Arcoscophile

[Chris Byler]

Whoever posted that slingers are the worst unit - Mictlan slaves are worse. And they *do* have a use - soaking up lances and crossbow bolts.

But you have to pay for slingers, so I'm not sure if they have any use. Unless Flaming Arrows works on slings, in which case their cheapness and resultant mass of fire could make them dangerous.

I propose that anyone struck with a blunt weapon (sling, mace, club, fist, etc.) should take armor negating stun damage equal to half the weapon's normal damage, even if the weapon fails to do HP damage (because of the target's protection). Even if you can't get through someone's armor you can still beat them unconscious. This would make slingers good for something. The effect would be relatively minor on blunt weapons that do enough damage to usually do HP (troll clubs, hurled boulders) and would mostly be effective for weaker weapons (there's some Mictlan troops with maces, obviously slings, vineman fists).

[Teraswaerto]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:

I propose that anyone struck with a blunt weapon (sling, mace, club, fist, etc.) should take armor negating stun damage equal to half the weapon's normal damage, even if the weapon fails to do HP damage (because of the target's protection).

Something like this would be good, since currently swords penetrate armor better than maces, which is kind of silly.

[ May 08, 2004, 14:13: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
I propose that anyone struck with a blunt weapon (sling, mace, club, fist, etc.) should take armor negating stun damage equal to half the weapon's normal damage, even if the weapon fails to do HP damage (because of the target's protection). Even if you can't get through someone's armor you can still beat them unconscious. This would make slingers good for something. The effect would be relatively minor on blunt weapons that do enough damage to usually do HP (troll clubs, hurled boulders) and would mostly be effective for weaker weapons (there's some Mictlan troops with maces, obviously slings, vineman fists).

I think that this is a great idea - a good way to add more flavour to the combat system.

[Firebreath]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:

quote:

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Originally posted by Chris Byler:

I propose that anyone struck with a blunt weapon (sling, mace, club, fist, etc.) should take armor negating stun damage equal to half the weapon's normal damage, even if the weapon fails to do HP damage (because of the target's protection).

Something like this would be good, since currently swords penetrate armor better than maces, which is kind of silly.

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I'm not sure I agree. (Short) swords are good for penetrating the weaknesses in the armour, be it a thrust through the rings of chain mail, or a cut in the knee joint, or whatever. Hammers, maces, etc are good at battering things (rather than piercing it) - which is why it would be interesting to have dazed, concussed units as a temporary status (much like paralyse).


Back to the original topic though: I tend to prefer a fire 9 blessing with the heart companions rather than a death (or any other). They never come in large enough numbers for the death blessing to be much good, being resource intensive and capital only (unlike flagellants, where death 9 is rather awesome), and with the fire blessing they are an excellent unit of choice to put in the way of nasty things like niefel giants, ethereal units (ermor), etc. But I tend to use them without any elephants at all. Pretty much the only thing they're vulnerable to is trampling units (which they kill off quickly). Body ethereal works well on them too, of course.

[Teraswaerto]

Heavy armor, plate in particular, is almost impenetrable to sword cuts and slashes, and stabbing specifically at the joints is hard to do in the heat of battle. Flanged or spiked maces and war hammers are better at penetrating armor.

[ May 08, 2004, 15:37: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
Whoever posted that slingers are the worst unit - Mictlan slaves are worse. And they *do* have a use - soaking up lances and crossbow bolts.

But you have to pay for slingers, so I'm not sure if they have any use. Unless Flaming Arrows works on slings, in which case their cheapness and resultant mass of fire could make them dangerous.

Flaming arrows works on sling bullets and javelins, you even have a modified sprite for flamming bullets. Add Wind Guide (a Mictlan heroe as air magic, if you dont want to engage your pretender), and your slingers are a rather interesting force (just tested Mictlan this afternoon!).

[Blitz]

Back to the original topic though: I tend to prefer a fire 9 blessing with the heart companions rather than a death (or any other). They never come in large enough numbers for the death blessing to be much good, being resource intensive and capital only (unlike flagellants, where death 9 is rather awesome), and with the fire blessing they are an excellent unit of choice to put in the way of nasty things like niefel giants, ethereal units (ermor), etc. But I tend to use them without any elephants at all. Pretty much the only thing they're vulnerable to is trampling units (which they kill off quickly). Body ethereal works well on them too, of course.

Death blessing isn't very good. If you read the section where I talked about it, I mentioned that the effect was a byproduct of using a lich pretender, and not a strategy unto itself. At times their slow speed costs you elephants however. For the most part hypaspists are superior to them.

It was worth noting the effect of the fear bless combined with the elephants was effective at routing. A very effective bless strategy for Arcoscophile uses a W9 N4 Lady of Fortune. I prefer this to a fire blessing, but to each his own.