Vanarus Mid/Late Game Ideas

[ncarr99]

So I've been looking at Vanarus for the last few weeks and am considering playing as them soon. They have some pretty good units, the Chud hirdman and the Oath-bound especially seem quite useful. In test games they always expand pretty well, and they do well against AI armies. Which may not be the best indicator of MP success, but it's something. As far as magic, early/mid game going for thunderstrike spam and maybe storm demons seems to be good. So basically, I have at least an idea of what to prioritize to get through the first 30-40 turns of an MP game with them.

But after that, I have no idea what to do with them. They just don't have any meaningful strength in any paths besides air, it seems like. And even air they only get up to like 3, which is cool and all but doesn't give me any end-game big guns. They do have access to almost everything, but it's weak access. I can't rely on storm demons and thunderstrike forever, so what should I be trying to do with Vanarus in the late game?

[Mardagg]

doesnt Vanarus has a pretty damn good array of national summons? I suggest looking at them in a test game and decide which ones to priorize on . Ive never played them for real myself but I have faced them several times in MP and they seemed to be pretty well balanced for all game stages.

[ncarr99]

Yeah, they have all of the same ones that Bogarus and Rus have. I don't really know which ones to focus on though. And besides, there are a bunch that they have trouble getting with recruitable mages.

And I don't argue that they aren't well balanced, I've seen other people do well with Vanarus before and I can look at them and see that they have greatness in them. I just don't know how to bring out their potential myself, so I figured I'd ask around.

[Mardagg]

The vanarusian sage appears to be great and it got 33% chance to get blood, those would be my blood hunters. I would say you can and should get a pretty decent blood economy going with Vanarus. Research wise you should be doing really good due to the sage + the mages that are recruitable in forests (and that make great site searchers early on).
You miss Astral badly but can summon S2 mages with an S3 mage=pretender, also you can summon H3 priests with Astral, pretty nice for claiming thrones,etc.

Water path is rather simliar to Astral, you can summon Water mages but need W3 for it...either with your pretender one time or going bracelet+ Robe of water breathing (if you dont get W2 random ).
The summonable water mage can bring some troops into the water, which is nice.
Also you have access to WF path. which is great, access to Acid storm with some boosters, etc.

I would probably want to take at least F,S ,B and probably also D on my pretender. Depending on thhe bless effects the oath bound might get pretty decent. Most players I watched almost exlcusively did use the chud hirdmen though.

I think the key to stay on top in late game with Vanarus is using the research advantage + strong blood economy+ closing the Astral leak+ probably get some decent death magic going(using blood summons for example).

[TheGrandWombat]

You can also extend your power by getting an air 4 pretender to forge air boosters, letting you cast mass flight and fog warriors, a powerful combination.

I don't remember Vanarus' path access off the top of my head, but if you can get a good amount of those WF mages, Manifest Vitriol for Green Lions can be quite useful.

[sunbeam]

Not sure most people stress the sacreds with Vanarus, but they do have glamour, even if they aren't ponymen.

Twist Fate is a really established bless, but my guesitmation says that glamour and Fateweaving should be pretty powerful.

[Mali Belizec]

My favourite summon is definitelly zmey.

When I play Rus/Vanarus/Bogarus all fire gems I can get goes to zmey summoning. But other summons are great too.

[Szronar_PL]

vanarus is the worst of all ruses. except for summons and casting lightning ad infinitum there really isnt anything you can do. maybe try buffing up your soldiers en masse too or something

[Mount Nomad]

Oath-Bound are okish with Fire Shield bless.

[Causk]

Only played them once in dom 4 and once in dom 5, so a grain of salt is needed.

I am not all that impressed with the national troop summons. Fire breathing dragons might be nice, but they are cold blooded on a cold dominion nation. The commander summons are much more useable as you get stuff (healer villa's, leshy Scs, flying H3) you otherwise wouldnt.

You can get alot of different path mages, so like with arco its a mess to script, but all of them can do something usefull given research. And you get good research mages and although the forests mages might not be as good as in Dom4, as you need 2 turns to recruit one, they are still another mage recruitment slot for just the price of a lab.

1/3 of your basic mages will be bloodmages, so you can use sabbath communions for bigger spells and get some blood hunting done. After con4 you can get a usefull amount of bloodhunting done. Granted youll never compete with a pure bloodnation, but those are rare in Middle Age anyways, so if you pick a pretender with blood4, you should be able to get access to everything bloodmagic has to offer.

It seems to me, that the problem with vanarus is not that there is nothing they can do, but that they can do nearly everything and that you might weaken yourself by trying to do too many things at once. Picking an imprisoned rainbow pretender for lategame boosters seems most obvious to good choice to me. Maybe a bless that supports a good midgame battle tactic (2xpoison res for foul vapours, 2xshock res for wrathful skies or cold res for grip of winter), but everything else into scales.

[ncarr99]

Originally posted by Causk:

It seems to me, that the problem with vanarus is not that there is nothing they can do, but that they can do nearly everything and that you might weaken yourself by trying to do too many things at once. Picking an imprisoned rainbow pretender for lategame boosters seems most obvious to good choice to me. Maybe a bless that supports a good midgame battle tactic (2xpoison res for foul vapours, 2xshock res for wrathful skies or cold res for grip of winter), but everything else into scales.

This is kind of what my problem with them is, that they have so many different paths I just haven't been able to figure out what to focus on.

Also that pretender idea is more or less what I was originally thinking, rainbow with a moderate bless and good scales.

[Mali Belizec]

Interesting blog about Vanarus back from dom4.


http://qwicoldominions.blogspot.com/2015/05/vanarus-part-ii-of-gods-and-men.html?m=1

[Mount Nomad]

Had to look up an old game file. I've had luck with Shock & Fire Resist, Recuperation and Fateweaving on a Monolith (thug/anti-thug bless). Badies hit the Oath-Bound and Hirds chew them up. Max Production scales, strong infantry to expand, air path shenanigans and Vanabog thugs for the mid-game (Soul Vortex + Mistform on the Death randoms) and Blood for the lategame.

[Morsigil]

I've never played Vanarus, but I might go for something like an E4/5 S4 pretender with the slots to wear and build rings of sorc/wizardry and boots of earth for earth royalty, so likely the sage or something similar. Take them dormant for pretty good scales to afford all of your human non-sacred wizards and skinshifters, and the E S cross paths give you access to master and slave matrices if you want to get cheeky or crystal shields to turn your vyeduns into master of the five elements analogs. The astral will give you access to the Alkonost and Gamayun, and the rings will get you the cloud and mountain vilas.

For a bless on this build I would probably take magic weapons and magic resist or magic leadership as well as fire and shock resist. Then your oathbound can run around with fire elementals without fear.