Guide for each race - base game

[rgp151]

This is a relatively quick guide for strong custom wizard approaches for each race. I've recently played through each race and have tested out all of these. All of these assume 11 starting picks. I'll start with just the Arcanian Races.

This is just using Through the Myrror, not Rise of the Soultrapped.

Barbarians
1) Cav Rush
Warlord
Stonemason
5 White
3 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause, Healing, Holy Weapon
Wandering Island, Word of Recall

Can use Spearman+Shamen rush if its warranted, but main focus is Cavalry rush. Use Cavalry to take lairs and neutral towns, and possibly to take out an early wizard. Build Stables after Forester's Guild, then make 3 Cavs. After that make the Miner's Guild and build the Alchemist's Guild and Fighter's Guild for a few more Cavs, then go for Berserkers. Once you have Berserkers then focus on the use of Wandering Island with Shamen and Berserkers. If you've got other units from acquired races, such as Catapults or Slingers, those can be good to throw in as well.

2) Spearman Rush
Warlord
Stonemason
3 White
3 Green
2 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause
Giant Strength, Stone Skin
Wandering Island

Plan on rushing Spearman. Start building Spearmen and Shamen after the Farmer's Market and Shrine. Nice to go with the starting Swordman and early built Spearman, along with another Spearman and 1 or 2 Shamen, leaving two new Spearmen on defense. Put all this on a Wandering Island with Endurance early to take what you can with it. Heroism on the "youngest" Spearman, with Giant Strength and Stone Skin, and maybe Giant Strength on others as well. See if you can get a node to provide power. Definitely try to takeout a wizard capital early. You may be adding in Cavalry by the time you take the capital. Also add in Magic Spirits when you attack capitals to soak up tower shots.

Gnolls
1) Wolf Rider Medics
Warlord
Stonemason
Lifebringer
4 White
3 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause, Holy Weapon
Resist Magic, Confusion

Build a Stables after the Forester's Guild, then pump out 3 Wolf Riders. Hopefully you'll have a hero as well. Then make your Miner's Guild and continue pumping out Wolf Riders. Gnolls have low resistance, so they pretty much require Resist Magic to guard against Death and Sorcery. Confusion can help in taking towns and fighting wizards. Absolutely try to take out wizard capitals ASAP with as few as 4 Wolf Riders if the conditions allow. Do not build Gnoll settlers at all. The focus is on acquiring other races, Gnoll towns are basically no good.

Halflings
1) Slinger Tanks
Warlord
Stonemason
5 White
3 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause, Healing, Holy Weapon
Wandering Island, Word of Recall

Make a couple Shamen after the Farmer's Market (Granary > Marketplace > Farmer's Market > Shrine > Shamen). Send the Shamen out with the starting Swordsman to take lairs and possibly an easy town or two. Then build the Forester's Guild and Armory and make a couple Slingers to add to the stack. Then build Miner's Guild and Alchemist's Guild and make a whole new stack to put on a Wandering Island, consisting of 2 Shamen and 6 Slingers. Of course put Settlers on any Mithril you find, but other than that, don't bother spamming Settlers.

Keep producing Wandering Island stacks with 2 Shamen and 6 Slingers (or whatever heroes or other good units you may get from other races) as your food will allow. Both planes will soon be fully conquered.

2) Deathlings
Conjurer
Fantastic Warlord
Necromancer

Halflings make a good race for Death magic since they have good relations, can make all the magic buildings, and benefit strongly from Wall of Darkness. All power to mana to start of course. Do lots of scouting with Magic Spirits and identify neutral towns and Sorcery nodes to take. Use between 1 and 2 Ghouls, along with the very cheap Skeletons.

Use Ghouls use take normal units and a few key fantastic units, like Nagas, which are a very good target for them, since their First Strike keeps undead Nagas alive pretty well. Fire Elementals make decent undead as well, and of course Fire Giants and Guardian Spirits are also good targets. Try to acquire a Sorcery node ASAP to give you power to support your undead stacks. Don't waste too much on taking typical lairs. But throw waves of Skeletons at Sorcery Nodes if needed.

Of course Shadow Demons are the ultimate unit for taking capitals and you'll want them ASAP, but don't miss out on Lycanthropy, which can also be a great tool for taking capitals as well. Of course Zombie Mastery is the key spell here, but that's just typical Death stuff.

