Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Just how viable is this thing?

I've been playing around with them since they were my faves in Dom2, but saddly what I saw from the strat discussion is that they are not particularly competitive in MP.

Oh well, I play mostly SP anyway, but it can be difficult to tell how effective the strats are there.

So, since Machaka has no native Pretender with W (using CBM, but I think this is true generally) you're going to have to shell out a bunch of points to get to W9, and basically forget it if you want dual 9s without being imprisoned (which may not be that terrible, but I'm not looking at imprisoned for the time being).

You can take Heat3, Mis2, and Drain2 pretty easily, taking Order3 for the cash (since spiders and mages are expensive). You can also take sloth1 as once you start to open up the provinces around your cap you will still be holy limited rather than production limited to get out the sacred spiders. Taking more than sloth1 really kills your early spider army though, so I don't do it (basically one a turn, and if you are unlucky with adjacent provinces you could be prod limited rather than holy limited). Growth is nice to be able to bump to 1 as you have elderly mages. Dominion can be an issue though, and since you want to be able to pump out spiders you can't take the low dom gamble, and have to go at least 5 (which still might be low for some folks).

Now if you go just W9 you have some room to add more dominion, or take slightly better scales, but since your pretender is going to have some other paths anyway, why not leverage them for a cheap 4 or 5 bless? Here we have really one useful option, fire, and fire is easy to come by on Machaka pretenders. Air is also of some benefit, and while it seems that Earth should be with the additional attacks of your quickened spiders it doesn't seem to make a huge difference (would be different if your mages were sacred, but they aren't).

The two chassis I've used so far are the sleeping Solar disk (F4A5W9) and the awake Arch mage (F4A3W9?1). Going the archmage route lets you get a better jump on research and site searching (though machaka already searches F well, and can't leverage early air income since they don't get it as a random anywhere easilly). Going the sleeping Disk gives the usual slower research pace, but the additional air bless helps your spiders when your archers start firing into the melee.

Using either set up means that you are easilly able to set up 2 indie clearing armies by turn 4 or 5 (depending somewhat on province layout), and can often have a 3rd army of 1 blesser and 1 spider lord with ~10 spiders, which has shown the ability to eat up pretty much anything the indies can throw at you even without archers or any kind of distraction fodder.

The blessed spiders already have high protection (20) and upping their attack to 15 makes their 6! attacks (at least I assume that's what they get quickened) get through that much more frequently. Tac speed of 30 is enough for them to plow into most indie archer positions on the 1st turn. Also the strat speed is 2 with forest terrain passable, all the Machaka leaders can move 2+ and the archers can move 3 if you need them.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there and solicit some opinions/suggestions. I'm curious to hear how well this could rush in MP, and how to counter it, as I don't have any experience in that area, but in SP (and yeah... its SP...) this set up easilly takes down the 1st AI I meet with very limited casualties (usually hit their capitol around turn 10 with one army, and send reinforcements as possible).

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

The problem with the spiders in MP is their high cost and low MR. A rush is doable I guess. But your sacreds are out matched by alot of other troops of that era, even with the bless. And then you need to watch out for the ever popular awake Cyclops who will stop your rush cold. And finally, without a large S bless any astral nation will eventually just make your spiders his. But before that Paralyze and Soul slay will give trouble.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

I don't really think you want W9. E9 would be preferable, and a weak nature blessing handy as well.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

I started with E9, because it is much cheaper, but it really didn't seem to help much, as the issue was killing things quickly (which is why I tried water). Nature4 is 1HP and then 3HP when the rider dies... Useless unless I'm missing something.

I've run several tests with E9F4N4 and the W9F4A5 and find that the spiders actually survive better with the W9 than the E9. I think its the quickness which really makes the difference.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

I haven't tried this build (fooled around with Machaka a few times, I think my last attempt had W9 actually, which was fun in SP for sure!), but it has some shiny points.

Imprisoned Master Lich
4E/4S/9D/2B
5Dom 3O/H3/G3/Mis2/M1

If you drop 1 scale, you can bump that to 7Dom, which I would probably do, just make it G2 and 7Dom. You can get the same effect if you drop the Blood. However I thought the Blood was interesting, as he can not only forge Dwarven Hammers, but Blood Stones as well. Plus if you are the sort that is inclined to try to build a blood economy nearly from scratch, that can open up a lot of options altogether. Plus the Astral is enough to kick spider MR to more acceptable levels, AND is easily leverage-able
to anything Astral you could want (if you can find enough Pearls).

