Moira Skills question

[Agent]

I've just started the new campaign and have a question for people who have played more of it; right now I kind of want to talk the Skeleton Guard skills with Moira (or whatever they're called) first and second level up. That gives you a Skeleton Heavy Infantry and 2x Skeleton Archers when you're starting the map, which is the equivalent of 12 mana.

My question is, in the long run is this a mistake? There are a lot more useful looking skills than skill points available so I'm worried that I'll regret it once I get that mana generation skill (Life Drain or whatever?) since I can summon those same skeletons with the mana I get from the skill and save those two skill points for other stuff.

So, yeah, Skeleton Guard skills yea or nay?

[Flipkik]

Hi

I took those two skills on the way to drain manapool. Getting drain manapool ASAP is kinda mandatory imho. And to get there you need to either pick up summon skeleton archer or skeleton guard and then soulfire or skeleton guard 2.

On the first pick up I can't really say what is most usefull, I went with skeleton guard but looking back the summon skeleton archer might be more usefull on the long run. Early on having that really tanky throwaway heavy skeleton infantry is really usefull.

There is also necromancer as first option but that's one for later in my opinion.

For the second pickup I'dd say skeleton guard II with it's two skeleton archers wins out pretty easy over soulfire for me. Especialy early on the two extra achers are really nice. And ontop of that early on you'll be fighting quite a few harpies with terror shield, which is a pain to deal with with normal archers but skeleton archers don't care about terrorshield. You could also cleanse the terror shield ofc. But i picked cleanse up after drain manapool so didn't always have it already.

So in conclusion in my personal opinion I'm not sure on the first but I'm pretty much all for the skeleton guard II over soulfire.

Grtz
Flipkik

[Shorogyth]

The first pick "should" be the middle one. I gives all undead +3 morale (increasing magic resistance) at range 3. That can be quite powerful later on and it stacks with the same ability on your second transmuter hero (this might get patched), bringing your undead to a morale of 6. The tank sceletons I would not summon in a normal situation (2-mana warriors block a hex just as well and the golem is much better tank-per-mana). So for me they don't "count" for their full mana cost. And you don't really want them in the beginning of the mission. Summoning them later is a bit more convenient. The tank sceletons are by no means bad but picking the skill just saves you a few mana points and mana is not an issue if you have more than one transmuter in the field.

The second pick is just a clear imho. I cannot imagine a (realistic) situation where I would cast Soulfire. 2 sceleton archers are useful (so they actually count for their summoning cost of 8 mana) in particular during early game.

That being said: on most diffculties you can just pick whatever you like and taking all the free-undead skills feels very thematic :)

[Virgil-SKY]

Take them, they are good cannonfolders before you got a powerful army, and can be used with Skeleton Bomb to deal damage to a large group of enemies.

[Agent]

Thanks, sounds like skele archers are a no brainer, and I just need to decide between the +3 morale skill or not.

I always get major Fear Of Missing Out when I play games where you get a bunch fewer skill points than there are skills. Decision paralysis!

[Sloul Des Tucs]

My level up is like this:
+3 morale
+2 free archers
mana drain
AND either pool drain (to get more mana ressources early on), or I entirely skip that spell and I instead use an item that you find later on (you miss on some mana ressources, but you free your main hero of one perk point and you can get her more into the fights and thus get more exp.).
And then: Free action summoning (this thing is crazy).

With the mana ressource (forgot the name), you can upgrade your troops to give you +3 mana each.
Let say you manage to get 10 of those ressources, and you've got 10 units, then it means you start up a mission with 30 mana.
That's 15 skeletons that you can summon instantly (well almost).
You can summon them all around Moira (which I think = 5) and then you can move Moira somewhere else and cast another 5.
You'll have other summoner in your troop probably, so you'll be able to summon even more on starting turn.

I am pretty much set up with this myself, I'll experiment later with what's left.
On a side note, for Ocram (i am terrible with names), I pick everything in order to get mana drain, and then I pick the t1 Enchant Weapons (it's a free action too, and it's p. damn good to have).