Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

I'm having slight trouble telling which I should use for Thugging. I have no bless worth revealing (scales build).

Baal's: ..................................Melqarts
500 gp....................................450 gp (-50)
4 resources...............................124 resources (+120)
66 hp.....................................69 hp (+3)
8 protection..............................18 protection (+10)
15 morale.................................15 morale
18 magic resist...........................18 magic resist
2 encumberance............................2/5/8 encumberance (+3/+6)
0 fatigue.................................0 fatigue
22 strength...............................24 strength (+2)
14 attack.................................15 attack (+1)
11 defence................................18 defence (+7)
12 precision..............................12
3/16 move.................................3/15 move (-1)

Blood 2, Holy 1, +3F/E/S (rare crosspaths never get used for thugging anyways)
Fear 0, Fire Resist 75, Natural Gore attack, research is higher than Melqarts

Blood 3, Holy 1, +2F/E/S, Fear 0, Fire Resist 75, natural gore attack.

Which do I use for Thugging? Melqarts have higher stats; but my Astral ones need helms to teleport; and Melqarts have substantially higher melee encumberance and casting emcumberance, which is usually a pretty big issue, right?

Help and opinions appreciated.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

Ba'als have lower encumbrance because they don't have any armour. If you're thugging a Ba'al you'll probably want some armour on them, which usually adds encumbrance. This is why a high earth bless is common for giant nations, as it adds both prot and much needed reinvig. I'd go with Ba'als in your situation as without a bless keeping Melquarts from fatiguing out will be a big problem. Earth ones are probably your best bet, as they can cast summon earthpower to help with fatigue and then invulnerability or other protection enhancing spells to help their survivability without needing armour. Firebrand + Shield of gleaming gold with a pair of Boots of the Messenger is what I would go with, but I'm often fairly simplistic when it comes to gearing thugs. Though I've never actually used Hinnom outside of single player, so keep that in mind before you take my advice. ;)

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

In my first game as Hinnom, but I've been on the receiving end a few times.

My recommendation is with lvl 2-4 construction thug out the Melquarts since you can leave most of the equip the same and just add in some reinvig/regen/MR and with 2 attacks they'll clear most of a tile/round which makes thugging quite cost effective.

After more spells are researched then Ba'als can be really strong earth/astral/fire casters and with the right equipment/spells they can be more SC quality than Thug quality.

Early on, it'd be too expensive to pay the extra gold for the Ba'al and then forge an item for every slot to deck them out.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

I second Excists suggestion. You only need a few items on Melqart.

As for spell casting enc, adding any items with enc will increase the spell casting enc by double. So if you're planning on using any gear it doesn't matter which one you pick.

Overall Melqart has slightly better stats but they are mostly the same. Though Melqarts items save you a lot of forging early on. With the right magic pick and a few low level items Melqart is already a SC not a thug.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

Well, Ba'als are probably the only non-Pretender that can teleport in and mentally dominate an entire army with the right equipment.

Here's a fun recipe I just thought of:
Teleport
1st Ba'al: rune smasher, robe of magi, astral cap, communion master matrix, eye of the void

Cast hellpower, master enslave

3 supporting Ba'als cast power of the spheres (another one with a communion master matrix) & communion slave *2 and all equipped with the cheaper +S equipment.

The master Ba'als should be at S9 after the first round and the slaves at S5 or 6 depending on where they are in the turn order

The 2nd master Ba'al can cast reinvigorate and then both masters spam the single target mind controls to pick up any high quality targets and then the communion can cast returning to pop back to the capital hopefully before any horrors show up.

This should effectively take control of or destroy most any army for a reasonable cost of 30 astral gems and a few slaves.

In vanilla, 30 clams will let you do that every turn.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

Baals are Hinnom's only source of nonblood crosspaths. I'm pretty sure Hinnom has the worst access to crosspaths of any nation in the game. Oh, you have thugs with native fear, a gold shield would really make them deadly...oh wait, have to recruit 40 Baals before getting one that can forge that.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

Well, with Hinnoms wide magic diversity (all except water) I haven't had too much trouble finding Indy cross path mages (found 3 whispering woods and some other Indy cross path mages in the first year)

They have that caveman guy with fairly useless cross paths. Might be a possible target for empowering since it might open up multiple cross paths.

