[Prophecy of Pendor] Have a little trouble...

[Rayla]

Morning \ Evening. Is there any advice to defeat Eyegrim the devourer, or at least common demon armies? I watched some vids, but they were about beating him untill he expanded his army. Last time I met him he had more than 4 thousand units... So I began a new game, and day ~90 these are appeared with already about a good thousand of men. I see no problem, more or less at least, with serpent army or even barbarians on the north, but even 500-men demon army makes me suffer even If I gather my whole fraction together. A bunch of Revenants (Or not them, the ones with more than 300 health wearing spooky armor) cause tremendous damage, and even a hundred of Valkyries can't handle with 10 of them. Personally see no trouble avoiding them, but there are more than 2 of armies and they exterminate my fraction so we are easy to be captured by others. Thats it.

[ricklong]

I've always had to do it with plenty of lords supporting me, and even then, I'd hit him, retreat, grab fresh troops from a nearby garrison, and rejoin the fight. The problem is that your lords will understandably flee as soon as they see him. At first I tried to shadow him at night and attack RIGHT at dawn before lords can all run away. This works better:

Call up the army, order your lords to all rest in the same place (that you own and has LOTS of good troops), then let Eyegrim follow you there. Go to the thrown room and tell everyone to follow you. Now attack. Do the trick where you tab out right away to see what your 3 choices of terrain are, and pick the one that suits you. Once your casualties start to get really bad, retreat. Use the garrison to get fresh troops. I usually go defensive on the first rounds, then get my cavalry for later ones.

[Rayla]

Originally posted by ricklong:

I've always had to do it with plenty of lords supporting me, and even then, I'd hit him, retreat, grab fresh troops from a nearby garrison, and rejoin the fight. The problem is that your lords will understandably flee as soon as they see him. At first I tried to shadow him at night and attack RIGHT at dawn before lords can all run away. This works better:

Call up the army, order your lords to all rest in the same place (that you own and has LOTS of good troops), then let Eyegrim follow you there. Go to the thrown room and tell everyone to follow you. Now attack. Do the trick where you tab out right away to see what your 3 choices of terrain are, and pick the one that suits you. Once your casualties start to get really bad, retreat. Use the garrison to get fresh troops. I usually go defensive on the first rounds, then get my cavalry for later ones.

Generally, Im not good at M&B, and know not all of the tricky tricks, so the preparations take a lot of time, such as to get a chance to be a marchal, to get a land of my own and other, you know. I know not how does the roulette work but.... While im doing all of this he eats people and fills the army with them. Meh. :(

[SereneK]

One way is to lead him into another massive army. From there you can either join forces with the other army, or wait it out until one is left standing.

If Eyegrim is still alive, you can try attacking him with your own forces. But you will need superb ranged units, a very sloped terrain, and a high Tactics skill (preferably 10).
So your archers will perch on the top of a very steep hill (as close as 90 degrees you can get) and pour arrows down onto Eyegrim. Will you kill everything? Oh no, likely only a handful of units. But then you can press tab to Retreat, and then attack again with the same method. Bit by bit you can whittle down his forces until he is left with the trash units at the bottom of his roster.
And when I say archers I don't mean Empire Armored Crossbowmen or Larian Sentinels. I don't even mean Ravenstern Rangers. What I mean by archers are Noldor Rangers, Mettenheim Heavy Crossbow, and Barclay Jannissaries. Iceguard Rangers and Djaha Archers may still be somewhat useful, but Doomguides and Hero/Heroine Adventurers might do better. Use nothing but the cream in this battle.
I normally deploy about 18 Noldor Rangers plus 8 of either Crossbows and Janissaries, plus some cavalry and infantry forces to harass any Eyegrim units that manage to crawl up the death slope.

I know, the amount of terrain exploit is just dirty. But this is what I do to every unique spawn including Maltise which is why I know it works obscenely well.
Engaging via melee is just suicide, imo, unless you have very powerful friends to fight beside you. Even then, best prepare for a stream of yellow and red text.

[Rayla]

Originally posted by SereneK:

One way is to lead him into another massive army. From there you can either join forces with the other army, or wait it out until one is left standing.

If Eyegrim is still alive, you can try attacking him with your own forces. But you will need superb ranged units, a very sloped terrain, and a high Tactics skill (preferably 10).
So your archers will perch on the top of a very steep hill (as close as 90 degrees you can get) and pour arrows down onto Eyegrim. Will you kill everything? Oh no, likely only a handful of units. But then you can press tab to Retreat, and then attack again with the same method. Bit by bit you can whittle down his forces until he is left with the trash units at the bottom of his roster.
And when I say archers I don't mean Empire Armored Crossbowmen or Larian Sentinels. I don't even mean Ravenstern Rangers. What I mean by archers are Noldor Rangers, Mettenheim Heavy Crossbow, and Barclay Jannissaries. Iceguard Rangers and Djaha Archers may still be somewhat useful, but Doomguides and Hero/Heroine Adventurers might do better. Use nothing but the cream in this battle.
I normally deploy about 18 Noldor Rangers plus 8 of either Crossbows and Janissaries, plus some cavalry and infantry forces to harass any Eyegrim units that manage to crawl up the death slope.

I know, the amount of terrain exploit is just dirty. But this is what I do to every unique spawn including Maltise which is why I know it works obscenely well.
Engaging via melee is just suicide, imo, unless you have very powerful friends to fight beside you. Even then, best prepare for a stream of yellow and red text.

I've no idea what Janissaries, Djaha and Doomguides are, but you have a point. All I should notice is that all of the fractions you mentioned are foes of mine, and they are deeply offended, for I had issues with orders.... Nevertheless, comparing to the demon army itself - I dont mean the Grim's one, a common army -, the demon army is superior manpower. Twice. Thrice. Even the Arquebuse guys - that I expected them to be truly potent - were done. Perhaps Im just a whimperer who has screwed his walkthrough up, but... I dont know. Each day it becomes harder to do things in POP that is hard itself.

