Help, I suck with Ulm!

[Arralen]

I don't play Ulm, but I play Last of Tuatha quite often, so I might shed some light on the issue from a different perspective. There seem to be several shortcomings in your strategy ...

• Sidhe ain't ordinary, they are holy, capital-only troops. Danoine Sidhe (troops) cost 35/16 (vs. Ulm inf 10/18+ and Black Knights 60/70+), the commanders are nearly prohibitive expensive. Add to this the fact that LoT has forced Luck-1 and Magic-1 and needs the magic for a decent blessing (Air-9 for lightning resistance in this case?). Result: The LoT player is hard pressed to get an decent income via order scale. But with taking order he nullifies his luck advantage. If he manages to outnumber your black knights by 30:8, you have build to few units. Did you choose order/prod scale and a high admin castle?
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• danoine sidhe have medium prot (13 - 1pt less than Blade Wind does damage), but high defense (15). With a Lvl-4 water blessing they'll be at 17, with 1-Star-Exp at 18, plus the glamour ability. Your inf has an attack of 10 (black knights 12), chances of your troops hitting his are rather slim (Check out the spreadsheet .. you'll find it on various sites).
  His attack strength isn't that great either, but with 4 units of his attacking one of yours your defense is at -3 with the 4th attack - hit almost assured.
  Conclusion: Make shure you'll have numerical superiority - this will nullify his high defense. Shouldn't be too hard, as you should have the better eco and the cheaper troops.
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• Use indy shortbows firing at short range into the melee. Storm wouldn't matter much this way. They won't do much damage to your heavily armored troops, but each hit will kill the glamour of the unit hit. (chances are 10+2d6/10+2d6+2)
  Keep in mind, though, that this will cause moral checks for both sides, as there will be friendly fire incidences. so make shure you keep your morale high.
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• items on commanders
  Looks like you spend way too much mage-time on forging items for commanders which die anyway.
  Better convert your earth gems to gold to buy more troops in the beginning, so you can expand faster and with fewer losses.
  So first send your commanders into melee (bodyguards!), and if anyone survives long enough to get a heroic ability, than deck him out with items. Keep their defense high enough not to get hit by every attack. Black Plate works only on mounted commanders, which do not suffer from negative defense from armor. First priority should be to make them more survivable, killing speed comes second.
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• spells
  Blade wind is fine against fodder and ethereal summons, but doesn't do much damage against medium armored troop, if at all. Buy cheap Ulm Inf as fodder and boost them with "Legions of Steel" .. they'll soak up some arrows and javelin/spear attacks from danoine sidhe.
  Clockwork horrors are lightning resistant as mechanical men are.
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• setting up your troops
  Have your knights flank his front line and go for "attack rear". Set some fodder inf. with "hold and attack" a little bit in front of you main force, as far to the right as possible. They will be targeted first - and DOM units do not switch target before it's destroyed/routed.
  Have all others just behind them with attack orders.
  Choose their targets carefully.
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• indy mages
  If you're lucky enough to find sages, make shure to keep them out of your dominion in a secluded lab where they can safely boost your research.

Hope this is helpful.
A.