Use your Halfling units and whatever else you can find in normal stacks to take lairs that weren't worth burning your early undead on. Once you get the regenerating Werewolves and Shadow Demons you'll typically do little fighting with normal units. Watchout for early undead attacks of your towns since there is no way to turn off Darkness. So you need to plan for stronger early town defense than typical with this setup. Make sure to have Shamen in every town ASAP.

High Elves
1) Longbow Rush
Warlord
Stonemason
5 White
3 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause, Healing, Holy Weapon
Wandering Island, Word of Recall

Similar to the Halfling strategy. Open with the starting Swordsman and 3 Longbowmen on a Wandering Island. Then build the Miner's Guild and the Alchemist's Guild and fill out the Island with magic weapon Longbows. Then go all the way to the Armorers' Guild and Alchemist's Guild to make Elven Lords. Have an Island with 1 or 2 Elven Lords/heroes and Longbowmen. If you can find a Shamen to add to the mix, that's good. Then go for the Mechanician's Guild and make Catapults.

Of course put Settlers on Mithril, and if you don't have much else going you can fill in with additional High Elf Settlers if desired. Flight is of course highly desired here for the Elven Lords.

2) Chaos Lords
Conjurer
Chaos Mastery
Fantastic Warlord
8 Red

High Elves are arguably the best summoning race in the game, and Chaos is their best school IMO. Their units pair well with many Chaos spells. Put all power to mana of course, and start summoning Hell Hounds as soon as you get to around 75+ mana. You'll eventually go for a full stack of Hell Hounds, or Hounds + Heroes, but you can start taking lairs and towns with as little as 3 units of hounds.

But before you even worry about the Hounds, be sure to send out at least 2 Magic Spirits, if not 3 or 4. Do lots of scouting. Use Magic Spirits to take any town you can. Your Fire Elementals will be able to take most neutral towns in the early game.

Use full stacks of Hell Hounds to take capitals. Your main weapon will be Chimera, which you want to dig for in your spell book. Just research whatever is cheapest until you get Chimera. Chimera and Doom Bats are a good combo, and if you get Doom Bats first, then make those as soon as you can too. Focus on taking Chaos Nodes, but Sorcery nodes are typically easy to crack as well. Throw waves of Hell Hounds at good nodes if needed.

Once your town gets going, you may want to make a stack of Longbowmen & Elven Lords accompanied by 1 or 2 Fire Giants for Pathfinding. Depending on the situation you may not want to Chaos Channel your units, as Metal Fires / Leadership, etc. may be more valuable for a normal unit stack.

Flame Strike and Warp Reality and key spells for your Chaos units, along with Metal Fires and Flame Blade for your normal units.

You can win either by conquest or eventually turtling up and going for Spell of Mastery while casting stuff like Meteor Storm, Armageddon, etc.

3) Nature Lords
Nature Summoner
Nature Mastery
Stonemason
8 Green

Fantastic Warlord doesn't benefit Nature so much, so I skip it for Stonemason instead. Nature lacks any kind of buff for resistance, so the High Elves' naturally high resistance is very good for Nature. All power to mana of course. Lots of scouting to identify good targets. Nature is tricky to open with. If you find a good Nature Node, then decide what it will take to crack it. It may be better to start with just War Bears and Sprites even though you have access to Basilisks, depending on what you are up against. But if there are good lairs and towns you can take with just Bears and Sprites, then go for that.

Of course make Basilisks when you get the chance and have good targets for it. Basilisk+Sprite+Hero stacks can be effective, esp. with Water Walking. Once you get Elven Lords, then you can work those along with heroes. They benefit well from Resist Elements and Iron Skin. The nice thing about Nature Summoner is quickly getting to the late game spells, like Earth Gate, Call Lightning, Iron Skin, and of course Earth Elemental and Gorgon.

But don't sleep on Stone Giants, with their Boulders they are quite effective as well. Colossus is possibly better than Great Worm now, though it really doesn't matter much at that point.

4) Artificer + Runemage
Artificer
Runemaster
Famous
2 White
2 Red
3 Blue

Not going to go into too much detail here, as this is a well understood strategy. The extra mana early helps to get this going faster. In Classic you had to take 5 blue and no Famous, because Magic Immunity was essential, but as of now in this game, you can get by without Magic Immunity, so you can take Famous instead to get more heroes faster.

