some tips on units

[VladK02]

after 2 playthroughs, wanted to share some tips on units and stuff.

main hero - a tank. get command aura at start, extra damage is less important then buffing units. hp is not an issue later on. put skill points into command tree for extra supply and extra item slots. you want additional units. later on you will have purple items to make him armored and tanky.

sister - she becomes your primary magic dps later on. skills are tight, so you will have to forgo some - you want chain lightning 2, you want 2 extra item slots, and you want +50% magic damage at end of summoning tree - this means you have to skip rune-bound and everything else. mana is not an issue mid and late game, so dont worry about it. before she becomes overpowered dps caster, use her as utility summoner - summon speed elementals and use them to cap backline caves and stuff.

ravencloak hero - not very good. buffer/debuffer, but there are items for that. can be safely skipped when sister says not to trust him. sister takes -1 morale hit if you take him, and when shes on her dragon, that -1 morale really eats into her tankiness vs fire archers and enemy generals on dragons.

ulnar - he leaves you mid-game anyways, so, dont worry about him too much. his main use is frenzy aura to buff your troops. otherwise, hes a decent combatant, but becomes obsolete mid-game. no armor, fear aura gimping your own lines...just...average hero. its safe not to take him at all honestly.

troll hero - leaves you mid-game. use as healer and tank, not much else to say. stone armor spell is very good coupled with ancestor guidance from sister - cast both on main hero, he becomes unkillable for a few turns in those early fights.

dolos - main mana generator and fantastic utility hero. he will demand something like 2, 6, and and another 6 liquid mana to stay with you - pay the price. i gave him stealth, mana generation, and pockets, but on him you dont need pockets. stealth also you dont really need, you can give him shroud later on. dont get ressurect, gold is not an issue. build him to chains of torment, so you cast those on a bait unit like trolls or maidens, they absorb hits, but something else dies. anyways, best hero.

princess - she is okay. not a good combatant, but pegasi anti-archer aura and champion ability make her a good partner for your dragon-mounted sister.

i might have missed some heroes, dont remember.

units -

magic zerkers - with morale item, immune to magic damage. utility is situational, mostly for lizard lands. what you do with these guys, is send them as bait to absorm magic damage from lizard skirmishers, trigger ambushes and the like. park them on magic shrines that give terrain bonus of -25% magic damage, and zerkers will perma-hold those objectives. there is a few spots on lizard lands where a regen or speed shrine is guarded by 6=7 lizard units, but you can cap on turn one or 2 with speed buffs. thats what these guys do - speed them up, send them to cap, and then leave them there and watch AI uselessly swarm around them.

werebears - not very good. trolls are tankier and more dps-y. fear aura is situational at best, because radius is so small. you want morale bombs, use summoned bears.

thanes - get 2, give them damage banners, use them to buff your arty and archer clumps with +60% damage. enough said. they also beef magic damage resistance on your units to near immunity level.

slingers - armored variant is usless in late game. main threats are armored dragons, armored enemy archers, phalanx infantry....they dont have the AP or the range to deal with it. overall, dont get them. get 3 thunderers and give them 3 blood oakbows for extra range. armored slingers are okay, dont get me wrong, but there are better ranged units (centaurs, skirmish cav).

axemen and heavy axemen - garbage. 2 movement speed, no rough terrain mobility - utter garbage. heavy spears too, for that reason. trash.

wolf mother - get 2. get one asap, and second one you get for free if you do isekal mission tree, otherwise recruit second one. main summons are crows - recon unit , own bear - tank, morale bomb, and web spider - altho they dont web fliers anymore. pegasi also not bad for anti archer aura.

melee cav - garbage. dont survive past first chagrge.

skirmish cav - very, very good unit late game. get 2, and possibly 3-4. they are your main unit for killing enemy arty and constructs, those HURT regular archer units. but skirmish cav can get in and out quick.

ambushers - you dont need more then 2. grab medred's knives named unit if you get the letter drop; that 10 gold on kill is nice. or was it 20 gold? ambushes drop off late game, and even with assasins mask and ghost sword (both purple items, +100% ambush dmg and +12 armor pirce), abushing cant kill enemy skirmish infantry anymore, so this unit is relegated to recon later on. in my mind, this is failure of game design - ambush damage does not scale well with extra health from experience. so late game, when enemy units are level 5-7-10, it just doesnt scale. ambushers cant kill anything, except odd bear in the corner of the map. but up to mid-game, this unit is nice.

