[Executor]

Originally Posted by TwoBits

I think the question is, do you need a useful pretender? Or does Marverni (with ultra-scales) have enough in the tank to succeed without one?

Ultra scales can't save you much.
The pretender isn't there to help you defend from those rush nations, he's there to help you expand as quick as possible to get those extra forts with druids up.
Sure they can go without an awake pretender, but your expansion will be much slower, the main army can barely take an average indie province and making another expansion party will take 2-3 turns, and it will still be fragile since Marverni troops aren't top class.

Expanding faster will give you more gold which can be proportional to the extra cash but slower expansion with ultra scales. Does this make sense?


As for luck, I feel it's better to just stick a little blood on the pretender.
The heroes don't cover any other paths that your mages don't have already and if you just want them for the blood it's better to get some on the pretender.

With luck 3 it's a 6% chance you'll get a hero every turn, which means you'll probably wait a long time to get the blood hero.
Empowering in blood is very easy and cheap so I don't think it's a good trade off. Going with misf. 1 or 2 will give you 200 design points more and that something!