But in addition to heroes, take Hell Hounds for your Red spell and summon Hell Hounds to open with and accompany your first hero. Figuring out what to spend time casting, and when, can be a challenge, but it works. Main artifacts will simply be Flaming weapons, high armor and Flight charms.

5) Speed Mastery
Artificer
Runemaster
Node Mastery
Sage Master
Stonemason
2 Blue
2 Red
2 Green

This is may look a bit strange, but the idea is that you quickly get through researching your spells and get to the Spell of Mastery ASAP. In the meantime, use Artificer + Runemaster to generate mana and summon Hell Hounds. Make Water Walking charms for heroes. Take Web or Earth Lore as the starting Green spell. Word of Recall for Blue and Hell Hounds for Red.

[rgp151]

High Men
1) Flying Paladins
Sorcery Mastery
Conjuration
Stonemason
8 Blue

This will give you Phantom Warriors at half price, so 5 mana each. Just build your capital straight to Paladins ASAP. Open with 2 to 4 Magic Spirits to scout the map and look for neutral towns. Take neutral towns using Magic Spirits and Confusion/Phantom Warriors. Most towns can be lightly defending with a reliance on magic for defense. Don't shy away from Nagas. They are very effective at taking towns.

As your empire grows from taking neutral towns, your capital should be on the fast track to Paladins. Granary > Marketplace > Farmer's Market > Sawmill > Shrine > Forester's Guild > Miner's Guild > Armory > Fighter's Guild > (maybe a Pikeman) > Temple > Parthenon (maybe a Priest) > Cathedral > Armors' Guild > Paladin > Paladin.

Once you get Paladins then get Flight onto them and Guardian Wind if warranted. Take things at will. Of course put Settlers on Mithril and you can spam a few Settlers if you want.

Of course, Heroes with Windwalking will also be strong, and even without that, you can use Wandering Islands with Priests and Catapults fronted by Paladins/Heroes.

2) Chaos Men
Conjurer
Chaos Mastery
Fantastic Warlord
8 Red

Very similar to Chaos Lords and Flying Paladins. The use of summons early allows more focus on building the capital. Chaos with Priests and the protection of Paladins is very effective. Hell Hounds and Fire Elementals give High Men the runway to focus on building up their cities. Of course put Settlers on Mithril and you can spam a few Settlers if you want.

Klackons
1) Node Masters
Node Mastery
Conjurer
Stonemason
2 White
3 Red
1 Green
2 Blue

Just Cause
Hell Hounds, Fire Elemental
Phantom Warriors

With poor sources of town power, rely on Nodes instead. Use Hell Hounds and Phantom Warriors early on to take nodes and towns while you build the capital to Stag Beetles ASAP. Maybe spam a couple Settlers at opportune times. With Just Cause you can still manage other races just fine, especially once you get some additional fame.

Don't forget to boost taxes in the beginning.

2) Deep Life
Stonemason
10 White
-Prayer

You can't use Prayer right away, not enough casting skill. So pump casting skill a little until you have enough for it. Then all to mana and get Just cause. Really crank the taxes once you get Just Cause up. Since you don't have summons you'll likely need to rush a few troops. This is one of the few races that making Swordmen may be worth it. Depending on what you find, if you find towns or lairs worth taking, then make up to 3 Swordsmen along the way to take them. You may just be able to wait on a hero though. If going with Swordsmen use Endurance on all and Heroism on at least one, along with Bless, Holy Weapon and Holy Armor, while you wait for the Beetles to come out. Once you get the Beetles, just spam them like crazy and don't use anything else.

Ironically, since every single race has a straight 20% penalty, with Klackons, managing them isn't that bad since they all have the same penalty. But don't take a foreign race too soon, so you can keep cranking taxes for a while. Use tax revenue to buy up buildings. Spam Settlers early, between the Farmer's Market, Forester's Guild, and Miner's Guild.

Lizardmen
1) Rushing Reptiles
Warlord
Stonemason
8 White

No better race for pure Life IMO. With Warlord, send out your starting Swordsman along with another Swordsman and Shaman or two after making the Farmer's Market and Shrine. You'll need to decide if you want 2 & 2 or 2 & 1 depending on the situation.

