How to deal with massed Great Olms

[Ajidica]

What the title says.
I'm in a multiplayer game (EA, I'm playing Ermor) that is getting rather late and I'm in a war with Agartha. Agartha has massed Great Olms and I can't seem to deal with their mindblast. I've tried casting Antimagic but I'm still losing something like 20-30 units a round. I've tried loading up on evocations to try and hammer their back lines as Great Olms are fairly high HP but low prot units, but none of the evocations seem to go back there. Flanking is out of the picture as it is late enough Agartha can stretch units from edge to edge.

I had hoped Antimagic would push my MR high enough to cut down on taking casualties like this, but it isn't working. I know that late game I should be moving away from troops, and I am really trying to focus on summoned units/spells, but none of the summons seem like they would be that helpful against Agartha and half my battle line siege/chaff gets wiped out in a few turns with all the Great Olms.

Thoughts?

[Alien]

I might have an idea. You could use mass cheap flying summons to rush the backline while your ground units rush them in the chaos.
Wish you good luck

[Perro Grande]

Death mages with amulets of anti-magic, and cast anti-magic, and have them spam skele's and maybe have a few units in front to eat the first few mindblasts.

Also lead shields

[Alien]

I dont think Mindblast work on mindless unit, The Olms might just target the life one in the end.

[Perro Grande]

Originally posted by Alien:

I dont think Mindblast work on mindless unit, The Olms might just target the life one in the end.

Augars have 15 MR, with amulets, shields, and antimagic spell they will have 27 which is pretty much immune to mindblast.

[applenta]

Spam Life Long protection contract? Calling Wolf or Shark on the battlefield. Losing 20-30 unit a round meaning you only need 10-15 contracts to keep the Olm permanently busy. Thugging your commander with Amulet of Anti Magic.

[Nrak555]

A single thug or SC with 26ish mr will still get hit with the mindblasts.
You need lots of chaff to absorb them. or a mindless army, Golems come to mind as a good thug chassis that is inmune to the mind blasts that you would need to gear to deal with what is left.
Skele spam can work if you have enough chaff with minds to let your mages do the work.

50 olms is 5000 gold and probly 10 turns of recruitment if you are throwing armies at it unless you have a specific counter you will probly need a similar cost army and don't forgot that 5000 is just olms not is chaff

Also Anti magic field if you can cast it will make your life easier it's about a 36% swing in success chance

So at 10 mr a olms mind blast will work 62% of the time and at 14 only 38%.

[Red_Rob]

In the late game regular line troops and even most summons start to become outmoded as a way to actually win battles. You will still need a pile of them to hold the line and with enough buffs layered on they can actually win the day, but your focus should be moving away from "how many troops can I bring to this fight" to "How can I use magic to tip the odds in my favour?".

It's worth remembering that Great Olms cost 50 gold each, so the opponenent has made a massive investment in that army that you can't really expect to just take out with a line of regular infantry. You will need to something that can attack the Olms directly to win the fight.

My first thought would be to set up a communion of Augurs and Elders to cast Fire Storm. This will slowly deal damage to everything on the battlefield, which should roast all the Olms given enough time. This can be combined with Heat from Hell for additional heat/fatigue damage. To avoid killing all your own troops first you will need to either also cast something like Fire Fend to grant them Fire Resistance, or summon a bunch of fire resistant line units such as Terracotta Warriors or Fire Snakes. Another option is to have a bunch of other Augur Elders summoning Fire Elementals to create fire-proof units that will hold the enemy off through the Fire Storm. Make sure to have a Communion Master cast Protection from Fire to keep your communion slaves safe. You could even layer on Rigor Mortis, however this will hit your own side aswell unless you have a portion of your army as Undead.

To draw off some of the Mind Blasts you can try summoning some cheap, high hp units like Forest or Hill Giants and placing them off to the sides of your army. This might divert some of the Olms to attack these units due to the AI liking high hp targets, leaving your line more or less unaffected.

