MA Marignon

[BigDisAwesome]

I still think F9/S9 is where it's at if you want to take a bless with Marignon. The Twist Fate is basically doubling a Flagellant's life span, the flaming weapons are great for their and the Knight's multiple attacks, and the Magic Resist is great for your angels when you start summoning them.

[WraithLord]

I'm playing a MP game with MA Marignon and have done some tests prior to starting it. I have come to consolidate the following opinions about this nation (in no particular order or importance):
1. Its not really a bless nation. The knights of the chalice are nice but capitol only. The falgelants are crap.
2. Mundane armies are xbows, infantry screens ( pick and choose depending on the opposition there's an answer for opposing cavs, archers and infantry). Those should be backed up by mages and inquisitors. Mages mostly spam evoc. fire spells and priests boost moral and possibly banish/smite.
3. Magical diversity is bad (S+F almost exclusively). Rainbow mage is almost a must on this nation. Its possible to use a hybrid SC/Rainbow chassis or a full SC but I dislike those options as both have negative impact on end game.
4. Astral. Surprisingly Marignon is not the king (at least not when nations such as Pythium, Bandar, R'lyeh, MA Ermor are involved). So special care needs to be taken when facing a strong astral nation.
5. Dominion kill is a viable strategy. It takes some managing investment but sneaking preachers and inquisitors may pull this off.
6. Angels are one of this nations prominent powers. Plan to use them often and well. All the angel types have their uses as SCs/ anti SCs/ Raiders.
7. Blessable mages benefit from earth bless.
8. The above makes research order clear. Evoc. 4 (holy pyre, fireball). Summon. 7 (angels). Alt. 3 (SC buffs). Const 4 (SC basic items). Thaum 3 (elemental search, mind burn, teleport).
9. The above makes optimal pretender clear. Cheap rainbow mage (don't worry about high dominion due to good preachers). E4-6, N2-4, A2-4, W2-4, D2-4, the rest are optional. Dominion 5-7.

[mathusalem]

can you detail the 6. about the use of angels ?

[WraithLord]

I can throw some ideas off the top of my head but I'm sure its far from covering all their uses. Those are ideas I have already used and know to work well. Angels:
1. Harbringer. Awe is good vs. low moral units. A2 gives him air shield for archers, mistform and mirror image. Equip it with vine/charcoal shield, fire/frost brand, cheap armor, boots of stone/quicknes, lucky pendant/amulet antimagic, cat charm/ring of regen. It can and should bless self or an angel of fury partner. It can also cloud trapez, giving it invaluable strategic movement (teleport to front lines or on top of an annoying army).

It can be used to blast undead with heavenly horn/banishment as well. This chasis can get down with any mundane army easy enough. I have seen it chow down armies many a times both in SP and MP. For mere 25S I consider it a bargain.

2. Angel of fury. Heavy duty flying killing machine. Good SC/Anti SC chasis. His base stats are generally better than those of the harbinger and he has fear and blood vengeance.
As an SC you could equip him as the harbringer but remember that it is relatively vulnerable to ranged fire (xbows come to mind) so either pair him with an air shielded harbringer decoy or give him robe/amulet of missile protection. He is blessable so if you have a nice bless pair him with another angel that can bless him.
More HP (around 50 IIRC) on him means he benefits from regen.
The blood vengeance is good for both crowd control (pair with charcoal shield and rime hauberk), retaliate vs. mages and inflict additional damage on opposing SCs.

3. Angelic host. very good vs. undead SCs (banelords, wraithlords and tartarians) due to flambaeu. put the host on guard commander and the angel on phoenix pyre, fire shield, attack rear. BTW, flambaeu costs 20F and the summons 50s, so in situations where its used the summons become quite cost effective.

4. Heavenly choir, I have yet to summon one not in SP nor MP. The above three were always enough to secure victory (or defeat). But the stats do seem to suggest the seraph to be one of the supreme critters in the dominions universe.

5. All angels fly which makes them good at raiding. The host can be summoned to an enemy province (though I usually wouldn't recommend it - the AI will make bad use of it). The harbringer and seraph teleport.

[mathusalem]

thanks for explanation, do you think gift of reason Heavenly choir units is worth it ?

[WraithLord]

I think this is situational, mainly depends on the availability of nature mages and more importantly nature gems. If you're relatively short on the astral gems and have plenty of nature gems then GORing angels from the choir is probably worth it. AFAIK harbringer is better than angel of the choir so GOR him. About angel of the choir I've no idea yet, I'll try to GOR one in an SP game and see what comes out of it.

[BigandScary]

If you are talking about GoR a seraph, let me tell you, it is worth it. This is what you get:

[Shovah32]

I thought Seraphs were naturally commanders from that spell? I think he is talking about GoRing the other angels that heavenly choir gives you.

[BigandScary]

that makes sense. nevermind

[Tyrant]

I have to agree with Wraith on all points. I like Marignon and have had some success with them in MP. One of the things i like about them is that they have an easy plan for the early, mid and late game. There is a strategy there for Flagellants with a heavy offensive bless, but it seems to me to be an art project. Why go to all that trouble when you have an excellent easy path available? To me it seems like they have a very straighforward progression:

X-bows
X-bows + Fireballs
X-bows + Fireballs + Astral Fire
Angels

Cav and High Inquisitors have a place as well, but your infantry is four flavors of crap and their only job is to hold the line long enough to let you destroy the enemy with massive firepower. That should get you through to the late game so you can summon angels, and make no mistake- Angels are grade A late game whup.

The two straightforward options are rainbow god or a weak god with excellent scales and dominion strength.

A few random notes-

Excellent PD. By itself it's ok, but reinforced with a small contingent of linemen and a few Witch Hunters it can really take bite out of your enemies without risking much of your own. (subject to match up issues of course)

Harbingers get you into air magic, so it might be a good idea to have air on your god to search for gems so the Harbingers have something to spend when you get them. Even better to take 4 air so you can make powerup items.

A bunch of Inquisitors working together can do some amazing things- I once fliped a provence from -2 to +5 in a single turn.