Then make the Fighter's Guild and go for a few Javelineers. You'll probably want a stack of just Javelineers and Shamen to start with before you take the time to make Dragon Turtles. DO NOT spam Settlers, or even make any Settlers with Lizardmen, unless there are just no towns at all around. They work best on Small maps of course.

I tend not to take capitals with them until I get Dragon Turtles, which are excellent for taking capitals, however, with the extra health, you can take capitals before Turtles if there is good opportunity. Don't worry about Alchemy, just use Holy Weapon where needed.

2) Alchemy Reptiles
Alchemy
Stonemason
8 White

Similar to option 1, but without Warlord don't bother rushing. Just wait for Javelineers. Make a stack of 2 Javs and 2 Shamen to start, then take it from there. You may need to make 1 or 2 Settlers with this after you make the first stack of Javs and Shamen since without the early Warlord rush you'll likely be behind in towns.

3) Flaming Reptiles
Warlord
Stonemason
4 White
4 Red
Holy Weapon, Just Cause, Heroism
Eldritch Weapon, Hell Hounds, Fire Elemental

Lizardmen benefit from a lot of Chaos unit buffs, like Eldritch Weapon, Flameblade and Immolation. Just Cause can help them govern, Heroism for Heroes is always good and Holy Weapon in place of Alchemy.

Hell Hounds can be used more sparingly with them early to help take Chaos Nodes and to supplement their forces. Don't need to rely on Hell Hounds exclusively early, like you would with a Conjuration strat, but they can help fill out early stacks. Go with like 1 Swordsman, 1 Shamen and 2 Hell Hounds to start. Use Hell Hounds to help defend nodes and towns that you conquer early.

Nomads
Nomads, like High Elves, are another extremely versatile race. Lots of good strats for them, so this won't be exhaustive.

1) Horsearcher Rush
Warlord
Stonemason
5 White
3 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause, True Light, Holy Weapon
Wandering Island, Confusion

Similar to Barbarian Cavalry rush. Use Horsearchers to take lairs and neutral towns, and possibly to take out an early wizard. Build Stables after Forester's Guild, then make 3 Horsearchers. Hopefully you'll have a hero to go along. Since the Horsearchers are ranged, you'll have less need for healing, so True Light can make it possible to take some stronger Death lairs early. Confusion to help take larger towns.

After Horsearchers go for a Miner's Guild and then a Animist's Guild for a single Ranger to add to the Horse Archers. Hopefully you'll have Endurance by then, but if not then try to get it ASAP so you can put it on the Ranger. If you need to go over water, then just go for Wandering Island with Endurance.

Then shoot for the Fantastic Stable. Make a Pikeman along the way if needed, but don't go for a Parthenon before Griffins. Put Endurance on Griffins so they can attack twice and move. Islands with Catapults, Priests, Rangers and Griffins can handle pretty much anything. Of course put Settlers on Mithril and they can be spammed early, but grow too slowly to keep building later.

2) Charming Merchants
Charismatic
Famous
Stonemason
4 White
3 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause, Healing
Wandering Island, Word of Recall

Don't rush the Horsearchers, but plan to build a couple once you have a hero for them to ride with. Use Horsearchers early with your hero(s) to help get them going. If you don't get a hero early, then maybe use Rangers to accompany them.

Use heroes and Horsearchers/Rangers early, while building out your capital. Just keep making units in the capital and teleporting them into cities that you conquer.

3) Heroes
I Need a Hero
Runemaster
Stonemason
3 White
3 Blue
2 Green
Heroism, Just Cause
Wandering Island, Word of Recall
Web

You could do this with any race, but I like Nomads for hero strategies. High Elves work well too. Nomads give a little extra money that can help and have nice units that pair will with heroes. Of course casting for heroes doesn't use money, but I find that with INaH money helps to get free offers, which still give you 3 picks, so hiring is still a thing with INaH.

You can still make some artifacts with this, since you have Runemaster. Arguably web isn't that important for Nomads, since they have Griffins, but Web is just too good for battle control to pass up. I prefer Green here over Red to get Runemaster since Red isn't particularly strong for Nomads or this strategy unless you want to take Red for Flaming artifacts. Later, Ironskin Griffins are really powerful and resist Elements can be helpful early. Nature's various utility spells are always nice.

