[alexti]

Peter Ebbesen said:

Yes, sorry about that. I wrote a long post, then realised that I was dead wrong under the right circumstances, i.e. slaves placed right in the line of fire. I still think Hydra Skin Armour is a poor choice due to fatigue issues, but that does not invalidate your strategy.

Fatigue management needs to be tailored to the custom situation. If the enemy has a lot of living troops fatigue problem doesn't exist due to soul vortex and life-draining weapons. With masters going into melee the usual fatigue issues of communion disappear, so slaves suffer fatigue only from their own spells. There're several ways to deal with situation: have a slave scripted to relief (uncertain after round 5), minimize encumbrance, wear reinvigortion items (rainbow armor is a primary candidate to replace hydra skin),script slaves to 5 spells and attack. It is also possible to ignore the problem. Without masters casting, slaves only need to deal with their own fatigue, which starts to restore after it gets over 100. With Tartarian staying power and multiple aura effects, falling unconcious for few turns may not be a big deal, especially when different slaves use different strategies. And the only reason for hydra skin was to provide regeneration vs non-resistable damage, so if it doesn't work it should not be used.

Peter Ebbesen said:
You might want to add to your original post the point about how the slaves get activated and actually fight. Since many people use communion slaves in the rear row, the most common experience is that they do nothing at all no matter how you script them.

Thanks, I've added explanation about that to my original post.

Actually, I think placing communion slaves in the back is impractical in many regular communions as well. Spellcasting slaves can add quite a bit of firepower, so in many situations I'd place them to have enemies within the range of spells I'd like to use.