On the effective early use of Pretenders in combat

[Huzurdaddi]

A Vampire Queen with a black steel plate armour (an Ulmish master smith and many other earth mages recruited in round one can make one in round two

You are not kidding! Wow is she good. She whoops on basically any independent. She also crushes almost any computer army. Once in a while the computer may get you with a bunch of flying magic weilding units ... but how often does that happen?

What really makes her go (IMO) is a combination of a life sucking attack, etherial so hard to hit, and 0 encumberance. The 0 encumberance really makes a difference at the start of the game. Many other SC's have the problem of running out of endurance but she just keeps killing.

She's my favorite SC right now. Anyone else want to share their favorite SC's? Maybe something is better (in the early game) than the vampire queen, if so I want to hear about it!

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:
I actually tried the Nataraja with Caelum, 4 ice swords, some air armor (cant remember which) and some other items you get early game. This worked for 2 or three fights until he lost one arm, and went downhill from here.

Natarajas are a better choice for Arco: The fact that the Nataraja is not immortal and is rather prone to afflictions is entirely curable by your Arco priestesses, and a wide variety of forging paths on your national mages gives you a good selection of equipments to choose from.

The Vampire Queen is definitely a beastly SC chassis, with a host of innate abilities and a full set of equipment slots.

The Vanheim Allfather is another good one: Mounted, so armor encumberance can be ignored, a low base encumberance value of 2, which drops to 1 with experience (and is unaffected by armor), and built-in Glamour/Mirror Image and flying.

[Yossar]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:
Imho there are only 2 ways to have your pretender doing melee at the beginning of the game:

1. Pretender is immortal/recuperating with the first beeing better.

2. Your Nation has strong nature magic for fairy queens and gift of health.

Isn't it usually past the beginning of the game once you have access to fairy queens and gift of health?

Personal regeneration (low level, 2 Nature I believe) or a Ring of Regeneration help quite a bit in preventing afflictions. They can usually do weaker independents no problem since they flee fairly quickly but they might get an affliction or two on something stronger.

And anything can be a SC with Arco since their priests heal afflictions.

Oh, and anyone with a high level of death magic and level 3 Enchantment can take weaker independents with just Raise Skeletons. A Prince of Death with 2 level 2 death mages (positioned slightly to the rear and to the side of the PoD to avoid stray arrows) backing him up can handle pretty tough independents by themselves with just that spell. It's like an instant army.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Isn't it usually past the beginning of the game once you have access to fairy queens and gift of health?

Yes it is. But one affliction alone is not that bad (depending on the affliction of course). However, multiple afflictions are very bad, but it will take your SC Pretender some time to accumulate these. By the time this is the case you should have access to those mentioned spells.

[Taqwus]

Huzurdaddi --
Caelian ice weapons do, in fact, count as magic. So there's your flying, magic-wielding opposition right there...

[Pat Wilcox]

Does anybody use those immobile pretenders? In one of my first demo games I used the Glyph. I didn't realize at the time that there's a very good reason why it was zero points. All you can do with them in the opening few turns is research, right?

PatWx

[Peter Ebbesen]

Immobile pretenders certainly have their uses. The are typically cheap and have high starting paths and dominion while having low path costs, which means you can get either stronger ritual magic, better blessings, or better scales. Best for longer games, though, where their magic and dominion can really shine.

Don't choose the Sphinx, however. It has no redeeming abilities whatsoever as it is inferior to the Sacred Statue, the Monolith, and even the Oracle - but costs more.