Orcs on the March thread

[jake21]

Yea I definitely use blackhole for this fight; To a degree I think that spell is overpowered. Hum. I'm there now; so maybe I'll back up one save and try with rune mages/black dragons. Wonder if royal snakes have a high enough initative (probably not). Hum. Kind of hate to buy blackdragons; hate em. I have 4 fights left this game (k'tul (or whatever he is called); top floor of mage tower; this fight if i redo it and 'the end' fight). K'tul is gonna be a bear; I think they beefed him up; what troupes did you use for him? Hum. If black dragons are immune to his area attack maybe he is a good candidate... though the rune mages will die fast

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

Rune mages can revive your level 5s. I can't bear to lose a precious level 5 unit.

I probably did double phantom with the rune mages early on (and/or I experimented with phantom + black hole) for that very reason. They can blow through my phantoms and deal damage to my real rune mages.

I don't believe any unit has natural astral resistance. The Rune mage "MIGHT" but it wouldn't be anything to write home about. The translated AP manual is wrong. It calls "magic resistance" as "astral resistance".

Not to mention, orcs tend to bypass the Defense statistics with their abilities.

To win the initiative war, I use black dragons, so the double phantoms come up before the enemy can act. I might have onslaught 1 as well. But, unless you are in "control" of the battle to prevent a black dragon loss in a single volley of hits (you aren't, since the enemy clearly overpowers us), to avoid a loss with black dragons, they MUST be paired with rune mages Or shaman (rune mages are better, since they can revive black dragons, shaman can heal a black dragon via dancing axes).

High physical resistance units is definitely a good idea though.

[Saiko Kila]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

I don't believe any unit has natural astral resistance.

I think that only Infernal dragons have declared astral resistance, but it has negative value for them. So many disabilities. Poor creatures.

[atlatea]

Infernal dragon currently is worthless, ancient phoenix is way better, like 2 times the infernal dragon with almost half mana required.

Scrounger fight is not hard to win, but it's hard to win for no loss fight.

To win initiative againts scrounger, bring black dragon (also rune mage for no loss fight, why? i guarantee you'll lose some of your black dragons) and blue dragon pet. To super win initiative, beside BD+ blue pet, you must have warrior caution 3 (+3 initiative at turn 1), enough to beat all scrounger units initiative except her ogres (only black dragon and posibly unicorn/red dragon can beat ogres initiative).

For non mage, to make your rune mage 100% survive astral attack at round 1 (even with 70% astral resistance, her goblin shamans can kill 14 rune mage with 3x astral attack), cast target to your stack. Well, you have another astral attack from orc shaman (luckily this one is much much weaker). For mage, since mage can double cast, why not target then sheep her orc shaman. You can also phantom, though it's a gamble, because it's not guaranteed that those shamans will attack the phantom.

Note that astral attack from orc shaman is much much weaker than goblin shaman, so you can ignore them, though in prolonged battle these orc shamans can make your no loss fight to become loss fight.

[jake21]

So I tried the black dragon and did indeed win the fight with no loss (mage impossible); however black dragon did not give me first move. Still it did keep me from being 'last move' which was enough to turn the tide. Oh well live and learn. The one thing that was a bit weird is that my warrior (impossible) really struggled on the mage tower; so i was expecting it to be near impossible for my mage (impossible) yet it was very easy.

Originally Posted by atlatea

Infernal dragon currently is worthless, ancient phoenix is way better, like 2 times the infernal dragon with almost half mana required.

Scrounger fight is not hard to win, but it's hard to win for no loss fight.

To win initiative againts scrounger, bring black dragon (also rune mage for no loss fight, why? i guarantee you'll lose some of your black dragons) and blue dragon pet. To super win initiative, beside BD+ blue pet, you must have warrior caution 3 (+3 initiative at turn 1), enough to beat all scrounger units initiative except her ogres (only black dragon and posibly unicorn/red dragon can beat ogres initiative).

For non mage, to make your rune mage 100% survive astral attack at round 1 (even with 70% astral resistance, her goblin shamans can kill 14 rune mage with 3x astral attack), cast target to your stack. Well, you have another astral attack from orc shaman (luckily this one is much much weaker). For mage, since mage can double cast, why not target then sheep her orc shaman. You can also phantom, though it's a gamble, because it's not guaranteed that those shamans will attack the phantom.

Note that astral attack from orc shaman is much much weaker than goblin shaman, so you can ignore them, though in prolonged battle these orc shamans can make your no loss fight to become loss fight.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by atlatea

Infernal dragon currently is worthless, ancient phoenix is way better, like 2 times the infernal dragon with almost half mana required.

Scrounger fight is not hard to win, but it's hard to win for no loss fight.

To win initiative againts scrounger, bring black dragon (also rune mage for no loss fight, why? i guarantee you'll lose some of your black dragons) and blue dragon pet. To super win initiative, beside BD+ blue pet, you must have warrior caution 3 (+3 initiative at turn 1), enough to beat all scrounger units initiative except her ogres (only black dragon and posibly unicorn/red dragon can beat ogres initiative).

For non mage, to make your rune mage 100% survive astral attack at round 1 (even with 70% astral resistance, her goblin shamans can kill 14 rune mage with 3x astral attack), cast target to your stack. Well, you have another astral attack from orc shaman (luckily this one is much much weaker). For mage, since mage can double cast, why not target then sheep her orc shaman. You can also phantom, though it's a gamble, because it's not guaranteed that those shamans will attack the phantom.

