Impossible Warrior - no losses?

[Zhuangzi]

I hear you, Elwin. I've got Phantom myself but I haven't started using it yet. I am going to take DGD's advice and put some work into the Summoning ability to counteract low Intellect (currently, at level 2, Phantom is only doing 31%) but Mind runes are a big problem. I think I'm going to have to do the rune exchange in Montero.

In my game I still can't find Target, which I could really use, or Resurrection or Time Back. I used Time Back a lot in my last game and I think it's the best way of 'rolling back' damage (although very expensive in mana). I used Horsemen in my last game for this reason, as they are both strong in terms of hp and very fast.

I got the Shettera map quite easily in Montero and, as someone said in one of these threads, Shettera is really good for picking up flags/crystals. There's even one quest you can do without fighting. But what I really want is that damn Target spell! I have the Tekron map but I don't want to run into that problem someone had where they were always running into one of the bosses when they arrived.

I think I am up to about 110 fights without loss and it's day 11. So I'm doing this slower than travelingoz, for sure. But I won't care if I get there in the end!

[Urbz]

I think the chance of landing on a pirate ship when traveling to Tekron must be really small though, i only heard of one other person besides me having this happen. But ye trust me, it's not pretty.
Tekron is well worth it, you can get blood of the goddess if you cba to get it for jimmy and have an insane leadership boost and you can do some easy quest like the soap and submarine, also i managed to get a map to Shet I think even, down in the canal which was quite a nice suprise,
Shet is indeed a very easy place for sneaking aswell, and I think there's at least two doable quests there aswell, the arcitect and the escaped imp ( although im not sure how smart it is to turn him back in )
Also really high level spell/items/units for sale there.
I wish the kiting of chart guards didnt felt so cheesy though but it seems like the only way to go if you go fully for no-losses.
Nice to read you guys are doing well though, keep it up!

[Elwin]

Found phantom on Urzala !! yet te tmeback needed ;p

[Zhuangzi]

Well, I bought lots of Mind runes so that I could get Distortion 3 and Summoner 1 - so my Phantom is worth 49% now. I am starting to use Phantom -> Paladin + Mana Accelerator a lot to get through fights. It can be a bit tedious but it's quite effective unless the stacks are too big. Leadership has just ticked over 10,000 and I think I am level 22. This is much higher leadership than I have read in other threads for Mages so I feel very sorry for them. I am up to about 118 battles without loss now and I am off to Dersu to try to find Target, Time Back or Resurrection. Haven't seen any of them yet! Not on Shettera.

[Zhuangzi]

I not 100% sure why, but now I am absolutely breezing through this. Fights 120-150 or so have been very easy, with few needing to be replayed (and those generally because I made a stupid mistake). I put it down to three pieces of advice that DGDobrev gave:

- Use Treasure Hunter 3x a turn to make money (up to 700,000 now)
- Get the Summoning ability and Phantom Paladins (57% now)
- Prioritise Mana Accelerator

With these tools, plus my standard team of Paladins, Inquisitors, Royal Snakes, Royal Griffins (sometimes Druids instead) and Red Dragons, I am smashing Very Strong and Lethal stacks with ease, often by the end of turn 3 or 4. 13,000 leadership by level 29 really helps, as does the Inquisitor's Blade you get from a quest (-20% leadership for Inquisitors and Paladins).

It is quite easy to max mana and rage by the end of fights, and I'm someone who basically doesn't have patience for this kind of tactic if it is going to take forever in real time. But it doesn't. The Warrior creates enormous amounts of rage, which can be turned into mana using Mana Accelerator. This is important for Phantoming Paladins (I only have 31 mana, but it doesn't seem to matter currently).

Standard fight goes like this:

- Use Fiery Phantoms (50 rage) on the clustered enemy.
- Cast Mass Haste
- Use Red Dragons to cause mayhem in enemy clusters (often using special ability).
- Bring up Royal Snakes six squares.
- Inquisitors cast Holy Anger on Royal Snakes.
- Royal Griffins cast Heavenly Guards.
- Paladins cast Second Wind on Royal Snakes.
- Snakes cause a lot of damage to something.

On turn 2 I usually cast Fiery Phantom again, and Healing 3 on the Red Dragons, which are my main tank. I'm usually doing any necessary resurrecting on turn 3.

