Curse of Stones

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Baalz

50+ fatigue for them gives them -5 attack/defense which is the equivalent of level 10 fire/water blessing for your guys (the high chance of a critical hit due to fatigue is arguably similar to having flaming weapons against heavy armor).

Are you sure about that? I thought (based on the manual formulas and observational experience) that it was -1 to defense per 10 fatigue, and -1 to attack per 20 fatigue. Thus you're getting +5 to attack and +2 to defense, plus the crit effect, making it more of an F10W4 equivalent than F10W10.

I would use it more frequently if it weren't MR-easy or if it cost only 1 earth gem. I do like your suggestion of casting it with multiple mages--you might get worthwhile coverage that way. Fatiguing 1/6 of the enemy army is less worthwhile than Earthquake or Strength of Giants, but if you could get it up to 1/2 the army it would be worth doing.

-Max

[Sombre]

I haven't noticed any penalties from fatigue - I guess they don't show up on the unit info screen.

[Zeldor]

Criticals are what matters. While 0 fatigue SC can kill thousands and take 0 damage, when he gets to 70+ fatigue he will get killed by militia.

[Sombre]

Not if he has absurd defence and the defence malus from fatigue isn't real.

I have no reason to believe it isn't, just haven't seen it on unit screens. That's true of communion path boosts and other things like that though.

[Kuritza]

Fatique is deadly.
I've seen an entangled Gargoyle with 98 faique killed by monkey PD (tm).

[WraithLord]

Yes, if friendlies really are not effected by this then curse of stones makes for a great anti SC counter. Targeted at SCs w/o good reinvigoration. Clearly, SCs that would be geared towards reinvig. will have to pay in another dept. the blanket is only so long after all.

Now, imagine curse of stones in swamp with cold/heat effect (either from scales or spells). I wonder how would said tartarian SCs that we all learned to love perform against a run of the mill army?

[WraithLord]

Should be cast with by a MR penetrate equipped mage of course. Add to that a battery of ghost grippers or sleep casters and voila - toasted SCs

[Zeldor]

Huh, but Curse of Stones is BE. I don't think it benefits from any penetration boosters. Is it even MR negates? Or just 50% hit with fatigue from some range?

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Not if he has absurd defence and the defence malus from fatigue isn't real.

I have no reason to believe it isn't, just haven't seen it on unit screens. That's true of communion path boosts and other things like that though.

It's not really a penalty to defense, it's just that the attack/defense opposed rolls factor in fatigue as well as attack and defense. IIRC the formula is something like this:

Attacker's attack + DRN - Attack's fatigue/20 vs. Defender's defense + DRN - Defender's fatigue/10

Defense degrades faster than attack, which contributes[1] to the reason long battles between heavy infantry have sharply-increased casualty rates after a few rounds. Effectively, both sides start getting an attack bonus once everyone is past 20 fatigue.

-Max

[1] Along with the crit-hits, which are actually more important.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Now, imagine curse of stones in swamp with cold/heat effect (either from scales or spells). I wonder how would said tartarian SCs that we all learned to love perform against a run of the mill army?

Tartarians are 0-enc and are never affected by (melee) encumbrance from swamp or heat/cold scales. Instead of trying to Curse of Stones them (unreliable at best, with that MR-easy check), just Stellar Cascades and THEN hit them with the militia.

Curse of Stones is an anti-army spell, like Earthquake, not an anti-SC spell.

-Max

P.S. If you want to fight a Tartarian with a regular army, try Strength of Giants + Weapons of Sharpness. Although Petrify + an army w/ WoS is even better.