How do you defend against an Abysian devil rush?

[Saber Cherry]

ioticus said:
I'm playing Caelum, the Raptors theme. I really don't have anything to counter the Devils and Abysian infantry.

I've never played them. I imagine that 2 elders and 2+ seraphs in the middle of a cluster of Wingless or Caelian Archers, with evocation 2 and enchantment 3, would be able to kill 6 devils with arrows and lightning, while holding them off with skeletons... and be done before the Abysian infantry reaches them. Giving each elder a girdle of might and / or a skull staff would be helpful too.

No Caelian units can avoid or survive hits from Fire-blessed lava warriors, so just throw tons of cheap units against them, and try to take out the commanders with "Hold and attack rearmost." This would be especially useful to take out Abysian priests so they can't banish your stream of skeletons... but "attack rearmost" is really a luck-based move, and often they don't really attack rearmost.

Letting loose a few mammoths in the enemy ranks can cause great havoc, too, but they're so expensive that I probably wouldn't buy them unless I could make them ethereal, regenerating, and stoneskinned... or I had no other options. They work well against Abysians, though, as they have low defense and can't avoid trample. Be sure to group them with Wingless.

Return of the Raptors is pretty weak compared to default, but if you spend as much on Wingless and Mammoths as he does on Lava Warriors, you'll probably win a battle between the two.

[Boron]

quantum_mechani said:
As for formidable early forces, they have nothing on a van W9F9 bless or a niefel N9 bless rush.

And Mictlan !
The Jaguar warriors can be massproduced and especially with f9 w9 dualbless they are quite strong too .

[Graeme Dice]

ioticus said:
I've discovered in a PBEM game that it's easy for Abysia to produce at least 6 devils before turn 20.

They could likely produce many more if they decided to go all out for devils. Black Forest Ulm can easil manage 44 blood slaves by turn 8, and Abysia has better blood hunters than that.

[FrankTrollman]

Ah... you meant 6+ total. Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. I thought you meant 6+ per turn, which is really early for that sort of thing.

Yeah, by turn 15 an Abyssian player can have a Devil Factory up and get one every turn for the rest of his life, so 6+ by turn 20 should be expected. And Devils die pretty well to massed lightning bolts, so you should be able to wipe these guys out. The 50 Lava Warriors is the actual problem here, but again you should be able to take advantage of their lack of ranged attacks to cause grevious damage.

For example:

Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Retreat.

Try it on the Harab Elders, it's hilarious. The Lava Warriors take some serious damage and kill nothing. You have serious archery superiority to these guys, and if you use it properly, you should be able to kill them faster than they can conquer you.

-Frank

[ioticus]

FrankTrollman said:
And Devils die pretty well to massed lightning bolts, so you should be able to wipe these guys out.
Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Retreat.


-Frank

How do you protect your mages from the Devils? I find the Devils usually fly back and kill them before they get off a few spells. Do you tie up a bunch of troops on guard commander orders, or what?

[FrankTrollman]

No. First off, get yourself about 5-10 Blizzard Warriors for every Harab Elder. Now put them in groups of 1-2, put them on "fire whatever" and then take those groups and distribute them pseudo-randomly about the battlefield. Most of them should be distributed up and down in front of the commanders, but some of them can profitably be held in the rear.

The pathing on the "attack rear" order is such that such troops will go to the back end of the first or second thing that gets in their way. So a bunch of little groups spoofs "attack rear" almost all the time. That and a couple of archer groups actually in the rear will mean that if any Devil finds a hole in your line it's still jumping one of your pigeon archers that you don't give a damn about.

If you have a problem filling up the ranks, go ahead and have a "create skeletons" order at the beginning, as this will leave Devils lost in a sea of transient undead long enough to be silenced with lightning.

Caelum, even Return of the Raptors, is blessed with relatively cheap leaders who can spam Orb Lightning and Thunderstrikes with no Gem investment at all. As such, people who are trying to rush with "pretty decent" troops that cost real gems should be sucker punched by your leaders. Remember that as Caelum your troops are there only to distract your enemies' army long enough for your leaders to deliver victory to you.

But you are going to need those screening troops. Otherwise your inestimable leaders will be shredded to pieces. They are made of paper mache, after all.

-Frank

[Saber Cherry]

ioticus said:
How do you protect your mages from the Devils? I find the Devils usually fly back and kill them before they get off a few spells. Do you tie up a bunch of troops on guard commander orders, or what?

Yes. If I know the enemy uses fliers, I always surround my precious mages with infantry... unless I'm forgetful. "Guard Commander" or "Hold and Attack" are both fine.

I fought his main force at one of my watch towers and I can confirm he had 10 Devils and 50 Lava Warriors at turn 20. I did destroy most of his force (his Vampire Queen and 4 Lavas survived), but at great cost to my self. I lost all 9 Mammoths and 67 (of 74) wingless and Raptors, and 2 Seraphs. The only thing that really saved me is the Mammoths attacking his rear which killed 3 of his commanders and my Pretender, a strong Prince of Death, casting death spells (though he did get a "weakened" affliction in this battle.) As expected, my Raptors committed suicide by attacking his Lavas directly. They simply evaporated. I must learn to use them correctly. I don't think I can hold out. I'm on a small map and I'm sure he's cranking out at least 1 Devil per turn and who knows how many Lavas.

By the way, my Pretender kept casting Fear at the Berserk Lavas (morale 99). Does that do any good or is it a case of poor casting AI?

Fear is useless on berserked units, and nearly worthless on blessed units. The reason to group Wingless and Mammoths together is just to give the group a high morale, so the mammoths don't rout and trample your own units... but 5.5 wingless per lava warrior should be somewhat effective, at a 1:1 cost ratio. I'm glad the mammoths worked, at least!

You may want to group raptors in several small clusters, hoping that ONE of them correctly attacks rearmost.

If you can get evocation 5, Shadow Blast (2 death, 1 gem) is great. Abysians have high MR, but with a penetration aid and high death magic level, a Prince of Death might still be able to take out many of them with a single shot. And Thunder Strike - especially on Harab Elder with Boots of the Messenger, Winged Helmet, Summmon Stormpower during a storm, and Aim - is devastating.

Be sure to have Seraphs cast Quickness if they are just tossing lightning.