Driller tactics is needed

[BoomBa]

Hi All.

Im not playing no-losses (although I do have level II no-loss medal), I actuallty like loosing a unit - that makes me try another new unit which makes the game more interesting

problem is : Im getting hard time defeating the Driller.

I read the 4 unit tactics (didnt actually understood why it is good but I've tried it...)
I need some tactics tips + armies type.

Currently Im a warrior 27lvl playing with:
1. Dwarf gunners.
2. 7 Archdemon (or archdevil dont remember the name) as tanks, great HP, teleoprt & Att/Def
3. Paladins - dont really like them
4. 6 Gaints - another tank unit
5. Assassins

I know there are not mixing togther very well (moral down) but Im still winning ALL the battles with almost (or none) losses.
Still, Im keep on loosing to the Driller - am I too weak ?
Any suggestions ?

[Zhuangzi]

Firstly I think level 27 is a little early for the Driller. I think I am level 29 in my current game and I haven't taken on the Driller yet. I don't think you said what difficulty your game is. Anyway, I think your team is a little too 'tank' orientated. The reason why you have four units is simply because the Driller likes to use his machine gun if you have two units in the same row, and as there are only four rows, this is a problem with five units. What you need are units that do high damage and preferably without retaliation. I usually use Royal Snakes for this reason. Also, it's hard to go past Archmages as they have two useful skills: their Magic Shield, which can be put on your tank unit, and their lightning attack. So I would probably lose the Assassins and replace with Royal Snakes. I'd swap Dwarf Gunners with Archmages, and also only use one of Archdemons or Giants. I like Giants but I think Red Dragons are even better for this fight due to their ranged fire special attack.

So my team would be:

Paladins (mainly for resurrection - if you don't mind you can live without them)
Giants (or preferably Red Dragons)
Archmages
Royal Snakes

Hope that helps.

[DGDobrev]

Well, you can try to "mold" the boss behavious in battle if you decide to do it with 5 troops. If you have 2 good tanks, you can put them near one of his hands with stone skin on to minimize the losses. In this case the boss will have a higher chance to strike both those targets on attack rather than use his gun or summon droids. That may buy you some extra time to drop him down.

[fable]

At level 30 I had the scale set which gives 20% physical resistance. I went to Reha for the final piece. Paladins have 30%, stone skin adds 40%, scale set 20%, medal II gives 5%, total 95%. Archmages were halving the remaining 5% damage, which was about 20-30 on attack and 10-15 on retaliate. I had Gorgonuas and Deminologists, but any other ranger unit works fine. Don't summon demons though, more than 4 units calls for chaingun. If the paladins attack in the leftmost position, the Driller will either attack it directly, or summon droids, and when it uses chaingun, it always chooses the paladins. By keeping 'target' on the paladins at all times ensures that the driods will just kill themselves on retaliate, instead of thinning out your troops or healing the Driller.
This tactic probably works without the scale set on normal difficulty, I'm playing on 'impossible'.

[Apemant]

Originally Posted by fable

At level 30 I had the scale set which gives 20% physical resistance. I went to Reha for the final piece. Paladins have 30%, stone skin adds 40%, scale set 20%, medal II gives 5%, total 95%. Archmages were halving the remaining 5% damage, which was about 20-30 on attack and 10-15 on retaliate.

In fact, this works not only on the driller, but everywhere. You don't need scale set; there are boots that give 15% physical resistance, and armor that gives 10% (and 2 def); with one boots and 2 armors like that (even better would be 2 boots and 1 armor but I couldn't find them), you can raise red dragon's physical resistance to 95% (and green to 92% with medal III). With like 5 red dragons and 6 green dragons it's really easy to kill driller even before level 30. Not to mention that using just red dragons you can kill almost anything (archdemons, poison damage and armageddon being the only things that gives me any trouble) without losses. Check the attachment for a drastic example of what it can look like. For that battle (dragon lair) my dragon had 95% physical and 95% fire resistance, so the other dragons couldn't really harm my own. The tricky part was damaging those dragons, since my dragon's fire damage obviously can't really kill 101 dragons in less than several thousand rounds LOL.