[DGDobrev]

Keep up the good work

Still, with the money that are piling up, make sure you are on the lookout for mana boosting items or the rage eater. These 2 will greatly add to your effectiveness in battles where you can't summon the dragon. Relying on the little fellow usually works but in boss battles thangs change.

Also, be careful with that sword. Usually its morale improves in each battle, but if there are Paladins or inquisitors in the enemy army, it drops down seriously. But since you're past verona, you should be fine

Good luck in the following battles as well. Have you decided on a companion?

[Zhuangzi]

Nope, I'm still stuck with the pirate guy. Any suggestions for a warrior?

[DGDobrev]

Well... good question

I like Moldok - he's stupid and lazy, but has pretty decent slots:
Shield, Weapon/Shield, Belt/Regalia, Artifact

No second armor though. However, with him you have 3 weapons + 1 shield (or 2 weapons 2 shields or 1 weapon 3 shield), which can boost your attack/defense seriously, as well as add a certain flexibility to your char. He doesn't have that good ability (bonus to orcs), but I really like it when amelie gets angry with him for taking half the battle's gold. It is great to do a castle siege after such an event, because you always start with max rage.

If you need a second armor + weapon, Moro Dark is a good idea:
Weapon, Armor, Helm, Belt/Regalia
+3 attack (hero) bonus

Especially if you're like me - I had 2 elven crowns in my mage game, and was forced to leave the second one on the shelf to collect dust. However he doesn't have an artifact slot, and as a warrior, you have only 1 artifact slot if I recall correctly.

If you need artifacts, or you need to boost intellect a little, Elenhel is also a good choice. Gaudi isn't bad, but he doesn't have an artifact slot, nor he adds attack like Moro.

[Zhuangzi]

I went with Moldok, for now anyway. Thanks for the advice.

Bosses:

Spider - easiest of the bosses, much the same as in TL. I used Royal Thorns for this one and filled the map with thorns. Took a while, but very easy around level 30.

Frog - the second boss, but maybe even easier than the Spider. I blitzed this first try at level 34 or so.

Driller - this was a different story. The Driller was the hardest battle in the game so far - quite difficult to ensure zero losses. I was level 38 when I tried it and I failed to keep the losses down over 4-5 tries. I had read somewhere of the idea of using only 4 stacks (as that is the width of the map) so I used Paladins, Inquisitors, Red Dragons and Archmages. This was with 20,000 leadership, enough for 10 Red Dragons. I had a lot of trouble at first keeping the Inquisitors alive. I know they aren't a good choice for this fight, but I could use the Resurrection ability. Then I realised that the Driller likes to use his machine gun on the stack on the far side of the map (i.e. the Driller's right side). So I switched the Paladins to that side, and I did much better. My main tactic was to use Stone Skin and Magic Shield on the Red Dragons, who were doing about 3000 damage for a puny 110 retaliation. Spells cast were Healing, Stone Skin, and occasionally Haste. One or two Phantoms at the end.

So now I am level 39 with 21,000 leadership, and I am ready to smash Tekron. When I got there, I was surprised to see that the enemies were listed as Slightly Weaker, Equal in Strength, with the heroes Very Strong.

189 fights without loss now, and I expect to kick ass on Tekron and Umkas. Then there's Shettera, Nameless, Elon and Reha to go.

EDIT: one thing I am doing differently is NOT progressing down the Might skill tree very far. It seems to me that skills like Quick Draw, Nighttime Operations, Frenzy, Tactics and Power of Darkness are of limited value and therefore optional. Revenge and Bloodthirst are very nice, but maybe not a necessity. So I've decided to trade in a lot of Might runes for Magic and try to increase my mana pool and mana regeneration. It seems to me that the left side of the Magic tree is very, very useful. I want to max out Wisdom, Meditation, Concentration and even Linguistics, which will give me a large mana pool for boss fights. What do you guys think of this?

[DGDobrev]

I think that is is a really good idea. Especially in the last few boss fights, you will need the extra mana to recover from the losses.

As for the driller, I did it with 4 units. The idea was to utilize his weaknesses (as well as the weaknesses of his summonings - -50% mahgic resist) to the best of your ability. 5 units is simply begging for constant gunshots which means a lot of damage you can barely fix in time.