Longdead Archery vs SC's/High Quality Summons

[Endoperez]

But if you have priests, you don't have a lone SC anymore. And you have to protect the priests somehow. And if you afford that much protection, you might just as well bring in a mage or too, to distract the enemy, and spam something nice (Frozen Heart would be ideal with cheap W mages, False Horrors with Air, etc).

The fact that Banefire Archers work well against a lone SC is unchanged.

[OG_Gleep]

Wouldn't it depend heavily on what SC it is?

Air Path, or Water Path sc's have something in their toolbox to counter arrows. And once you see them and figure out they are a counter, getting amulets of missle protection would negate that.

What about Astral SC's, or natural Eth SCs? Do the arrows pass through their defenses?

But having an undead counter is really interesting, as a lot of thug/sc builds use life drain in some form.

[Boron]

The archers have some serious issues imho.

Most of them have been said already, i'll summarize all the problems:

-Only 5 Hp, so very fragile. Some nations have even a priest as PD, so if they are your only undead you'll even lose a few to pd each attack.

-2d1f, not so easy to get paths. Only Ctis + Ermor get them fairly often (or always as Dtombs Ctis).
All nations can get them via spectres, but that's then enchantment 6 and conjuration 6, so not earlygame but midgame and you need quite a few spectres, so they are no longer cheap. You might have to use the spectres as leaders for the archers too.

-The nations that get them easy are the death nations. So your enemies will have plenty of undead counters anyways.

-Friendly fire. As Daynarr said, this is really ugly if you kill 10% or so of your elite troops through friendly fire in every bigger battle.

All in all i find the longdead archers not really good. Imho a spectre is the better investment for your deathgems normally. And in lategame then either demiliches or tartarians.

Finally keep in mind they are archers too, so they are vulnerable to the classical archer decoy tactics too.

And last but not least the banefire decay effect is MR negates iirc, so you will need a ton of hits vs. a good SC or really insane luck to infect him with banefire and they have only 10 precision.

[Saber Cherry]

Ethereal and Astral Shield cannot block magical arrows. Luck and Twist Fate can.

SCs are usually regenerating (if alive) or immune to Bane venom (if dead). Live SCs are also often poison-resistant to some extent. Bane venom is not automatic death; with high HP, poison-resistance, regeneration, and reinvigoration, an SC will normally survive Bane venom unharmed. But it will certainly make it easier for other units to take out, as the reinvigoration and regeneration will have to deal with Bane effects in addition to normal damage and fatigue.

Staff of Storms is also a pretty effective counter, if the SC is not solo.

[Alneyan]

Boron said:
-2d1f, not so easy to get paths. Only Ctis + Ermor get them fairly often (or always as Dtombs Ctis).

Machaka also gets them right out of the box. Machaka is under-appreciated, it seems, so you should not forget about them. We demand equal employment opportunities for all nations!

[Daynarr]

Hey, I like Machaka.

[Alneyan]

Well, your avatar has a certain "death-oriented" feeling, and also includes fire. Death and Fire is the trademark for Machaka, so you definitively look like them. Besides, you pretty much look like Spiderman, and what else is more Machakanesque than spiders?

It shouldn't come as a surprise then that you like Machaka. Show me your avatar, and I will tell what is your favourite nation. *Coughs*

[shovah]

as ive said a decent thug/SC (try banelord) with charcoal shield, flying shoes, amulet of missle protection and fire resistance (is it needed?) can work well against them due to his ability to survive arrows and their abysmal h2h ability. fill up his last misc with a ring of regen and he can tackle most undead

[archaeolept]

out of the box is an exageration - they need to have 2d on their pretender, or get a lucky 2d black sorc.

[Alneyan]

archaeolept said:
out of the box is an exageration - they need to have 2d on their pretender, or get a lucky 2d black sorc.

Woopsie. Looks like I got their paths mixed up. Thanks for catching that one.