Has anyone found a viable build for Tome of winds?

[Demonicon]

As Title says.
If I ever take tome of winds in my builds, it's usually only for the hero trait, Wind barrier, that helps my ranged hero's slightly.
The archer is okay-ish for very specific builds (or used to be, before Tome of Alchemy...), and the summoned t2 elemental is just... disappointing.
Never used the scout enchantment, but that's more because i don't use scouts in general. (I use armies to scout instead...)
I never figured out how to make use of the spells either. I never play water maps, so the sailing spell is useless for me, and the combat spells never want to target the units i want to use them on -.-
So, is there anyone who has found a way to make use of the tome? Maybe a super niche build, or unexpected interaction with certain units/tomes? I am curious to see what this community has figured out.
I really wanna try to get a non-meme, decent build with this going, since the concept of this tome seems pretty cool.

[Midas]

I use it all the time.

The Zephyr archer is basically artillery.

The Wind Rager is... okay. It's a bit late to be excited about a T2, but it's a pretty good T2. Counters enemy ranged units very well, but nothing essential.

Windborne scouts is okay if you happen to be using scouts a lot anyways, but you can otherwise ignore it.

Dust storm is solid against enemies with a lot of range and magic. Big AoE, good chance of landing blind, and even does a bit of damage.

Favorable Winds isn't exclusively naval now, it can affect land units too. I find it useful in niche situations, like needing to move a bit further or move away or catch a unit up when I need to correct formations for an upcoming battle, like if I realize one of my units couldn't move far enough and will not be in range for an inevitable attack. It's valuable because it's one of the only ways to get extra movement like this without using forced march.

Abducting Cyclone is my favorite though, and one of my favorite spells in the entire game. Smart use of abducting cyclone lets you do all kinds of things, from removing something dangerous as a threat, to pulling a juicy target close to your units, or just disengaging your ranged units. It has an enormous amount of utility in a single spell. It can be a bit finicky to use, however, since you can't just pick the target and pick a location.

[Central]

its an oke tome but situational. in some situations its good to have though.

i do love the zephyr archer, its zephyr shot can hit its main target as well as adjacent enemies. it can deal a lot of dmg when used at the right moment.

the cyclone can actually help if you run a ranged heavy build since you can move an enemy unit away from your ranged units, allowing them to shoot. it can also be quite a useful spell if you go reaver. the magelock cannot move and shoot so you want to remove enemies instead of moving yourself. this spell can help with that, you just have to be very careful where you place it.

the dust storm is a good spell against ranged heavy enemies. it has a 90% chance to blind enemies while also dealing dmg to them. the blind debuffs accuracy by 50% for 1 turn, making their ranged units a lot less effective for that turn.
blind also cancels retaliation attacks, allowing you to move and attack freely without having to fear its counter attack.
with a 2 hex radius you can affect a lot of units at the same time.

the wind rager is a summon, they are always useful.
they can be used to fill the ranks after losing a unit, they can be used to help gather an army quickly if you see opponents coming your way, they can be used as scouts, you can use them instead of racial units to save gold, and im sure there are other ways you can use them.

as for the water spell, its super situational, and the moments where it could be useful i always forget i have it.

the flying scouts enchantment... i just never research it so i cannot really comment on it.

[NorthernDruid]

The flying scouts spell comes in too late mostly.

[Charlando[SunsOfStmChrts]]

I actually really like the windborne scouts for the extra vision range, and it neutralizes the AI's "ambush you out of nowhere" tactic

[snuggleform]

Stack wind ragers evasion aura with the cultural traits "quick reflexes" and "defensive teamwork" and you can really dodge those projectiles like Neo. (the wind rager itself isn't considered a racial unit so it won't get those traits, but stick it next to say your heroes or other important racial units to boost their evasion up to crazy levels).

The wind in the sails spell is maybe the only spell in the entire game that gives you more movement on the map. Even if using it on land, this can easily be the difference between victory and defeat as it can shave off a turn or two if you used right from moving one place to another. Even on medium size maps it can be a slog before teleporters and again it's the only spell I can think of in the game that helps with movement.

Flying scouts can be absolutley devastating if you put a stack of them on a mountain near an enemy city, then swoop them in to sac 5-6 provinces in one turn with the empire upgrade. The Ai is pretty aggressive about sweeping areas near its citiies but if you hide in the mountains you almost always can outrun anything they try to chase you with since you have 48 flying speed and they usually have at most like...32 flying speed if that with normal armies.

The abduction spell is all right, but definitely not ideal in the late game where you're fighting 18 v 18 as it's too low impact at that point. It can be quite devastating though in small battles as abducting one unit can create a snowball in your favor as you snipe it down with your army. Bonus: if you're a wizard king you can abduct twice in 1 turn for some really safe abductions from 6 hexes away which means you probably won't get counterattacked the same turn you warp them into your army.

Perhaps if you just need more materium affinity but the available materium tomes just don't go with your build, then you can make use of the movement spell and a wind rager here or there and get convenient scouting at the very least, not terrible. There are definitely builds that dont want books of t1 enchanting, stone, or t2 artisanship and you could be using tomes to fill in affinity gaps.

Zephyr archers can be ok. I usually prefer Glades but if you want materium, and you like long range bombardments (if you pick enchanting earlier, to get +1 range you get a 7 range 1 hex radius bomb attack that doens't require accuracy, which is insane). You'll probably want to compensate for their lack of accuracy with tomes/traits/whatevers, as you'll sorely be missing the glade archers track spell.

[NorthernDruid]

Actually, come to think of it: especially for barbarians, the Favourable Winds spell should let you go through an outpost teleporter with a stack, cast favourable winds on them, move them to the outpost proper and then ritual of alacrity.

[Demonicon]

Huh. Okay, all of these responses have given me some ideas :-) Time to go back to my elemental-heavy Astral/Materium Mystics ^^ (last time i played those was at the very beginning, on launch day of AoW4...) Or maybe try an abduction-focused reaver build?

But do keep the comments rolling, I'm sure there's still more to discover!

[Terrkas]

Originally posted by Demonicon:

Huh. Okay, all of these responses have given me some ideas :-) Time to go back to my elemental-heavy Astral/Materium Mystics ^^ (last time i played those was at the very beginning, on launch day of AoW4...) Or maybe try an abduction-focused reaver build?

But do keep the comments rolling, I'm sure there's still more to discover!

Abduction sounds nice for magelocks. No need to move if the target comes to you.

In lategame the movespell could be abused by embarking the army on a coast or underground to get full movement (with empireupgrade to have no movement cost for embarking/disembarking).

[Lampros]

I thought Zephyr Archers constituted a "build" of its own? ;)

[Toddasaurus Rex]

Zephyr archers are fantastic with industrial cultures. Bastions provide a super solid line, zephyr archers can rain hell from relative safety with some meaty guards. Its a rock solid stack without heroes for infestation cleanup and garrison, on the offense its a cheap, buildable stack that doesn't require imperium upkeep and can punch up fairly well.