Cruel Haas once again

[Vulture]

Hi everybody!

After a break of about ~5 months I've returned to KB:TL to finish my Paladin game. I stopped playing in Demonis back then and finished it today. As for all the battles against f.e. Baal or the 7 Embodiments, they were a piece of cake. Finished them all with no losses and very easily no less. Bagud was a piece of cake, too.

But Haas ? Dear lord! I mean ok, I defeated him, but lost more than half of my army. I loaded the last savegame a few times and tried different strategies but utterly in vain. I just can't figure how to deal these loads of damage against 4 (!) stacks of Black Dragons (28 total) before he starts casting "Armageddon", making loss preservation moves pointless.

Facts to know about this:

Stats:

LvL 29 (picked "Learning" only rank 1 and too late in the game, my mistake)

Att: 19
Def: 14
Int: 16
Ldr: 24k
Wife: Xeona (whip+poison dagger equipped, angas ruby too)

lvlup choices were Ldr > att > int > def. Had to let 1 att go in favor of 1400 Ldr, though. Still bugs me :evil:

Rages: Lina 19 (chargers never asked lvlup, still 3 orbs, 2 rage, 1 mana -.-)
Reaper: 24 Timeback lvl1-5 @ 20 rage, 2 turns recharge
Other two 18 or so each.

I know, those are ridiculously low stats but that's the best I could manage with available items. I was VERY unlucky with random items. The price for my INSANE luck with spells. Found 12 (!) sacrifice scrolls, 10 resurrection scrolls, armageddon, doom etc. And many of those very early on. But items: crap, crap and more crap. 19 Att is the maximum achieveable. As for units I have access to EVERY unit in the game. Still have the upgradeable mage staff final battle left which I saved to boost any stack to max if I want to.

Order3+Healer max, Disto3, Chaos 2 (Sacc only)

Onslaught3, Dark Commander3, Tolerance2, Rune Talent ofc 3.

Setup:
3200 Lake Fairies
2900 Sprites
1140 Dryads (useless against lvl 5 enemies so I replaced them with 92 Demons)
1720 Skeleton Archers (DA ofc)
Hunters (did only 900-1600 dmg on Dragons w/o DA, pretty much useless :/ )

Haas' setup: 4 Stacks of Blacks (6,9,8 and 5), 1 stack of 10 Reds, 1 stack of 12 Greens, 1 stack of 15 Bones, 2 stacks of 10 Giants each (double earthquake, gz -.-) 1 stack of 13 Ancient Ents.

The problem is very obvious: I just can't dish out enough damage and the 4 stacks of Blackies just fly circles around my troops, line breathing them to unrestorably low stacks. Enough to win but not even remotley enough to restore before armageddon hell.

What am I getting wrong ? I dominated the whole game until Haas. No loss with rarely more than 8-10 turns each battle. Series of 40k+ oneshot crits from the LF/S. Series of oneshotting ANY encountered Dragon stacks with DA-Skellies. But with 6 Dragon stacks and double earthquake I'm just hoplessly inferior and take a hard beating.

My strategy: LF/S kill the Bone Dragon stack. Hunters killed 1 single black dragon *clap*. DA on Skells, 10 Reds down (tried the 9 Blacks as their target. No difference in the end). Then the 4 BD stacks and the Emerald stack took out 50% of my range department. Then Demons between the 2 stacks of Giants, Pentagram, attacked Giants, only 2 died :/ Skells Pgymied, no DA for turn 2. Turn ends.
By the end of turn 2 my Hunters were gone. All of them. Skellies pygmied down to 700, no DA. LF/S were pretty much ok. Lost 500 each. Demons down to 69. Alltogether unrestorable b4 armageddon. Not with 112 max mana and only 1 cast/turn (Yay Mages -.-)

I'm sure I'm missing vital information here. It's crushing since I consider myself at least a bit "advanced" in this game. Any help would be very much appreciated, especially concerning positioning of troops to avoid the flying fire breath ability.

