Bandar Log

[TwoBits]

Previously, I hadn't given much thought to the monkey races, at least not the "good" ones that is. But I took a look at the Log recently, and was pleasantly surprised!

They have a bewildering variety of regular national troops, including stealth units, long bows, high HP/strength infantry, and elephants.

They have a relatively cheap, moderately effective sacred recruitable everywhere, and a somewhat expensive but intriguing capital only sacred.

And although their national mages and priests are limited (pretty much astral and nature magic only, and H1 only), but they have access to several outstanding summons. They'll get you into Earth, Water, and Air in a big way, there are a couple of H3 commanders, and since one of the patches (at least he's not in the manual), an H4 commander. There are also a couple 4-armed commanders, and a couple with flying, and one with a map move of 10!

And I don't know if this is a bug or WaD, but they have access to all of Lanka's unique death and blood summons.


So, how do people play these guys? Go for a bless strategy (light or heavy)? Go bad and try to get into Blood? Elephant rush? Think about communions?

What sort of pretenders do folks favor here (right now, I'm getting good use from an imprisoned W9 River Lady with excellent scales)?

How do you use the various national units (like that chakram guy, for instance)?

Looking forward to reading peoples ideas. Thanks!

[Starshine_Monarch]

Well for pretenders, I tend to favor an Oracle. It costs nothing and has a high starting dominion, so I can use the points I save for scales. I usually imprison give him at least one full bless, as well as enough Astral magic to cast any of their unique Astral summons. Hm what else...Order is nice to have with BL. Production doesn't seem to be a big issue if you stick to using the naked archers instead of the armored variety, and even though your White One warriors need some resources, you can only recruit so many a turn anyways because they're sacred. It will be difficult trying to mass your frontline Bandar soldiers with a Sloth scale though, so I suggest at least Production 1. If you have Order scales, it can offset a little bit of Misfortune if you need points. I personally like to put points into Magic scales to research my national summons quickly. If you can get a large enough pearl income from site searching, the Ghandarvas you can summon can easily replace the large Bandar soldiers with their extra stats and that they don't eat supplies. Plus, they are Sacred as well, so they can benefit from a good bless. I tend to be the one with the really high dominion later in the game because of my habit of building temples whenever I have the money, even before I build fortresses.

The chakram dude I think you can use like any other light infantry with a javelin. However, his lack of a shield kind of worries me a bit. I haven't really gotten to use him yet...

[Shovah32]

I like an oracle with S9 and either F9 or W9(generally water) which helps both white ones and sacred summoned thugs/SCs. With him imprisoned you can go Dom6, order 3, heat 3(temperature dosnt spread fast enough for it to be a real issue), misfortune 3, magic 1 and 2 picks in production and growth as you want to place them.

[Folket]

I tend to favour production with Bandar log. In general I do not produce that many archers. The bandar log with sticks and stones seems more useful. Two ranged attacks withg strength of longbow at half range. Then I use mostly bandar logs with Iron cudgels and elephants in the front line. That was how I played Kailasa. Bandar log have great capital only sacreds and fair other sacreds so a bless can be very powerful, but ordinary units can still hold in a fight.

A problem with their army is the low MR. Could be ugly against astral nations. When I tried them in single player I had a S9 blessing (for MR) and started to recruit independent scouts as soon as I found them to start my blood economy.

[Shovah32]

With their strong national astral mages i like to boost one or to up to a higher level(generally lucky S5 rishi's with skullcaps and maybe rings of sorcery) to discourage enemies from using astral mages in battle(and once you get your teleporting S9 magic dueling pretender out...).

[Micah]

Kissblade put up a Patala guide, some of the suggestions may apply for BL:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

I'd certainly agree with his assessment that your pretender needs to be out getting his or her hands dirty to compensate for BL's crappy troops. The Log sacreds strike me as worthless. The only time I'd want a tiger rider over an elephant is against soul slay, in which case I'd much rather have 5 other troops instead of either. 10 HP, 11 MR, non stealthy troops for 100 gold? Thanks, but no. The white one warriors are pretty mediocre as well.

Oh, and don't forget to abuse your elephants.

[Shovah32]

I like to take a bless to increase the power of the sacred summons which i use as thugs/SCs(extra MR and either attack and flaming weapons or defence and +50%ap). That, along with the fairly high dominion score i take to spread my good dominion means white ones are both fairly good troops and quite avaliable(also work well with elephants due to normal move speed, good morale and blessings morale boost).
Your troops arent too sucky for MA and patala certainly needs more military help than bandar log as longbows and other non-AP ranged weapons are still perfectly viable in MA.

and like Micah said: abuse elephants.

edit: woa, i just noticed those blood summons. They arent particularly easy to get but wow, that seems pretty strong.
The description of the summon rakshasa spells seems to indicate they are WAD -

Most rakshasas are found in the demon kingdom of lanka, but some are summoned by unscrupulous monkey sorcerors

[Folket]

Micah try the sacred tigers. As far as I know it is the only sacred with three high attack, high damage attacks. With any bless they eat any ordinary unit. Also their other sacerd are just heavy infantry. But with a bless they will be heavy infantry with an edge.

Also I think Kissblade is far off on his assessments on BL's troops. Light Bandar warriors and Bandar warriors with iron cudgel should be the mainstay of your army, assuming you do not have a bless. I know what I'm speaking of since I played Patala in "11p very large" and managed to become twice the size of anyone else. Unless I have a bless I would always take prod 3.

[Sandman]

For a 100 gold unit, the tigers have terrible hit-points and protection. In big battles with lots of arrows flying about, they're likely to take heavy losses.

[MaxWilson]

On the other hand... Kailasa does have good access to Earth mages, right? I'm thinking of Iron Warriors and Legions of Steel.

-Max