Berserkers of the Deep

[Fantomen]

I love the starspawn priests for linebacker communions, but I prefer different blessings.

One of the beauties of the starspawn priest linebacker is that you can give him a cheap bow (he keeps the mind blast) and reverse buff personal quickness for 4 ranged attacks per combat round, and one of the drawbacks of berserk is that once a unit goes berserk it stops using ranged weaponry.

They are plenty tough in melee anyways, and I prefer them sticking to ranged weapons before and after melee. So personally I look at minor blessings. N4, E4, F4 (to increase reliability of life drain) are all good candidates.

I don't think it's repel generally preventing the starspawns from hitting things, but their low attack score. So a minor fire bless and quickness buff makes a bigger difference than berserk.

Void summoners scripted returning always survives, so being able to win in melee against void creatures doesn't really change anything.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

I don't think it's repel generally preventing the starspawns from hitting things, but their low attack score.

Well, they have a compounding effect, but I don't think the low attack score always plays the most important part in the equation. In a perfect scenario, yes (e.g., you're fighting in your dominion with experienced troops and Fanaticism on), but in my tests, when you have to deal with morale-reducing effects (enemy dominion, Panic/Terror, etc), Starspawns seem to hit much more reliably once berserk kicks in, even when taking the berserk attack bonus into account. I'd bet repels matter more than their pitiful attack score in that case.

So a minor fire bless and quickness buff makes a bigger difference than berserk.

True. But berserk also gives a small attack bonus and stacks with Quickness, so you end up with 1 less attack than with the F4 bless. Not that big of a difference. And once you factor in the fatigue differential (Starspawns accrue less fatigue than the opposition thanks to life drain and are less likely to use heavy armor), it's even less of an issue.

Void summoners scripted returning always survives, so being able to win in melee against void creatures doesn't really change anything.

True again, as I wrote it's just an amusing side effect of the bless. I toyed with it because so far I've used the N9 bless in testbed games only, and didn't bother with the chore of supplying pearls to my summoners.