Shinuyama: in the shadows, on the battlefield, under the waves

[Dedas]

Good guide. Although archers with both armor and swords kick ***. Just don't script them and they will do their thing.

Keep it up!

[Xietor]

A good guide. Too bad the unique immortal summons has both no new paths and dominion 1 to start.

Given that double whammy, I would be loathe to take him, despite his uniqueness. I never found the "undead" aspects of being an immortal Lich to be that bad, especially at size 2 where the Lich cannot be targeted like "large" or "flying"
pretenders.

[Omnirizon]

Xietor said:
A good guide. Too bad the unique immortal summons has both no new paths and dominion 1 to start.

Given that double whammy, I would be loathe to take him, despite his uniqueness. I never found the "undead" aspects of being an immortal Lich to be that bad, especially at size 2 where the Lich cannot be targeted like "large" or "flying"
pretenders.

yah. i mentioned him b/c he's nation specific; i can't find a use for him either.

additionally, the heros this nation gets (heart hiders) are basically the same thing. same magic picks, immortality, almost same stats. really no good reason to go with the pretender then. but like I said, I felt compelled to mention him just becuase he is nation specific

[Xietor]

You definitely have to mention him, he is a unique pretender for Shinuyama. And he is cool.

If he started at dom 3 maybe he is cost effective. And he gets no resistance. I am not big on pretenders that get no resistance, as it is hard to protect from everything and magic when you start with nothing, especially without elemental fortitude.

[dirtywick]

Cool guide.

For evocations, I don't really like them in general, but Shinuyama has a lot of options. I really like Rust Mist, and Blade Wind is nice if you're using Dai Bakemonos and manage to mix it up with Rust Mist-ed enemies because Blade Wind doesn't really do anything to them. Acid Storm/Blade Wind for using O-Bakemonos.

Others I like are Shadow Blast (gem management required), Bane Fire (rather make that crossbow and give it to a Shtuen-doji though), and Magma Eruption. If you want to shoot fireballs and such, the Aka Oni can do that.

Also scripting hold orders for arches has them fire twice then attack.

[MaxWilson]

Why is it important to protect them from all the elements? Poison resistance seems pretty unimportant to me, and depending upon the enemy you might be able to drop one of fire/shock/cold resistance.

Banefire crossbows are far inferior to the spell. The Banefire spell has 9x the area and does massive damage to the central square.

-Max

[dirtywick]

The crossbow works well enough whether it's inferior to the spell or not and I'd rather be casting other spells.

[Omnirizon]

I don't think the crossbow or spell items replace the spells themselves, that's not the point.

The point is that it supplements spells with solid, low fatigue, and quickenable artillery. Shinuyama has a couple of great commanders just for holding these items and firing/zapping them from the backline. Additionally, they have the natural resources and paths to forge these items. Boots of Quickness, Staffs of Corrosion, Wands of Wildfire, Banefire Crossbows; all require gems and paths that Shin has naturally, and can thus get an economy started in consistently.

[Chris_Byler]

I think the Tengu are intended mainly for Jomon, but the other two eras have them (theoretically) for thematic reasons. They don't play much of a role unless you design your pretender to be able to summon them, and even then, you may have to have your pretender sit around auspexing to get the gem income (unless you conquer an air nation).

If you *do* conquer an air nation, or you find some site-based mage that lets you spam Auspex and get an air income, then you can use them as a sideline, but they don't form a large part of Yomi or Shinuyama strategy IMO.

[Omnirizon]

I actually don't use a lot of Evocations, which is why I didn't comment on them more. I need to play around with them some more. However, looking at how things look on paper, I'd recommend the following.

on Evocations, you will be using Magma and Fire spells, Shadow bolt/blast, and the Earth Evocations like Blade Wind and even Earthquake. The Acid spells are powerful, but your mages just arn't quite there with being able to handle them. Clouds vs. targeted depends on what units you are using.

O-Bakemono strategy uses lightly armored units, so you will prefer targeted spells like Magma Bolts ect. The Sorcerers have good precision.
Dai Bakemono strategy is using such highly armored units, you can use whatever you want almost. Blade Wind and the cloud spells won't do much, if any, damage to them should they get caught by them, plus they have a lot of HPs in case they do.
Oni are typically resistant to fire, poison, and sometimes cold, so can withstand spells such AoE spells, should they get caught in the splash.


sounds fun on the archers, i'll give it a spin.