A good army to beat Karador on impossible with a paladin?

[Vilk]

Yes Dryad are a big plus in this fight, I didn't try but Royal Thorn could do the trick too and both could be nice for this fight.

The necro call can be found in a quest item, the book of the lost city.

[DGDobrev]

Interesting, Vilk, I may have missed that scroll. I did almost all quests available (I think only the red dragon eggs is not done yet) and didn't see this one. Are you referring to "The wayward book" quest, taken from necromancer kvorum?

As for the tank, all I have available now is emerald and black dragons. Black dragons are nice, but I can't cast target on them, and even though they're wickedly powerful, those black knights and zombies prove to be a bit too much if I leave them in the line of fire too much.

I only try to drop the barricades if I need any units to get out and fight. Sprites and faeries can't do a great deal sitting behind them, because Karador loves to cast fear them, and the same goes for any dryads you might have. I did try that thorn tactic.

Well, I will try a few more army setups and see what happens. I'm sort of limited in terms of army selection in ellinia... Even some sea dogs with their three-pronged attack would have been nice to use with some time back.

EDIT: Updated. I tried doing a strategy with inquisitors + canoneers + dryads + giants (or dragons) as tanks and hunters. I tried setting a wall in the 3 free hexes there are and summoned a thorn on the free spot after the dragon went on tanking. In that case karador casts fear on the dryads and one of the necromancers uses his attack to destroy both the barricade and the wall. The ghosts and the black knights charge in and... you can imagine the rest

EDIT 2: Tried using ice thorns, hunter thorns and a book of evil on the free spot. To not that good effect either... the following few turns I managed to buy weren't enough to drop karador's party down to a reasonable amount of troops.

I guess I will try going to demonis and get a few more levels and a few more units. I can remember how easy this battle was with this tactic on normal and hard - but I guess impossible is another matter The AI plays very strongly and takes out your important units with spells and debuffs first. I don't recall having that much trouble on the other 2 difficulties... But it's normal. With the XP I have, I would have been lvl 26 on hard (meaning I can get even more troops, because it means + 1300 leadership) or lvl 28 on normal (that's even more troops, because it's +2700 leadership)... or level 30 on easy, LOL

[Vilk]

The book is the book of the Necromancer lost city. Magic School offer this quest then you have to ask to the old which that throws you to a tomb magically sealed in the swamp cemetery. In this book when you use it you get the Necromancer scroll.

EDIT: I also agree that it's one of the easy fight once you get it in the right way. I haven't tried yet in impossible (still polishing my play during previous parts for a better time record) but I suspect it will be still a fight more easy than other.

EDIT2: About fear, if the enemy hero lost time to cast this that's not a bad point for you, just cast dispel right before it will the turn of feared unit. Anyway Dryads aren't useful during first parts of the fight but more later. With Royal Thorn you won't have this problem... At this point of the game Royal Thorn suck a little but that is true too for Dryads in the area.

[DGDobrev]

Oh, Vilk

That quest reward is completely random. In my case the reward there was some stupid spell like berserk or something. I remember it clearly, because up until the islands I had only healing and resurrection as useful spells. No gift, no sacrifice, no magic spring, no nothing.

I disagree about fear though. If the enemy breaks through the barricade, your dryad/sprite goes to charge any skeleton group she sees, even if it's not within the fighting range. That's a severe problem, because you don't want to have weak units run into the middle of the enemy lines just like that. They get minced in just one turn by the zombies and the black knights, and on impossible, karador's units just LOVE to crit - especially the black knights who even have it as a skill.

BTW, the battle is very different from normal and hard difficulties. On normal and hard you can do it with a powerpuff girl army just because you'll have a serious strength in numbers and your spirits will be leveled beyond 25 at this stage, and you will be 26+ level in any case.

[Vilk]

Lol ok that's weird but I always get this spell here! At least 4 times when I didn't forget and never something else. Well I saw in another post someone mentioning that this spell was one of the non random item of the game, so if it's not with this quest item then it's with something else I guess.

Are you using the 1.7 version? That could depend of the version.

About tactics in this fight I forgot mention points I'm using too:

• Take care don't kill enemy stacks but only reduce them.
• Necromancers aren't the priority at the very beginning of the game.
• Before starting finish killing stacks lowering Necromancers very low is the point to do.
• Mass magic chain is nice for first round if you have it.

EDIT: Well for sure it's quite tougher in impossible mode but other fights too!

EDIT2: I bet you are wrong about the necromancer spell, it is always in the book, I just start a new game and did the quest and get it one more time and the text quote the spell when you get it. It's a book about Necromancer, there's logic to get that spell in particular. All of that isn't a proof but a high suspicion that this isn't a random spell, very low chance that I always get it if it's random. Perhaps it's dependent of the game version.

EDIT3: I see the confusion, it's not the quest reward but in the item quest, you have to use it to get the spell.

[Calinda]

On Karador try to use the AOE from his necromancers against him (with Target spell), also dont kill the stacks, just reduce all of them evenly, and when they are all low, kill all of them fast in a turn or 2. This way you prevent him from raising too much stuff.

[Vilk]

Nice the target thing is interesting, at level 3 it attracts attack of level 4 enemy units?

[DGDobrev]

Originally Posted by Calinda

On Karador try to use the AOE from his necromancers against him (with Target spell), also dont kill the stacks, just reduce all of them evenly, and when they are all low, kill all of them fast in a turn or 2. This way you prevent him from raising too much stuff.

I was thinking about that, but the only tank I can get easily into their lines and cast target on it, is an emerald dragon and they aren't the best tankers vs. physical damage dealers. For instance, the black knights just love to crit them for over 1.4k damage (with a shield from the mages!!!) and that 2 dragons out of 10 down in a hit. I was a bit unlucky with the creature setup in ellinia. First of all, no hunters whatsoever (save for the 37 hunters that join you when you break the siege), so I had to do quite a bit of sacrificing to up their number. No ancient ents either. The non-ellinia based creature dwellings provided some cannoneers (good), and barbarians, human archers, royal thorns, guardsmen and swordsmen (bad). There were some griffins and I tried using them, but to no avail - as soon as the stack dropped to 140 (which happened in a few rounds, even though I was using shield from the mages, resurrection and time back), karador just used hypnotize after all my units have moved (since I generally have a better initiative) and BB griffins, because even if I wait and dispel, he would just hypnotize them the next turn and it's BB again

So I had to tuck my tail between my legs, go level up and prepare a better party setup. One of the best tanks vs. physical damage dealers that are most of Karador's army is the Knight. If I find archdemons in demonis I won't pass on them either since as a high-level Paladin I have tolerance. Horsemen may also cut it, since they have 20% physical and 20% fire resistance. We'll see. I have to go to Demonis first, and Demonis is a big place with a lot of XP roaming there.

One thing's for certain. The double battles with the powerpuff girl army (as sector24 called it) are a piece of cake. Open with mass haste, Inquisitors build rage, dryads cast lullaby, the sprites and fairies kill the lvl 4 unit (the orc shaman in my case). The next turn everything waits, dryad summons thorns and then time back on the dryads. Now you have lullaby and thorns again. Then it's easy. The future double had some units left after both lullaby's (turn 5), so cast target on one of the summoned thorns and it's GG

BTW, Vilk, you may have been right about necro call. The good question is where did I put that spell and did I sell it by mistake. If I did, it's my noobish mistake then

EDIT: I lied in this post There are hunters in my game. There are 2.4k hunters in a tower in the absolute backside of Demonis Now who would look for them here, surrounded by red and black dragons?!