No one does it like the Bull...

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
The bulls are monsters. A bull with Earth 8, an amulet of resilience and ring of regeneration becomes virtually unstoppable...

Until he tries to trample Jotuns. The fatigue cost of trample is based on the size difference, and it takes a lot of trampling to kill even a few Jotuns.

It'd be pretty expensive to get either bull to Earth 8, though. You don't really need that much Earth just to cast Invulnerability, so unless you're getting it for your national sacred troops, I'd go with no more than 4 Earth 6 Nature. Plenty for Summon Earthpower, Invulnerability, Strength of Gaia, Personal Regeneration (optional but cumulative with SoG's regen and regen items; but you only need one regen to get affliction resistance). Elemental Fortitude depending on what you're facing. All of this is in the first 3-4 levels of Conj and Alt (except Personal Regen, which is Enc).

Nature-9 is viable too, but you can get hurt easier without Invulnerability. You do have Gift of Health later (and Personal Regen to cut down on afflictions in the first place). Given the descriptions I would have expected the Bulls to recuperate without GoH, but oh well, they're pretty good as they are.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
Given the descriptions I would have expected the Bulls to recuperate without GoH,

Actually, I think they do.

[olaf73]

Ok a couple of more things. I played a bunch of different bulls today, mostly just seeing what types of armies he could take out on his own.

I found that he did very welll versus nearly everything, independent-wise that is.

A couple of things killed him. Solaris, some named badass knight. He had incredible gear and sick stats.

The other thing was a pretty powerful Sorceress, who was leading a crusher and some other stuff.

Then, I entered him in the death match (never a good idea, I know) just to see how he would fare. He lost in the first round to the Vampire Queen. She cast Decay and then 'kited' the bull for lack of a better term. The bull would hit her a lot, but she kept dancing around and I guess was getting HPs back through lifedrain.

The other problem I ran into, was after most fights he would get an affliction. This is not a big problem most of the time, as he heals them on his own. Except the damn never healing wound.

Anyway, it sure is a fun pretender to play around with.

olaf

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
It'd be pretty expensive to get either bull to Earth 8, though. You don't really need that much Earth just to cast Invulnerability, so unless you're getting it for your national sacred troops, I'd go with no more than 4 Earth 6 Nature.

No, 8 Earth is just for the +8 protection (7+5+8=20 once he berserks). That lets you start taking indies from turn 1, on an indy strength of 7. Though it's much safer to wait for regeneration.

[Jasper]

Arcoscephale's Shedu is also similar.

[General Tacticus]

I once was playing Ulm, and Pythium had a white bull. Poor thing kept diing against my armies. Each time, it was the fatigue that did it, I think he had acquired a chest wound somewhere. Anyway, better give him a reinvigoration item, or don't ever attack large armies, because once he is tired he becomes a sitting hamburger...

[Wauthan]

It might seem really odd but the most successful combat pretender I made, so far, was a plain Ancient Kraken.

The thing just would not die. Since it didn't have any picks in magic I recklessly send it in to duke it out with independants and enemies alike. Indep set to 9 nonetheless. With whatever few units it could recruit in the province previous it expanded the empire faster than I could defend it. After a while I gave it an amulet of airbreathing and sent it onto dry land where it fared even better due to the lack of angry "teleporting" tritons.

Eventually it did die, going up against a cadre of heavy cavalery, but with so many priests around it jumped right back two turns later. With such a cheap pretender I could afford very good scales.

Never eat squid again!