Thug/SC warfare question
 

There are numerous guides/tips floating around these forums about creating good thugs and SCs. As a semi-noob, I find that doing well until late-midgame/late game is no longer a problem for me.

However, when it comes to fighting the late game wars I seem lost about how to pursue a decent strategy involving thugs/SC, both in defending against them and using them offensively. A particular problem for me are the flyers, is there a decent way to intercept them other than guessing their next destination?

thanks in advance guys,
- Deadnature

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

** swing low, sweet chariot **

ie. Teleport on their ***. also, depending on how strong they are, rituals like earth attack or ghost riders might work on them.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Indeed, as archaeolept suggests, stopping them may be a lost cause. Instead, you have to kill them after they land. There are numerous ways to accomplish this depending on the thug/SC you need to nullify. For example:

Kill spells such as Seeking Arrow, Mind Hunt, and Vengeance of the Dead can make a well equiped thug very cost inefficient.

Anti-thugs, or units designed and equiped to quickly kill thug/SC chasis and little else, are also effective counters, especially if they can cast Teleport or Cloud Trapeze. These spells move units in the "magic movement" phase, which occurs before the normal map movement phase, and results in a battle before the SC or thug can move away.

Finally, guessing where the thug or SC is going to move behind your lines and putting an army there can work, though obviously is not as efficient.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Anti SC/thug strategy depends on the MR, Defense, Protection, awe, fear, regeneration...

Here's something that pretty much always works.
Two thugs, first set to lower the defense. Every attack is -2 defense so you give gloves of gladiator and a stone bird, also put boots of quickness.
That gives 16 attack, -32 defense. Than take the other thug equipped him with some AP/AN items, gate cleaver or dusk dagger, and give some strength boosters.

The important thing is to kill him while he is still buffing himself.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

How do you control in which order the two anti-thugs attack him?

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Wouldn't the order in which they're showed in the commander's list work? (still seems not so easy)

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Just as Tifone says, the first in commader list will be the first to attack, and therefor he'll be the one to kick down his defense.
This can even work with air/astral mages, as long as the SC doesn't have luck or regeneration.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

OmikronWarrior and archaeolept are right. The best way to deal with a highly-mobile thug or SC is to whack him before he can move.

The problem is that most thugs (and all SCs) have high magic resistance and strong defense, so most assassination spells (Mind Hunt, etcetera) will be iffy. Still, I have found that gearing up a "battery" of Mind Hunters with penetration items can give them a chance even against a high-MR target. Rune Smashers, Spell Foci, and Eyes of the Void are your friends! If you have three (or more) S4 mages equipped with the right gear, then you can just keep Mind Hunting until you succeed. He'll fail his MR check eventually....

If you happen to have the coveted Blood-Astral combo, then you can also spam Call Horror rituals at the thugs/SCs. A top-notch SC will probably be able to take a Horror, but a mere thug should be Horror Chow. Fliers are especially vulnerable to this approach (unless they're immune to Fear), because they're frequently behind your lines with no clear path to retreat. Even if the Horrors don't kill them, enough Fear bonus will still make them rout. With no retreat path, a routed thug or SC will simply die.

Another great choice is to Teleport or Cloud Trapeeze your own SCs (or anti-SCs) into battle. As OmikronWarrior mentioned, magic movement happens before "regular" movement -- even against fliers -- so a Teleporter can intercept the badguys before they can move!

There are many customized anti-SC / anti-thug tactics to try. One of my favorites is a little spell called Paralyze. Teleport a couple of Astral mages along with your own thug(s). Tell the mages to spam Paralyze, and the badguy won't be able to fight back. Easy kill for your own thug!

Assassination attempts also take place before the regular movement phase. If you happen to have some really buff assassins available to you (big "if"), then you can place them in the likely target provinces. Wait for the enemy thugs or SCs to fly into the provinces, and then assassinate them before they can continue their rampage! However, please note that an assassin who can stand up to a thug (let alone a true SC) is quite rare, so this option is least likely to succeed.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Just for clarity to the readers, and not to split hairs on words :) , I correct Slippery - the ritual he's referring to is "Send Horror", and not "Call Horror" which is a battlefield spell. - This can be used in the same way of Send Horror (and earlier in research IIRC and for less slaves) if the SC is near a friendly province: Teleport in a mage to call some horrors (eventually Horror Marking the guy too), then have the mage retreat in friendly territory.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Send Horror, not Call Horror. Thanks, Tifone. :up:

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

equip an cheap anti-sc assasin with an slave collar if the sc has a free misc slot. sc kills assasin, picks up slave collar, becomes feebleminded.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Horrors rarely kill A SC and sending a good amount of them is expensive, but they do make him retreat after a while so just make sure the escape rout is cut off and there are enough horrors.

