Urgent Thug advice needed

[Renojustin]

Undead can make a good chassis for SC because of their 0 encumbrance. But at the same time, this makes you vulnerable to anti-undead spells like Wither Bones which can't be defended against. Still it's a tossup because Drain Life doesn't work against Lifeless units, which means most undead will be safe against it. But Drain Life is a lot tougher to research and use than Wither Bones, so it's still a concern, but 12+ unresistable damage by D1 mages via Wither Bones which only takes one level of research seems to me to be more of a danger to SCs.

[Endoperez]

Renojustin said:
Undead can make a good chassis for SC because of their 0 encumbrance. But at the same time, this makes you vulnerable to anti-undead spells like Wither Bones which can't be defended against. Still it's a tossup because Drain Life doesn't work against Lifeless units, which means most undead will be safe against it. But Drain Life is a lot tougher to research and use than Wither Bones, so it's still a concern, but 12+ unresistable damage by D1 mages via Wither Bones which only takes one level of research seems to me to be more of a danger to SCs.

Do you mena Wither Bones, Dust to Dust or some totally different spell? Dust to Dust is 22+ AN damage to one square, no magic resistance, which seems quite close to what you described.

[Renojustin]

Ah yeah, that's the one.

Sometimes I get carried away and don't reference things.

Wither Bones: Level 6 Thaumaturgy, D3 needed, Area 6, 16+ AN damage, not resistable. Fatigue 50, Accuracy -1.

Dust to Dust: Level 1 Thaumaturgy, D1 needed, Area 1, 22+ AN damage, not resistable. Fatigue 20, Accuracy 0.

So either one can be used to take care of most undead SCs, with Dust to Dust being very easy to research and cast for many nations.

Drain life is a lot rarer so the short answer would be, non-undead SCs are less vulnerable than undead ones. However, undead often come with great perks like Fear or Immortal. So it's definitely a trade-off... if it's worthwhile or not will likely depend on the opponents you're facing, the state of the game, the spread of your dominion; it just depends.