[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

Which did not spawn in my new warrior game (grrr).

Tough luck! I am lucky - all three +10 Runes after 50 fight items spawned, and 2 of them in the first islands. Now all I need is 50.000 Gold...

The Drill, Battle Axe, Inquisitor, plus the +6750 leadership bonus warriors have over paladins.

I played the Legend with Paladin, and never found my army too small. In fact, I loved the Palading because unlike with the warrior, I always had enough mana and good intellect to boost my units with spells that last many rounds. Don't learn Chaos, but develop Order and Distortion - spells like Stone Skin, Bless, God Armour, Battle Cry, Haste will be your buff spells, while you can use Phantom/Call of Nature/Phoenix to bring reinforcements, Slow, Helplessness, Blind, Oily Cloud, Dispel to hamper the enemy, and of course Healing, Resurrection and Time-Back to ensure you have no losses.

It ends up being really close with the warrior barely edging out. If you want to stick with paladins, inquisitors, and rune mages, I agree that the paladin's resurrection skill helps that.

Frankly, why is Leadership that important to you? A Mage has even less, but surely it's fun to play a Mage. Think of Paladins as "Clerics" in D&D - they are good in close-combat and can wear armor and weapons, though not as good as fighters, and they have lots of spells to strengthen their allies. They can cast damage dealing spells too, but they are never as potent as that of a Wizard.

I agree with resurrection, but I really don't to feel stuck with paladin/inquisitor/rune mage.

I'm on level 11 now, and my current line-up (Royal Griffins, Rune Mages, Inquisitors, Horsemen, Witch Hunters/Guardsmen) works pretty well. Just defeated Rolf on Bolo. Holy Armor saved my bacon quite often!

I get some of those skills even as a mage! Of course they are good, but nothing really super super super necessary unless you are specializing for dragons.

You get them sure, but a Mage or Warrior never gets that many Mind runes to get there. You will most likely spend your runes on Might Skills and a few Mind skills like Adrenaline as a Warrior, while for a Mage, the Might skills are more vital for survival in battle. The Paladin has the luxury to develop all the Mind skills, if she wants it.

Hmmm you can't raise a normal neutral (like a troll) with persuasion, right? Just the dragons at level 3 Voice?

Dragons and Animals - so this includes Griffins/Royal Griffins, all sort of Snakes, Bears, Hyenas and Wolves. (Oddly the programmers at Nival think Spiders are not animals...)

Another reason I want to go with the warrior is the flexibility for different builds. So far it looks like I can get a reasonably decent "shooter" OR "melee" army, which opens up demons, elves, orcs (pushing hard to get orc to work), humans (of course).

Your choice, but I think a Warrior will always lack the spells needed to boost a melee army. If you face an enemy shooter army, you will need spells like Mass Haste or Oil Clouds to quickly reach the enemy. A Warrior will never have much mana, unless you luck out and get the Picture of Magic (+20 Mana), or the runes needed to develop enough intellect for the spells to last long in the battle.

With the Paladin Class, you almost HAVE to go Paladin, Inquisitor, Rune Mage or else you are left far far behind. Not quite enough leadership to rock the casbah, less flexibilty due to no double weapons, yet, not a great mage.

I never understand why double weapons are so hot. Even as a Warrior, I often opted to use a shield rather. Offense is nice, but as you progress in the game, enemies will start to outnumber you, and you cannot win the battle in a few rounds... meaning you need to use Defense to minimize losses. If you are so keen on dual weapons, use followers who have weapon slots. Me, I preferred to use followers with many Artifact slots, as the special bonuses artifacts give are often better.

You also don't have to go with this combination. You can use Trolls, Dragons, etc... Sure, you won't have as many as a Warrior does, but well that's why you have your spells to boost them. I found Peacefullness is a pretty good spell to turn one of your stronger units like Horseman into a tank.

I'm ok with using "quasi-cheap" strategies, as one could argue my 100% crit catapult idea might be overpowered. I just want FAST and FUN strategies. Taking over 60 rounds to beat any match is NO good.

Everyone has different opinions on gameplay - frankly, I'd get bored with doing the exact same thing every battle. If you want to try this strategy, you might be better off in one of the smaller campaigns like Defender of the Crown, where there are a few battles only.