I know you don't seem to like imprisoning, but in MP it's usually not worth the cost of 2.5 scales if you're already shelling out for major blesses.

If you've never tried D bless with a unit like the spider, you should give it a whirl. AN damage is <3 ;)

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Interesting comment on the high death bless, I had not considered it. It would add that AN attack to each spider attack correct? I'm not sure that taking Growth 3 is worth it, nor Magic 1, I get back 200 design points comparatively, half of which go to sleeping...

I'm also not sure Machaka can leverage a blood economy that well (especially having to wait 24 turns?), though I have read the MA Ulm blood guide, so I suppose it would work about the same, however, it seems that you are spreading yourself kinda thin doing high bless, therefore requireing max spiders per turn, and setting up a blood economy at the same time. I understand you are looking to transition to blood mid to late game, but I figure you are going to be pretty far behind the real blood nations by then anyway, and if the only goodie you are getting is blood stones (which aren't to be overlooked) I find that its trivial for Machaka to have 4+ mages set to Gnome Lore/Ausperx/Hausperx/AP/... by turn 10. You do have to alchemize some to either death or astral if you don't get lucky with your early searchers. Lets say my gem income is never an issue, though clearly you can never have enough ;)

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

The thing with blood stones is that in multiplayer, people will try to win by out gem-economying you, and since earth gems are so useful having lots of blood stones around would really help out in that area. If you did nothing with blood other than make the stones it would probably be worth it.

I think a Divine Glyph wouldn't be too bad of a choice. You can make an imprisoned 9w/4f/4s divine glyph with pretty good scales and 8 dominion, go dormant with 6 and a bit lower scales, or improve your magic a bit and get a slightly stronger bless.

And for the record, I don't know that an awake cyclops is going to have that much luck against quickened black hunters. Not only are lances incredibly useful against the cyclops, but they also spit webs lowering defense to 0 and have death poison, which will work on the cyclops no matter how much armor he has.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Some chaff in front of the Cyclops takes care of the lances. A ring of poison resistance, easily made or traded for negates the poison. The Cyclops may not kill a bunch due to not getting to go due to the webs. But those spiders do pathetic damage and wont hurt the Cyclops either. Add in a few troops with the Cyclops and yeah, its going to stop the rush.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

That's sort of where I was going with it. You could take the Blood as far as you wanted, but the main purpose would be pumping out Stones - the rest is luck and determination. ;)


Regarding the Cyclops..... I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the spiders have nice defense skill, no? They'll be hard to hit, and 3 AN attacks per round should devour the Cyclops if you have a dozen or so of them on him. Obviously he'll want to outmaneuver you with chaff, but you can bring some as well, indies if nothing else, since you can actually recruit a few - lacking Sloth and all. ;)


Personally I love Growth. One MP game I'm in right now, I captured a capital with 45k people, it's making ~750g/month right now, which is hot. Having the money to just pour Hoplites at your enemies, greatly increases the late game value of your mages, providing them a strong screen that can become incredibly tough once buffed up. But I also love Magic. We obviously have different playstyles. :p

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Thanks for the input from the MP front. I guess I look at it in terms of time investment to make the stones, and empower mages (since you do not have blood naturally anywhere). Taking a drain scale (since D2 just seems like 80 free points to me...) means that your only decent researcher is your pretender, and if you go astral he's also the only one able to forge anything interesting there, so where do you make the stones from? And how long does it take to set that up? One stone a turn for 20 turns gets you to some nice numbers, but the up front cost seems to be a hindrance in actually raiding/killing your neighbors.

I see this Machaka build as being highly mobile, and very good at engaging in skirmishes, however, it can also pull its elements together quite quickly for a concentrated effect (unless the terrain is mountainous). Essentially if you are forcing your opponent to react to you in the early/mid game you are not allowing them the opportunity to set up their mid/late game engine effectively. I can see that you may have issues late game as spider spam (sounds yummy...) isn't going to cut it, but I've really not explored late game options for Machaka since I've been too busy tweeking the opening phase.

