False Horror

[Azhur]

Having played Dom/Dom 2 for something like two years now, I had always considered lesser horrors to be one of the most useless battle-summons in the whole game. A couple of days ago I got enlightened, as I witnessed the death of my beloved 40+ Centaur Warriors. The guilty was no Doom Horror nor a VQ, but five Threugs (casting 1 x Quickness, 4 x False Horror) with an aid of less than 10 heavy infantries. As you could expect FHs made all the dirty work.. so what then makes em so unbeatable?

False Horror stats:

Hp: 1 Str: 21
Prot: 0 Atk: 16
Mor: 50 Def: 16
MR: 9 Prc: 10
Enc: 0 Mv: 3/4

Skills: Amphibious, Fear +0, Lifeless, Need not Eat, Ethreal , Mindless, Flying

False horrors' greates strength lies in their wicked mass of malevolence.

Pros:

+ Cost 1A, fat -10 (Yet probably 1W1A is the optimum for quick casting)
+ Flying, ethreal and causes fear +0! (20 FHs all causing fear is a one nasty sight)
+ Extraordinary classy strength, attack and defence for an illusion
+ Magical weapons (2 x Phantasmal Claws)
+ 50 morale (so they're far from panicking black hawks)

Cons:

- Alteration 6 (Not really that difficult to reach, as you would go there anyway in order to buff your SCs)
- They're still just phantasmal creatures

Conclusion: In my opinion False Horrors are somewhat overpowered, since I really can't figure out good ways of taking em out. What do you think?

[Arralen]

How to kill low-hp, shieldless, ethereal troops:

1) massed shortbows
2) massed low-level multiple effect spells
3) area effect spells
4) fire-blessed troops (flagellants!)

[Endoperez]

I haven't played in multi, but I quess the answer would be repel. Their high defence and etherealness are big problems, but getting that 1 point of damage through is enough. You would need high-att units with magical weapons for the repel tactic to work.

Most melee commanders with Burning Pearl, Ring of the Warrior or similar and any high-att magic weapon will do. Any sacred units with flaming weapons will do. In fact, any unit with magical weapon would work, but I don't think there are any battlewide buffs that grant that - although Antimagic would help against those Phantasmal attacks.


I don't know if False Horrors would actually attack them, or if the repellers could repel more than one FH per turn.

[Saber Cherry]

Someone was saying a horror-marked commander with fire shield (or charcoal shield) was the perfect false horror killer. Black Steel Plate and an antimagic amulet would be wise.

I can't think of another GOOD solution; their ability to fly and super-high stats negate most tactics. Commanders with magical repelling weapons only work if they have really high attack and are horror marked, or the horrors will just ignore them and kill everything else.

Repel works many times per turn, BTW, one reason I sometimes give SC tramplers long, poisioned spears. Weapons of Sharpness grants magical armor-piercing weapons to everyone on the battlefield... and Flaming Arrows does the same for missile weapons.

[Graeme Dice]

Post deleted by Graeme Dice

[Graeme Dice]

Charcoal shields and rime hauberks are your friends against false horrors.

Weapons of sharpness makes the weapons armour piercing, but they are not magical.

[Arralen]

AFAIK (and as the devs told sometime ago):
Special weapon properties (magic, poison, etc.) do not work for repel - it does only and exactly 1 point of damage.

This is purely physical damage. If etherealness or luck helps - it's a good question, I have never seen it mentioned by the developers!

But keep one thing in mind: For a repel to hit the attacker, the defender must
a) beat him attack vs. defense
b) beat him damage vs. protection (obviously capped at "1")
So you'll have a hard time hitting the FHs due to def of 16.

[Tuidjy]

I was the one recommending the horror marked commander with a charcoal shield,
but that was against a theoretical scenario in which 30+ false horrors attacked
on battleturn one. I am not saying that the idea is a bad one, but against
the more common case in which the horrors actually have to be spammed, there
are at least two other approaches.

The first one is to attack the casters. Blade wind, flame storm, niefel flames,
thunder strike, etc... are perfect if you can insure that they will target the
casters. If you know that there will be meat shields, make sure you have some
firepower left over after routing or wiping out the shield.

Wrathful skies, fire storm, and rain of stones also work, of course, but you
have to protect your own guys.

My personal favorite is Gifts from Heaven. For some reason, the AI is very good
at targeting valuable enemy units with it.

The second approach relies on the horrors attacking the closest enemy. Skeleton
spam works wonders, because the skelletons end up overwhelming the horrors. Of
course, with this approach you still need a tough unit to actually throw the
balance on your side. But given that I always include a thug or SC in my
multipurpose mage squads, this should not be a problem.

----

I am taking an example from my current game - I just send four multipurpose
squads against C'tis and Man (Reverand Zombie and Seater, I am not lying, make
use of this information if you can) I fully expect both horrors and skelleton
spam from both nations.

The squads are made up of:
1. Pretender, one horror marked F/S mummy set to buff and cast, one weak but
very powerful F caster, one relief spammer, two skelly spammers, one horror
spammer, one soul slayer. (This squad is supposed to teleport in the path of
Man's main army)

2. One A/S/D Monstra set on buff and spam, one skellie spammer, two horror
spammers, one relief spammer, one soul slayer. (This squad is supposed to
welcome C'tis into one of my castles, and his army includes living troops)

3. One Air queen, one skelly caster, one horror marked thug. (This squad is
teleporting onto something which looks like a mob of trolls and wolves.
Probably overkill, but given that Man looks rich and his best mages are
undetectable, I rather not take risks)

4. One A/E Tartarian Cyclops (He is supposed to just probe the defenses of a
province. He can probably not cut through skeleton or horror spam, but should be
able to survive it and retreat)

Each of these squads should be able to take on 1000-2000 golds worth of anything
and aquit itself well. They are far from invincible, but on the next turn, some
of them will be hidden behind insta-castles, and the rest will be reinforced.
If something wipes them out it will receive the attention of one of my special
purpose squads...

All these was meant to show that false horrors, just like any other trick is far
from unbeatable. Of course, if you are playing with soldiers by the time the
other guy is fielding Tartarians, you won't achieve much. By the same token,
if your opponent is spamming horrors, you should not expect even your best troops
to hold.

By the way, in that game, I am playing Abysia, so please hold the 'not every
nation can field this' argument. Yeah, Ulm and Pangaea can't, but they are
not real nations.

----

By the way, it is possible to use troops to deal with horror squads. With good
timing you can insure that cavalry (or lizard runners, in my case) do not
become the closest opponent until the script runs out, and that they converge
on the casters from the edge of the battlefield, avoiding the spam. But that
relies on knowing exactly what your opponent will do, which, with anyone worth
playing, you do not.

[Saber Cherry]

Arralen said:
AFAIK (and as the devs told sometime ago):
Special weapon properties (magic, poison, etc.) do not work for repel - it does only and exactly 1 point of damage.

I was just checking that out, and you're right true... seems strange to me, but that's the way it is...

[Boron]

Azhur from about turn 20-30 the False Horrors were the only cheap thing which works for my Pythium vs. your Pans .
My troops are inferior and you even killed one of my early medium equipped AQs .

Tuidity already listed almost everything you can do against False Horrors and unfortunately for me there are a few things listed that you could do well as Pangenea . You gave me a good fight until now anyways already though i still don't understand why you attacked me only a few turns after our NAP and why you didn't continue your war with Ulm .