How to use mage in a battle

[Boron]

A pythium mage army is quite good i found out in my first pythium game . I made lots of errors though .

I recommend the following army core :
- Mechanical men as troops
- A wrathful sky caster
- 15+ theurgs
- 2-3 relief casters at least

Good optional additional components :
- Storm demons
- Fire mages
- Scs / thugs
- communion slaves
- Arch theurgs
- Earth mages

Of course such armies are expensive . You won't be able to field more than 1-2 such armies for a long time .

Equipment :
- 1 banner of northern star
- 1 staff of storms
- Shock resistence rings for every non-lightning resistent mage/commander without air magic , if you can afford for your airmages also , frees 1 spell
- quickness items for your more important mages , especially the non-water mages

Scripting :
-The wrathful sky caster :
Wrathful skies on turn 1 if all your mages are 100% SR , if not wait until they are buffed , this can Last 2-3 turns when you use communion slaves .
He can further cast these useful spells : Arrow fend , Fog warriors , Wind guide ( helps mages precision as well iirc ) .

- Your nature mages :
Consider especially mass protection , mass regeneration with one of your nature mages .
If possible equip them with a jade armor . Use best Ivy kings for this . 2-3 are enough , scripted to plain 5x relief , cast spells .

- Your theurgs :
Lots of possibilities here , mainly depending if using communion slaves or not .

Without slaves :
- Quickness , soul slay x4
- Quickness , frozen heart x4

With slaves :
- Quickness , falling frost x4
- Quickness , thunder strike x4
- Quickness , enslave mind x4

- A good astral mage can do the following :

- Master enslave , good vs. hordes of rather low MR troops , like AE undeads , most national troops , most summoned troops expect blood ones .
- Antimagic , especially helpful for your mechanical men
- Will of the Fates


After the scripts run out all your Air mages tend to spam false horrors , ghost wolves + phantasmal warriors + they will cast buffs first .
If the enemy gets near them then they consider though damage spells again .

Fortunately the spamming is not so bad because the false horrors can fly during a storm + they keep the enemies away from your mages .



Such a mage army is imo "best" used to take out the enemy capitol + his forging/summoning centers .

The key on the battlefield is to quickly wipe out the enemy troops . Then your troops + mages can concentrate on the enemy SCs and normally defeat them rather easy .
With Charm/Enslave mind you can even hope of stealing them .


Your mechanical men are very good troops . Only beware before Mr - Negate spells with good area effect like nether darts , astral fires etc. .
They can block most enemy SCs quite long too . With the right buffs they can even kill them on their own .


There are 2 big counters though :
- Remote artillery spells
- Assasinations

Unfortunately as pythium you can't really protect against those dangers , so within 2-3 turns your e.g. 50 mage army will be reduced to a 10-20 mage army if you are not covered by domes .


A good mage/troop army easily beats enemy SC/troop armies on the battlefield . But it gets slowly killed by the above listed indirect tactics .