Question about EA Tir Na N'og

[llamabeast]

Yeah, I don't think TNN are a bad nation at all. I played them in an MP game once and did okay, despite playing fairly horribly. It may just be chance that they have no guides. Also they were added in a patch quite some time after release so they haven't existed quite as long as some nations.

[Torgon]

Seems like the big difference between Eiru and TNN are the Sidhe warriors. Eiru has no recruit anywhere glamour troops, TNN does. The way Baalz outlines in his guide, in order to be a highly successful raiding nation Eiru has to invest in a great bless for their Sidhe Lords (plus additional equipment). The Sidhe warriors enable them to field stealth raiding parties from any castle. Makes them look a little more like Vanhiem. The Sidhe warriors are fairly decent, but what could we make of them.

Sidhe Warrior compare to Vanheim Huskarl
Gold 25 Gold 25
Resources 12 Resources 13
HP 13 HP 13
Pro 10 Pro 11
Morale 12 Moral 11
MR 14 MR 14
Enc 3 Enc 4
Str 12 Str 11
Attk 12 Att 12
Def 15 Def 14
Pre 12 Pre 12
Move 2/12 Move 2/11

Stealth 25 Same except no darkvision or forest
Glamour surv
Forest Surv
Darkvision
Spear/Javlin/Shield Axe/Jav/Shield

So the big weakness I see on both units, vanhiem and TNN is the low protection. Vanhiem is sort of stuck with it. Vanhiem also has the Vanhere, Mounted Hirdmen and Hirdmen, but they're capital only or more expensive, respectively. And except for the Vanhere who has berserk they're protection is still low. Yes you could bring an earth Vanadrott along with a pair of earth boots to buff, but this seam like a waste and a huge risk for a capital only mage who could reliably raid all by himself.

Now for TNN. What do you have? Nature mages that are recruitable from every castle. specifically the Bean Sidhe and the Sidhe champion

First the Bean Sidhe. Their A1W1N1 plus a random AWEN. So one in four will be able to cast Wooden Warriors right out the box. Every one will if you just give them a thistle mace. The earth randoms can cast legions of steel with just a pair of boots and an earth gem.

The Sidhe champion is 1A1N but 140 vs 220 gold for the bean (both compare nicely to the 280 Sidhe Lord, Plus the bean is more useful generally). The Champion can lay down the same buffs. His stats are a little worse than the Sidhe lord but he's a whole lot cheaper. Still holy so he could also work with a slight bless.

These two and a few Sidhe warriors seem to get even better when you look at those level one nature enchantment spell songs that these guys have access too. Specifically healing song, quickening song, song of bravery. Cast quickening song right out of the gate with either one. Now you have quickened glamour protected Sidhe warriors. If you go with the Sidhe champion just place him such that he follows right behind your warriors. He seams fairly survivable so you shouldn't be too worried about losing him. Now with healing song you have quickened, regenerating, glamour protected Sidhe warriors.

For the price of a Sidhe lord you can get a sidhe champion plus 6 sidhe warriors. I've been going through a few test runs (about 20 so far , and this can reliably take out PD up to around 20 or so. After that it goes to about 2/3 or 1/2. Bump it up to 10 or 12 warriors and you can reliably get up to 25.

Now you've got raiding parties without needing to fork over a huge amount on E9N6 bless as you have to for Eiru. Thus better scales and more warriors. Plus more Ri's, Sorceresses, and Baobhan Sidhe.

Now the baobhan sidhe seems to be a strange beast. An expensive assassin with A2. If someone can figure out something else to do with her I'm all ears. Is she a money sink or would something interesting work? The thing that first comes to mind is giving her an eye of aiming, then assassinating using thunderstrike, thunderstrike(Just 2 extra air gems). Not sure how often this would work, but it seems like it would reliably take out most mages not kitted out with lightning resistance, even if they had body guards. They're stealth +45 so patrolling for the buggers would be a huge pain. (Would this work?)

I'm imagining an interesting set of moves that could prove quite devastating. Take a number of baobhan sidhe, move them to a province with a fort. Perhaps one owned by someone that doesn't even share a border with you so they're not expecting it. At the same time move in a number of your raiding parties. Equip the raiding party leaders with wall shakers. Use the baobhan sidhe to take out the leaders inside. Simultaneously attack the province with the army that you've pulled in under his nose. Bring enough Sidhe Warriors + wall shakers to bring the walls down in one turn. Attack the next turn. Unless he has a large army within striking distance (which you should be aware of since you have parties all over his territory) or was just camping out inside with a significant force, you just walk right in the gate. Pair this up with other simultaneous raids on the surrounding provinces and you can push the time you need to break the walls down to 2 turns. A great city falls in two with just 4 shakers, a fortified city to 5 shakers(assuming you don't outnumber the defender at all).

