The Art of Thuggery
 

I was curious if anyone had any suggestions on creating good thugs? And once you've made them, how do you integrate them into a regular army so that they're effective without getting surrounded and wiped out?

Advice on bane lords in particular would be appreciated as I'm going into a game to play MA C'tis, and I am constantly underwhelmed by the performance of my banelords.

Jazzepi

Re: The Art of Thuggery
 

Baalz wrote a Guide to Thugging, you should check it out.

Mostly it is a matter of what troops you are using to thug.
Bane Lords are immune to poison and have fairly high natural protection, sticking them with a Snake Bladder Stick, ring of fire/lightning protection, a good Shield and a pair of winged boots should get you pretty far as a raider or general nusiance.

Still, gear your thugs primarily after what your enemy is bringing against you.

Re: The Art of Thuggery
 

Integrating thugs with normal troops is largely a matter of matching up movement rates. You can also place them sort of "in the middle" of squads, so the thug can't rush ahead easily, but it means he can't get into the melee until a few guys have died.

But Bane Lords are not going to cooperate well with C'tissian infantry, with a Chill aura, and Cold Blooded troops. You will mostly want to use squads of Bane Lords operating without army support, as sweepers, perhaps with a buffing mage or three. Then have the infantry clean up and siege castles.

Of course, if you were talking about having the Bane Lords "blend in" to a horde of skelly spam, that's a different biscuit. Placed just ahead of the mages on Hold and Attack, you keep the Chill away from the casters, but the first round of skellies should get up ahead of the Bane Lords by the time they engage. This also means any missile fire focuses on your thugs, rather than on your casters, so you get bonus points. ;)

Re: The Art of Thuggery
 

Bane Lords are pretty slow with their default armour (3 squares move!), and MA C'tis has no access to Winged Shoes, so I'd forge them Boots of Quickness when you hit const-6.

I'd give them a Vine Shield, Frost Brand, and Luck Pendant at const-4, and maybe a Regen Ring if you are swimming in N gems, or an MR ammy if you are in positive Magic scales territory.

Re: The Art of Thuggery
 

What about an Eye Shield instead of the Vine shield? I can never decide which is better. The eye seems better if your guy can survive the first couple of rounds, but I would really like to know when one is better than the other.

Re: The Art of Thuggery
 

Bane lords are not thugs. I would never give one an expensive eye shield. Only cheap equipment. They are only good for specific homeland duties, such as killing wolves if you have the Soulstone.

Oh, and I like the eye shield if your thug is tough (50 hp), and has regen.

Re: The Art of Thuggery
 

Eye shields are what, 10N gems? with a hammer that seems reasonable. Or are you being facetious? Baalz uses bane thugs in his Machaka guide, and they have worse stats.

Re: The Art of Thuggery
 

Lingchih are you thinking of Mound Kings maybe? Bane Lords are such good thugs that with the right gear they are mini-SCs.

In the Bonsai Kitten game I had a Bane Lord in the HoF with 430 kills, around turn 60. He'd solo some enemy armies, sometimes team up just with a Turkey, and sometimes work as a thug in a bigger army of mine. Even Banes (the Conj-3 guys) and Black Servants make pretty good thugs.

I agree that 50HP and regen is a good estimate of when you can use an Eye Shield though. Or, if you just don't have Const-4 yet, Eye Shields are an okay substitute for a Vine Shield. Or if you are fighting one-eyed or low-MR monsters -- I think an Eye Shield might do better against Vine Ogres than Vine Shield maybe, if your defense is high or your protection is good enough to withstand a few blows.

Re: The Art of Thuggery
 

Not very gem efficient, but I believe that Eye Shields cause their check *before* the attack is rolled and on anyone attacking into the *entire square*.

What this means is that three indie commanders + eye shields vs low MR troops = NO hits (except the odd hit that will eventually kill 1 or 2 over multiple combats). Not bad, but still 30 N gems (though it could be only 21 if you have a hammer, which isn't bad if you have lots of N gems and low access to thugs/better gear).

Re: The Art of Thuggery
 

I think we need to know if this is for SP games or MP games... big difference.