast back home. With Air, most of your later game benefit from the path, is going to come on the battlefield. Some nations' armies can become obscenely powerful if suddenly supported with Fog Warriors, or Mass Flight. ;)

I actually had a powerful army (as MA R'lyeh) with 20+ member communion absolutely decimated, by AoE casting Mass Flight on about 100 Slave Warriors, and sending them straight at me. All of my mages blew off their evocations at the slaves, killing droves of my own men (and some of my own mages!) with friendly fire. We were in bad shape once the enemy line got to us. :p



And Chris, that's silly. Obviously using B9 Flags as a deterrent would be a pretty expert tactic (if it even worked at all), and your tactics would revolve around deploying the hazardous cargo to their targets.

I think the only real problem, is that even if were not resistible, the effect would still likely be too weak to make a really profound difference.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

?

That's what he just said. None of the above are ruined. Who cares about a few random curses and horror marks. If you want to be pedantic that's cool, but "absolutely ruin someone in early/mid game" to me doesn't mean "curse some of their units as you lose horribly".

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Come on, you've got to admit they'd at least be as effective a deterrent as the Judean People's Front crack suicide squad. Suicide squad, attack!

Re: LA marignon guide
 

f9 would ruin more things.

Re: LA marignon guide
 

Well we can run this whole thing around in circles, but I said could absolutely ruin someone. As in, the potential would be there, if it were non-resistible. Unfortunately, then I was hit by the reality of the preemptive nerf bat, and I realized that if the implementation were changed, that it just wouldn't Horror Mark severely enough. However, the potential is there in game mechanics, that if Illwinter so chose, there would be a Horror in the cards for any commander to kill 10 major Blood blessed sacreds.

Maybe it's highly unlikely - I just thought it was a cool concept, and I fail to understand why people want to argue about a random imagining. :p