[Corinthian]

False fetters is only range 15(+?) though. You can just start your troops in the back and the enemy mages wont reach them.

As for Agartha and rust mist, I actually faced an about equal sized agartha with a veteran player with the latest MA Ulm. He did use rustmist and darkness heavily. And you know what? Under cover of darkness, were Ulm and Agartha have the same amount of troops and mages and were Agarthan mages use rust mist, ulm will virtually always win. We had many battles and agartha had to bring almost 50% extra troops and mages to win battles reliably. Under darkness.

Why? Because troops dont really mater much in the mid-game. Mages does. And my ulmish smiths with eruption and iron blizzard simply killed agarthas troops faster than agarthas mages could kill mine. Black plates make for excellent chaff all around. Can take a fireball to the face like a boss! How well they fight does not really factor in to it at that point.

Interestingly, from the threads perspective, I never actually cast the Drain magic spell during that entire game. Not even vs R'lyeth! Why? Because irom blizzard tended to kill most thing long before any fatigue would have become relevant! Same with temper the will. Its a waste of a mages time to cast it. You should have the mage spam evocations instead. Who cares if some dweeb get him mind fried. Black plates cost only 11 gold!

They really should cost atleast 15-17g as they are now, IMHO.