[SereneK]

Originally posted by Senchou Marine:

I've no idea what Janissaries, Djaha and Doomguides are, but you have a point. All I should notice is that all of the fractions you mentioned are foes of mine, and they are deeply offended, for I had issues with orders.... Nevertheless, comparing to the demon army itself - I dont mean the Grim's one, a common army -, the demon army is superior manpower. Twice. Thrice. Even the Arquebuse guys - that I expected them to be truly potent - were done. Perhaps Im just a whimperer who has screwed his walkthrough up, but... I dont know. Each day it becomes harder to do things in POP that is hard itself.

Ah sorry, Barclay Arquebusiers used to be called Janissaries in older versions. Just like Crossbows they trade low fire rate for higher damage. So they should be accompanied by rapid fire bowmen like Noldor.

Anyway, a 4k Eyegrim sounds like a real challenge. That strat I explained; I usually use against 800-900 size unique spawns with about 180 troops on my side.

So you have to find a way to cut down those numbers. Maybe lure him close to an enemy town. He might decide to launch a siege and sack their town, in which case all his top-tier cavalry which are hard to take down due to the virtually unkillable horses—they will be forced to fight on foot and climb up siege towers/ladders. Since some of them wield two-handed swords, imagine what the town defenders' archers and your army's archers can do. You will probably lose, but iirc unique spawns will just damage the city and leave without taking prisoners. So Eyegrim can suffer a lot by launching a siege, especially if many lords are feasting there.

If you don't like how Eyegrim's army snowballs quickly, you can tweak the game files to set the limit around 2000+ or lower—if you don't like playing the game with "invisible time limits".

[Rayla]

Originally posted by SereneK:

Originally posted by Senchou Marine:

I've no idea what Janissaries, Djaha and Doomguides are, but you have a point. All I should notice is that all of the fractions you mentioned are foes of mine, and they are deeply offended, for I had issues with orders.... Nevertheless, comparing to the demon army itself - I dont mean the Grim's one, a common army -, the demon army is superior manpower. Twice. Thrice. Even the Arquebuse guys - that I expected them to be truly potent - were done. Perhaps Im just a whimperer who has screwed his walkthrough up, but... I dont know. Each day it becomes harder to do things in POP that is hard itself.

Ah sorry, Barclay Arquebusiers used to be called Janissaries in older versions. Just like Crossbows they trade low fire rate for higher damage. So they should be accompanied by rapid fire bowmen like Noldor.

Anyway, a 4k Eyegrim sounds like a real challenge. That strat I explained; I usually use against 800-900 size unique spawns with about 180 troops on my side.

So you have to find a way to cut down those numbers. Maybe lure him close to an enemy town. He might decide to launch a siege and sack their town, in which case all his top-tier cavalry which are hard to take down due to the virtually unkillable horses—they will be forced to fight on foot and climb up siege towers/ladders. Since some of them wield two-handed swords, imagine what the town defenders' archers and your army's archers can do. You will probably lose, but iirc unique spawns will just damage the city and leave without taking prisoners. So Eyegrim can suffer a lot by launching a siege, especially if many lords are feasting there.

If you don't like how Eyegrim's army snowballs quickly, you can tweak the game files to set the limit around 2000+ or lower—if you don't like playing the game with "invisible time limits".

I dont like the stupidity of AI for they dont flee from them (quite often) and go right through. Anyway, point taken. I should just keep trying.

[derp12332112]

Get some Professional Elite Infantry to hold the line (Large amounts of Huscarls usually, they have the best Defensive abilities)

Grind out some Noldor Archers, (dismounted) Hero Adventurers, and any other amount of Ravenstern Rangers.

Drag him over to a big mountain and fight him at Max Map Size

Find a disgustingly high and sloped hill and plant everyone on top to shoot down; Infantry in front, Archers above.

Retreat to replenish ammo.

If you've got a lot of friends, be sure you can command them, otherwise their deaths will just make things worse as you cannot replenish reinforcements as easily.

[ricklong]

The slopes really help. You want to stay behind your troops fire all of your arrows and not get hurt because its going to be a grind. The trick of dragging Eyegrim to a keep works really well if you own a keep in hills like Highcliffe or Kennet. Park any cavalry your allies bring behind you in case some deaders find a way to circle around.

[Huillam]

In case you're still struggling with the bad guy:
While other armies can recruit some prisonners and turn them into allies, Eyegrim kill them and convert them into undeads (and his does that much faster).
If you have a decent score in surgery and can't wipe his army in a single battle, use auto-calc battle: if you end up killing 500 of his troops but he get 1000 prisonners you basically made his army bigger. On the other hand if your surgery is handled by one of your companions send him or her away before the battle and play the battle yourself.
If Maltise is on the map, pit them against each others, Maltise troops being undead Eyegrim won't get any prisonner (except for troops she recruited).
Bring as many top tier troops as you can: CKO knights, KO knights you've invested a lot of money in, Hero Adventurers. The experience earned by your troops is split among stacks. Use that to your advantage to reduce the amount of time you'll need to train elite troops.
Gather a war party, and engage eyegrim while he's following someone else. That way you'll be able to leave the battle once you're short on troops without being captured and that will deny him any prisonner.
While his army may seem impossible to beat, the Revenants are the only real threat, the other undeads have a lot of health but that's pretty much all they have for them.

And next time you see Eyegrim spawns ask yourself if you're ready to deal with him. If the answer is no, there's no shame in reloading a save because Eyegrim left unchecked will require a united Pendor to be dealt with.