REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

I'm up against a foe whose using 15 hp glamour horsemen equiped with enough defense gear to bring it to the 30 mark. And mistform. And frost immunity, which is the core of my magic. So, any ideas on how to take these guys out?

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

Frost band, fire band, falling fire, falling frost, stone bird... The options are limitless.

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

He just said they have cold immunity.

Which nation are you using OmikronWarrior?

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

Big N.

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

Hmm. Can't you just beat them to death with your Jarls? Assuming they have a good double bless, with regeneration (you do have a double bless on them, right?) they can stand in the fight with just about anything, and eventually they will land some nasty blows, knocking out the glamour and mistform.

Equipping them with Fire Brands would definitely speed the process along, but you don't have much of an option for that with Nief, unless you took fire on your pretender.

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

Define Double Bless. It goes against my play style to take negative play scales to pay for something that will be obsolete by midgame. I have 6-Earth, 6-Nature, 4-Water, 4-Blood, and 4-Astral bless.

I do agree with your assement about "beating them to death", but would like a quicker, surer way of doing that. I'm trying to trade for fire brands, but that may not be option. I was considering trying the snake bag weapons, and hope my units regen and HP keep them alive from the poison. Does that sound doable.

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

Well, I guess then, you actually have a quintuple bless, although the blood and astral don't do you much good (from a Jarl standpoint). Still, you have regeneration and invigoration (from the Nature and the Earth), so yeah, your Jarls should be good to go. Bless them, and send those tanks in.

I believe the standard Double Bless for Nief is N9, E4 or W4, to give them nasty regeneration, good invigoration (for long fights), or boosted defense. They can cast Quicken Self on themselves easy enough, so no need for a heavy Water bless. Sounds like you have a workable configuration though.

I know "beat them to death" sounds kind of primitive, but really, that's what Jarl's do. They just beat the snot out of anything that comes at them. They are probably second only to Tartarians in their Super Combatant abilities.

You are at a disadvantage fighting cold resistant troops though. Much of a Jarl's advantage comes from freezing the enemy. Still... you should be able to beat them. Maybe spam some undead early to take the lance charge.

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Oh. Forgot the snake bag part of your question. I would not do it myself. You would have to equip them with snake rings, or else your regeneration would be mostly nullified. And that takes away a slot that could be used for a lucky pendant or somesuch. I think it's better to equip them with things that keep them alive.

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

First disclaimer: These are ideas- not anything backed by any sort of experience or heavy thought.

Water:

Evo 7: Ice Strike
Area attack, ignores cold resistance. And while the manual isn't perfect, it doesn't appear to be mundane or magic resisted either. Equip Skratti or Niefel Jarl with Robe of the Sea and Water Bracelet for larger effect.

Thau 3/4: Curse of the Desert, Sailors Death. Nah. These glamour horseman are mages as well, right, with MR of 18? Not much will be getting by them. On the other hand, Sailor's Death will be murder when it actually hits. You have to pay a rather hefty price to cast it at a necessary saturation, though, even with penetration boosters. Nah. Desperation move, perhaps. Not counting the chance of it hitting the right square, it has only a 6% base chance of success.

Quickened Water Elementals- Brings a lot of attacks to the table- six apiece, or -12 def on the last blow.

Astral:
Star Fires at evocation 1 is precise, armor negating, and not resistable. It'll take off a third of their hitpoints. Not even AOE 1, unfortunately.

Stellar Cascades: Only fatigue damage, but no mr check and its area-effect, precision 100. If you're going to win anyways, it'll speed up the battle by lowering their attack, defense, and increase their vulnerability to criticals. At worse, if it becomes a battle of attrition, it means you're still awake at the end.

Blood:
Blood Burst, available at blood 1. You'll need a Sabbath to cast, though. But in exchange you get to ignore armor, mr, and deal 11+ points of damage.


Death:
Frighten
Darkness: Sure, it affect both of you, but it'll probably hurt them more.

Nature: Rather than poison yourself, why not try Breath of the Dragon or Poison Cloud? Both are AOE.

Equipment:
Several Bows of War are likely to saturate even glamour, leaving you one less layer of defense to deal with.

Eye Shield- blindness does have a negative affect on defense.

Copper Plate: Charge Body (20 damage)+SR. One instant death to an attacker. Just clear out chaff first, so you don't waste it. And then, they easily couner with 5 fatigue Shock Resist. You might have better luck having your Niefel Jarls cast instead of equip, just once.

And give lightning a try. I don't know all the details, but that 'hit' tag is promising.

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

If you are going to use snake bladders then I suggest poison ward and mossbody. You could go with snake rings and Foul vapors. This could make snake bladders a true horror.

Sailors Death and Curse of the desert should be in your reach.

Swarm or tangle vine or slime and hit them with arrows. If you go foul vapor then the arrows might be over kill.

Quagmire should do the trick. Add Vapors and swarm to see if you can grind them down with out battle. The snake rings might be a very good investment even if you don't go with snake bladders. You could have half the enemy taking poison hits before you get to hand to hand.

Sleep cloud. Horrors? Iron Pig? Bottles of living water? Doom? Curse of stones?


Vine shield? It might make them hitable.

With your bless you could crank out Jade armours. Antimagic and reinvig.

I like the idea of quagmire, vapor, swarm, sleep cloud, Curse of the desert, and tangle vines till they just give up and run. Take some commitment but I think you could do it. I just don't think they could run fast enough to get off the field before your troops killed them. Alot of mages but who would come back after getting hit like that a time or two? They might decide peace was a better deal till they came up with a answer.

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

I like your idea of Breath of the dragon which would vastly add to the whole slow and poison them nature method.

Disclaimer;) A few N2's casting poison ward would put a wet blanket on this. However it is only 50%. They could be facing 2 or more poisonings from range spells. Then snake bladders and the mossbody if they hit you. Haven't tried it but it sure sounds nasty.

Don't forget your Pretender can also Doom which might afflict any that escape death from poison. He can also Will of fates for Luck on all your troops.

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

Considering your nation a fairly simple option is to use Boulder throwers, one hit from a boulder and their down, defence won't help you against them!!

Or possibly javelin throwers, but they're likely to be less accurate.

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

Equip a Niefel Jarl with a vine shield. Van attacks .> he's entangled => his defense drops to 0 => he's dead.
If anything, its niefels who need a counter...

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

I think Jarls with their "stomping boots" on can do real damage to calvalry....

Really, if Boots of the Behemoth work, that's the way to go.

I think the size is ok. When I was playing in SP I had to fight EA Van as EA Argatha. Rather than lay down and die, I instituted a mass breeding program for trollgytes. They killed the EA Van so badly I almost thought I was cheating. Just pac-manned them up. No contest.

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I'm pretty sure trample wouldn't work too well against def 30. Trampled units get a def check to avoid damage entirely, see?

The vans you trampled probably didn't have an uber bless and equipment+mistform on them, right?

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I thought trampled units always took one point of damage?

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I thought they still take a point if they make the def check, blowing their glamour?

Not so useful against equipped Van thugs. But still nice.
If they are being used in large numbers, countering with one Neifel Jarl with trample boots would help drop the glamour. And a bunch of others to actually do damage.

Probably better to just try for area affect attacks.

Re: REALLY hard to hit units counter
 

You might try the swarm spell. Low level low cost nature. It is a surprisingly nasty little spell. I use this spell a lot of times in the arena and have brought down powerful pretenders with it.