Good Troop Summons

[Mind Elemental]

It seems to be a piece of accepted wisdom that most national troops aren't terribly useful by the endgame, although D3 isn't so extreme as D2 in this regard. Since we have a bunch of threads about how to kit out thugs and SCs -- who are commanders, rather than troops -- how about creating a list of recommended troop summons for the late game, broken down by path?

Ideally, we should exclude national summons from the list, or at least clearly flag them -- this should be made up of units that anyone (with the right magic) can use to supplement/replace nationals.

Air - Tricky. Spring hawks and draconians are good, but expensive: they work out to be 4/almost 4 (IIRC) gems each. The draconian chief can summon more, but still, is it really worth spending that much on troops of middling power, except as specialist raiders?

Earth - Easy. Mechanical men have thick armour, elemental immunity, and decent punch. Clockwork horrors have their attractions (they're fast and dual-wield), but fatigue out too quickly. Enlivened statues are slow and lack resistances. Maybe trolls, if you don't mind the fire vulnerability and having to use Troll King's Court to get the better kinds.

Fire - Fire snakes, maybe? They're cheap (around 2 fire gems each), and I seem to remember they do splash damage.

Water - Kydnides are reasonably priced (2 water gems) and have awe, which is very useful, but ironically their own morale isn't that good, and I don't recall that they're particularly good fighters otherwise. Otherwise, I suppose you could try sea trolls - but it would take you a long time to mass them, unless you used the expensive Sea King's Court. Ideas?

Death - Death has plenty of fodder, and plenty of thugs/SCs, but does it have much in between, leaving aside longdead archers? Legion of Wights effectively costs 1.5 death gems for each dude, which is cheap - but for 30 death gems, you could get 2.5 bane lords (not to mention you tie up a D6 mage). Are they any good?

Astral - None that I can think of. Maybe the ether warriors?

Nature - Lamias or vine ogres. Lamias are very cheap, but useful with the right buffs, and VOs (terrible MR aside) are great at damage-soaking. However, I imagine they both suffer from 'long time to mass' syndrome.

Blood - Talk about spoiled for choice! They all seem so good...

[Lingchih]

Air - Spring hawks are very good, but use them with a Queen of Air. She can summon a lot of them.

Earth - Troll King's Court is worth the expense. They are extremely tough fighters, and the Troll King is a very good earth mage.

Fire - I don't see too much use for fire, until I can summon a Fire King. They can then summon some awesome units.

Water - I don't use it much until I can summon a Sea King's Court. The troops are fairly worthless. They die very quickly in a big fight. But the Sea King is a very good Water mage, and brings in 1 water per turn.

Death - Heh, you can't go wrong with death.

Astral - Yes, Ether Warriors are the cat's meow. They cost a lot, but are almost unstoppable.

Nature - Hmm. There is a lot you can get with Nature, and they are all pretty useful. I think the Naiads are the best.

Blood - Don't know. I don't use Blood magic.

[Jazzepi]

I think that vine ogres are popular nature summons. They have lots of hitpoints, and if you can buff their protection they make good shock troops.

Jazzepi

[Shovah32]

Earth: Troll kings court is great, mechanical men are useful, siege golems are tough, fairly hard hitting and destroy castles easily, iron dragons are also very tough but they also fly and have good resistances. Crushers can be extremely useful if you get them early because they are fairly difficult to take down without magic.

Water: Sea kings court is good. The Sea king himself is useful and the regenerating sea trolls(who tend to bleed alot)+the shark summoning spell can dominate underwater.
Kydnides are nice too.

Nature: Lamias are great. Vinemen and ogres are also nice - particularly when you get a boost to summoning.

Astral: Ether warriors are nice. Not much else.

Death: Ghosts are great, chaff, particularly dispossesed spirits are great, wights from the legion of wights spell are good and troop tartarians are fairly good.

Blood: Imps can be a pain but arent too powerful. Devils are always nice. Storm demons/frost fiends/fiends of darkness all have their uses, particularly the fiends of darkness due to stealth(give a stealthy commander rod of the leper king). My personal favourite here would have to be demon knights - they are absolutely awesome with their great stats, abilities and equipment.

[Jazzepi]

Does anyone mass juggernauts?

Jazzepi

[quantum_mechani]

Mind Elemental said:

Astral - None that I can think of. Maybe the ether warriors?

It has the best troop summon of them all- the abomination.

[Aethyr]

Really? You would rank the abonimation over Legion of Wights, or some of the Blood massing spells (Infernal Crusade, etc.)?

[Mind Elemental]

Hmm, well, I was thinking more of troop summons that you could mass in place of nationals -- so not really Abominations/Juggernauts/troop Tartarians.

What makes you guys like the Kydnides? Also, I thought you got a fixed number (5) of spring hawks, regardless of how powerful the summoning mage was?

[Lingchih]

Mind Elemental said:
Hmm, well, I was thinking more of troop summons that you could mass in place of nationals -- so not really Abominations/Juggernauts/troop Tartarians.

What makes you guys like the Kydnides? Also, I thought you got a fixed number (5) of spring hawks, regardless of how powerful the summoning mage was?

Yes, you just get the fixed number of spring hawks. But an Air Queen can summon them easily, and amass a number of them in a few turns.

[Ironhawk]

For water: what about Winter Wolves? or Claymen? Not great spells, I admit, but they can be useful if you are planning to summon with your water gems.

As for VOs being "hard to mass", yes thats true. But players who have chosen to follow the VO route will set up Factories to produce them.