Conceptual Balance Mod 1.83 released!

[Soyweiser]

Horror mark them, and the problem goes away after a few turns.

[Executor]

I bet living fire or air would kick a fully kitted Grendelkin ars. An orb lightning or two would likely fatigue him beyond hope. Heck, I bet even some ghouls would kill him with darkness.

[Jarkko]

SOP to kill Grendelkin.

If the Grendelkin doesn't have a shield of valour (I bet my hat that is not the standard equipment for grendelkin ) then take one indy commander with Black Bow of Botulf, and another indy commander with Ethereal Crossbow. Script each with Fire at Large target. If you want to be extra sure, bring in a third indy commander (or a nature/airmage who first boosts his precission) with Vine Bow.

If the Grendelkin is not 100% frost resistant. Script your water mages with Frozen Heart.

If the Grendelkin is not 100% shock resistant. Script your air mages with Orb Lighnting. If the Grendelkin is still alive after a couple rounds, send in a militia man to gut the now passed out Grendelkin.

Use an astral mage, scripted with Horror Mark x3, Retreat.

[Sajuuk]

To thejeff:
You cant just expect everytime your enemy follow your plan.

They have no elemental resistance, of course. But if you use them in a massive battle as heavy battle fortress, then give them partial resistance items like birch boots,fire brand or so denpending on what path your enemy massively possess, and max it with massive spell like warrior of nefielheim or even gaia's blessing, then such weakness exist no more. As for MR, standard equipment can give them 24 mr, then an antimagic can boost them to 28, not really dangerous if it is not the only largest unit in your army. Reinvig is not a problem too, since spell like relief can help.

If grendelkins are used as raiders to plunder your land, and more importantly, blocking and killing your raiders, you can not depend on elemental spells,since you can hardly kill a monster with 240HP and regeneration with a single mage's spell, even if it is 100 precision. Spells like blindness work better, but as i said before, a blinded grendelkin can still crush 40+pd, and a 20 marignon man-at-arms squad cannot harm a paralyzed grendelkin in another game.

I suppose massive teleport/cloud trapeze mages could surely kill a grendelkin without much casualty(if target have no winged shoes or you have storm staff, though mr negate spells can hardly counted on if you want kill it immediately....). If you dont want risk, then several arouse hunger wound be good chaff. But the problem is, this hunting party then became best target for your enemy's fire form afar or seeking arrow or any other long range firepower, and many would lost nonetheless.

Vine whip/AN attack trick works fine against most SCs, but for grendelkin, one or two miss of vine whip would be the death of your sc, thanks to the strength of grendelkin, and you really need long time to put down a monster with 240HP/20+regeneration(with a hydra skin armor for instance)

Forget leech which require blood slaves, even drain life spam(with quickened standard of the damned) need a long time to take it down, suppose it has been blocked by your chaff. But still, such hunting team are still vulnerable against seeking arrows or mind hunt even if you use scouts.

Life for a life are great SC killer, but you still need 4 mages to kill it in one turn, or 2 in two turns, double the number if it have pendant of luck. Perhaps vampire lords would be great in ambushing, but not everyone able to use such strategy before end game.

"Infernal prison" or "Claws of Kokytos" are of cause useful, except 3 major flaw: 1, not everyone can use it when needed. 2, you cant sure how long you can keep it in hell, twice have my grendelkin been send into hell, and they all coming out within 3 months alive and did not fall into water. 3, these two spell have a range of only 25, with mean if your grendelkin or whatever sc stay at the bottom line for 5 turns, the blood mage will surely waste blood slaves on summon imp or so. I tried very hard in one game to deal with an enemy sc, including put it in frontline and script attack one turn, Infernal prison, yet he still failed, maybe because the blood slaves are still on the way behind him-_-

As far as I tried, seems the best effort would be scatter my mages with hunting squad acoss my land and if a grendelkin happen to attack this province, his bad luck. the only problem is casualty of the hunting mages under enemy assassination spells.

to Executor: living fire or air are no match against grendelkin, ghost rider would be much better than it if grendelkin have no shield and no one buff it ethereal. Size 4 elementals cannot cause any real damage before been destroyed. Orb lightning are somewhat useless because if you have chaffs, then grendelkin wont come into spell range if he wait 5 turns, and if you dont.....fatigue from several hit wont stop it from killing your mage. Darkness....Did you notice that grendelkin have 75 darkvision?

