How to counter demons? (the unit) (Haas Labyrinth)

[Wolfshappen]

I'm currently near the start of the Labyrinth and I can't beat the first dragon battle in my way.
I read it was possible to get to the exit almost without fighting the dragons but that doesn't seem to be the case.
I don't have problems taking down the dragons in this case, the difficult part is that there are 2 demons with around 150 units each and I'm having problem taking them down.
Any advice on how to do this more easily?
I'm playing as a lvl 25 mage. Should I level up a bit?

[ZumZoom]

Poisoning helps, as well as spells that do % damage to units (iirc it's one of the rage skills in this game - from the Reaper). Also the "mirror of pain" comes to mind - useful after the enemy unit hits you hard.

[Wolfshappen]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I'm already using Soul Draining, which removes a huge amount like 11k health. So I can easily take them down to something like 110 units or so. A problem I have is that their attack is surprisingly strong, they easily give me 2k hits while my demon does a lot less, not sure why that is. Also they get casted a shield spell which reduces any kind of damage towards them. I tried again using Poison Skull and the poisoning seems to reduce their attack from 39 to 33. Unfortunately I don't have the Pain Mirror spell anywhere.

[Wolfshappen]

The only units that remain for level up (afaik) are in Demonis and Death Valley, but I'm not sure I could level up more than 1 or 2 levels, and the money is kindof limited so I don't want to risk it, but that might be the only way.

[ZumZoom]

Could try using the same tactic - casting the shield (stone skin, god's armor etc) on your tanks, or some other buffs. Also, iirc there was a spell that was hitting the demons and undead for extra damage "light's power" or something like that.

[Scathe]

yeah, if you don't really have much attack and defense skill, which might be the case for a mage, your units won't get favorable numbers in melee with late game bosses with lots of attack and defense skill. it would help if you listed the units you're currently using. you said "my demon does a lot less" so I'm assuming you're using demons. not sure that is the best choice since they can't be resurrected. then again I might recommend bringing a full set of dragons, red, green, and black, and kiteing their demon stacks. cast slow on those demons, or cast trap in a way that they'll step on it. keep your dragons away from them, nuke them with spells, and drag the fight out so that soul draining gets used several more times before you engage.

edit - it is something to try, but actually now that I think twice about my unit suggestions, red and black dragons do fire damage, which the demons resist highly. hmm, still something to try, especially if your spells can do it all without your unit's help, but maybe another set of units would do better. or maybe a lone stack of black dragons and 4 empty unit slots would be enough, if your black dragons could avoid combat entirely and you could do it all with spells. in that case you might not need slow.

[ZombieKidzRule!]

If I recall correctly, I mostly used the strategy to staying away from demon stacks by doing what Scathe was suggesting. I used Slow or Ice Serpent or a temporary wall or anything to just stay away from them until I could knock them down with the major damage attacks that have already been suggested too. That seemed like the best option. Stay away and attack from afar.

I pretty much never used trap in this game, but now that I have been playing Crossworlds, I probably would. I didn't realize how useful trap can be since it does damage and stops the enemy in its track, regardless of how many action points for movement they have and they can't attack after they hit the trap. And the UI is a little stupid in that it will try to come straight at you if you have a unit right behind the trap and the enemy can move in a straight line to you. It could be possible to trap them, take a step back and place another trap, and repeat.

I also know that some people liberally use the Armagedon spell and then resurrect if they are trying for zero losses. I didn't use armagedon until the final battle in the game.

[Scathe]

another strategy you could try if you want to try to match them in melee without running. take emerald green dragons, inquisitors, and archmages. last two slots can be almost any ranged attackers, shamans also make a good choice. green dragons move forward to the middle of the battlefield. archmages shield green dragons and maintain the shield the whole fight. use stone skin on green dragons as well. green dragons tank both stacks. inquisitors resurrect green dragons and you use gift on inquisitors so that they can do more resurrections.
edit - also when it is efficient, healing spell for a few hundred or more health on green dragons is good.
edit2 - also, giants can do this tanking as well or better compared to green dragons. but they need ogre sandals or pilgrims boots, and they need points in the warrior tree in tactics to start them farther forward on the battlefield. not sure you have those things.
edit3 - make sure green dragons are far enough forward that the enemy can't move past and attack your ranged in 1 move, while putting them far back enough that the demons need to burn sprinting to reach them, and maybe can't even reach them turn 1.

[ZombieKidzRule!]

I also used Dryads a lot once I got them. They put many lower level units to sleep and you can keep them asleep by using Phantom on the Dryads. This also allows you to get quite a few stacks of thorn warriors or hunters that can absorb damage or block paths. Both the sleep and summon thorns reset reasonably quickly.

A large stack of dryads is also good because they can move really far and have no retaliation. So, you can wait until the demons have moved and then dart in and attack without retaliation and then move at the start of the next round before the demons can attack.

Dryads seem much better in this game than in Crossworlds.

Another thing to consider is Demonesses. I only experimented with them a little bit, but one strategy would be to let the demons get closer to your end of the field, let something with a high speed move to the other end of the field and then use the demonesses swap skill to move your unit back to your side and the demon stack back to its own side. Then they have to traverse the entire field again. Combine with Slow to make it take even longer.

[Wolfshappen]

Thanks for the replies. I lvl'd up to 26, and got a sword that increases damage against demons (plus some attack and intellect). I'm going to try attacking at night for that extra boost and try some of the suggested tactics.

[Wolfshappen]

Finally beat it. I tried a bunch of rage and spell combinations, and item/artifact tweaks. After lots of tries was able to corner the two demons along with the giant into low enough health so I could kite with the green dragon while they were attacked by gizmos. Also used a bunch of spell "scripts" since I was low on mana.

[Dog of Justice]

Random notes:

- My standard late-game army has *2* half-size Dryad stacks whenever there are Lullaby-vulnerable targets. This makes it trivial to resurrect losses at the end of the battle: I don't need to cast Phantom, or anything at all, to maintain permasleep. In this case, the thorn stacks they generate aren't the best at stalling Demons, but they should provide enough support to make the battle winnable.

- If you have Slippery Cuirass and Twinkling Boots equipped, Stone Skin brings your Knights up to 95% physical resist.

- If you have Assassin's Dagger equipped, Lake Fairies are an excellent damage source with enough initiative/mobility to kite Demons. Anga's Ruby makes them even better, of course, but you can do without it.

[Wolfshappen]

Originally posted by Dog of Justice:

This makes it trivial to resurrect losses at the end of the battle

Sorry if it's a dumb question but, do you mean you can use the resurrect spell on your army after battles, like opening the book and use it? If so then I've been wasting a lot of money haha (except when I have units that can't be resurrected).

[Dog of Justice]

Originally posted by madprops:

Originally posted by Dog of Justice:

This makes it trivial to resurrect losses at the end of the battle

Sorry if it's a dumb question but, do you mean you can use the resurrect spell on your army after battles, like opening the book and use it? If so then I've been wasting a lot of money haha (except when I have units that can't be resurrected).

No, you have to finish your resurrecting during the battle. The reason why double-Dryad makes life easy (when there's a Lullaby target around, anyway) is that you have total control over when the battle ends. You can take as many turns as you want generating rage from Inquisitors (or Reaper's Rage Draining, though in that case you're technically limited by the amount of HP in the permasleeping enemy stacks), turning rage into mana with Lina's Chargers, etc.