Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)

[licker]

LA Ulm gets 1s1e on 25% of their forge priests.

As to thugging out the counts...

Well I've had great success using them as raiders (for out of dominion) giving them horror helmet and golden shield, the combo of awe and fear means they don't get hit much, and as the chaff surrounds them they eventually rout due to the fear effect.

Granted, you don't want these counts going up against anything 'tough', but for clearing PD they work very well. Now, depending on the PD you stick on an appropriate armor (if they need missle def, fire/elec res, or just as much prot as you can give them). Fire/Frost brands are nice for the AoE damage, but swords of quickness, or the one that gives luck (forget the name at the moment...) are also options. Chi boots are actually not a bad cheap footwear, as they give +4 def and an extra attack, but boots of quickness are probably better if you can afford them/forge them (10W to forge, and Ulm has no natural W mages).

Miscellaneous slots can be whatever you need boosted, or just whatever you can forge cheaply.

If you are going to use the counts offensively out of your dominion you want to be a little more careful with the potential equipment, or be fairly certain your army is going to win (so the gear drops to other commanders). Using them in your dominion is a no brainer, but better to couple them with a real army if you have any gear you don't want to lose on them.

Soul Vortex sounds nice, but the cost to get it on a count is too high, unless you have tons of death gems and just empower to D3 (45 gems), so long as you don't commit that count outside of your dominion you won't lose him, the cost of the death raising helmet is 25d (I think) and it doesn't offer much protection, the skull staff means no shield so I don't think that's a good idea.

The other thing to realize is that even at 33 blood slaves they are pretty cheap once your blood economy is humming along, so you can afford to even lose a few if you need to put them in harms way out of your dominion, just don't suicide any gear you can't afford to easilly replace.

LAUlm can forge with a 40% reduction if you give a hammer to a forge priest, so sticking a few 5gem items (3gems with the discount) isn't such a bad loss if it improves their overall effectiveness.

But to recap, the counts fly, are stealthy, regenerate (10%), have 30 hitpoints, and decent attack/def. Their protection is ZERO, which is a huge hole if you do nothing about it, so giving them some armor or etherealness is needed unless you just want them to jump in spam some death spells and then retreat.

Really they make ideal raiders with a small amount of const4 gear, as they can sneak if you need them to, or just jump around to any province within 3 of where they just were.

[Trumanator]

If you give them a black heart they make great assasins. Since they'll throw thralls every turn, you'll take over the province the turn you assasinate the last commander. Ofc, this won't work if there's PD, but few players can afford to put PD on every single province.

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

If you give them a black heart they make great assasins. Since they'll throw thralls every turn, you'll take over the province the turn you assasinate the last commander. Ofc, this won't work if there's PD, but few players can afford to put PD on every single province.

Almost all players can afford 1 PD on every province. And that's all you need.
You might snatch a province or two this way against a new player, but you'll only get one shot at it.
And if he's got no PD, you can take it with scouts.

[Nikelaos]

they NEED some sort of armour with protection zero, other than that dress for the occaission, a good sheild help but isn't vital aslong as you make use of that flight and kill archers/crossbowmen fast.

also you asked about putting some mortal troops with them, i say no just reserach blood rite, it's a blood spell (duh) which you're counts can cast with no boosters, for 22 blood slaves it gives you 8+ vampires (vampire units not counts) yeah you may want to spend slaves on counts and such but once you have a few counts out you can make good use of this, by late game you should have hordes of immortal vampire legions and vampire counts blood hunting all over your dominion, no need for cash because you are summoning immortal troops and mages (vampires of the leader and unit variety).

also good to add is that none of the vampires have an upkeep cost - again a reason why you don't need cash, blood slaves should replace both cash and resources for you if you put enough drive into the vamps,

and the best thing is you WILL have an endless horde of troops, because no matter how many die (so long as they die in you're dominion) they will all respawn at you're capital ready to be dispatched against the next enemy force to wander into you're dominion.

Perhaps you're dominion will be feared as much as ermors, just turn taxes up sky high - scorched earth style, and you won't be at any loss (though it makes blood hunting harder but still you're troops respawn themselves after death so the enemy will just keep getting weaker whilst you get stronger or at the very least stay exactly the same)

The only sad part is ulm isn't amazing early on (except the crossbowmen - love them) but once a few counts are out and yuo have a decent blood economy it does look up and only gets better

[K]

The key thing to remember about vampires is that their only really good trait is their Immortality.

Sure, they have decent stats, regen, and an AP lifedrain attack, but they fail in the armor and defenses area and the "kill masses of dudes" area.

This means that you actually have an incentive to Empower them. Empower one vampire with Nature 1 for 50 gems and every army will have an immortal who casts Mass Protection or Wooden Warriors (though a dot of Earth is even better for Marble Warriors and Army of Lead). Give a vampire some Astral and just Magic Duel him all the time. He may lose, but he won't die.

Throw down Sabbaths with the freedom of knowing you don't care if the fatigue will kill the Slaves. Hell Power up knowing that Horrors coming to call is not necessarily a bad thing.

Heck, with a single dot of Empowerment and a Sabbath/Communion you can just spread self-buffs through the Communion and let the vampires go to town. A single dot of a path and the effect of a Communion and you could get things like Invulnerability, Soul Vortex, Astral Shield, Fire Shield, Quicken Self, Mistform, or Personal Regeneration.

[Gregstrom]

For a Soul Vortex you could always give the count a death gem or two, surely?

The mention of communion slaves gave me an idea. It may be sub-optimal, but Vampire Counts should make pretty good slaves. They can regenerate some of the damage due to extreme fatigue, and when they burst due to overcasting they just reappear at your capital.

[Nikelaos]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

For a Soul Vortex you could always give the count a death gem or two, surely?

The mention of communion slaves gave me an idea. It may be sub-optimal, but Vampire Counts should make pretty good slaves. They can regenerate some of the damage due to extreme fatigue, and when they burst due to overcasting they just reappear at your capital.

or you could make them communion slaves to get buffs on them quicker, have one master who can use some cool self buffs and all the buffs he casts are transfered to the rest of the communion (you're counts) without exhausting lots of fatigue and gems for aoe/battlefield wide spells.

[Trumanator]

It could be arguable that Ulm doesn't have the same need for D gems since they don't have such a need for thugs/SCs that you usually use D gems for.

[thejeff]

Even without empowering, you can use Ulm's other mages to get some of those buffs.
1/4 Black Priests have SE for reinvig through Summon Earthpower and Invulnerability
Any of your astral mages can do Personal Luck & Astral Shield.
You might get lucky and get Fire Shield out of a Second Tier. Phoenix Pyre?
1/4 Fortune Tellers have Nature for Personal Regen & Barkskin.
And of course a Sabbath Master Count can do Soul Vortex.

It's a hassle, since you have to retreat the masters once you're done buffing and then try to gather them again for the next battle.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by thejeff

It's a hassle, since you have to retreat the masters once you're done buffing and then try to gather them again for the next battle.

Or give them a cheap bow (xbows work best, isn't Piercer one shot every 3 rounds?).