Trying to improve my MA Abyssia Pretender Design

[Mardagg]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Or you can just, i dunno, use one of your B3F1 warlocks with some blood boosters? You can even empower him to B4 if you need to, because blood is cheap.

Warlock is never a good option for abysia - why spend pretender points for things that are cheap to get with national units?

The whole point of soul contracts is to get them as early as possible,many of them.Since Abysia is so well suited for contracts,i really dont see it as a side-strat here,involving waiting for empowerment/waiting for the right paths on your warlock/waiting for Constr 6 and the boosters/and being lucky or unlucky with old age on your warlocks .
With an awake blood fountain,you can get 1-2 already within the first year..of course you have to blood hunt your capital 1 or 2 times to achieve this,but dont forget that you get a slave income per turn with the fountain on CBM mod,too.
Its the fastest way to get a contract factory going,by far.
Later on,you can then empower/equip a warlock to be able to build contracts,so that your pretender gets better things to do.

Never Heard of sloth with Abysia`s resource-needing troops.
So you are using Humanbreds mainly to expand then for the early game?
What are you doing,if you meet another Human early,that attacks you?
Looks to me very risky here,to put all eggs in one basket.
Humanbreds can very easily be countered and depending on starting position/strong indies it can take some time to get a 2nd or 3rd castle going.
I think you need at least Prod 0 to be more flexible,and if you plan to rush your opponents(for which Lava Warriors are definately very well suited,even though i agree it might be their only good use) you need more.

Furthermore,you need money like crazy early on and for most good Abysia setups,something along O3 G3 and like P1 or P2 is a good choice,simply for the money bonus.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Mardagg

The whole point of soul contracts is to get them as early as possible,many of them.Since Abysia is so well suited for contracts,i really dont see it as a side-strat here,involving waiting for empowerment/waiting for the right paths on your warlock/waiting for Constr 6 and the boosters/and being lucky or unlucky with old age on your warlocks .
With an awake blood fountain,you can get 1-2 already within the first year..of course you have to blood hunt your capital 1 or 2 times to achieve this,but dont forget that you get a slave income per turn with the fountain on CBM mod,too.
Its the fastest way to get a contract factory going,by far.
Later on,you can then empower/equip a warlock to be able to build contracts,so that your pretender gets better things to do.

Never Heard of sloth with Abysia`s resource-needing troops.
So you are using Humanbreds mainly to expand then for the early game?
What are you doing,if you meet another Human early,that attacks you?
Looks to me very risky here,to put all eggs in one basket.
Humanbreds can very easily be countered and depending on starting position/strong indies it can take some time to get a 2nd or 3rd castle going.
I think you need at least Prod 0 to be more flexible,and if you plan to rush your opponents(for which Lava Warriors are definately very well suited,even though i agree it might be their only good use) you need more.

Furthermore,you need money like crazy early on and for most good Abysia setups,something along O3 G3 and like P1 or P2 is a good choice,simply for the money bonus.

Here's the big secret: MA Aby's troops aren't *that* good. They will not save you from a sacred rush. Lava warriors are crap, seriously, and you don't want a bless that's going to be big enough to turn the steaming pile of crap they are into something almost useful (if such a state of affairs is even possible).

Regular abyssian troops, even with P3, are hard to mass, and not much more effective than humanbred tbh.

So yes, you hang your expansion on humanbred. Its not even that hard. P3 is such a waste of points since you aren't going to care after year 1. At all.

Key to surviving year 1:
-Diplomacy. Talk to neighbors. Abysia isn't exactly considered an easy rush target. Make peace.
-Thaumaturgy. If there must be war, get the fire prison spells. Hoses any bless rush.
-Awake rainbow - fast research is fast.
-Bloodhunt early and often (NOT YOUR CAPITAL!). Do some early blood research. Spinedevils are actually pretty nice, for example.

Besides possible low level thaum/blood research, you're going to be bum rushing construction to at least 6 and probably 8. You're going to dump every F gem you see on lanterns when you hit constr 6.

