Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?

[Ironhawk]

Yeah, but that makes them that much harder to kill off, NT

I agree, Saxon. While I still believe that this technically counts as an exploit, it is simply too hard to put into practice to worry about. I'll let you know if I find a way to do it. Or will I??

[NTJedi]

Ironhawk said:
Yeah, but that makes them that much harder to kill off, NT

Actually units of low hitpoints such as priests which receive the regeneration only pickup one hitpoint of regeneration. From my experience the one hitpoint of regeneration on units of low hitpoints has almost no value for preventing death. I see regeneration for units of low hitpoints a strategy for preventing afflictions on survivors of a battle.

Regeneration of 3 or more hitpoints on units with many hitpoints is where they become harder to kill.

[llamabeast]

PVK - there's no point drowning them because drowning happens outside of battle, and you can only have Life After Death in effect during battle.

[JimMorrison]

So is the consensus of those assembled that exploit or not, the "mass producing" part is so near impossible, as to render the point somewhat moot?

[Endoperez]

Has anyone tried to do this with giant nations? There's one case where reanimating priests would actually be great.

It's easy to kill the targets. The secret is in auras, obviously. 10 Winter Wolves set to guard cold-immune commander will kill his two non-immune friends in few turns. Bog beasts do the same even faster. If you do this with indy priests and get back Longdead Giant/Rephaim reanimators, it's worth the trouble.

The main problem with auras is that you need a fight that last for 5 turns or so.

[MaxWilson]

In that case it's probably easier with the help of an ally than with Ghost Riders, etc. You can have an ally teleport onto your fort and <Hold, Hold, Hold, Hold, Hold, Retreat> from near the front of the battlefield. As long as you give him a province to retreat to it costs him nothing but a turn and 2 pearls.

Edit: Hmmm, I guess your other option is a thug or SC with two shields (who therefore attacks with "useless kick"). Then you could do Call of the Winds after all. It will take ages to kill them all. (At least with Call of the Winds. Not so much with Ghost Riders because of all the newly-Soulless priests spamming Banishment.)

-Max

[Ironhawk]

Endoperez said:
Bog beasts do the same even faster.

As I find myself repeating yet again: poison works only about 50/50 and when it does, you have a good chance of afflictions ruining the mage/priest you are trying to convert.

However I have not tried chill auras. The idea of using a pack of winter wolves to stack thier auras in that way hadnt occured to me. That would be worth a shot... chill causes fatigue damage right? So at least they would not be able to run away, as with poison. However, I think that keeping the battle going long enough to kill from fatigue would be difficult.

Edit:
Another thought occurs - using both Chill AND Poison at the same time. Chill freezes units in place and would theoretically cause more critical hits, speeding thier demise from poison. You know, that might just work...

[Endoperez]

Ironhawk said:

As I find myself repeating yet again: poison works only about 50/50 and when it does, you have a good chance of afflictions ruining the mage/priest you are trying to convert.

I was thinking of indy priests for nations without easy access to chill/heat auras. Perhaps MA Ashdod/Hinnom or something. You don't care about ruining these now upkeep-free commanders.

[PvK]

llamabeast said:
PVK - there's no point drowning them because drowning happens outside of battle, and you can only have Life After Death in effect during battle.

Oh, I see, you guys are talking about using the battlefield enchantment Life After Death so you can use indy priests with no magic abilities. I was somehow thinking you had a way to cast Twiceborn on them in advance, but of course that's a caster-only Death spell.

[Saxon]

Funny timing on this thread, I just had a big battle involving it. Instead of casting Control Undead, my mage casts the “life after death” spell. Not very helpful, as I am MA Ermor and don’t have a lot of live troops at this stage. Then he casts rigor mortis. I also have a big communion going. Soon, my mages start dying from fatigue, not ideal.

Oh well, they come back to life, so not a problem. They can still re-animate, so nothing changes. The next turn, the army gets sieged by the enemy SC pretender, who has high regeneration due to high dominion. No problem, I will just preach it away and then smack him down. Except that my newly undead priests can not preach…

Seems that getting re-animation comes at a cost.