My favorite Tank is Cursed Ghost with Target spell, . They can be huge and I doubt even Ancient Ent can be better in many battles. Some posts here already explained some key point of using Cursed Ghost. I pick some snapshot of Cursed Ghost with target and joined them bellow, they show some sample where Cursed Ghost and Target can work very well.
But cursed ghost won't work in any battle:
- The best for them is a mix of non living and living.
- They can also work very well against a full living army. The key point is using target, protection spells and focus all on keeping control of the stack.
- They rule against full undead army except with Necromancers apart if they can be close to Necromancers that will then use a physical attack if you have used target.
- They rule against army with physical attack.
- They also work very well against a mixing of physical and living magical/fire like 80/20 depending of the enemy size.
- They are great against many units with no retaliation because you won't have to manage counter attack and it will be more easy to control their stack.
- They can work very well if there isn't too many red and black dragon in enemy army, typically the cursed ghost will take busy the whole enemy army but the dragons that will be attacked by all your other units.
- Don't use them against strong stacks of priests/inquisitors/black dragon/red dragon/more than one stack of necromancer.
- Don't use them against army with a strong sum of fire and magic attack.
Among the tricks to not have Cursed Ghosts out of control, some tricks already quoted in some previous posts:
- Start with a stack not at its max. That's not for all battle, that depend of enemy strength and how you manage the first rounds.
- Protect them more or less as the fight progress and enemy stacks lower.
- Make them attack a non living or guard to try lower the stack.
- Have a unit with a higher initiative than them in case they lost control at end of a turn.
- Wait end of turn for some of your long range units so they can reduce their stack if out of control.
- When you can keep your spell cast to later in the round in case you lost control.
- Use target on them to have enemy control your stack for you.
- Use target on them to allow you predict much more easily enemy attacks on them and possible counter attack to plan better a control of their stack.
- Use Peacefulness to slow down their stack increase/decrease, that also a way to increase defense.
- Use heal on them or another spell to decrease their stack.
- Take care have their stack lower before enter in a tactic that will increase their stack.
- If you make them wait in a round, be sure you have at least one other unit with lower initiative that also wait, this will give you the opportunity to decrease their stack if out of control. You could also have a unit with higher initiative to wait you you can act after the
- If you make them wait in a round, it can be useful to also have a unit with higher initiative to wait so you can react in same round and after the cursed ghost attack.
- With target stay close to a living long range to restore stack with the counter attack and not close to lower the stack.
- Against full living army and Target often your best choice will be to center all your army and actions around the Cursed Ghost to keep target, required protection and keep stack control.