Making something out of nothing (Can you turn this into a Thug?)

[Foodstamp]

Out of the ones listed recently, the Shuten Doji and the Barbarian Chief are two I would be interested in as well .

[Euarchus]

A Caveman Champion with a fleshwound axe (or whatever the 5 blood one is called) and a cheap suit of armour might be some help against the cold giants. Cold resistance 50%, relatively survivable with armour and 20-odd hps, enough strength to hurt the giants, and the axe will leave hopefully leave a fair few of them with chest wounds. 6 gems with a hammer, it's not a massive commitment. Mix them in with smaller troops to take hits and lower giant defence.

[Wrana]

A Leo? (LA Pythium Mythraist heretic with F1) He has good stats for human and comes with armor and sword...
Vanherse/Helcarl/Dis? They are Vans and would probably be good - but Vanjarls are so much better! The question is - is there a cheap way to use them as something other than troop leaders. I thought about using missile weapons, but am not sure...
Amazons? I mean Priestesses and Sorceresses of various independent Amazon tribes. Of course, they are mostly useful for magic diversity - but did anybody use them as thugs?

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Wrana

A Leo? (LA Pythium Mythraist heretic with F1) He has good stats for human and comes with armor and sword...
Vanherse/Helcarl/Dis? They are Vans and would probably be good - but Vanjarls are so much better! The question is - is there a cheap way to use them as something other than troop leaders. I thought about using missile weapons, but am not sure...
Amazons? I mean Priestesses and Sorceresses of various independent Amazon tribes. Of course, they are mostly useful for magic diversity - but did anybody use them as thugs?

Best leo thug would be phoenix pyre. Give him a crystal heart if you absolutely feel required to give him gear.

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Best leo thug would be phoenix pyre. Give him a crystal heart if you absolutely feel required to give him gear.

But he can't cast it!

[chrispedersen]

huh? why not? just give him fire gems

[aaminoff]

I am in an MP game as Helheim and I have started recruiting a couple of Vanherses to be archers. With A1 you can self buff Aim, and they start with Prec 14 or so. The only equipment you need is the bow itself; these guys should stay in the back shooting, behind a screen of PD or whatever else is on the battlefield. So they are not thugs as such, but they are a way to use a cheaper commander instead of the ubiquitous Vanjarl. It's a side strategy, about 60-80% of my commanders are Vanjarls with golden shield & brand. I should add that I'm using an E9N4 bless.

Helcarls are actually pretty good for initial expansion, and do nearly as well as the Vanjarls as thugs early on. Unfortunately what sends the Vanjarl from good to awesome is Mistform. So one could have a bunch of Helcarls and Helhirdings and have a Hangadrott apply Fog Warriors. But at that point, again, these are not thugs, they're just very good line troops.

[Sombre]

He'd suck with pyre, because he'd have insane fatigue just from casting it.

[chrispedersen]

Well, he sucks as a thug generally. But he's cheap enough to throw 5-6 of them at a starting army and blow it up using pyre.

We have demonstrated that multiple gems will remove fatigue btw.. so if you give him 4-5 gems you might be able to control the fatgue question. I'm uncertain of that.

But like I said... if you feel compelled, give him the heart which does reinvig 10.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

...We have demonstrated that multiple gems will remove fatigue btw.. so if you give him 4-5 gems you might be able to control the fatgue question...

He's only got one level in Fire magic, so is only able to use one fire gem, so won't be able to reduce his casting fatigue by burning extra gems.