Here's a dirty tip ... -Endless Mana

[alon]

I'm Mage LvL 16 in mid game Dwarven lands on impossible, doing battles that usually take me half an hour and on the rare occasion up to an hour and a half because of this 'dirty' strat ...

I now finish every battle with no losses + full mana + full rage and best of all: I just proved to myself that I can go into a battle with 1 single Shaman, stowing the other 29 in my Reserve slot + my regular army, and I come out of the fight with +29 brand new Shamans, while not even having the Resurrection spell - using a virtually endless source of Mana...

Since I saw people doing similar things but never writing they do "endless Mana" on any fight I thought I should share...

Ingredients:
1. A huge no retaliation enemy stack or any plain slow moving stack for regular fights - Alchemists or Royal Snakes for "endless mana".
2. A full Stack of Royal Thorns.
3. Mana Spring Level 3.
4. A never upgraded Poison Rain Rage-spell.
5. A full Stack of Inquisitors.
6. The Sacrifice Spell.

Mix the 6 ingredients together and you get the following:
*For the best effect you box in an enemy stack using 4 strong stacks of Thorns.
*Replace all thorns that die with new ones, but don't crowd the battle area or you will be waiting a LONG time for each turn to end...
*Cast Mana Spring 4 times - once on each thorn stack.
*Cast each Mana Spring AFTER the thorns have moved but before the turn ends. (simply click "Done" until the last turn of the Royal Thorns - this will assure best results).
*After you cast the last one, end the turn and ask Sleem to cast Poison Rain.
*This will generate 3 + 4 + 5 + 5 = 17 * 5 = 85 Mana when done right.
*Watch +20 MANA twice, than +10 MANA a couple or more times and... you get the idea.
*Use Inquisitors to regain full Rage for the next battle + resurrect any and all units - especially the units you Sacrifice...

Since the Alchemists have very good Poison resistance + high hit points + no retaliation + the Poison rain does so little damage (about 15 points per turn), and when they have a big enough stack they can withstand 150+ turns of this "abuse", giving you plenty of time to regenerate your losses and effortlessly gain new troops at 0 cost - except the most precious one of all: your time.

Enjoy.

P.S.
This thread should be moved to the 'Tips and Hints' sub-forum.
Thanks in advance.