pretender magic paths advice/midgard strat talk

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

This is not recommended, this is merely a sample pretender to demonstrate some principles for dom3.10 vanilla. You'll want different scales and dominion, most likely dormant. Maybe a different chassis. Anyways, I don't think Midgard is a nation that really wants for a supercombatant strategy.

Keeper of the Bridge, air 4, nature 4, earth 2. Awake, dom6, cold 1, magic 3, death 1.

At start, 80 hitpoints, 16 protection, 13 attack, 14 defense, 18 precision, 21 strength.
14 research, 3 encumberance: 2 basic, 3 melee, 4 spell

Spells of Interest

Personal Regeneration - The regen amount will vary based on your dominion (hitpoints boost), but you can expect about 17 hitpoints per turn in dominion 4. It only gets better from there out. Normally, that would cost you 40 fatigue, but it will work out to somewhere around 15.

Summon Earthpower - only interested for the reinvigoration, but 20 fatigue and one spell slot just for that? Better off forging.

Iron Skin - About 14 fatigue. Brings protection to twenty-six. Combines nicely with Regeneration.

Mirror Image - About 6 fatigue. Creates 8 mirror images. 8/9 chance an attack misses. Dangerous though- once hit once, its gone for good. Can be saturated.

Mistform - About 7 fatigue. Will fail if a). hit by magical weapon b). hit rather hard (after protection is taken into account, btw) c). fail 1% of the time on any hit.

Eagle Eyes, Air Shield- useful if you equip a bow, or if you're expectin missile fire.

The key thing to keep in mind about the air spells are the fail points. They're great, but high defense makes them even better.

Even with air shield, mirror image, and mistform, you'll die against cavalry, even if they're unable to deal you more than one damage.

I'd put my research into reaching alteration-3, then enchant-2, then construction 4. I'd send out my Keeper after alteration 3 was researched, but only against small, lightly defended provinces.

Construction to note:
Level 0- Sword of Sharpness (2H). At this stage I'd avoid shields and armor. The Sword of Sharpness has AP, attack, defense boni, and falls into your national gem income.
Level 2- Weightless Scale Mail reduces your encumberance even further. I'd avoid adding any encumberance yet.
Level 4- I'd forge the Girdle of Might for 3 reinvig. Without anything else but the above items, your fatigue will actually drop in combat.

There's a few more items I'd forge once the gems came in. Some its up to your choice, others, like the Boots of the Messenger are nearly essential. However, I suggested somethign well within your national gem income, 10 air, 10 earth.

Sample Script- Air Shield, Mirror Image, Mistform, Ironskin, Personal Regeneration, Attack

Cavalry has a nasty tendency of interrupting a long script. But still, with the above equipment and no support, positioned at the back of the screen, I can take on heavy cavalry. It might be best to cut that short, or change the order. If the mirror image blunts the first charge, than it does serve its purpose. Thanks to the Weightless armor, you finish casting with about 18 fatigue, going down every turn after.

[VedalkenBear]

Personally, I greatly prefer Einheres to Skinshifters. Skinshifters to me die too quickly for the investment. Against the majority of opponents (ESPECIALLY bow users), Einheres take a great deal of killing. They also have 2 weapons, which makes them great against chaff.

Basically, skinshifters are good against low-count high-quality armies. Einheres aren't bad against them, but they shine against mass armies of light troops. Against Ethereal/Glamoured troops, Einheres also have the advantage of more attacks to get through.

[Shovah32]

Skinshifters having trouble against archers?
You do realise that unarmoured units need to be shieled(via decoys) and/or buffed(storm, arrowfend, marble warriors ect) - you don't usually just throw skinshifters at the enemy without support.

[VedalkenBear]

Even when they get into melee, I find Einheres to be more effective. This is true especially if you have some way of healing their afflictions.

If you shield the Skinshifters with chaff, then you constantly have to replace said chaff. If you buff them, you have to replace the gems you use (I believe you listed nothing but gem-required battle magic; I realize there are others). I prefer armies that are more... self-sufficient.

Granted, Skinshifters allow you to take a Sloth scale whereas Einheres do not. I can't analyze that effect. But I guess my preference is that I like units that I _can_ throw at the enemy without support.

[Shovah32]

VedalkenBear said:
Even when they get into melee, I find Einheres to be more effective. This is true especially if you have some way of healing their afflictions.

If you shield the Skinshifters with chaff, then you constantly have to replace said chaff. If you buff them, you have to replace the gems you use (I believe you listed nothing but gem-required battle magic; I realize there are others). I prefer armies that are more... self-sufficient.

Granted, Skinshifters allow you to take a Sloth scale whereas Einheres do not. I can't analyze that effect. But I guess my preference is that I like units that I _can_ throw at the enemy without support.

I tend to use the Einheres to shield them - they can take arrows nicely and rarely need replaced.
I'll make Skinshifters alot, but my spare resources tend to go to Einheres.

[Aezeal]

at start you won't have much to buff, and probably not much to back up either.. though I figure buying a lil screen for cheap units could be an option... but that would be less skinshifters

[Aezeal]

my idea was

with CB mod (scales and pretenders)

great enchantress (the low HP pretenders are boosted in that mod) A4 W2 E2 S4 D1 N4 F1

dom 7
order 3
prod 2
cold 1
growth 2
misfortune 1
magic 0

I kinda like it I can search for most sites. I have the N4 A4 E2 and S4 for some end age fun with astral.. and she produces astral pearls so I think that won't be a waste..

should I change the D1, W2 and F1 for something in the scales (prod 3 or growth 3 or magic 1?)
or can I actually use those magic paths? (I think that having them for forging won't be bad but maybe that is not enough..

let me know whatever you think about this set-up

[OmikronWarrior]

Shielding Skinshifters from arrows should be second nature for Midgard, without a doubt one of the best air nations in the late era. Furthermore, you WANT to cast storm anyways, as it will allow your A2 mages to power up to A3 to cast Thunderstrike. You have a natural a capital air gem income of 3, so you're just one 210 gold mage and Thau-2 away from site searching. Then, a single arrow will NEVER kill a skinshifter, just damage it. Unless the opponent can overwhelm you with arrows, your skinshifters will survive to melee, where regen and two forms give them a large advantage over Einhards, dual weilding aside.

@Azael, your scales look fine, but you don't mention whether the pretender is awake or not. Let me emphatically say that imprisoning your pretender is a waste if you want them to set up your boosters. Merely asleep would fine, though. The only suggestion I'd make is to go Misfortune-2 for Growth-3. Growth is funny in that the more you have, and the better your other income scales, the much more desirable it become to have even MORE growth.

As for paths, D1 on your pretender is almost certainly redundant, as you're almost gaurenteed a D1 mage (7/16 chance). D3 would allow you to do site search much more effectively, and with a skull staff you'll be able to build skull helmets, netting you D5 and wraith crowns, if you're considering thugs or SCs. W2 and F1 are judgement calls, as you will not have any national mages capable of using those gems, just indies or your pretender. Obviously, it will net you some different equipment and magic diversification is always a good thing.

Consider who else is in the game. For example, if Ermor's there, it might be worthwhile to get 1-magic just to make banning easier.

[Aezeal]

ok thanks for the advice.. I've made my pretender...

Just one q. what does storms exactly do.. in the manual it says nothing of upping the air level?