lvl 11 Paladin: Which units?

[Koki]

Originally Posted by eXeel

What would you get with my current lineup of Shaman, Inquisitors, Arch Mages and Evil Beholders?

Snakes. Your army is very range-oriented, and combined with Spirit and the fact that you're focusing on spells should mean you can take out all ranged enemy units, or at least most of them, in the first turn. That only leaves melee units, and there's no point in rushing towards enemy melee units, just bombard them as they go and use Royal Snakes to finish whoever reaches your line. Lunge, no retaliation, better damage, very high initiative meaning you will be able to attack "twice"(Once at the end of one turn and then immediately at the beginning of another), what's not to love?

[Zonc]

Why choose between two great troops, when you can have both of them?
Throw away something less useful

[eXeel]

Great, constructive, well-argumented posts. Thank you all
I agree with the fact that most ranged are dead fast, due to magic and ranged units of mine.

If I replace TWO units, both Peasants and Archmages, I will lose 33% of my ranged, almost. And be left with 3 melee. Isn't there a better ranged that can replace Arch Mages instead? Something with enough to recruit. Don't care about the price!
Or should I keep the mages?

[Ryastar]

Dwarven cannoneers kick @$$ both at a distance, and up close (they have no melee penalty) and they have an activated ability called salvo, which does three times normal damage, but you probably won't find any until you get to the dwarven lands (don't worry, that's the next area you get to go to). They are probably the best substitution for arch-magi you'll find any time soon.

I also second all the recommendations for royal snakes.

[Metathron]

I don't know why, I just can't force myself to love the griffins as most folks here do. They are pretty "meh" to me.

[jwallstone]

Griffins are amazingly tough and versatile troops. Even a phantomed stack (about 25% of the original for me) thrown into the midst of enemies survives the whole battle almost all the time. And they do great damage all around from retaliations while soaking up all the damage.

And how about this for an awesome trick with griffins: Split the stack, send the second one right to the enemy. Let them take all the heat for the first turn, and weaken the enemy with retaliations. It doesn't matter even if the second stack gets wiped out. Next turn, send in the original stack for even more melee fun. Then at the end of the second turn (wait with a different high initiative troop), cast time back on the original stack of griffins for a completely, 100% restored stack, including the ones that were split off. For example, you have 100 griffins. Split it, you have two stacks of 50. Send one in, even if it gets killed, time back on the original and you have 100 again. It's essentially a phantom that doesn't cost mana or use up a spell, great for a warrior like me. You just have to be careful that the sum of both stacks doesn't exceed your leadership level.

You can also use this to rapidly gain griffins without sacrifice. i.e, if you can support 100 with your leadership, but only have 66, split it and use time back to get stacks of 66 and 33, or 99 griffins in total.

[maltz]

For higher difficulties the focus shifts to troop conservation. You can't lose 10% of your army from every fight since money is tight. The best units are therefore the ones that win fights without loss:

(1) Inquisitors. Obvious choice - they can resurrect. For paladin they come with unlimited quantity (if you prioritize the inquisition skill - I got it around lv 10). Owns undead.

(2) Royal snakes. Obvious choice - no retaliation.

The others choices totally depend on what's offered in the game. Here are my favorites (if they are available):


- Royal thorns + blackthorn crown + sacrifice.

The crown provides 100% damage to thorns - awesome. The point of the royal thorn is not about their ranged power, but about the low-level thorns they summon. The low level thorns have acceptable initiatives and can take retaliations for your "real" units. Even better, the enemy shooters love to target these summoned thorns (or you just cast target on them!). Use sacrifice to grow the stack.

- Sprites, Lake Fairies, Dryads + Anga's ruby + sacrifice

If you are a mage you have access to Sprites at the beginning. The ruby (artifact ring) is a quest reward and it makes the ladies a lot sexier. Due to their low level they are subject to fear, sleep, and massive bleeding.

- Evil beholder

Hypnotize is very useful to dodge ranged attack in turn 1, and they can effectively stop an advancing huge low-level stack by putting them to sleep.

- Griffins

Griffins tend to take heavy losses and has to be protected by defensive buffs (un-upgraded Glot's armor is the best defensive buff) and brought back by the inquisitors before the end. This is OK if you don't have any other melee units that needs to be resurrected.

- Canoneers

On higher difficulties these guys start to lose their appeal - even their signature 3X attack is not enough to bring down a shooter stack, plus afterwards their performance drop to less than mediocre. Use them only if you have good dwarf artifacts to afford a larger stack and better performance.

I find the ideal setup for troop conservation is 1 melee + 4 ranged. The melee is only used when the enemy reaches your doorstep. No-retaliation units are "ranged" units if they have high initiatives and speeds, so they can act twice in a row and quickly finish off an enemy stack without getting attacked (or rush out of the harms way). For tougher fights (Necro capital, Baal) you can ditch ALLr anged units and go for heavy melees that have a horde to be hired somewhere - these guys more durable and you don't care about loss anyway.)

The above setup is good till almost end game. Then you should replace the less useful units with:

(1) Emerald dragon - massive mana recharge - suddenly you can resurrect everything back (if you get the spell)!

(2) Elven archers (and hunters) - very good if you pick up the Telescope artifact somewhere.

(3) Horsemen - esp. good if you are a warrior (reduced leadership cost).