However, Machaka has little problem going into death, and if you take an S5 or higher pretender it seems you will have some entry into Astral, other than lacking communion potential. In a big fight spreading 25+ spiders and having them attack rear means you are going to penetrate the enemy somewhere, and the quickened spiders are going to get to the rear and wreak at least some havoc though. Well in theory ;) You also will have access to all the nature and earth buffs.

As to dealing with an early SC... well again we can play at hypotheticals all we want, but if the end result is that you force your neighbor to go on the defensive then you have the advantage. An Indie5 setting allows for a single blessor and 8+ spiders (which is 1.5 turns of recruitment, and by turn 10 you can pump out two of these every 3 turns) to basically eat everything in their path, so you can easilly have a couple of these armies adding to your empire while your main host ties down the enemy, and their strat speed means that given anything other than completely unfavorable terrain, you can reinforce your front rather quickly.

What suffers is research, and it probably suffers greatly compared to research nations.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

I like machaka, but I've never found their bless units worthwhile; which is a pity, as they are cool.

I'd rather go w/ a more conventional army - the hoplites are pretty solid troops, albeit w/ map move 1 - and aim towards magma spam, following flaming arrows. :)

or you can try black sorc thugs: earth power, invuln, iron will, fire shield, hold, attack. the spider form only has two misc slots, i believe.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

In the growth vs. death argument, it's also of note that their black sorcerers and sorceresses (I think, any of their units who turn into spiders on death) can't die of disease. Every time they run out of hitpoints to the disease, they heal back up to full health with all of their afflictions removed, which makes getting huge amounts of fever fetishes a good idea. I'd definitely recommend a Solar Disk chassis for that reason, you can really exploit all those fire gems that way.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

TheMenacer, I did not know that. They must change to their spider form, then revert back to their normal form. That's very cool.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Very interesting information. I like the growth scale for other reasons as well, but not having to take it would either allow for more dominion strength, or slightly higher 2nd/3rd blesses...

The hopelite is a quality guy, but the strat move is a killer to my current strategy. Indeed I don't build any of them until I have a fortress on a border where the fighting is of a more static nature, and even then I normally have dozens of sacred spiders running over everyone anyway.

Going back to the bless question for a second though...

Cost of going to w9 aside, what other 9 bless is as effective at making your spiders killers? The 3 attacks going to 6 is absolutely huge, and couple in the variety on the attacks and they can handle more than just indie/fodder. W9 gives them a defense of 17 before experience, tac move 30, and the 6! attacks. Their attack starts at 13 which is reasonable, considering they have 6! attacks. F4 is rather trivial to get which gives them a very robust attack of 15, and with their quickened speed they are in the back of the enemy immediately.

Regen only helps after the rider is gone, and then they lose an attack (or is it 2?), reinvigoration isn't needed (from my tests) and while going from prot20 to 24 is a big jump, 20 is already very high, but they don't need that as much as they need to be able to chew through foes quickly, and with 6! attacks they are going to be able to drop the defense of their foe quickly, and if the web hits make it 0 anyway.

I can see the use of death for the AN, and fire for the magic weapons, but 6! attacks just seems to outweigh any other advantage, especially when they also get +4def out of it.

Twist fate isn't that useful (though MR boost is) and I don't even know what the blood9 is :p. Air9 also does not really synergize in any way with Machaka.

So for my money if you're going to go bless with Machaka W9 seems the clear winner, though I'm also not sure what good W9 is for late gameish activities...

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Actually, one attack is a lance isn't it? So it's really 4 attacks per turn, as the lance only strikes once per battle.

Astral isn't a bad bless. Fire is good, and so is death. Air is pretty pointless for them. Earth wouldn't be a bad idea, to prevent critical hits on your spiders. Blood blesses give a bonus to strength and something called "death curse", not sure what that does as I've never used it.

If you're completely happy with their current survivability, adding either the fire or death bless would increase their ability to kill things the most. For fighting things like an awakened cyclops I think the death bless would be better. But I wouldn't get rid of the water bless to do it, the extra attacks add a lot and synergize extremely well with either bless.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Actually, they don't heal ALL afflictions. My last run with Machaka, was specifically to test this trick. They usually heal *most* afflictions, however I had a lot of Fetish wearers who were just falling apart. Occasionally they get Mute or Feebleminded, cutting into your research a little - and not always going away.


