Anti-SC Army

[Cheezeninja]

Petrify and Drain life are the best Anti-Sc ranged spells i believe. Petrify because a success is instant death and a failure is still parylization. There's also a death magic item that gives the ability to cast drain life, and also makes the AI more willing/likely to cast it (skull standard?). Some sample armies might be...

Vanheim

Living statues to provide lifeless (important against life draining SC's) and tough support.
Van commanders to cast false horror (more lifeless support, thats also free)

This would be the front of your force that's used as a screen for several dwarfs casting summon earthpower then petrify over and over.

*OR*

Blood nations

A literal horde of vampires. They are immortal, undead (dont provide life), flying, and their attack is a lifedrain.

*OR*

Death nations

A group of D4 mages set to cast drain life/summon skellies/drain life/summon skellies/drain life. With a little skeleton chaff in front to keep them alive until their own skeletons are enough of a shield.

Pangea could also be very good at casting petrify, petrify, petrify, relief, etc... with maybe some living statues out front to hold the enemy up.

Basically i believe a SC killer army should attempt to include a combination of lifeless troops, because SC's feed on meatbags, and also a armor piercing non resistable spell. Prefferably petrify or drain life, although there are others that rely on the SC not having that resistance.

Alteration btw gets you both of my favorite anti-SC spells, plus a bunch of chaff spells, not to mention all the spells YOUR SC's should be using. Its my favorite path aside from possibly conjuration...or construction....or maybe thaumaturgy.... possibly enchantment for the Go*'s...wrath is nice too....and bloods not even a path, its more like a college of its own....sigh.

[Yossar]

Cheezeninja said:
A literal horde of vampires. They are immortal, undead (dont provide life), flying, and their attack is a lifedrain.

Actually, they aren't lifeless so they do provide life. But they are pretty decent units, esqcially if your opponent isn't using a staff of storms. One of the best ways to get SCs is to take them out before/while they're buffing. Devils and vampires can be pretty good at that depending how protected the SCs are.

[Lex]

hmmm.. do you think investing points into an Air9 Bless is worth it? It wouldn't work with every race, but if you had an army of sacred units that are almost immune to lightning, Wrathful Skies would become your best friend (gem income permitting). It seems like a big points investment though..

[Graeme Dice]

Lex said:
i just tested it.. the frozen hearts, like anything else, can be easily resisted almost all the time with high magic resistance.

Magic resistance has no effect on frozen heart.

I had a Wyrm sit there taking 20 frozen hearts per round, and with 26 MR and regeneration, it never lost any health.

What other items and magic did you have on it to bring its magic resistance up to that level.

[Graeme Dice]

Cheezeninja said:
A literal horde of vampires. They are immortal, undead (dont provide life), flying, and their attack is a lifedrain.

Undead do provide life when drained. It's only units that are specifically marked as lifeless that do not, and vampires aren't lifeless.

[Boron]

Lex said:
hmmm.. do you think investing points into an Air9 Bless is worth it? It wouldn't work with every race, but if you had an army of sacred units that are almost immune to lightning, Wrathful Skies would become your best friend (gem income permitting). It seems like a big points investment though..

wrathful skies can be negated too by lightning resistence .

as i already said and cheezeninja too the spells against which you can't resist are your best bet

the false horrors shouldn't work too well because they have a mr-negates attack + many scs have fireshield which should kill them too easy .

but against undeads dust to dust etc. is good.
against all drain life , bane fire , gifts from heaven always work

and some of the mr-negates spells are really good too especially petrifiy because it makes the scs at least immobile and if they fail one mr-savethrow they are dead

all in all though not too many methods to surely kill a sc come to my mind :
only the above mentioned spells drain life , bane fire , gifts from heaven

creatures :
a vampire horde / ghost horde

and of course antisc-scs .

what works in most cases too but can be unlucky or very expensive :
screens of lifeless creatures ( undeads , the earth constructs like living statues )

petrify , soul slay , charm , enslave mind



all in all you either need :
for spells :
E3S1
D3F
D4
(B1)

for creatures :
D4B3 for vampires
D5 for costeffective autosummonghosts from wraithlords

that makes death/earthmages most desireable as battlemages .

for a few nations this creates problems :
marignon
man
tien chi (expect s&a)

these 3 nations are somewhat magically really inflexible and have no easy sc counters .

[Vynd]

If you have even a modest supply of Nature gems and an N2D1 mage you can spit out a lot of mandragoras. A big group of mandragoras is tough for a SC to handle, what with their multiple fatigue inducing attacks per round.

A Fire 9 blessing makes sacred troops a potential anti-SC force. Even if the SC is Fire Immune, the blessing will give your troops magic weapons and a hefty attack bonus. Of course this only works if you can recruit sacred troops in fairly large numbers.

[Boron]

Vynd said:
If you have even a modest supply of Nature gems and an N2D1 mage you can spit out a lot of mandragoras. A big group of mandragoras is tough for a SC to handle, what with their multiple fatigue inducing attacks per round.

A Fire 9 blessing makes sacred troops a potential anti-SC force. Even if the SC is Fire Immune, the blessing will give your troops magic weapons and a hefty attack bonus. Of course this only works if you can recruit sacred troops in fairly large numbers.

this is both only true until mid-lategame .

the mandragoras sleep vines are mr-negates .
i always give my scs starshine skullcap + amulet of antimagic . a pretender / ice devil has then 24 mr .
if my sc can cast fireshield then the mandragoras really suffer .
as pan cw you don't need to care so for them it is true because it doesn't really matter how many are killed as long as they win

but for other nations it is very costy .


the fire 9 blessing is good too but in lategame it is not reliable anymore .
vanheim + marignon are the best firebless Users i think .
marignon has difficulties massing many knights since they are capitol only .
with a special sc like a airqueen with storm + wrathful skies combo i can wipe out the knights easy .

vanheim is better there since they can massproduce their vans and they are stealthy .
but vanheim can't make them fire immune so i could wipe them out with a strong fire spell lategame .

if my sc has high hp + high protection + a fireshield + lifesteal you need many many many vans to kill him .
this is all not too hard to achieve .
the main problem with the fire blessing is that it does "only" 8 ap +2d6 damage .
so if i have 30 protection ( invulnerability ) it is still like 15 protection .
that means it is 8+2d6oe damage vs. 15+2d6oe protection .
luck cancels 50% of the hits furthermore .

so you need much luck to do enough damage in 1 battleround to kill the sc .

against high hp highend scs you have bad chances to inflict enough damage then with your f9 bless vans even .

[Lex]

I just thought I'd mention that the movie "Hero" (starring Jet Li) was just released today in North America, and its great! That movie really embodies the fantasy of a single SC killing thousands of heavy infantry and archers/crossbowmen without breaking a sweat!

If you ever doubt that SC should be so powerful in Dominions, go see (or download) that movie, and you'll realize the sheer joy of a single super combatant defeating entire armies.

[deccan]

Lex said:
I just thought I'd mention that the movie "Hero" (starring Jet Li) was just released today in North America, and its great! That movie really embodies the fantasy of a single SC killing thousands of heavy infantry and archers/crossbowmen without breaking a sweat!

If you ever doubt that SC should be so powerful in Dominions, go see (or download) that movie, and you'll realize the sheer joy of a single super combatant defeating entire armies.

If you liked "Hero", you might be interested to know that the director Zhang-Yimou has a new wuxia film out in Asia: "House of Flying Daggers". It stars Zhang Ziyi, who made her name in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon".