How do you defend against an Abysian devil rush?

[Graeme Dice]

ioticus said:
I've discovered in a PBEM game that it's easy for Abysia to produce at least 6 devils before turn 20.

They could likely produce many more if they decided to go all out for devils. Black Forest Ulm can easil manage 44 blood slaves by turn 8, and Abysia has better blood hunters than that.

[FrankTrollman]

Ah... you meant 6+ total. Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. I thought you meant 6+ per turn, which is really early for that sort of thing.

Yeah, by turn 15 an Abyssian player can have a Devil Factory up and get one every turn for the rest of his life, so 6+ by turn 20 should be expected. And Devils die pretty well to massed lightning bolts, so you should be able to wipe these guys out. The 50 Lava Warriors is the actual problem here, but again you should be able to take advantage of their lack of ranged attacks to cause grevious damage.

For example:

Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Retreat.

Try it on the Harab Elders, it's hilarious. The Lava Warriors take some serious damage and kill nothing. You have serious archery superiority to these guys, and if you use it properly, you should be able to kill them faster than they can conquer you.

-Frank

[ioticus]

FrankTrollman said:
And Devils die pretty well to massed lightning bolts, so you should be able to wipe these guys out.
Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Retreat.


-Frank

How do you protect your mages from the Devils? I find the Devils usually fly back and kill them before they get off a few spells. Do you tie up a bunch of troops on guard commander orders, or what?

[FrankTrollman]

No. First off, get yourself about 5-10 Blizzard Warriors for every Harab Elder. Now put them in groups of 1-2, put them on "fire whatever" and then take those groups and distribute them pseudo-randomly about the battlefield. Most of them should be distributed up and down in front of the commanders, but some of them can profitably be held in the rear.

The pathing on the "attack rear" order is such that such troops will go to the back end of the first or second thing that gets in their way. So a bunch of little groups spoofs "attack rear" almost all the time. That and a couple of archer groups actually in the rear will mean that if any Devil finds a hole in your line it's still jumping one of your pigeon archers that you don't give a damn about.

If you have a problem filling up the ranks, go ahead and have a "create skeletons" order at the beginning, as this will leave Devils lost in a sea of transient undead long enough to be silenced with lightning.

Caelum, even Return of the Raptors, is blessed with relatively cheap leaders who can spam Orb Lightning and Thunderstrikes with no Gem investment at all. As such, people who are trying to rush with "pretty decent" troops that cost real gems should be sucker punched by your leaders. Remember that as Caelum your troops are there only to distract your enemies' army long enough for your leaders to deliver victory to you.

But you are going to need those screening troops. Otherwise your inestimable leaders will be shredded to pieces. They are made of paper mache, after all.

-Frank

[Saber Cherry]

ioticus said:
How do you protect your mages from the Devils? I find the Devils usually fly back and kill them before they get off a few spells. Do you tie up a bunch of troops on guard commander orders, or what?

Yes. If I know the enemy uses fliers, I always surround my precious mages with infantry... unless I'm forgetful. "Guard Commander" or "Hold and Attack" are both fine.

I fought his main force at one of my watch towers and I can confirm he had 10 Devils and 50 Lava Warriors at turn 20. I did destroy most of his force (his Vampire Queen and 4 Lavas survived), but at great cost to my self. I lost all 9 Mammoths and 67 (of 74) wingless and Raptors, and 2 Seraphs. The only thing that really saved me is the Mammoths attacking his rear which killed 3 of his commanders and my Pretender, a strong Prince of Death, casting death spells (though he did get a "weakened" affliction in this battle.) As expected, my Raptors committed suicide by attacking his Lavas directly. They simply evaporated. I must learn to use them correctly. I don't think I can hold out. I'm on a small map and I'm sure he's cranking out at least 1 Devil per turn and who knows how many Lavas.

By the way, my Pretender kept casting Fear at the Berserk Lavas (morale 99). Does that do any good or is it a case of poor casting AI?

Fear is useless on berserked units, and nearly worthless on blessed units. The reason to group Wingless and Mammoths together is just to give the group a high morale, so the mammoths don't rout and trample your own units... but 5.5 wingless per lava warrior should be somewhat effective, at a 1:1 cost ratio. I'm glad the mammoths worked, at least!

