KBDS Normal/Hard/Impossible No-loss thread

[DGDobrev]

Guys, I think we should relieve the other threads from our no-loss talks, cause others play the game differently than us and we shouldn't impose that mentality on them.

So, since people are already trying it, we can share some thoughts here. Since I started this, I will start I guess... So my observations are as follows:

- early game is the hardest, but no surprise there. The three troops you need to kill for the Spirit of Darkness are a bottleneck you must go though. I was kinda hoping there isn't one, but it is manageable (I just need to stop losing 1 imp to the Human troops, easy as that).
- Orc: Good damage, large numbers, but ultimately low-HP troops, so very hard to go for no-loss.
- Demoness: Good HP troops, Demons can summon, Demonesses can swap, but Imps are too dangerous to bring close to the fray, cause it takes very little to bring one of them down. Probably the best no-loss option.
- Vampires: you need to rely on Vampires to replenish themselves, but they can only do so much. I am quite sure if you get some decent spells at start, you might be able to deal with the enemies, cause worst case scenario, vampires are fast and can fly quite far. I am yet to get into the vampire leader seriously though.

Well, jump in guys, we can share and improve our tactics

[zjazd18]

Yeah, it will be all about those few early battles, later there are multiple ways to deal with stuff, there are no big boss battles etc.

I see people talking about 3 units (dwarf/elf/human army) and actually i had problem with other 3 units. Right after those 3 you have to clear another 3 at whitehill, it's where i gave up on no-loss and brute forced them with spiders, or can you skip those battles at whitehill and i missed that? After those 3 battles no-loss was pretty easy, whoever played any other KB game on impossible won't have any problems.

Demoness is definietly the best at start, late game i would guess vampire will be the king (I wanna to test how far you can push intellect with Archamge talent). Feel like orc is the weakest at the start, he has nothing going on for him. There is shop at his starting location with trolls, would be sweet if we had leadership for them

I was thinking vampire with lvl2 trap and trapper might have a shot, at those 3 battles but then again there are archers and mana will be a problem.

I'm gonna finish my current playthrough (lvl53) and go redo those early battles no-loss.

[sethmage]

At Whitehill you need to take only one out of those 3 to progress on.

[DGDobrev]

Orcs are extremely powerful - they just need to build some adrenaline and they trash the enemy. But then again, not an army to go for no-loss. I am totally gonna play them in the future though. They can get to wicked attack values, even the measly goblins. Their leadership requirements are relatively low, so you can amass a huge army of orcs. Combine their traits with the warrior ones and you can trounce everyone. They can go on an easy rampage, you just need to have means to replenish their ranks.

Then again, not an army to do no-loss.

[zjazd18]

There are paladins after the castle battle at portland so i guess even orcs will work fine from early stages of the game. Just the problematic resurrection, sometimes there might not be weak ranged or no retaliation creature to leave, while grouping for resurrection.

Best unit early on to get is demonologist, very good leadership ratio on summons, and not so bad heal/resurrect. If you get executioners it's pretty much free win.

[DGDobrev]

Well, re-rolling the demoness, I managed to defeat the Knight hero for the first time. It was a glorious battle. Key to it was to just dump the imps in reserve and split the demonesses, effectively using 2 high HP troops to tank the enemy's "heals". I played this fight 3 times, and on all 3 times, there was a volcano on the battlefield, so it goes beyond saying that the more you keep the enemy around it, the better The 2x1 demonesses can swap troops around the battlefield as needed, preferably switching the Demon summoning with the Bowmen for an easy bowmen kill, as they suffer close combat penalties.

Whew. That was awesome. There does seem to be another Knight troop on the map, but it looks inaccessible. I am not the type of player to scream bug right away, so it might be a captured troop. Sadly, you can't kill it.

[zjazd18]

Yeah, its all about overcoming, what seemed to be impossible to do. It's the greatest fun for me in this series, still remember KB:AP/CW and doing necromancer hero(first island) at first visit, what a fight it was.

I don't know what Knight troop you are referring to, but if it's in any starting locations, or in dwarf territory you will get back there, and explore them fully.

[DGDobrev]

It is on the intersection leading to the Catacombs portal in the Demoness' starting world. On impossible it shows as a "Strong" enemy vs your best lineup. There doesn't seem to be any obstruction that prevents you from fighting it, but you cant. Whatever... I can live without it

[Zhuangzi]

Yeah, I couldn't get to that trapped troop either, DG. I didn't see it as a bug.

I was completely stuck on those three Shelter battles, or more accurately on the Elven one. I retried this battle dozens of times and I just couldn't do it, so I started again and did the first 12 or so battles again (this is Impossible Demoness). This time I changed my skill tree usage so that I had level two Diversion (2 traps). I also have Chaos magic 1 but sadly I only have Fire Arrow (which you start with), Fear (no use here) and Chaos Blade.

I haven't re-done those 3 battles successfully yet, but one strange thing I noticed is that the Elven fight had less Fairies this time around. Last playthrough I'm sure there were like 89 of them, now only 49? I'm wondering if the game varies the number of troops depending on which battle you take first, i.e. it will be easier if you do the Elven one first?

EDIT: well, I won that Elven battle on my first try this morning! For this is a super difficult fight, with two stacks of Werewolf Elves, Fauns, Elven Archers and Fairies. I generally tried to get rid of the fauns first with Imp fireballs and Fire Arrow. I let the Demon spawn a unit on turn 1 and swap that for the Elven Archers. Once that stack is down to 3, the Demoness could charm it. The big problem was the Werewolf howl which caused my Imps to turn TOWARDS the enemy! I used the Demon to tank (obviously) and also to an extent the Demoness. I just managed it with the Cerebus on 9 HP, the Demoness on 10 (with bleeding that would have killed her) and the Demon on about 50 HP. Phew!

Sadly I have to go to work now!

[DGDobrev]

Exactly. Troops are always randomly generated, so you may have a better roll the next time you play the game. I for one, won't mind less ranged units on the human troop. I just couldn't drop their numbers well enough before they could kill 1 imp. I have the 1 lost imp save, but... but... oh well. We will try again. I am also going for lvl 2 Diversion this time around.

That was also pretty much how KBWOTN no-loss play-throughs were made. Luck out vs less opposition on the bottleneck battle, and you are golden. GG.

EDIT: Allrighty, with lvl 3 Diversion (to achieve that you need level 5 and that requires you beating the Knight hero in Atrixus, which is a very tough fight) and some cunning planning, I am past the 3 guards. Demoness swapping/charming enemy troops when needed for the win. Feed the troops summoned by the Demon to the enemies by swapping their ranged units with it, drop the swapped ranged unit down to a low count, and charm them with the Demoness. Now use it against them Fun times. Haven't felt that since KBAP.