Wow, just wow. NO Demonesses in my game.

[loreangelicus]

I myself tried to use imps in KBTL; no-retaliation, pretty high damage/attack per leadership ratio, and two fireball attacks to use in the first 2 rounds while they are getting into melee range. But it was a pain to do no-loss with them; I ended up getting demoness and demons, to compliment the inquisitors/shamans/emerald green dragons.

[KarlosCV]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

KarlosCV: were you playing Impossible No Loss mode? That must have been a pain to restore the imps?

No, I never do no-loss, too time consuming and I just like different challenges more. But I had no problem reviving imps for three reasons:

a) in my last playthrough the cerberi, archdemons and demon/demon summons were my main tanks, so imps rarely got hit
b) I played Paladin so whatever was lost was fully restored after the battle, so 80 percent of my battles was de facto no-loss anyway
c) I tried the excellent "Gates of Hell" mod by Rider, which is exactly the special power that Archdemons (and the demon race as a whole) are sorely lacking

As for orcs - all right, I'll try them for the third time, maybe Warrior and maxed out onslaught and rage control will make some real difference

[KarlosCV]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

Phantom Orc Veterans eat up the front line like nothing

And that's another problem - I couldn't phantom my orcs, because throughout my whole game I didn't find a single Phantom spell! I think it was the only spell I didn't find, I had tons of crap, but not the most useful (and be honest, overpowered ) spell in the game. During the battles I almost always dug up three chests but no luck. Amazing game

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by KarlosCV

No, I never do no-loss, too time consuming and I just like different challenges more. But I had no problem reviving imps for three reasons:

a) in my last playthrough the cerberi, archdemons and demon/demon summons were my main tanks, so imps rarely got hit
b) I played Paladin so whatever was lost was fully restored after the battle, so 80 percent of my battles was de facto no-loss anyway
c) I tried the excellent "Gates of Hell" mod by Rider, which is exactly the special power that Archdemons (and the demon race as a whole) are sorely lacking

As for orcs - all right, I'll try them for the third time, maybe Warrior and maxed out onslaught and rage control will make some real difference

No. Moldok is the real difference. Throw in 2x battle axe and dagger of judgement too, I forgot my specific warrior build, but it will work whatever you put in it.

I believe I used Berserker Axe (+30% crit for axe users), Dagger of Judgement (+20% critical), and Maybe battleaxe?

Moldok gives EXTRA adrenaline to all Orc-ish units (excluding goblins), +1 speed and +1 init to all Orc race units (including goblins), makes all Orc-ish units (excluding goblins) have the ability to "Cause Bleeding" on hit.

Paladin
Goblin
Orc
Orc Veteran
Orc Tracker

No-loss, doable with these guys.

Goblin should have close to 100% critical. After first kill (max morale), he will get 100% critical. That's why you need a fairly high base critical.

Paladin Second Winds the Goblins. (or Orc Veterans)

NEXT round, Orc Commanders the goblins if he has enough adrenaline (that's basically second wind)

Orc Veterans use potion of rage to get into range, Phantom him. Phantoms have NO adrenaline, but that's GREAT for Orc Veterans. A level 3 Adrenaline Veteran doesn't get counter-attacked, but a phantomed one does. But Orc Veterans counter-counter attacks, so you do more damage in round 1. Real Orc then slices away.

Orc Tracker runs up and summons tanks. Either waits or slices. Adrenaline level 2 gives him +20% phys resist, tanks reduce him damage by half?

If you don't mind loss, this is a VERY fun build to roll around with. If you want to do no-loss it is doable, and not too crazy.

Orcs get max morale if they score a kill. That is their huge racial advantage. So it is very easy to get very high critical hits with them as the battle progresses.

@Lore-
Sorry, the Ghost Armor chest was one that showed up pre-battle sequence. I tried skipping ahead, no soup. It is POSSIBLE that it will show up eventually during one of my battles, not necessarily that one. (e.g. the random items are pre-generated ahead of time).

I don't know this for a fact though. I guess I will find out soon enough.

However, this points out a very key factor and a big problem with my previous army. Low initiative or low speed. Those pre-generated chests in the beginning of battle. Pretty sure if the enemy gets it, whatever item it was will never show up again IF the battles are pre-generated. (of course you could get lucky and have 2 duplicate items in the pre-generation ... if it's even pre-generated to begin with).

