Mammoth beats halberdiers

[Dorch]

what beats mammoth?

[fmalfeas]

Publicado originalmente por Stanley:

Publicado originalmente por ChaosKhan:

Even 10 Mammoths are not an issue if you field 2 low tier stacks supported by 2 lords, 2 captains, 2 witch hunters and 2 priests. Tarpit the beasts with spears/swords/halberds and send in the lords/heroes. They'll melt in a couple minutes. Agents are outrageously strong against monsters; you just need to divert the counterattacks to a meatshield unit.

Low tier Spears and halberds wont do much against 10 mammoths charging right through them like tissue paper inciting fear and terror. Best case being just suiciding 2 stacks of fodder so the AI in the next 3 turns comes with a new mammoth stack.

Figure out where they're building mammoths at, give the Emperor himself a powerful stack. Use trash stacks to engage wulfrik and the moment you know Wulfrik isn't home, /raze it/. It'll take a while before that place can build up to mammoths again. And if you took few enough losses, you can raze quite a bit of their turf. Norsca garrissons aren't that hot, and they don't get walls.

[ChaosKhan]

Publicado originalmente por Stanley:

Low tier Spears and halberds wont do much against 10 mammoths charging right through them like tissue paper inciting fear and terror. Best case being just suiciding 2 stacks of fodder so the AI in the next 3 turns comes with a new mammoth stack.

I don't talk about theories here, I talk about practiced strategies of mine on VH/VH. Terror looks nice on paper, but that's exactly what magic/heroes are there for to counter. They buff leadership and in some cases make even unbreakable/immune to psychology.

[Drakken]

I let them hit my infantry wall and charge in a unit of giant slayers to kill it quickly, ranged units will slowly chew up a mammoth as well. I consider any infantry unit the mammoth charges as engaged for the entire battle though. I rarely los a unit to the mammoth but it is very depleted before I am able to rout it or bring it down.

[eihei]

It's done, the mammoths are dead and norsca is finished.

only took 10 tanks, 5 cannons, 10 handgunners and a whole ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of halberdiers to do it.

[Cacomistle]

Publicado originalmente por ChaosKhan:

Publicado originalmente por Cacomistle:

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Well cause of the stupid additional upkeep for additional armies mechanic, its cheaper to just fight it with your own doomstack. Empire is perfectly capable of creating doomstacks that will destroy every possible 1v1. I mean when you write "if it's a real Doomstack". Its not a real doomstack, the ai built it. I've never once seen a stack that wasn't beatable in a 1v2 by the best doomstack I could build, let alone a 1v1.

Unless hes playing on hard or less in which case its not too bad to make an extra stack.

No, 2 low tier stacks are still cheaper than 1 doomstack, even with upkeep increase, and have far more strategical presence. That's why I use mostly low tier troops throughout the campaign and only pack in a few elite units for flavor. Invading Norsca is a notable exception though. Replenishment is bad in those climate zones, so for obvious reasons, you want to take as little casualties as possible, which favors doomstacks.

I run low tier till chaos spawns. Can't beat 2 chaos stacks with 1 low tier army.

Really often I go above that cause high tier units are more fun to me. I've played campaign starts too many times and I always end up with low tier units forever. Cause every time I try to recruit good units, some stupid faction tries to backap me anyways and I gotta move my armies.

2 low tier stacks is cheaper early on, but once you stary getting to the 3-4 stack range it costs more. 15 percent upkeep on 4 other stacks just costs more is quite a lot.

Ideally your army should be exactly good enough to beat 2 doomstacks without any unit fully dying and no better, or exactly good enough to beat a single doomstack (especially qith lightning strike). The first can be done without that expensive of an army (on empire 4 steam tanks a jade wizard and a bunch of handgunners will do it, which isn't double the cost of 2 handgunner level armies).

Full tryhard though, I favor 1 doomstack and multiple mid tier stacks. I think von carsteins do it the best. Grave guard aren't super expensive and a bunch of grave guard, free skeletons, a mortis, and a few monsters and blood knights can beat pretty anything 1v1 and most 1v2 since they'll all be high rank and stay high enough health not to die to the next army. Then your doomstack is the cheapest in the game, just isabella and 10 vamp heros. Fundamentally no reason to ever grt a stronger army than that and it costs almost nothing.