I have Stonemason in all my Nomad builds because they have a lot of building to do and they need help with their slower growth.

Edit:
Orcs
Orcs do pretty much suck as a starting race, but, if you really want to play them...

1) Chaos Riders
Conjurer
Chaos Mastery
Fantastic Warlord
8 Red

Very similar to playing High Men Chaos. The use of summons early allows more focus on building the capital. Hell Hounds and Fire Elementals give Orcs the runway to focus on building up their cities. A few settlers on Nodes can be worth it and you can go for Mithril, but Mithril isn't a huge benefit for Orcs.

The best thing about Orcs and Chaos, though, is that the Wyvern Riders pair well with Chimera. This can make it easier to fill out stacks of flyers and the two units can reinforce each other. Of course put Chaos Channels on the Wyvern Riders.

2) Node Hordes
Node Mastery
Conjurer
Stonemason
3 Red
3 Blue
2 Green
Hell Hounds, Fire Elemental
Wandering Island, Phantom Warriors
Earth Lore

Orcs cities can get extra benefit from Nodes and have a weak early game, so the Nodes can help power them up. Use Hell Hounds and Phantom Warriors early on to take nodes and towns while you build the capital to Wyvern Riders ASAP. Maybe spam a couple Settlers at opportune times.

Use Earth Lore to find nodes and other resources. Focus on the use of Hell Hounds and Phantom Warriors to take Red and Blue nodes especially. Use a couple Shamen early to defend, but then shoot for Catapults before Wyvern Riders. After making the Miner's Guild, go for a University and then the Mechanician's Guild before making an Armory, Alchemist's Guild or Temple. Then complete the Alchemist's Guild and make Catapults to put on Wandering Islands with Shamen and maybe some Hell Hounds or Fire Giants.

You mains stacks will be Catapults and Shamen, with whatever good melee unit you can include, such as heroes, Paladins, Berserkers or whatever from other races. Use summoned units as filler or for specialized stacks, but main benefit of summoning in this strat is not for the late game, but just for the early start before you have built up your capital.

Note: I've tried Orcmancer a few times I never found it worthwhile. Others have said they did, but for my style of aggressive play, it just doesn't seem to make much sense. Maybe it works if you are on defense a lot with Shamen, but I don't think relying on Orc normal units is a good strategy, as they are pretty poor at taking nodes and lairs and don't have any kind of meaningful early game. Even if playing Orc Death, which is also ok, I'd rather take Conjuration and Fantastic Warlord than Orcmancer.

[ocawna]

Looks good! You should turn this into a guide though so it's easier to access in the future

[rgp151]

Myrran Races:

Beastmen
Flying Minotaurs
Myrran
Stonemason
3 White
5 Blue
Endurance, Just Cause
Wandering Island, Phantom Warriors, Word of Recall, Psionic Blast

Beastmen don't have a whole lot going for them, but they grow fast and their race relations are ok, they can build a lot, and those Minotaurs hit like trucks. Like Berserkers, Minotaurs suffer from low mobility, but this is helped by Endurance and the Flight spell. The problem is they don't have a lot going for them until they get to Minotaurs. Centaurs are too weak for Myrran. Manticores are ok for scouting, but can't really do much in combat. If you find neutral towns you can take, then just use whatever units you can to take them, but don't forget about the lowly Spearman, which is often the best unit to use until you get Priests and Minotaurs.

Thus, the Beastmen are one of the few races that its good to spam Settlers with early on, especially to get on Adamantium. In fact, if you can get on Adamantium early, then using Adamantium spearmen can be worthwhile while you wait on Minotaurs.

Once you get them going, then Wandering Islands fille with Priests, Catapults and Flying Minotaurs are quite powerful. Beastmen Priests with Adamantium are amazing units, which can work as full stacks by themselves, but you may as well pair them with Minotaurs. They can be quite effective at taking Nature Nodes since the Beastmen Priests can stand up to the Sprites.