Regarding the W9 bless, it's only 50% Quickness from the bless. So you don't double your amount of attacks.


In my experience, F9 bless is not that great against anything big, only for insuring instant kills on chaff. The 6AP damage is calculated separately from the base physical damage, so it has to get a really good DRN to actually hurt anything with say 15+ Prot.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Ok, 50%, I was too excited :)

How does that affect the attacks then? Do attack 1-2-1-2-1-2... by rounds for each attack? If that's the case then you can finagle it to get your double attacks on the likely round you make 1st contact and still do some solid immediate damage.

I agree that F9 isn't a worthwhile bless here (even if you can get it pretty cheaply), I really don't see the point in going dual 9s though, I just can't see any of the other 9s being worth the cost, reletive to spreading a little between fire and astral to let your attacks hit more and help against magic. A low air bless might have some utility, and it gives you air coverage which otherwise you lack nationally, but I don't see it being that useful mid/late game compared to having astral.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

In my opinion E9 is invaluable. With prot 20, the riders are only rarely hurt by typical troops. With prot 24, they are almost never hurt. Also, the reinvig stops them getting tired and vulnerable. So with E9 they can hold a solid line for a very long time.

W9 is also useful because of the defense bonus, but because the spiders are size 6 they will still get ganged on and get hit. And the +50% damage output is also handy, but not overwhelmingly so.

I've just tried a test with an E9W9 bless. It's pretty good. No injuries in the first couple of battles. But it is quite expensive.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

The marginal utility of 20->24 is very small compared with 13->17 (even though the defense can degrade, but there are AP/AN...), the %gain in damage reduction is tiny going E9. I've also not seen the fatigue being an issue at all, but I've also not had too many huge battles.

Swarming the spiders is harder than you think if you mass them (8+) its unlikely for them to get attacked more than 3 times unless they are completely surrounded, but in a battle where the army sizes are that big you should have some other units to take off some of the pressure anyway.

Realize that money is the easiest commodity to come by, and to hoard. Most other size6 units are production or gem (summons) limited, which makes them alot more difficult to mass (talking early game remember).

I would like the E9 bless alot more if the mages benefited from it, but they don't, and the additional attacks from water is much easier to synergize than the additional protection (also realize that quickness adds more fatigue, and I still don't see it as a problem).

Now I'm not saying E9 is a bad bless for them, indeed my early efforts used it (because for some weird reason I thought they had holy mages...) with N and F, but I didn't like the killing speed, and the longer they stood around getting hit the more afflictions piled up. Water decreases the amount of attacks they face, both due to the higher defense, and due to the fact that they kill things faster.

I tried a sleeping sphinx the other day with W9F4S6 and liked the results there as well, though I normally shy away from immobile pretenders.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

You may well be entirely correct about W9 being better than E9 (you've obviously thought about it harder than me), however this bit

I don't agree with. That last extra bit of protection greatly reduces the probability of any damaging hits getting through. Adding bonuses to already high values is an effective thing to do (for defensive values that is) - it's the same reason giving a water bless to a mounted van is a good idea, because it takes their already excellent defense and makes them almost unhurtable. Similarly, I'd argue that a prot 20 spider will suffer occasional hits and get worn down, whereas against conventional troops a prot 24 spider will almost never be injured.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Hmm, they do have severe MR problems though... they're very difficult. I kind of feel like an E9/W9, N6S9 bless is required, which is a bit ridiculous. Without an astral bless, though, they'll become irrelevant as soon as you meet a human player because he'll just paralyze them all instantly.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Hmm, I just did a test with E9S9N4. Surprisingly affordable with an Oracle. They were very effective. Still, I think it's questionably worthwhile being as they're the only sacred unit. If only the mages were sacred too, it would probably be a good plan.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

The MR weakness is compounded by the lack of native Astral, so there's no easy access to AntiMagic. Eventually they'll be able to do Army of Lead, but that's a long time after other players have been slaughtering the poor spiders with magic.

It's also hard to balance what they need before the riders die and after. E9 doesn't do much for the spiders. It's great for the riders, though. W9 or F9 help both. The lesser MR bless makes the riders really hard to affect and brings the spiders up to almost tolerable.

