Machaka and a W9 bless

[llamabeast]

MR 17 is pretty good, I think.

[archaeolept]

well, i'm impressd w/ your attempt at having an awake bless

Dom 5 is extremely marginal, though. your own scales won't cover your territory, and you'll be vulnerable to a dom push. I'd suggest making him asleep, bumping up dom to 7 and magic to 1, if you can squeeze the points.

and Iron will is very difficult to use - you really need an s3 caster putting up Antimagic. to use Iron will you'ld need one earth mage for each 3 spiders...

w/ the same scales, but Magic1 and dom7, you can try an asleep glyth S9F9... there's something to be said to having an astral king

and F9 will give them pretty well the same punching power against indies, and also against etherealized units.

[licker]

Heh...

Well do you really want your own scales to cover your territory

Other than heat probably...

I agree that Iron Will is problimatic, as you have to position the mage so that only the spiders are in range otherwise he casts it on your archers (uggg....), but... its easy to get to quickly, and its a tool in the toolbox if you really need it. Also you probably don't need to cover 100% of your spiders, just enough so that the enemy wastes some casts on them.

If we're talking paralyze here it will target the closest correct? So you can stick your spam up front to draw off the first wave, then your quickened spiders should still be able to get a few into the rear/flanks of the enemy.

And if you're willing to take another hit in your scales somewhere (or drop astral to 4) you can remain awake with a dom of 7 as the glyph starts with dom4 so bumping it is quite cheap.

[thejeff]

Is that 17MR for the spiders with riders, or after the rider dies?

Because I thought the Spiders themselves were down at the animal level, 5 or so, and I don't see how Iron Will and a bless gets them to 17.
Before the riders die they're not bad for MR, but the riders are fairly fragile despite the high protection, so you usually wind up with a good number of Spiders, who then die in droves to any MR-based attacks

[licker]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Is that 17MR for the spiders with riders, or after the rider dies?

Because I thought the Spiders themselves were down at the animal level, 5 or so, and I don't see how Iron Will and a bless gets them to 17.
Before the riders die they're not bad for MR, but the riders are fairly fragile despite the high protection, so you usually wind up with a good number of Spiders, who then die in droves to any MR-based attacks

Good point.

In that case its probably worth positioning the remaining riders to get the bless and let your spiders fend for themselves

But as I've been saying for the most part with the w9 bless my riders remain mostly intact anyway, unless I use them poorly by not massing them enough and letting them get strung out and surrounded.

There's also going to be a handful of the Hunter Lords in there, and those guys are tougher if you equip them a little, or get lucky with heroic abilities, since they kill alot, they tend to compete for the abilities anyway.

[archaeolept]

no, they actually buffed the hunter spiders to MR 10 some patch ago... the ordinary spiders only have MR 5

MR 10 is a good basis at least... and i just got some ape astral mage hero, who could cast antimagic.

[licker]

There's your problem. CBM makes EACH step of Magic scale +/-1 Research. So with CBM, under Drain 2, you are -2 RP/mage.

Well in the version of CBM I have this is not the case, D2 is only -1, or its not showing properly in the descriptor. Either way, It would be interesting to try it your way.

Building a few high value units at the start is excessively risky. There are indies that will trash even respectable numbers of your spiders.. tthe ancient prescense, the 3 air mages, probably bogus, the hydro mancers.

Well these indies come as events don't they? Otherwise you can 'avoid' them after they hit. Xbow and Knight provinces don't trouble my armies, and anything less than that is just completely overrun. As with any expansion strategy you arn't just blindly charging around.

Additionally, hi value units are especially susceptible to open ended die rolls. If you have 100 units - you don't care much if you lose 20. If you have 4 units - you care a lot if you lose 1
(if no other reason than the morale checks you face every round).

Well make the numbers 25/100 and 1/4 and the 'cost' is the same, depending on how replaceable the units are, which is obviously an issue for the Hunters, however the only units which are 25:1 with Hunters are the absolute worst of the worst chaff, and the blessed spiders will have a moral of 15(? something around there I think).

As I've said, I don't have the MP perspective, and I appreciate what you all are telling me, I'm just being obstinate because I want to be sure I'm getting the full effort into the replies, which I think I am. I also havn't really tried other bless nations much to compare them myself, so I may just have to do that and see what I find.

[llamabeast]

There's your problem. CBM makes EACH step of Magic scale +/-1 Research. So with CBM, under Drain 2, you are -2 RP/mage.

That used to be the case, but is not any more, since the latest version of CBM.

[HoneyBadger]

Whenever I play Machaka, I tend to just recruit the tarantula riding commanders instead of the sacred soldiers, and then lots and lots of archers and hoplites.

So a heavy bless strategy isn't that necessary, but if I wanted one, I'd probably go with an imprisoned cyclops with W9/E9/N4/S4. Since I'd be forging MR amulets for the commanders, that's enough MR for the basic spiders.

Oh and I don't know that I favor the return to vanilla magic scales for CBM. The way it was worked really well with research set to "Very Hard".

[chrispedersen]

yeah thats what I was trying to suggest honey - the sacred route is just not the route to go with machaka.

Its sub optimal compared to other races - but its also suboptimal with other options machaka can take.