Regards,
Vulture

[iregev]

as you see archers are not optimal against Haas - You need brute power to take him down
Try hard hitting melle unit:
I usually go with this setup:
Anceint Vamps (+ dark comander to make sure I have the initiative)
Veteran Orcs if I can find them if not then horsmans because of the fire resistance
Shamans
Knights
Inqusitors for resurection and no losses if you don't care about that you can choose any other units.

first turn cast mass battle cry and have the knight circle attack and cripple 2 dragons stacks you should be fine from them

[Arilian]

Yeah, Knights are designed for this battle.
I did it with Sprites, Lake Faeries, Knights, Green Dragons (for mana, I had 48 max mana only), Dryads (they are good imho, lots of hp, good stats good damage) I had 35 Atck though, with dragons slayer sword and shield aganst dragon attacks.
I played agressive with a lots of time back and mass dragons slayer and mass bless. Haas did not cast Armageddon, only Pygmy. I "dispelled" this with time back - so i was able to cast helpful spells and resurrect.

I did not do if for no losses - after all you dont need units after this fight - but it was not too far from that.

[loreangelicus]

I feel for you, I myself was cruising my no-casualties game up until the battle with Haas.

Attached are screenshots of my battle with Haas. As mentioned by the other posters, I believe the key here is to bring some bad-ass melee unit that Haas would consider debilitating with Sheep or Pygmy. In my setup, Haas simply kept on casting Sheep on my Demons, and I just kept on casting Dispel (3 guesses who won that mana battle :grin:).

It is important to note that you should dispel the debilitating effect though; else, Haas would do something else, like Hypnotize or a damage spell. So try to bring level 4 units for him to cast Sheep/Pygmy on so that he would spend more mana. This is key.

It should be noted that I was even being pig-headed in my game, refusing to swap out the Inquisitors for something more suitable for the final battle. As such, I think I spent 40 of the 66 turns bringing them back up with Resurrection. It took me that many turns because all the enemies were zoning in on them and wiping them out completely, and I couldn't leave them at zero count since some enemy might get killed on top of them, preventing me from casting Resurrect on them. So as all the others have suggested, drop the archers for this battle. Even the Inquisitors could be dropped as you could use rage drain/chargers/resurrect to bring back lost troops.

Of course, there are two more ways to go...

spell/rage damagers + ...
1) ancient vampires/dark commander/invisibility lvl 1 + chargers + rage drain
2) demoness/anga's ruby/invisibility lvl 1 + chargers + rage drain

Option #2 necessitates you to kill the giants first and do a couple of timebacks/resurrects on the demonesses, but the results are the same.

I refrain from using these two options though since it takes the challenge out of the battles, and I actually appreciated the Haas battle a lot since I was getting a bit bored with battles before that. :)

[Vulture]

Thank you all for your quick responses. Much appreciated here.

@iregev: so you recommend hp over usefulness. Except for the Ancient Vamps, they are priceless here. I'll give it a shot, thx.

@Arilian: "i did not do it for no losses". But I do :> I know how to win and say "I don't need troops after that". But I don't care. I want "Your casualties: 0" and that's the rule. And read above, please, I put down the Dryads. They're of no use in this battle. There's no 1-3 enemy stack and my Fairies and Sprites go first every turn. neither lullaby nor inspiring song needed. And another target vulnerable to fire is not that much appreciated. For a no loss victory they are an obstacle, not an improvement. But thanks anyway. I had the idea of using mass dragon slayer before but I end up using resurrect every turn. Maybe I'll go as you advise and play more offensively. Think that's what broke my neck not doing.