skirmish infantry - they are okay, but utility falls off mid to late game. sometimes, you dont want units to retreat all the way back to your starting zone. get 2 for flanking if you want, but i would skip.

winged maidens. absolute beats. aerial assaults are best archer, construct and hero killer ability in the game. big thing with these ladies is their mobility. you know how many rivers and forests there are on the maps? a lot, thats how many. the fact that these can jump over straight up impassable terrain is amazing. armor piercing spears... there is really nothing wrong with them. grab 5-6, they are your front line infantry. give some of them boots of speed, and some of them plate mail. and watch them go to town.

trolls - armored trolls are nice tanks. with plate, become immune to physical. with thanes buffing them, become resistant to magic archers. hard to kill. grab 2.

Arty trolls - grab 3. this is what you do with these guys - in lizard lands, there are blood oaks. save scum to give each arty unit Strong trait, and one of them, pathfinder trait. put them in a clump with 2 thanes and your main hero. the auras, heroes, strong, and veterancy buff damage from your basic 24 to i think over 60 or 70. thats insta-kills on most enemy units. give trolls items like mana extractors, curse pendants, armor-pircing, etc. this is your main dps.

centaurs - grab the archer variant for pathfinder aura. also its a good anti-dragon sniper. give them boots of water-walking so they can keep up.

lizard infantry - honestly, i did not use them much. for capping backline ocean ruins and stuff a speed elemental is better. as a fighting unit, i tired them and found them somewhat weak on land. to make them work you need like 3 of them, but final fights will be on land and not in water so their utility is situational. i would skip. you can get 1 skirmisher just because he is stealthy on water.

summons -

crows/bats - good recon unit. if you summon it, enemy AI will focus it with archers. good bait unit.

bears - tank, dps, morale bomb. utility is good until end game, solid units.

pegasi - get 1 for anti-archer aura until you get princess.

spiders/wolves - bait, nothing more. summon them to offtank some hits.

web spider - used to be good when it could web fliers and bosses. now, not so much. situational.

speed elemental - best summon. coupled with wand of summoning (Strong to summons) becomes not only good backline capper, but also dps with its AoE.

storm elemental - situational. in packs of 3, takes out enemy heroes with lightning bolt. as a tank, not good, but decent throw-away glass cannon.

what units have i missed....

overall, winged maidens, troll arty core, thunderers for long range smackdown, and heroes to buff, debuff and summon trash to offtank. winning strat right there.

winged maidens need a nerf. they are too good.

[sandman25dcsss]

So basically units with liquid mana requirements are the best, that makes me sad.

[blindseye]

nice recap, thanks. I agree with 95%.

- I disagree on Ulnar, I found him to be bullet-proof after the beserker buff, until I had to give him up for princess (because I wanted to try her out).

- I disagree on the winged maidens, they are too squishy and die too easily, but perhaps I am not using them correctly or giving them the correct attachments to survive?

- I agree on the two lower level lizards but I disagree on the Lizard Devourers(?). They are killers when attacking in and from water. They are tanking beasts and can flank enemies along rivers and ocean. True, on the last few maps which are all land, they aren't as useful, as they move 2 on land (though you can give them tokens or boots of movement), but by then they are not needed as much. I used a pair of them to tag team each other to rest the wounded one. I gave them heavy armor when in combat (with the dragon scale armor one of them can last 3 turns taking 2-3 attacks per turn before needing to rest).

[VladK02]

Originally posted by blindseye:

- I disagree on the winged maidens, they are too squishy and die too easily, but perhaps I am not using them correctly or giving them the correct attachments to survive?.

I had plate +4 armor, or +2 armor belts on them most of the time, nothing special. Plate is fine most of the time if they are near your army. belt or speed boots if they are exploring sides of maps.

As long as you keep enemy archers neutralized with arty, maidens will survive just fine. maidens also take on archers very well themselves with an air drop. They break charges; drop them into a tile with fortification bonus, and they will hold out for very long.

but youre right, they are not a tank unit. they are a 'finisher'. they will hold for one turn, and then you either have won the fight, or they need to jump right out.