Demonesses got in first. But, can't reach the chest easily. Archdemons can still do my "first strike", Black Dragons can recover the chest.

So maybe it works like "the 150th battle ever, will have a chest that has ghost armor in it"

I know if I do it all exactly the same it will show up, but the problem is I don't want to and it is too far away for me to replicate it. Haha. Doing it with Demonesses made it much harder for a lot of the battles and I did a lot of sacrificing and such to raise my Demonesses ranks. (Yeah, from 1 Demonesses to like 93 haha, but I did steal a handful via diplomacy which I no longer have now).

I guess I will be the ultimate guinea pig for this. If I don't see it show up as I catch-up, then we know it is truly random vs pre-generated in the game's mind.

On the flip side, it isn't as critical of an item for me now, because I don't really plan to use demonesses that much now and/or I don't really need ghost armor that badly.


[EDIT]
LORE! Guess who just got his cake and ATE it too! The game spawned the SAME ghost armor again! Woot! I did go a similar path, but not completely identical. It seems it is not related to the unit make up (at least not the number of units and types of units?).

Might be more related to the number of battles AND where you fight them (since you can change the terrain).

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

I second metathron's suggestion The legend may lack a lot of the new additions presented to us in KBAP and KBCW, but it was then when all the basic KB strategies started to take shape - the girl power army, my favorite lineup (Knights, Horsemen, Archmagi, Inquisitors, Royal Thorns/Cannoneers), playing a lot of turns to get a no-loss (which was harder back then, but attainable if you're willing to sacrifice some time) and so on. The lovely wives you had to choose from (except for Gerda, cough-cough!) were less than all the armor-bearers Amelie has to choose from, but they had some really great slots - who could forget the alluring and dashing demoness Xeona with her 2 WEAPON slots! Damn, she was the best catch for pretty much every character - including mage - who wouldn't want to wield 3 weapons that provide intelligence bonuses - much better than the +3 int bonus frog princess girl

I have to disagree! Fiona was awesome... for my Paladin, who selfishly neglected her until she turned back into a frog. Making my Royal Snakes uber-powerfull... Then next time, my necromancer Mage used Rina... giving her back the ring that turns her into a Zombie.

And thus, in both of my walkthroughs, I never had to bother with raising children, with a frog or a zombie as my wife...

CK - What I like in Demons/Executioners (and hate if I am against them) is that they were MADE to rush into the front lines, and every time you hit them, they not only hit back, but with a good chance can act again against you in that round! I'm glad I am a Paladin, using Paladins... they will come in handy against those fiends. Archdemons are more hit and run then tanks, IMHO. 666 is a neat number for them, but little as HP, and unless you fight on lava they have not much defense. They rock against dragons, and they can decimate smaller stacks, and the best is of course, just like in HOMMIII, their speed and teleportation, you can do a lot of hit and run - attacking an enemy at the end of the turn, then teleporting away to another at the beginning of the turn. Only Phoenixes are faster, I think.

Btw... God Armour works on Demons? Because it did not affect Undead in The Legend... thought it would not work on Demons either.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

CK - What I like in Demons/Executioners (and hate if I am against them) is that they were MADE to rush into the front lines, and every time you hit them, they not only hit back, but with a good chance can act again against you in that round! I'm glad I am a Paladin, using Paladins... they will come in handy against those fiends. Archdemons are more hit and run then tanks, IMHO. 666 is a neat number for them, but little as HP, and unless you fight on lava they have not much defense. They rock against dragons, and they can decimate smaller stacks, and the best is of course, just like in HOMMIII, their speed and teleportation, you can do a lot of hit and run - attacking an enemy at the end of the turn, then teleporting away to another at the beginning of the turn. Only Phoenixes are faster, I think.

Btw... God Armour works on Demons? Because it did not affect Undead in The Legend... thought it would not work on Demons either.

Sure, but Demons are soft. They die verrry easily due to low HP. They are excellent as disposable units. So, they are fairly ideal for phantoming and dropping them into enemy lines.