@loreangelicus: thank you very much for the insight. I knew I was missing something vital here. Draining his mana and keeping him busy CCing in fact sounds like THE plan. I'll go and try immediately (and bang my head on the wall not considering that to begin with :> ) As for the archers, I must contradict though. Melee of course is a better investment but with my gear, Skellies with DA are the most powerful weapon I have. As stated above, I tried with Demons but they actually didn't do any damage. 3k critical is a joke tbh :/

But you opened my eyes. Thank you very much for that. Before reading your opinion here I was dead sure that I must wipe his Dragons before Turn 7 (average turn when he began using armageddon). Didn't think of the dispel/timeback/keep busy CCing mechanism. And btw am I getting it right ? You're saying enemy heroes do pay different amounts of mana depending on which spell rank they have to use for the respective target unit ? See, I didn't consider that as well although it's actually obvious and logical. That shoul really turn the tides.

But I'm still not sure what units I'll bring along with that strat. Considering the fact that I will win the mana duel my choice of units shouldn't be affected. Dryads will remain exchanged for Demons. They don't kill, but they don't die fast and retaliate, so I'm fine with that. Used to clear all of Elven Lands incl Land Of The Dead with them as tanks, so old combattants meet again :> And I'll sort out the hunters in favor of green dragons. With my shitty unimproved chargers I need them or I'll run dry. As for my 3 lvl 1 buddies, I won't let them go. I've seen too many "no-loss-on-impossible" screenshots of the Haas battle with exactly those. If these people can, then so can I. But I'll try it without those 3 as well to test the mana duel agenda even further :>

But besides that. Nobody got a handy method to avoid those fire flights the blacks are doing ? I mean I'm facing 4 stacks of them :s I don't seem to find a lineup that minimizes or extinguishes flight path opportunities :<

[loreangelicus]

And btw am I getting it right ? You're saying enemy heroes do pay different amounts of mana depending on which spell rank they have to use for the respective target unit ? :<

Actually, its in the spell description. For example for Sheep, you only need the level 1 version at 30 mana to cast it on level 1-2 units; consequently, you need level 2 at 35 mana to cast it on level 3 units, level 3 at 40 mana to cast it on level 4 units.

Enemy heroes follow the same spell rules, so they need more mana using Sheep on your level 4 units as opposed to casting it on your level 1-2 units.

But I understand how you may not see this immediately, I myself didn't realize this at once since I don't use debilitating spells except for Slow, and that's not tied up to unit level.

Regarding positioning units, if you have Tactics, place your units to the corners and spread them. I know this is a bit counter-intuitive in protecting your archers, but this is the best way to avoid being lined up for damage by blacks and reds. Your mileage may vary though, since you have more archers.

The main advantage of archers is they get to damage the enemy before the enemy ever reaches them, so their life is not a factor in such situations. But this advantage is lost in this battle. The problem with archer units is not so much their damage but their life. This is compounded even more for this battle since those dragon units would reach you in turn 1...

Don't dismiss demon units quite easily as the main damage dealing enemies here are fire-based. As pointed out by the others, you should take into consideration damage as well as defense, and the life expectancy of the units involved.

You might be missing out this fact as well, but sprites/lake fairies/dryads are all magic-based in damage, of which black dragons are 95% resistant to. I'm glad you swapped Demons for the Dryads, and EGDs (the only dragon unit that does physical damage) for Hunters. Keeping your skellies is ok I guess, I myself survived with inquisitors. :) But don't expect miracles from them damage-wise since the enemies would most likely zone in on them and reduce their numbers greatly and force them to use their weaker melee attack (the AI is designed to maximize it's damage, and archers are usually the targets since they have the least amount of defense and take the most amount of damage as a result).

Do update us how your battle goes.

[Arilian]

"You might be missing out this fact as well, but sprites/lake fairies/dryads are all magic-based in damage, of which black dragons are 95% resistant to."

Half true, actually they do magic+poison+fire damage. (whip+dagger)
They are pretty good even against the Blacks.
But generally what i did is Knights kill the Blacks Sprites kill everyone else.

