Machaka and a W9 bless

[licker]

Originally Posted by TheMenacer

In the growth vs. death argument, it's also of note that their black sorcerers and sorceresses (I think, any of their units who turn into spiders on death) can't die of disease. Every time they run out of hitpoints to the disease, they heal back up to full health with all of their afflictions removed, which makes getting huge amounts of fever fetishes a good idea. I'd definitely recommend a Solar Disk chassis for that reason, you can really exploit all those fire gems that way.

Very interesting information. I like the growth scale for other reasons as well, but not having to take it would either allow for more dominion strength, or slightly higher 2nd/3rd blesses...

The hopelite is a quality guy, but the strat move is a killer to my current strategy. Indeed I don't build any of them until I have a fortress on a border where the fighting is of a more static nature, and even then I normally have dozens of sacred spiders running over everyone anyway.

Going back to the bless question for a second though...

Cost of going to w9 aside, what other 9 bless is as effective at making your spiders killers? The 3 attacks going to 6 is absolutely huge, and couple in the variety on the attacks and they can handle more than just indie/fodder. W9 gives them a defense of 17 before experience, tac move 30, and the 6! attacks. Their attack starts at 13 which is reasonable, considering they have 6! attacks. F4 is rather trivial to get which gives them a very robust attack of 15, and with their quickened speed they are in the back of the enemy immediately.

Regen only helps after the rider is gone, and then they lose an attack (or is it 2?), reinvigoration isn't needed (from my tests) and while going from prot20 to 24 is a big jump, 20 is already very high, but they don't need that as much as they need to be able to chew through foes quickly, and with 6! attacks they are going to be able to drop the defense of their foe quickly, and if the web hits make it 0 anyway.

I can see the use of death for the AN, and fire for the magic weapons, but 6! attacks just seems to outweigh any other advantage, especially when they also get +4def out of it.

Twist fate isn't that useful (though MR boost is) and I don't even know what the blood9 is . Air9 also does not really synergize in any way with Machaka.

So for my money if you're going to go bless with Machaka W9 seems the clear winner, though I'm also not sure what good W9 is for late gameish activities...