Growing the trap medal, made easy!

[DGDobrev]

I just came up with this... It is so obvious, that I cannot help but wonder how did it escape my mind.

What do you need:
- a unit that can resurrect dead stacks (like the inquisitor)
- trap spell

What is the tactic?

Get a stack of Inquisitors. Split it in 3 separate stacks, at least 2 of them consisting of 1 inquisitor.. If you can hold off the enemies, split them in 4, even 5, if it is applicable.
Cast a trap in front of one of the inquisitor's stacks. Walk that stack onto the trap. It dies. Ress it with one of the inquisitor stacks.
The next turn, cast a trap in front of the same squad that just died. Have it commit a suicide again. Ress it with the third Inquisitor squad.
The next turn cast another trap in front of one of the squads that use their ress. Have them commit a suicide and ress it with the squad that committed suicide twice.

The idea is that since that stack started the combat (it is not summoned), it will count as a trap medal increment. So in general, the more squads can commit suicide and be ressed like this, the more your medal will improve. If you can do it with 3 Inquisitor squads the medal can improve by 3 per battle, so it would take only 34 battles to max it and reap the rewards from it.

[Petwin]

Hi DGDobrev,

Your right, but why bother? I got my Trapper III in 33 fights on impossible Mage by aiming for 5 kills by traps every fight. The teleport ability of the Archmage (2 or 3 stacks of Archmages, for shield spamming) and the crushing blow of the pet dragon can direct the enemy stacks toward the traps. Buying the trap artifact also helped. I averaged 3 kills per fight due to soaring enemies and of course sometimes I couldn't avoid killing stacks some other way, like retaliation.

[DGDobrev]

As a mage, you have two very significant advantages - more mana and more intellect. The Paladin and the Warrior do not have that advantage and they may well utilize this little tactic. Keeping in mind that the warrior starts with only 10 mana and absolutely no intellect, this is the only easy way to improve the medal. The paladin starts with 2 intellect and 15 mana and she can only gain +3 to the counter at most, provided the spell is available in Debir.

This is why many people who play warrior or paladin are dissatisfied with the trapper medal - they simply can't get the damage up to par to make it do a kiling blow. Just check the threads

[Zechnophobe]

Well, that and because it isn't something that is medalworthy. "Good show, you've wasted time killing little stacks of units off".

I mean, trap isn't a damage spell, it is a control spell. What types of units do you want to control? Big ones... ones you won't kill with trap.

[Petwin]

@ DGDobrev: I stand corrected.

@ Zechnophobe: you're right about control. And you want to control big stacks (in terms of leadership), either big units or big numbers. Both get worn down by the traps. The medal bonus is an incentive to get better traps, i.e. more control.

[KongMysen]

and a larger chance, that those fast horsemen won't make it to the other side..

[Petwin]

Or a stampeding brontor. But the best laid trap is the one in the hex where a black dragon decides to land.

[DGDobrev]

Or forcing enemy assassins into your lines by deliberately leaving a free spot behind a troop and setting a trap there... They come, get trapped, remain in the same place... And your troops make minced meat out of them in turn 1

[KongMysen]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

Or forcing enemy assassins into your lines by deliberately leaving a free spot behind a troop and setting a trap there... They come, get trapped, remain in the same place... And your troops make minced meat out of them in turn 1

Yeah I do that too. Stupid AI

Well I thought we were discussing the point in getting the medal to lvl 3 since traps are more about tactical advantage, than the damge output.
I just think the randomly placed traps can help a lot. And 3 traps are better than none.
Place a single trap in front of the scaregoat, so that the dragon can get to your troops without damaging them, and if the random traps are wellplaced, you will get at least a full turn to destroy the dragon before it gets support.

Btw, does a trap stop a flying Hayterrant? I Never testet it, but it seems they dive into a troop before hitting the ground..

Imo traps makes gameplay a little less enjoyable. I wish I could just ignore them, but I still stick to using flaming arrow constantly just to reach the whopping 600 uses lvl 3 requires. Not to mention my 4 archmage stacks early game spamming the shield till turn 9. Its kinda boring...

[MaroonMaurader]

I agree that trapping black dragons is the most satisfying... but a close second has to be comboing trap + fear on a high-initiative, low-level ground unit to seal off a chokepoint.