Maybe things were really different in The Legend, but, they have 766 HP, they also have 66 native defense, the 3rd highest in the game, (black dragon has 70, cyclops has 67), 20% physical resistance, which is nearly the 2nd highest in the game, not counting ghosts.

Phoenixes are slower. Archdemons are the fastest unit in the game. If the enemy stack is not ungodly powerful, I will typically stoneskin the Archdemon, position the Archdemon in enemy lines, and summon a phoenix next to him.

I don't see the point in hitting and running. He is NOT a no retaliation unit. This is not HOMMIII. He burns an enemy counter attack so my Phoenix can hit for free and hit the adjacent enemies for free. (since now the enemy is really strong, and I cannot buff the Phoenix with defensive spells, their counterattacks would hurt the phoenix tremendously).

Even the Demoness has a better damage per leadership than the Demon (against level 4s and level 5s).

However, the Demons are extremely tenacious due to infinite retaliations. So, no problem. My Demons summon other, disposable Demons for me.

Yes, Divine Armor works on Archdemons and Demons... probably the entire Demonic race.

Sort of scary when you face an enemy stack that is strong enough to generate a kill off of a 95% physical resist Archdemon though.

Another benefit of the Archdemon as a tank is his ability to purge negative effects. You have no idea how often I got pissed when my Super Troll Stack would burn away a troll every round because he got hit by some stupid catapult.

I would have to either phantom a rune mage to revive, or burn a dispel on him or do both. Now, I don't have to, since Archdemons will remove it for free in the beginning of the next round.

Curiously enough, if the 3rd best defensive unit, with the 2nd highest physical resist unit isn't a good enough tank, what is? Not everyone wants to go Humans (Paladins and Knights probably being the better tanks at 30% physical resist and SCALING defense that goes up to... similar levels as the Archdemon after quite a few hits. )

(Cyclops cannot be revived, short of Turn Back Time level 3, Black Dragon cannot be pre-buffed, so he will definitely take losses against insane physical stacks). Paladins have 30% physical resists.

[onepiece]

@BBShockwave; that's the reason I still play with them (even when they are very weak on the later parts but love their poisoning and no retaliation). Loved the double attack to them (I'm still dreaming of a pure snake & spider team, it only lacks a level 4-5 unit to run havoc on this land!)

ArchDemons, and demons in general, are good for exactly that, hit and run, crowd control and counter some enemies with it's abilities. Very weak against paladin with paladins (duhh) and the sword of light and holy anger (now that's a lot less defense; from 66 to 38 )

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by loreangelicus

I believe a critical hit adds +50% damage, so statistically a +20% critical translates to only +10% damage; so take the straight-up +20% damage axe.

a Critical hit causes you to do 150% of the max damage for a unit. This means that it depends on the damage spread of a unit how valuable the crit is.

Also, +20% crit multiplies with Morale. So if you have +3 morale (140% crit) this will be +28% critical instead.

So, how does this figure in? Dryads do 1-4 damage (average 2.5) and crit for 6, more than double damage.

+20% damage would cause them to do just that, 20% more damage flat accross. (so .2*2.5 = .5 more damage per strike)

+20% with 3 morale (easy on dryads) so +28% crit causes them to, on average, do 28% of the crit damage they get. So 6 -2.5 = 3.5, * 28% = .98.

This means that yes, the crit boost is actually substantially more worth it(for dryads under these conditions). Also, most items that increase crit, do so for all your troops, whereas I don't think many items increase damage for all of them.

This is why I like to field high morale, high crit units with large damage ranges .

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

a Critical hit causes you to do 150% of the max damage for a unit. This means that it depends on the damage spread of a unit how valuable the crit is.

I had no idea critical hits do maximum damage on top of 50% additional damage.

I learn something new every day. Haha.

[edit]
This actually makes the spell Doom a little bit more worthwhile. Otherwise, Pygmy utterly annihilates it. (it still sort of does though. Haha).

[onepiece]

@Ckdamascus; I learned that in AP and boosted all my units critical (dagger of judgment + shadow cloak/ Max Prayer skill; critical boosting items for particular races/units, etc.)

The only problem is that by having 95-100% critical chance, Ancient vampire are nearly invincible (since they cannot be hit by critical) so I had to kill them by spells or wait until a negative effect lowered my critical chance.