Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

What are the best combat non-unique non-blood non-booster itens from 0 to 4 research level?

My choices (vanilla):


Level 0:
- Axe and Swords of Sharpness (armor piercing is good)
- Fire Sword (better attack)
- Skull Talisman (skellyspan)
- Black Steel Plate and Full Plate (only for low Encumbrance commanders or 0 encuberance undead)


Level 2:
- Faithfull (luck without needing a misc slot)
- Weightless itens (decent protection without encumbrance)
- Amulet/Robe of Missile Protection/Shield of Valor (Missile protection is always good)
- Boots of the Messenger (reinvigoration)
- Burning Pearl (attack enhancer)
- Copper Plate (cheap protection with small bonus)
- Horror Helmet (fear)
- Pendant of Luck
- Sceptre of Authority (Flame Bolt spawn)


Level 4:
- Amulet of Antimagic (magic protection)
- Amulet of Resilience (reinvigoration)
- Chain Mail of Displacement (good low encunbrance armor)
- Charcoal Shield (good area effect)
- Fire/Frost Brand (good area effect)
- Girdle of Might (cheap reinvig/strenght booster)
- Implementor Axe (fear)
- Lucky Coin (luck without needing a misc slot)
- Rainbow Armor (reinvig + magic resistance)
- Ring of Regeneration (regen)
- Shroud of Battle Saint (bless)
- Silver Hauberk (decent with missile protection)
- Rune Smasher/Spell Focus (penetration)
- Staff of Corrosion (Acid Bolt)
- Sword of Swiftness (2 attacks and increases defense)
- Vine Shield (entanglement)
- Wand of Wild Fire (Fireball spawn)

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

I'd add in thunder bow as well.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

4 Wave Breaker
4 Snake Bladder Stick
2 Shambler Armour
0 Raw Hide Shield
4 Flambeau
4 Wall Shaker
4 Winged Shoes
2 Birch Boots
4 Elemental Armour
4 Crystal/Slave Matrix

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

I did not add it only because you need a strong commander to make it usefull and not all nations have recruitable commanders with decent strenght to make the best use of it...

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

Wave Breaker - only useful underwater, but you have a point.
Shamble Armour - how do you use it? i could not find a good use for it..
Raw Hide Shield - seriously? you find it is worth the gems?
Flambeau - Agreed that it is a good item, but i think the gem price is too high.
Wall Shaker - i find it too niche...
Winged Shoes - strategically useful, but is flight really useful enough to justify it in combat?
Birch Boots - I find Boots of the Messenger a much better alternative.
Elemental Armour - You are right... the elemental protections make it a really good item... i´ll add to my list
Crystal/Slave Matrix - Only useful if you make heavy use of communions and i find most communions too easy to disrupt...

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

Yea winged shoes are quite good wether you want it for strategic purpouses or to fly and attack rear on the battlefield.
About Crystal/slave Matrix you can use it to boost paths that are not native to you for example to get high death/blood/Air with Bandar log rudras.(Or any other commanders that have strong magics but you want to make them stronger turn 1) So i'd say they are quite useful. Situational but useful.
I agree about the Flambeau.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

Communions are awesome. Use them.
Yes, if you give it to awake gorgon turn 2.
Put it on thug (or ten) and conquer underwater provinces.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

Grants Water Breathing. Also 0 encumberance armour.

0 level. 0 encumberance. Use it on a battle caster if you can't make anything better and need the protection.
Fire gems...I usually don't have much use for them outside of battle magic. But it is expensive.
Item spam Panic. I like that spell. The seige bonus is just a bonus.

Depends. Sending a thug to block cavalry or attack archers is always fun. Allows a regular commander to lead flying units. edit: On a flying raid or to reinforce a regular army, I mean.

Resistances may be important depending who you fight. In a strong cold province, for a commander without cold resistance, the net encumberance reduction is better than boots of the messenger.

Other people have noted the benefits of other items.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

These things are useful even if you do not make heavy use of communions. They can give communion power to mages not normally able to commune, and they free up a order slot. (Getting your super spells cast at turn 1, and not turn 2 can be a big deal).

The crystal matrix is the most important one. Because you know the order mages are going to cast spells, you can just have the slaves cast comm slave and give the last mage a matrix to make him a master.

I think you only use communions in huge communions. But they can be great even in small numbers. (And having communable magepriests makes getting h3 easy).

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

i know nothing...so take that into account here.

but one of my favorite combos at low level is this

barbarian commander(cheap, easy to find, natural stregnth of 13)

thunder bow
eye of aiming
boots of giant stregnth
bundled with a mage who casts earth might
possibly bear claw talisman

if he is firing at high value targets(giants, cav, even casters) this guy is nasty nasty nasty.

of course, even with forge bonus, you have 6A and 6E in him. and really, you should put a bit of armor on him so you don't lose him to an arrow or two.

but if you were playing vanilla with d hammers, he'd be even cheaper.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

Raw hide shields are good if you need to equip lots of sc's and you have lots of nature gems

I also like the shield of gleaming gold

Winged shoes are vital in getting your sc's to the provinces they need to be in

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

...Then you should probably go with vine shields.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

Raw hide shields give you more defense at half the price. And you need nature 2 to make vine shields. Its easy to find recruitable nature one mages.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

wave breakers give 4 attacks per turn. They are great for 0 encumberance SC's


cat charms are great to help you get high defense

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

iirc multiple attacks do not give multiple encumberance. Only one round of attacking gives enc in fatigue.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

Being severely undervalued here:
1. Winged boots. Winged boots open a lot of possibilities on both the strategic and tactical levels. Strategic has already been pointed out, but aside from hitting cavalry or archers (especially if you have fear), boots of flying can be invaluable against self-buffing SCs, and they are basically awesome. They also make it MUCH easier to escape a battlefield alive if things start going to hell.

2. Wall shakers. Some nations practically *need* these, and some nations practically require their use against them. The panic is nice, but the siege bonus is THE reason to buy them. Sieging a fort and having the ability to storm it instantly vastly reduces the amount of time the enemy has to get organized and prepare defenses, and lets you attack with much smaller armies than would be otherwise possible, or SCs, and the time saved storming the fort frees up the sieging units to go attack other provinces much more quickly. Tempo is a very powerful weapon.

And yeah encumbrance only matters for rounds of attacks, number of attacks doesn't hurt your fatigue.

Also under cbm 1.92 that barbarian loadout would be insane, you'd be much better off summoning a sleeper and just handing him a bow. In vanilla or cbm+hammers it's probably fineish though. But that's a lot of gear for just one man.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

esp with only 9 mr.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

Hmm, doesn't the Lychantropos' Amulet work based on MR? Hand it out to a barbarian chief for a not terrible superberserking high strength fighter that'll eventually turn into a much better skinshifter thug. Don't know how reliably that'll work though.

I don't even know where I heard the amulet works based on MR, the wiki seems to suggest a flat 2% chance per turn, which means it'll take forever to get a skinshifter out of it.

Re: Best 0-4 level combat itens?
 

In both vanilla and cbm i find useful to give a decent bow/crossbow to those indie N shamans (bear/wolf/etc tribe) and script them with Eagle Eyes and then fire at the enemy...

The bow/crossbow used will vary according to the available gems, but a group of 4 of these can do some damage to the enemy, you just need a screen of 20-30 shielded troops to protect them.