Zen and the art of Thugging

[MaxWilson]

One more quick comment about thugging/anti-thugging and quantity: a unit will preferentially engage units in front of it, and then I think directly behind it and then to the upper-back corner. This means that a thug surrounded by chaff will always attack the same square (or 2 squares if he's quickened and clears out the first square) every turn, with 2 or 3 new chaff plugging the "hole" every turn. The implications are both bad and good: the units attacking him will gradually fatigue out, unless they die from repel (or Fire Shield) damage first, but it also means that an anti-thug mixed in with a bunch of chaff is going to get a lot of free hits in without the thug ever hitting back, unless the anti-thug is unlucky enough to wind up in the frontal square. And of course, multiple cheap anti-thugs are exceedingly unlikely to all wind up in the unlucky square. This is yet another instance where quantity tends to win out over quality.

SCs may be able to counter this by using *real* AoE weapons like the Stone Sword, Sunslayer, and the Sword of Many Colors, combined with Quickness. Sunslayer w/ Quickness is sometimes able to kill *all* the squares surrounding the SC, every turn.

-Max

[Baalz]

Oh yeah, one more thing I wanted to mention is the casting route can be a particularly good anti-thug route that I have yet to see anyone else use. Hand of death in particular is a great one, works great with...say vampire counts buffed-to-fly liches.

[rdonj]

I tried using hand of death against llamabeast in the warhammerama game... it took out a large chunk of health but 60 or so damage doesn't quite cut it on a 300 hp cyclops. Still, against anything reasonable that would have more than sufficed.

[chrispedersen]

fists of iron
farstrike under 1.3

[Zargen]

IMO, the best thugs you can make are ones capable of dieing large amounts of life drain per turn. Think my favorite thug was a Dusk Elder that I had use wish for 'power' to beef him up a bit. And then gave a few items that added additional aoe life-draining attacks along with regenerating items and magic resistance. Every turn he drained a sizeable chunk of the enemy's units, regained life, and repeated until they ran. Worked every-single-time.

[MaxWilson]

I am not trying to discourage innovation, only pointing out the Frost Brand is pretty cheap for what you get and the vine shield is often better than the Shield of Gleaming Gold. Not in all cases.

And of course Vine Shield + Shield of Gleaming Gold works even better, since if Awe stops them they still get entangled. Put it on a Poison Golem w/ Stygian Wings (also supplies Flying and Fear). And at this point Baalz rightfully yells "Stop! You just spent 75 gems to create a thug. Is that really cost-effective or are you mindlessly optimizing for performance? Could you still raid the same provinces with a Bane Lord with a Ring of Regen and an S1 mage to cast Body Ethereal and Luck on him? How about two national recruitables with Slave Matrixes and a communion master with a Fire Bola casting Summon Earthpower/Ironskin/Personal Luck/Astral Shield/Fire closest?" This is the Zen of thugging.

But I agree, if you want to talk about particulars, Frost Brand is often cheap and a nice item.

-Max

[Aezeal]

Well you don't get a weapon much cheaper than the frostbrand for it's effect that is one thing (Don Corazon is right there) on the other hand I thought Baalz point was that while some weapons are cheap (say frostbrand) quiet a few thugs don't even need that weapon to still be able to rout PD or hurt armies.

[Gandalf Parker]

What are some "generic" thugs? Summons possibly that would be generally recognized as thug chassis.

[MaxWilson]

Because thugs need to be gem-cheap, they're more likely to be recruitable units (which cost only gold) than summons. Still, avoiding national summons and sticking to generic only (and leaving off uniques):

Banes and Bane Lords come to mind. Vampires and Vampire Counts. Troll Kings and to a lesser extent Sea Kings. Llamia queens. Spectres. The mages you get from Unfrozen or Hidden in Snow don't usually make great thugs because they're #noheal, but with enough lifedrain that may not matter. Golems and poison golems. MAYBE Fairy Queens but I've never tried it (low HP will probably be fragile, but she's a thug not an SC right?). Firbolg Sleepers.

Wraith Lords may be thugs or light SCs. Tartarians are cheap enough to use as thugs if you have GoH up.

That's all I've got from memory. There's probably some blood and nature chassises that I've missed. Death obviously has the best summonable chassises of the ones I can remember, but Troll Kings aren't bad.

-Max

[Gandalf Parker]

Thanks. Those will work well into a new song Im thinking of.