What are High Elf mage heroes for now?

[Don Cool]

It´s been a long time that I played High Elves, noticed I could recruit Lord mages and that pretty much nullifies the need for a caster hero unless you need one for map purposes or want an extra mana battery.

Unless I am playing Vamps I never bring two casters in the same stack along for the ride, maybe I am missing something here?

[Konstantin]

Iirc Fire Mages are the only hero that can ride a Sun Dragon. So go for a Fire Mage to have a Hero with a Dragon?

[Kushko]

Get a fire mage hero with incendiary, put her on a sun dragon and have one of the most powerful units in the game.

1000+ weapon damage, 250 ish charge, arcane conduit,... need i say more? :)

[fmalfeas]

Get a Shadow mage hero, and put them on a horse. Not a flying one. Just a horse. Run them up into a blind spot along a wall in a siege and cast Pit of Shades on top of the wall on their most powerful units up there. Repeat until army loss while you sit back and laugh.

Yes, Pit of Shades, the stationary vortex, can be cast on walls. And on top of the gatehouse. And if you break the gate, you can send the Prince in to get blobbed, and drop Pit of Shades there too, and massacre most of their army. It's not quite Wind of Death level obnoxious, but it's real close.

[Cacomistle]

Well I started a Teclis campaign.

On a teclis campaign, you obviously recruit mage lords at higher level than regular ones, so its obviously best to spam archmages over the other lords.

So why would I build mage heros? Because I'm swimming in infuence and I can get the incendiary trait on most of them. An incendiary mage is better for their cost than most other units just in terms of pure combat ability, especially on a dragon mount.

But then also, you can get multiple lords of magic. You could for example fly in 4 dragons, the enemy clumps around them, you cast flamestorm or banishment or something and murder them all, and then use life magic to heal your dragons to full.

Then there's also the fact that you have to put points into spells. With archmages I tend to like putting 3-4 points into the base effective spells (like hounds with a lore of metal caster as ai just runs into it constantly, earth blood on a life caster, you know like their starting spell and 1 more non-advanced spell). Then I'll use the actual mage for advanced magic.

By the time the archmage gets all the points in red skills (and lightning strike if you're the type to get that, I never go for it personally though), your regular mage probably has all their spells and is doing most of the casting. Then when you get them both all their spells, you've got 2 arcane conduits, 2 of that ability that gives +15 mana, a huge selection of spells, you can wipe armies with entirely magic.

In short, there's nothing wrong with multiple mages in campaign. Especially when those mages can have +100% weapon strength and +10 ma/md while riding a dragon.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Konstantin:

Iirc Fire Mages are the only hero that can ride a Sun Dragon. So go for a Fire Mage to have a Hero with a Dragon?

Wait really?

I haven't recruited anything but a fire mage (Imrik starts with one, and the mages with incindiary I've seen were all either fire or light and I hate light). But I just assumed it was all of them, because why would you have 1 mage that's clearly better than all the others?

[Ashley]

I'd still want to get punitive ranger lords for sisters armies. But sadly haven't seen any in a while.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by hollywoodkik:

Same as other races with mage lords, while Archmages are definitely stronger than most lords in general, there's always a faction or two that you'd rather have a melee or ranged lord in. Late game Dwarves and Lizardmen, for example, will absolutely poop on your dragon mounted mage, and any army with hero stacks will crap on your mage lord. Of course with proper micro, you can keep em alive in any situation, but forget about them for a second and they get hit by any anti large or duelist hero and their health disappears, at least on Very Hard battles.

Yea but a mage with the incindary trait on a dragon is capable to take one most other non LL except maybe bloodline vampires. Exspecially if you give them some of the good gear.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Well I started a Teclis campaign.

On a teclis campaign, you obviously recruit mage lords at higher level than regular ones, so its obviously best to spam archmages over the other lords.

So why would I build mage heros? Because I'm swimming in infuence and I can get the incendiary trait on most of them. An incendiary mage is better for their cost than most other units just in terms of pure combat ability, especially on a dragon mount.

But then also, you can get multiple lords of magic. You could for example fly in 4 dragons, the enemy clumps around them, you cast flamestorm or banishment or something and murder them all, and then use life magic to heal your dragons to full.

Then there's also the fact that you have to put points into spells. With archmages I tend to like putting 3-4 points into the base effective spells (like hounds with a lore of metal caster as ai just runs into it constantly, earth blood on a life caster, you know like their starting spell and 1 more non-advanced spell). Then I'll use the actual mage for advanced magic.

By the time the archmage gets all the points in red skills (and lightning strike if you're the type to get that, I never go for it personally though), your regular mage probably has all their spells and is doing most of the casting. Then when you get them both all their spells, you've got 2 arcane conduits, 2 of that ability that gives +15 mana, a huge selection of spells, you can wipe armies with entirely magic.

In short, there's nothing wrong with multiple mages in campaign. Especially when those mages can have +100% weapon strength and +10 ma/md while riding a dragon.

Yea Imrik and Teclis gets the firemage, so far i am aware the other gets only the Firemage lord, not the caster so the can not get mages on dragon

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Originally posted by Konstantin:

Iirc Fire Mages are the only hero that can ride a Sun Dragon. So go for a Fire Mage to have a Hero with a Dragon?

Wait really?

I haven't recruited anything but a fire mage (Imrik starts with one, and the mages with incindiary I've seen were all either fire or light and I hate light). But I just assumed it was all of them, because why would you have 1 mage that's clearly better than all the others?

Yes , only firemage, all other are limited to horses and chariots. And only Teclis and Imrik get the fire mages as heroes.
You would only others if you need heal (lifemage+ Imrik after all dragon battles has its use), otherwise firemages are top, the spells wipe whole units, and they can still buff several units( for example dragon with +25% strengt)if you want, and yea incindary+ fire +dragon is op, exspecially as Imrik debuff whole enemie army with 20% weakness.

[Konstantin]

Originally posted by JODEGAFUN:

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Wait really?

I haven't recruited anything but a fire mage (Imrik starts with one, and the mages with incindiary I've seen were all either fire or light and I hate light). But I just assumed it was all of them, because why would you have 1 mage that's clearly better than all the others?

Yes , only firemage, all other are limited to horses and chariots. And only Teclis and Imrik get the fire mages as heroes.

Okay last one a did not knew but iirc the reason why only fire Mages is because the are the closest to the true Dragon Princess of Caledor and because Sundragon is of same element as fire. If you want to complain to one, do that at Games Workshop because they set the rule and CA only followed the order.

[Blithe Bob]

you shouldnt get the mage lords. get red and blues skills on your lords and let a hero do the casting. while incendiary is cool i just go all entrepeneurs on heros
.