Best sacred units?

[Evil Dave]

Zooko said:

It appears to me that if you spend X gold and Y resources on Fire-9/Astral-9 flagellants, then the resulting team of flagellants will decisively win in hand-to-hand combat against other national troops that you could have bought for X gold and Y resources, even if you get a dual-blessing of your choice on sacred troops.

Am I wrong?

Not very wrong. I didn't try too many opponents for flaming flagellants, just ones that I thought might work. Two kinds can beat them. F9W9 Serpent Dancers demolish them on an equal resource basis (100% win), and are as good on an equal cost basis (47% win). E9W9 Heart Companions beat them soundly on an equal cost basis (83% win), but always lose on an equal resource basis. But both of these are capital-only units.

OTOH, it's not possible to perfectly test all opponents. Jaguar Warriors look like they might work, but the simulator can't handle their second form. Since it only handles melee, it can't cope with sacred spell-casters either. I wonder how W9S9 Shamen would do. They're half as many resources, and with a few buffs (Astral Shield and Luck) I think they might be able to hold off 11 guys each. Even with the S9 blessing, Flagellants have relatively low magic resistance, and they only have to fail once vs. the Astral Shield to turn into Walls of Meat for the Shamen to hide behind. Tho in a real battle, the Shamen would probably collapse from exhaustion...