You may want to group raptors in several small clusters, hoping that ONE of them correctly attacks rearmost.

If you can get evocation 5, Shadow Blast (2 death, 1 gem) is great. Abysians have high MR, but with a penetration aid and high death magic level, a Prince of Death might still be able to take out many of them with a single shot. And Thunder Strike - especially on Harab Elder with Boots of the Messenger, Winged Helmet, Summmon Stormpower during a storm, and Aim - is devastating.

Be sure to have Seraphs cast Quickness if they are just tossing lightning.

[Ironhawk]

The best way to use Raptors is not to recruit them. They are trash units and your gold is better spent elswhere. Spend it instead on Seraphs and Caelian Archers. Speaking of, why werent there any archers in the battle you just mentioned?? Archer Mob + Wind Guide + Seraphs should be pretty effective. Anyway, leave the melee combat to your Wingless + Mammoths or some cheap chaff like SC and others have suggested.

ioticus said:
I fought his main force at one of my watch towers and I can confirm he had 10 Devils and 50 Lava Warriors at turn 20. I did destroy most of his force (his Vampire Queen and 4 Lavas survived), but at great cost to my self. I lost all 9 Mammoths and 67 (of 74) wingless and Raptors, and 2 Seraphs. The only thing that really saved me is the Mammoths attacking his rear which killed 3 of his commanders and my Pretender, a strong Prince of Death, casting death spells (though he did get a "weakened" affliction in this battle.) As expected, my Raptors committed suicide by attacking his Lavas directly. They simply evaporated. I must learn to use them correctly. I don't think I can hold out. I'm on a small map and I'm sure he's cranking out at least 1 Devil per turn and who knows how many Lavas.

By the way, my Pretender kept casting Fear at the Berserk Lavas (morale 99). Does that do any good or is it a case of poor casting AI?

[ioticus]

Ironhawk said:
The best way to use Raptors is not to recruit them. They are trash units and your gold is better spent elswhere. Spend it instead on Seraphs and Caelian Archers. Speaking of, why werent there any archers in the battle you just mentioned??

I didn't recruit archers because they seemed pretty useless vs. the heavily armored Abysians in my test games vs. the AI. They would fire a few volleys and then get toasted in close combat.

[Saber Cherry]

Yeah, I avoid using archers against units with 12+ protection... longbows and crossbows are much more cost effective. Javelins would work, too, considering that any infantry up against the Lava Warriors will die in one hit, but Jav infantry will at least get to toss a couple javelins before they engage in melee.

[FrankTrollman]

Any infantry is going to have a hard time damaging the Lava Warriors and is generally going to die in short order as well.

That's why you want to keep your units from "bunching" in order to maximize the amount of retail (rather than wholesale) killing your enemies can inflict on your side.

And that's where archers shine. They don't move, so they don't clump up and die. Your leaders are going to fly off as soon as your troops all break, so you want to maximize the amount of separate units of crap. And you want to make them stay separate.

Blizzard Warriors aren't there to cause casualties, they are there to draw fire and keep your enemy from killing or routing your Harabs.

-Frank

-Frank

[Ironhawk]

Archers are not very effective vs heavy armor, no. But your post is about how to defend vs a Devil Rush. Devils have only 8 prot and thus can be wounded relatively easily by the short bow. On top of this fact the tactical command Fire Flyers should precisely target the Devils out from all the masses of Abysians.

This said, don't completely rule out the effectiveness of shortbows vs armored opponents. Particularly those without shields, like lava warriors. You won't make many kills but you can cause a lot of wounds which, if the unit in question does not beserk (can't recall if lava warriors do), will damage the enemy squad's morale. An excellent thing to do to abysians, given that if they rout, you will massacare them all due to thier slow speed.

Also, where are you placing your archers such that they only get off "a few volleys"?

ioticus said:
I didn't recruit archers because they seemed pretty useless vs. the heavily armored Abysians in my test games vs. the AI. They would fire a few volleys and then get toasted in close combat.