Dark Elves
Dark Nature
Myrran
Nature Summoner
Stonemason
7 Green

Similar to playing Nature High Elves at first, but different focus on normal units. Dark Elves produce a lot of mana, so you can use it to drive early summoning. Sprites and Basilisks are a good opener. Dark Elves will rely on heroes and summons more than just about any other race since there isn't a lot you can do to improve mobility of their units. Rely mostly on Spearmen for defense, especially if you can make them with Adamantium. Maybe make one town on Adamantium for Warlocks and Priests, but otherwise its all about Spearmen and Catapults on defense, while your Basilisks, Gorgons, and heroes are on offense. Nightmares are okay, but nothing great.

The good thing, though, is that with Nature Summoner you will get to the high end spells quickly, so you can use Change Terrain and Gia's Blessing to help your empire grow. Put Gia's Blessing on conquered cities of other races to keep unrest under control.

Draconians
Winged Warriors
Myrran
Warlord
Stonemason
Lifebringer
5 White
Heroism, Just Cause, True Light, Holy Armor

You can go without Lifebringer for 6 White, but since you don't get a discount for 6 books, Lifebringer can be worth it.

Draconians have the strongest overall units in the game and they come out early, so it makes sense to focus on boosting them as much as possible. Look for a good Adamantium spot early and get a Settler on there ASAP. The ideal spot is on the coast with Adamantium, so you can build Air Ships there too.

Early on you can rush with Spearmen if you find good neutral towns to take. But don't go crazy with Spearmen, just use a few to take neutral towns. After making a Forester's Guild, build the Stable and make a couple Doom Drakes to get going. You can buff these up and use them to take lairs and towns. Then get a Miner's Guild and go build out your capital, assuming you aren't on Adamantium.

There are a few good stacks for Draconians.
1) Doom Drakes and Shamen (not so necessary if you use Lifebringer)
2) Adamantium Doom Drakes and Bowmen (if you didn't get Adamantium on the coast)
3) Adamantium Doom Drakes and Airships. (The ultimate stack)

The idea stack IMO is 3 Doom Drakes with 6 Airships, all with Adamantium, and Holy Armor and Endurance on the Doom Drakes. This is why Lifebringer can be worth it. This is a fast moving stack and there are no other good ways to get a healer with them at full speed, unless you get Jaer.

If you get a Settler on Adamantium, invest in rush buying that town up to take advantage of it, and put Stream of Life, Inspirations and Alter of Battle on it if you get them early enough. Typically really only need to buff a single city like this. Unless you get Jaer, heroes typically won't factor in much as they can't keep up with your flying stacks.

Sorcery Assisted Winged Warriors
Myrran
Warlord
Lifebringer
Stonemason
4 White
1 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause, Holy Armor

Plays similar to the prior, but now with the possibility of quickly getting Wandering Island, Word of Recall, etc. Can make it a lot easier to keep towns on Arcanus by teleporting defenses in after taking a town. Also makes it easier to use heroes since they'll be able to "fly" along on Wandering Islands and you may get Wind Walking. I definitely prefer this build to pure White.

Dwarves
Wandering Cannons
Myrran
Warlord
Stonemason
3 White
3 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause
Wandering Island, Word of Recall

Typical setup here, but works really well with the Steam Cannons. Bascially shoot straight for the Miner's Guild. Make a couple Settlers along the way to get on Adamantium and/or other good resources. Once you can make Steam Cannons, put 3 or 4 Steam Cannons on a Wandering Island with one Swordsman and take what you can with that.

Then focus on getting a full stack of Steam Cannons fronted by 2 Hammer Hands or 1 Hammer Hands and 1 Golem. Once you get your Adamantium town going then of course make a new stack of all Adamantium units.

These guys come out fast, almost like Halflings. Build roads to connect everything, and don't worry about relations with other races. Just Cause will help keep rebels under control. Try to get Trolls, or anything with Healing units, to accompany your stacks to keep them healed up. Ideally you'll get Flight for Flying Golems to defend your Cannons. If not then acquire Doom Drakes.

Dwarves generate a lot of gold so use it to rush buy constantly. You can spam Settlers with these guys as the towns will generate a lot of gold. These guys can certainly give Draconians a run for the money in terms of best Myrran race.

