I hate horrors

[Herode]

Hmmm... The Cindesuckerella One ?

Hooooooooooooooooooo, yes, I confess : I love Horrors

[Tifone]

Originally Posted by Herode

Hooooooooooooooooooo, yes, I confess : I love Horrors

Yeah! Me too! Think, my ex-gf was called the Maker of Ruins. That's what she made of our relationship

[markmayhugh]

I am unsure why this thread is so long. If I understand correctly:

If

1. the Pretender scripts Returning
2. and has two astral gems on hand
3. and is not at his home province (so keep him elsewhere)

Then

as defender he gets to cast Returning first, and no horror (or any other assassination attempt) can touch him under any circumstances. So no death, additional horror marks, or any other negative consequence. There is the one turn penalty of having to move back out of the home province next turn, after restocking Astral gems.

Is this correct? If so, then problem solved, so I can't understand why one would worry about bodyguards or any other less effective method of protection or evasion. If not, can someone enlighten me?

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by markmayhugh

I am unsure why this thread is so long.

This is a very old thread you unburried... there's plenty of very long threads which are dead.

Originally Posted by markmayhugh

If I understand correctly:

If

1. the Pretender scripts Returning
2. and has two astral gems on hand
3. and is not at his home province (so keep him elsewhere)

Then

as defender he gets to cast Returning first, and no horror (or any other assassination attempt) can touch him under any circumstances. So no death, additional horror marks, or any other negative consequence. There is the one turn penalty of having to move back out of the home province next turn, after restocking Astral gems.

Is this correct? If so, then problem solved, so I can't understand why one would worry about bodyguards or any other less effective method of protection or evasion. If not, can someone enlighten me?

Your suggestion works if the pretender has astral magic... not all pretenders will have astral. Second problem is your suggestion permanently prevents the pretender from being available for any battle on the map or even on the border for pushing dominion.

[thejeff]

Well, it does mean you can't use him on the battlefield: scripted Returning isn't very helpful in battle.

Though your solution is fine if you just want him casting rituals/forging etc.
In fact, it's even easier. IIRC, special battles, like assassinations & horror attacks take place in a special province, so Returning works even if you leave him at home.

[vfb]

You can get attacked by horrors more than once in the same month, if AC is up and you are horror marked or are in the HoF, and you cast/forge non-blood.

But most of the time if you are forging/casting rituals, and you god/mage has astral, it's safe to script returning. That's what I do usually, because you never know when something really nasty will show up.

[Agema]

You did the right thing, I think: you can cast returning from assassinations and horrors, but you have to be away from the home province.

If your pretender has astral or air, if you wanted to Dom push or something, you could move him out with teleport or cloud trapeze, and hope he lasts a while before there's an attack that he returns from. Although if the god was unable to defeat likely attackers, planning to replace him (empowering a mage, building temples) in some way might be a cheaper alternative than perpetually spending gems dodging bullets.

Assassins and assassin spells can be effectively neutralised with extra commanders as chaff, assassins can be removed by heavy patrolling/PD, and spells by shields.

[MaxWilson]

Why do you need to cast returning? Unless it's a human-sized pretender, Ritual of Returning should be good enough, and still lets you participate in battles.

Even a Doom Horror isn't going to kill a Titan or a Cyclops in one hit. And he's a pretender (Morale 30), so you don't need to worry about him catching Fear and running away to his death.

-Max

[thejeff]

Actually the Doom Horrors are likely to kill most pretenders in one hit.
Many of them have multiple instant death attacks.
Even without that, there are also the horror mark boosting attacks just to increase the chance you'll die soon.

But it might be worth risking for a major battle.

[fictionfan]

After all this talk about horrors I feel like making a strategy with them.

Here is a funny Idea. Imagine The kingly ones and astral corruption being used at the same time.