Urgent Thug advice needed

[Hoplosternum]

I appear to have blundered in to a MP game for newbies and now find that some newbies are more newbie than others. And I certainly fall in to the former category So I am hoping to get a bit of advice without giving my whole position away. But as this is a newbie game I am taking it as a bit of a learning experience anyway so if this thread invites my destruction thats just too bad And hopefully any advice will be useful to me and others in later games.

I am looking for some Thug advice specifically. Hopefully before its too late My typical thugs leave something to be desired - usually being something like a Commander weighed down by expensive magic items

Here is my game position. Sorry for not being completely open but these boards may have enemy eyes upon them

We are in what I imagine would be called the mid game....

The only magic path I am weak in is Blood. I have a small blood economy but have done little research here and I have no blood & fire/water combination mages. But if pure blood is worth pursuing (or blood/astral/death combinations) I can expand my blood economy and research here relatively quickly. Every other path I can put together a decent levelled mage with boosters including most combinations.

I can construct just about anything I want. Sadly gems are not unlimited and I am especially short of fire gems - while having decent astral & earth incomes.

But what sort of equipment is best for thugs?

I have a relatively low Summon & Enchant research levels at the moment, but have a 20% discount site for the latter.

I don't have a decent national Thug chassis - either summons or recruitable. So I'll need to summon those commonly available to all.

So what should I summon as thugs or should I even summon thugs at all?

What level in Enchantment or Summon do I need before I can summon a reasonable chassis?

Limited Gift of Reasons are an (expensive) option. Presumably this is not worth doing on a Behemoth or Gargoyle type unit but should wait for a 'proper' SC chassis? And is this worth doing to get the slots or do you really need to start empowering to make this worth while?

Or should I not bother with further Thugs and just wait for SCs or go with none leader summons (Gargoyles etc.)?

I am a lot closer to Iron Dragons/Jugganauts/Siege Golems than I am to Abominations & Tartarians. But I imagine any Thug chassis will be found on the way to the later and I can always reuse the Thug equipment on SCs when I get to them? Which way should I research?

Mage support of most paths and combinations including communions are an option. I don't have any thugable mages but could communions themselves be an alternative to thugs and so should I just go for more battlefield magic protected by chaff instead?

All advice gratefully received.

[Baalz]

Here's a thread where I'm talking about a specific thug chassis, but I also delve into general thug theory and it should give you an idea of what you want to do so you can re-examine what you have available.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...=&fpart=2&vc=1

[Shovah32]

What do you have to face with your thug(s)? Specifically, what magic? Knowing whether we need high protection/resistances/MR ect would help.

[sector24]

If you have death gems, you can try the Bane Lord. Enchantment doesn't really have summonable thugs, but Pale Riders is a good Enchantment spell that gets a whole lot better when you save a few gems on each cast.

[Micah]

Gargoyles are actually quite a nice chassis except for the abysmal MR score...if you can keep them away from stuff that will exploit that they're actually SC-quality, and a lot of spells that are MR-resisted won't work on them due to them being mindless. Disintegrate, opposition, and shatter (not MR, but huge damage) are extremely problematic though, so use flight and avoid engaging mages that can toss those spells at you.

[Hoplosternum]

Shovah32 said:
What do you have to face with your thug(s)? Specifically, what magic? Knowing whether we need high protection/resistances/MR ect would help.

Not really sure at this stage as I am mostly at peace. My only current enemy is R'yleh. But as I have not ventured under the water yet and he is in what looks like a losing fight with multiple enemies I think he will not attack me. there are a lot of potential rivals though - covering most magic paths and combinations. My other neighboures are NAPed or distracted so I have a brief build window perhaps....

[CUnknown]

For thugs, generally I guess the idea is you don't want to have too much invested in them, because by definition (i.e. not being SCs), they are pretty killable.

So, like a Bane Lord or Firbolg Sleeper.. it's a cheap commander (10-12 gems). They both start off with magic weapons, so I suppose you could use them as is. But, generally you'll want some sort of weapon in there (maybe a fire brand, 6 gem cost total with hammer). You also don't want them to die too fast, so maybe throw on a protection item or two. Like an amulet of magic resistance, luck pendant, ring of lightning resist, or burning pearl (all 3 gem items with hammer).

The protection item you choose of course depends on what sorts of threats you will be facing (magic resistance if you are facing priests or astral mages, lightning resist against Caelum, etc.).

So, that is a 12 gem bane lord, 6 gem sword, and 3 gem protection item for a grand total of 21 gems.

If you want to get fancy, add another protection item and boots of quickness or flying (7 gems) for a grand total of 31 gems.

Oh, if you have researched a lot of construction, you might want to consider golems as well.

[vfb]

Regular Golems are probably not a good plan against R'lyeh because of Magic Duel.

[Darkstone]

You have quite a manner of drawing attention to yourself, Arco.

[Aezeal]

haha

ps
1. a thug should have luck
2. and at least def or prot above 20-25
3. a shield is always nice against arrows, one that attacks/hinders enemies is better
4. a lot of HP never hurts
5. AoE damage helps a lot