Re: Questions
I'll assume army of gold is too high up the research ladder, fire ward can alleviate the fire portion of the damage but not the higher hit rate of the normal arrow damage itself, though fire ward on good prot troops (with shields) would do well. Mechanical men are also excellent flaming arrow soakers if abit expensive, being fire immune and high prot.
Spells aside you could roll mini-thugs & arrow catcher into one. Something like sleepers / banelords with a good shield positioned correctly can soak up the arrows and thug at the same time, you may even choose to throw in fire resistance in if you're paranoid (and if opponent is a fire spamming nation which is likely, FR really can't hurt). any high parry shield (enchanted shield, the low lvl earth/air shields, air shield armor/shield, awe shield ...etc) together with a cheap brand would make a cheap mini-thug (use in teams), they also happen to be bigger then normal humans, so fire monster command is covered as well unless you field even bigger units that are vulnerable, though of course there are plenty of thug counter (much less your mini-thugs). If you go for high end thug / semi-SC route, GoRed crusher/gargoyle or golem with a good shield will laugh at fire arrow barrage (but will cry to their specific counters).
The flaming portion of the arrow does 8 ap, so anything prot 20+ with a decent shield (or even just 50% fire res, cutting it to 4 ap dam) can stand up well to it. The other overlooked portion of the spell that is on par with the 8 ap damage is the +2 to hit bonus on the arrows (and ability to hit ethereal/pop mistform), allowing it to go through parry rolls a lot more often, you ideally want parry 7 or more to parry most of it, with prot to absorb the ones that did go through.
Contrary to what the manual says, if your army routs from breaking siege (from inside a fort) they can still retreat to adjacent province, your fort even stays under your control (unless stormed). And moving an army into a sieged province with another army breaking siege there will allow them to fight in the same battle.
|