No Loss thoughts?

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by Loopy

Started my first game on impossible as a mage. Ahriman is a ridiculous stone wall to a no loss game. Soothsayers just plain suck at resurrection, undead are immune to too many things that could make it easier, and your ranged abilities are just too horrible.

I have level 2 order magic and level 2 rune magic. Rune magic is the only damage spells I've gotten, Winter Dance DOES tear them up well, but with skeletons able to bone gate behind me and skeleton archers just plain tearing things up it's nigh impossible not to suffer at least two losses, and Soothsayers can only heal one. And Ahriman himself has enough mana to cast Poison Skull any time throughout the whole battle to instantly end your attempt.

Berserkers do tear things to shreds though. Rune of Attack + Berserker + Shock Shield can easily turn into two critical hits at 50 attack. It's saved my butt more than once to be able to output 400 damage to a stack in a single round. Low health kills them if someone else gets the first hit in though, and they will charge right into it on the next round.

I'm going to try loading up on bears and doing it that way. Until now I've been ignoring the neutrals for the morale bonus, but maybe they will work better.

I wonder if Warrior Maidens could be available, or if Stone Skin could appear. Either of those could make this much more doable.

Ahriman? Ohh, he is a piece of cake compared to his boss, the necromancer in the cave. The guy is... LEVEL TEN! And even if I kill all troops on the island and do all quests, I only got to level 5. I lost all my Vikings and a lot of Berserkers and Slingers in that battle... that's when I decided that hey, I am playing a viking, for them, death in battle is the most glorious thing ever. So... I just go with the flow.

[Loopy]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Ahriman? Ohh, he is a piece of cake compared to his boss, the necromancer in the cave. The guy is... LEVEL TEN! And even if I kill all troops on the island and do all quests, I only got to level 5. I lost all my Vikings and a lot of Berserkers and Slingers in that battle... that's when I decided that hey, I am playing a viking, for them, death in battle is the most glorious thing ever. So... I just go with the flow.

See my post two before yours. I found the other two bosses after Ahriman to be a piece of cake. The difficulty is highly random based on what it gives them.

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by Loopy

See my post two before yours. I found the other two bosses after Ahriman to be a piece of cake. The difficulty is highly random based on what it gives them.

I read your posts since then. But what the HECK is this with random troops and leadership for enemy heroes? This wasn't so in the previous games - there was some randomisation about what troops they could get and how many stacks they were divided into, but not such huge Leadership differences. Makes it unfair to those who - like me - got the bad luck to meet these bosses with their increased armies. In my game, the Necromancer had 2 Ancient Vampires and 3 stacks of 5 Vampires, about 5 Cursed Ghosts, and more Zombies and Skeletons then I could throw a bone at. The Bone Gate thing is the worst - it lets those otherwise slow skellies get to you on the first round, very often.

I did find that for some reason - thankfully - Skeleton archers do not use their Poison and Black Arrow skills that often.

[Sooty]

You do get more experience though, and losing troops is just losing money anyways, so it is only really a problem if you care about going no-loss for bosses too.

[zjazd18]

Ye that would explain the disproportions in my mage run in comparasion to pala, as pala i was lvl5 before ahriman and as mage not even half way thru to 5. Thought it was the xp shirnes...

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

The first 'no rage boss' looks like it'll be difficult. Jotuns + lots of time might work. I think a wizard using maidens, jotuns, jarls and something else could possibly work as well. Just need to somehow make sure the Maidens never get too hurt. Once you have spells like Stone Skin and Avenging ANgel going, you can use timelessness to keep them stuck on for a long while. Use the wanderer scroll for extra runes, and that should last quite a while. Maybe get a thorn train going? I"ve not seen royals spawn in the early areas, but that'd definitely be a workable strategy since I don't *think* he uses his ranged attack offensively.

Well you cant do it single unit i think coz he puts web on you and u lose turn in that way

[Loopy]

For anyone interested my first game vs the necromancer faces these forces:

94 skeletons
36 skeleton archers
12 undead spiders
12 ghosts
3 vampires
1 ancient vampire

1128+504+156+960+240+180 for a total of 3168 leadership. And since the ghosts are split between multiple stacks of 3 it's a lot easier to no loss. Ghosts simply aren't high damage like skeletons or zombies are, just high physical defense. Soothsayers can tank them all day and AoE spells tear them to shreds.

Someone who is having a very hard time vs him should total up what they are fighting so we can see how much it varies. Or if someone figures out how to get the editor to work for WotN we can inspect the distribution directly.

As for the necromancer being level 10 and Ahriman being level 5, I think Ahriman is still a tougher hero. Their stats are 3/4/7 vs 1/4/10. Ahriman hits the 7 intellect breakpoint for spell damage so his spells are nearly as tough, so both are pretty much equally going to end a no-loss run as soon as Poison Skull hits something you don't want it to hit.

[Hagbard]

Oh boy, I am trying the necromancer now for hours with several tactics but it seems to go nowhere...

I play Skald, lvl 5, 1k leadership, anything cleared on the island but unfortunatly I am missing 1 magic rune to get order magic... and I have only one call of nature scroll... sigh this sucks, I really wanna do this as no loss, but no clue how. dont wanna restart due to rnd factors...

I face these forces:

55 undead spiders
49 skeleton archers
34 zombies
12 ghosts
7 vampires
1 ancient vampire

what do u think is the best line up against these forces? I tried with so much... really wanna beat this, without restart

[zjazd18]

So any1 figured out spider boss fight? I have call of colosus scroll but i dont think any lvl5 unit would help me greatly, maybe trolls but then again u cant do it 1 troop. Really stuck in here, and it's mandatory to do this battle to move on.

[Loopy]

Originally Posted by Hagbard

Oh boy, I am trying the necromancer now for hours with several tactics but it seems to go nowhere...

I play Skald, lvl 5, 1k leadership, anything cleared on the island but unfortunatly I am missing 1 magic rune to get order magic... and I have only one call of nature scroll... sigh this sucks, I really wanna do this as no loss, but no clue how. dont wanna restart due to rnd factors...

I face these forces:

55 undead spiders
49 skeleton archers
34 zombies
12 ghosts
7 vampires
1 ancient vampire

what do u think is the best line up against these forces? I tried with so much... really wanna beat this, without restart

At least you don't have any undead skeletons bone gating around, but yikes, without heal that looks really damn hard. You'll certainly want bears because they are the only units that can heal themselves. Splitting Soothsayers into 2 or more stacks to tank more damage before one dies might be a good idea. Good luck.

[Razorflame]

Originally Posted by Hagbard

Oh boy, I am trying the necromancer now for hours with several tactics but it seems to go nowhere...

I play Skald, lvl 5, 1k leadership, anything cleared on the island but unfortunatly I am missing 1 magic rune to get order magic... and I have only one call of nature scroll... sigh this sucks, I really wanna do this as no loss, but no clue how. dont wanna restart due to rnd factors...

I face these forces:

55 undead spiders
49 skeleton archers
34 zombies
12 ghosts
7 vampires
1 ancient vampire

what do u think is the best line up against these forces? I tried with so much... really wanna beat this, without restart

this stack is pretty easy give me some info for your battle

I would replace the bears with vikings (for one simple reason positive morale and their mad rage to crit some enemies down)

slpit soothsayers and 1 stack of axethrowers

and depends does he use a spell first turn or not?

if he does use the edda song to get a random spell effect(at my games he mostly dispelled the bad effect he had on his units)

instead of a damaging spell so i could use slingers too

took me a while to figure it out but heck