Bards are insane!

[Boron]

tinkthank said:
@Boron: I have to post this because you cannot stop talking about hoarding. I was primarily interested in the Bard as a plausible 30-stealth-haver, not as to the effectivity of Man as a nation, which is completely beside the point. Nevertheless, I can't help but to be curious. Firstly, whom would you reckon as the 5 weakest nations besides Ulm and Man? Secondly, why a weak Van besides the forced scales for LoT? I can understand comparing Lot to Van, since its mages appear to be very similarly built at first glance. (Look at the Tuatha: he has the identical stats of the Vanadrott, except that he is 10 gold more; instead of a hoof attack, he has a magical Alicorn attack, and instead of the sailing ability, he recuperates, and instead of 1 blood, he has 2 nature. I'll leave it up to you to judge if one or the other may get a better deal.) LoT has serious research problems and needs to find sages asap, but once they do, they are just as scary. And as to troops: Man lacks in absolutely nothing but tramplers. In LoT, the D.Sidhe is a really decent 35 gold sacred unit, and only Flags are cheaper than Cu Sidhe for a bless unit, and Cu are far better than flags, they are also stealthy patrollers to boot. There are any number of tactics Man can use with their very variable army. AIr and Nature as paths happen to work very synergetically with the schools one would normally research as support spells for archers. And there are bards. Sure Van has Earth, cheap randoms, and Vans/Valks, which are all great, and I think Van is one of the strongest nations out there, but I just dont think that Man is a watered down Van.
As to their effectiveness: I really dont know Man well at all, but you could try to challenge PhilDuchon to a 1on1 and let him play Man. Good luck!

My reasons for saying that were mainly the following ones :
Vanheim gets at least 120 extra points with cold 1-2 and misfortune 1-2 scale .
Furthermore they could also take turmoil + a watchtower with their rather resourcecheap troops .
Then Vanheim has the Allfather as a superb combat pretender .

And finally most important Vanheim has the Van , the best noncapitol only blessed unit .
Mans Daoine Sidhe are capitol only and otherwise weaker then a van also .

And Vanheim base has the very useful dwarfen smith . He can summon Mech men + forge dwarfen hammers + do some good combat spells . You could e.g. combine Mech Men with some Storm demons for a very powerful army .


About the 1on1 : I lose almost every 1on1 because i normally love to hoard and in 1on1 hoarding normally never pays off . So Phil would very likely beat me in a 1on1 .

But i doubt that he easily wins a "normal" game on a map like karan or cradle with 8-12 players involved chosing LoT .

As 5 weakest nations i would chose in no particular order :
- Marignon
- Man
- Tien chi
- Ulm
- Pangenea