No Loss thoughts?

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by Loopy

Started my first game on impossible as a mage. Ahriman is a ridiculous stone wall to a no loss game. Soothsayers just plain suck at resurrection, undead are immune to too many things that could make it easier, and your ranged abilities are just too horrible.

I have level 2 order magic and level 2 rune magic. Rune magic is the only damage spells I've gotten, Winter Dance DOES tear them up well, but with skeletons able to bone gate behind me and skeleton archers just plain tearing things up it's nigh impossible not to suffer at least two losses, and Soothsayers can only heal one. And Ahriman himself has enough mana to cast Poison Skull any time throughout the whole battle to instantly end your attempt.

Berserkers do tear things to shreds though. Rune of Attack + Berserker + Shock Shield can easily turn into two critical hits at 50 attack. It's saved my butt more than once to be able to output 400 damage to a stack in a single round. Low health kills them if someone else gets the first hit in though, and they will charge right into it on the next round.

I'm going to try loading up on bears and doing it that way. Until now I've been ignoring the neutrals for the morale bonus, but maybe they will work better.

I wonder if Warrior Maidens could be available, or if Stone Skin could appear. Either of those could make this much more doable.

Ahriman? Ohh, he is a piece of cake compared to his boss, the necromancer in the cave. The guy is... LEVEL TEN! And even if I kill all troops on the island and do all quests, I only got to level 5. I lost all my Vikings and a lot of Berserkers and Slingers in that battle... that's when I decided that hey, I am playing a viking, for them, death in battle is the most glorious thing ever. So... I just go with the flow.

[Loopy]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Ahriman? Ohh, he is a piece of cake compared to his boss, the necromancer in the cave. The guy is... LEVEL TEN! And even if I kill all troops on the island and do all quests, I only got to level 5. I lost all my Vikings and a lot of Berserkers and Slingers in that battle... that's when I decided that hey, I am playing a viking, for them, death in battle is the most glorious thing ever. So... I just go with the flow.

See my post two before yours. I found the other two bosses after Ahriman to be a piece of cake. The difficulty is highly random based on what it gives them.

[baronm]

Originally Posted by Loopy

Heh, loaded up a second game to check his variance. Here's what I'm seeing:

Original game:
113 skeletons
55 skeleton archers
29 decaying zombies
6 vampires
2 ancient vampires
1 necromancer

1356+770+1160+480+360+200 leadership = 4326 leadership total

New game:
46 skeletons
28 skeleton archers
15 zombies
11 decaying zombies
3 vampiers
2 ancient vampiers
1 necromancer
552+392+450+440+240+360+200 leadership = 2634 leadership total.

Wow, i'm amazed his troop numbers are that random. Guess i got lucky cuz i remember his stacks being pretty small and not that much a problem. Bad luck for anyone who has to fight something like that first listing.

[ihira]

I'm just wondering how you guys are going to no loss the 'first no rage allowed real boss'.
Like if its possible at all.

I'm playing Warrior on hard and a huge casualties is inevitable for me.
good luck.

[coRex]

Originally Posted by ihira

I'm just wondering how you guys are going to no loss the 'first no rage allowed real boss'.
Like if its possible at all.

I'm playing Warrior on hard and a huge casualties is inevitable for me.
good luck.

i play warrior on impossible and i guess there is NO way that you play no loss against this boss... because his counterattacks do ridicilous amounts of dmg to melee AND ranged...
so i changed my team to some "lower" creatures, because i dont want to loose my good units.
snow bears, sea dogs, did a very good job with some buffs.

once you get to the other islands from kings bounty the legend no loss will become VERY easy, even on impossible...

just go with rune mage, royal griffin, inquisitor, paladin and Soothsayers
with this combo you can get HUGE amounts of spawned creatures - use them to block and rezz with pala and inq if you get some ranged hits or skeleton "teleport" hits...

if you want a more dmg combo you can change pala to a good ranged (acutally i have royal thorns in my lineup for even more creatures and ranged dmg). but without a pala you have to bee VERY careful with your creatures!

[Zechnophobe]

The first 'no rage boss' looks like it'll be difficult. Jotuns + lots of time might work. I think a wizard using maidens, jotuns, jarls and something else could possibly work as well. Just need to somehow make sure the Maidens never get too hurt. Once you have spells like Stone Skin and Avenging ANgel going, you can use timelessness to keep them stuck on for a long while. Use the wanderer scroll for extra runes, and that should last quite a while. Maybe get a thorn train going? I"ve not seen royals spawn in the early areas, but that'd definitely be a workable strategy since I don't *think* he uses his ranged attack offensively.

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by Loopy

See my post two before yours. I found the other two bosses after Ahriman to be a piece of cake. The difficulty is highly random based on what it gives them.

I read your posts since then. But what the HECK is this with random troops and leadership for enemy heroes? This wasn't so in the previous games - there was some randomisation about what troops they could get and how many stacks they were divided into, but not such huge Leadership differences. Makes it unfair to those who - like me - got the bad luck to meet these bosses with their increased armies. In my game, the Necromancer had 2 Ancient Vampires and 3 stacks of 5 Vampires, about 5 Cursed Ghosts, and more Zombies and Skeletons then I could throw a bone at. The Bone Gate thing is the worst - it lets those otherwise slow skellies get to you on the first round, very often.

I did find that for some reason - thankfully - Skeleton archers do not use their Poison and Black Arrow skills that often.

[Sooty]

You do get more experience though, and losing troops is just losing money anyways, so it is only really a problem if you care about going no-loss for bosses too.

[zjazd18]

Ye that would explain the disproportions in my mage run in comparasion to pala, as pala i was lvl5 before ahriman and as mage not even half way thru to 5. Thought it was the xp shirnes...

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

The first 'no rage boss' looks like it'll be difficult. Jotuns + lots of time might work. I think a wizard using maidens, jotuns, jarls and something else could possibly work as well. Just need to somehow make sure the Maidens never get too hurt. Once you have spells like Stone Skin and Avenging ANgel going, you can use timelessness to keep them stuck on for a long while. Use the wanderer scroll for extra runes, and that should last quite a while. Maybe get a thorn train going? I"ve not seen royals spawn in the early areas, but that'd definitely be a workable strategy since I don't *think* he uses his ranged attack offensively.

Well you cant do it single unit i think coz he puts web on you and u lose turn in that way

[Loopy]

For anyone interested my first game vs the necromancer faces these forces:

94 skeletons
36 skeleton archers
12 undead spiders
12 ghosts
3 vampires
1 ancient vampire

1128+504+156+960+240+180 for a total of 3168 leadership. And since the ghosts are split between multiple stacks of 3 it's a lot easier to no loss. Ghosts simply aren't high damage like skeletons or zombies are, just high physical defense. Soothsayers can tank them all day and AoE spells tear them to shreds.

Someone who is having a very hard time vs him should total up what they are fighting so we can see how much it varies. Or if someone figures out how to get the editor to work for WotN we can inspect the distribution directly.

As for the necromancer being level 10 and Ahriman being level 5, I think Ahriman is still a tougher hero. Their stats are 3/4/7 vs 1/4/10. Ahriman hits the 7 intellect breakpoint for spell damage so his spells are nearly as tough, so both are pretty much equally going to end a no-loss run as soon as Poison Skull hits something you don't want it to hit.