Army composition question

[Thrasher]

I'd drop your archmages for inquisitors (for the resurrect and rage/bless)
and replace the bears with griffins (for flying to grab goodies, speed, and multi retaliations)
and replace priests with shamans (for totems as distractions plus healing)

[carlec]

I would love to have griffins, but can't find how to get them. I found the island, and hoped I could get them to join me, but they wouldn't. I am guessing that I have to finish the quest of the griffin king, but that is still beyond me right now.

And I haven't seen Shamens yet. Are they with the elves?

Are skeleton archers really the best as everyone says? I was not going to go down the undead path with this army/game. This is my first, so I was hoping to add elves, but certainly haven't found them yet.

[Thrasher]

Yep, you have to finish the griffon king's quest first. It's worth it!

You can get shamans from the castle where the orcs are on the first island, but you have to beat them in battle first.

[BobMaster]

Hey all I'm back :p

I recently started KB again and I need some advice ...

My current army consists of:

Archmages
Knights
Evil Beholders
Horsemen
Inquisitors

Now I see people trashing groups of match and even slightly stronger at lvl 11 (my lvl now), but I have a hard time killing match groups with my army unless they are all slow units.
Only useful spells I am missing are Resurrect and Target, none of my magic is higher then level 1 yet because of rune costs, I do have Higher Magic lvl 2.

Any advice ?

P.S.: I just killed Lucky James with minimal losses, on my way to the mines.

[Lex]

I think you've been too fast with Higher Magic, and you should get higher level of Order / Distortion first. In my free time I am playing no loss impossible game with mage - so far lvl 8, just killed Redbeard and on my way to mines. My army is: Archmages, Cannoneers, Griffins, Royal Snakes and Inquisitors - around 4k of leadership. I would drop Knights and concentrate on shielded fast single tank or at least replace them with second faster tank.

[BobMaster]

Thanks Lex,

If only I could find a faster tank, I don't really like the griffins because of their low hp, even with the archmage's shield, they drop quite fast, maybe I use them wrong ?
I don't have a steady supply for them yet either.

Why Order/Distortion? my next goal would have normally been chaos lvl 2, so I could use sacrifice to get a stack of royal thorns, only 2 available right now.
I was never really a order/distortion kinda guy, occasional slow or stone skin and sometimes a heal to keep units alive, but not much else, any pointers for magic use ?
Also was thinking of changing the Knights for cannoneers, guess it would have been a bad idea ? :p

[Lex]

Disclaimer: I am still not very experienced KB:TL player, but.

I like griffins because they have high hp-leadership relationship, nice initiative + speed and they are nice source of mana with Magic Spring.
I prefer army buffs than direct damage. When our/enemy army grows then buffs also grow in strength while direct damage kill % lowers.
Replacing an army depend on player's style, but Cannoneer is pretty good unit.

[BobMaster]

Originally Posted by Lex

Disclaimer: I am still not very experienced KB:TL player, but.

You must be pretty good in my book for beating redbeard at lvl 8 no losses on impossible

My game is only normal lol

Maybe I should check my buffs more, but as I said, I'm not very proficient with magic :p

[Lex]

It is all the matter of strategy. In my opinion, for example, Redbeard was much easier than Capt Black Eye - I killed Eye right after A Holy Indulgence quest.

[BobMaster]

Yea, obviously

Still learning myself, started this because I finished all the HoMM games and VI wasn't out back then.

But this access to all races thing really adds a huge difficulty, at least for me, thank some deity it are the same units though

Let's hope some expert KB player can help some regarding magic use

[EDIT]: After searching some more on the forums, I realized I possibly screwed myself by maxing higher magic too early, mass or even lvl 2 blind and stuff would have been more useful.
Will try to pick my fights carefully and hope I can advance, or I need to restart ... again