[blindseye]

and they use 2x mana per jump. I like the concept but tried one for about half a game and then gave up trying to keep her alive.

[Dorian Gray]

Originally posted by VladK02:

sister - this means you have to skip rune-bound and everything else. mana is not an issue mid and late game, so dont worry about it. before she becomes overpowered dps caster,

agree, skip rune-bound probably best.

Originally posted by VladK02:

ravencloak hero - not very good. buffer/debuffer, but there are items for that. can be safely skipped when sister says not to trust him. sister takes -1 morale hit if you take him, and when shes on her dragon, that -1 morale really eats into her tankiness vs fire archers and enemy generals on dragons.

i liked raven. having him allows you to do some interesting mass routing in conjuction with ulnar and main.

you can deal with one -1 morale hit on the sister.

Originally posted by VladK02:

ulnar - he leaves you mid-game anyways, so, dont worry about him too much.

it is not hard to keep ulnar, with proper dialog choices.

Originally posted by VladK02:

dolos - main mana generator and fantastic utility hero.

very good mana generator!

Originally posted by VladK02:

werebears - not very good. trolls are tankier and more dps-y. fear aura is situational at best, because radius is so small. you want morale bombs, use summoned bears.

agreed, never used them. by the time they come into play, seems you need more magic dealing units.

Originally posted by VladK02:

slingers - armored variant is usless in late game. main threats are armored dragons, armored enemy archers, phalanx infantry....they dont have the AP or the range to deal with it. overall, dont get them. get 3 thunderers and give them 3 blood oakbows for extra range. armored slingers are okay, dont get me wrong, but there are better ranged units (centaurs, skirmish cav).

the fact they get unlimited defensive fire on all attacks makes them useful.

did not worry about range with them, but give them items that provide debuffs against target (curse, harasser). i found it very useful for attackers to get pre-debuffed before they could attack you or the main line.

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witch doctor - i'm not sure if this was mentioned, but I used one and found the "petrify" spell extremely useful, with a good range of 5 hexes. additionally, witch doctor is a ranged magic slinger... which you can never have too many of.

[Dorian Gray]

Originally posted by blindseye:

and they use 2x mana per jump. I like the concept but tried one for about half a game and then gave up trying to keep her alive.

they are actually very good units, but not tanky and can only take limited pounding before you have to get them out.

for a while, i put the +2 mana extractor on her so every jump / kill combo would be free.

[blindseye]

Good advice regarding the witch doctors. I was debating getting a witch doctor at one point, and I will in my next play through. They irritated the crap out of me so much in my first couple play-throughs, that I couldn't be bothered getting one.

[VladK02]

Originally posted by blindseye:

Good advice regarding the witch doctors. I was debating getting a witch doctor at one point, and I will in my next play through. They irritated the crap out of me so much in my first couple play-throughs, that I couldn't be bothered getting one.

ahh, but you can get the petrify from magic book item - purple drop. But it seems to drop fairly often.. yeah, i did not play with witch doctor because the book dropped for me every time, i just keep it on one of the wolf mothers..

[blindseye]

oh, I never got that drop yet.

[Dorian Gray]

Originally posted by blindseye:

oh, I never got that drop yet.

ditto, me either.

certain items seem to drop only in certain scenarios as well... especially the purple it appears. i am thinking i may not be playing that scenario

[Ward]

I think I got that purple book from one of the 'treasure map/note' style items. Not sure if it's a set loot for that location. But most/all of the others seem to have set items or units so it may well be.

[GeneralGonzo]

Originally posted by Ward:

I think I got that purple book from one of the 'treasure map/note' style items. Not sure if it's a set loot for that location. But most/all of the others seem to have set items or units so it may well be.

How does this "treasure map" works? And also the note you can find....? Or are they just gimmicks?

[Ward]

They have flavour text when you mouse over them which is a clue to a location on the world map. You can then click on that world map location and you'll get the relevant item, gold or unit.

[GeneralGonzo]

Originally posted by Ward:

They have flavour text when you mouse over them which is a clue to a location on the world map. You can then click on that world map location and you'll get the relevant item, gold or unit.

Oh thanks for this hint !!

[Edgewalker]

Nice summary. What difficulty you played on?