Though the mages aren't sacred, the spiders that the Black Sorcerers turn into are. It's worth considering if you plan on using them as thugs. It is really hard to arrange to have them blessed though, since you can't control when they shift. I've never been able to pull it off with any consistency.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Hrmm, I just tested that, but the spider the Black Sorceror turned into wasn't sacred.

I had a go with a prophetized Black Sorceror though. He was pretty cool.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Wow. I'm sure they were. I wonder how old that memory is. Maybe all the way back in Dom2. :)

Machaka's one of my favorite nations for flavor, but I haven't played with them much. I just can't make them work. I'd love to see other age versions...

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Well its a question of what the nominal damage they are going to face is, and then whether its better to have an extra few %protection in the case of E (20-24) than extra attacks/defense from water. If you look at the % for making a roll where you have to beat 10 vs. 14 you see that the odds don't change by a huge amount. But on the defense side, the odds to beat 4 vs 8 are a very large change.

If you figure to have them running into big mobs and getting alot of arrows then E is probably going to serve you better, but if you try not to use them that way (or if you take an air bless, which isn't completely impractical in some designs) you don't need the extra protection as much.

Again, I'm focusing mostly on early game where the forces they will face are not going to have all the counters available. I really don't have a feel for the late game options though, and it may well be that these kinds of Machaka builds are not particularly effective late game, however, the idea is to leverage the rush and growth early game into enough of an advantage such that you have either hindered the true late game powers to where you can compete, or given yourself enough space to allow for some catchup with your assumed ability to leverage death mages into something.

If someone could enlighten me as to the effectiveness of these Machaka rush strategies vs. other MA rushers I would appreciate it.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

So as far as damaging tough troops is concerned, a D9 bless (2AN) really is your best choice. And it's not half bad against chaff either. A D9F4 or D9F6 (taking fire for the increased attack bonus) could be reasonably cheap and effective, especially considering that spiders are difficult to hit anyway.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

It is not that they are not particularly effective late game, heck they won't even still be alive then, but that they're not very effective in the early midgame. The spider riders are so vulnerable to pretty well anything other than indy chaff, and the spiders themselves have such absolutely pitiful MR, that they tend to be massacred w/out much difficulty by any human opponent. Poison, lightning, fatigue attacks, most other sacreds on any gp/resources matchup...

The require a massive investment in points, gold, and resources. They are then effective only against opponents against whom almost anything is effective...

I like the sacred spiders, thematically, but size 6 and 125 gp kills them. personally, i'd up spider MR by 2, lower cost to 100, and increase rider defense by 3 - it's gotta be difficult to hit someone sitting on the back of a giant tarantula :)
Even then, they'd be a bit borderline for a serious bless strat.

The hoplites, backed by the web spitter spiders and bows, work well. flaming arrows and magma spam give machaka good midgame power.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Oracles and FOBs are always the best chasis for full double + blesses, with occassional exceptions for national only gods.

Even so, the return on investment for machacka simply isn't there.
The spiders cost too much (especially in resources) to work well with the scales necessary to produce the bless.

I think machaka strengths are: (and I'm doing this from memory)

1. Low encumbrance spell casters, etc.
2. High mobility.. map move three archers...?
3. Good magic versatility.
4. Some free points due to heat preference.

Generally, I'd say your better approach is sloth, heat, and boost your income as much as possible. crank out castles and mages. Get into summons.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

I disagree that the spiders are resource intensive, other than the first 2 turns you are not resource limited compared to your income (assuming you also want to recruit mages...), and eventually its the holy which limits you anyway.

What scales does machaka need to be effective anyway? Order3 obviously, and they get Heat3 for free, so you can easilly take Mis2(3) and Drain2, hell you can even throw in some sloth and still not have a resource issue since the spiders are the only unit you need resources for and your early spider armies clean out indies very quickly with zero casualties (this is all before turn 10).

Now I grant that I don't know the MP game very well, so maybe this early expansion/rush power doesn't translate into anything, but that would seem to imply that all bless based rushing doesn't translate into much of anything, not just for Machaka.

How much research/mages do you have to effectively neutralize 20 spiders on turn 10? What else have you sacrificed to do this?