Anyway, by the time you can forge enough blood boosters to get a warlock making contracts, you may be behind *two* contracts. To which i say: whatever. You saved a few *hundred* pretender points not doing it on your pretender.

[DeadlyShoe]

Why are lava warriors crap? They have good hp, good prot, good AS, berserk, lotsa stuff. Their only real downside in my view is expense. (At least in CBM 1.71. Bear in mind the armor revamp.)

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by DeadlyShoe

Why are lava warriors crap? They have good hp, good prot, good AS, berserk, lotsa stuff. Their only real downside in my view is expense. (At least in CBM 1.71. Bear in mind the armor revamp.)

Generally, there are two types of good sacred troops:
(1) low resource troops that can be massed easily and given a big bless like F9W9 which multiplies their combat effectiveness. See MA Ermor (S9 is the key bless here), all Mictlans (often dual-triple blessed), EA TC, etc...

(2) Troops who can be given enough survival and net-neutral encumbrance to outlast almost any opposition. Nieflheim, many sacred cavalry, Ashdod, etc... EA Abysia's sacreds are good enough to qualify here, mostly because of their fire shield and powerful heat aura.

So what do lava warriors have?
Massability: no
Survivability: no. No shield, only 17 protection, abominable defense which berzerker only makes worse, impossible to get net neutral on fatigue because of berzerk.

Really, the moment you see 41 resources, its time to seriously reconsider using them.

And even if you were to use them, they would absolutely need an E9+N4+ bless. They're pointless without it. And MA Abysia cannot afford the pretender design points for that, nor does it really care to.

Which leaves lava warriors as just a crappy unit that should never see play.

MA Abysia is not about national troops. They're about demons, demons, and more demons. With a side of demons. National troops are glorified arrow catchers.

(Burning ones vs. Lava warriors: Burning warriors have 1.33x as many hp, more str, 1 higher attack, 2x as much heat aura, *fire shield*, and the exact same resource cost. They also belong to a nation that can't dive into blood as easily as MA Abysia can, so they don't really have an alternative strategy).

[Mardagg]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

So what do lava warriors have?
Massability: no
Survivability: no. No shield, only 17 protection, abominable defense which berzerker only makes worse, impossible to get net neutral on fatigue because of berzerk.

Really, the moment you see 41 resources, its time to seriously reconsider using them.

And even if you were to use them, they would absolutely need an E9+N4+ bless. They're pointless without it. And MA Abysia cannot afford the pretender design points for that, nor does it really care to.

(Burning ones vs. Lava warriors: Burning warriors have 1.33x as many hp, more str, 1 higher attack, 2x as much heat aura, *fire shield*, and the exact same resource cost. They also belong to a nation that can't dive into blood as easily as MA Abysia can, so they don't really have an alternative strategy).

damage output: yes

Really,you have played/you see Lavas the wrong way .
You are right in saying they arent worth to go for the E9N4 classical bless nation theme.Absolutely.
But you obviously havent actually tried it the other way:
Improving the strength of a unit and living with the weakness.
F9 or F6B4 make them VERY strong offensively.Sure,you rely on killing your enemies fast,so that your low def/high fatigue troops dont die like flies.But that is possible.
Only some strategical placement is needed.It mixes well with the regular troops.Place a squads of shield wielders in front.Lavas behind mixed with regular Heavy infantry/no shield.Rush for evocation for strong magic support,build more anathemant dragons than usually,less warlocks,less demonbreds,less blood focused in general.

Concentrate on damage output.Attack,attack,attack.Relentlessly.Churn out 6+ lavas per turn and several dozen heavy infantries in your other castles by turn 15+.P3 makes sure you can afford the resources.Back them by hordes of slayers to threat the precious early game commanders of your opponents.
Advisable on small to medium maps only.
Aim for early game lead because later on you are toast.