[Masterfury]

Frankly, every way I won all the battles in the game is simply by using Thorn Warriors and the Thorn spitters, with the Crown of thorns + Dryads (or whatever unit that gives thorns a +morale)

My Thorns does about 10-25k damage on each attack. Makes all bosses extremely easy, allthought frankly its abit boring as there is no more challenge left.

I played as a mage tho, so as a warrior u could get even further benefit.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by Apemant

In fact, this works not only on the driller, but everywhere. You don't need scale set; there are boots that give 15% physical resistance, and armor that gives 10% (and 2 def); with one boots and 2 armors like that (even better would be 2 boots and 1 armor but I couldn't find them), you can raise red dragon's physical resistance to 95% (and green to 92% with medal III). With like 5 red dragons and 6 green dragons it's really easy to kill driller even before level 30. Not to mention that using just red dragons you can kill almost anything (archdemons, poison damage and armageddon being the only things that gives me any trouble) without losses. Check the attachment for a drastic example of what it can look like. For that battle (dragon lair) my dragon had 95% physical and 95% fire resistance, so the other dragons couldn't really harm my own. The tricky part was damaging those dragons, since my dragon's fire damage obviously can't really kill 101 dragons in less than several thousand rounds LOL.

Why did you only use one red dragon? I mean, if you had all that gear, I'd assume you had the leadership for more. Or maybe you only had found like one dragon egg or something?

Anyhow, it's a pretty cool accomplishment! Kudos.

[Shazgrot]

Tried the two (half) stacks of repair droids and one stack of guard droids as suggested elsewhere (mage, hard, level 36, optimization module and engineer's badge equipped for droid defense and leadership bonus). Here are some things I found useful to make that work:

1. Get the guard droid right between the drillers legs (whatever you do, don't look up!). I found that any other location allowed the driller to spawn droids out of a door in his chest. At least I hope that's where they come from.

2. In spite of advice to the contrary, hit the driller every turn with the guard droid stack, retaliation shmaliation. If you don't, he will sometimes shoot the repair droids. With stone skin and mana spring on, it doesn't hurt that bad, and when you add avenging angel on turn 2, it definitely hurts the driller worse than it does you. This means you don't need to buff the repair droids.

3. Keep the repair droids off the back two rows or they will get squashed when driller retreats. Keep them on row 3 (from the back) unless they are doing the end-of-turn repair on the guard stack. This allows you to shoot at full strength and avoids drillers arm attacks.

4. Keep everyone on a different column or driller will chain gun them, as noted above.

5. Wait for driller to move before acting with repair droids, and repair the guards when they get below 75% of original stack size. Then move back to row 3 before driller acts next turn.

When you don't need to refresh mana spring, stone skin, and avenging angel on the guards, hit driller with fire arrow (5 mana for 800 pts or 1100 with oil mist).

[filiusdextris]

In other run-throughs I remember the Driller being one of the toughest battles in the game. I beat it just now as a Warrior (no-losses, impossible) in three turns with no resurrection. I had all archers. Turn 1 I cast Mass Precision, Turn 2 I cast Mass Haste (to escape the falling bricks), and Turn 3 I had done enough damage to kill him. I used Skeleton Archers, Royal Thorns, Repair Droids, Cannoneers, and Bowmen.

[Shadowcran]

4 back units:
Paladins
Inquisitors
Evil Beholders
Beholders

1 Tank:
Royal Griffins

Spells:
Phantom
Stone Skin

Have Resurrection up to 3

The Paladins are usually there to heal the back units. I group them together. For driller they need to be spaced accordingly so you can constantly move up one space every turn.

I simply send the Royal Griffins forward with their Angelic Guards. Cast Phantom on the Royal Griffins, and use Angelic Guards for those first thing(even when phantom leaves, the Guards remain). If enough mana, cast Phantom again. Keep the other units away from melee range. Don't worry about how many R Griffins you lose in main stack, with Resurrection 3 you'll get them all back, but you can stone skin them if you like.

As you can tell, you can replace the Beholders with any other ranged unit.