Help With Alith Anar

[Akulvo]

Is there some special way you're supposed to fight him when hes the AI? I feel obligated to let out some kind or rant at just how frustrating it is to fight his faction when you're the dark elves. I get that theres ways to fight him, but jesus christ he is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ frustrating to deal with.

Shadow-♥♥♥♥♥♥ spam
always ambushes your troops, it seems with 100% chance when hes the AI.
Auto-Resolve is always bad but its even worse here. 12 stack of shadow Warriors and Walker spam vs my duo 15 stacks of dark shards and dreadspears and bleakswords. Fight the battle manually, lose about half of my melee lads but overall, very easy battle. What does auto resolve say? No chance, about 15% of the bar is in my favor...
So can't even just auto resolve to skip over the fights. I don't want to get an army of just dark riders specifically for him, even then I'm not even sure if the dark riders will beat the shadow warriors/walkers in melee combat.

Gimme the cheese way to beat this dude. Current campaign I'm Malekith at around turn 25. Confederated Helebron then later confederated Forgebound. Made a few mistakes and I got 2 wars going on, not a huge deal, dealing with the red faction (cant remember the name) and Arnheim now. Next would be the orcs and tomb kings just south. Already working on dealing with norscans above me so they're not an issue.
Its not that the problem is fighting the faction and winning. I can do that. The problem is just that its so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tedious to deal with that it ruins the fun of the campaign for me. So whats an army setup you can have with t3 settlements that will beat the shadow-♥♥♥♥ spam in autoresolve. Or just strategies to deal with them easier.

Difficulty is only on Hard though.

[Mr Robert House]

I really doubt auto resolve will ever be favourable 1v1 against a strong ranged army like his.

[dollars202]

if you want to auto resolve use mass numbers on him with cheap units. best way.

[A.Pot]

As an Alith Anar main, I can tell you that Cavalry is the weakness of Shadow Warrior / Stalker spam. Recruit lots of Dark Riders.

[fmalfeas]

Here's the trick.

Bait.

Get a lord with some Cunning heroes to up your ambush chance. Park them in ambush stance in the forest to give you better odds.

Then get some level 1 nobody lord, with no troops or gear, and put them in force march right next to your ambush lord.

The AI can't resist that stuff, and unlike Markus Wulfhart, Alith Anar doesn't have inherent ambush defense. So you beat him at his own game, and since you can deploy so close in ambush battles, his Shadow Walkers and Shadow Warriors and he himself won't be able to stealth to a good position.

Just deploy as close as possible on both sides to ensure that he's got nowhere to fall back to in order to stealth up.

Use stuff that is good at dealing with ranged units. Witch Elves (they can't shoot you if they're rampaging right into the blender), Sisters of Slaughter (they have 30% missile dodge chance, /and/ have Phys resist), Dark Riders and Doomfire Warlocks, chariots, Darkshards with Shields, Bleakswords (they have shields, and kill in melee faster than dreadspears), Masters on mounts.

Since you'll be stuck in on them, restrict your magic mostly to buffs, debuffs, and direct damage, as missile spells, bombardments, vortexes, and winds will nuke your own troops too.

If you can get a settlement or ark leveled up enough, hydraspam in that situation will utterly crush him, as even if he gets out of the pincer, since they regen quickly, and are tough to begin with, they'll run him out of ammo.

[Akulvo]

Originally posted by fmalfeas:

Here's the trick.

Bait.

Get a lord with some Cunning heroes to up your ambush chance. Park them in ambush stance in the forest to give you better odds.

Then get some level 1 nobody lord, with no troops or gear, and put them in force march right next to your ambush lord.

The AI can't resist that stuff, and unlike Markus Wulfhart, Alith Anar doesn't have inherent ambush defense. So you beat him at his own game, and since you can deploy so close in ambush battles, his Shadow Walkers and Shadow Warriors and he himself won't be able to stealth to a good position.

Just deploy as close as possible on both sides to ensure that he's got nowhere to fall back to in order to stealth up.

Use stuff that is good at dealing with ranged units. Witch Elves (they can't shoot you if they're rampaging right into the blender), Sisters of Slaughter (they have 30% missile dodge chance, /and/ have Phys resist), Dark Riders and Doomfire Warlocks, chariots, Darkshards with Shields, Bleakswords (they have shields, and kill in melee faster than dreadspears), Masters on mounts.

Since you'll be stuck in on them, restrict your magic mostly to buffs, debuffs, and direct damage, as missile spells, bombardments, vortexes, and winds will nuke your own troops too.

If you can get a settlement or ark leveled up enough, hydraspam in that situation will utterly crush him, as even if he gets out of the pincer, since they regen quickly, and are tough to begin with, they'll run him out of ammo.

All sounds good! Though the problem is im trying to deal with them a lil early so I only have access up to t3 stuff. Sadly no hydra spam though thats would normally use against most things. Game is around turn 25 or so at the moment.

[bli-nk]

Alith Anar is that far north already? As Morathi I usually take him out immediately while with Hellebrone I simply sail to northern Ulthuan, not sure what I do with Malekith, been a few updates since I played that start position but generally the Warlock riders, Cold Ones, and Malekith on his dragon.

Just use the dragon breath attacks and some spells as well to keep the stalk units visible as you kite by dodging the dragon in and out of their range.