Lifelong Protection Spam

[shovah]

little tactic ive just made up that obviously will (like all my other ideas) have a bunch of maor flaws i would like you guys to point out (and comment on the idea itself)
basically you get a bunch of stealthy units (preferably assasins/with black hearts) and give them each a lifelong protection. you then send them at the enemy (this works VERY well with BF ulm wolfherds imo, they can also create their own arrow catchers) and sneak in, preform a few assasinations if you want and then attack an enemy province. the huge stream of imps they create destroys pd, most indies and most small/medium army depending on how many you use (i try to get 8+)
if you want to increase the power of this try giving each of them a skullface and to really boost that give them boots of quickness. a single guy, with protection, skullface and the boots produces 2 imps and 10 skeletons per turn iirc which is perfect for assasinating (what commander can kill 12 guys per turn without spells?) but even without skullface and the boots the 2 imps per turn can be difficult for most non summoned commanders to handle (since they fly they stop them casting spells so...)
if you plan on taking out any reasonably sized force go with the skullface (and possibly boots) setup for added punch but for anything else stealth+lifelong protection is fine
if you have 8 assasins with contracts and nothing else picture this: you assasinate all enemy commanders with your 8 assasins apart from 1 who got very lucky and killed your assasin, now theres 7 left. you attack the province that is left with pd and whatever those commanders had (assuming they wernt just sages or such) and are producing 14 imps every battle round, all 14 imps get killed during the first few rounds but succeed in keeping the enemy back and kill 1 or 2 each turn. gradually this begins to take its toll and the enemy is worn down. this dosnt work vrs larger forces so as i said raid things. fairly expensive but from my tests (me vrs me so not facing the rubbish scripting/force composition of ai) works quite well. the skullface+boots guys can even be used vrs armies (6 of them make 60 skeletons and 12 imps a turn, who can stand up to that barrage?) so as ive said plenty of flaws (cost being the major one) but discuss away.

[Saber Cherry]

A force costing 8*(10+20+20)=80 water, 160 death, and 160 slaves should be expected to wipe out virtually any normal opposition. They're vulnerable to fliers, priests, archers, cavalry, and especially single-target spells like mind burn / soul slay / sleep / frozen heart that don't work on SCs due to their high HP and MR. And they can rarely survive Horrors from their horror mark. Consider that force attacking a Queen of Elemental Water leading 30 Claymen, two Spectres leading 60 Wights and 100 Longdead Horsemen, an Arch Devil leading 25 Devils, and 8 Priests.

As Jotunheim, I find Lifelong + Frost Brand + Skull Talisman on a Scout or Soul Contract + Frostbrand + Lucky Coin + bodyguards on a Jarl to work well, as they can kill Lesser Horrors. But even Jotun Scouts are not safe to use alone, and are best as part of a well balanced army, including grapefruit.

[shovah]

the point is these guys arent meant to be attacking big armies, they are just powerful raiders and should be used accordingly.
ps: thanks for the input

[Boron]

LLP is indeed quite useful. The imps have quite decent stats also. Dom 2 has some issues with the low maximum unit number but in Dom 3 those issues will hopefully be gone.

If in Dom 3 FotA is still as it is imagine massproducing LL Protections . 10 Blood for a LL Protection . If you use it on something stealthy you can thus avoid flames from the sky and the like.
If you would theoretically manage to build 100 LL protections e.g. i can imagine little that works well vs. it.
Optimally would be as SC pointed out be Jotun Scouts as carriers . They wouldn't die so easily vs. Wrathful skies and similiar stuff. And 200 (or 400 with quickness) Imps a turn should kill a lot .

[shovah]

i havnt noticed quickness effecting the imps, and something that really kicks *** is vampire o****s with them (they raid a province and can summon vamps in it+they dont need skullface to raise skeletons. not to mention they are hard to kill and good fighters.

[OG_Gleep]

Don't just summoned units from items not work well as they can make the entire lot break? Ie: wouldn't this be the same as taking a moloch solo?

[shovah]

dont know, ive done this with solo guys before and even when all imps die they seemed to stick around.

[quantum_mechani]

That is because it generates a new (unrouted one) each turn. If the ll pact holder gets paralysed or falls below 100 fatigue though, the stream stops, which can lead to some nasty die-on-reteat cases.

[Cainehill]

Yeah - I think that when all the imps (etc) have fled, _before_ the check is made for the commander, the new critter generate.

Then, the commander check is made, _then_ the new imps die or flee, but the commander check has already been done. It's all in the sequence of events.

Also : If all auto-summoned critters _die_ vice routing, the commander doesn't route. The CB mod thus made various auto-summoning pretenders (other than Moloch who is uber no matter what) more viable by giving the summoned critters 30 morale - if they never rout, they never cause retreat.