Fomoria

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I'd like to discuss Fomoria. They're an interesting race with some interesting handicaps- and I'm not certain how to use them. The strategy wiki is painfully slow... so I'll start with the basics here. And then see later about adding it to the wiki.

You've got two national sites, The Isle of Balor and Rath Chimbalt. This provides you with a gem income of A3W1D2. You don't have any mages with a reliable water pick, though it will come up. These two sites also allow the recruitment of Troops: Unmarked, Fomorian Giant, Nemedian Warrior
Commander: Fomorian King, Nemedian Champion, Nemedian Sorceress

Your troops are roughly divided into FOUR races.

Fir Bolg: Superior in all ways to human infantry - mr, precision, strength, hitpoints, skill - you pay for it with a small premium of gold and the lack of any helmet. At least you get shields. It is in a size two package if that concerns you. Unlike Neifelheim, you've a good option for smaller troops. Recruitable everywhere. Basic protection 0.

Fomorian: The cursed descendants of the giants, they are often marked by afflictions, and a goats head (two eyes), 30+ hit points. They are size four, so can only be placed one to a square- though can share space with the Fir Bolg. Recruiting the milita, you can expect at least 7 out of every 20 to be afflicted. You need to be especially cautious of battle fright. Basic protection of 5 is quite handy to have. Acceptably expensive. 20 strength, about, but 3 damage spears. Below average precision.

Fomorian Giant: The original giants who are only partially cursed. They are size six, suffer no inherent afflictions, and have only one eye. They're sacred, have good morale, mr, (decent) protection (equip+basic of six), 60 so hit points, high strength. Slightly above average attack and and defense, an extremely high cost. They are both sacred and amphibious, and partially cold resistant. Rare, very expensive, capital only. Below average precision.

Nemedians: Unfortunately capital only, very nice troops that fill a need for affordable elites and mages. Glamour, stealth and darkvision(50) open up some nice new options. They're pretty similar to the Sidhe of Tir na N'og, though the national death mages make it easier to take advantage of darkness. Very nice, no real flaw other than scarcity.

National Summons
Black Dog- Dark power(2), Darkvision(100), stealthy, animal, mundane leadership required. Best of all, you get 20 for a mere 10 gems.
Size 2, HP 14, Prot 4, Morale 13, MR 13, Enc 2, Strength 13, Attack 12, Def 9, Mov 3/24.
Cheap enough to be useful replacing your missing cavalry for harrying routed troops, they become a force to be reckoned with when darkness comes into play. They're not the most powerful unit- but great for their cost. Who needs skeletons? They only have a bite for an attack. Conjuration 2

Barghest- A sizable upgrade to the black dog. Size 3, 28 HP, Prot 6, Mor 14, MR15, Str 16, At. 13, Def 10. Sacred, Dark Power(3), Stealthy, Darkvision(100). This time the bite is replaced with a venomous bite (weak poison). Costs 13 gems for nine. Conjuration 4.

Morrigan- It's worth noting that they are NOT leaders.
Special abilities: Sacred, Fear(0), CR(100), PR(100), Undead, NNE, Flying, Steatlhy, Glamour.
Size 2, Hitpoints 17, Base Prot 7, body 15, morale 30, mr 16, enc 0, str13, base att 15(current 18), base def 15 (current 20), precision 15, move 3/12. Conjuration 6, four death gems.
Spear of the Morrigans: Damage 6, partial life drain, attack 3, defense 2, length 4, considered magic, decay.
Lightweight Scale Mail: Prot 10, Def 0, Enc 1.
Shield: Prot 15, def -1, parry 4, enc 1.

Dance of the Morrigans: level 8 battlefield conjuration. Untried yet.

Mages:
Fomorian Druid- A1H1?1 (AWED) your only mage recuitable everywhere, this is reason enough not to invest in a magic scale. A rather disappointing unit. There are only two reasons (that I can think of) you'd want to use these instead of any available independent mages with better magic picks. (Shamans don't count since they've only got one, plus a 10%).
1). 30 hitpoints means spells like Bone Grinding or earthquake are of little concern, along with assassins and many typical threats to mages.
2). You can reliably cast storm and forge the staff of storm with your Fomorian Kings. Summon Storm Power is nearly a requirement- unless you have something else to do with their random pick. It's often difficult to find independent air mages- this way, you have a bunch of A2/A3 mages- and that's not counting any gems you throw their way.

It's disappointing, but that's your only mage available everywhere, requiring a temple, lab, fortress, and 150 gold. For two picks.

Your capital only mages, on the other hand, are better units.

