Dark Side: One Race unit combinations(besides split stacks)

[Shadowcran]

At times, Dark Side makes playing single race units for Humans, Demons, and Undead. This discussion is there to find the best ones to use for each and maybe ones to use for the other races(Haven't done Orcs yet). I'll start, but I would like corrections from you guys to get the maximum use out of the combinations.

Humans:
1. Heresiarchs
2. Dark Paladins
3. Dark Mages
4. Dark Knights
5. Horsemen(dark)

Playing this setup requires a defensive strategy for them, which goes well for the Vampire as he can simply 'magic' trouble away and in worst case scenarios, reduce the enemy so much that your units simply pick them off. Even the horsemen should be kept back for defense and only attack those that make it near enough to you. Mage Killers can also sub for the Horsemen pretty well in some matches so keep them in reserve.

Also, you won't have enough of these to make it the entire game even with low leadership. The answer: Blood Priestess and Call of Nature and Phantom.

Dark Knights may seem questionable except for their high defense and Second Wind ability(yes, the dark paladin doesn't get that, but the Knight does)I usually advance him 1 or maybe 2 steps in every matchup and by the time the enemy reaches me, he can easily finish them off.

The trick being defensive is to also let the enemy wear itself out on Traps as well.

The Order of Twilight Amulet will boost these into the "Unshakeable" category of Morale. Add something non human and they're still "heroic"


Replacement possibility if you want: Demonologists and, of course, Dragon Riders.

Undead:
1. Necromancers
2. Vampires
3. Ancient Vampires
4. Black Knights
5. Bone Dragon
*The 5th I'm not so crazy about. Cursed Ghosts maybe? At least until you can sub Dragon Riders

This setup works best once you have the "Dark Resurrection" spell from Simon or Turn Back Time. Also helps to have the Undead artifacts or at least a few of them.

Bone Dragons may be hard to get, so occasionally use Blood Priestess to up their numbers.

This strategy is Aggressive/Defensive depending on enemy. Rush the Vampires and try to bait enemy to step on traps to reach them, save the Bone Dragons for middle of the field attacks and the Black Knights for defense and it's grasp ability. Take advantage of the Ziogyns as they're Undead Friendly(and will only appear on map if you have 1 or more Undead troops)

Demons
1. Demonologists
2. Demons
3. Archdemons
4. Blood Priestess(must have Call of Nature spell)
5. Demoness

Needs to try for NO TRAPS.

Will post more later.

[BB Shockwave]

Are there no Executioners in Dark Side? Also, I'd use Cerberi instead of the Blood Priestess who is just as slow and does basically the same stuff as the Demoness, except for a weak Sacrifice.

[Zechnophobe]

It is by no means a weak sacrifice. Later on I was using it to make a dozen dragons at a time. It scales based off the size of the stack, as opposed to your intelligence. Late game they do some serious troop making. Combo with demons and archdemons for a large number of summons (you can sacrifice them).

[Shadowcran]

Executioners just don't fit the mold when, as a demon army, you're short on resurrection.

Also, that sacrifice ability is very effective. You have to be careful with it as it'll make way too many to the point the stack becomes an enemy. Of course, it's best used with summoned units, something the spell "sacrifice" won't do. Also, later on bleeding can be very effective.

Also, to really use Demons well, you must try for no traps on the field at all by avoiding "diversions". You have no control over summoned demons at all and I swear, they seem to be magnetized to the traps and seem to go out of their way to hit one. Same thing with Ziogyns. You can avoid making Ziogyns of your own by simply not having a single undead unit in your army. Then you'll only see them vs undead. Also, If your army is Undead, Ziogyns are your buddy.

Executioners are viable only when you get the dark version of the resurrection spell. Before that, you'll mostly have to eat their losses. Traps are also a problem for them as they simply get in their way.

What I would appreciate is someone designing a Orc army for me. I've been experimenting with the Orc Scouts after obtaining them and they're pretty good, even in a mixed army. Not 'great' but pretty good. I'm sure the Shaman make the cut as well, especially now that you seem to be able to use the axes every single turn, albeit they're weaker in this version.

