Question on SC's

[incognito]

Awhile back in a MP thread, someone complained to Stormbinder (?) about a very tough SC that they were unable to counter. The only stat mentioned for this SC was that it was an airqueen and had Prt of 35. As I have looked through the equipment lists including the artifacts, I began to conclude that even without wishes, you could make some god-awful, one-of-a-kind SC's that would be hard to combat.

Consider a helio with crown of Amon Hotep, Bone Armor, Fire Shield, Sunslayer, boots of anteaus, etc. Not invulnerable, but very high MR and very effective in combat.

While could debate the merits of a single unit with that equipment (too many eggs in one basket perhaps), I am still curious what combinations of scripted spells and specialty equipment people have come up with that go beyond some of the run-of-the-mill SC designs. The design does not have to be repeatable, although ideally, if you mention it, you should have actually tried it once

One Last note: ignore 'wish' potential.

[Soapyfrog]

Spells like quickness, ironskin, mistform, body ethereal, mirror image paired with the right pretender chassis can give you an SC very early that will mow through independents like chaff, with a minimum of equipment (I like paired main gauches myself, but paired enchanted swords or ice swords work very very well too.

For added punch fire shield or breath of winter really help.

Requires some spell research and item forging but a lot of nations can have their pretender ready to start slaughtering indeps by turn 8 at the latest.

[Huzurdaddi]

As I was saing in the thread about damage multipliers almost all SC chassis are either magical beings or are undead/demon. Since damage multipliers add strength before doubling all that is required to kill any SC which is based upon one of these chassis is a couple of high strength chassis equipped with one of the weapons to which the high powered SC is vulnerable.

There are some exceptions to this: Nifel Jarls, Furblogs, and smoe pretenders. But for the rest an mini-SC equipped with an anti-SC weapon should do the trick.

For the Air Queen in question a couple of banelords equipped with moonblades, rings of the warrior, and burning pearls would do the trick. Their attack would probably be sufficient to hit and if they did hit they would kill it. Jade armor is optional as are boots of flying.

Enjoy.

[atul]

Huzurdaddi said:
For the Air Queen in question a couple of banelords equipped with moonblades, rings of the warrior, and burning pearls would do the trick. Their attack would probably be sufficient to hit and if they did hit they would kill it. Jade armor is optional as are boots of flying.

Copper Plate or Ring of Tamed Lightning - no reason to let Queens get their freebie armour negating lightning attacks hit home. Won't hurt much per attack but since quickened Thuella (I admit, worst case scenario) hits with lightning six times per turn it will count.

[Tuidjy]

Heh. Field anything decked out like this, leave it outside of a castle
for one turn, and expect to have a anti-SC squad teleported on top of it.

Talk about coincidence. This JUST happened (i.e. the turn hosted) In a game
I'm playing, Marignon was pestering me with a well-equiped Archdevil (Att/Def in
the thirties, magic resistance up the wazoo). I killed it by teleporting a
crystal mage to cast petrify, an archtheurg to cast stellar cascades, another
for thunderstrike, a lowly theurg for frozen heart, and a meat shield with
lotsa Hps. Yes, it was an over kill. But it was a very clean overkill, so
when you leave ANYTHING in the open, without a dome overhead... expect it to
die. Now, setting up traps is a different matter.

When I said 'coincidence', I meant that the same squad would have dispatched
your proposed SC just as effortlessly.

[Huzurdaddi]

When I said 'coincidence', I meant that the same squad would have dispatched your proposed SC just as effortlessly.

Uhm probably not. You would have held it for 5 rounds and then you would have died as it is certianly immune to thunderstike and probably immune to frozen heart. That is unless your meatshield can actually do damage, which is possible.

Copper Plate or Ring of Tamed Lightning - no reason to let Queens get their freebie armour negating lightning attacks hit home. Won't hurt much per attack but since quickened Thuella (I admit, worst case scenario) hits with lightning six times per turn it will count.

That's true it will hurt. But the problem with the air queens is their defence hence you probably will require both of your misc slots to hit. You may not. It all really depends. Check the SC in question before attacking it is always the best answer.

[Tuidjy]

Huzurdaddi said:

Uhm probably not. You would have held it for 5 rounds and then you would have died as it is certianly immune to thunderstike and probably immune to frozen heart. That is unless your meatshield can actually do damage, which is possible.

