Karador is Killing Me. Help!

[Razorflame]

Originally Posted by bucazaurus

Any advices you get about troop selection and spells are not realistic in your case.They are based on characters with high Attack/Defence or Intelligence stats and good items.
On impossible with 28 intel, 10 attack and 10 defense you are no match in a straight fight with Karador. Your attack /defence is too low to take him down in a ,warrior style ,fight . Your troops will be decimated in 4-5 rounds i belive.
And your Int is simply not enough to defeat him with offensive spells in that time.

well he asked for a troop selection

i just posted it and i admit he got very low stats

on impossible i already got 32+ int

[Vomaxx]

I too am playing KB for the first time--as a paladin at normal. I engaged Karador last evening. My force was: 6 BD, 203 Inquisitors, 239 Elves, 90 Horsemen, and 204 Ancient Bears. My paladin was level 26; 15/20/12 (attack, defense, int), 88 mana (cut in half by an artifact that provides more rage in combat).

Karador had 69 black knights, 4 bone dragons, 88 ghosts, 40 necromancers, 2130 skeltons (in 2 groups of 1000+), 1358 skeleton archers (in 2 groups), and 437 zombies (in 2 groups). Karador's stats were 20/25/15 with 200 mana.

I think Karador used his magic only to revive his dead, usually the bone dragons; the evil crystal also apparently cast some spells (I was not aware of it for the first part of the battle). I used Time Back once, and gizmo, and the other standard Rage Box stuff, but most of my own spells were bless, haste, and helplessness. (I did not use resurrection. I have gone most of the game without it, owing, I suppose, to using it instead of copying it to my spell book when I started--I got the scroll after selling the map to the mages, but still have not used the spell).

The battle went well. I only broke one hole in the barrier, and used the bears to hold it (like the Spartans at Thermopylae). My dragons made a good sortie, although they lost half their strength. Missile fire, and the riders covering the rear area, did the rest. My casualties were about 50%, which was acceptable. I expected far worse. I was delighted to win the battle on my first try in my first game--a nice contrast with two or three disasters I suffered in the earlier part of my "learning curve," such as engaging the final opponent in the Knight's Temple--the level 30 dragon--too early. [But I got him later, by golly.]

I record these figures in case anyone wants to make comparisons with Karador's strength at various levels.

[Metathron]

Congrats on winning. Off the top of my head, what I would have done differently is remove the pain skull artifact as you'll need all the mana you can get, and switch the elves with something else, because those dragons always tend to get close and they are resistant to arrows, along with the skeletons.

[Razorflame]

ranged units are bad for this battle anyway

i prefer using shamans for this one

put a totem on a dead stack and bye bye dead stack ^^


^^
and use some fire rain on the bone dragons so they get revived everytime

[Vomaxx]

I just beat Karador, at Normal, with a Level 19 Warrior (19Att, 25Def, 5Int, 46 mana) and an army of dwarfs (748 miners, 187 dwarfs, 67 cannoneers, 57 alchemists, 9 giants). I had no resurrection so I lost 43% of my troops, but we beat him, by golly. I was pleased to see that a dwarven army can do well.

[Boozie]

What is the consensus for using Dryads in this fight?

Pro’s:
Thorns
Thorns making thorns consuming corpses
No retaliation

Cons:
Lullaby does nothing
Will get feared
Will most likely break wall while feared.

[Boozie]

Karador Down!!! I figure I’d chime in with my thoughts on this fight for the next person who reads this thread looking for help. My setup:
12500 Leadership
~11 atk
~25 def
~23 int
Pally on normal (I know it’s just normal)

Army composition:
Green Dragons (7)
Black Dragons (5)
Royal Snakes (I had the wife + the poison dmg ring)
Griffins
Dryads

Looking back, I can’t stress how helpful Shaman would be for this fight. I didn’t have access to them, but I would have swapped them in place of the black dragons which I hardly used for the fight. Really the key to this fight is positioning + ice thorns (+any other method of covering up corpses, necro call would have been awesome too).

Best advice I can give is don’t feel rushed to kill off his units, take it slow. Create choke points and cover up corpses at the same time with ice thorns. As already mentioned, invis + emerald green dragons is great, I didn’t have that. I wouldn’t suggest phantom on the green dragons at least with my crappy stack of 7 it isn’t worth it. Mana spring on griffin + time back is very very handy as well.

I found it effective to nuke with rain of fire early while they were grouped up. 2x rain of fire really helped reduce the skelly archer stack. I also took advantage of my dragons by waiting and then attacking at the end of the round and retreating at the start of the round. I used this to reduce the necro stack and skelly archer stack.

I personally don’t think inquisitors were worth it. If you were going for a no loss tactic maybe it’d be more essential. I could probably have swapped them for the Black Dragons no problem.

Plan for the long haul this fight. Karador will run out of mana before it’s over most likely. Just keep corpses managed and it shouldn’t be too hard even with only 12k leadership. I felt trap was pretty handy in conjunction with choke points to minimize damage and maximize your dmg/mana spent. Good luck.

Also, don't bother killing the crystal until the end of very near the end. Just manage corpses.

[Razorflame]

wow that is some bad setup

just rape the bone dragons so tthey get revived everytime

and then concentrate on his vampires(put 1 unit next to the archers)

archers can be blinded too
making them useless