LA Utgard guide

[thejeff]

If you've got a decent Blood economy going, Armor of Souls can help bring mr up to a respectable level.

Soul Slay tends to target high hp units and you don't really have anything with more hp than Skratti werewolves, so it's hard to use decoys.

[Viajero]

The thing is that even with a higer MR, if my opponet fields say 6 or 7, or more S2 mages spamming paralyze or SS chances are in a few turns my thugs will be toast anyways, right? could even be worst if he arms them with a few penetration items, spell focus, star skull cap, lucky coin etc.

[Dragar]

There is a counter to everything, but there is a difference between being susceptible to a swag of mages with gear, and being a sitting duck for one astral mage

A group of astral mages is your biggest nightmare as utgard, got to find a way to be creative. I have that issue in a current game, there are no simple solutions and it is very painful. If you have decent earth somehow use rain of stones or earthquake on them, or fire storm if you have the fire. If you have blood high enough use some devil thugs or drop Infernal Disease on him. Cast leprosy. Bring your own astral mages and Banner of the Northern Star and mind duel if you have a heap of seithkona handy and are willing to accept the losses. Possibly form a communion and have the masters mind duel.

Failing all that attack where all those mages aren't, and remember that if he has a heap of mages out fighting they aren't at home researching or site searching. If an opponent can really play on your weakness you'll have to be more patient.

[Viajero]

Yup, good advice, will have to become very creative to beat those mages! :-)

But as you say, if he is sending them out it means they are not doing any research or making items indeed which is good.

[thejeff]

Note that Northern Star, communions, or any other kind of boosters don't help with Mind Duel.

Seithkona are cheap mind duelers and thus make a good counter to the large Astral mage forces. If nothing else they're a good deterrent.
LA Arco doesn't have a lot of strong Astral mages. Lots of 1s and 2s, but they'll have to have boosters, buff or communion to Soul Slay, which gives you a little leeway.
Your Skratti thugs make good raiders. They're not quite so good against large mage supported armies, but that's true against all but the toughest SCs.

[Viajero]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Note that Northern Star, communions, or any other kind of boosters don't help with Mind Duel.

Did not know that, I thought all those counted in a mind duel!

Anyways, the issue with skratii werewolves is not mind duel as it only deals with leaders with astral magic, but rather soul slay or paralyze.

Do the items above count towards souls slay and paralyze?

[Agema]

You can think about Starshine Skullcaps for the Werewolves. That's another +2MR (+4 from amulet) to 20 total, and brings the head protection up over 15. But 7-10 astral pearls is a lot in the gem-scarce LA, and you're wasting the +1S boost. Mostly, I'd just try to avoid soul-slay capable mages where possible.

[thejeff]

Yes. Mind duel is special. Only the mages actual Astral level, without buffs or boosters count for the duel itself. Astral boosters still count towards reducing fatigue from casting the spell, I assume.

For soul slay & paralyze boosts work as usual.

[Agema]

The mind duel is relevant here because you can risk your Seithkonas trying to astral duel Arco mages so that they can't Soul Slay your Werewolves. If you're trying to mind duel a natural S4, that's probably going to mean about 5 dead seithkonas per dead enemy. If you're targetting an S2 that's casting SS using boosters, you'll lose about 1.7 seithkonas per dead S2.

[Dragar]

exactly, very economical - especially given the equipment he is losing. Even if you get unlucky firs ttime you use it, it will certainly scare him