Vampire Queens and Sneaking Armies

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by AhhhFresh:
There is nothing that you can put on her that can protect her from AP x3 Undead damage...

The Flambeau is only available to the nations with fire 3, and you still need to put it on something that can hit her through a defense of more than 20 and multiple mirror images, while not dying to the soul vortex and breath of winter or her own attacks.

[archaeolept]

There is nothing that you can put on her that can protect her from AP x3 Undead damage... unless invulnerability ignores AP effects? [/QB]

a good SC loaded up can have 35 or 40 defense.

good luck w/ your flambeaus. and, of course, a high-level mirror-image, w/ luck, will stop most of those very few hits which get through.

[ April 14, 2004, 01:01: Message edited by: archaeolept ]

[Graeme Dice]

Then of course, if she has both death 3 and fire 2 then you really can't kill her without very specific troops and spell selection. Soul vortex and phoenix pyre provide esentially unlimited ressurrections.

[AhhhFresh]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by AhhhFresh:
There is nothing that you can put on her that can protect her from AP x3 Undead damage...

The Flambeau is only available to the nations with fire 3, and you still need to put it on something that can hit her through a defense of more than 20 and multiple mirror images, while not dying to the soul vortex and breath of winter or her own attacks.

---

True. Only Fire 3, which is a pain to get if you don't have it, since most of the easy addition items occur at Fire 3... except for the Skull of Fire... and other pretty specialized items (Ring of Wizardry, Staff of Elemental Mastery) which require Con 6 and have high reqs.

But the point about hitting through high defense and mirror images? I'm not sure I get that... obviously, you'd be sending in SC's to do this job... armed with a weapon that is magic, AP, and x3 damage... so the etherealness and armor go out the window... so she's got itty bitty hp that you can divide by 1/3...

Hey, I don't know... I have yet to encounter the "uber vampire queen" in an MP game... I've only used her myself to abuse the AI in SP games...

But frankly I'd like my chances if I had a pretender Void Lord equiped with a Flambeu...

[AhhhFresh]

Originally posted by archaeolept:

quote:

---

There is nothing that you can put on her that can protect her from AP x3 Undead damage... unless invulnerability ignores AP effects?

a good SC loaded up can have 35 or 40 defense.

good luck w/ your flambeaus. and, of course, a high-level mirror-image, w/ luck, will stop most of those very few hits which get through. [/QB]

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Why can't your SC have exactly the same thing?

Except that your hits will be AP x3 damage.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Then of course, if she has both death 3 and fire 2 then you really can't kill her without very specific troops and spell selection. Soul vortex and phoenix pyre provide esentially unlimited ressurrections.

If ANYTHING has Soul Vortex and Phoenix Pyre, it has essentially unlimited resurrections against normal riffraff. You hardly need a VQ for that.

A VQ is a highly potent base chassis priced at a reasonable 110 points. The baseline model is not that impressive, however, unless you invest a sizeable chunk of your nation points in tweaking it for battle. As Arch points out, I plow several hundred points into paths chosen specifically for battle. This is not a small outlay, and comes at fair expense in other areas: Yet the VQ can be in only one place at a time.

Ultimately, the VQ has one very specific role: It's built to be the ultimate combat base chassis for a pretender, and very little else. By the time you've bought the loadout needed to make it a monster, you have very little free points for anything else: Your scales, dominion strength, and castle will likely be somewhat subpar. In short, you've invested a sizeable chunk of your national allocation into a single point. It should not be a surprise, therefore, that you can tear through anything that you can get your hands on....but you can only be in one place at a time, the fundamental shortcoming of the strategy.

Sure, it's possible to create economy-class combat VQs, but they're simply not up to the same caliber as the near-invulnerable monster that people who have played against me have seen: That requires a sizeable investment above and beyond that which you sink into a typical SC chassis. Tweaking a VQ really requires a LOT of nation points and is NOT cheap, given that the starting paths you get by default are generally non-synergistic: You wind up having to pay for other paths from scratch most of the time.

So yes, the VQ is definitely the most potent base chassis you can pick for an SC pretender....but that's also the only thing it does. You're probably not going to shoehorn a useful blessing onto one and still retain its combat potential. To go truly overboard on it will cost you a ton of points, leaving you with somewhat insuperior scales, dominion strength, and castle: Without the natural dominion strength, you have to aggressively push it with temples, as natural spread will falter in the face of opposing dominion.

It's not as unbeatable as certain people would have you believe: I have no fear of somebody else playing the same cards.

The VQ strategy is not an adjunct on top of an existing core strategy that is already strong: The VQ strategy is a standalone strategy of its own. To analyze the VQ as if it was also being played on top of something else is missing the bigger picture, because that's simply not how it works.

If you're worried your conventional army will be utterly destroyed by it, then don't send your conventional army into a place that the vampire might be: Don't drink with the vampire.

[ April 14, 2004, 01:30: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by AhhhFresh:
Why can't your SC have exactly the same thing?

