Tartarian gate summons

[Chacal]

Hello,

What do you think of the use of Tartarian gate summons ? Are you abler to use those big nasty old gods, titans etc... usefully. I found them difficult to play well unless I trnasform them into commanders able to be equipped.

In fact I find big monster of any type note very suited in face of a lot of infantry hitting them each turn. What do you think ?

[Tharivol_Street_Prince]

Late Game Ermor you can use them to diversify your magic if you're already totally dominating. All you gotta do is Gift of Reason the ones who aren't feebleminded.

[Tuidjy]

> In fact I find big monster of any type note very suited in face of a lot of
> infantry hitting them each turn. What do you think ?

I think that by the time you can field tartarians you can equip the ones that are
commanders so that they can take on ANY amount of infantry. Attached is an example
of the first tartarian I readied for battle in my only current game where I have
them. She casts "Summon Earthpower", "Iron will", "Soul Vortex", and Invulnerability".
This leaves her immune to fire, cold, and electricity, with 50%
immunity to poison. She regenerates, gets extremely high armour, has a fire
shield, a decent magic resistance, and those who get close are drained of life and
vigor.

She took, by herself, 240 guardians and longbowmen, backed up by 20 of Man's
mages. In one battle, she got two levels and 160+ kills. Even if a paralyze
had gotten through (it did not), she would have still won. The soul vortex
keeps even paralyzed units alive when they are this tough.

If the tartarian is not a commander, and is not worth being made into one, you can
use it as a meat shield. It may not achieve much unsupported, but it will be
great to shield your valuable mages and unit. And frankly, even as troops,
the Manticores pack quite the punch.

----------

Actually, I guess that in the screenshot she was carrying a lantern shield, not
a charcoal shield. The starshine skullcap and a charcoal shield would have
been better equipment, but at that point they were a lot harder for me to forge.

[Meglobob]

I think you have a 20% chance of the tartarian being a commander. It usually has at least 1 affliction but you can be very lucky and get a affliction free one. On the other hand I have had tartarians with upto 5+ afflictions if you get unlucky.

The fairy queen is virtually useless at healing afflictions. The chalice is fantastic at healing afflictions. I believe Gift of Health is good as well.

How good are witches (I believe they can heal?), Arco priestesses and Ermor healers? Anyone know?

[Ewierl]

Remember that affliction-curing chances also depend on the individual affliction. From my personal experience with GoH in long games, it seems like Feeblemind is relatively hard, unfortunately; even in a Dom10 province with GoH it can easily take 5-10 turns or more to heal a Feeblemind, though they aren't impossible.

Heal rates for Priestess/Ermor-priest are listed in the manual somewhere, though I don't have it handy. I don't believe Witches heal.

[PyroStock]

Meglobob said:
How good are witches (I believe they can heal?)

The witch's description says they having healing abilities, but they don't have any "Heal Allies/Troops" option. Perhaps they have a passive healing skill similiar to the chalice, but wouldn't someone have noticed that by now?

[Sandman]

I think the description is just outdated. They'd be far too good if they did heal.

[Loren]

Meglobob said:
I think you have a 20% chance of the tartarian being a commander. It usually has at least 1 affliction but you can be very lucky and get a affliction free one. On the other hand I have had tartarians with upto 5+ afflictions if you get unlucky.

The fairy queen is virtually useless at healing afflictions. The chalice is fantastic at healing afflictions. I believe Gift of Health is good as well.

I just tried it this weekend playing LA Ermor. I put up Gift of Health and my tartarians rapidly were losing their afflictions. Getting off that Gift of Health wasn't easy, though, and it turned out to be irrelevant--I got a dominion kill while moving them to the battle.

[Ewierl]

Using Gift of Reason to turn them into equippable commanders is indeed the standard practice. Their base cose is cheap (10 gems each, I believe?), so they're still an okay buy even when you are only getting full mileage out of those without Feebleminds and with Gift of Reason. Once equipped, they're probably the best non-unique SC chassis you can get (aside from the Seraph).

I seem to recall that you could randomly summon a commander Tartarian sometimes in Dom2, but I haven't used the spell much in Dom3.

[Baalz]

Yeah, there is still a chance to get a random commander. Not sure what the chance is, but in a MP game I'm playing my very first casting resulted in a commander Titan with no afflictions and 4e. That's quite a deal for 10d!