Flagellant Atral 9 blessing

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by Zen:
MY personal favorite double bless nation/theme is ... wait for it.

Jotun Woodsmen with Death 9, Nature 9.

One hot tip when using a Death 9 blessing is to get hold of a Jade Maiden province as soon as possible. The nightmare is already "Causes Fear +0" and when blessed will have this increased by your fear bonus.

For the best blessed unit, I'm partial to Daoine Sidhe with an Astral 9 blessing. Prot 13, Def 15, Glamour and Twisted fate; and for bonus points they're sneaky and equipped with javelins (with Strength 12 and Precision 12 so they actually do some damage with them too.) They just don't die.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zen:
MY personal favorite double bless nation/theme is ... wait for it.

Jotun Woodsmen with Death 9, Nature 9.

I played about a dozen turns with this, but wasn't overly impressed. It wasn't bad, but I thought it should be better. So I tried a Son of Niefel with Nature-9/Water-9 and it appears to be working much better. With D9 I was losing 1-2 woodsmen per turn in the early battles (please bear in mind that I set indies to 7). With W9 instead, I haven't lost any. The +4 defense keeps more of my troops alive, and the extra attacks from Quickness dishes out damage faster so the enemy routs sooner.

I'd overlooked blessing strategies prior to this thread. Now I'm a convert.

[Arryn]

Followup: I just fought a tough battle against some indies that I won solely due to the dual-bless.

My forces -

1 Herse
1 Gode (prophet)
8 jot axe
10 jot woodsmen

Indies

1 mounted commander
1 commander
26 crossbowmen
21 heavy cav

1st round the crossbows score at least 6-8 hits on my concentrated force. 2nd round the heavily armored horsemen slam into my ranks, killing 2 woodsmen and an axeman. 3rd round another 2 woodsmen and an axeman fall beneath the slashing swords of the cavalry, while my dwindling attackers acquit themselves of a half-dozen of their mounted foe. 4th round the crossbows fire again, scoring a lucky strike on my prophet who then turns away, thus demoralizing my entire army and beginning a general rout. However, 5 of the woodsmen and the herse are also struck in the same barrage and they go berserk! These maniacally-brave, fanatically loyal followers of the King of Kings, Lord of Winter, and Prince of Rivers proceed to mop up the remaining heathens, heedless of their own casualties and outnumbered at least five to one, righteous fury filling their hearts. Another trio of woodsmen fall before the unbelievers finally succumb to the relentless onslaught of giants avenging their fallen comrades, the pitiful few heathen survivors fleeing into a nearby forest.

[PDF]

Originally posted by calmon:
In my opinion the best blessed troops are these from pythium:

Battle Vestal

Water 9
Fire 9
Astral 9

Pretender: Oracle
Dominion: 9

luck 1 and the rest to the bad 3 (heat 3)

Thist troops are really killers to all non-arrow troops.

The combination of Defence 19(!) and Twisted Fate is a really good defence!

Flame Weapons (they have to do more damage) + a good attack (16) + quickness are dangerous enough for even the hardest in close combat.

I've no problems to recruit 9 each turn (only 15 gold and 4 res.!) and this is enough to handle 50 men-troops (knights, haevy cavalry and haevy infantry) very easy.

I play this combination in a mp game started 3 weeks ago and i'm top 1 with this in moment.

Great Problem: Every Javalin or Arrow is a kryptonite

Well, surely it's very efficient at expansion vs indies, but I'd be surprised this could Last long in a MP...
You should get decimated as soon as another player attacks with a missile army and some magic... With all those crappy scales you'd be broke, with units suffering form heat, unrest everywhere, research going nowhere (Drain 3 means a Theurg has 3 RP...). Will Pythium become Ermor ?
But maybe I'm wrong, I hope that for you ...

[IKerensky]

ok,

I'd made major change and now I get a:

Fire 9
Water 9
Astral 9
Air 6

blessing, with a Dom 7 and outpost castle.