1. Orc scout
2. Shaman
3. Orc Chieftain
4. Goblin with catapult
5. ?

[Zechnophobe]

All orcs are tough, because they don't have any way to bring back the dead, and their tier 5's aren't super tanky(at least they have two of them!). I'd probably do both tier 5 orcs, shamans, hyena rider dudes and... maybe veteran orcs? Not sure. Catapults can be okay but man... I hate anything that falls over to a black dragon.

I feel like splitting the shamans is probably better than having catapults.

[Shadowcran]

Well, I finally got to really try out the Hyena Riding Orcs. I'm impressed despite their low health. Ideal Orc Army then:

1. Orc Scouts(Wolf Riders)
2. Spirit Talkers(Hyena Riders)
3. Shaman
4. Orc Chieftain
5. Ogre

However, so far, playing the Orc just plain sucks mainly due to Might being 'Rage centric" and the rage abilities aren't that good in total. useful, but not anything to write home about. As to Leadership, I'm not sure, but I think the friggin' Vampire got more per level up. Rage needs:

1. Something to Shield units
2. Something to heal units(at least heal, not resurrect)

As to the Might abilities:
Needs more defense ups
Needs more Attack Ups

Diversions needs a way to play around selecting it. The Traps become nothing more than an annoyance to you more than the enemy. Yeah, the enemy not taking their first turn is useful, but the traps offset that to the point the whole thing stinks.

I'm not enjoying playing the Orc at all. Dependent completely on Rage, it's kind of stupid in the early going when he doesn't have "blackie" for that purpose, isn't it? His starting units suck the biscuit as well. They stink of brittleness.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by Shadowcran

Well, I finally got to really try out the Hyena Riding Orcs. I'm impressed despite their low health. Ideal Orc Army then:

1. Orc Scouts(Wolf Riders)
2. Spirit Talkers(Hyena Riders)
3. Shaman
4. Orc Chieftain
5. Ogre

However, so far, playing the Orc just plain sucks mainly due to Might being 'Rage centric" and the rage abilities aren't that good in total. useful, but not anything to write home about. As to Leadership, I'm not sure, but I think the friggin' Vampire got more per level up. Rage needs:

Vampire gets 10x level each time he levels up (20, 30, 40). Orc gets 15xlevel, demoness gets 20xlevel. It's interesting because in previous games the 'spirit' character gets the 15, and the 'might' character got 20.

1. Something to Shield units
2. Something to heal units(at least heal, not resurrect)

As to the Might abilities:
Needs more defense ups
Needs more Attack Ups

Rage has a shield, and it's got stupid high damage, with percent damage too. I've not played the way through, but if you can crit with Flame of Passion, it'll be stupidly over powered. Rage allows for two different percent damage dealing abilities! Oh yeah, and that halving ability is amaaazing with aoe damage dealers. Doesn't matter if they do reduced damage to secondary targets, the chance to halve is still the same.

Diversions needs a way to play around selecting it. The Traps become nothing more than an annoyance to you more than the enemy. Yeah, the enemy not taking their first turn is useful, but the traps offset that to the point the whole thing stinks.

I'm not enjoying playing the Orc at all. Dependent completely on Rage, it's kind of stupid in the early going when he doesn't have "blackie" for that purpose, isn't it? His starting units suck the biscuit as well. They stink of brittleness.

Starting orc units are the worst by far. On impossible fighting those three armies that attack at the shelter is... quite harrowing.

I don't know why you hate the traps. I love them so much. You can use them to tactically prevent enemies from attacking. And the chance to lose a first turn makes or breaks a fight sometimes. I prioritize it. Even more as the vampire since your traps hit like trucks.

[Shadowcran]

I don't hate the traps, just that it renders summoned demons worthless. I'm serious, I've seen them ignore the perfect target right in front of them, use all their move to go step into a trap. If they allowed us control over them, then traps would be fine.

As it is, I'm still playing the Orc without bothering with Diversions just to see. I'm an experiment fanatic, even with other games and the Traps makes it hard as hell to experiment with demon armies.

So far, it's going well without Diversions and connected abilities.

