Fun with Arco Astrologers

[Saxon]

Last night, my single player Arco nation was really getting moving well. I had just gotten construction level six and had spent a turn or three producing Starshine caps and Banners of the northern star, along with assorted minor protective gear. I took my ten astrologers off research, gave them the goodies to lift their astral levels, then teleported them off to join the fight against Man. Teleport is such an useful spell!

I had them on Body Ethereal, then Soul Slay. They joined the main army and the next turn entered battle against a big force. And then… The opposition just melted! Ten soul slays a turn punches an enemy army pretty hard. Do it four turns in a row, with 40 potential deaths and they are reeling. The astrologers also tend to target the bigger units first, or those closest, which usually hits the most troublesome units. They also keep firing after the army routs, so they eat up a lot of enemy troops, so you do not need to fight them again.

I just walked to the capital, often my melee units could not even reach the enemy, they were bLasted so fast. Once in the capital, I did run into a problem. The astrologers targeted the enemy pretender, who did have high magic resistance. This did seem like a waste, but after ten a turn for a few turns, one spell did get through. I would throw in a few spell penetration items before using this against pretenders.

In any case, I know the “Firing Squad” has been written about before in the forum and I know that I should expect a real power for my 1800 gold plus many astral gems, but the power of this combination really blew me away and I had to share.

[Blitz]

The astrologer is my favortite mage. He's definately the cheapest 3-astral mage, and IIRC also the cheapest 3-anything mage in the game. Being capitol-only is really his only drawback, as 180 gold for SSS and a true random pick is outstanding. I usually give each of them boots of the messenger, a skullcap and a clam. 180 gold and 25 gems is a big investment, but there's a big payoff at the end.

[Norfleet]

Yeah, being capitol only is a minor drawback, but being innately S3 means getting him to the front is trivial anyway.

[Saxon]

Capitol only is a bit of a drawback, but I found that teleport needs a bit of a network of labs to be really effective. As such, I was able to invest in other mages at the same time as buying an astrologer every turn. The other mages, who’s name I forget, are better at research and, with the two astral, are still a respectable three astral with a banner of the northern star. This blends in nicely with the soul slay barrage I used, or can be toned down to merely paralyze if you want to reduce fatigue. Your melee troops can usually take care of the paralyzed units… The other kind of mage also provided fair site search capability, as they can get a range of randoms.

On a really big map, I can see the capitol only limiting things, but medium and small should be ok. The armies are just not that big on the smaller maps.

All in all, I really liked this pair of national mages, they may be a new favorite.

[Boron]

hm that soulslay really works quite nice

i didn't experiment too much until now with battlefield spells that was a fault and i will do now
so are there any good other astral battlefield spells (preferred without gem costs , doing areadamage without mrcheck ) ?

a modification to your soul slay strat which comes to my mind and i will try now

the pythium theurgs can be produced everywhere , are sacred + cost 150 gems . so they cost only about 45% upkeep of the arco mystics + can be massproduced .
unfortunately they are only astral 2 .

but if you really need them early on you can at least mind burn with them and you can empower them quite cheap to astral 3 via forging

so all in all you can field the same number like arco mystics and pay only half of the upkeep .
pythium has a superior gem income to arco and for the saved upkeep you could either field the double number of mindburners/soulslayers or build some arch theurgs which are either due to superior magical equipment like penetration increasing equipment compared to the theurgs high mr resistance creatures ( like scs ) slayers or they cast via communion empowered air spells

what do you think ?

only problem perhaps is that at battles longer than 5 turns since the pythium mages are priests too they probably cast many crappy priest spells instead of casting soul slays , orb lightnings and so on

but for the first 5 rounds they will do more damage at same upkeep costs + are better massproduceable

[Kel]

Originally posted by Boron:
the pythium theurgs can be produced everywhere , are sacred + cost 150 gems . so they cost only about 45% upkeep of the arco mystics + can be massproduced .

Mystics can be produced anywhere, as well. Astrologers are capitol only.

but if you really need them early on you can at least mind burn with them and you can empower them quite cheap to astral 3 via forging

Paralyze is a really good 2s alternative if you have troops to accompany them. In fact, I tend to use paralyze more than soul slay in small/mid sized battles since you get better penetration and it costs less fatigue, due to the lower path requirement. In small/mid sized battles, enemies will usually die before paralyze wears off.

pythium has a superior gem income to arco

Only in the very early game. Don't forget that the 3 random elemental picks on the mystics will give you the ability to site search extensively.

or they cast via communion empowered air spells

Communion can be a bit fragile and laborious but one of the nice things is that, with random picks, it can give you access to a huge variety of buffs, making them very powerful and flexible. Mystics, of course, excel at this with 3 random picks, but even the one random of the arch can be used for a variety of battle effects (elemental resistances, flame arrow, wind guide, legions of steel, weapons of sharpness, strength of giants, etc.).

Theurgs do have some advantages. They are sacred, as you pointed out, and thus not only cheaper but also able to gain bless effects (like quickness from a W9 blessing, for example). You just might want to avoid giving them a berserker blessing

They also have a built in W for quickness (where as mystics will often have one but not always).

Plus, being a priest has some advantages in the field, flexibility wise. You can use them to preach and build temples which can be handy. Of course they also site search worse than mystics but you can't have everything.

- Kel