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#1
10-26-2009, 04:32 AM
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Cruel Haas once again
Hi everybody!
After a break of about ~5 months I've returned to KB:TL to finish my Paladin game. I stopped playing in Demonis back then and finished it today. As for all the battles against f.e. Baal or the 7 Embodiments, they were a piece of cake. Finished them all with no losses and very easily no less. Bagud was a piece of cake, too. But Haas ? Dear lord! I mean ok, I defeated him, but lost more than half of my army. I loaded the last savegame a few times and tried different strategies but utterly in vain. I just can't figure how to deal these loads of damage against 4 (!) stacks of Black Dragons (28 total) before he starts casting "Armageddon", making loss preservation moves pointless. Facts to know about this: Stats: LvL 29 (picked "Learning" only rank 1 and too late in the game, my mistake) Att: 19 Def: 14 Int: 16 Ldr: 24k Wife: Xeona (whip+poison dagger equipped, angas ruby too) lvlup choices were Ldr > att > int > def. Had to let 1 att go in favor of 1400 Ldr, though. Still bugs me  Rages: Lina 19 (chargers never asked lvlup, still 3 orbs, 2 rage, 1 mana -.-) Reaper: 24 Timeback lvl1-5 @ 20 rage, 2 turns recharge Other two 18 or so each. I know, those are ridiculously low stats but that's the best I could manage with available items. I was VERY unlucky with random items. The price for my INSANE luck with spells. Found 12 (!) sacrifice scrolls, 10 resurrection scrolls, armageddon, doom etc. And many of those very early on. But items: crap, crap and more crap. 19 Att is the maximum achieveable. As for units I have access to EVERY unit in the game. Still have the upgradeable mage staff final battle left which I saved to boost any stack to max if I want to. Order3+Healer max, Disto3, Chaos 2 (Sacc only) Onslaught3, Dark Commander3, Tolerance2, Rune Talent ofc 3. Setup: 3200 Lake Fairies 2900 Sprites 1140 Dryads (useless against lvl 5 enemies so I replaced them with 92 Demons) 1720 Skeleton Archers (DA ofc) Hunters (did only 900-1600 dmg on Dragons w/o DA, pretty much useless :/ ) Haas' setup: 4 Stacks of Blacks (6,9,8 and 5), 1 stack of 10 Reds, 1 stack of 12 Greens, 1 stack of 15 Bones, 2 stacks of 10 Giants each (double earthquake, gz -.-) 1 stack of 13 Ancient Ents. The problem is very obvious: I just can't dish out enough damage and the 4 stacks of Blackies just fly circles around my troops, line breathing them to unrestorably low stacks. Enough to win but not even remotley enough to restore before armageddon hell. What am I getting wrong ? I dominated the whole game until Haas. No loss with rarely more than 8-10 turns each battle. Series of 40k+ oneshot crits from the LF/S. Series of oneshotting ANY encountered Dragon stacks with DA-Skellies. But with 6 Dragon stacks and double earthquake I'm just hoplessly inferior and take a hard beating. My strategy: LF/S kill the Bone Dragon stack. Hunters killed 1 single black dragon *clap*. DA on Skells, 10 Reds down (tried the 9 Blacks as their target. No difference in the end). Then the 4 BD stacks and the Emerald stack took out 50% of my range department. Then Demons between the 2 stacks of Giants, Pentagram, attacked Giants, only 2 died :/ Skells Pgymied, no DA for turn 2. Turn ends. By the end of turn 2 my Hunters were gone. All of them. Skellies pygmied down to 700, no DA. LF/S were pretty much ok. Lost 500 each. Demons down to 69. Alltogether unrestorable b4 armageddon. Not with 112 max mana and only 1 cast/turn (Yay Mages -.-) I'm sure I'm missing vital information here. It's crushing since I consider myself at least a bit "advanced" in this game. Any help would be very much appreciated, especially concerning positioning of troops to avoid the flying fire breath ability. Regards, Vulture Last edited by Vulture; 10-26-2009 at 04:37 AM. 