That's the general concept I'd go for, cause as long as you have 1 unbeatable army you can always expand with it, take out key targets, or fight off chaos without committing multiple armies.

Funnily enough for norsca I usually don't like doomstacks. Maybe I just get unlucky (cause its so obnoxious and non interesting to play against), but they always just run around with like 10 10 stacks for me and try to backcap every minor settlement. Theres so much space between their settlements I never fight any 1v2 battles unless I attack a settlement garrison, but if I have 2 stacks I just go raze all his other stuff while he sitd in a settlement.

Replenishment usually isn't a big deal with a warrior priest, especially if you can go into the ocean to replenish for a turn.

[JODEGAFUN]

Publicado originalmente por ChaosKhan:

Even 10 Mammoths are not an issue if you field 2 low tier stacks led/supported by 2 lords, 2 captains, 2 witch hunters and 2 priests. Tarpit the beasts with spears/swords/halberds and send in the lords/heroes. They'll melt in a couple minutes. Agents are outrageously strong against monsters and monstrous infantry; you just need to divert the counterattacks to a meatshield unit. Most players don't bother much with agents and magic and failt to realize, that those are a potent answer to a lot of threats. I mean, just look at the attack strenght; heroes are basically small monsters with less aoe if not mounted on monsters themselves.

Heroes with gear + high lv skills beat monster, you have only look carefull which hero to hire (poison attack for empire captain is possible, and no comment about handmaiden with explosiv trait and the item you can build with vaul rite which gives you poison attack and replenish life,)

[Stanley]

Publicado originalmente por JODEGAFUN:

Publicado originalmente por ChaosKhan:

Even 10 Mammoths are not an issue if you field 2 low tier stacks led/supported by 2 lords, 2 captains, 2 witch hunters and 2 priests. Tarpit the beasts with spears/swords/halberds and send in the lords/heroes. They'll melt in a couple minutes. Agents are outrageously strong against monsters and monstrous infantry; you just need to divert the counterattacks to a meatshield unit. Most players don't bother much with agents and magic and failt to realize, that those are a potent answer to a lot of threats. I mean, just look at the attack strenght; heroes are basically small monsters with less aoe if not mounted on monsters themselves.

Heroes with gear + high lv skills beat monster, you have only look carefull which hero to hire (poison attack for empire captain is possible, and no comment about handmaiden with explosiv trait and the item you can build with vaul rite which gives you poison attack and replenish life,)

it doesnt matter. By the time your hero and your lord defeat 2-3 mammoths, the other 7 or 10 of them would have allready routed your army.

[ChaosKhan]

Publicado originalmente por Stanley:

it doesnt matter. By the time your hero and your lord defeat 2-3 mammoths, the other 7 or 10 of them would have allready routed your army.

Of course, 1 lord and 1 hero won't stop a mammoth spam stack. 8 lords/heroes backed by 32 units of spears and handgunners will for certain. You talk as if mammoths just run over spears and don't take any damage at all. They do, and quite a sizeable chunk at that too.

[Cacomistle]

Publicado originalmente por ChaosKhan:

Publicado originalmente por Stanley:

it doesnt matter. By the time your hero and your lord defeat 2-3 mammoths, the other 7 or 10 of them would have allready routed your army.

Of course, 1 lord and 1 hero won't stop a mammoth spam stack. 8 lords/heroes backed by 32 units of spears and handgunners will for certain. You talk as if mammoths just run over spears and don't take any damage at all. They do, and quite a sizeable chunk at that too.

To exoand on this, a mammoth takes like at least 20-30 seconds to kill a halberdier with red skill buffs. 20-30 seconds is enough for a halberdier plus a handgunner or even a crossbowman for feral mammoths to do enough damage to route a mammoth. Handgunners also can focus fire, so you can very quickly reduce their killing power.

It is simply a question of whether this is more effecient with the setup the player already has than doomstack units. I think only demigryph halberds, reiksguard for franz, and flaggelants for volkmar if you started as him are more effecient. Maybe steam tanks plus handgunners and hellblasters cause ai clumps really hard on single entities.

Demigryphs aren't that great vs much else in campaign, franz and volkmar are pretty specific situations, and steam tanks is just abusing the ai (which means if you don't know how to abuse the ai this will get you killed), not an actual counter. Which makes 2 stacks the most reliable way to deal with them.

