[Tuidjy]

I was the one recommending the horror marked commander with a charcoal shield,
but that was against a theoretical scenario in which 30+ false horrors attacked
on battleturn one. I am not saying that the idea is a bad one, but against
the more common case in which the horrors actually have to be spammed, there
are at least two other approaches.

The first one is to attack the casters. Blade wind, flame storm, niefel flames,
thunder strike, etc... are perfect if you can insure that they will target the
casters. If you know that there will be meat shields, make sure you have some
firepower left over after routing or wiping out the shield.

Wrathful skies, fire storm, and rain of stones also work, of course, but you
have to protect your own guys.

My personal favorite is Gifts from Heaven. For some reason, the AI is very good
at targeting valuable enemy units with it.

The second approach relies on the horrors attacking the closest enemy. Skeleton
spam works wonders, because the skelletons end up overwhelming the horrors. Of
course, with this approach you still need a tough unit to actually throw the
balance on your side. But given that I always include a thug or SC in my
multipurpose mage squads, this should not be a problem.

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I am taking an example from my current game - I just send four multipurpose
squads against C'tis and Man (Reverand Zombie and Seater, I am not lying, make
use of this information if you can) I fully expect both horrors and skelleton
spam from both nations.

The squads are made up of:
1. Pretender, one horror marked F/S mummy set to buff and cast, one weak but
very powerful F caster, one relief spammer, two skelly spammers, one horror
spammer, one soul slayer. (This squad is supposed to teleport in the path of
Man's main army)

2. One A/S/D Monstra set on buff and spam, one skellie spammer, two horror
spammers, one relief spammer, one soul slayer. (This squad is supposed to
welcome C'tis into one of my castles, and his army includes living troops)

3. One Air queen, one skelly caster, one horror marked thug. (This squad is
teleporting onto something which looks like a mob of trolls and wolves.
Probably overkill, but given that Man looks rich and his best mages are
undetectable, I rather not take risks)

4. One A/E Tartarian Cyclops (He is supposed to just probe the defenses of a
province. He can probably not cut through skeleton or horror spam, but should be
able to survive it and retreat)

Each of these squads should be able to take on 1000-2000 golds worth of anything
and aquit itself well. They are far from invincible, but on the next turn, some
of them will be hidden behind insta-castles, and the rest will be reinforced.
If something wipes them out it will receive the attention of one of my special
purpose squads...

All these was meant to show that false horrors, just like any other trick is far
from unbeatable. Of course, if you are playing with soldiers by the time the
other guy is fielding Tartarians, you won't achieve much. By the same token,
if your opponent is spamming horrors, you should not expect even your best troops
to hold.

By the way, in that game, I am playing Abysia, so please hold the 'not every
nation can field this' argument. Yeah, Ulm and Pangaea can't, but they are
not real nations.

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By the way, it is possible to use troops to deal with horror squads. With good
timing you can insure that cavalry (or lizard runners, in my case) do not
become the closest opponent until the script runs out, and that they converge
on the casters from the edge of the battlefield, avoiding the spam. But that
relies on knowing exactly what your opponent will do, which, with anyone worth
playing, you do not.