I would like to talk about effective way to kill SC Banelord in the early/middle game.
We are talking about stadart run-of-the-mill SC Banelord, with WraithSword, Jade Armor, Flying Boots, Luck amulet and Antimagic Amulet.
The first and most common way is to kill him with SC of your own, with either lifedraining or AN or Anti-undead weapon. Other options include swarm him with a lot of either very high armor or very hard to hit troops, with high enough str+damage value, to slowly bring him down faster that he can heal himself.
Other options is to kill him using you mages with elemental magic, lighting or fire based, if he does not have items that protect him against it.
Banishment would not work of course, against 19 MR.
What else? I could have sworn I have killed similar Banelords before with just few herald lanced, casting Solar Rays. However recently I have observed battle of such Banelord vs Pythium's 4 theugs, casting quickness + massive solar rays each, 8 rays per turn while he was fighing thier infantry. They hardly damaged him at all, which looked strange to me.
I mean - Solar ray is 100% accurate 12+ AP attack, no Magic resistance. One would think that 8 solar ray per turn could damage him at least time to time?
His armor was not that high after all, with Jade Armor replacing his platemail. Instead most of Solar rays casted by 4 Astral 2 theugs failed to damage him at all. Maybe Solar Rays from Herald lances are considered to be casted as higher level than just 2, dealing more damage? As I said I think I have killed simialar Banelords before with just few Lances without much troubles. Any ideas?
Ok, what else? Dust to Dust should work well I suppose. IIRC is is 20-something none-resistable damage vs undeads, however is has low precision. Still in close distanses it should do the trick, I assume, right?
Any other effective ways to deal with Banelord SCs? Remember, we are talking about begining/medium game in terms of magic reseach, Con level 4-6, etc.
[ August 06, 2004, 20:39: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]