If you specifically know its mammoths you can throw a few demigryph halberds in. A few of those let me kill a single stack with 5 mammoths with a stack that was mostly flaggelants and handgunners. Now it was fewer mammoths and wintertooth not norsca (so no 15 attack for mammoths), but that was a single stack and I only had 2 demigryphs who killed 2 of the 5 mammoths (heros and handgunners worked fine vs the other 3), so bringing 2 stacks will definitely net you a win.

This strategy 100 percent works, its only a question of if you have good enough heros and if its the most cost effective stack to build given your current situation.

[Sir uP]

I always support armies with a second army. Better to use your additional armies to support eachother than to expand your warfront and make new enemies on other borders anyways. I guess it is also caution from legendary playthroughs when my isolated main stack would sometimes get jumped when off in the wilderness on their own. Oh and I'm usually playing vlad where its vlad and 19 zombies (anvil) backed by izzy's flying circus stack (hammer)

The player has an even bigger advantage on the campaign map than in battles.

"Strategy is what you do before you get to the battle, tactics are how you fight it"

[Cacomistle]

Publicado originalmente por Sir ♥♥♥♥♥foot:

I always support armies with a second army. Better to use your additional armies to support eachother than to expand your warfront and make new enemies on other borders anyways. I guess it is also caution from legendary playthroughs when my isolated main stack would sometimes get jumped when off in the wilderness on their own. Oh and I'm usually playing vlad where its vlad and 19 zombies (anvil) backed by izzy's flying circus stack (hammer)

The player has an even bigger advantage on the campaign map than in battles.

"Strategy is what you do before you get to the battle, tactics are how you fight it"

Isabellas army wins on its own though. Its like kholek. You can put other units in kholeks army, but after you get him enough items why bother?

Isabella and 10 vamps can take down 4 armies without anyone losing health. Although I'm not sure they can on hellsteeds, too much area for them to get hit. I just keep them on foot.

Vampires are great for that strategy though cause its so easy to fill out army slots with skeletons. But playing a faction like dwarves, I think its a lot better to split your armies. Greenskins send constant backcapping forces, and even an army of dwarf warriors and quarellers can win any 2v1 before black orcs if your lord is decently high level.

[Sir uP]

Publicado originalmente por Cacomistle:

Publicado originalmente por Sir ♥♥♥♥♥foot:

I always support armies with a second army. Better to use your additional armies to support eachother than to expand your warfront and make new enemies on other borders anyways. I guess it is also caution from legendary playthroughs when my isolated main stack would sometimes get jumped when off in the wilderness on their own. Oh and I'm usually playing vlad where its vlad and 19 zombies (anvil) backed by izzy's flying circus stack (hammer)

The player has an even bigger advantage on the campaign map than in battles.

"Strategy is what you do before you get to the battle, tactics are how you fight it"

Isabellas army wins on its own though. Its like kholek. You can put other units in kholeks army, but after you get him enough items why bother?

Isabella and 10 vamps can take down 4 armies without anyone losing health. Although I'm not sure they can on hellsteeds, too much area for them to get hit. I just keep them on foot.

Vampires are great for that strategy though cause its so easy to fill out army slots with skeletons. But playing a faction like dwarves, I think its a lot better to split your armies. Greenskins send constant backcapping forces, and even an army of dwarf warriors and quarellers can win any 2v1 before black orcs if your lord is decently high level.

Ya it gets to the point where my supporting army is sufficient on their own. Makes conquering provinces quick and devastating.

I reinforce for the big fights (i honestly don't see how Isabella and 10 vamps can beat 4 HE doomstacks) or if I want vlad to be slightly better in melee but tbh I dont notice a difference from their United in death buff (or whatever its called).

I agree vamps are best for it especially with change to skele zombie upkeep but chaf armies are common for other factions (skaven, tk, vamp coast) and can be used for others too. Like when I play norsca or chaos I usually have supporting armies just because it sucks losing your main stack of you push too deep too fast.

Dwarfs prob dont benefit I agree. Since there is no hammer and anvil. You could do one army of full arty and ranged supporting an army of slayers and longbeards.