Trolls
Life Trolls
Myrran
Stonemason
4 White
4 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause, Holy Weapon
Wandering Island, Word of Recall, Phantom Warriors

Trolls are a pretty bad starting race IMO. Their economy is just horrible, but it can be done. Their main unit it the War Troll, which requires a Fighter's Guild, so they don't really benefit from Warlord as much as some other races, so you can get by without it. They benefit a lot from Flight though, so by taking 4 books each you've got a better chance at Flight and you can take Holy Weapon to makeup for not having Alchemy.

You can rush with Swordmen if warranted. Don't build more than 2 or 3 though, before marching on to War Trolls. Without Warlord you'll likely want to cast heroism on one of them if you use early Swordsmen. One way to go is to identify a few easy lairs, buff one Swordsman and bring 2 more along with him to level up. Once they get their first level they'll be ok. Again with Wandering Island. War Trolls with Flight along with heroes is very good.

Trolls
Death Trolls
Myrran
Warlord
Stonemason
4 Black
2 Blue
Darkness, Mana Leak, Ghouls
Wandering Island

Of course Black Channeled Death Trolls are a thing. This hedges a little on them with some Sorcery, which allows for Wandering Island for better mobility and the possibility of Flight. With Warlord you can rush with Swordsmen more easily or a mix of Swordsmen and Spearmen.

Trolls
Pure Death Trolls
Myrran
Fantastic Warlord
Stonemason
5 Black
Darkness, Mana Leak, Terror, Ghouls

This is a quirky one, where Warlord can level your Trolls to Ultra Elite, and Black Channels will boost them with Fantastic Warlord. May be overkill, but hey. May need to spam a few settlers since without Just Cause your economy will suffer with acquired races. You don't get both Ultra Elite and fantastic Warlord together though, because once you put Black Channels on them they revert from Ultra Elite to Elite. So, use as directed.

Goblins
Full Stack Rush
Myrran
Warlord
Stonemason
3 White
3 Blue
Heroism, Just Cause
Wandering Island, Confusion

These guys play kind of like Halflings, but with less late game power. Their units come out really fast, but top out quickly in terms of power since they are magic based. Still, they can be very good at quickly taking some neutral towns and busting through to Arcanus. They aren't great at taking nodes.

I wouldn't build very many Settlers with them, if any. They are better at ruling other races that can produce better late game units. Still for the early game, a Wandering Island packed with 2 Boar Riders, 2 Shamen and filled out with Druids is pretty good. Use Holy Weapon on Board Riders if needed, but the Boar Riders will likely be replaced by heroes or something better like Doom Drakes fairly quickly.

Focus should consist on rushing with Boar Riders and Shamen at first to take easy lairs and towns, then fill out with Druids for heavier work and busting through to Arcanus. The Druids pair very well with Confusion, and this may indeed be their best overall trick. If you can get Morgana with these guys its awesome. But even without her, they do well at spreading Confusion. You can also do a lot with 4 or 5 Webs from the Druids, which really helps to control fights.

Scouting with Beastmasters also works well. You can spam Beastmasters to scout the map, then bring them together as a stack or just garrison them in conquered towns.

[Thewizardlord]

One comment, if you are playing Goblins as a full stack rush, Myrran refugee is probably better? Though I guess you don't cover the Rise of Soul trapped stuff yet.

I agree is nice guide, though a lot are variants of

a) Warlord+Stonemason+blue for mobility (wandering island) +white for buffs (eg heroism)
b) X mastery+ Conjurer+ summon rush and/or with nodemastery with the odd runemaster+artifcer/ death trolls but I guess that's MoM for you...

Its nice to see tips to customize them for each race though

[rgp151]

Very true there is a lot of Blue & White Warlord Stonemason, but that's just the state of the game IMO. For any race that has strong units that come out before the Fighter's Guild and has low movement, one of the strongest setups for them is going to be Blue & White Warlord Stonemason.

[Narf the Mouse]

A couple points/questions:

1. Curious why your Deathlings don't have Infernal Power?
   
2. Have you tried Heroism on Dark Elves? In my experience, it pairs well with their magic power bonus; you can have Heroism on your entire main army fairly easily. Elite Dark Elf Spearmen are cheap, and get the same 3d100 <= 40 magic ranged attack as Swordsmen, Halberdiers, or Cavalry. In my experience, they will two-shot Fire Elementals.

[rgp151]

Originally posted by rgp151:

3) Nature Lords
Nature Summoner
Nature Mastery
Stonemason
8 Green

Fantastic Warlord doesn't benefit Nature so much, so I skip it for Stonemason instead.

