How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

OK, so say I happen to be R'lyeh (SP, CBM, EA), and say I'm getting my underwater provinces repeatedly raided by a few Death guys (say, bane lords, dispossessed spirits, those doggie-looking-ones). What do I do to actually beat these guys up & off? I have Astral (vs undead don't work underwater) and Water (that "Cleansing" thing don't work underwater), and no Death, my guys run away after a couple of turns of doing little damage. Oh, and R'lyeh doesn't have any priests to either banish or courage sermon. So now what?

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

Mindblast? Should work as they're not mindless...

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

Mindblast is single-target. I think I need more AoE, they are quite a few undead, and I can't afford legions of mages to defend provinces against raiders.

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

astral fires? it defineatel works UW, not sure how good the AOE is

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

Just what do you mean by "astral fires"?? Ohhh, the book says that's S3F1, as R'yleh I don't have a single F-anything mage! Empowering an S3 would cost 50 fire per mage.... :(

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

R'lyeh does have death magic....

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

sorry bubs. i'm not too knowledgable. just remmembered astral fires worked under water.

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

Use D random mages to cast wither bones. Cast summon water elemental. (and hopefully you took Cold dominion and get Ice elementals).

Use mind burn to kill the commanders, mind hunt (ritual) to kill the commanders.

Cleansing water spam works vs undead. (oops but not underwater).

A well, commune some mages together to have a few of the D random ones cast wither bones, or just use the astral booster to raise their D3+ level.

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

Slobbies advice isn't that bad here. As there are two ways of stopping invaders, killing them all, or killing the commanders to make the troops run away. Mind blast ignores the mindless troops and thus has a higher chance of killing the non mindless commanders.

The spells also tend to target the high hp big units first. And guess who is a big unit? The bane lord!

More:
It seems that his troops are basing their protection on being ethereal, iirc (not sure test this yourself) life drain bypasses this ethereal protection. (Units do not get life back from hitting undead, but they can still hit them iirc). So, gibodai could work.

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

In general: you don't need a legion of mages, but the right mage casting the right spells. You should know which provinces the enemy is likely to raid and be able to defend those.

Apparently you were playing a single-player game? It might just be worth it to put a couple of aboleths or giboleths at the front line, as many as you need to turn away a couple of undead units.

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

Sorry, could you/someone clarify, why will they on front line turn away undead?

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

Wither bones does indeed sound good, but it's Thaum. #6, I'm #4, and requires D3, when only some of mages are D1. I have an income of like +3 Death gems per turn (due doubtless to Voice of Tiamat over all seas has given me great gems but no Death). I respect what you're saying, but it's too much (IMHO!).

(As for the communion to raise D level, I'm sure you're absolutely right, but after two-years-odd of SP I have still never even tried to set one up... :o)

I can deal with Death on land with Astrals or Water Cleansing, it's underwater that's irritating. To be honest, I probably don't really understand how to deal against death troops correctly!

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

What is stopping you from using astral underwater? just mind hunt and Soul Slay all of the commanders and watch the undead vanish.

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

A group of asp turtles, maybe buffed with BE + luck, should clean up undead pretty fast as well.

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

booohohohooo, I cannot research and set up communions. really... Get wither bones, and set up communions, you only need 4 slaves. And actually, you only need 2, and each master must cast the astral spell that improves all magic levels, or give them a crystal shield (yeah, doesn't work on the EA Rlyeh mages).

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

You've also missed an AoE water spell and an AoE astral spell that are UW castable.

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

I guess he means that as the undead you are facing are non mindless types, they are vulnerable to ensalve from your Aboleths.

Other options not mentioned yet:
-You get a priest comander at pd 20, unless CBM modded him out.
-Check the indeps in the seas you own, Amber clan triton provinces have recruitable indep priests.
-Counter-raid.
-If you can make it to evo7, Nether Darts is your trademark mass destruction spell.

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

Nether Bolt (for those with S + D) & Crushing Pressure ? OK, I can see them on my list, thank you.

I replayed one of the battles, where my troops attacked one turn and then fled. Opposing front liners were undead but not fear. That seems to have happened several times. I think what happened is that my commander fled from the back (after some long-distance fear spells against him, I saw he had a Morale-5 injury, you can't be sure from the battle screen when troops break morale, can you?). Might be obvious to you guys, but I hadn't been thinking that my commander fleeing would just pull troops with him....

When fighting undead hand-to-hand, if they don't show Fear icon then there's nothing special about them (they might tend to be ethereal, which makes it tougher, but there's nothing in meleeing undead in itself), is that right?

Re: How do you fight Death Underwater?
 

I was suddenly wondering: does Fear affect friendly units as well as enemy? I had assumed not, but perhaps it does. It's an obvious question, but the manual does not state this, and I have searched the Fear threads here but they don't actually mention this....