[Elwin]

My devastating setup for haas was:
sprite
lake fairy
hunter
skel archer
demon

well maybe its not perfect setup since archers arent much that useful but it worked. Skel alrchers with dragon arrow takes dwon dragons easily. And sprites/like fairys with demons can take the rest ^^

[loreangelicus]

Half true, actually they do magic+poison+fire damage. (whip+dagger)
They are pretty good even against the Blacks.

Ok, two-thirds true then since blacks are also 80% fire resistant. :) Just kidding, I was talking about their primary damage and simply pointing out that they might have less of an impact as one would expect against blacks. I never used them against blacks so I'll take your word for it that they are still good against such foes.

My devastating setup for haas was:
sprite
lake fairy
hunter
skel archer
demon

well maybe its not perfect setup since archers arent much that useful but it worked. Skel alrchers with dragon arrow takes dwon dragons easily. And sprites/like fairys with demons can take the rest ^^

Hey, isn't this the original setup of the OP? Elwin, care to elaborate for the OP how you made this setup work? Did you do this without casualties?

[Elwin]

I do not mind for casualties on last battle ^^ Tough my losses werent big either.
Well i have played it months ago so i dont remember exactly how it went.

Setup of Haas unit are random as well hes got quite trouble some one.

My Haas vs Paladin was: (HARD LEVEL)
2x green dragon
1x red
1 x black dragon
2x ancient ent
2x bone dragon
1x giant
1x fire dragonfly


My army :
3200 LF
2600 sprites
1700 SA
93 demons
163 hunters


At first i smashed bone dragons with girls power(1 hit ko of course) , blackies with skelies, and demons went for giant + fire dragon fly.
KEy point in the next round is timeback on skells too have them restored and shoot down trouble some another big stack of dragons. Anceint ents ar enot much deal for girls either so girls go for them also. But he has 4 blackies that makes things hard. Actualy first two rounds are deciding in this battle. Rest will go depending how well you did in thhose 2.

I wasnt going for no loss run but my loses were:
200 sprites
40 skel archers
6 demons
60 hunters.


Begining of second roundL

But as i said i wanst trying to do that battle as no loss, just played it.

[Vulture]

Hey folks, thanks again for your further assistance.

@Elwin: That setup of Haas' you faced is the major key here. With that setup I wouldn't have the least of doubt to finish without losses, even beforen turn 6. As you already suspected, the stack number and size of blacks are decisive. A stack of 14 blacks would die in a single Dragon Arrow shot. Doubled in number and split into 4 stacks the scenario changes massively to the disadvantage of our setup (as loreangelicus said, our troops are identical :) ). But in fact, the weakest link are the Hunters. That's why I dumped them.

@loreangelicus: Ya, I was ofc aware of the mechanics, just didn't assume that enemy heros follow the rules the same way :>
You're ofc right about the archer mechanics but "range is the only defense I need" so to speak is not the reason for me using Skeleton Archers. 95% of reasons is their damage. I wouldn't hesitate a second if they were melee with the same hp and def and still use them (assumed there was a dragon arrows for melee ^^).

And no, I don't miss the fact that the girls' damage is mostly magic based, especially with dagger+whip. But as Arillian said: the damage that goes through is still larger than that of most other melee units. My Sprites/LFs kill 2-3 Blacks with a non critical. And as long as there are Bone Dragons, Giants and Ents they go for them anyway. In skirmishes I often killed Black Dragons with them. Not a big deal :>
As for the inquisitors, I thought about reactivating them as well. Used them for Darion, Freedom Isles, Kordar and again in the Land Of The Dead. But I came to the conclusion that a) I don't have the spell/turn left for Gift b) as you said they are being focused mostly and die c) their damage is useless.

Still didn't have the time to retry. Was pretty busy these days (wtb weekend :< ). I'll report the outcome asap.

[BB Shockwave]

Griffins are also usefull for this battle. I found that the dragons love going after them, which is good since they always retaliate. Use Dragon slayer and God Armour on them for best effects!

