Frost immune Devils?

[Boron]

jeffr said:
Most mention Staff of Storms as necessary to ground Devils. What do you do if you play a nation that doesn't have access to Air or Water magic (i.e. no clam hoarding)?

So, no Staff of Storms and no Air queens.

If you have no staff of storms vs. devils you have imo very very bad success chances .

It should be similiar vs. FoDs also and other strong fliers .

Devils are just the most economic troop atm in Dominions and they have that good abilities that they can also win vs. Thugs or bad equipped SCs when fielded in bigger quantities .

Because they fly if you use fragile mages , and in this special context a fragile mage is everything expect a tartarian or a SC or a pretender , the devils kill them probably already while buffing .

If you ground the devils with Staff of Storms though national mages which can do either water or airmagic have enough time to deal lots of casualities to the devils and then your Mech Men or other Tanktroops can hold off the devils long enough .
Otherwise the devils would probably kill your mages while your mech men are still unharmed .

[Chazar]

Ok, I found out what helps against >400 Devils supported by ArchDevils, Heliophagous and friends:

Fighting in Cold3, casting Army of Gold, Fog Warriors, Wrathful Skies, Murdering Winter, Warriors of Niefelheim, Storm Warriors, Doom and Weapons of Sharpness a couple of times, as well as bringing along 2 squads of mechanical men and two iron dragons, 3 raw tartarians, 1 healthy and proper equipped tartarian and 2 proper equipped AirQueens and cool WraithLord...

But one thing still puzzles me: Why didnt my army rout as they've done before? In previous battles, the AirQueens did almost nothing, for after their 5 turns of buffing & casting, my whole army routed before they waded into meele. This time every side fought to the very end. Why? Did it matter that I had a single berserked unit in my ranks? Again, scores of blizzard warriors (caelian archers) routed and left the high seraph communion (via crystal slave matrices 8 slaves, 3 serpah crystal masters in Earth, Air & Water, 2 relief druids) without any protection...the devils got dangerously close!), but this time, the whole army remained. In those previous battle non-routing mindless like Siege Golems were present, but no berserked units...

Seems like having a single berseker is vital if this is true. Or am I just obersving some odd chances?

[Boron]

Chazar said:
Seems like having a single berseker is vital if this is true. Or am I just obersving some odd chances?

I think odd chances .

If you have only 1 squad of mech men and as many commanders as you wish your commanders will fight until all mech men are killed.
Commanders can fail their own morale checks though so if you use e.g. stuff like a knight commander thug he may fail his morale checks vs. false horrors and similiar and rout .

Caelian troops have pretty low morale so they rout easily .
Same for most caelian commanders .

Important to know is that only mindless morale 50 units like AE undeads , mech men and iron dragons never rout .
There is no mindless commander though afaik .
Even AQs , Tartarians and similiar have "only" 30 morale so in very rare cases they can rout by failing the commander morale throw though it is really extremely rare .

If enemy works with a lot of fear spells and fear units like false horror spamming , undeads etc. it can occasionally happen though .

[Endoperez]

Maybe you had most of your units scripted to Guard Commander? Units in Guard Commander are not counted as "in the field" when the game checks if there are any non-routing friendly units left (=if the commanders should retreat).

[Chazar]

Yeah, that's probably it. I knew this before, but if I think about the battle replay, all non-bodyguards with 50 morale (Iron Dragon) were dead when army routing occured. However, a beserking commander (via Hellsword) cannot hurt) seem to be a safer bet...

[Boron]

Chazar said:
Yeah, that's probably it. I knew this before, but if I think about the battle replay, all non-bodyguards with 50 morale (Iron Dragon) were dead when army routing occured. However, a beserking commander (via Hellsword) cannot hurt) seem to be a safer bet...

Yeah berserk gives you 99 morale . At least a tip of the turn says this iirc .

[Oversway]

Yeah berserk gives you 99 morale .

I think you can see it in the unit description after they've gone beserk.

Even AQs , Tartarians and similiar have "only" 30 morale so in very rare cases they can rout by failing the commander morale throw though it is really extremely rare .

I thought that the different 'special' morale numberss like 30, 50, 99 weren't actually used in a morale check, but essentially meant they would never retreat. As in, it didn't even make an actual check. Or is it just that if they are that high, you will almost never, never fail?

[Boron]

30 morale can rarely fail a moralecheck i think while 50 and 99 either can't fail a moralecheck or hasn't even to do one .

I am not 100% sure though it would be cool if Kristoffer or Johan could confirm or correct this statement

[odd_enuf]

I've seen a 30 moral unit fail moral checks solo repeatly, it was a lighly equipped angel casting phionix pyre, attack, goign up against undead horads. the angel averaged two deaths in combat before retreating.

odd_enuf

[Taqwus]

50 means 'mindless', 99 means 'berserk'. I don't think either can run away.