Same strategy would would when attacking a large force outside the walls. Assassinate using Baobhan Sidhe and attack simultaneously with a force they didn't even know was next to them the turn before.

As I said before, very little experience with MP. Haven't even tested this plan out in SP. Seems interesting but may have huge holes when put to the test.

[Torgon]

Seems like the Bean sides and Sorceresses would also be perfect candidates for artificially communions and crystal shields. Only problem is the only option to forge them would be with your pretender, unless you got lucky with an indi mage site (which doesn't seem that unlikely in EA).

Also, looks like they did receive some love in the latest CBM. That's where the quickening song came in along with the mists spells which could be interesting.

Possible Pretender build

Dormant Crone:
E4S4D4N4

Scales: Dom 5
O3S2L3M1

Is it worth even trying to leverage into death with the nurfs to Tartarians? Will treants, rocs, etc be all you need?

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Torgon

Now the baobhan sidhe seems to be a strange beast. An expensive assassin with A2. If someone can figure out something else to do with her I'm all ears. Is she a money sink or would something interesting work?

I have recently fallen in love with the LA Man summon Bean Sidhe (this is a MP game using CBM1.82). Despite she being called Bean Sidhe she is actually closer to the Baobhan Sidhe (both have Stealth +45, both are assassins, etc).

There are a couple very big differences though. While all Baobhan Sidhe have Air 2, only 25% of the Bean Sidhe summons have. Then again, the Bean Sidhe summon is (in addition to what the Baobhan Sidhe is) ethereal, cold immune, poison immune, causes fear but is undead. The Bean Sidhe has Wail of Doom (pretty much useless, or at least I've found no use for it) while Baobhan Sidhe has the somewhat useful Life Drain.

Just for the record, I've used in a current ongoing MP game the Bean Sidhe summons both as thugs (practically as semi-SC's to be honest) and as assassins. Gotta love those chicks. I use the A2 versions as thugs/semi-SC's with Fire brand, Shield of Valour, Dragon Helmet, Copper Plate, Flying Boots, lucky ring (I know, I know, retardedly expensive as thugs, but as SC's not that hard; just have to be careful *what* to attack); they are thus immune to everything (Fire, Frost, Poison, Shock). They can Cloud Trapeze anywhere, or fly hidden 3 provinces per turn. In combat script Cast Mistform, Attack one turn, ShockwaveX3, Attack Rear (and *always* make sure you have at least one (I prefer two) S1 magister sneaking in the target province; it sort of lessens the risk of Mind hunts on the girlie when the hidden magister fries the brains of the mindhunters; I've a couple times risked moving a girlie where there was no magister protecting her, counting on the opponent being paranoid enough not to attempt Mind Hunts as that just results in burned brains). As she is sneaky, resistant to everything *and* protected by hidden astral magisters it is practically impossible to catch her, in combat she is immune to 80% of all missiles and glamour + ethereal makes her hard to hit in melee, and then they will just hit the mistform.

Anyway, lets look at the Baobhan Sidhe. You can't make her immune to everything like a Bean Sidhe summon. You can't protect her with cheap sneaking astral mages. She doesn't have fear. She isn't ethereal. I think we can forget about using her as a thug against anything else but weak PD.

What about using her as a pro-assassin? The weaknes of the Bean Sidhe summon is that she is undead, so there are many ways she could be killed before cutting through the body guards. Dust to dust, Banishment, plus all the other usual anti-assassin tools. The Baobhan Sidhe doesn't suffer those (except the normal ones, obviously).

So, what gear to give a Baobhan Sidhe assassin (looking this from CBM 1.84 perspective, notice that I am theorising ie not been tried in action)? I wouldn't actually give much. Copper Plate would be cool (not only does it give SR100, but it also zaps the first one hitting the wearer, which is pretty cool for an assassin) and is easy and cheap for TNN to craft. A shield maybe, perhaps a shield of valor (again, easy for TNN to craft, but a bit expensive at 10 air gems) or perhaps something simple as a black steek tower shield (makes her practically immune to missiles). A weapon shouldn't be needed as she has Lifedrain anyway. Script Mistform, Flight, AttackX1, ShockwaveX2, Attack Rear.

One could send her to action via Cloud Trapeze (possibly hitting somewhere where other TNN thugs hit the same round too), and then sneak in to where ever she is going to assassinate enemies. Or directly cloud trapeze to an enemy fort, a couple Ri's and a Baobhan will be able to kill most PD protecting forts (all PD in the game is toast, unless they have patrolling mages boosting the PD), and after that the girlie (or girlies, why not send in more than one if you are going to assassinate commanders anyway?) could start harvesting enemy commanders inside the walls. With the Stealth +45 it is *very* hard to find the Baobhan, unless there are hundreds and hundreds of patrollers in the province (and then those patrollers aren't fighting at the front).