This tactic might not be totally successful, and is vulnerable to the enemy casting Fire Fend or similar if they suspect it might be used, but it is the kind of thing you need to be thinking about to beat large enemy stacks in the late game. Use of spells such as Earthquake, Mass Flight or Foul Vapours can let you attack an enemy in ways they aren't expecting, which can let you beat even "superior" forces with a bit of creative thinking.

[Perro Grande]

Originally posted by Nrak555:

A single thug or SC with 26ish mr will still get hit with the mindblasts.
You need lots of chaff to absorb them. or a mindless army, Golems come to mind as a good thug chassis that is inmune to the mind blasts that you would need to gear to deal with what is left.
Skele spam can work if you have enough chaff with minds to let your mages do the work.

50 olms is 5000 gold and probly 10 turns of recruitment if you are throwing armies at it unless you have a specific counter you will probly need a similar cost army and don't forgot that 5000 is just olms not is chaff

Also Anti magic field if you can cast it will make your life easier it's about a 36% swing in success chance

So at 10 mr a olms mind blast will work 62% of the time and at 14 only 38%.

Caster’s Penetration roll: 10 + DRN + (additional skill in spell path) / 2
Target’s MR roll: Magic Resistance + DRN + (skill in spell path) / 2

From DRN table:

-14 1%
-13 1%

With mass MR the olms will hit less than 1% mindblasts (which are not even 1 shot kills) against the augers who can skele spam.

27MR is more than enough to pretty much never get hit, If you do get hit it does not do too much damage and you can still fight.

IDK how many olms they have but something like 10 auger elders spamming skeles with antimagic amulets, antimagic spell should do fine, if you want add lead shields to the mix (but they are a 10 gem item) but you don't need to cause even without the shields you would have

MR = 15 (base) + 4 (amulet) + 4 (antimagic spell) = 23 = 1% chance of mindblast breaking through.

Also having some high HP units on the front line or as bodyguards to eat the first few magic blasts (probably a summon would be best but normal troops can also help if need by) would be helpful.

[applenta]

That's true, to kill with Mind Blass with 1% chance would take 200 Great Olm focusing down a single mage, which is near impossible.

[Nrak555]

While true you forget the paralysis with one hit could stop a mage from casting from 1-6 turns. At that high mr dying from mindblasts are not a concern but surviving 30-50 turns from the paralysis that lets the rest of the army hammer the SC or thugs(I was talking 1 to only a couple of units at most).

As for 10 mages would proably not be enough (By themselves). No they will not die to mindblasts but by his front line. having maxed out body guards on them to absorb mindblasts would still be a requirement. As for only 10 mages depends what else you and the enemy bring.

[Perro Grande]

Originally posted by Nrak555:

While true you forget the paralysis with one hit could stop a mage from casting from 1-6 turns. At that high mr dying from mindblasts are not a concern but surviving 30-50 turns from the paralysis that lets the rest of the army hammer the SC or thugs(I was talking 1 to only a couple of units at most).

As for 10 mages would proably not be enough (By themselves). No they will not die to mindblasts but by his front line. having maxed out body guards on them to absorb mindblasts would still be a requirement. As for only 10 mages depends what else you and the enemy bring.

Well 4 olms are 200 gold and an elder auger is 210 gold

[Perro Grande]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1940042905


Only half of the augers had anti magic amulets. All you need is enchant 5 for hoard of skele and antimagic.


In this test the blesses were

Agartha with magic pen bless

Ermor with blood surge bless.


Also done in a province with magic 1 scale

[MoKuS]

Attack the rear by fast units.

[Ajidica]

Thanks guys! Fortunately I have plenty of breathing room to try things out.

[jojeck]

Mass Flight is a good solution to enemy units (mage, archers) sitting behind a tough frontline. Set a few squads of infantry to hold attack rear, buff them with body ethereal, marble warriors, weapons of sharpness and other good stuff then cast mass flight and watch some of them chop those Olms into little pieces. Earlier in the game before Mass Flight is researched you can use A2 air mages (25% Augur elders are A, in a communion) to cast Gift of Flight on 1 tile of the squad to act as a distraction.