So which pretender chassis has as many advantages and few disadvantages as the VQ?

Except that your hits will be AP x3 damage.

That's if you have a fire 3 mage available. That definetly limits the nations that can accomplish it. She's also has all the advantages of being undead. Your pretender will either get tired because you aren't using any life drain, or you will be using up two or more equipment slots for reinvigoration. Any standard SC needs at least two MR items and regeneration, so with the Flambeau, skullcap, AMA and regen ring you have an armor slot and a boot slot left over. You now have no elemental resist or flying.

You've probably also managed to rack up a few afflictions by this point, while she will be perfectly healthy. You'll also need to be able to bring your SC to her every single turn, since she is perfectly safe inside her dominion. This also presupposes that you know what kind of pretender your opponent has, and have more gems to spend than your opponent, since the flambeau alone is more expensive than the equipment needed to turn a VQ into a SC that can destroy any grouping of conventional troops.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
If ANYTHING has Soul Vortex and Phoenix Pyre, it has essentially unlimited resurrections against normal riffraff. You hardly need a VQ for that.

190 points for the VQ, the next cheapest is the PoD, which is hardly as effective.

A VQ is a highly potent base chassis priced at a reasonable 110 points. The baseline model is not that impressive, however, unless you invest a sizeable chunk of your nation points in tweaking it for battle.

Water 2 costs 56 points on her. That's a single scale for a nation with earth 1 mages to make all your opponents normal armies completely useless. Not other pretender can even come close to her survivability.

Ultimately, the VQ has one very specific role: It's built to be the ultimate combat base chassis for a pretender, and very little else.

So why is it no more expensive than a mage chassis like the lich? It should be at least 150 points, as it is considerably more powerful than a titan for example.

By the time you've bought the loadout needed to make it a monster, you have very little free points for anything else:

That's a laughable argument. All you need is to spend 250 points to give her 2 paths at 2, and death at 3. You then have plenty of points remaining for most nations, since you won't need many troops anyways with her capabilities.

So yes, the VQ is definitely the most potent base chassis you can pick for an SC pretender....

Which should make it by default the most expensive chassis, since there are plenty of other combat pretenders out there that aren't nearly as effective and cost more. Why are her new magic paths only a cost of 40 instead of 50 or even 80 of the other combat pretenders? She even has immortality so that your investment is perfectly safe.

The VQ strategy is not an adjunct on top of an existing core strategy that is already strong:

You're scrambling here. To make her a combat monster costs no more than a fire 9 Moloch.

If you're worried your conventional army will be utterly destroyed by it, then don't send your conventional army into a place that the vampire might be:

Then you'll be able to provide strategies that don't involve SC units for every nation to defeat such a pretender. Oh wait. You can't do that, can you.

Thanks for agreeing with me that she's the most powerful pretender by the way, which is exactly what we are saying is the problem. No immortal unit should be the most effective combat pretender.

[ April 14, 2004, 01:47: Message edited by: Graeme Dice ]

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
So why is it no more expensive than a mage chassis like the lich? It should be at least 150 points, as it is considerably more powerful than a titan for example.

Because a VQ does not start with a L3 path like the Lich? As for the Titan, the VQ may be more powerful in combat, but the Titan has dominion 3 and a L3 path to start with (apart from the nifty hps) making for an easier strong bless effect and high dominion, should you so desire. Different strengths for different gods.

EDIT: This should not be understood as if I am against a general increase in the price of the VQ, to the contrary, I am for a price hike. It only addresses the specific questions asked.

[ April 14, 2004, 02:26: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

I believe the statement and I personally agree that the VQ is built for abuse both as a SC and as a Domain powerful unit, getting not only Free Vampires (Which can provide a sizable defense within your own domain) as well as an immortality for having a high dominion. If you look at any other Pretender they only have 1 of those 2 abuses. Either A.) Immortality or B.) Free Troops. Only the Vampire Queen, Son of Niefel and Ghost King get a usable troop type that doesn't purely rely on the Pretender to use them in combat (though your preference may be to only have them with your VQ or GK). Moloch's Imps, Daughter of the Land's Lions, Father of Serpents 'Free Units' are not dominion based but are also essentially as much a handicap as much as a benefit as it disallows versitility.

The only other Immortal Pretenders are the Bog Mummy and Phoenix. Only 1 of the 2 have decent slots and that one has subpar stats (as when you are looking at Immortality for a SC, you have to look at "out of the box" stats, slots, and abilities, which you can tell which is clearly superior).

I see no reason why the Lord of the Night costs 150, while the VQ costs 110. It at the very least should be moved up to 125 with other "Combat" pretenders and hopefully more limited nation selection.

Of course, that is my opinion based on the fact I'm tired of seeing newbs and veterans alike carbon copy pretenders instead of utilizing the variety that is found in the game. But of course I also don't think Clam Hoarding is a big deal, so my view is more than likely off.

[ April 14, 2004, 02:10: Message edited by: Zen ]