Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?

[mivayan]

tibbs said:
In my early era MP game, I kicked Vanheim butt with my Arco chariots. That trample does the 1 point to get rid of their glamour and then they are a lot easier to defeat.

In the *early* era, I can see that working well.

The discussion of EA vanheim (elite medium infantry with glamour) is getting confused with the discussion of EA helheim/MA vanheim/LA Midgard dualbless elite cavalry.

[Graeme Dice]

Dedas said:
But the blade wind is only there to take care of the mirror images, and they only have 1hp. Or am I misunderstanding something?

Mirror images only disappear if the real unit is hit. Blade wind isn't very likely to hit, so it won't do much good. As I said, I saw a grand total of about 5 hits from two castings against a massive formation of protection 12 units.

[Dedas]

But as neither protection or defense will be of any use when calculating if a unit is hit or not (I say hit, not damaged) by arrows/bolts/stones/etc, you could use cheap chaff with very high defense (ex. tower shield units, attack or armor is not necessary) to let the Vans gather some fatigue (easier to hit with missiles). All while you pepper them with a massive rain of arrows (making at least one damage) with your archers who you placed as close to the chaff (but behind your real troops) as possible to get good hits; effectivly killing all the 1hp mirror images. After that you have a bunch of fatigued, no mirror image, Vans. An easy kill for you fresh, real troops (why not cavalry?), who was put on hold.

[mivayan]

Dedas said:
But the blade wind is only there to take care of the mirror images, and they only have 1hp. Or am I misunderstanding something?

I'm not sure if you do, but anyhow, here's an overly ironic description of events:

Edinnausagga the Oracle of the Ancients casts blade wind, the air fills with sharp whirling blades.

Bob the Hirdman, standing in the middle of his 25 friends in the EA vanheim army, sees some of them coming straight for him.

Fortunately, half of them manages to pass through the fake mirror image of himself he has created. The mirror image is intact.

*CLONK* some of them hits his shield. His mirror image is intact.

*THUD* some hits his armor but luckily none draw blood (somewhere around 1/3 wont harm him). His mirror image is intact.

*OUCH* one gets through to harm him, his mirror image is gone.

edit:

But as neither protection or defense will be of any use when calculating if a unit is hit or not (I say hit, not damaged) by arrows/bolts/stones/etc,

There's no difference between hit and damaged for mirror image removal.

[Dedas]

mivayan said:
There's no difference between hit and damaged for mirror image removal.

Then - as I wrote - all you need is high precision archers/slingers or whatever you can get cheap, put them relatively close and fire away. After that send in your troops as usual, preferably with some chaff first to build up fatigue on the Vans to get their high defense down.

[mivayan]

Ah, sorry, what I mean is, an arrow that doesn't remove a hitpoint will never remove mirror image.

[Edi]

The problem with the chaff strat is that you need to spend many times the resources required for the vans in order to get even a scratch, Dedas. Run the goddamn numbers through a test game like Graeme Dice and Huzurdadi said and see for yourself. TRY IT OUT with the bloody chaff instead of just pontificating from your chair.

Huzurdadi gave us the results with C'tis troops and the numbers don't lie. What's your excuse for not running a battery of tests?

Edi

[Graeme Dice]

Dedas said:
But as neither protection or defense will be of any use when calculating if a unit is hit or not (I say hit, not damaged) by arrows/bolts/stones/etc, you could use cheap chaff with very high defense (ex. tower shield units, attack or armor is not necessary) to let the Vans gather some fatigue (easier to hit with missiles).

I'm pretty sure that you have to actually damage the unit to remove mirror images, though I could be mistaken. Van also come with shields, so they won't be damaged/hit very often by missiles.

All while you pepper them with a massive rain of arrows (making at least one damage) with your archers who you placed as close to the chaff (but behind your real troops) as possible to get good hits; effectivly killing all the 1hp mirror images.

Mirror images are not killed when they are hit. They are only removed when the real unit is hit (probably requiring damage), whereupon all mirror images are removed.

After that you have a bunch of fatigued, no mirror image, Vans. An easy kill for you fresh, real troops (why not cavalry?), who was put on hold.

What fatigue? Van have a melee encumbrance of four, so they'll only lose one point of defense for every third round that they fight, and they won't be fighting till they hit your troops, so their won't b e any fatigue. Even without mirror images, Van are still capable of defeating virtually any other army for the same gold cost. Look at how hard it is to remove their mirror images. It is only twice as likely to hit them once the images are gone.

[B0rsuk]

How about this:

FFA Sulphur Haze 2 Evocation
4+ area cloud doing poison and (I think) fire damage.

If only they would stop for a turn... I know paths are a bit awkward, but Phoenix pretender can do that.

[Dedas]

Edi said:
The problem with the chaff strat is that you need to spend many times the resources required for the vans in order to get even a scratch, Dedas. Run the goddamn numbers through a test game like Graeme Dice and Huzurdadi said and see for yourself. TRY IT OUT with the bloody chaff instead of just pontificating from your chair.

Huzurdadi gave us the results with C'tis troops and the numbers don't lie. What's your excuse for not running a battery of tests?

Edi

My excuse is that I'm very new to this game and trying to help the best way I can, and that is by speculating alot and coming up with fresh ideas. Of course, most of the things I think of (with my lack of experience) you can naturally dismiss (as they will not work), but maybe one or two may have something, just a tiny drop of something, that actually can... work.
Or just ignore me if you want to.

I understand now that chaff is just a waste of resources and gold on the Vans. But can't you (with magic) raise their encumberance in some way?