On the effective early use of Pretenders in combat

[AhhhFresh]

That is a lot of research for turn 5 I think it may be possible for turn 6 (which means attack on turn 7). I have not played R'lyeh but that seems like a lot of research (considering that you lose 2 mage-turns forging).

Yes, you're right... it's attack on turn 7. And all I'm doing is recruiting mages, researching, and patrolling with the starting army to combat raised taxes.

It might be possible to do it a turn faster by alchemizing your astral income to fire gems... but it's probably not worth it, since you're gonna need those when you get to Construction 2.

A fine list of spells (especially Breath of Winter). Hard to pull off in the ocean though. Once you reach land you may indeed be an SC though. You do accumulate afflictions though. The VQ does not.

With that combo: etherealness, luck, 14+ protection, 20+ defense, regeneration... I think it might actually be numerically impossible to get afflictions from standard troops. It's at least very improbable.

So you will be taking nature as well? What are your scales and what are your paths? Having astral is a big hole in a SC due to magic duel. If you astral is not above 6 people can send cheap casters at you (I hope that the die is not open ended in magic duel ... but I don't know, if it is you are never safe, that's horrible!).

3 Water, 7 Astral, 3 Nature
With scales of: 3 Order, -3 Sloth, 3 Magic
Dominion:4
0 Point Kelp Fortress

The dominion is quite low for an SC, which is why I like the 88 base hp... so I can fight outside it... and just build temples and cheap indie priests... and I make an assasin or scout my prophet, to extend dominion ahead of my Void Lord.

The castle is not much of a weakness, as resources are largely irrelevant to R'lyeh... and you actually end up with a mausoleum if you beuild a fortress above the waves, so it's like a free 40 points.

Don't you already have like horror +15 or something silly like that?! How much do you need

Alas, it's only +5... so +10 makes it the equivalent of a Wyrm wearing 2 horror helmets. Which makes me happy.

Against high strength independents I find that all pretenders need some help, it's just a matter of how much help, and that translates into how many turns. And I find that the VQ wins that race. And in some cases by a wide margin.

There is no doubt that the VQ is the fastest out of the gate... most definately with Ulm. And her immortality allows you to be a bit reckless with her initially... which is fantastic for someone just learning how to use an SC...

Though, if they don't slap some armor or her or learn to cast stoneskin, they are going to be disappointed.

EDIT: Magic for Void Lord pretender was off.

[ March 30, 2004, 19:37: Message edited by: AhhhFresh ]