[Schmoe]

Chazar said:

Is it necessary to equip the empoisoners with either skull talismans (for item-spellcasting) or skull staffs to prevent fatigue?

I've found that most indie commanders die against 3-4 skeletons, so I never found it necessary to equip an empoisoner, though they were surely more effective with equipment.

What is a sensible general-purpose tactical setup for C'tis? Do you set all living troops "on guard" only and rely on raise skeletons solely?

I am currently trying front placed marshmasters set on raise skeletons, protected by elite warriors on hold and attack close, but usually they overtake the slow skeletons and take the damage themselves. On the other hand, placing the marshmasters up front with a few guards seems dangerous to me, no?

I make up my forces with those weak-protected predator lizards only, for I found that swamp guards are a bit too expensinve for first-row hit-point-soakers, no?

Is it sensible to make runners for flanking-attack-rear? I had some success, but I think the elites are reasonably fast on the battlefield as well?

First of all, elite warriors are more expensive than swamp guard (16 gp vs. 12 gp). In addition, the elite warriors have poor defense and poor protection, so they die quickly. They are great on offense, though, with high attack skill, good strength, and a great weapon.

My favorite troops to buy are actually City Guard. They are relatively cheap in terms of gold and resources (10 gp, 13 res) and provide a decent meatshield. I usually complement them with a few falchioneers scattered in, though I'm not sure how effective those guys are. Swamp Guard are great at holding the line, though, and I try to build up a core force of them for any heavy-hitting army.

One thing you could try is to have marshmasters placed forward, with some troops set to guard commander. Place a strong force slightly behind them on hold and attack. If the force is swamp guard or city guard, they don't need to be too far back, if they are elite warriors you'll need to place them further back. Make sure to put a few token troops ahead of the marshmasters to draw archer fire.

Is it really worth messing around with those sacred serpents? They die so easily (probably their slightly higher than normal hitpoints/size makes them first-rate targets for the tacital AI, while their bad protections seals their fates.) and are not even poison immune to combine them with poisom-slingers...

Sacred serpents are great because of their standard effect. I try to mix some into any serious force. Between the serpents and your great priests, you shouldn't have problems with routing troops.

I also found that poison slingers are better placed forward on fire and flee, but their limited range makes the fire and flee-command into a "move forward, take hits from archers, fire once and scatter over all available friendly provinces"-command, which is pretty annoying...

The few times I tried poison slingers in SP I found them very difficult to use. Maybe I just didn't grok them, but I've since avoided them.