An Inquiry into the Merits of Doom Horrors

[Boron]

Elemental magics are dangerous because a doom horror has 2 misc slots so he has probably 2 of the 3 items : Amulet of antimagic , Fire/Lightning resistence ring .

In own dominion demilichs just scripted to drain life are a very good counter .
If you want to go with elemental magic i would suggest trying frozen heart because the doom horror likely has no cold resistence .

A doom horror is a magic being so you could try a few high attack thugs with moonblades , devils would be excellent there because of 18 base attack value and cheapness . Just add a ring of the warrior + a burning pearl for +9 attack and you have a good hitting chance .

Your devils won't survive more then 2 hits by a doom horror but they don't need many more against him neither .
One such devil thug costs only 30 blood + ( 5 fire + 5 astral + 5 Blood + optional 10 water or 5 water / 5 earth for a quickness item ) x forge boni vs. 100 S + 20 N + 2 misc items .

Btw : Imo the 2 best wishes are for gems and for blood .

[Graeme Dice]

I think that one of the best possible use of wishes is still probably for power, followed by magic power X 10, if you happen to have picked a VQ pretender and have strong dominion. She's far scarier decked out in artifacts with a defense of 40+ and the mirror images from air 10 than in her normally attainable state. Of course, this is hideously expensive, so you'd better have another reason to go for all that magic such as casting various spells.

[Boron]

Good idea for long faerun games Graeme .

How would you design such a Vq ? Just as always as a SC or rather "cheap" with e.g. only S6 or S7 as starting picks ?
I think especially with Caelum this could really work quite well on Faerun .

[deccan]

How many demilichs do you think you'd need for one doom horror?

So generally you'd say that doom horrors aren't really worth it?

[Boron]

deccan said:
How many demilichs do you think you'd need for one doom horror?

So generally you'd say that doom horrors aren't really worth it?

Good questions .

The doom horror has 80 hp + blood vengeance + 1 drain life attack .
Drain life does 14+ an damage and a demilich has 18 mr so you have only few blood vengeance effects .
So basically 6 drain life attacks in one round should be enough against a single doom horror .


The biggest advantage of the doom horror is his high mobility combined with his great built in abilities .
He can fly during a storm as well .

I personally think that a doom horror is good because you don't need to equip him much ( ok you can't ) .
If you use pearls as currency the doom horror costs you 100+40 base + probably +15-20 for equipment .

A thug like a banelord if you equip him fully has at least costs of about 20 + 60-70 pearls .


Everything has advantages and disadvantages this makes dominions so great :
The doom horror has problems with elemental resistences because he lacks slots .
An undead like a bane/wraith lord you can easily give all 4 resistences but he can be easily killed by antideath spells .

Golems have the mind duel issue .

From the non-unique Thugs imo the devil is the best because he only costs 30 blood , has a very good att/def + built in fly / FR . Only the -50% CR hurt + possible use of Flamebeaus/Herald lances against him .


Very big problems with Melee SCs are though imo :
- Storm
- Battle summons

Many SCs have only 2 attacks / turn so they are really often easily immobilized by lots of false horrors / skeletons .
Against that fire shields etc. help alot but this way you lack likely another important thing as e.g. luck if you exchange lucky coin by the charcoil shield . And EF to forge them is if you are not playing machaka/ulm not so easy to get for forging with lots of nations .

There is just no "optimal" choice in dominions like cataphract bowmen / cataphract elephants in Rome TW e.g.

[Tuna]

Boron said:
The biggest advantage of the doom horror is his high mobility combined with his great built in abilities.

Agree.

Everything has advantages and disadvantages this makes dominions so great

Agree even more .

From the non-unique Thugs imo the devil is the best because he only costs 30 blood , has a very good att/def + built in fly / FR . Only the -50% CR hurt + possible use of Flamebeaus/Herald lances against him.

Well, there I disagree. I prefer bane lords
Code:

---

Unit Name    Sz HP Prt Mor MR Enc Str Att Def Pre Mv   Ldr

Devil     x1 3  35 8   30  17 2   14  18  16  12  3/12 25/25

Bane Lord x1 3  42 20  18  16 0   19  14  14  10  3/6  25/125

---

The key differences being lack of flying, higher price (10D vs 30Blood), but 2 full resistances (CR, PR vs FR, CS), better base equip (so non-full equip is a possibility) Encumberance (this is importnant if fighting stuff like skeletons or false horrors), Strenght (importnant vs high-prot units), and lack of 4 attack and 2 def.

Many SCs have only 2 attacks / turn so they are really often easily immobilized by lots of false horrors / skeletons .

Long weapons and attack help immensely vs this, if you manage to repel a false horror, it dies. So, burning pearl and a long enouh weapon it is.

There is just no "optimal" choice in dominions like cataphract bowmen / cataphract elephants in Rome TW e.g.

Agree.

[Boron]

Tuna said:

Well, there I disagree. I prefer bane lords
Code:

---

Unit Name    Sz HP Prt Mor MR Enc Str Att Def Pre Mv   Ldr

Devil     x1 3  35 8   30  17 2   14  18  16  12  3/12 25/25

Bane Lord x1 3  42 20  18  16 0   19  14  14  10  3/6  25/125

---

The key differences being lack of flying, higher price (10D vs 30Blood), but 2 full resistances (CR, PR vs FR, CS), better base equip (so non-full equip is a possibility) Encumberance (this is importnant if fighting stuff like skeletons or false horrors), Strenght (importnant vs high-prot units), and lack of 4 attack and 2 def.

Good post Tuna .

The big disadvantage with the banelord for me is though his undeadness . Dust to dust + Wither bones will make dust of him unfortunately rather easy , to a lesser extent the same with solar rays .
Once the enemy has a staff of storm the Banelord is imo really screwed with his then really slow movement .

Already earlygame the banelord is kinda screwed against any nation with air or nature mages who have death as well .
So ctis , jotunheim and machaka especially can give the banelord a great threat early with the eagle eye + dust to dust combo .

Earlygame though your bigger mobility is an advantage and the enemy can't protect all his provinces with 1-2 mages .


But in mid - lategame in bigger battles the banelords are very likely to get killed by wither bones and similiar while these spells don't work against a devil thug .

Are there any other good non-unique summonable thugs/scs ? Tartarians are excellent but only if you have GoH or the Chalice .

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
Good idea for long faerun games Graeme .

It's Norfleet's old strategy originally, not mine.

How would you design such a Vq ? Just as always as a SC or rather "cheap" with e.g. only S6 or S7 as starting picks ?
I think especially with Caelum this could really work quite well on Faerun.

The empowerment cost to get to S6 so that the items can boost you to S9 isn't that bad, so just everybody can do it. Once you get her fully powered up, it doesn't even matter that much if she goes outside of her dominion, since you can always call her back missing only 1 level of magic in a turn.

[Cainehill]

Graeme Dice said:
I think that one of the best possible use of wishes is still probably for power, followed by magic power X 10

I thought you could only wish for Magic Power once, just like Power? If I'd'a thought you could wish for it more often, my sorceress pretender would've had even more obscene magic Ratings in a recent mosehansen game.

[Graeme Dice]

Cainehill said:
I thought you could only wish for Magic Power once, just like Power? If I'd'a thought you could wish for it more often, my sorceress pretender would've had even more obscene magic Ratings in a recent mosehansen game.

You can wish for it as many times as you like, but it will only bring your magic paths up to 10.