To Blood Magic, Or Not To Blood Magic

[Boron]

Goblin said:
So far all the comments have been on how strong Blood is - it lacks battlefield magic is a given, but what are effective strategies against it (and it’s hellish hordes). One that jumps to mind is being able to identify the Blood Factories and shut them down (Fires from afar and the like). Any other ideas?

Goblin.

Vs. the Blood SCs herald lances can work very well. You need a bit blood forging capabilities on your own but then golems with ring of warrior, burning pearl, herald lances and some other items are surprisingly effective vs. blood scs and will also kill lots of devils and the like too.

Vs. the normal devil hordes and the like staff of storms + air magic is very effective as qm said.

Horde from hell raiding can be very effective. As soon as the enemy has a few good units in each province though horde from hell alone won't be enough. The imps have very bad morale so as soon as a few die the rest routs.
Normally 3-5 dead imps from the 25 imps you get with horde from hell are enough and they rout.

1 Sauromancer spamming undeads in every province + a few points of pd should be enough to defend vs. horde from hell 90% of the time.
Horde from hell is available quite early though and thus difficult to counter. Many nations/buildups can get crippled if you rush them with horde from hell spamming imho.

Maybe QM has some good ideas how to defend vs. early horde from hell raiding, i have no good ideas for that apart from playing ryleh/atlantis .

[quantum_mechani]

Boron said:

Maybe QM has some good ideas how to defend vs. early horde from hell raiding, i have no good ideas for that apart from playing ryleh/atlantis .

Well, Ermor and CW pan are pretty good at defending againt it too. Apart from that, just rapid response forces and good guessing, or strike the blood hunting gounds.

[Goblin]

So the answer is have undead (no maintenance and no moral checks) or wipe out their capacity to produce enough blood.
I have noticed that the AI has a fondness for suicide battle groups - ie an army will attack a new place each turn, moving deeper into your territory. This is usually quickly fixed but often blood hunting grounds come under threat. Is the AI actually trying to capture these or just taking an offensive strategy?

Goblin.

[archaeolept]

personally, i don't find hordes from hell to be too much trouble - they route very easily, and good national pd can often stop one; as well parachuting response squads (air or astral) or just some small roving intercepting bands can work.

if your opponent is using all his blood on hordes, I'd say that's often a good thing as this means he's getting fewer of the blood SC's.

[quantum_mechani]

Goblin said:
So the answer is have undead (no maintenance and no moral checks) or wipe out their capacity to produce enough blood.
I have noticed that the AI has a fondness for suicide battle groups - ie an army will attack a new place each turn, moving deeper into your territory. This is usually quickly fixed but often blood hunting grounds come under threat. Is the AI actually trying to capture these or just taking an offensive strategy?

I'm almost positive it is random agresssion.

[archaeolept]

AI has strategy?

[sushiboat]

In the few times that I played a Blood nation, I preferred to cast Hordes from Hell on a friendly province. That gives me a cheap flying commander who can carry items, ferry troops, and lead a better flying army than the Imps. Even if you just want to raid with the initial army, at least you can script them at the cost of a delay of one turn.

[Goblin]

My first use of a horde from Hell was deep into enemy territory - I didn't realise that once the battle was over you kept the units, so they died due to no retreat options. Since then I have used them against lightly defended independants and national provinces with the aim being that if they take it well and good - if they don't, they retreat and I have a Deamon and 10-20 Imps.

After a few turns I have a decent flying army able to take on stronger provinces. The Imps are not great troops but there mobility and quick mobilisation results in them having a significant impact. The fact that they are expendable is almost an advantage...

Goblin.