You can also use Black Dragons yourself. They will take little damage from Haas's dragons (that's why I use them to attack first, saving retaliation damage from my other troops), plus later they are very effective against those ancient ents.

Also, do not bring any archers. I used Evil Beholders throughout the game, but they are useless here.

[Vulture]

Griffins are also usefull for this battle. I found that the dragons love going after them, which is good since they always retaliate. Use Dragon slayer and God Armour on them for best effects!

Demons also have infinite retaliation, but have resistance to fire and deal more damage/ldr. Dragons went for your griffins because they were probably the weakest link in your setup. In terms of "which stack can I cause most damage on?"-policy the AI pursues.

You can also use Black Dragons yourself. They will take little damage from Haas's dragons (that's why I use them to attack first, saving retaliation damage from my other troops), plus later they are very effective against those ancient ents.

Blacks are good, greens are better. As already said in this thread: a) physical damage, not fire. b) mana ability. c) Ents are food for Sprites/Lake Faeries.


Also, do not bring any archers. I used Evil Beholders throughout the game, but they are useless here.
Beholders do magic damage. Of course they are useless against black dragons and alike. Skeleton Archers do physical damage. And still. Skeleton Archers with Dragon Arrows are the most lethal enemy of a dragon. No other unit can do this. Any other physical lvl1-2 archers have less dmg/ldr. Any physical archers 3-4 don't benefit one third as much from the negated defense due to Dragon Arrows as the percentage of damage done gained is lower. As said, magic damage is useless unless insane amounts (Sprites/Lake Faeries + whip/dagger).

[medicalseo]

But you opened my eyes. Thank you very much for that. Before reading your opinion here I was dead sure that I must wipe his Dragons before Turn 7 (average turn when he began using armageddon). Didn't think of the dispel/timeback/keep busy CCing mechanism. And btw am I getting it right ? You're saying enemy heroes do pay different amounts of mana depending on which spell rank they have to use for the respective target unit ? See, I didn't consider that as well although it's actually obvious and logical. That shoul really turn the tides.

[BB Shockwave]

Vulture - good points. I simply did not want to change my unit setup that much by the end of the game. Though I wonder, if you use like a few thousand skeleton archers, won't the dragons rush and all attack them in the first round? AI seems to love pestering the lowest level unit and especiall pestering archers, since they do 1/2 damage in melee.

In AP, Dragon Arrows got tweaked a lot. They only reduce defence by 30% on first level (I don't use archers so I did not upgrade it, wonder what level III does). But there is another way to kill strong stacks in one hit... I love using the Gargoyle (Gorgul)/Gorguana combo. In one battle, the Gorguanas cast Blood Mark (doubles the damage suffered by that stack) on the enemy Tirexes, then my around 320 Gogruls attacked the Tirex (indirectly with their spears through a weaker unit) - they did a critical, Tirexes got some 10.500 damage, all 10 died! :)

[Boozie]

So how bad is it to use Undead/Demons in your army if you don't have tolerance? I'm at Haas and my current army isn't cutting it but I don't have runes to spare.

[Vulture]

Don't do it. The negative effects (crit loss, stat loss) of having low moral troops in your setup by FAR outweighs the benefits of whatever troop you wanted to add. Only exception: Inquisitors. They're no damage dealers and if you lose them it's your own fault, not that of their stats. If you add Demons that is, of course. Their own Tolerance Skill takes care of undeads in the team already as we know.
Use units that don't give a crap about who's with them. Like Dragons or more Undeads/Demons for example :>

Depending on if you wanna go for a no loss campaign this fight can end up a little frustrating. Especially as a paladin with the lack of atk and ldr to make quick work of the most annoying enemies and inevitably running into Armageddon phase.

Hope you didn't have an asshole-Haas-setup like me. 6 Dragon stacks. I have never seen a more annoying distribution of units with Haas in any playthrough ever after ><

[Boozie]

Unfortunately I have 6 stacks of dragons as well. With the help of the Scanner, I've located Rahha's shield which should help me a lot. I also just picked up that sword that gives enemy dragons -50% attack or whatever it is.

