A glance at Bogarus

[janthony]

Last night I altered my Pretender design with great results: now Earth Mother can be Awake and a W2E4N4. Good for early expansion and site searching. Scales are Dominion 6, Order 3, Cold 3, Growth 2, Drain 1. Sure, you could take two hits on Misfortune and keep G3 and Magic 0, but Bogarus is best when it collects its three National Heroes and the Multi-hero Bogatyri aren't too shabby. You still keep the regen/rejuv bless for mages with a shroud (great for site searching, as even when diseased, they take three times as long to lose usefulness). With Earth Mother searching early, you get plenty of good gems from the get go–so you can equip your Boyar/GrandPrince thugs quickly. Frost Brand is great for a one turn build and send, as your bodyguard cavalry don't take damage from the AoE. Drain doesn't hurt Bogarus too much as you'll still get Startsi who are 12/13 even on Drain 1–and with an E4 blessing on shrouded battlemages, the drain won't affect them too badly–though with enough gems I'm sure those rejuvenating boots will come in handy too. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure a couple of well equipped thugs with Malaia Druzhnia (lesser kith) bodyguards can take out an early SC pretender–especially, if there's a bow of war with high precision traveling with them.

I'm amazed it took me so long to arrive at this discovery, because the weakest aspect of my previous strategy was always the early game/quick start. The heavy cavalry is named the familial bodyguard of the Velikii Knyazi. The Grid Druzhnia were more difficult to translate, but it might be "guide/marksman kith". Every other guide I've seen suggests taking Sloth with Bogarus; sure, the low end starting army is pretty useless, but with fortified cities you can churn out the Malaia Druzhnia at high speed. Sure, going up against an army of Hochmeisters might do you in, but run back to the forest where your Leshiy is hanging out. If you haven't used the Leshiy because he's 60 gems or requires N6, try it out. I'm sure there are more powerful SCs who aren't limited to a forest, but a Leshiy in a forest choke point can wipe out entire armies–especially with Boots of Antaeus. And, of course, if you get Baba Yaga you've got Tartaran Gate easy, and binding Mastema can get you the Demon Lords. Bogarus holds out in my mind as one of the most versatile and powerful nations in the game, they just require effort.