On the effective early use of Pretenders in combat

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Firebreath:
Forgive me for asking. But is it really likely that someone would bother building lots of astral mages and telling them all to mind duel....when most of the time that your fighting the enemy won't have any astral mages in their army, or if they do - you can't be sure of it beforehand ,so you'd be wasting your time (unless you're at war with an astral nation, but there arn't many of those...)

If I knew my enemy had an astral 5 Wyrm, you can damn well believe that I would attack the army where the Wyrm was with an astral squad of death. Killing off the enemy pretender god is nearly always an exceptionally good idea and worth a lot of casualties, even more so when it means knocking magic points off a unit with decent magic skills.

And if I do not know the stats of an enemy combat pretender god before it comes to serious battles between our forces, that should be reckoned a serious failure of information gathering on my part. Forewarned is forearmed.

I am not advocating having all your low-astral mages constantly on mind-duel as action #1 (though that does make sense at times), but certainly as a viable strategy when defending a province the medium-skill astral unit is moving through or when attacking the province it is stationed in. Worst case, there are no astral opposition in the province you attack, and your astral mages will use other magic than mind duel sinse there is no legal target for the spell.

Astral 5 (against human opposition) is just too little to feel safe unless you are an immortal for whom dying is just a way of life... Or death, as it may be.

Now, if the astral 5 Wyrm is equipped with a Starshine Skullcap and a Crystal Coin (taking up two out of its four precious equipment slots, but needs must when the enemy can field astral mages), and casts Power of the Spheres and Light of the Northern Star, THEN it can probably mind duel just about anything (except for a high communion) to death and a low-level astral death squad would get a nasty surprise.

[AhhhFresh]

Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen:
Now, if the astral 5 Wyrm is equipped with a Starshine Skullcap and a Crystal Coin (taking up two out of its four precious equipment slots, but needs must when the enemy can field astral mages), and casts Power of the Spheres and Light of the Northern Star, THEN it can probably mind duel just about anything (except for a high communion) to death and a low-level astral death squad would get a nasty surprise.

If fighting an astral pretender, is there any reason not to have every astral mage you send at it scripted:

(Communion Slave)(Communion Master)(Mind Duel)

Besides being 3 actions, increasing the chances that you mage will be dead before he can mind duel...

Other than that, the only reason I can see not to do it would be if the "spell affects every member" effect of communion had meant that if one member of the communion died from a mind duel, they all did.

But I don't think that's the case is it? I can't seem to find much information on it...

[Huzurdaddi]

Near guarantee that the Wyrm will win every duel? I think not. And if the side massing low-level astrals began using communion before mind duel, I really don't know what would happen.

I have heard it said on these Boards that for purposes of mind duel communion does not raise astral level.

adding 1d6 (closed)

I *really* hope this is true, or as I said there is no defence against Mind Duel.

Note that the risks are very slightly off

That's funny! I think that Saber Cherry has become addicted to Monte Carlo simulations! It's only 2 dice, which means that there are only 36 possibilities. It's not horribly difficult to calculate the exact odds! But the chart is good enough for most purposes.

Anyway this is why I was saying taking astral 7 on your original pretender was a good choice. Was there any other reason that you did it? Of course you are stuck since that pretender chasis has astral already built in.

[Scott Hebert]

For my part, as far as a Magical Attack pretender, I have yet to see a better one than the Phoenix. I typically go for a Fire9/Air6 Phoenix, especially if I have sacred troops. In any event, once you have Flame Darts, you're pretty much good to go. Air Shield goes up first round if there are archers, and then you just wade through them. If they get to you, you have nice 'personal range' effects to deal with them like Burning Hands or Shockwave (is that what it's called?) and whatnot.

After getting Flame Darts, you can either continue to get better options, or you can switch to get Flame Shield or more defensive options.

Anyway, my thoughts on Artillery Pretenders.

[AhhhFresh]

Originally posted by Bayushi Tasogare:
For my part, as far as a Magical Attack pretender, I have yet to see a better one than the Phoenix. I typically go for a Fire9/Air6 Phoenix, especially if I have sacred troops. In any event, once you have Flame Darts, you're pretty much good to go. Air Shield goes up first round if there are archers, and then you just wade through them. If they get to you, you have nice 'personal range' effects to deal with them like Burning Hands or Shockwave (is that what it's called?) and whatnot.

After getting Flame Darts, you can either continue to get better options, or you can switch to get Flame Shield or more defensive options.

Anyway, my thoughts on Artillery Pretenders.

I really like that combo with Abysia... since they start with Flare... which is pretty rockin' if you actually hit with it (exceedingly rare with their national mages)... but that additional precision you get from the Air on the Phoenix, makes a big difference.

I recommend that anyone who thinks that Fire evocation spells are completely worthless, to give it a go.

And Lava Warriors are pretty psycho with flaming weapons and an air shield from the dual bless...

I have heard it said on these Boards that for purposes of mind duel communion does not raise astral level.

Is that true? I haven't been able to find any Posts one way or the other regarding it... maybe it's my atrocious spelling.

[Pat Wilcox]

For my part, as far as a Magical Attack pretender, I have yet to see a better one than the Phoenix. I typically go for a Fire9/Air6 Phoenix, especially if I have sacred troops. In any event, once you have Flame Darts, you're pretty much good to go. Air Shield goes up first round if there are archers, and then you just wade through them. If they get to you, you have nice 'personal range' effects to deal with them like Burning Hands or Shockwave (is that what it's called?) and whatnot.

After getting Flame Darts, you can either continue to get better options, or you can switch to get Flame Shield or more defensive options.

Anyway, my thoughts on Artillery Pretenders.

Couldn't You do the same thing with the Virtue Pretender? You lose the immortality, but you gain AWE (+6) and many more equipment slots.

PatWx

[Scott Hebert]

While you can do the same with a Virtue, there are a couple of concerns I have.

First is the fact that you have to research quite a bit more to get an area-effect Air spell. Therefore, it's not as much of an early lead.

Second, the bless effect is important. With the Virtue, your bless effect is purely defensive (thogh perhaps the best defensive). The Phoenix grants a powerful offensive bless effect.

Lastly, the Phoenix is immortal. Unless you get the Evo-4 Air area spell, I doubt the Virtue could stop a rush before she died. The Phoenix has the benefit of not being as worried about that, and it gets rid of afflictions naturally.

For these reasons, I feel that the Phoenix is superior to the Virtue, at least in the early game.

Bayushi Tasogare