Alexander's ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge

[apoger]

"HIT N' RUN" GOLEM

The Golem is mindless and has astral skill, making it a prime candidate for the spell Astral Tempest.

The Golem will need +2 astral skill. I usually use a starshine skullcap and a crystal coin, but other items or empowerment will work fine.

Cast Ritual of Returning so your Golem doesn't get hurt.

Place Golem at rear of battlefield.

Teleport into an enemy army (living armies, obviously).

Upon entering combat cast Astral Tempest - Body Ethereal - Personal Luck - Astral Shield - Twist Fate - then "cast spells". Make sure you have at least 4 pearls on the Golem for the castings.

This should get you about 3-7 turns of bLasting versus the enemy army. The more troops in the army the more damage will get done!

As soon as the Golem takes a hit, the Ritual of Returning will send it back to the capital.

Rinse, lather, repeat.


If the enemy has flying troops they may tag the Golem fast and send him home. Avoid that army.
If the enemy has a strong astral mage ready to Magic Duel, it's possible to lose the Golem.
Other than that this is a tactic that is hard to stop, and will make your enemies pull their hair out.

[apoger]

SPIDERMAN SPIDERMAN DOES WHATEVER A SPIDER CAN


The Machakan Black Sorcerer is one interesting mage!

Enter combat, cast Summon Earth Power, Invulnerability and Fire Shield, then attack.

As soon as the Black Sorcerer takes a hit, he turns into a hunter spider (pretty big!).
What's even more impressive is that the spider keeps the extra protection and fire shield!

This is more than enough to single handedly beat down weaker independents. Not bad in other circumstances as well.

The Machakan Sorceress can pull a similar but slightly less impressive stunt, but at her lower cost is still well worth the expense.

If your Black Sorcerer comes with a lucky level of astral, might as well add in Body Ethereal and Personal Luck.

[apoger]

SUPERCHARGED ABYSIAN WARLOCKS

For this trick you will need 8 astral mages to act as communion slaves. Warlock apprentices will do, but if you find cheaper ones go for it.

You will also need 1+ Warlocks.

Have the 8 slaves cast communion slave.

Have your Warlocks cast; Communion Master, Power of the Spheres, have one cast Light of the Northern Star (or carry a Banner of the North Star).

At this point the Warlocks will have Blood-7 Astral-7 Random-5
If you are willing to cast Hellpower (it horror marks your mages and attracts horrors) you can bring the Warlocks up to Blood-9 Astral-9 Random-7

This is all without magic items or empowerment.

Is it worthwhile to go through the hefty effort to get this effect?
That depends on you games circumstances. Just keep in mind that it's a potential tool in the toolbox.

[apoger]

FLYING DWARVEN THUGS


One tactic that I use extensively in multiplayer is getting small raiding forces behind the front lines and harrassing my enemy.

One of my favorite ways to do this is with "Flying Dwarven Thugs".
There are numerous ways to raid, but I find the sheer absudity of this method to be entertaining.

Play Ulm.

Make Master Smiths.

Arm them with Winged Shoes and a pair of Axes of Sharpness. If possible I also make them a Pendent of Luck. Yes the shoes and pendent take effort to develop. It's worth it.

Fly them into enemy territory against lightly defended provinces.

Upon arrival, have the dwarf cast Summon Earth Power, Invulnerability and Fire Shield. Then dive in for some two axe action! This should be enough to crack the low province defense that most players use.

If you know that the province defense is pumped, add in more dwarves.

For large battles have a squad of these guys in the back, power up, and attack the rear. Very few players anticipate a squad of dangerous flyers from Ulm.


I don't know what it is, but the idea of a super-armored flaming dwarf dropping out of the sky and going to town on surprised defenders is enough to make me smile for hours.

[apoger]

POISON AND THE DEAD

Undead troops and poison generating effects go togeher like peanut butter and chocolate.
After all, the undead are immune to the poison that would normally make life hard on your own living troops.

The basic technique is to clog up the battlefield with the unliving and then expose the enemy to various poison effects.

Most commonly death mages use reanimations and nature mages use vine men/ogres. For those with both skills try manikins/mandragoras.

