Good Tanker units?

[Gatts]

Originally Posted by Kings Bounty Hunter

Ents dish out 100-140 damage per unit They hardly get a mention on here?

Ents and their stronger friends are REAL TANKS, but as my personal long term KB tactics is to create army so I won't change it till the end ASAP - I don't go for plants nor treants / ents for their FIRE vulnerability... (which may not be a problem in many KB battles, so yes - you can hire them as real tanks - but don't wonder if you will suffer a lot in demonis or fighting dragons in haas labyrinth)

[Lysander]

Still early in the game, but I've discovered two units that tie up the other side while my distance fighters (mages, archers, etc.) pick them off bit by bit. Both Lina's ice orb and the phoenix (cast as spell) have plenty of hit points, so I place them in the middle of the enemy troops and watch while their units keep busy fighting the orb and the phoenix. The phoenix doesn't have a powerful attack, but she's versatile (can move anywhere) and has plenty of hit points.

[lobo76]

use dryads. remember that when u use phantom, they also have the abilities. aka. you can sprout a lot of plants, and multiple sleep ability at the same time.

[Sensemaker]

Originally Posted by lobo76

use dryads. remember that when u use phantom, they also have the abilities. aka. you can sprout a lot of plants, and multiple sleep ability at the same time.

I am just a beginner and haven't played elves yet, but looking at the stats and abilities of dryads make me impressed. 12 in defense and 25 hit points for a 20 leadership unit. That is very good. Add beauty which means male humanoids have 30% chance of missing entirely. They can summon thorns to do extra tanking for you.

Still in early game, I prefer to use the phoenix to do a bit of tanking for me. After moving my first units I can typically summon it and move it right to the middle of enemy archers where it will hit several of them with a single attack. When counter-attacked they retaliate and cause more damage to other archers. As often as not, the AI neglects to step onto the hex with it's corpse and I get to use it once again after it is killed. 20 mana and one turn of spell casting is a bit steep but you get a lot of us from it if your opponent is heaving in archers.

Sensemaker

[jwallstone]

I also used Phoenix just like you do, Sensemaker. It was great for blocking ranged enemies. But I switched over to using phantom more. After a certain point, the phoenix just died too easily, usually in one hit. Sure, you can revive it, but if it dies right away from a faster melee troop, it's not blocking the ranged troops. With phantom, it scales with your army, so at this point it has significantly more hitpoints. If I need to block ranged troops, I usually move some royal snakes forward a few spaces, summon a phantom, then move that to block. With phantom, I'm getting over 20 royal snakes at this point, which has over 5 times the hitpoints of the young phoenix. Plus, the no retal of the snakes lets it hit without fear of dying from retal. The icing on the cake is that phantom costs less, and I always find myself in short mana supply when using this strategy repeatedly.

Right now, I'm working on building up a griffin stack (with sacrifice) to do the same thing. The multiple retal should be nice. Griffins also have more hp than leadership, (royal snakes do not), which should translate to more mileage.

[maltz]

The best tank is a hypnotized enemy unit.

[Longasc]

Originally Posted by MajorS

Your best tank is any Level 5 unit with target on it and someone healing them

Exactly.

Swordsmen, Griffins... they are not bad and definitely good tanks. They just tend to take losses.

Griffins are a unit for certain strategies involving their high speed and split abilities, but if you really put them to the forefront, they will suffer losses. Retaliation helps them nothing in this regard, I would still prefer Royal Snakes over them. You will have to rez them anyways. They just take losses.

But a Black/Green/whatever Dragon can quickly traverse the battlefield and attract enemy attacks. They have high hp pools and awesome defense.
They will not take much losses or any losses at all, and resurrecting them with Inquisitors works very well.


I would suggest going to the Elven Lands and sail along the shores till you find the island where you can buy Emerald Dragons.

Another trick would be to use Lina's spiked ball or a Phoenix as diversion.


Dragons >>>> level 2-3 tank units. They are not only better tanks, they are better per se.

