Fomoria

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

A bit of advice for you, Autochthon, keep some reserve forces. It doesn't sound like you've met their Nemedians yet. Being capital only, they're not as bad as Tir na n'Og. But they do have stealthy troops and leaders, as well as stealthy summons. Enough to suckerpunch you if your capital is left uncovered.

[Autochthon]

Thanks for the heads up LP, but we've already met

For the most part, the Formorian AI likes to maneuver with large masses of Formorians.

This is a problem for me, as I usually depend on my forts to fix the enemy long enough to mass a response. Forts besieged by >90 Str 20 units don't last too long

I dunno if the AI is smart enough to use dedicated raiding forces for the "Popup & Pillage/Smash n' Grab" tactic I use when playing with factions w/lots of stealthy units.

Being able to mass giant units quickly is a new twist, but I can definitely see Supply being an issue as well.

Overall, the faction appears to be pretty well-balanced.
/tips hat to Kris O. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon44.gif[/img]

Edit: One more thing. I've noticed that the Nemedian Sorceress doesn't flee when the rest of the Formorian army routs. Likely it's cause her Fatigue is too high, but I need to check...

[OmikronWarrior]

I tried them out in SP, I saw quite a few similarities between them and the Sons of Winter. As such, the common SoW strategy cam probably apply to this nation as well. Get a decent Bless (with Earth and Nature probably being the most important components) and use your sacreds to expand early. As soon as you can, start buying Fomorian Kings every turn, to serve as powerful thugs, subercombatants, or plain mages.

There are key differences. No chill aura makes Fomorians much less scarry, but they also have Fir Blog (small sized) infantry to accompany them, which gives them a bit for flexibility. Try playing with this template and see what you come up with.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Got my first Fomorian hero (Nemedian to be accurate).
Macha the Nemedian Queen

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Got my second Fomorian hero,
Bres the Uncursed

[Endoperez]

You haven't seen anything yet until you've seen Balor. Evil Eye indeed...

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

You're saying that without a screenshot? Meanie. Well, I guess I'll have to find out for myself, then.

[Ewierl]

Lazy_Perfectionist said:
A bit of advice for you, Autochthon, keep some reserve forces. It doesn't sound like you've met their Nemedians yet. Being capital only, they're not as bad as Tir na n'Og. But they do have stealthy troops and leaders, as well as stealthy summons. Enough to suckerpunch you if your capital is left uncovered.

One of the less-obvious strengths of those Nemedians is their magic weapons. Being able to recruit those is a good counter to people who push their research towards early-game Ethereal troops. (I think the only ethereal sacreds are MA Ermor, though?)

[Endoperez]

The only INHERENTLY ethereal sacreds (that don't have to be summoned), probably. However, for the cheap, cheap Alteration 3 you get Body Ethereal... For some nations, that's even worse. Thankfully, the nations with cheap astral mages rarely have access to the worst sacred offenders. Can you imagine Niefel Giants with LA Jotunheim's Seithkona and overall research ability?

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

First, Unmarked Champions can bless themselves, but unless you have the bless self mod, that can pile up. Druids are the better blessing choice for Unmarked (troops), especially since a good bless makes them fairly effective in small amounts.

The info here has been a result of discussions, limited tests, not multiplayer experience.

I haven't played thug-bless nations before, so I'm a bit noobish. Feel free to correct me.

First, the extremes of each path
Divine Serpent (50 Points), Nature 10 (224 points)
A 20% Regen is nice, but the Berserk has its drawbacks.
You could go with nature 8 for a mere 120 points, giving you 15% regen, and a lot of free points, but I didn't try it this time.

You'll want scales that will allow you to recruit 5 Unmarked a turn, as a Druid conveniently leads ten of. 300 gold, 135 resources, plus occasional 150/3. You get 7 regen, lessened afflictions, protection/attack/strength bonus, but some defense penalty. Teams of ten cleared out quite a few provinces. No real drawback to nature yet. You won't get many afflictions, but you will get them sometimes thanks to uneven bless coverage.

The Fomorian Giants/Kings benefit from this as well, but berserk runs counter to mistform, mirror image. You get 13 hp/turn regen. The regen makes them rather effective at clearing underwater provinces, since they can shrug off a full green bar of poison. I thought I saw some funny fatigue numbers, but it seems its a positioning issue, where some of the Giants didn't make it to the fight, pathfinding combined with kills, I suppose. A Fomorian King leading 5 Fomorian giants is quite effective at clearing underwater provinces, which is good, because this is a very expensive combination. Depending on the independent level, they can clear maybe half of the underwater provinces on their own. The rest will slaughter them, though not at a cost. If you do want to expand underwater, I suggest taking a team into the weakest shore province you can find and then use them only as support for whatever tritons/whatever you can find. They'll add the punch that will let you take out kraken and sea trolls, but are too expensive. With the poor amphibian penalty as well, they are still powerful, but very unreliable dodgers/attackers. And you rocket to 8 encumberance.

While Fomorian Giants aren't superior to Niefel jarls, they also avoid the two weaknesses, fire and hot provinces. Be sure to use the Javelins, as well, _only_ if they are on the frontline. You'll be very unlikely to hit anything between your low precision and greater strength=range, but if you don't have to worry about friendly fire, it'll do enough damage to kill that one lone cavalry you did manage to hit out of two salvoes. Whoopee. While I think you'll often, especially earlier on, be better off recruiting Unmarked, the whole move-three thing is worth noting. Sometimes, you can attack from two provinces away. You needn't be on the border to attack your enemy. If you find yourself outnumbered while _raiding_ lightly defended provinces, Dark Hounds or Barghests can keep up, while saving on the gold costs. A pity your giants don't have darkvision, but then you can't have everything.

Need to restart, test bless with summons, Barghest should benefit nicely, Morrigans, less so, but that's theory. Probably won't do it though, quite willing to have someone else do so.

Fomorian Kings don't really see much benefit from a high nature bless. You've got the inexpensive mirror image and mistform keeping your damage down for as long as they last. In fact, the bless doesn't help until mirror image fails, which is less than ideal.

Earth Mother (75 points)
That same n10 bless costs you an additional 360 points.
N9, 288. N8, 224. Twin level nine blesses are possible, but definetly not recommended. You've got sacreds who will not benefit completely from the protection, but Fomoria is a nation who benefits greatly from net positive scales. No point blessing what you can't build. I'll go with N6, E6 for my pretender. For the moment, easy AI opponent, easy research, 5 dominion, 2 order, 2 producivity, 1 growth, and 1 magic. You probably can find better scales, but this should be sufficent for testing the bless. Worth noting is four national heros- no misfortune 3 if you want to see them.

Four hps/turn and three reinvig on the Unmarked isn't that awesome, but more then enough to deal with even Cataphracts. 10 and a druid still make excellent indie clearing teams. Sign, perhaps, that the N10 bless earlier may be overkill.

The bless opens up an interesting option on the Fomorian Kings with a water random. Rainbow armor, while not the best, gives MR and reinvig. Combined with a weightless shield and the bless, you get six reinvig a round with three encumberance. You can cast quickness for double the attacks, with a very nice +3 att/def bonus. Throw on the boots of the Messenger, and your fatigue will go down at a good clip.