Besieging undead armies
 

I am besieging an army of undead, and since they don't need to eat I suppose it's pointless to wait for them to starve :D

So... what's the solution? Suppose Ermor stuffs a fortress with, say, 600 undeads. How can an average nation ever hope to storm the fortress? :confused:

I am considering to use one or more Wall Shakers here. Do they add their fortress reduction values?

All help appreciated! :up:

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Off the top of my head I thought that mindless units and animals were something like 1/10 of a normal, size-2 non-flying soldier (so your undead army of 600 would be worth 60 militia).

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Crumble is handy.

Perhaps beyond your means but a few ember lords (flying) with strength items should be uber.
-ssj

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Spam the fortress with anti-undead spells, bring wall shakers and gate cleavers, so on and so forth. Then, when the fight starts, open with a nice battlefield spell. I don't remember the name, but there is one that basically just massacres undead and blinds living units, which, combined with a nice Banishment communion will end the fight comparatively easily.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

The spell is Solar Brilliance (http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Solar_Brilliance). If you do use it, make sure you cast Anti-Magic first since it will effect your own side as well. While the odds of any particular unit going blind are generally pretty low, over the course of a 20+ turn battle, that extra +4 MR will prevent a lot of unintended blindings.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

If it's mindless undead, they count as 1/10th of a unit. If they're ghouls or similar, then you need to bring many troops, preferably strong and flying, a siege golem or two and some wall shakers and gate cleavers. Sapper units can also help but these are limited to a few nations.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

I tested Solar Brilliance once against a 600ish army of undead in a fortress on Vanilla. It didn't seem to have the effect I was hoping for. (I was hoping for a battlefield wide spontaneous combustion, I got maybe a third of the units catching fire, but the rest demolishing my army. Though I think I still won the battle by stacking 15 or so Masters of Names in the background. Most of those who survived went blind.)

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Yeah, Solar Brilliance is a "blind 'em all" spell first and foremost, the undead killing is a bit of an added bonus. The killing effect is notable when the battle last a real long time, but mostly it doesn't destroy enough undead fast enough to be worth casting for that purpose alone. Especially not against Ermor or C'tis or similar undead-focused nations who will have spells to buff the MR of their undead minions into the high teens anyway.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Solar brilliance does very little vs undead. I think it does not get boosts from penetration items the caster carries.

At least vs ermor even without mr boosts it didn't kill enough to stop even a minor assault.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Draconians, lots of them...

Awakened gargoyles with gate cleavers if you want to get crazy about it...

And about the Undead, wither bones is the bomb on them...

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Siege Golem and Gate Cleaver, problem solved

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

That depends. If you are defending a fortress, it tends to work pretty well, mostly due to the whole "having a choke point" thing.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Really? I think that is just the chokepoint and the troops in there. The brilliance didn't do much for me in those situations.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

It's mostly that it prolongs the battle, and gives Solar Brilliance more time to work. That said, it also gives battle mages more time to just blow everything up - which, in this case, likely means Banishment communions.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

So the key to the assault of a fortress defended by undead hordes would be something durable to lock up the choke point, combined with strong penetration casters doing something (banishment, solar rays, direct damage area spells), right?
Cracking the fortress isn't any harder than cracking any other fortress, but the assault takes some different sorts of thought.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Solar brilliance prolongs the battle also, your own blind casters and fighters cannot hit the undead.

Really, getting the astral up for solar brilliance has mostly been a waste in my book. Esp as I doubt penetration boosters help the spell.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

It may perhaps be worth it for Rose Ulm, who have a handy onbattle caster of solar brilliance, and whose troops have MR14 base with an easily accessable antimagic boost, combined with not having very good amounts of banishment.
Although for Ulm, Iron Blizzard tends to kill more undead than banhisment, and does not care about MR.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Don't forget the Domkill option. Park an army to defend the territory and some priests to preach. Use your other forces to mop up his other territories, and he'll go away when his dominion vanishes.

Re: Besieging undead armies
 

Battlefield-wide elemental damage spells and Rain of Stones are other favourites once you have breached the walls if the enemy has thousands of weak undead.