Cruel Haas once again

[Vulture]

Hey folks, thanks again for your further assistance.

@Elwin: That setup of Haas' you faced is the major key here. With that setup I wouldn't have the least of doubt to finish without losses, even beforen turn 6. As you already suspected, the stack number and size of blacks are decisive. A stack of 14 blacks would die in a single Dragon Arrow shot. Doubled in number and split into 4 stacks the scenario changes massively to the disadvantage of our setup (as loreangelicus said, our troops are identical ). But in fact, the weakest link are the Hunters. That's why I dumped them.

@loreangelicus: Ya, I was ofc aware of the mechanics, just didn't assume that enemy heros follow the rules the same way :>
You're ofc right about the archer mechanics but "range is the only defense I need" so to speak is not the reason for me using Skeleton Archers. 95% of reasons is their damage. I wouldn't hesitate a second if they were melee with the same hp and def and still use them (assumed there was a dragon arrows for melee ^^).

And no, I don't miss the fact that the girls' damage is mostly magic based, especially with dagger+whip. But as Arillian said: the damage that goes through is still larger than that of most other melee units. My Sprites/LFs kill 2-3 Blacks with a non critical. And as long as there are Bone Dragons, Giants and Ents they go for them anyway. In skirmishes I often killed Black Dragons with them. Not a big deal :>
As for the inquisitors, I thought about reactivating them as well. Used them for Darion, Freedom Isles, Kordar and again in the Land Of The Dead. But I came to the conclusion that a) I don't have the spell/turn left for Gift b) as you said they are being focused mostly and die c) their damage is useless.

Still didn't have the time to retry. Was pretty busy these days (wtb weekend :< ). I'll report the outcome asap.

[BB Shockwave]

Griffins are also usefull for this battle. I found that the dragons love going after them, which is good since they always retaliate. Use Dragon slayer and God Armour on them for best effects!

You can also use Black Dragons yourself. They will take little damage from Haas's dragons (that's why I use them to attack first, saving retaliation damage from my other troops), plus later they are very effective against those ancient ents.

Also, do not bring any archers. I used Evil Beholders throughout the game, but they are useless here.

[Vulture]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Griffins are also usefull for this battle. I found that the dragons love going after them, which is good since they always retaliate. Use Dragon slayer and God Armour on them for best effects!

Demons also have infinite retaliation, but have resistance to fire and deal more damage/ldr. Dragons went for your griffins because they were probably the weakest link in your setup. In terms of "which stack can I cause most damage on?"-policy the AI pursues.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

You can also use Black Dragons yourself. They will take little damage from Haas's dragons (that's why I use them to attack first, saving retaliation damage from my other troops), plus later they are very effective against those ancient ents.

Blacks are good, greens are better. As already said in this thread: a) physical damage, not fire. b) mana ability. c) Ents are food for Sprites/Lake Faeries.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Also, do not bring any archers. I used Evil Beholders throughout the game, but they are useless here.

Beholders do magic damage. Of course they are useless against black dragons and alike. Skeleton Archers do physical damage. And still. Skeleton Archers with Dragon Arrows are the most lethal enemy of a dragon. No other unit can do this. Any other physical lvl1-2 archers have less dmg/ldr. Any physical archers 3-4 don't benefit one third as much from the negated defense due to Dragon Arrows as the percentage of damage done gained is lower. As said, magic damage is useless unless insane amounts (Sprites/Lake Faeries + whip/dagger).

[medicalseo]

But you opened my eyes. Thank you very much for that. Before reading your opinion here I was dead sure that I must wipe his Dragons before Turn 7 (average turn when he began using armageddon). Didn't think of the dispel/timeback/keep busy CCing mechanism. And btw am I getting it right ? You're saying enemy heroes do pay different amounts of mana depending on which spell rank they have to use for the respective target unit ? See, I didn't consider that as well although it's actually obvious and logical. That shoul really turn the tides.

[BB Shockwave]

Vulture - good points. I simply did not want to change my unit setup that much by the end of the game. Though I wonder, if you use like a few thousand skeleton archers, won't the dragons rush and all attack them in the first round? AI seems to love pestering the lowest level unit and especiall pestering archers, since they do 1/2 damage in melee.