Actually, in that case, by the end of round two, the archdevil was at fatigue
near a hundred, and at the end of round three was dead. The meatshield was,
of course, undead with a life drain weapon. Not a match in a fair fight, but
certainly able to keep an unconscious enemy down.

That's true it will hurt. But the problem with the air queens is their defence hence you probably will require both of your misc slots to hit. You may not. It all really depends. Check the SC in question before attacking it is always the best answer.

And that's the gist of it. Everything has a weak point... When everything
fails, there is petrify and life drain. But still, I am partial to Air queens
and Doom Horrors because you can't ground them.

[Stormbinder]

incognito said:
Awhile back in a MP thread, someone complained to Stormbinder (?) about a very tough SC that they were unable to counter. The only stat mentioned for this SC was that it was an airqueen and had Prt of 35. As I have looked through the equipment lists including the artifacts, I began to conclude that even without wishes, you could make some god-awful, one-of-a-kind SC's that would be hard to combat.

Consider a helio with crown of Amon Hotep, Bone Armor, Fire Shield, Sunslayer, boots of anteaus, etc. Not invulnerable, but very high MR and very effective in combat.

While could debate the merits of a single unit with that equipment (too many eggs in one basket perhaps), I am still curious what combinations of scripted spells and specialty equipment people have come up with that go beyond some of the run-of-the-mill SC designs. The design does not have to be repeatable, although ideally, if you mention it, you should have actually tried it once

Hi Incognito.

Yes, it was my AQ prophet that was cause of frustration for my opponent. It had 35 Defense though, not Protection. She didn't use any artifacts, her good stats were combiantion of W9 blessing, 4 stars of experience, Heroic Quickness and good battle gear(but no unique items).

The main mistake of my oponent was trying to counter her with conventional armies and Ghost riders, which she could eat for breakfast.

Ironically at the end I lost her to Dom2 bug few turns ago and had to resummon her Last turn. My scout somehow attacked the enemy province _before_ my Ghost Riders. As the result the retreat route for AQ that I was counting on was not created and she was lost after the PD and regular soldiers routed.

Regarding your questions - you are correct, you can design some very tough SCs, especially with unique artifacts. Although they would still be vulnerable, since you can't cover all your vulnerabilities, even on SCs that have more than standart number of slots.

Although you can make the life more difficult for your opponent by often shifting the equipment on your SC between the battles. You can also suppliment your tough-as-nail SCs with high level battle mages, casting spells that cover the "missing" slots in your SC design. However most of these spells require gems, and your opponent can try to counter this tactic with 2 waves of attacks - strong magical one magical and even stronger regular one, forcing your mages to spend gems before the main battle. Than again you can also try to anticipate it and counter it carefull scripting and generious gem suplly to your critical mages. And so on...

As for particular SC designs - the game that you mentioned with my uber SC (my Throne of Heavens game) just entered the end-game phase, and I am currently in war with all major nations there. I am planing to use some nasty surprises on my opponents in the next few turns, so I can't comment on SC designs I will be using unfortunately at this moment. If this thread will still be around some time later I'll be glad to post some of my favorite designs, if it'll not be mentioned by other people by that time.

Regards,
Stormbinder

[Taqwus]

You can't actually combine Sun Slayer with a shield on anything except an Ettin (or Ettin Mandragora) or Nataraja chassis, as Sun Slayer is a two-hander. One might note that it also doesn't drain life, unless you forgo the attack and use it to cast drain life, and therefore does not reinvigorate or heal the user. It is a fun toy, however, combined with the aforementioned Bone Armor and some other source of decent prot like Amon Hotep or an Invulnerability spell.

One might note that high def is meaningless against spells (and there are unresistable high-damage spells like Magma Eruption (or whatever it's called) and Gifts from Heaven, as well as unresistable paralysis from Petrify... which also negates all defense while it's in effect, as would unconsciousness caused by Drain Life spamming), against missiles (although these usually won't be that damaging, except for the Black Bow which causes unresistable feeblemind), and the Harvest Blade (which automatically hits, and automatically cripples as well). High def is good, but not unbreakable.

[atul]

Stormbinder said:
My scout somehow attacked the enemy province _before_ my Ghost Riders.

I wouldn't call that a bug since it's quite consistent behaviour. If you have scout on a province with "attack current province" orders, he attacks before GRs, always. The only way to perform GR-scout joint op is to have scout move in from neighbouring province. Of course, with this the province becomes yours only after battle phase B...