Fomorian King (A3,D2,H2, ?1 -> AWD 110%)

Nemedian Champion (A1,D1,H1)
Nemedian Sorceress (A2,D2,?1 -> AWDN 100%)

Castles (Partial):
Capital - Fortified City
Forest - Forest Ramparts
Mountain - Hillfort
Farmland - Fortified City
Wasteland - Ramparts
Deep Sea - None

Province Defense:
#? Fir Bolg Slingers
#? Fir Bolg Warriors
#? Fomorian Militia
1 Fomorian Champion
1 Fir Bolg Champion

[Autochthon]

I'm playing against them in SP (Kaliasa vs. Formoria w/Marverni squashed in the middle).

I noted they have an Unmarked Formorian - apparently, a Formorian Commander w/out the typical Affliction.

I've also seen a Giant Commander running around, but I don't see it too often, possibly an upgunned Giant?

Finally, i've noticed Formor armies using large numbers of mixed Fir Bolg and Formorians, and have observed that the smaller size of the Formorians do allow the Fir Bolgs to move through their formations to attack. This is pretty useful.

Being Kaliasa, we both suffer from low Prot units, and archers are pluperfect hell on both of us I usually use Ambush of Tigers as suicide cavalry to take out the archers, but the Formorian units also use javelins, ugh

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

The druids are puny.
The Giant Commander you see rarely is likely the Fomorian King. Its the only size six commander available.
It's rare because it's capital only and 500 gold, 37 resources.

Heh. thanks for bringing up the Javelins. They're one of the few ranged weapons that are range strength, damage strength added. While a human might see 13+DRN damage before protection, a Fomorian Javelinist will see 23+DRN, and twice the range. And while slings suck, Fir Bolg at least have an additional 2 precision to counter that weapons accuracy penalty.

[Endoperez]

The Unmarked are elite/sacred units and commanders, and the druids also come from the same unmarked clans. They are sacred and free from afflictions.

The goat-headed Fomorians come in many varieties, and also with armor.

Militia: Fomorian Bronze Spear
Javelinist: Fomorian Bronze Spear, Javelin, Bronze Scale Cuirass
Spearman: Fomorian Bronze Spear, Bronze Scale Cuirass, Spear

Warrior and Unmarked: Fomorian Bronze Spear, Bronze Scale Hauberk, Bronze Cap, Shield

15/17 prot for mapmove 2 units isn't bad at all, and NOT weak against archers! They're a bit expensive at 30 gp/warrior, but all Fomoria's units have at least mapmove 2 so you can always give them some Fir Bolg companions.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

A bit of advice for you, Autochthon, keep some reserve forces. It doesn't sound like you've met their Nemedians yet. Being capital only, they're not as bad as Tir na n'Og. But they do have stealthy troops and leaders, as well as stealthy summons. Enough to suckerpunch you if your capital is left uncovered.

[Autochthon]

Thanks for the heads up LP, but we've already met

For the most part, the Formorian AI likes to maneuver with large masses of Formorians.

This is a problem for me, as I usually depend on my forts to fix the enemy long enough to mass a response. Forts besieged by >90 Str 20 units don't last too long

I dunno if the AI is smart enough to use dedicated raiding forces for the "Popup & Pillage/Smash n' Grab" tactic I use when playing with factions w/lots of stealthy units.

Being able to mass giant units quickly is a new twist, but I can definitely see Supply being an issue as well.

Overall, the faction appears to be pretty well-balanced.
/tips hat to Kris O. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon44.gif[/img]

Edit: One more thing. I've noticed that the Nemedian Sorceress doesn't flee when the rest of the Formorian army routs. Likely it's cause her Fatigue is too high, but I need to check...

[OmikronWarrior]

I tried them out in SP, I saw quite a few similarities between them and the Sons of Winter. As such, the common SoW strategy cam probably apply to this nation as well. Get a decent Bless (with Earth and Nature probably being the most important components) and use your sacreds to expand early. As soon as you can, start buying Fomorian Kings every turn, to serve as powerful thugs, subercombatants, or plain mages.

There are key differences. No chill aura makes Fomorians much less scarry, but they also have Fir Blog (small sized) infantry to accompany them, which gives them a bit for flexibility. Try playing with this template and see what you come up with.

[Ewierl]

Lazy_Perfectionist said:
A bit of advice for you, Autochthon, keep some reserve forces. It doesn't sound like you've met their Nemedians yet. Being capital only, they're not as bad as Tir na n'Og. But they do have stealthy troops and leaders, as well as stealthy summons. Enough to suckerpunch you if your capital is left uncovered.

One of the less-obvious strengths of those Nemedians is their magic weapons. Being able to recruit those is a good counter to people who push their research towards early-game Ethereal troops. (I think the only ethereal sacreds are MA Ermor, though?)

[Endoperez]

The only INHERENTLY ethereal sacreds (that don't have to be summoned), probably. However, for the cheap, cheap Alteration 3 you get Body Ethereal... For some nations, that's even worse. Thankfully, the nations with cheap astral mages rarely have access to the worst sacred offenders. Can you imagine Niefel Giants with LA Jotunheim's Seithkona and overall research ability?