Note that astral attack from orc shaman is much much weaker than goblin shaman, so you can ignore them, though in prolonged battle these orc shamans can make your no loss fight to become loss fight.

Good point on the subtle detail that to make it a no loss battle is more difficult.

I think the +3 initiative in first round ability is Onslaught, not Caution.

Yes, Phantom is indeed a bit of a gamble, but it "usually" goes for the phantom. In some attempts, they would wipe the phantom out in round 1, and proceed to chew my rune mages for Orc Breakfast (tm).

Yeah, Infernal is so bad. I don't know how they designed something so poorly. It is almost like they assumed all new spells would be overpowered, so they made their requirements sky high.

The crystal requirements for all new spells are ridiculously high for what SOME of them do. (10 crystals for poison spit levl 1? really? how much is plague or poison skull?)

@saiko Oh yeah, I forgot about the "astral weakness." Sheesh. They already die in one round, now let them die in one hit. Haha.

@jake21: I'm not sure how you did not get first move. You probably don't have onslaught and/or after round one, scrounger out initiative you since you might not have the blue dragon (+1 initiative for dragons).

Black dragons lower the enemy initiative IF they are level 4 or below. That's why they are usually the weapon of choice as the Interceptor/Interdictor of most armies.

However, that means you are still toe to toe against level 5s who have fast initiative. Your classic mortal enemy would be the Archdemon. I wouldn't be surprised if scounger gave a +1 init to the level 5s... which means Ogres and Orc Chieftains... which means Draining fun.

[atlatea]

Ah yeah, i mean onslaught, thx for the correction.

Regarding phantom, yep, most of the time they aim at the phantom, though sometimes they won't (it happen to me twice).

Yeah, some new spells are not worth the cost. Regarding poison spit, some peoples said that the -20% atk affect bosses, though i never test it. If it does indeed affect bossses, then i guess poison spit is not that bad.

Yeah, drain is overpowered now, back then in AP, the drained stack still have full ap, i mean they still can act.

Wizard tower as warrior is as easy as mage, just use black dragons (except the unit copy floor), pet dragon, and some spells (fire arrow/poison skull, fear and gizmo to heal your black dragon).

[BB Shockwave]

Wouldn't it be preferable to kill Scrounger very, very late in the game, IE when you have enough Intellect to simply Mass-Shackle her army? Ogres, Shamans, Goblin Shamans are all worthless without talents.

Or, bring Witch Hunters and double Phantom in the first round.

May be worth a try.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Wouldn't it be preferable to kill Scrounger very, very late in the game, IE when you have enough Intellect to simply Mass-Shackle her army? Ogres, Shamans, Goblin Shamans are all worthless without talents.

Or, bring Witch Hunters and double Phantom in the first round.

May be worth a try.

I did it at level 55 as a Mage. Maybe I could have done it as a lower level. We will see.

Magic Shackles is independent of intellect. It is totally dependent on your hero's leadership (which in that game, I built up aggressively). I had about 27K leadership, Magic Shackles for MAGES allows you to do 2X your leadership, so about 54K leadership.

Unfortunately, in Impossible Games, the enemy almost always out leaderships you. e.g. you can almost never Mass Magic Shackle everything as a Mage if it is one of the premier battles. There will most likely be the most deadly stack still remaining to cast its stuff.

Not to mention, it won't work on level 5s. For such a high cost of magic shackles lvl 3, you would want to lock down everyone. That's why if you were going to bother, phantom + black hole is a better option since it not only disables the level 5 ogres.... it KILLS all of them.

The Witch Hunter idea is good, however, Scrounger's army is quite voracious even without abilities. The Orc Chieftain stack hits hard, and so do the Orc Veterans. Orc Veterans with Adrenaline are some of the most deadly melee fighters in the game.

I suppose if you got enough other units, it might be worth using the witch hunters. Just that, the dryads in comparison, can disable ALL of the goblin shamans, and does not require consuming a spell to do so. Albeit, they will only lock down for one round, you could phantom her to do it again next round. (although her init is slow, and goblin shaman have fast init).

[BB Shockwave]

Well, that's odd... I thought the various "leadership" spells (Nature's Call, Demon Portal) multiply leadership per Intellect, not per your Hero's leadership. It'd make more sense that way, as a Mage needs more summons then a Warrior. But you are right, the Magic Shackles works by your hero's Leadership, I checked. (Though it's more like 1.5XLeadership).

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Well, that's odd... I thought the various "leadership" spells (Nature's Call, Demon Portal) multiply leadership per Intellect, not per your Hero's leadership. It'd make more sense that way, as a Mage needs more summons then a Warrior. But you are right, the Magic Shackles works by your hero's Leadership, I checked. (Though it's more like 1.5XLeadership).

Maybe you should check with a Mage, and not a Paladin.

For the Mage class it is 2X.

For Paladin class it is 1.4X

For Warrior class it is 1X.

Just imagine how imbalanced it would be if they let it be 2X or 1.4X for Warriors.

You can check the KB AP translated manual for a lot of these details and game mechanics. A lot of strange subtleties in there.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...t=10787&page=6

Demon Portal Net Summoned Leadership IS a function of Intellect.

Call of Nature is ALSO a function of Intellect as well.

There is a base leadership statistic for each level of the spell, and then intellect is multiplied against it. (not directly, but in a very standard formula, 5% per intellect, etc).