Shambler Thralls?

[Salamander8]

I'm at work so can't confirm for sure, but I don't remember having the meteorite guards available as EA R'Leyh, although I have used them as MA R'Leyh. The standard atlantian and merman slave troops for EA are morale 8 if I can remember correctly.

I did in fact merge the elephants with the shamblers later on and it's been one nasty trample machine.

I've never tried taking sloth as R'Leyh as of yet, but as I said I'm still pretty green. I could see it for MA R'Leyh, since I prefer the unarmored, and therefore less resource intensive, ilithids for the strat move of 2 over the 1 of the armored ones, but for EA R'Leyh I have been heavily reliant on indy troops (and summons) for ground pounders.

One advantage of the Shambler Thralls is only needing 1 resource, which would lend itself to some sloth. I'll have to try that sometime.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd suggest cranking out Shambler Princes, once you're in mid-game, and giving them morale-boosting equippage (like that summer sword or herald's lance) if you feel you must have elephants. You might also consider using Behemoths, since they're mindless, undead elephants. I believe meteor-guards are MA or LA R'lyeh, and that Salamander8 is playing EA though.

[Salamander8]

I actually made elephants only because I conquered a pre-fab fort province that had them available. I prefer to build archers for the 10 normal troops the mind lords can lead, but the route to the front passed through the elephant province, allowing them to scoop up the elephants on their way.

The Firbolg's standard ability has been nice for the elephants and all the slave troops as well (I made my pretender with many paths and have empowered her on top of that, and have the +1 to all magic paths ring on her as well). I like Behemoths but I have a summoning bottle-neck as only my pretender has inherent death magic, beyond summoned casters, and I've only recently been pushing them out the door.

Thanks for all the advice!

[Evilhomer]

you are right about the meteorite guards....missed the fact we were discussing EA r'lyeh here

I would really recommend sloth 3 for r'lyeh (all ages), basically most of the national troops you are going to build cost only 1 resource (they are a very gold hungry nation, therefore you want order 3 with them aswell).

[DrPraetorious]

Behemoth are not mindless, they're Mor 30.

Which makes *them* an excellent unit to mix in with Elephants, for morale boostage.

[HoneyBadger]

oh, my mistake-even better!

[Shovah32]

DrPraetorious said:
Behemoth are not mindless, they're Mor 30.

Which makes *them* an excellent unit to mix in with Elephants, for morale boostage.

Arent they undead which works the same way as mindless with squad morale?