[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Arryn:
As far as mages getting munched on at the rear, besides Returning, there's also Body Ethereal and Astral Shield. Not much gets past that combo. And you can stack a lot more defenses on a mage than that. Not to mention that unlike the Wyrm, mages have hands, feet, and body slots.

Hmm, yes, Astral Shield. A nice spell, in theory, although I've found it DOES actually promote several rather irritating problems.

Astral Shield, as you know, causes people attacking you to pass out. This is potentially quite handy, but can backfire horribly in one way:

Paralyzation, as you know, is the bane of SCs. When an SC is standing out there alone, he tends to get slammed with everything, and sooner or later, he's going to fail a paralyzation MR save, even with all the best antimagic gear and spells you can stick on him.

He will then spend the rest of the battle as a useless, immobile lump. All is not yet lost, though, as you may have done any number of things, like slap a Charcoal Shield or a Ritual of Returning on him, and he may very well be able to continue thumping people through passive shielding, perhaps even the accursed Astral Shield....

Until that Astral Shield causes one of your opponents to pass out. Assuming nobody is successful in popping your SC, which I've found may often happen, eventually, everyone starts routing. Obviously, your SC is unable to rout, being that he's paralyzed or passed out cold. This means the "is routing" light will flash several rounds until the OTHER side starts their "is routing". Now, ordinarily, this would hand you the victory and leave your SC alive: However, your opponent, too, has become paralyzed or permastunned: So he can't finish routing either, and eventually the battle just goes back and forth as both sides continue to be "are routing". Eventually, a safeguard built into the game, apparently to prevent infinite loops like this, kills everyone. The opponent loses a few units of minimal value. You lose your SC.

Besides, paralyzed/stunned opponents can't hurl themselves to a fiery doom on fire shields.

You're bring along astral mages as your baggage train for your SC, presumably if you're teleporting him....which is almost a must, as, at least for me, I use SCs primarily as fast-response forces to an AI incursion: With normal moving forces, you'd be chasing him around forever and never catching him, or having to second-guess his next move. Quite the pain. With an SC teleport drop, you can land on him and wipe him out. Unfortunately, sooner or later, one of your Astral mages is going to likely pop off a paralyze, when your SC becomes paralyzed.....

And so it begins.