Time ago I thought Baal was hard to kill... then I saw the power of the repair droid!

[Lord Ludwig]

Sorry for starting a new topic but having deserted the forum for almost two months the old running topics are buried below a lot of new stuff.

When I got my hands on KBAP I immediately launched on a mage-impossible campaign confiding in my knowledge of KBtL. As I stated in a previous thread, all went well until K'Tahu and Baal, even if in the end, with a lot of patience and thanks to some useful suggestions, I completed the game. So I embarked on a replay aiming to do what the grandmasters of the game, like dobrev, do so often: a no-loss game.

I went warrior this time, and here is what I found out:

1) warrior is certainly a lot easier than mage;

2) lvl 60 is certainly possible (meanwhile it has been done, but back in 2009 there was still discussion going on);

3) (and this is the main point of my post) the unit that makes no-loss a no-brainer, IMHO, is the repair droid. By dividing them in two stacks you can auto-repair from almost nothing, without depending on mana. Of course you can throw in the guard droid stack to make things easier, but while two months ago I couldn't imagine how to beat Baal without losses, now I think the whole game can be done with just the repair droids and nothing else. Baal went down in 7 rounds, another 2 to mop up his summons...

4) obviously playing with only droids is not great fun, so I did some fights adding other units. A funny thing in my final score is that as the seventh most efficient unit the executioners are listed, while actually I never recruited a single one of them. But the demonologists liked to summon them.

Again, apologies to the people I bothered back then complaining about difficulties born only from my inadequate comprehension of the game and to the people I bother know with this topic.

[Hento]

Like I said before, Black Dragons or Droids are mage's best friends for a no loss victory.

[Lord Ludwig]

I don't know about the black dragons. On my first trial as a mage on impossible Baal shred them to pieces.

[Hento]

Yes, in some boss battles dragons don't fit, but for everything else they are the best, especially item upgrading and suppression and Gremlion.

I think I also used them to beat huge stacks of Shamans with no losses, you know when they use their magic axes they actually instantly kill whole stack of droids.

[Lord Ludwig]

True, but black dragons are quite unfit for a no-loss game. And since in my last game (as a warrior) I had, if I remember correctly, 1,174 repair droids divided in two stacks of 587 each losing 60-70 each round due to Baal or K'Tahu or Gremlion mass attack is no problem, they just replenish each other and you can always phantom in more if needed.

As for quickly dispatching gremlin towers when suppressing items, I like the archdemons, which - through demonologists - have the advantage you can actually resurrect them.

[Zechnophobe]

I use black dragons in no-loss all the time. Secret? Don't let them die . They are amazingly hardy.

Oh, but yeah, don't even get them near Ktahu or Baal. PFah, that's madness. Rest of the game though, fast and efficient no -lossers.

[mcgriffin]

Originally Posted by Lord Ludwig

True, but black dragons are quite unfit for a no-loss game. And since in my last game (as a warrior) I had, if I remember correctly, 1,174 repair droids divided in two stacks of 587 each losing 60-70 each round due to Baal or K'Tahu or Gremlion mass attack is no problem, they just replenish each other and you can always phantom in more if needed.

As for quickly dispatching gremlin towers when suppressing items, I like the archdemons, which - through demonologists - have the advantage you can actually resurrect them.

How is it possible that you have 1174 repair droids? considering you use flaming eye +20% leadership and your royal hammer -15% leadership for dwarves, 1174 repair droids = 1174 * 80(1 - 15%) = 79832, your base leadership should be 79832 / (1+20%) = 66527!

[WhYdOyOuThInKtHaThApPeNeD]

Cool, thanks for the info. I always thought the droids were the most useless waste of a units in the game. They could have done a lot better with the graphic/unit design for the droid units. They look like beer kegs with tiny little legs.

[Lord Ludwig]

Originally Posted by WhYdOyOuThInKtHaThApPeNeD

Cool, thanks for the info. I always thought the droids were the most useless waste of a units in the game. They could have done a lot better with the graphic/unit design for the droid units. They look like beer kegs with tiny little legs.

Indeed, I didn't say they are the most [I]exciting[I] unit to play, they just are functional. If you consider that elusive factor one could call "coolness" then archdemons, demonologists, dragons all trump the droids. Actually, aside maybe of peasants it's hard to imagine a less glamorous unit. But still they rock... It was hell for me to beat Baal two months ago on my first play, took me at least 15 attempts with different strategies... to see him go down in 7 rounds against just droids is VERY satisfying

[DGDobrev]

I'd like to compliment you on the very innovative strategy. In this case, only repair droids can cut it easily, they don't even need guard droids to tank for them, because no enemy will manage to drop a single stack of those, and the other one will be able to repair the first one easily. Not to mention that you can even split them in even more stacks and compensate for the enemy numbers or attacks, even if most of the enemies inflict magic damage, to which the droids are most susceptible (even with some + magic def gear on).

As for the cool units, I'd add the Black Knights. Although their usefulness has been discussed plenty of times, having them kill an enemy and wait a bit till they start laughing at their slain enemies takes the cake in my opinion