Warrior Pretender

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

Really? That overpriced? Did you try him?

You mean her? The VQ?

Ok, so there's the obvious comparison to the Lich, who has better stats, starting dominion, and arguably magic (since blood magic on a pretender is mostly useless unless you want the minor bless, and you don't take VQ as a bless chassis). Starting with Dom 2 saves you 56 points on Dom 9 relative to starting Dom 1. And i've only taken an awake Lich as LA Rlyeh, who can afford to burn points on its pretender because its taking bad scales anyway.

But the vanilla pricetag of 180 is truly ridiculous. Even CBM's 110 is too much. I'd say its a 75 pt. chassis, tops. The problem is that its one real advantage over, say, the lich, is its 30pt/path, so you want a pile of magic on her to make her worth choosing. But after paying her chassis cost and necessary dominion 9+, you've already spent a pile of points. After magic you basically have nothing left for scales, and probably sacked most of them to have her awake, and you got no bless out of it. And then she's a defensive pretender because you don't want to leave dominion to take advantage of that immortality. Of course, the need for high dom coupled with the need to take bad scales to afford doing anything worthwhile with her leaves you with territory that is mostly worthless.

The only nations who would contemplate scales as bad as would be needed to take her awake either can control their dom spread (Mictlan), or just want a huge bless regardless of the scale effect (Lanka), or don't care about the gold economy that much (LA Rlyeh, LA Ermor). Of those, only Ermor would even consider her (Rlyeh can't, Lanka and Mictlan are looking for blesses, not crazy pretenders).

So, in vanilla, Dom 9 + chassis is already 432pts, putting you down over 2 scales to be awake, and that's before you've even touched magic for her! That's a lot of points for an inherently defensive pretender. And even after dumping magic into her, you get a pretender who can maybe best 40% of indies by turn 4 or so, more likely 12 because she isn't waking up until then.

(And yes, Dom 9 is required in order to be able to use her anywhere, because otherwise why bother with an immortal pretender?)

No, I would never take her in MP. A defensive pretender isn't worth that much to me. As an amusing handicap she might see use in SP...

Edits:
-175, not 180 pts. Close enough.
-VQ isn't even a rainbow in vanilla? Suck. Ok, there is absolutely no reason to *ever* take a VQ in vanilla.

[Sombre]

I think he means the warrior, not the VQ. Hence 'him'.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I think he means the warrior, not the VQ. Hence 'him'.

I don't need to try a chassis 3x as expensive as a Wyrm that might barely succeed at fulfilling the same roll, and has fewer options (more expensive magic paths, I'm assuming starting Dom 1, etc...) to know that its overpriced.

[BigDaddy]

Well, OK, but I think I just gave him too high of stats, because he took several hvy calvarly/hvy infantry provinces at strength 9. On one he got fatigued and took some hits, gut some afflictions...

The wyrm is not as good, which is why I made the price so high. Being size 3 makes a huge difference. Of course, he could get trampled.

[Trumanator]

Size makes no difference to solo expanders except as it effects trampling.

[BigDaddy]

Ah, because he still takes up the whole square, he still takes all the attacks.

[Trumanator]

Well its not that he "takes up" the whole square, its that he's the only one in the square. Essentially you're right though, he still takes all the attacks.

[vfb]

According to the manual, larger-sized units are more easily hit by missiles. So there is that, in addition to trample differences.

Thematically, HP usually corresponds to size in the dom universe. So you might want to make your god at least size 3 if you're going to give him 50HP.

[LumenPlacidum]

I like the idea of a bargain human pretender who's just a really badass fighter. I recall characters like the main character in Hero, or Achilles. I wouldn't give him weird slots or a couple extra swords of swiftness attacks. I'd give him full slots, decent basic magical equipment (like one sword of swiftness, an enchanted shield, and chain mail of displacement) as well as one bonus attack (skills of the gladiator, maybe). Perhaps a one-battle-spell of Air Shield to show how he can bat arrows out of the air, and huge base attack and defence skills. Like, high teens (or even 20) for each.

He'd definitely be limited because some things, like the midget masher and tramplers, would be extra useful against him, but it would definitely be a capable expander.

[BigDaddy]

The sword of swiftness isn't really that high of a damage weapon, so talking about 2 or 3 attacks doesn't seem that different...

He's mounted so he's size 3.

I think his attack and defense might be to high at 18 and 20, because with trinkets he he can solo the hardest provinces. I nerfed his slots because he comes back with... granted minor magical equipment, but considerable power, especially early game. Plus, he'd be great to buff.

Well, I gave him 21 str. Maybe less? But he's a wimp compared to a titan except for the attacks, which, granted do more than make up for that... if he doesn't get hit.

I was worried that he'd be too good at rushing opponents, but, I see now that people probably feel the same way about the shedu (or whatever).

The attacks are for thematic reasons, but making them more diverse, possible one doing less damage, would make sense. I'd probably also give him a bow that does 0 damage but counts strength and attacks twice (I would go 4 but seeing how hes done with the melee...), for thematic reasons. His defense would go down some, so he might be less durable... maybe, but it seems like he only got hit when his fatigue was high, even when surrounded, and his protection is "only" 23 (full black steel).

And his items aren't a total nerf, because he gets 3 misc (rings).