Your Dom2 quiz question for today

[Ygorl]

48 Centaurs with E9N9 versus 65 Vans with F9W9, the Vans spanked the Centaurs, 48 to 19. The centaurs are tough and heavy hitters, but the vans cut them to pieces nonetheless.

[Zooko]

In the current 2 vs 2 vs 2 vs 2 vs 2 game, Turin has E9N9 Pangaea and I have E9W9 Tien Chi Spring and Autumn. :-)

So what's better -- E9N9 White Centaurs or E9W9 Demons of Heavenly Rivers? Answer so far: it depends on the support troops. In one battle my forces destroyed dozens of White Centaurs by a combination of Demons of Heavenly Rivers, Dispossessed Spirits, and Demons of Heavenly Fires. In another important battle Turin broke out of his besieged capitol and destroyed my major army in part because his Harpies killed all of my death mages, neutralizing the Dispossessed Spirits.

That's something I like about Dominions 2 -- battles are often determined by the interactions of different units and tactics instead of the bigger/stronger army always winning.

[magnate]

Ygorl said:
48 Centaurs with E9N9 versus 65 Vans with F9W9, the Vans spanked the Centaurs, 48 to 19. The centaurs are tough and heavy hitters, but the vans cut them to pieces nonetheless.

I don't see how the vans won this, since the F9 blessing is useless against the centaurs' 15 prot (19 once berserk). W9 gets the vans double attacks but even so I'd have still expected them to lose.

CC

[GriffinOfBuerrig]

The F9 makes also flamming (AP) weapons so the prot 19 is not more a match... and with a attack skill of 14(instead of 10) they hit quite often.

[Zooko]

The Major Blessing of Fire is confusing. I *think* what it does is:

For each weapon in certain slots (your melee weapons such as swords included, hooves and bites of your mount excluded, not sure about lances), whenever you hit with that weapon then it does an extra, separate, 8-point armor piercing hit. Strength is not added. Your weapon is considered magical.

If that's true, then it has a fine chance of damaging Prot-15 centaurs -- they get either 7 or 8 prot after the armor-penetration, and the +2dOE-2dOE could easily stack up some damage.

[magnate]

Doh. Yes of course, I had forgotten about the 2d6OE added to the 8AP damage. My bad. Looks like I should have gone for F9W9 on my pretender then ... but, er, then he wouldn't have been a rainbow mage. Never mind.