I hate horrors

[Ranger]

Should Horror Mark end the game?

If your god gets a horror mark he/she is doomed! They will die again and again while getting weaker and weaker!

I don't mind losing high power magic users, but a pretenter god (main character in the game) should have some defence, otherwize it's game over!

[Velusion]

Ranger said:
Should Horror Mark end the game?

If your god gets a horror mark he/she is doomed! They will die again and again while getting weaker and weaker!

I don't mind losing high power magic users, but a pretenter god (main character in the game) should have some defence, otherwize it's game over!

First - the game is not over if your pretender is not on this mortal plane (aka dead). Why do you keep saying that?

Yes, if you put your pretender in situations where he might be horror marked you are risking his life. Either live with the risk or don't.

I think most people here would agree that getting horror marked should be a very bad thing and don't have a problem with the fact that even pretenders can rarely stand against horrors.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Ranger

Should Horror Mark end the game?

If your god gets a horror mark he/she is doomed! They will die again and again while getting weaker and weaker!

I don't mind losing high power magic users, but a pretenter god (main character in the game) should have some defence, otherwize it's game over!

You know, there is nothing that says you actually have to bring hm back. He's perfectly safe in the nether world. Don't Call God.

[NTJedi]

normalphil said:
I'm with ranger here with thinking that the people responding to this thread haven't quite grasped a part of what he's saying.

I recently ran an EA Abyssia SP game with a F9B6 Moloch, got Malphus on the second turn, and decided to start Devil spamming with soul contracts. The horror marks didn't start showing for a while so I was cheap about it and used regular infantry to guard the contract holders. A few years later, I was getting a fresh horror attack on somebody each month, and started paying attention to them. They with little variation went like this;

Turn 1 (me): Contract-holder either casts Astral Shield or Fire Shield, depending if he's an Anthamat or a Warlock. Size 10 Bodyguard squad travels forward their full movement trying to come to grips with the Horror.

Turn 1 (horror): The Horror flies up to my now uncovered contract-holder and kills him.

Variations were those intances where the horror didn't manage to fully kill the contract-holder on the first turn and killed him on the second turn before the bodyguards could turn around and get to the fight, and that one time where the mage survived long enough for his bodyguards to get back to where the fight was and eventually kill the horror.

When it got annoying I started assigning Devils as bodyguards. That didn't actually work as well as I thought it would... they fly out and attack the horror well enough, but if they don't kill it on the first turn, you're back where you started.


Bodyguards in a Special Attack fight where the oponnent flies have a glaring weakness (although you probably weren't going to even be a speedbump to that Vastness anyway...). I can't really think of a way to fix it beyond positioning your gaurds so that they're a full movement behind the commander. But that's easy to screw up.

Well you could try providing the horror marked mage/pretender with blood slaves... yes they die easy but they will stay next to the commander.

[Aleph]

Normalphil - You could have scripted the Warlock to cast Returning and made sure he had a couple astral gems on him at all times. I think you have to store him away from your capital, but besides that it's a foolproof way to keep your Devil factory going indefinitely. And the other solutions listed above work fine as well.

I think we understand just fine, though - we just disagree that it's a problem. Don't intentionally horror mark anyone you want to survive in the long term. Heck, even the astral corruption stuff I was describing on the previous page didn't cause horror marks - it just caused predictable horror attacks under certain circumstances.

Aside: Do horrors fly or teleport? If they fly you could drop a staff of storms into the picture.

[Nick_K]

IIRC from Dom2 Horrors fly, but they can fly during storms

[mivayan]

normalphil said:
Turn 1 (me): Contract-holder either casts Astral Shield or Fire Shield, depending if he's an Anthamat or a Warlock. Size 10 Bodyguard squad travels forward their full movement trying to come to grips with the Horror.

If it's a strong mage that can kill a horror with a few casts of incinerate or frozen heart, 10 archers might be better. They'll not harm the horror but they wont move either.

Otherwise - oh well. The guy is dead, but at least he got to live in the palace while his friends died in war.

[normalphil]

mivayan said:

If it's a strong mage that can kill a horror with a few casts of incinerate or frozen heart, 10 archers might be better. They'll not harm the horror but they wont move either.

Otherwise - oh well. The guy is dead, but at least he got to live in the palace while his friends died in war.

That's a thought. It even gives me something worthwhile to do with the odd scorpian man.

[HoneyBadger]

Blinking away from assassins might just actually be a somewhat valuable use of that particular spell...
When Immortal Pretenders are killed-if I remember right?-you don't lose any of their Paths. Too bad there's no artifact that confers immortality, although the Elixer of Life is another decent idea.

Among the best choices for bodyguards against Horrors:
Watchers-big, immobile, hard to destroy, lightning attack. Great for immobile or seldom-moved Pretenders, less great for ones you're going to move a lot. The patrol bonus is an added plus, though. No resistance needed.
The aforementioned Spring Hawks-etherial, flying, area shock attack. You'll probably want shock resistance with these guys.
Longdead archers-Banefire bow-use a ring of warning and 10 of them, if you can, with these guys, since they're not the toughest dudes, at 5 hp each. No resistance needed.
Frost fiends-frost blast, cold effect. Much better than Devils, especially against major Horrors, but you'll need cold resistance.
Storm Demons-flying, 2 attacks, shock damage. Probably the best choice among blood-summons.
Fire Snake-fire flare plus venemous fangs makes these guys a good all-purpose bodyguard choice. Not the best, but certainly not the worst. Great in combination with storm and ice damage units. Resistance to fire is recommended.
Scorpion Man-enchanted bow, enchanted sword, multiple attacks. 10 of these, with a really powerful Pretender, just might be able to survive a Doom Horror-or not?

Amphiptere: Flying, plus venomous fangs, plus poison spray-Note: the only pure poisoner I'll bother to list, since poison spray puts it above other flying poison weapon units-for my reasoning on poison, see below. An amazing bodyguard choice if you're "just" facing Horrors, but I would still prefer to put 1 or 2 Amphiptere in combination with other bodyguard types, to protect against normal assassins. Poison resistance is probably a good idea, but it's good for anyone you're worried about being a target for assassins.

If you can't get any of these, investing in some fire or cold drakes as bodyguards for a badly horrormarked Pretender is an ok choice, since they don't project heat or cold auras-thus, you can recruit them alongside each other, and you don't necessarily have to wear resistance items, just to survive your bodyguards-plus they have elemental breath weapons. Relatively expensive, but 40 (or even 80) gems is probably less than your Pretender's life is worth.

They also work together well with the other bodyguard suggestions I've mentioned, since they won't put them at risk, either, and drakes are tough enough to be able to survive most friendly fire.

Note: I don't like using units that *just* do magical, or poisonous (or just those two) types of damage, because a lot of assassins are going to be poison resistant, and horrors are often *very* resistant to magical weapons. Multiple attacks are ok, but you need more than just that on a good bodyguard, since a dozen normal attacks per round might still not get through true etherialness.

Big guards are ok, if they don't move, but flying or shooting guards are better, since they can strike the would-be assassin anywhere on the battlefield.

The reason for this is that I've lost more commanders to being "faked out" by assassins, who get past my guards without killing them, than I've ever lost commanders to assassins/horrors, after they've killed the bodyguards.

[rdonj]

If you don't mind your pretender going mad, the astral rod that shifts things out of existence is pretty good at getting rid of horrors. I've seen a master lich defeat at least one doom horror with it.