If playing C'tis place poison slingers behind the undead.

If you have nature mages cast Breath of the Dragon or Poison Cloud.

If you have creatures that exude clouds of poison (hydra/bog beast) then mix them in with the undead near the front.

If you have nature/water mages (Jade Amazons. Sometimes Man, C'tis, Pangaea) then consider casting Foul Vapors. This spell will strike the whole battlefield with poison clousds. Make sure your mages are posion immune first!


This is best used when applied too a large/living enemy army. Delay with the undead, kill with the poison. With a bit of skill/luck this sort of engagement can cause horrific losses to the opponent.

[apoger]

GIRLFRIENDS FROM HELL


Sometimes I find myeslf in a dire situation and have a few death mages to spare. It is during those times that I consider the very risky tactic of using the spell Summon Lammashtas.

Each casting gets you two Lammashtas. They are ethereal, hard to hit, and carry wraith swords. These are some scary women!

The spell description says that they will probably not attack the caster at the start of the battle. This is a load of hooey. They will disembowel your mages first chance they get. Anytime you use this spell it's a suicide mission. Count on it.

If you are just sending in mages, give them one death gem and cast. The girls will slay your mages and then go to work on the enemy. Each Lammashta seems tough enough to kill about 5-20 infantry. A lot depends on the quality of the opposition and if they have magic.

The Lammashtas are not under your control and go back from whence they came at the battles end.

If you can put your mages inside packs of junk troops, it's possible to get a second casting while hoping that the troops will delay the Lammashtas for the turn needed. Possible and hope being the key words here. If you attempt a second casting your death-3 mages will need another gem, and death-2 mages will need two more.

I have tried sending in mages casting Lammashtas at the front of my army with real troops holding in the rear. The idea being that perhaps the girls will become involved with the advancing enemy and soften things up for my troops . I've had about as many disasters as I've had successes with this. Use it at your own risk.

I always keep this tactic in mind when I find "raptor" provinces that produce Harab Seraphs. Since these are flying death-2 mages, I can use them as a fast reaction suicide squad. It's not the cheapest defense (by a longshot) but it's saved my bacon a few times.

[apoger]

FOLLOWING THE LIGHT


Anytime I have many astral mages on the battlefield I always try to have a character holding a Banner of the Northern Star, or I have a mage cast Light of the Northern Star. Either way all my astral mages get an extra point of astral skill.

Extra skill means that astral spells cause less fatigue, and that means more casting. Yummy.

Also this is often important in order to get easy access to better quality spells.
With the "light" in effect:
Astral-1 mages can cast Paralyze
Astral-2 mages can cast Soul Slay
Astral-3 mages can cast Enslave Mind

This also enables Marignons Grand Masters to cast Astral Fires.

[Jarkko]

apoger said:
"HIT N' RUN" GOLEM
-snip-
Cast Ritual of Returning so your Golem doesn't get hurt.
-snip-
Upon entering combat cast Astral Tempest - Body Ethereal - Personal Luck - Astral Shield - Twist Fate - then "cast spells".

Could somebody please elaborate to this n00b why it is better to cast Twist Fate (which negates first hit but doesn't do anything else useful if I am correct) and not go directly for "Cast spells"? If I understand it right the first hit going through will teleport the Golem back. If there is somebody able to hit the Golem, wouldn't it be most likely that somebody has either several attacks or friends along, so twist fate doesn't actually give a round more of spell-casting? Or are there some close-range spells one should hope the Golem casts by waiting one round (ie casting Twist Fate first = delays the bLasting for one turn)?

[Wendigo]

Jarkko said:
(ie casting Twist Fate first = delays the bLasting for one turn)?

The bLasting is being done with Astral tempest, any further spells by the Golem afterwards are just extra, but you want to prolong your battlefield bLasting for as long as possible:

Without Twist fate the golem would teleport to the capitol as soon as it suffers any damage, with Twist fate (assuming Twist fate triggers before Ritual of returning) you might gain some extra rounds of Astral tempest damage to the whole enemy force.

[Jarkko]

Wendigo said:
The bLasting is being done with Astral tempest

Ok, thank's for the clarification