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#2
10-26-2009, 07:15 AM
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as you see archers are not optimal against Haas - You need brute power to take him down
Try hard hitting melle unit: I usually go with this setup: Anceint Vamps (+ dark comander to make sure I have the initiative) Veteran Orcs if I can find them if not then horsmans because of the fire resistance Shamans Knights Inqusitors for resurection and no losses if you don't care about that you can choose any other units. first turn cast mass battle cry and have the knight circle attack and cripple 2 dragons stacks you should be fine from them
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#3
10-26-2009, 12:01 PM
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Yeah, Knights are designed for this battle.
I did it with Sprites, Lake Faeries, Knights, Green Dragons (for mana, I had 48 max mana only), Dryads (they are good imho, lots of hp, good stats good damage) I had 35 Atck though, with dragons slayer sword and shield aganst dragon attacks. I played agressive with a lots of time back and mass dragons slayer and mass bless. Haas did not cast Armageddon, only Pygmy. I "dispelled" this with time back - so i was able to cast helpful spells and resurrect. I did not do if for no losses - after all you dont need units after this fight - but it was not too far from that.
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#4
10-26-2009, 01:37 PM
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I feel for you, I myself was cruising my no-casualties game up until the battle with Haas.
Attached are screenshots of my battle with Haas. As mentioned by the other posters, I believe the key here is to bring some bad-ass melee unit that Haas would consider debilitating with Sheep or Pygmy. In my setup, Haas simply kept on casting Sheep on my Demons, and I just kept on casting Dispel (3 guesses who won that mana battle  ).It is important to note that you should dispel the debilitating effect though; else, Haas would do something else, like Hypnotize or a damage spell. So try to bring level 4 units for him to cast Sheep/Pygmy on so that he would spend more mana. This is key. It should be noted that I was even being pig-headed in my game, refusing to swap out the Inquisitors for something more suitable for the final battle. As such, I think I spent 40 of the 66 turns bringing them back up with Resurrection. It took me that many turns because all the enemies were zoning in on them and wiping them out completely, and I couldn't leave them at zero count since some enemy might get killed on top of them, preventing me from casting Resurrect on them. So as all the others have suggested, drop the archers for this battle. Even the Inquisitors could be dropped as you could use rage drain/chargers/resurrect to bring back lost troops. Of course, there are two more ways to go... spell/rage damagers + ... 1) ancient vampires/dark commander/invisibility lvl 1 + chargers + rage drain 2) demoness/anga's ruby/invisibility lvl 1 + chargers + rage drain Option #2 necessitates you to kill the giants first and do a couple of timebacks/resurrects on the demonesses, but the results are the same. I refrain from using these two options though since it takes the challenge out of the battles, and I actually appreciated the Haas battle a lot since I was getting a bit bored with battles before that. 
Last edited by loreangelicus; 10-26-2009 at 02:17 PM.
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#5
10-26-2009, 04:02 PM
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Thank you all for your quick responses. Much appreciated here.
@iregev: so you recommend hp over usefulness. Except for the Ancient Vamps, they are priceless here. I'll give it a shot, thx. @Arilian: "i did not do it for no losses". But I do :> I know how to win and say "I don't need troops after that". But I don't care. I want "Your casualties: 0" and that's the rule. And read above, please, I put down the Dryads. They're of no use in this battle. There's no 1-3 enemy stack and my Fairies and Sprites go first every turn. neither lullaby nor inspiring song needed. And another target vulnerable to fire is not that much appreciated. For a no loss victory they are an obstacle, not an improvement. But thanks anyway. I had the idea of using mass dragon slayer before but I end up using resurrect every turn. Maybe I'll go as you advise and play more offensively. Think that's what broke my neck not doing. @loreangelicus: thank you very much for the insight. I knew I was missing something vital here. Draining his mana and keeping him busy CCing in fact sounds like THE plan. I'll go and try immediately (and bang my head on the wall not considering that to begin with :> ) As for the archers, I must contradict though. Melee of course is a better investment but with my gear, Skellies with DA are the most powerful weapon I have. As stated above, I tried with Demons but they actually didn't do any damage. 3k critical is a joke tbh :/ 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. But I'm still not sure what units I'll bring along with that strat. Considering the fact that I will win the mana duel my choice of units shouldn't be affected. Dryads will remain exchanged for Demons. They don't kill, but they don't die fast and retaliate, so I'm fine with that. Used to clear all of Elven Lands incl Land Of The Dead with them as tanks, so old combattants meet again :> And I'll sort out the hunters in favor of green dragons. With my shitty unimproved chargers I need them or I'll run dry. As for my 3 lvl 1 buddies, I won't let them go. I've seen too many "no-loss-on-impossible" screenshots of the Haas battle with exactly those. If these people can, then so can I. But I'll try it without those 3 as well to test the mana duel agenda even further :> But besides that. Nobody got a handy method to avoid those fire flights the blacks are doing ? I mean I'm facing 4 stacks of them :s I don't seem to find a lineup that minimizes or extinguishes flight path opportunities :<
