Paths of Blood

[Nick_K]

Haven't played as them myself, but aren't Lanka supposed to be quite good with blood?

[llamabeast]

LA Ulm as well, I think.

[FAJ]

Semi-related blood question: Are vampires worth it?

Being immortal and having regenerate seem pretty cool, but getting a vampire lord and a decent number of vampires seems so pricey.

[Shovah32]

Since losing ethereality i would say that no, vampires arent worth it. LA Ulms vampire counts(possibly with a few lords) can do some fun things with magic but generally there are just far better things to do with your slaves.

EA Lanka and EA Mictlan are your best bets for EA blood(with pangaea, abysia and the 3 'heims also having access to it).
MA Abysia is probably the main blood nation around but again, the 'heims also have a bit of blood.
LA Blood comes back with a vengance with the nations of Mictlan, Ulm, Abysia, Marignon, Utgard and Midgard(i would rank them in that order) all using its powers.

[thejeff]

I'd say no to EA (or any age) Vanheim. They lack cheap blood hunters. 280gold Vanjarls are not to be wasted blood hunting.

I'd forgotten about Lanka. Never actually played them, but they should qualify.

MA Jotunheim has potential. 1/4 55gold Vaetti hags have blood. Skratti and Gygja(sp?) give Water/Blood and Nature/Death/Blood combinations.

[Salamander8]

Lanka is a very heavy blood using nation. Between having many recruitable mages with blood out of the box and they also have many national blood summons as well.

[Shovah32]

Playing Lanka without blood is like typing without hands - possible but why the hell would you want to? Almost all their mages(a 110 gold, non-capitol, 6rp mage being the exception) have blood magic, they have great recruitable and summonable sacreds(earth and nature helps recruitables, summons and mages) and extremely powerful thug/SC national summons(and great recruitable blood hunters).

[Salamander8]

Shovah32 said:
Playing Lanka without blood is like typing without hands - possible but why the hell would you want to? Almost all their mages(a 110 gold, non-capitol, 6rp mage being the exception) have blood magic, they have great recruitable and summonable sacreds(earth and nature helps recruitables, summons and mages) and extremely powerful thug/SC national summons(and great recruitable blood hunters).

Aye. Lanka was the 2nd nation I played where I went deep into blood magic (Abysia was my first try at heavy blood use), and they are excellent at it. The national summons can get really nasty (Devatas, Mandahas, etc), and you only need small amounts of death/nature/earth on top of a strong blood magic core for these guys and the standard blood spells (I love Infernal Crusade).

[Shovah32]

Infernal Crusade is a very, very nice spell. Heavy cavalry with good stats, resistances and fear are just too good to pass up in most cases.

[Evilhomer]

Infernal tempest is a rather cute spell as well, in fact i prefer it over crusade spell.