If you have mages to cast send horror, it would be much easier to teleport on top of the SC and cast life for a life several times. It has a 100 precision and 100 range so it will always hit the SC. It works even if there is PD in the province since you only need a turn or two to kill the SC with life for a life.
Just have some mages cast returning so they can go back.

Quote>
equip an cheap anti-sc assasin with an slave collar if the sc has a free misc slot. sc kills assasin, picks up slave collar, becomes feebleminded.

I really like that idea, had some mages pick that up by accident. But SC's rarely have free misc sloth.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

As has been extensively discussed in the past, this does not work. The winning side in a battle no longer picks up cursed items from the bodies of the losing side.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

The problem with life for a life is it won't affect some of the more popular SC types. And teleporting on top of a SC is a bit of a risk for your valuable S2B1 (minimum) mages to take.

Plus, if you drop 10 or so (lesser) horrors on an SC, there are fair odds it'll end up with a decent amount of horror marking at the end of it. Then conventional armies of yours can use Call Horror more or less safely when fighting the SC later.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

It's not all cursed items. Edit posted a list here:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=649981

If the SC has an empty misc slot, and the assassin has a Lycanthrope's ammy, the SC is quite likely to pick up the ammy. Now it's berserk, and can no longer cast buffs.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

And on a good day, it stops being a SC chassis. Cool :)

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Note to self to make sure all your thugs/SC misc slots are full. They usually are anyway, but now I'll make doubly sure to drop in like a ring of <whatever> if I'm short on items or something.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

I'm confused about the whole send horror spam force retreat (which is cut off) dead SC trick. Does it work on morale 30 targets? I could never get a straight answer as to whether morale 30 has some special significance like morale 50, or whether it's just an arbitrary high number used by some SCs and pretenders and the like.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Morale 30 do route. Especially because horrors keep generating fear checks. (OH THE HORROR!!) As far as I know, morale 99 is the only never route scenario?

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

no, morale 30 do not route from horrors; or, at least, I've never seen it.

playing pyth against Baalz's aby... going to Angels of Fury pretty well ended the efficacy of his horror spam to route SC's tactic.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

AFAIK:

Morale 30 = only rout when HP loss forces autorout. Does not flee from fear, and unaffected by Awe.
Morale 50 = never rout, mindless. Tends to disintegrate when the rest of the army routs. Immune to fear and awe.
Morale 99 = never rout, berserk. Fights on when the rest of the army routs. Immune to fear and awe.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

My observations agree with Greg. I've never seen a Morale 30 creature rout from Fear. Try e.g. dropping 200 Hydras or Nightmares into a battle replay--More 20 creatures go to negative Morale very quickly and retreat, even if they aren't taking any damage, but Morale 30 creatures stay at 30 and stay in the battle indefinitely.

-Max

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Or try 2 dual-shield Wielding Princes of Death against each other.
50 rounds of free xp, for both of them.
Abusive too, if you ask me...
I don't know if it is as common practice as the sickle + chaff death gem generator I have seen

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Gems are more useful than free experience points. In fact, experience on a Prince of Death doesn't really do anything. He can still rout anything that can rout even without the experience, and the undead counters aren't affected by the stats experience increases.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

This isn't quite right. When a unit goes berserk it gets 99 morale, for sure, but 99 morale does not = berserk. Giving it to a unit via modification does nothing other than give it very high morale. It might also cause the morale 30 effect where they can't rout through fear.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

That's interesting - thanks.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

hmm what would a moral somewhere between 30 and 50 and 50 and 99 do then?

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

I think as Sombre points out, essentially nothing special, it would just act like *very* high Morale.

There are special flags coded in for Morale 30 (unbreakable) and Morale 50 (Mindless), other than that, it's just a variable. Bearing in mind the comment that Going Berserk does in fact give you 99 Morale, but having 99 Morale does not confer any of the other benefits of Berserking.

Re: Thug/SC warfare question
 

Plus, in my experience, modding a unit to 99 morale causes bugs. Like for example where the unit sits there casting the "Iron Will" graphic on itself every turn without ever attacking or actually getting Iron Will benefits, IIRC.

Don't mod units to 99 morale.

-Max