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#6
10-26-2009, 06:00 PM
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Quote:
Enemy heroes follow the same spell rules, so they need more mana using Sheep on your level 4 units as opposed to casting it on your level 1-2 units. But I understand how you may not see this immediately, I myself didn't realize this at once since I don't use debilitating spells except for Slow, and that's not tied up to unit level. Regarding positioning units, if you have Tactics, place your units to the corners and spread them. I know this is a bit counter-intuitive in protecting your archers, but this is the best way to avoid being lined up for damage by blacks and reds. Your mileage may vary though, since you have more archers. The main advantage of archers is they get to damage the enemy before the enemy ever reaches them, so their life is not a factor in such situations. But this advantage is lost in this battle. The problem with archer units is not so much their damage but their life. This is compounded even more for this battle since those dragon units would reach you in turn 1... Don't dismiss demon units quite easily as the main damage dealing enemies here are fire-based. As pointed out by the others, you should take into consideration damage as well as defense, and the life expectancy of the units involved. You might be missing out this fact as well, but sprites/lake fairies/dryads are all magic-based in damage, of which black dragons are 95% resistant to. I'm glad you swapped Demons for the Dryads, and EGDs (the only dragon unit that does physical damage) for Hunters. Keeping your skellies is ok I guess, I myself survived with inquisitors. But don't expect miracles from them damage-wise since the enemies would most likely zone in on them and reduce their numbers greatly and force them to use their weaker melee attack (the AI is designed to maximize it's damage, and archers are usually the targets since they have the least amount of defense and take the most amount of damage as a result).Do update us how your battle goes. Last edited by loreangelicus; 10-26-2009 at 11:34 PM.
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#7
10-26-2009, 09:59 PM
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"You might be missing out this fact as well, but sprites/lake fairies/dryads are all magic-based in damage, of which black dragons are 95% resistant to."
Half true, actually they do magic+poison+fire damage. (whip+dagger) They are pretty good even against the Blacks. But generally what i did is Knights kill the Blacks Sprites kill everyone else.
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#8
10-26-2009, 10:18 PM
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My devastating setup for haas was:
sprite lake fairy hunter skel archer demon well maybe its not perfect setup since archers arent much that useful but it worked. Skel alrchers with dragon arrow takes dwon dragons easily. And sprites/like fairys with demons can take the rest ^^
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#9
10-26-2009, 10:57 PM
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Quote:
Just kidding, I was talking about their primary damage and simply pointing out that they might have less of an impact as one would expect against blacks. I never used them against blacks so I'll take your word for it that they are still good against such foes.Quote:
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#10
10-26-2009, 11:23 PM
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I do not mind for casualties on last battle ^^ Tough my losses werent big either.
Well i have played it months ago so i dont remember exactly how it went. Setup of Haas unit are random as well hes got quite trouble some one. My Haas vs Paladin was: (HARD LEVEL) 2x green dragon 1x red 1 x black dragon 2x ancient ent 2x bone dragon 1x giant 1x fire dragonfly My army : 3200 LF 2600 sprites 1700 SA 93 demons 163 hunters At first i smashed bone dragons with girls power(1 hit ko of course) , blackies with skelies, and demons went for giant + fire dragon fly. KEy point in the next round is timeback on skells too have them restored and shoot down trouble some another big stack of dragons. Anceint ents ar enot much deal for girls either so girls go for them also. But he has 4 blackies that makes things hard. Actualy first two rounds are deciding in this battle. Rest will go depending how well you did in thhose 2. I wasnt going for no loss run but my loses were: 200 sprites 40 skel archers 6 demons 60 hunters. Begining of second roundL But as i said i wanst trying to do that battle as no loss, just played it. Last edited by Elwin; 10-26-2009 at 11:42 PM.
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