Vanheim Pretenders: Allfather and Asynya

[Daynarr]

It seems that I will have to stand up in defence of Virtue.

First of all, she isn't meant to be SC, and most and if not all critics directed at her look like people expect her to take whole armies by herself.

Here is some pros that most seem to forget; she costs only 50 points for which you get a flier with great starting dominion (4). She is also excellent for high scales strategy - example:

Machaka with Virtue - +3 Order, Production and Growth and +2 Heat, 7 dominion strength, castle and level 5 in air is quite good and gives Machaka another magic path they are weak in (and allows easy Flaming Arrows + Wind Guide strategy) while allowing you to crank troops and mages at insane rate. Later on you will be able to amass large numbers of troops that she can protect with mist warriors spell.

Early Awe + Mistform CAN be used to beat independents; later Storm + Wrathful Skies is much better for her. Like Allfather she is a flier and can attack key provinces fast, but unlike Allfather she comes with lightning immunity and has no need to cast protections or wear items to protect herself from her own spell. With boots of speed she can cast both spells at the turn one.

Due to her flying/air skills, she can be used to support advancing armies and cast mass protective spells (like mist warriors) fast and without terrain restrains.

Of course, she has weaknesses, but undead are hardly one of them since she comes equipped with Flambeau that is designed to take them out. Of course masses of them will kill her but so will VQ as well. Key is to keep her mobile and out of the melee while doing carnage from afar. For the price she has lots of uses but I wouldn't mind her getting buffed up to the combat level of Moloch.

Couldn't help myself, had to help a lady.

Originally posted by Daynarr:
Of course, she has weaknesses, but undead are hardly one of them since she comes equipped with Flambeau that is designed to take them out. Of course masses of them will kill her but so will VQ as well. Key is to keep her mobile and out of the melee while doing carnage from afar. For the price she has lots of uses but I wouldn't mind her getting buffed up to the combat level of Moloch.

I'll have to disagree with the first part of this unfortunately she has to go into 'combat mode' to use her Flambeau and repel doesn't use the weapons special ability. So yes, undead are not a weakness if you choose to go into 'combat mode' only against undead (if she can kill them before they whack her). Personally I'd like her to be *more* effective against undead than a VQ or any other pretender (seeing as she is the archtypical Angel). I agree that being pumped up to the Combat Level of a Moloch would not be a bad or overpowered thing.

Couldn't help myself, had to help a lady.

I didn't mean my arguements to say she was not worth her cost, but that she was. She just falls into the Category that most Early Combat Pretenders fall into, good in the beginning but their advantages are nulled as time goes on. Think "Dragons".

[PvK]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
Asynja (note spelling) is a much better fighter than a Virtue, though, and doesn't tend to die from one hit of Elf Bane.

Yes, but if you have her scripted as a mage to spam spells, she will die anyway because the spellcasting AI is too dumb to quit casting spells and fight, or cast spells and quit trying to fight: You have to script it to do one or the other, and it won't be able to switch functions to fit the battle.

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I'm confident I have been quite able to script mage/fighters to cast some spells and then go into combat.

As such, if you're using the Asynja just to lob spells from the back of the army, the increased durability is no asset, and innate armor is actually encumbering and counterproductive to spellcasting. The Virtue has better precision.

No, the durability is still an asset, especially against flying attacks on the first few turns, or arrows or other ranged threats that can pick off a Virtue or other lightweight caster.

The armor could be counterproductive to casting, but it isn't glued to her. If you want to use her as a caster for a while, there are cheap items with no encumbrance which can replace her fighting gear.

If you want to build a monster SC, the Allfather provides this at reduced price.

I'm sure your right, as I expect I have never even tried to build something which you would qualify as a monster SC.

If you want an A9 bless on a chassis that can also fight, the Titan provides this more cheaply due to his A3 start. The Titan is only one point of precision short anyway.....does one point really make that much of a difference, especially as he makes it up with his higher starting air magic, for a precision boost all the same, and when you take it up to A9, precision is high enough to use lightning bolts to snipe with anyway?

No, I expect you're right that the Titan makes as good or better a lightning-bolt-sniper. However the Titan is 50 points more expensive base than Asynja, and Asynja is a better fighter (with hand weapons) than the Titan.

Once again....where's the niche? In any niche you can try to slot the Asynja into, there's a pretender that seems to perform the exact same taskset far better.

The niche I think I would try to use is "middleweight SC/caster and limited bless provider". This is perhaps an entire playstyle that doesn't fit what I take to be your "go all the way for one thing" approach. That tends to be my play style though. Be good at more than one thing; and I like units with good fighting skills. Piled with items that build on the skilled foundation, I think she might be able to take out quite a few "problem" threats, as well. Without dumping all that many points in one place.

I don't claim my approaches are the best, but they suits me, and I think Asynja has her advantages.

But ya, as I said before I wouldn't disagree if people gave her some other ability, increased something, or cut her cost to 50.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by atul:

quote:

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Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
The virtue is pretty useless in a combat role, since she only has ~26 hitpoints. ...