Again I don't know the answer to those questions, so I'm posing them. The best thing for me to do would be to try it in MP obviously, but I don't really have the time for that right now ;)

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

With anything but the best research nations or niche nations like ULM, going with drain 2 leaves you too far behind in the research department.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Well drain2 is only -1RP with CBM (which I am using...), but the point is that if you out expand everyone you make up with quantity over quality...

That's the theory anyway ;)

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

yes ... theory. It won't work, as you will have spent so many points for something that doesn't hold up that well. sad, but true.

But you should try an MP game - they don't take all that much time, if you just restrict yourself to one game.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Ehh?

I was talking only about the research deficit, not the overall points expenditure.

And I'm still missing something on the scales Machaka should take, since I don't see the need for Productivity or Luck (if you take Order3).

Are you plowing those points into an awake SC or something?

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

awake SC, w/ a bless? that's unpossible.

perhaps you should put forth a build you are looking at.

going drain 2 is pretty harsh, but it can be done. not w/ machaka, I don't think, as it will desperately need research to cover for it's dying spiders.

Not to say that you absolutely can't use them. But i think any such build would be borderline at best.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

I didn't say SC with bless, I said SC instead of bless.

I'm asking where you put your extra points from not taking the bless, since I don't see that production or luck is particularly useful to Machaka under any build. And O3H3 are already neutral.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

scales, and probably a sleeping potential sc god that covers some of machakas missing paths. air, for sure, probably astral. I generally don't take awake SC's, though that would be an option.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Well to try and shore up some of the weaknesses being discussed here I tried an awake f4w9s6 glyph. Scales were 03H3S1G0M2D2 and I had a dominion of 5. This is with CBM as well.

That pretender gets you 20rp per turn from the start, which helps to offset at least some of the research problems.

Of course the map I tested on stuck me in the middle of a bunch of mountains, so I wasn't able to use the strat move2 very effectively. Anyway, with the improved research I was able to get to Iron Will pretty easilly, which with the bless, gave my spiders an MR of 17 (I think, don't have the numbers in front of me at this computer).

So is that a reasonable MR to counter the kind of mage spam you would expect around turn 20? I think I had it a bit earlier, but it also takes some time to put the right mages in with the armies. And I would imagine that its also possible for Machaka to buy/trade for some early items which should also help them since I find it difficult to research const and spare many forgers (well as the pretender is the only way you have Astral, and he's being used to help keep up the research).

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

MR 17 is pretty good, I think.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

well, i'm impressd w/ your attempt at having an awake bless :)

Dom 5 is extremely marginal, though. your own scales won't cover your territory, and you'll be vulnerable to a dom push. I'd suggest making him asleep, bumping up dom to 7 and magic to 1, if you can squeeze the points.

and Iron will is very difficult to use - you really need an s3 caster putting up Antimagic. to use Iron will you'ld need one earth mage for each 3 spiders...

w/ the same scales, but Magic1 and dom7, you can try an asleep glyth S9F9... there's something to be said to having an astral king :)

and F9 will give them pretty well the same punching power against indies, and also against etherealized units.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Heh...

Well do you really want your own scales to cover your territory ;)

Other than heat probably...

I agree that Iron Will is problimatic, as you have to position the mage so that only the spiders are in range otherwise he casts it on your archers (uggg....), but... its easy to get to quickly, and its a tool in the toolbox if you really need it. Also you probably don't need to cover 100% of your spiders, just enough so that the enemy wastes some casts on them.

If we're talking paralyze here it will target the closest correct? So you can stick your spam up front to draw off the first wave, then your quickened spiders should still be able to get a few into the rear/flanks of the enemy.

And if you're willing to take another hit in your scales somewhere (or drop astral to 4) you can remain awake with a dom of 7 as the glyph starts with dom4 so bumping it is quite cheap.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Is that 17MR for the spiders with riders, or after the rider dies?

Because I thought the Spiders themselves were down at the animal level, 5 or so, and I don't see how Iron Will and a bless gets them to 17.
Before the riders die they're not bad for MR, but the riders are fairly fragile despite the high protection, so you usually wind up with a good number of Spiders, who then die in droves to any MR-based attacks

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Good point.

In that case its probably worth positioning the remaining riders to get the bless and let your spiders fend for themselves ;)

But as I've been saying for the most part with the w9 bless my riders remain mostly intact anyway, unless I use them poorly by not massing them enough and letting them get strung out and surrounded.