Yeah, the early battles with the Orc are nightmares. But if you gut them out, ...

Ok, I've advanced a ton with him and sometimes using 3 or 4 rage abilities a turn. I can run virtually anything with the 3 dragons it seems. Hell, I'm running Blood Priestess and a human stack just to fill it up to capacity for something else to do using Back to Nature. If I didn't fear Ziogyn interference(that's all it does unless you run all undead), I'd run the Necromancer to do his attacks so it can halve a lot more. I may use the Wizards next for that purpose as well and up them with Blood Priestesses. Haven't got Archdemons yet or they'd be there too.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by Shadowcran

I don't hate the traps, just that it renders summoned demons worthless. I'm serious, I've seen them ignore the perfect target right in front of them, use all their move to go step into a trap. If they allowed us control over them, then traps would be fine.

As it is, I'm still playing the Orc without bothering with Diversions just to see. I'm an experiment fanatic, even with other games and the Traps makes it hard as hell to experiment with demon armies.

So far, it's going well without Diversions and connected abilities.

Yeah, the early battles with the Orc are nightmares. But if you gut them out, ...

Ok, I've advanced a ton with him and sometimes using 3 or 4 rage abilities a turn. I can run virtually anything with the 3 dragons it seems. Hell, I'm running Blood Priestess and a human stack just to fill it up to capacity for something else to do using Back to Nature. If I didn't fear Ziogyn interference(that's all it does unless you run all undead), I'd run the Necromancer to do his attacks so it can halve a lot more. I may use the Wizards next for that purpose as well and up them with Blood Priestesses. Haven't got Archdemons yet or they'd be there too.

You can use Zlogyn against enemies. Do you know how to use Call Colossus to get whatever stack you want? (Assuming it still works in Dark Side). Basically all item summoning things use the same seed. So you can save - use CC, see what you get. If you don't like it, reload and consume, like, a spider egg. Save and repeat. Eventually you'll get whatever stack you want. It's how I got my first Archdemons as the Demoness. They are great summoners.

You could also try Dark Druids for AoE, or scoffer imps (who also have a useful control ability).

[Shadowcran]

Haven't tried Druids..but yeah, I might this time.

Perhaps I will use the Scoffers. They're the stars of the early game.

Yeah, I know about the Call Colossus, but I like using the Blood Priestess as well. *Never use more than 50 of them in a stack or you risk adding too many units. 50 seems to be just right.

As it is, with the 3 dragons, the Archdemons and whatever healer I go with, most battles are over by turn 2 or 3. Especially when you sometimes get 3 or more rage abilities per round. Hell, once I got 7 in a row, the trick being using Orcish Rage in the middle there, then have dragon hit several with flame to boost rage right back up.

As to the discussion about the magic resistant cloak/coat:

In this game, resistance is far more important than defense +. Most damage I've taken in past was from poison/freeze/burning or even shock(this rarely happens though, the shock I mean). Having as much resistance as possible is far superior to defense.

With the Blood Priestess, unlike Sacrifice spell, you can use summoned creatures for it. No real troop loss at all. I usually:
1. Move Archdemons just off the enemy front lines, with 2 open spots for summoning. Cast Call of Nature in one, Demons in the other.
2. Cast Black Hole draw enemy together.
3. Red Dragons use ability on line of enemy.
4. If still there, use other rage abilities, starting with Orcish Rage
5. Use Dragon Riders to summon dragons close to enemy, usually opposite side to Archdemons to block off what ranged is left.
6. Use Blood Priestess on the demons or the Call to Nature creatures to fill up what needs filling. If everything full, I use another type unit in the Priestess' place. With this group, almost anything works except level 1 or 2's.
7. Use Emerald Dragons to use ability to target a lead unit.
8. Use Call of Nature creature on largest stack it can reach.

It's usually a matter of mopping up after that and casting blur for no other reason than spamming it for medal. With dwarves, there is always a lot left over to kill, so I try to get the emeralds in there to restore mana for next battle.

And you can use the Priestess' sacrifice ability on everything but Black Dragons, Ice Dragons and Dragon Riders.