Bless Effects

[Huzurdaddi]

Yes, rainbow bless can work, if done right it can give you good bless effects, a SC, AND a rainbow mage.

What I found was that the F4W4D6B4 troops were just as good against mortal independents ( did not get to try against undead, I figure they will not be as good ) but they caused less casualties. Pretty much as expected.

So they will be as good against indeps, but not really as good against humans.

But you do get an SC and a rainbow. Which is *really* nice.

[Huzurdaddi]

Personally, while I am not a huge fan of bless strategies, I have been playing with some base C'tis blessings. Dancers, with a water blessing, have a huge defense (like 21-22 ? can't recall offhand since some had xp stars) and, of course, the quickness (which means they keep up easier with the Elite Cavalry which do nice damage but die easily).

I think it's 20 defence. Assuming W9. The thing I found really useful with C'tis was better a good sized death blessing for the fear. The dancers are cheap so you can mass them and still have a normal army ( unlike Vans ) and the mix of fear invoking troops makes the other side break almost instantly.

[SelfishGene]

I had some fun testing a Neifel Jarl Prophet with 9E 9N. Decent enough SC even at turn 3, and racked up 100+ kills in a few turns, however i ran into a large barb province which killed him in one round of combat. And then killed the second Neifel Jarl i sent. And then beat the small army i sent! No archers is bad manner.

[Anglachel]

For Vanheim I like the Phoenix with Fire 9 and Air 9. Vans already have a revoltingly high defense so I think that water 9 is kind of redundant especially with the glamour ability. You need them to survive arrow fire, which defense does nothing against, long enough to deliver their initial shock hit and since they don't carry lances the Fire 9 flaming weapons helps to make up for the lack of the initial shock impact from lances and the addition of increased attack makes sure their hits get through, plus the 8 ap fire damage is not just for the initial hits unlike lances. Add the additional 75% lightning resistance and the natural glamour mirror image and you have a unit with a lot of artillery protection till it drops its payload on rear or front line units. In other words, with this blessing you can just field Vans and not have to worry about lugging along fodder.

Add all the above together with an immortal pretender that only costs 50 points and has flying or cloud trapeze for point defense or mass destruction spell raiding in friendly dominion without fear of pretender loss. Plus innate fire resistance and awe helps out with staying power. Only a head and two miscellaneous slots kind of bites but at least you can pop whatever resistance miscellaneous fits the bill for the situation and a helmet slot is just icing.

An added bonus to this is that because this blessing combination allows Vans to operate effectively without fodder to take missile hits you can fire up 5-10 man deep cover raiding parties that can pound any province defense out there including Jotun. With the super stealthy glamour ability and small size you can get deep into enemy territory and coordinate raiding strikes in several locations and all hitting at the same time.

The blessing strategy with the Phoenix Air 9, Fire 9 is my all time favorite and it is fairly cost effective for a double bless.

[ June 27, 2004, 16:46: Message edited by: Anglachel ]

[Cheezeninja]

lately my favorite vanheim bless strategy has been a W9E9 cyclops building nothing but van commanders as opposed to troops. With evocation 2 for shockwave and lightning bolt, and alteration 2 for resist lightning and phantom warrior you can have quickened, reinvigorated van commanders casting a constant barrage of spells as the enemy approaches, easily surviving the first round of combat with 22 defense, 17 prot, and glamour (defense varies slightly depending on which commander it is) and then shockwaving the unholy feck out of the enemy when they get close. The air 9 blessing would be a bit superfluous because they can all cast air shield on themselves straight out of the box anyway. It takes some time to get enough commanders for real arse beating, but once it gets going its ridiculously easy to take out indeps with 0 losses. I have 2 mp games going with this strategy and both are still in the early stages but its been fairly successful.

[Reverend Zombie]

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi:
Do you really think that the 10 admin of the Mausoleum is worth the 40 points?

The Mausoleum has a better layout, too, when the enemy comes to storm it (walled, with opening, might be wider than a castle's, though).

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Reverend Zombie:

quote:

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Originally posted by Huzurdaddi:
Do you really think that the 10 admin of the Mausoleum is worth the 40 points?

The Mausoleum has a better layout, too, when the enemy comes to storm it (walled, with opening, might be wider than a castle's, though).

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Except that the Mausoleum doesn't have any towers, so doesn't fire any missiles. And the walls often serve to keep the defending troops inside when you'd rather have them charge the enemy. Far better for Carrion Woods, undead Ermor, anyone else with hordes to take the battle to the invaders, rather than sit bunched up for arrows and spells to decimate.