Actually, I just played through a new game with High Elves using Conjuration, Nature Mastery and Fantastic Warlord.

This is a tricky issue really. If you play Nature Summoner then you want to come out early with Basilisk, which doesn't benefit much from Fantastic Warlord, the best thing really is the +1 to Resistance. And the +1 on a few Sprites doesn't make a huge difference.

Nature Summoner doesn't reduce casting cost like Conjuration does, so Sprites are still a little pricy. But, by taking Conjuration and Fantastic Warlord instead, Sprites are only 50 to cast and 1.5 for upkeep. So I was able to make a stack with 8 Sprites and a hero and this did amazingly in the early game and was able to take a capital, a but of lairs, some Nature and Sorcery nodes and it seemed to work better than trying to force in the Basilisk early.

So yeah, I think maybe I like that better than Nature Summoner. You could also take Nature Summoner too, but then you lose some of the discount on the casting costs.

[Dorian Gray]

Word of Recall is such a great spell!

I see it in several of your racial guides.

[Thewizardlord]

typical tactic use word of recall to teleport around the map. Sorcery is really versatile , otherwise you can at best use recall hero from arcane

[rgp151]

Yeah, I'm starting to think that just adding a single Blue book to any build that doesn't already have Blue is the way to go, because with one Blue book, you will end up getting Word of Recall and Wandering Island fairly quickly from lairs or trading.

[Thewizardlord]

I agree I always like to add 1 nature too for earth lore . 1 book basically gets you a ton of commons because you can now get via lairs etc though this has been toned down I think?

MoM main issue is that the most value is unlocked by the first 3 books (I would say the first is the most ) and 4th to 6th is not that valuable and then value rises a bit from 7th to 9th book (discount to cast of 5% per book which is less than 10% in classic ) with a bump in the 10th and 11th as you get a starting uncommon and rare

Edit in classic because most non spellbook retorts are not that good (with obvious exceptions like Warlord, alchemy), you mostly have nothing better than pick more spellbooks beyond 3rd .

In the remake Dlcs add many super efficient reports so you feel tempted to just keep to minimum 1-3 spellbook and grab retorts for the rest.

Also consider how Might Makes Right is so powerful. It isn't just that giving all units combat reg is powerful, is the limitation of only 2 spellbooks isn't that big of a handicap since 2 books of say life unlocks most of the value of life anyway..with powerful commons like heroism. You even get access to rares which possibly includes lionheart, invulnerability etc

You don't get very rares like crusade but a lot are win mores really or just aren't very good eg holy arme

[Dorian Gray]

Originally posted by rgp151:

Yeah, I'm starting to think that just adding a single Blue book to any build that doesn't already have Blue is the way to go, because with one Blue book, you will end up getting Word of Recall and Wandering Island fairly quickly from lairs or trading.

That is what I do.... I add a single Blue and White Spellbook simply for access to the lower tier white/blue spells as they are really good.

[Narf the Mouse]

Originally posted by Dorian Gray:

Originally posted by rgp151:

Yeah, I'm starting to think that just adding a single Blue book to any build that doesn't already have Blue is the way to go, because with one Blue book, you will end up getting Word of Recall and Wandering Island fairly quickly from lairs or trading.

That is what I do.... I add a single Blue and White Spellbook simply for access to the lower tier white/blue spells as they are really good.

Heroism is a Common Life spell, as are Holy Weapon, Endurance, and Just Cause.

[Dorian Gray]

Yep, Endurance on a Floating Island, gets your otherwise, low movement stack up to a base speed of 4 - virtually doubling their movement rate if it is using any unit with base movement of 2, which is hard to avoid in the early game.

[Narf the Mouse]

For that matter, Eldritch Weapon, Flame Blade, and Holy Weapon on a unit with First Strike... Flame Blade is Uncommon, though, so it might take a lair or trade on a 1-book dip. Throw it on High Elf Longbowmen and that's 5d100 >= 50 *base*, and the enemy takes -10% to their defence roll. Against a Swordsmen with 3 Defence and Large Shield, your damage increases by *50%* (1.5 average up from 1.0).

I think I'll call this: Here Comes My Arrow

...for no particular reason. *whistles innocently*