To Jarkko:
What is SOP?
I have tested, if a sc with a shield like shield of gleaming gold, bows like black bow have no chance within 30 turns till battle ends. If he has no shield, he will normally be feeble minded within 5 turns, though. So the "bowman hunting team" still have the same problem: how do you catch him, and how do you kill it before it reach you.

Spell spam are always useful, but as I said before, it is useless in a large battle since your enemy can cast mass resistance spell, and its really hard to intercept a raiding grendelkin with dozens of mages along with chaffs.

In speak of horror mark, I'm afraid only doom horrors have the protential to beat it, which need really long time and many marks. Dont forget that you won't just face one grendelkin——in one game thanks to a enchantment bonus site, I'm able to summon two every three months.....

Basically, grendelkin feels like the doom horror maker of ruins: you need a long time to kill it, while it can kill you with one or two hit. Maybe mass up defence is the only reasonable way——or a mage bane........

So maybe Llamabeast could somewhat reduce some of its stats, like HP or protection or strength.....

[Jarkko]

SOP = Standard Operating Procedure

Black Bow of Botulf requires a hit to cause feeblemind, you don't have to actually deal any damage to cause the feeblemind. After the target is feebleminded it gets -5 Magic Resistance (if the Grendelkin has no MR equipment, this means MR drops to 13), which means the Soul Slay from Ethereal Crossbow is very likely to succeed. If in doubt, use a Vinebow or cast Vinearrow etc to make the target stuck in place.

[Sajuuk]

Oh i see, thanks~

But as I said before, shield CAN parry the special effect of Black bow and eye bow, haven't tested vine bow yet. Actually shield parry is very interesting: the arcane bolt, which deal AN damage to magic beings, can be parried by a shield and deal no damage. Perhaps in parrying missle, the shield just make it miss, rather than plus shield protection to body protection.

Thus, for a sc with a good shield, this bow trick became useless.

[Finalgenesis]

Most of the lone or multi single figure target damage spells (bolts, darts, even star fire ...etc) can be parried I believe, those with AoE such as acid bolt are not subject to this of course. and of course, arrows, bolts, magical or otherwise can all be parried, though magical projectiles receives a +2 hit check (I assume a buckler with 2 parry will be almost useless against magical projectiles).

I read that Androphage arrow with its poison arrow is an exception, as is Piercer Xbow from 1st hand testing likely as a unique attribute of the weapon, I have not tested vision Foe, but I know ethereal bow can be parried.

[llamabeast]

I think it's clear that a Grendelkin can be very powerful given good kit and good planning, I don't think anyone would disagree with that. It is intended to be one of the most powerful units in the game. However there is a lot of cost involved in summoning and kitting one fully. I think it's along the same sort of lines with regard to power as tartarians, Ember Lords and high end angel summons. The grendelkin has amazing stats, but no resistances which is quite a big setback when designing what equipment to give him.

[Executor]

Grendelkin is just not as great as you think.
He has certain advantages as not having an undead tag to make his vulnerable to certain items like Tartarians, but he still has no basic elemental protection, and has fatigue. Simply put, you can't equip him and protect him from everything, cold/fire/poison/MR/fatigue. Well unless you use some heavy artifacts but than you can't generalize how unstoppable they are.

I though air and fire elementals dealt elemental, as in slight fatigue damage, guess I was wrong. But still, living water would crush a Grendelkin no matter his HP and protection. Two orb lightnings would probably jump his fatigue over 100 and make him vulnerable to just about anything.

Now, if the Grendelkin moves forward and attacks from the start that you can easily stop him with fatigue damage, and cleverly used battle orders. Combine, air damage, fire damage, some paralyzing poison (eg. ghouls), water elementals, piercer to blind him (works regardless of armor), fatigue damage from stellar cascades, etc.
And if he simply chooses to relax 5x while you scripts fail, than send 2 banes with axes of hate, quickness, stone bird and burning pearl for example.

And as far as large battles go, yes he can have all the possible protections from buffs, every elemental protection to 100, high MR, regeneration, reinvigoration... but so can your troops and SC's. You can beat him by routing, by bringing boxing teams, gloves of the gladiator with quickness and a stone bird, you can boost strength with giant strength, or items. You can cast those buffs on troops and cast weapons of sharpness, and quickness. I bet that would butcher a Grendelkin.
Depending on the battle size the Grandelkin might just sit there and wait behind friendly troops and so on.

