Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

So I've been playing around with various thug and SC combos, and I was wondering what people like to use.

Lanka's Raksharaja's have Air magic, so I've been tossing them into battle with Air Shield, Mirror Image, Mistform, and a Frost Brand with Reinvig equipment and that seems to work well, but I'd be curious to see what other people use.

Are mage thugs so much better than meat thugs like Banelords to be worth the added cost and loss of their spellcasting?

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

I find when facing enemy thugs I prefer to attack before any buffs to kill your opponent first.

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

I agree with folket to an extent - I think that 1 or 2 buffs (particularly quickness) are powerful enough to justify spending some time buffing yourself.

This means that I like thugs who have 1 or 2 points of a path with powerful and useful buffs - pretty well anything except death, although with a lot of death you can put up a soul vortex.

It doesn't really matter which path the thug has since I can give him the other buffs through items.

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

Mage thugs are much better fighting big armies. In SP I empower and give bonus objects to my mages so as to reach 6/7/8/9, levels that allow overkill spells, especially in F/A. I often find that summoning/outfitting some meat thugs is too much for my gem economy.(in addition to mage thugs)

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

In a similar vein, it can be worthwhile to add no magic paths your pretender. If you've got a Kraken, or Wyrm, or really anything useful without a bunch of expensive equipment, leaving them "bare" of magic paths means its no tragedy if they die. If you're playing a race with powerful priests you effectively make them immortal once you've got several priests. You can compensate for their lack of self buffing by having other mages buff them as appropriate with body ethereal, luck, quickness, iron warriors, etc. 'course, that works for non pretender meat thugs to...

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

I've heard that a Phoenix Pyre combined with Soul Vortex just takes armies.

Anyone have experience with that?

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

I tried that combo with a dai oni a couple of times.

It'll wipe out entire armies of chaff, but you tend to get a lot of afflictions, and there are easier ways to get the same effect.

Against really serious opposition, you die faster than you recover fatigue via the soul vortex, or you don't die at all because you're that bad ***.

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

Blood Vengence + pheonix pyre + Reinvigorating equip.

If you can get there http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

Well, after just getting my head handed to me by a few of FAJ's SC's I have to agree with him. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

You really have to love tartarians with great picks.
If you can get a D3F2 tartarian with either A2 or S2(+skullcap) then you can have a raiding soul vortex/phoenix pyre which, to a certain extent, gets rid of the problem DrP mentioned(being unkillable to being killed too much) because not every enemy force will be 'really serious opposition', atleast to your phoenix pyre guy, but sometimes an unexpected problem will come up and he will die - and then explode and reappear elsewhere on the battlefield.

He will stick get a load of afflictions if he does die, but the phoenix pyre is often more life insurance than anything else.

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

Phoenix Pyre doesn't really pay off to script. Your Thugs shouldn't be dying against what you fight anyway. Soul Vortex is a safe lock, fire shield being the main fire path buff. Outside of immortal chassis, I rarely find Phoenix Pyre a worthwhile buff.

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

I never have an SC/thug cast Pyre with the intent to rely on it to save them, but I think it's well worth the turn it takes to cast to cut down on accidents. I've seen enough instances of a beaten SC blowing up and then successfully fleeing to live another day to underestimate the spell's usefulness, and in most cases the script slot isn't urgently needed elsewhere.

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

If Soul Vortex is bad, what is good then? Quickness was mentioned. What about the air buffs, Air Shield/Mirror Image/Mistform? I've always wondered if Mirror Image is worth it at Air 1, or if more Air is needed to really benefit.

Also, when is regeneration worth it? 20 hp? 30, 50? Especially as a spell. Fatigue is bad, regeneration is good - is regen always worth the fatigue. I realize that there aren't that many thuggable Nature mages, but still...

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

Soul Vortex is good because it will keep your thug at 0 fatigue when fighting live units.
Mistform is definitely worth it.

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

Quickness is a very iffy spell.
Don't underestimate it though, especially the remote version you get at level four research.

On a super combatant it is deadly _to_you unless you can beat twice your melee encumbrance with reinvigoration, and if you face fatigue causing or get an encumbering chest wound...

Thugs, however, can come in much greater numbers and are often well supported with regular troops. It can be pretty valuable to cast quickness on either the meat (via the level 4 research spell) or magical kind. As long as melee encumbrance is at no more than 5 (personal rule of thumb, not result of any testing) or they have reinvigoration (earth bless?), it will make a group of relatively good units a lot more effective at breaking through the enemy line and destroying their formation.

Beware of quickness if you've got other spells piling up more than 20 fatigue.. IIRC, 30 fatigue eliminates the attack bonus, 60 fatigue eliminates the defense bonus, and criticals and unconsciousness are much closer.

Highly worth casting on low-encumb, strong, glaive wielding troops (not commanders) like the sacreds of Late Era Atlantis though. They'll carve through units like the wardens of man (with a mild bless), and close with the enemy in record time, hopefully limiting your archer exposure.

With quickness, I recommend at most a light gem investment in your thugs, and sticking with meat thugs or capital troops at the most, not any powerful mages. If a mage gets afflicted, they'll be a lot less effective in combat. You can use them elsewhere, for say research, but you'll still spend a lot of gold keeping your best in the fight.

With quickened thugs, think of them as a sort of cavalry, not Heavy Infantry. They survive best by dealing as much damage as possible, taking out the opponent's best units so your regular troops don't have to face anything special. If they have a decent base weapon (9-10 damage) and strength (12-13), they can carve through armored units with surprising ease. Although you have a distinct trade off in durability, smaller is often better, as well. You'll see less of a 'multiple attack' defense penalty on your units and much more of a defense penalty on any large units you'll be fighting. Conveniently, there is that level four quickness spell that targets an entire square.

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

Quickened non-casting 0-enc guys?
Banelords need not worry about your silly fatigue, fool!

Oh, and don't forget quickening(level 7, maybe?) that quickens many squares of units. It comes late, but it really is powerful(40 quickened demon knights for t3h win).

Re: Mage Thugs vs Meat Thugs
 

quickening is great, but Alt-8

banelords are good, but pretty pricey to mass http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Generally, it's the fatigue issues that make mage thugs usually a worse choice than "meat" thugs - mages look great on paper, but in use it's really difficult to manage their fatigue.