[Zonc]

Originally Posted by Longasc

Exactly.
Griffins are a unit for certain strategies involving their high speed and split abilities, but if you really put them to the forefront, they will suffer losses. Retaliation helps them nothing in this regard

This is why TIME BACK ability is so great. park griffins in middle of enemy army, watch the slaughter, and in end of turn 2 cast Time Back - and zero losses!
BTW, Demons have the same ability (furius), but are much harder to get

[Vilk]

Originally Posted by Darmani

I'm a big fan of Ancient Ents. Typically my first move in battles is to teleport them over and cast Stoneskin on them. If some of the enemy stacks have fire damage, I'll cast Divine Armor instead -- it replaces their 100% Vulnerability with 36% resistance....

Weird I never tried that, that's a non logical rule but totally true, with Divine Armor -100% is replaced by 30% or more depending of some stuff like Healer skill but also int and perhaps more, I pick two saves in my current game and got 39% and 44% with divine armor level 3, both with heal skill level 1.

That trick is huge and change a lot the tank point of view. Ancient Ent then are certainly the best tank or one of the best even against fire. The real weakness is the requirement to cast teleport but for a mage with Higher Magic skill that's less a burden.

For any tank Shield of Archmage is great and Peacefulness too, both against any type of attack. Also Stoneskin is useless against non physical attacks like magic.

[Vilk]

My favorite Tank is Cursed Ghost with Target spell, . They can be huge and I doubt even Ancient Ent can be better in many battles. Some posts here already explained some key point of using Cursed Ghost. I pick some snapshot of Cursed Ghost with target and joined them bellow, they show some sample where Cursed Ghost and Target can work very well.

But cursed ghost won't work in any battle:

• The best for them is a mix of non living and living.
• They can also work very well against a full living army. The key point is using target, protection spells and focus all on keeping control of the stack.
• They rule against full undead army except with Necromancers apart if they can be close to Necromancers that will then use a physical attack if you have used target.
• They rule against army with physical attack.
• They also work very well against a mixing of physical and living magical/fire like 80/20 depending of the enemy size.
• They are great against many units with no retaliation because you won't have to manage counter attack and it will be more easy to control their stack.
• They can work very well if there isn't too many red and black dragon in enemy army, typically the cursed ghost will take busy the whole enemy army but the dragons that will be attacked by all your other units.
• Don't use them against strong stacks of priests/inquisitors/black dragon/red dragon/more than one stack of necromancer.
• Don't use them against army with a strong sum of fire and magic attack.

Among the tricks to not have Cursed Ghosts out of control, some tricks already quoted in some previous posts:

• Start with a stack not at its max. That's not for all battle, that depend of enemy strength and how you manage the first rounds.
• Protect them more or less as the fight progress and enemy stacks lower.
• Make them attack a non living or guard to try lower the stack.
• Have a unit with a higher initiative than them in case they lost control at end of a turn.
• Wait end of turn for some of your long range units so they can reduce their stack if out of control.
• When you can keep your spell cast to later in the round in case you lost control.
• Use target on them to have enemy control your stack for you.
• Use target on them to allow you predict much more easily enemy attacks on them and possible counter attack to plan better a control of their stack.
• Use Peacefulness to slow down their stack increase/decrease, that also a way to increase defense.
• Use heal on them or another spell to decrease their stack.
• Take care have their stack lower before enter in a tactic that will increase their stack.
• If you make them wait in a round, be sure you have at least one other unit with lower initiative that also wait, this will give you the opportunity to decrease their stack if out of control. You could also have a unit with higher initiative to wait you you can act after the
• If you make them wait in a round, it can be useful to also have a unit with higher initiative to wait so you can react in same round and after the cursed ghost attack.
• With target stay close to a living long range to restore stack with the counter attack and not close to lower the stack.
• Against full living army and Target often your best choice will be to center all your army and actions around the Cursed Ghost to keep target, required protection and keep stack control.