Other than that they also have their national heroes and lords of civilization which I think bring a few useful cross paths.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

Marverni druids. You don`t even need a communion there, just two druids (one of them with Banner of the Northern Star). One (with cap, coin, crystal shield, Void Eye and Rune Smasher) casts Master Enslave, another (with banner) casts Ritual of Returning. If you like, you may even add Wraith crown on second one for a chaff screen and some armor on both for extra durability/mr.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

Dont you need S8 to cast master enslave?

How do you get the druids up there ?

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

s4 druid+cap+coin gets to s6. Shield gives him another +1 and banner gives +1S to every S mage on the battlefield.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

With that said, a small communion works just as well.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

communions are more expensive to teleport.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

That depends on the size of the communion and how often they need to teleport, given the cost of the boosters.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

I was counting in mage turns. :P

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

Well, if you get some lucky MR roles against enemy mages in the army, I suppose your Mage turns could pay for themselves in Mage turns

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

I would think that the master enslave effect is so much bigger than the random 2 or four additional mages. I, however was not serious. Knai had a point.

One problem with communions is that they take one additional turn. Unless you use a crystal matrix. But then you miss the additional +2 penetration. And you need a lot bigger communion to get the same penetration value.

Edit:
And you know, *snigger* penetration matters.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

Well, you can skip crystal coin instead, then 4 communion slaves+3s druid are enough. :)

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

But then you hardly save gems. (10 gems for the matrix, + 3 * 2 gems for communion teleport = 16 gems, the coin is 20).

Edit, and the slaves also need to be s3, or they cannot teleport. Not a lot of nations have 3 spare s3 mages

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

S3s'll also die. With 4 slaves, each will get 200 base fatigue, but it's a S8 spell, and the slaves will be absorbing fatigue at 3+1(LotNS)+1(PotS)+2(communion)=7. Unless you hand out boosters to each of the slaves, you'll need S4 slaves and waste a turn casting PotS to keep the slaves, and nobody has enough S4s to use as slaves. Better idea just to use expendable S1s, expecting them to die, but that's not really cheaper than just shelling out for the boosters, nor can it teleport.

Really, with Master Enslave, you can either go gigantic communion to soak up the fatigue from repeated casts, or use single casters taking advantage of the fact that a caster cannot drive himself over 200 fatigue. Small communions just don't work.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

I think, Banner of the Northen Star i mentioned earlier helps too.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

iirc you can only get 200 fatigue from one spell. (Which is easy to test brb). Back, whoops I was wrong, 2 slaves got 200 fatigue and around 8 damage each. (But still, they lived, but where knocked out). The master did have s9.

So it works as a throw away tactic, if you don't care about your slaves.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

I assumed LotNS already, either cast or with the Banner. There's just no way to put together a small master enslave communion. Maybe a nation with recruit anywhere S4s but I don't think such a beast exists. Well, Marverni can get S4 druids anywhere, but it's a 1/16 chance, so too rare to blow on gimmicks like this.

@Soyweiser, that's the problem alright. Nobody can afford to just throw away S3s much less S4s, so no teleporting. At which point you might as well go whole hog and throw in 16+ S1s and go repeat casting.

How strong were your slaves btw? I was under the impression that fatigue damage over 200 translates to hp at 10:1, and that being 1 under the spell requirement doubles fatigue, which should mean 4 S3 slaves will each take 400 fatigue and die instantly.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

Except R'lyeh. Heck, they'll likely have some S5s you could use. :p

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

one idea is to have an S9 or S8 pretender as the master and then have a single S1 mage or something as the slave. The slave pops and the master is free to cast a second time. Otherwise you can use an earth king or something. Earth kings are super good slaves due to lots of HP and Regen. 800/(1/8)= 6400 points of fatigue. Or 640 points of damage. Ehh maybe not.

Re: Hinnom (EA, no mods): Ba'al's or Melqarts
 

Well, s4 astral mage with full slots doesn`t need a communion. :)
Also, slave matrix on slaves and crystal shield + matrix on master gives you PotS on every slave, right? That might save you a turn. Or you can use a communion with two masters (both matrixed) - one casts PotS, another casts ME - that`s definitely cheaper. :)