Anyone who think they can win against this army?

[Taqwus]

I would not be entirely displeased if the "insect to manikin" exploit vanished, as it strikes me as a bit bizarre.

Say, the manikin goodness only happens if size 2-4 (turning larger things into Carrion Beasts as available) or something like that.

Regarding Winged Helm -- curiously, the bit about it enabling flying commanders to fly during storms vanished during the upgrade Dom1 to Dom2, if memory serves.

[velk]

How about 1 harvester of sorrows ? ;p

[Graeme Dice]

A single air 5 Vanadrott with blood vengeance, wrathful skies and 5 storm demons? That's not very hard to beat.

With Caelum:
1 Storm General
25 Storm Guard
1 Seraph: Thunder Ward
3 Mammoths.
11 Wingless.

The storm guard will tie up the demons and the Vanadrott in the first tuen, then the Mammoths will show up and wipe them out if they aren't already dead.

With anyone else, thunder ward works wonders and only requires an air one mage to use 2 gems to cast.

[ywl]

One Harvest of Sorrow alone won't work.

It's unfair to disallow units like clockwork horror, spring hawk. They require even less powerful magic than "Wrathful Sky".

For example, your army would be easily beaten by two to three Maste Smith with the "Lightning Rod" `guarded by 10 to 20 "Clockwork Horror". All doable even by the magically inversatile Ulm.

Another approach: a Golem with a "Snake Poison Bladder", "Axe of Sharpness", a decent armor & "Ring of Tame Lightning". It will work if the Golem is scripted to "Body Ethereal", "Luck" and attack rearmost.

Or a Bane Lord equipped similarly with "Snake Poison Bladder", "Axe of Sharpness", a "Ring of Regeneration" and a "Ring of Tame Lightning".

As long as you have items like "Ring of Tamed Lightning", your army is not hard to beat. The "Storm" + "Wrathful Sky" is a powerful combo but it's so well-known that most players are aware and prepared for it.

[ March 17, 2004, 03:48: Message edited by: ywl ]

[DLC]

the spell "storm" removes everyones flying ability except storm demons, wrathful skies works wonders on manikin or mandragoras i'd think, those storm demons have perfect accurancy due to aim +5 and the storm not affecting their aim. 5x10 shots of lightning + whatever spells the vanadrott casts.

this is just a simple unit with 5 relatively cheap units with the cost of just

3 water gems(jade armor isn't necessary)
3 fire gems(fire ring only needed if you fight fire)
36 air gems
35 bloodslaves
20 earth gems(one time cost)
3 earthg gems(jade armor)

con 6
alt 6
blood magic 4
alt 1
conj 1

380 + 180(one time cost) gold.

i could remove the winged helmet and remove 15 air gems(-25%, dwarf hammer in this case) and make him cast storm power first then wrathful skies just, wouldn't make all that difference.

that's not all that expensive for an army that can kill anything not specificly made to kill it and it doesn't need supplies cept air gems which it could get by wearing a flying armor(not counting caelum,ry'leh pesky summons, mech men/dragons/stormdemons and air mages with gems).

now this unit and his army is just a byproduct, i dont have to invest anything on my pretender or domain to create this unit whatsover(cept some way to get decent income), i may need a tiny bit of luck to get a random 4 in air and a dwarf with water as a random pick to make the jade armor but it isn't necessary, course i can only make Vanadrotts in my capital which is the only drawback.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by DLC:
the spell "storm" removes everyones flying ability except storm demons,

In a storm, only Storm Demons, Pazuzu, the Queens of Elemental Air, Air Elementals, Caelum Storm Guard, and Storm Generals can fly.

wrathful skies works wonders on manikin or mandragoras i'd think, those storm demons have perfect accurancy due to aim +5 and the storm not affecting their aim. 5x10 shots of lightning + whatever spells the vanadrott casts.

Your army is extremely vulnerable to anything that can reach it quickly, like heavy cavalry. Ermorian hordes are not a good test for this. Mandragoras would work also quite well, since they have enough hitpoints to survive a single lightning strike.

[tinkthank]

I am having problems understanding your Posts, DLC, and it may be because I am tired.
I bet I am misunderstanding you, but it sounds to me like you are asking a "Warcraft III" question. I think much much more of the context must be explicated before the question can be answered. Armies just dont pop out and fight each other in DII, there is a whole context behind it -- it's not just the what, it's the where, when, for how long, and who's back at home.

Just consider one small element of one factor, "when": Sometimes one single mage can make all the difference. One casting of antimagic, or arrow fend, or summon storm, or heat from hell, or whatever else you would like to think of can turn an entire battle. So it depends on "when" (research-wise). Tons of other examples.

Sorry maybe it is a language barrier thing.