[Captiva]

halberdiers beat mammoth = worthless mammoth unit

[Cacomistle]

Publicado originalmente por Sir ♥♥♥♥♥foot:

Publicado originalmente por Cacomistle:

Isabellas army wins on its own though. Its like kholek. You can put other units in kholeks army, but after you get him enough items why bother?

Isabella and 10 vamps can take down 4 armies without anyone losing health. Although I'm not sure they can on hellsteeds, too much area for them to get hit. I just keep them on foot.

Vampires are great for that strategy though cause its so easy to fill out army slots with skeletons. But playing a faction like dwarves, I think its a lot better to split your armies. Greenskins send constant backcapping forces, and even an army of dwarf warriors and quarellers can win any 2v1 before black orcs if your lord is decently high level.

Ya it gets to the point where my supporting army is sufficient on their own. Makes conquering provinces quick and devastating.

I reinforce for the big fights (i honestly don't see how Isabella and 10 vamps can beat 4 HE doomstacks) or if I want vlad to be slightly better in melee but tbh I dont notice a difference from their United in death buff (or whatever its called).

I agree vamps are best for it especially with change to skele zombie upkeep but chaf armies are common for other factions (skaven, tk, vamp coast) and can be used for others too. Like when I play norsca or chaos I usually have supporting armies just because it sucks losing your main stack of you push too deep too fast.

Dwarfs prob dont benefit I agree. Since there is no hammer and anvil. You could do one army of full arty and ranged supporting an army of slayers and longbeards.

HE doomstacks are a bit harder than chaos ones cause they get archers. And vampire heros in my experience don't seem to do well vs archers. I haven't fought 4 HE stacks with it so I'm not sure, cause I always have her spawn camping chaos and every time I try to move her they just respawn, until I kill Archaeon but by that time the campaign is basically over and I'm probably killing them with someone else anyways.

4 chaos doomstacks, you just clump them up, which makes it so they have less surface area to attack. Ai surrounds you with everything. You spam items and spells on them. I had 2 helm of discords. So I just went helm of discord, curse of years, helm, curse, repeat. Still had magic left to cast a couple winds of death and a few other spells cause 6 of my vamp heros had arcane conduit. But basically, as long as you have one of those abilities up, none of the enemies can actually hit your vamp heros except for enemies like high melee attack lords, and those guys die instantly if you goon them with 10 vamps.

Even against high elf doommstacks, if you properly shield yourself with zombie summons till the ai starts surrounding you, and make sure dragons are always debuffed, you could probably win it. But you could come across issues. I know fighting a giant, they would usually get a hit or 2 in even if you focus them, and even a couple hits could be 20 percent of a vamp heros health bar. So if you fought 4 doomstacks with a combined 20 dragons or so, that could be a problem.

Thing is though, ai sees the vamp hero stack and thinks its weak. Which means they'll attack you without 4 stacks. So you pretty much never need to fight 4 armies anyways. I only did that cause I was attacking, and I'm confident enough with that army I don't bother with lightning strike till I've basically finished isabellas personal skills. If 4 high elf doomstacks did arrive, you could just lightning stirike them 1 by 1 if you didn't have good enough items or levels to win on the battlefield.

Dwarves to me I could see ways for them to benefit (they've got a good range line, and since dwarf engineers give range bonuses something like a stack of quarellers with 2 engineers and a stack of dwarf warriors would make sense), but its just the armies you fight. Greenskins armies suck, and dwarf early game units are quite strong. Good stacks are complete overkill, and with the ridiculous number of armies greenskins build if you're not fielding multiple stacks you just can't hunt them all down.

There are also other factions where supporting armies don't make sense. Like Dark Elves. Malekith half costs black guard, hellabron half costs sisters and makes them pretty ridiculous, and both are almost capable of soloing armies themselves. High elves similarly Allarielle just makes sisters so overpowered you can't possibly lose a fight with them. Bringing an extra army feels completely wasted. But vampires don't have any lords that buff high tier units like that, other than maybe high level blood dragons.

[Sir uP]

Good points.

I guess izzy drew the attention of multiple HE stacks when it landed on ulthuan cuz her army was also filled with bats and vargeists? (She only has 6 immortal vamps with her in my current playthrough).

I usually avoid lightning strike until the end as well and by that time not as valuable. Game feels too easy with it.