The added bonus of a quickened astral/fire mage into my flagellant swarm army is impressive, at least in solo.

Of course I am producing nearly nothing, have research -3 ( but still 34 ). But flagellant being dirt cheap and able to be produced in every castle with a temple...

I am gonna try some more but perhaps a Earth 6 blessing would have been better.. or a mix with Death...

[ February 06, 2004, 16:12: Message edited by: IKerensky ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by PDF:
With all those crappy scales you'd be broke, with units suffering form heat, unrest everywhere, research going nowhere (Drain 3 means a Theurg has 3 RP...).

The turmoil scale does not cause unrest.

[IKerensky]

Well some point:

Low gold, low ressource due to scale : dont matter if your blessed troups are cheap Flagellant or Vestal.

Heat: Good thing for Marignon fire based spells and summons.

Drain: dont matter too much either, your pretender is obligatorily an oracle, a fountain of blood or a Baphomet thus a still reearcher, wich with the 3x9 magic and more rocket at 34+ research skill basic.. 34-3 is still enough until you manage to get some indies researcher .. or craft some research tools.

Misfortune: the hardest trouble as there will be many many attack on your territories... but you still havent too many choice... keep some troups into your capital.

Death: the one I dont took.. or not too much. Death is not so bad, as before the slow death of your province really matter you will be on the juggernaut winning side.

Turmoil: Doesnt provide Unrest... directly. But provide more random event, with Misfortune thoses are usually bad and thus provide more battle, more bad event and so more unrest. There is a good effect , for marignon at least. Sometimes good event give you zealot for free, Marignon zealot are .. FLAGELLANT , BMUWHAHAHAHAHHA instant army


All in all the Triple+ Blessing strategy is a selfdestruct one but not to be taken too lightly. It have his counter anyway. But it can be a nasty surprise. Tips for opponent of Marignon, Pythium.. If you see big black candle with awfull effect start covering the map then you can bet what you are going to face. Flagellant, Sacred Serpent, Vestales, ... who else got a cheap blessed troups that look puny to be transformed in a SC ?

Seeing half a dozen flagellant slaughter a Dragon pretender in one round is amazing )

[ February 06, 2004, 17:55: Message edited by: IKerensky ]

[Pocus]

the general problem with all these strategies about zergling rushes ... oops I mean triple blessed cheap troops is that you have done your test in solo, against AI which are very bad at using concentrated spells.

A wise player will counter you with some mages, and frankly a star fires in the face of your vestal dont care much if she is lucky, have a flaming spear and a nice defence. (one example amongst many).

[IKerensky]

Originally posted by Pocus:
the general problem with all these strategies about zergling rushes ... oops I mean triple blessed cheap troops is that you have done your test in solo, against AI which are very bad at using concentrated spells.

A wise player will counter you with some mages, and frankly a star fires in the face of your vestal dont care much if she is lucky, have a flaming spear and a nice defence. (one example amongst many).

Well, I dont know for the vestale. But I am sure that the flagellant wont care too much... Star Fire is a Astral spell right ? isn't more important for your mages to concentrate on the astral duel he/they will have to engage first ?

Anyway, I probably wont ever play MP ( I just cant sustain well pressure playing against human opponent)... or just coop with my brother agains tcomputer teams.

But I have to ask is MR 14 enough or not, to resist a lot of damaging spell ?

[Daynarr]

Originally posted by Pocus:
the general problem with all these strategies about zergling rushes ... oops I mean triple blessed cheap troops is that you have done your test in solo, against AI which are very bad at using concentrated spells.

A wise player will counter you with some mages, and frankly a star fires in the face of your vestal dont care much if she is lucky, have a flaming spear and a nice defence. (one example amongst many).

Exactly. I really wonder what blade wind would do to them as well (can you say carnage?).

Also, you seem to greatly underestimate effects of turmoil and misfortune combo. Even Ermor is wise to avoid it. That setup simply looks like a suicide.