Abysian Beast Trainer. What's the point?

[Tanaka]

+3 to animal morale. The salamanders which are animals have -2 morale with Beast Trainer. So why build them at all? Or is the animal morale boost not working? Shouldn't the Beast Trainers give great morale to the salamanders so they are actually useful?

[No One]

Having both axe and morningstar shield infantry has little point too. Illwinter straight up says in one of the manuals that rusalkas are in purely for flavour and they believe they are useless. I also like how the misbred require undead leadership - they would otherwise be more useful than salamanders. It's quite impossible to balance this many units and frankly the fact all nations are basically playable is some kind of miracle.

The beast trainer is about half the gold of a warlord, so it has that going for them. They also have a few advantages over a warlord as a light thug chassis, such as 1 higher movement.

I don't find salamanders cost effective, but you can in theory make little raiding parties with beast trainers and some salamanders, capable of moving farther than the infantry, saving 35 gold over a warlord and getting +1 morale on the fire frogs. Do it twice and you can afford a whole extra salamander...

[Mount Nomad]

Fire Drakes, by contrast, are flat out awesome animals, and you only need a few.

[DasaKamov]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von No One:

Illwinter straight up says in one of the manuals that rusalkas are in purely for flavour and they believe they are useless.

Getting off-topic again, but (aside from the fact that Dominions 4 had a different meta than Dominions 5) I'd argue that Early-Midgame access to a Seducing, Stealth 60 Death/Water mage (in a nation that has limited access to both those paths) which can ALSO take 10 human-sized beings into water provinces is not "useless" in any definition of the word. ;)

[No One]

I'm sure there's a new totally useless unit

[boozermonkey]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von No One:

I'm sure there's a new totally useless unit

They are not useless per se. I just think they can be tweaked so they are a bit more useful. They do have a use, but I think Das is right - Salamanders should be magic units and the Beastmasters should be magic-only leaders.

[Mount Nomad]

Trinities aren't useless. You'd just have to be masochistic to take one.

[Twogun]

i can't figure the trinites out. at all...

[Bou]

All beast trainers/tamers in the game are underwhelming. In my opinion morale for animals under command of a beast trainer should get a larger boost. These squads are really small and thus are more susceptible for frequent morale rolls, so a net +1 morale doesn't help that much.

[Alias]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DasaKamov:

I'm thinking I'd prefer that they had 20 Magic Leadership and 0 Mundane Leadership,

I also noticed that, at least according to the Dominions 5 Data Inspector, Beastmasters might be broken in the current version of the game. Their description in-game, as well as their Dominions 4 version, claims they have the "Animal Awe +4" trait, but it does not appear in the Dominions 5 inspector. If it's indeed missing, giving them back that trait would move them towards at least having a more unique place in an EA/MA Abysinian army.

Removing normal leadership will actively make them worse because they no longer will be able to lead elephants.

Their Animal Awe works.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von No One:

Having both axe and morningstar shield infantry has little point too.

It has the point to address different damage resists, and also interacts differently with light/heavy armor and lack of helmets.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mount Nomad:

Fire Drakes, by contrast, are flat out awesome animals, and you only need a few.

Also considerably more expensive.

Salamanders are a highly specialized unit whose main selling point is bypassing Defense.

[DasaKamov]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Alias:

Removing normal leadership will actively make them worse because they no longer will be able to lead elephants.

While you're not necessarily wrong...

1) Warlords can lead Elephants just fine (and still give them the +1 Morale that a Beast Tamer would), and

2) None of the Abysian nations have native access to Nature magic which would allow them to cast "Herd of Elephants", nor do any of the Abysian nations have Elephant units in their national rosters. ;)

[Alias]

Warlords can, but are more expensive, and don't have Animal Awe to protect them against routed elephants.

Finding an elephant-producing province is fairly common.

As for Animal summons, there's plenty including non-Nature ones as the Scorpion Beast. Losing leadership means Trainers won't be able to lead any of them too.

So, again, removing leadership in no way improves the Trainer or Abysia's overall options.

[boozermonkey]

If you are playing Abysia you are not going to go for Elephants generally. Maybe a squad or two fo beat trainer lead Salamanders and maybe some summoned Scorpions, since those are in their native paths. Elephants at 100g and 20r are a wasted spend.

[Alias]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von boozermonkey:

If you are playing Abysia you are not going to go for Elephants generally. Maybe a squad or two fo beat trainer lead Salamanders and maybe some summoned Scorpions, since those are in their native paths. Elephants at 100g and 20r are a wasted spend.

Animal units may not be central to Abysia, but again, losing the option to command them with Trainers in no way makes Trainers or Abysia better.

[No One]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Alias:

It has the point to address different damage resists

That's why I said 'little' instead of 'no'.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Alias:

interacts differently with light/heavy armor and lack of helmets.

This is negligible.

[Mount Nomad]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Alias:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mount Nomad:

Fire Drakes, by contrast, are flat out awesome animals, and you only need a few.

Also considerably more expensive.

Salamanders are a highly specialized unit whose main selling point is bypassing Defense.

Dragon Mastery. Gotta give that Golden Lion something to do after expansion. =3

Salamanders smell.