Sorry to pick things out of context, but I've been wondering about this for a while now. I mean, while Virtue is indeed lacking in hitpoints and so on, I've found her good as an early game combat support.

The thing being, Awe +6. 0th circle spell Air Shield to protect her from missiles, a cheap armour in case a hit gets through, send her with your armies against indies like on turn 3. The opposition just stands there drooling at her while your troops close in for the kill. The secret of survival isn't high hp, prot or def, but the fact that no-one will hit her. Of course, provinces with high morale troops must be avoided, but as a such her aid in early expansion has been priceless.

I'm not arguing that the Virtue isn't quite useless, after all most high-morale units turn her into kebab, but I'd just like a second opinion on putting her in combat use: doable or just sheer madness? She has performed well in my tests but it may be just pure luck.

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You people and your "(almost/quite/utterly) useless)" really need to find another adjective! You just mean "risky" or "sub-optimal because there are things with other qualities that I prefer", or are wrong, more often than not.

26 hit points is too fragile for combat? Gee, Pons my Black Lord hero on top of the hall of fame would have something to say about that. So would the majority of my other heroic fighters.

Virtue can be quite tough if you give her equipment, buffs, whatever. Not "optimal", though. The reasons I haven't chosen a Virtue prentender tend to be thematic, and that her fighting skills aren't particularly good, and that you can summon Virtues later on that are comparable.

PvK

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
The virtue is pretty useless in a combat role, since she only has ~26 hitpoints. ...

26 hitpoints too fragile for combat my ***. Tell that to the VQ drivers out there. We're fighting it out on 23 hitpoints. A Virtue is a perfectly serviceable light battle chassis. While certainly not up to the specs of a super-SC, she's quite serviceable and resilient for someone with a mere 26 HP. A few items can easily remedy most of her more annoying deficiencies, and her magic, while slightly inflexible, is certainly top-notch: It's hard for most units to penetrate a high-level mirror image, and mistform is a great HP multiplier: When you consider that, say, A natty with his measly protection, is being slammed for 10 points of damage out of his 80-odd HP, and can thus sustain maybe 9 hits before biting it, the fact that a virtue can soak down 26 normal hits due to mistform is a plus. Of course, you can slap Mistform on the others, too, but that'll cost you points in buying more air magic: An out of the box Virtue already can do that.

Virtue can be quite tough if you give her equipment, buffs, whatever. Not "optimal", though. The reasons I haven't chosen a Virtue prentender tend to be thematic, and that her fighting skills aren't particularly good, and that you can summon Virtues later on that are comparable.

They're not as easy to kill as their meager 26 HP would suggest....after all, when the game was first out, the VQ was discounted as a noncombatant as well. The amount of snivelling that has since surfaced has rather disproved that idea, though.

Ultimately, hitpoints are irrelevant: It's not how many hitpoints you HAVE, it's how many hitpoints you rake in vs. how many you lose: Your HP pool is simply a buffer. A larger buffer is nice, but not strictly necessary.

[ June 04, 2004, 20:05: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
26 hitpoints too fragile for combat my ***. Tell that to the VQ drivers out there. We're fighting it out on 23 hitpoints. A Virtue is a perfectly serviceable light battle chassis. While certainly not up to the specs of a super-SC, she's quite serviceable and resilient for someone with a mere 26 HP.

A couple of death 2-3 mages have a good chance of killing her with raise skeletons as she doesn't have 0 encumbrance. She also is vulnerable to windride. Her mistform will be defeated with only a few points of damage as well due to her low base hitpoints.

[ June 04, 2004, 19:26: Message edited by: Graeme Dice ]

[atul]

Originally posted by PvK:
You people and your "(almost/quite/utterly) useless)" really need to find another adjective! You just mean "risky" or "sub-optimal because there are things with other qualities that I prefer", or are wrong, more often than not.

Oops, what have I done. I hereby duck and cover behind the excuse that my country has only two official Languages (Finnish and Swedish) to explain my lack of vocabulary. As an evidence I present you the fact that I've never asked what "Något gick fel" means. Rereading my earlier post I indeed did a mistake of using the phrase 'useless' in the final paragraph, which was not my intent. But my hope lays in the fact that it might be evident from my earlier text that I meant more like 'to be used with caution, keep away from too tight places and children under age 6'.

But, seriously, what I tried to say earlier, was that actually I've been surprised by Virtue's efficciency. At first I dismissed her from straight-out combat role based on (pretender-wise) lowish hp, picking her for the high dominion, complimentary magic and cheapness. But when I got into a situation where I had to take her into combat I was very awed by the awe effect. I mean, name some other pretender you could place in front of 20 charging heavy cavalry in very early game? Even dragons are bound to get an affliction or two, but Virtue seems to be able to pull it off without a scratch. Relying to awe just makes the way she plays out very different from every other pretender. IMHO, of course. (and it'd seem some people think along same lines, which is always a relief when it comes to these things)

Just standing there with no-one willing to fight here, very angelic. Probably not as powerful as in Mikaelish style angelic, but some lesser angel. (Of course, that divine aura burning undead, that would be... well, my vocabulary fails me again)