[Sajuuk]

To Finalgenesis：

I thought missle spell can be blocked by a shield or air shield was a common sense-_-....Anyway, I mention arcane bolt only to say that the shield block on missile weapon or spell is to negate the missile rather than plus shield protection on body's(poor iron blizzard....).

And yes, Androphage Archer can poision enemy even the arrow has been blocked, so is the decay effect of banefire bow of skeleton archer form spell reanimate archer. Don't know if its a bug or intentional.

To Llamabeast:

Yes, thats exactly what I am trying to say. Grendelkins are not invincible, of cause, but REALLY underestimated. They are as powerful as tartarians, Ember Lords and high end angel summons, if not more powerful as sc. So they should be enchantment 9 summons, and should not cost only 35 or 40 gems, especially when W gems are almost least useful gems otherwise. Even tartarian costs more, if take the price of keeping goh or grail into count, or if you can't hold them, the price of feeble minded tarts you have sommoned.（By the way, I always wonder why choose grendel as one of the most powerful summons, who can be deadly wounded by a mortal in the story-_-....Why not second generation giant sons of gaia in ancient greek mythology, members of Rimtursar，Anunnaki from Sumerian mythology，or something from Cthulu mythology, or even KuaFu the sun chasing giant/Xing Tian the headless giant from acient Chinese mythology?）

Actually in resent 3+ games with EDM I held or participated, grendelkins are the most popular summon among all the EDM summons. Someone would use ember lord as sc, or treant as anti sc, but few use Asynja, wendigo or cyclops as sc rather than mage. Asynja is excellent as raider for her cloud trapeze and stealth, but why bother hiding if you can beat almost anyone who dare to teleport upon you? Standard raiding sc/thug like Adon or jontun skratti became useless because you cannot affort met one when half a dozen grendelkin raging across your countryside.....

To Executor:

No undead or magic being tag is a HUGE advantage combine with their HP——tarts are nasty, but an anti-sc with flamebeau or herald lance can kill them within several turns. Also it is a devastating news for angels and elemental royalty when cbm change moonblade into single handed weapon, you will know it when you trying to kill an enemy sc with a duel-wielding moonblade quickened anti-sc thug. But no weapon have such effectiveness when you want to kill a grendelkin.

Orb lightning? have you tested it? I tested it with a grendelkin given fire brand, sword of swiftness, starshine cap, hydraskin armor, birch shoes(which is a little waste on poison immunity), pendant of luck and amulate of antimagic. The other side use 3 A2 and a A3 Oreiad script orb lightning, yet grendelkin's fatigue never exceed 50 before he reap all the oreiad. and orb lightning's range is too short, if take some chaff, then they wont have chance to use it.

I tested living fire, living air and living water casted by a 9 level mage who summon 10 such elemental, with the same grendelkin who have 50 CR, 0 SR and 50 FR. The result is, air elemental is the least useful one, causing no harm before all 10 get slaughtered. Water elemental did a little better, at least used to reduce grendelkin's hp under 100, but still cannot beat it--24HP regeneration is awesome. Fire elemental did the best, grendelkin fall unconscious when there's still 5 fire elemental left, despite its 50 FR. However, without other unit, 5 fire elemental can not beat grendelkin's regeneration, and eventually dissolved after 50 turns.

So as you can see, spell or damage that can inflicted by one or two hunting mages are far less than sufficient to kill a grendelkin. The bow tricks are interesting, but useless since vine bow have a range of strength——first the commander with vine bow move forward, and get killed before he can hold grendelkin, then grendelkin kill other 2 commander with a feebled mind. 19 mr is still too high for ethereal crossbow which only have 1 attack every 2 turns.

As for bane....Didn't I say that even Adon with 30+ protection cannot stand before grendelkin for 2 turns, what can 2 bane do? With one hit, 2 bane are no more. But maybe 2 bane lord can be enough since they can withstand more than 1 turn.....


My experience tell me that in massive battle, grendelkin are not that deadly because they can hardly reach your sc, and killing chaffs or stand behind your own chaffs are something even a thug can did well, not to mention that enemy S mages would concentrate their fire power on grendelkin who is normally stand taller and ran faster than anyother sc who is now busy buffing themselves.