What the heck are lammasthas for????

[Beorne]

Ok, I've won the battle, but it has been very hard with the sacrifice of my undead and carrion cavalry countering vine ogres, and the heroic shield of my black centaurs units and my pan assassin lonely flanking itself an army of arco infantry

But the bulk of my army (a hundred of various carrions, manikins, satyrs, carrion elephants etc.) staggered back and forth all the battle. Why? Because my carrion dragon, using some of my very precious death gems, casted (as scripted) repeatedly "summon Lammasthas" that are, clearly, considereed an enemy. So I had an enemy Arco army on the front and was attecked in the rear by some winged ethereal things.
Is this a feature?
How could I successfully use that spell?

[Chazar]

I never used it so far, but I would guess its rather something for hit-and-run: A small army casting some ongoing damage stuff like wrathful skies, and then summoning the Lammasthas to keep the battle going while retreating the caster and his bodyguards...(?)

[Peter Ebbesen]

A few uses of Lammashtas (and Horrors, that other non-friendly summon):

• An immortal leader in your own dominion can be scripted to cast a few of these. They will continue the good fight after he is dead, and who cares about dying in such circumstances?
• As Chazar mentioned, Wrathful skies plus something to keep prolonging the battle can work. With a bit of luck, your Lammashta caster might even survive to retreat (or he might not). Of course, if you sent several and each was affected by the ritual of returning...
• In practise, they are mainly of use as a sort of assassin rather than part of the main battle line. However, there are variations. You could try to have some mages scripted to Summon Lammashta and others to Control Undead (haven't tried it, but it should work - not sure if it is worthwhile). Or you could bring along somebody to horror mark the enemy's leaders and hope that the Lammashtas would prefer killing off those nasty horror marked people (once they have chopped up the spell caster, that is). Cursing and Horror marking good enemy leaders is fun.

Quite probably there are other uses I have not thought of.

[Beorne]

OK, I understood.

Next time I'll summon something more tame.

[Gandalf Parker]

In Conquest of Ellysium (the game prior to Dominions) all summons had a chance to work AND a seperate chance for the summons to be bound to you. The levels of the caster mattered, the level of the creature (each spell had multiple choices), and how much you invested in the casting. If you were casting for a demon you could try for low, medium, or high demons with differnt possible results in each. So your results were based on caster lvl + what lvl of that summoning you were doing + how much you invested to make the summons more likely to be succesfly AND to bind.

I thought that was alot of fun but then CoE is a solo play game. It might not import into DOm3 well but I wouldnt mind seeing some of it come back.

[NTJedi]

"Summon Lammasthas" - not only will these fellas attack your own troops when summoned but they cost gems too. Unless your very limited on spells I would suggest avoiding this one.

[Vicious Love]

I suppose an Empoisoner with a death wish MIGHT be able to bring down a powerful target by summoning Lammashtas, although methinks this is far less reliable than, say, Tangle Vines-Attack-Hand of Dust, or a dozen other low-level combos.

Methinks the Lammashtas are intended to be, above all, an effective desperate measure, a Last-ditch effort to take out one's opponent at any and all costs, no matter how suicidally exorbitabt. Unfortunately, they make for a pretty feeble Last resort. I've seen a suicide communion summon over FOURTY Lammashtas(In two turns) to attack a horror marked Son of Niefel pretender, with no more than a Wraith Sword(Mostly for reinvigoration), a bit of miscellaneous gear(I'm pretty sure he was wearing his default armor, and his defense skill was on the low end of the SC scale), and a two-spell buff queue(Quickness and Breath of Winter).
Said Lammashtas never stood half a chance. Didn't even inflict an affliction.
Instead of wasting two turns of my thaumaturgs' time, I coulda gotten off a few mind burns, and instead of wasting 20 gems, I coulda summoned enough dispossessed spirits to mob that pretender into unconsciousness a dozen times over.
Definitely not the best of suicide spells.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Vicious Love said:
I've seen a suicide communion summon over FOURTY Lammashtas(In two turns) to attack a horror marked Son of Niefel pretender, with no more than a Wraith Sword(Mostly for reinvigoration), a bit of miscellaneous gear(I'm pretty sure he was wearing his default armor, and his defense skill was on the low end of the SC scale), and a two-spell buff queue(Quickness and Breath of Winter).
Said Lammashtas never stood half a chance.

Lammashtas are best used to maul big armies rather than SCs.

BTW, time to revive an old strat thread, look at the post titled GIRLFRIENDS FROM HELL