How works Necro Call?

[ArkhanTheBlack]

The point is that books will get attacked before they can cast anything. What's their initiative level?

That shouldn't be a problem. You can also summon them at the back to make sure that they can cast their spell. The biggest books have initiative 5 which isn't great but also not bad. You can also decide the point when you want to summon them.

But I don't think the books will survive against many army setup in impossible mode.

I think you need a very high INT to make them worthy in impossible mode.

It also depends on your other spells. My best damage spell is ice snake at the moment which causes about 3000 damage in total against 3 stacks for 20 mana + freeze effect. If the book casts lightning, the damage is usually about 5000 damage in total against 5+ enemies + shock effect for 30 mana. In addition I get a decent blocker and the chance for more spells. Therefore if the books are in a 'good mood', they can cause a lot more damage in a short time than my strongest damage spells. The only problem is to motivate them to cast this spell or at least a comparable one...
BTW, they are great against gremlin towers because they don't cast fear and weakness in this case.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

As I mentioned before, the books of evil excel in item battles because targeting the gremlin towers forces a damage spell and the mage heavy troops usually have a hard time to kill the books.
And actually, while upgrading the arch mage staff in my current harder game, I had the pleasure to experience the most powerfull book of evil I've seen so far with a level 17 mage. I'm not sure if spell powers are increased in such item battles, but one of my three books of evil got a lightning spell off which caused about 25.000 damage in total. I checked the numbers, it's not a joke. This specific book lived long enough to cast about 4 - 5 spells. Two of them were lightning spells with tremendous damage. In the whole battle it caused about 50.000 damage which is more than my entire army together was able to cause. I would definitely have lost the battle without the books.

Therefore, while the book of evil surely isn't the best choice in every situation, it's most certainly the spell with one of the highest power potentials in the game. I got this result with Int 25. Now I have Int 30 and +20% lightning damage through the arch mage staff. It'll be interesting to see how powerfull the book can get...

[Vilk]

I don't think the book take profit of the lightning spell bonus. Archmage lightning attack (but it's not the lightning spell) doesn't take profit of it.

With int 30+ and perhaps the lightning bonus I remember in normal mode to have pain to find where cast a lighting without to hurt my troops at beginning of a battle.

I still hasn't see any book spell but I shouldn't be far to have one if I remember well. I'd be curious to see how the evil book survive in impossible mode. I'm looking to use some alternate with High Magic like book+stoneskin, book+teleport or book+Divine Armor. Too bad that the mana cost is so high.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

With int 30+ and perhaps the lightning bonus I remember in normal mode to have pain to find where cast a lighting without to hurt my troops at beginning of a battle.

Not sure if it's dependent on the spell level of the lightning spell, but at the moment, a lightning can't pass a three fields gap.

I'm looking to use some alternate with High Magic like book+stoneskin, book+teleport or book+Divine Armor.

That won't work, because they are immune to spells. However, this also has the advantage that you can cast area damage spells on enemy units in combat with them, and they don't get hurt.

[Vilk]

Immune to magic? Well that restrict a lot the possibilities, not so attracting then. I doubt a lot the book can survive in most battle of impossible mode since undead land even with magic immunity. Even in elf land many battles will have too many non magic fighters.

Well despite the unpleasant random I'll try anyway for gremlin towers and to test a little.

For the range I don't know the spell description seems mention always the same distance, 4 squares, so it seems I'm wrong.

[Razorflame]

IIRC books get eaten by fire damaging spells

so they are NOT immune to magic
(IIRC)

firerain works on books

[Vilk]

I just got the evil book spell so I'll be able try a bit around it. In term of damage there are 4 types, physical, poison, fire and magic. So it's possible that the book is immune only to spells that aren't fire. The point here is not be able to cast spell on them like for black dragon.

[Vilk]

I tried quickly the evil book, in a gremlin fight, but a quite tough one because it's the upgrade to archmage staff. I cast two level 3 books and first point I remember that you didn't choose the target but in fact you do, weird I don't remember that.

One of the two books get killed in one hit. The second didn't get attacked and did a poor lightning spell that does ridiculous damages. Well my int was 16 only. Enemy was too much spread through the board that didn't help make efficient the lightning not to mention the very low efficiency against troops with magic protection.

Overall that's roughly what I was worry about. For now I'll save crystals and won't learn the spell but I'll do more attempt in different fights.