There's also going to be a handful of the Hunter Lords in there, and those guys are tougher if you equip them a little, or get lucky with heroic abilities, since they kill alot, they tend to compete for the abilities anyway.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

no, they actually buffed the hunter spiders to MR 10 some patch ago... the ordinary spiders only have MR 5

MR 10 is a good basis at least... and i just got some ape astral mage hero, who could cast antimagic.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

There's your problem. CBM makes EACH step of Magic scale +/-1 Research. So with CBM, under Drain 2, you are -2 RP/mage. I think if you are only using your pretender to shore up early research, you may well have better results putting him to sleep for a year, and fixing that Drain. The first 12 turns will be a little slower research, but by the time he gets out, he can catch you up by your turn 20 deadline, and then your research will only be better, even as he is more free to do other things for you.

Since need for research doesn't tend to relax at all before turn 50, I look at higher Magic scale as GIVING me more mages. As the number you need in Labs to maintain a desired research rate is lowered, letting you use more in your armies. Otherwise you buy them, you hit shift-R, and you tell them to get comfortable.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Compare Machaka to the good bless races:
Mictlan, Lanka, Vanheim, Tien Chi,Tir (I forget). Heck, you can even compare to Pythium (ME), Ermor's Shadow vestals,

Machaka's spiders are WAY more expensive than mictlans, jaguar or eagle warriors, WAY more expensive than Tien's sacred warrior.. Way less effective than Lanka's Tiger, Donkey heads or Kamas.

Is what I meant when I said they cost too much.

With Lanka, Tien, Mictlan - I can afford to go , Heat-3 Drain X, Misfortune X,, just like machaka - however I can also afford to go sloth-3 (Donkey heads work just fine for lanka).

Regarding being holy limited - the question will be - are your holy troops built at any castle, or are they capital only. This question is one of the main reasons why Pythium is not really a bless nation - Capitol only bless recruits.

But for most of these other nations, you are going to be popping up another castle and temple and doubling your sacred output asap.

One last problem aspect about the spider riders being two capital/resource intensive.

Building a few high value units at the start is excessively risky. There are indies that will trash even respectable numbers of your spiders.. tthe ancient prescense, the 3 air mages, probably bogus, the hydro mancers.

Additionally, hi value units are especially susceptible to open ended die rolls. If you have 100 units - you don't care much if you lose 20. If you have 4 units - you care a lot if you lose 1
(if no other reason than the morale checks you face every round).

I've played probably 20 games trying to make a machaka bless work. Its fun, and its fine in SP - just not what I would call competitive in MP play.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Well in the version of CBM I have this is not the case, D2 is only -1, or its not showing properly in the descriptor. Either way, It would be interesting to try it your way.

Well these indies come as events don't they? Otherwise you can 'avoid' them after they hit. Xbow and Knight provinces don't trouble my armies, and anything less than that is just completely overrun. As with any expansion strategy you arn't just blindly charging around.

Well make the numbers 25/100 and 1/4 and the 'cost' is the same, depending on how replaceable the units are, which is obviously an issue for the Hunters, however the only units which are 25:1 with Hunters are the absolute worst of the worst chaff, and the blessed spiders will have a moral of 15(? something around there I think).

As I've said, I don't have the MP perspective, and I appreciate what you all are telling me, I'm just being obstinate because I want to be sure I'm getting the full effort into the replies, which I think I am. I also havn't really tried other bless nations much to compare them myself, so I may just have to do that and see what I find.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

That used to be the case, but is not any more, since the latest version of CBM.

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

Whenever I play Machaka, I tend to just recruit the tarantula riding commanders instead of the sacred soldiers, and then lots and lots of archers and hoplites.

So a heavy bless strategy isn't that necessary, but if I wanted one, I'd probably go with an imprisoned cyclops with W9/E9/N4/S4. Since I'd be forging MR amulets for the commanders, that's enough MR for the basic spiders.

Oh and I don't know that I favor the return to vanilla magic scales for CBM. The way it was worked really well with research set to "Very Hard".

Re: Machaka and a W9 bless
 

yeah thats what I was trying to suggest honey - the sacred route is just not the route to go with machaka.

Its sub optimal compared to other races - but its also suboptimal with other options machaka can take.