I think if I opt for runes w/ the obelisk reward I might be able to put 2/2 in tolerance and again w/ the scanners help I can easily snag some demons and archdemons to really put me over the edge. Should be a breeze.

[Boozie]

Beat Haas last night and then it crashed when I ported off the turtle. Will finish it up again tonight probably. I think I went overkill with how prepared I was when I came back, it just felt like my units were getting outdamaged flat out so I went with almost a complete counter-comp:

Archdemon - Fire immune
Demon - Reduced fire damage
Knight - Dragon Slayer (holy crap these guys tore it up, no circle attack needed)

Emerald Green Dragon - I like them due to no retaliation and the mana back, but they weren't necessary by any means as my mana was spent dispelling almost the whole time.

Royal Snake - I milked these guys all game long so I just kept them along for the ride. Very potent with the wife, gotta love no retaliation.

I also made sure to get Rahha's Shield and the Dragon Slayer sword.

I went from losing the fight to a joke of a fight. Could have done no losses pretty easily if I wanted to spend the time, but I didn't do it the rest of the game so no point bothering.

I was only level 25 with about 19000 leadership as a pally. (normal mode is probably why)

Off to try AP once I figure out which class I want to roll.

[Vomaxx]

I finished the game today with a warrior; my first time at Impossible level. The odd thing about the end was that the fight with Bagud, the orc, was very difficult, but against Haas things went well. Bagud made very good use of teleportation which (owing to a teensy positioning error on my part) nullfied all my skelton archers--in fact all 2000+ were destroyed without ever firing a shot, as he teleported in more units as I teleported the archers elsewhere. (However, by moving his main units like that he put them in the midst of my army, and so he did lose.) I did not take any archers to meet Haas: I had knights, horsemen, shamans, ancient vampires, and swamp snakes (yes, swamp snakes: there weren't enough royal snakes left in the game and I had Feanora, the snake boots, and the snake ring.) Haas had 145 dragons (28 black (14/14), 47 red (15/15/17), 21 green, 49 bone (26/23) and 38 Archdemons (19/19). But Haas did not cast spells cleverly--he used things like pygmy and hypnosis (easily cancelled by dispel); he was annihilated in about six turns with moderate losses for my troops. Knights, the dragon sword, the dragon slayer spell, and fighting at night with the Miner's Helmet, the cloak of shadows, and the vampire ring really helped--I deliberately waited for night

It is interesting how different players find different battles the hardest. I think mine, in this game, was at Castle Nexy. I hate demonesses.

[Vulture]

I hate demonesses.

I like Mass Magic Shackles. What do demonesses do then ? :>

[Vomaxx]

I like mass M.S. too. Unfortunately I never got enough crystals to get to the 3rd level with this spell.

[badsector]

Any tips for a mage character with the following setup :
Level - 30; Attack - 13; Defense - 15; Intellect - 25; Leadership - 21162; Tolerance 1/2, Mana - 155, wife Feanora. Haas has 1 stack with 9 black dragons, 1 stack with 10 red dragons, two stacks with 13 and 10 green dragons, two stacks each with 16 bone dragons, two stacks each with 18 ogres, one stack with 10 giants, and one stack with 10 archdemons. One of the big problems is that I don't have ressurection spell generated in my game. That's why I must keep inquisitors in the army. So far I tried with demons, lake fairies, sprites, skeleton archers and inquisitors. Funny skelies do less damage to black dragons with dragon arrow than with a normal one, against other units there is no such problem. I can't figure what I'm doing wrong. There were some difficult battles in the game but I managed to win all of them with no losses. This time my army gets totally wiped in several rounds. What's worse Haas army doesn't go after a specific unit but attacks all of my troops. What should I do, besides cursing and breaking stuff :)

[MCMihu]

I just think you have way too low intelect for that level as a mage.Just a thought.;)