In AP, Dragon Arrows got tweaked a lot. They only reduce defence by 30% on first level (I don't use archers so I did not upgrade it, wonder what level III does). But there is another way to kill strong stacks in one hit... I love using the Gargoyle (Gorgul)/Gorguana combo. In one battle, the Gorguanas cast Blood Mark (doubles the damage suffered by that stack) on the enemy Tirexes, then my around 320 Gogruls attacked the Tirex (indirectly with their spears through a weaker unit) - they did a critical, Tirexes got some 10.500 damage, all 10 died!

[Boozie]

So how bad is it to use Undead/Demons in your army if you don't have tolerance? I'm at Haas and my current army isn't cutting it but I don't have runes to spare.

[Vulture]

Don't do it. The negative effects (crit loss, stat loss) of having low moral troops in your setup by FAR outweighs the benefits of whatever troop you wanted to add. Only exception: Inquisitors. They're no damage dealers and if you lose them it's your own fault, not that of their stats. If you add Demons that is, of course. Their own Tolerance Skill takes care of undeads in the team already as we know.
Use units that don't give a crap about who's with them. Like Dragons or more Undeads/Demons for example :>

Depending on if you wanna go for a no loss campaign this fight can end up a little frustrating. Especially as a paladin with the lack of atk and ldr to make quick work of the most annoying enemies and inevitably running into Armageddon phase.

Hope you didn't have an asshole-Haas-setup like me. 6 Dragon stacks. I have never seen a more annoying distribution of units with Haas in any playthrough ever after ><

[Boozie]

Unfortunately I have 6 stacks of dragons as well. With the help of the Scanner, I've located Rahha's shield which should help me a lot. I also just picked up that sword that gives enemy dragons -50% attack or whatever it is.

I think if I opt for runes w/ the obelisk reward I might be able to put 2/2 in tolerance and again w/ the scanners help I can easily snag some demons and archdemons to really put me over the edge. Should be a breeze.

[Boozie]

Beat Haas last night and then it crashed when I ported off the turtle. Will finish it up again tonight probably. I think I went overkill with how prepared I was when I came back, it just felt like my units were getting outdamaged flat out so I went with almost a complete counter-comp:

Archdemon - Fire immune
Demon - Reduced fire damage
Knight - Dragon Slayer (holy crap these guys tore it up, no circle attack needed)

Emerald Green Dragon - I like them due to no retaliation and the mana back, but they weren't necessary by any means as my mana was spent dispelling almost the whole time.

Royal Snake - I milked these guys all game long so I just kept them along for the ride. Very potent with the wife, gotta love no retaliation.

I also made sure to get Rahha's Shield and the Dragon Slayer sword.

I went from losing the fight to a joke of a fight. Could have done no losses pretty easily if I wanted to spend the time, but I didn't do it the rest of the game so no point bothering.

I was only level 25 with about 19000 leadership as a pally. (normal mode is probably why)

Off to try AP once I figure out which class I want to roll.

[Vomaxx]

I finished the game today with a warrior; my first time at Impossible level. The odd thing about the end was that the fight with Bagud, the orc, was very difficult, but against Haas things went well. Bagud made very good use of teleportation which (owing to a teensy positioning error on my part) nullfied all my skelton archers--in fact all 2000+ were destroyed without ever firing a shot, as he teleported in more units as I teleported the archers elsewhere. (However, by moving his main units like that he put them in the midst of my army, and so he did lose.) I did not take any archers to meet Haas: I had knights, horsemen, shamans, ancient vampires, and swamp snakes (yes, swamp snakes: there weren't enough royal snakes left in the game and I had Feanora, the snake boots, and the snake ring.) Haas had 145 dragons (28 black (14/14), 47 red (15/15/17), 21 green, 49 bone (26/23) and 38 Archdemons (19/19). But Haas did not cast spells cleverly--he used things like pygmy and hypnosis (easily cancelled by dispel); he was annihilated in about six turns with moderate losses for my troops. Knights, the dragon sword, the dragon slayer spell, and fighting at night with the Miner's Helmet, the cloak of shadows, and the vampire ring really helped--I deliberately waited for night

It is interesting how different players find different battles the hardest. I think mine, in this game, was at Castle Nexy. I hate demonesses.