(how can you ever compare Lavas to burning ones or EA to MA in general.
EA Aby is so bad at blood hunting for example compared to MA.So much differences.You cant do that)

[DeadlyShoe]

Didn't say you should base a national strategy around them, i just said they wern't crap. Even with just a +3 strength bless, which I think is pretty common for Abyssia, they hit 20 str in a heat 3 province. 23 with Berserk. So 2 29-damage attacks at 16 AS, optimally. 18 AS against shields (if I understand the morningstar bonus correctly). That's without considering Rush of Strength and the like.

And how much do they need shields themselves? They're immune to flaming arrows and have high enough protection to mostly ignore regular arrows.

Granted they are expensive, I agree, perhaps too expensive. But there's not much else to do with your cap resources.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by DeadlyShoe

Didn't say you should base a national strategy around them, i just said they wern't crap. Even with just a +3 strength bless, which I think is pretty common for Abyssia, they hit 20 str in a heat 3 province. 23 with Berserk. So 2 29-damage attacks at 16 AS, optimally. 18 AS against shields (if I understand the morningstar bonus correctly). That's without considering Rush of Strength and the like.

And how much do they need shields themselves? They're immune to flaming arrows and have high enough protection to mostly ignore regular arrows.

Granted they are expensive, I agree, perhaps too expensive. But there's not much else to do with your cap resources.

17 defense isn't that high. Ask MA Ulm how useful it is in keeping troops alive. And they acquire fatigue fast enough that even indies are a threat (especially given the numbers you can field them in). Lava warriors are *unplayable* without E9.

Attack damage is all well and good if you can *hit* anything, which given all their attacks are at 10, well, half of those are missing outright against most indies, and most of the other half are hitting shields (which gives the indie some 24+ protection unless its militia). So now you're expected to do <1 damage with the average 'hit'. But even so, a strength bless is *not* what they want. Tough sacreds want to outlast the opposition (reinvigoration, regeneration, +protection), not kill it quickly.

And can ignore arrows, lol. 17 protection does not let you ignore arrows, shields let you ignore arrows. And pray your opponents don't bring xbows. (Fire arrows are still magical, btw, and thus still improve the chances the arrow will hit, they just won't deal fire damage, oh noes).

Seriously, i'd rather have 4 humanbred than 1 lava warrior, which is about even on resources and *cheaper* (iirc) on gold.

[Nightfall]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Seriously, i'd rather have 4 humanbred than 1 lava warrior, which is about even on resources and *cheaper* (iirc) on gold.

This is the real arguement against lava warriors, it's not that they are terrible, they are just overpriced for what they are capable of. Humanbred are close to the best value infantry in MA, don't overlook them.

[Mardagg]

Originally Posted by Nightfall

This is the real arguement against lava warriors, it's not that they are terrible, they are just overpriced for what they are capable of. Humanbred are close to the best value infantry in MA, don't overlook them.

This nails it.
This is the real question of importance here.
Humanbreds do fare terrible vs certain indies and most human opponents though.Thats why i want to be flexible in resources.
Ok,i have never tried to mix in the expensive Salamanders,that should be working vs most indy provinces at least.But its till looks more like "turtling until the blood economy is running" if you not only skip lavas but also the Heavy Infantries for the early game(concerning sloth 3).

[Nightfall]

Originally Posted by Mardagg

Ok,i have never tried to mix in the expensive Salamanders,that should be working vs most indy provinces at least.But its till looks more like "turtling until the blood economy is running" if you not only skip lavas but also the Heavy Infantries for the early game(concerning sloth 3).

Not really, think of Salamanders as an indy leader with a fire brand and big heat aura, because that is almost exactly how they work. The gold cost for them starts to look very reasonable when you start thinking in those terms.

Note however, you need a demonbred to lead the mixed formation, which is not actually bad thing, since he can bring prison of fire to the party. These groups work fine against indies and other players early.

Of course you don't always need to include salamanders with your humanbred, just when the situation requires it.