What are your favorite troops?

[jwallstone]

In the Land of the Dead, you will often find a bunch up in the mountains. Also, in the Magic Valley in Ellinia, the mage hiding behind the magic range will sometimes have some.

I'm just starting to experiment with Demons. I added some demonesses, but for some reason my inquisitors weren't able to resurrect them! Is this supposed to be the case? Is resurrect not supposed to work on them? If this is the case, are they worth getting, with all the morale hits and all?

[DGDobrev]

In the beginning of the game I went for the usual strategy with 2 melee and 3 ranged units (playing as a Paladin) - Royal snakes + bears and inquisitors, archmages and archers behind them.

In the mid-game, I started to get a bit more range-oriented. Both types of elf archers, human Archers, Skeleton Archers and some horsemen to tank (rather poor tank, should have taken ents).

Now in the late game, I keep Knights, Demons and Arch demons as melee units and 4 types of archers. This allows for a lot of flexibility - from 4 ranged + a tank to 3 melee + 2 archers. Lets see how the final battle will go.

EDIT: As for the last battle, close-combat troops are essential. Knights with sweep are a battle-winner, especially if you manage to get them surrounded by dragons. Ogres hit like hell (gift is very useful here), and Demons give extra diversion. In my game I found ONLY 13 Archdemons... Pitiful. I still used skellies though. A full troop of skels with dragon arrows drops a troop of black dragons in 1 hit. They will also draw the attention of other dragons to them for 1-2 rounds, which is rather cool.

I hate that hypnosis spell Haas casts, though.

[MisterBarca]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

In the beginning of the game I went for the usual strategy with 2 melee and 3 ranged units (playing as a Paladin) - Royal snakes + bears and inquisitors, archmages and archers behind them.

In the mid-game, I started to get a bit more range-oriented. Both types of elf archers, human Archers, Skeleton Archers and some horsemen to tank (rather poor tank, should have taken ents).

Now in the late game, I keep Knights, Demons and Arch demons as melee units and 4 types of archers. This allows for a lot of flexibility - from 4 ranged + a tank to 3 melee + 2 archers. Lets see how the final battle will go.

EDIT: As for the last battle, close-combat troops are essential. Knights with sweep are a battle-winner, especially if you manage to get them surrounded by dragons. Ogres hit like hell (gift is very useful here), and Demons give extra diversion. In my game I found ONLY 13 Archdemons... Pitiful. I still used skellies though. A full troop of skels with dragon arrows drops a troop of black dragons in 1 hit. They will also draw the attention of other dragons to them for 1-2 rounds, which is rather cool.

I hate that hypnosis spell Haas casts, though.

I killed Baal and still cannot recruit Archdemons. Where do I find them?

Also, isn't the game pretty much over once you get Archdemons?

[Zonc]

Originally Posted by jwallstone

I'm just starting to experiment with Demons. I added some demonesses, but for some reason my inquisitors weren't able to resurrect them! Is this supposed to be the case? Is resurrect not supposed to work on them? If this is the case, are they worth getting, with all the morale hits and all?

Resurrection doesn't work with Demons

Are they worth getting? Demons are great - lots of attack&defence, 3 speed, always retaliate (perfect combo with Reaper's Timeback). Imps - no retaliation and 2 charges of fire ball. Cerberuses - 3 head attack (in HoM&M they also had no retaliation, it's a pity). I didn't like Demonesses though, but fighting against them is annoying (Magic Shackles are essential)

[MisterBarca]

Originally Posted by Zonc

Resurrection doesn't work with Demons

Are they worth getting? Demons are great - lots of attack&defence, 3 speed, always retaliate (perfect combo with Reaper's Timeback). Imps - no retaliation and 2 charges of fire ball. Cerberuses - 3 head attack (in HoM&M they also had no retaliation, it's a pity). I didn't like Demonesses though, but fighting against them is annoying (Magic Shackles are essential)

Does Sacrifice work on them?

[DarkLink64]

My favorite unit is Peasants. They rulz!
Red dragon ^^

[Falaris]

In my recent game (and so far only, starting again now) I didn't GET demons. There was no huts selling the (high level melee) demons. :S Other than that they seem kind of decent. However, favourite troops vary a lot; usually there's a combination.

1: Inquisitor. You need the inquisition ability so you can turn regular priests into inquisitors to use them all game. Three things to note:
Its resurrection ability is different from the spell. They won't resurrect demons, BUT they will resurrect level 5 creatures. Including red dragons (but not black as they're immune to magic.).
Gift, a relatively common order spell, will at level 1 recharge the resurrection ability and you'll get that WAY earlier than resurrect, I figure, especially resurrect level 3 (if ever).
Best for warriors that does not have vast intellect to power up their own resurrection spells.

2: Horsemen are good. Knights are stronger, sort of, BUT too slow.

3: Demonesses has EXTREMELY powerful abilities.

Horsemen and inquisitors are the only units I've stuck with throughout the game.

Tactical use:
1: Army of horsemen and demonesses + whatever.
2: Create phantom copy of horsemen.
3: Use the demoness' swap places so the phantom copies trade places with an enemy support / ranged unit you need to kill.
4: Zerg the ranged unit while your enemy keeps busy with the phantom menace.
5: Until phantoms are gone, hit and run / ranged bombardment.

Kngihts can work better than horsemen - a unit that WILL be swamped will have plenty of use for the circle attack - but I find knights too slow to be any real use.

Early on I really liked vampires. Eventually, though, they didn't have the stamina, strength, or numbers, to remain competitive.

[Zonc]

Originally Posted by Falaris

1: Inquisitor. (...)
Gift, a relatively common order spell, will at level 1 recharge the resurrection ability and you'll get that WAY earlier than resurrect, I figure, especially resurrect level 3 (if ever).
Best for warriors that does not have vast intellect to power up their own resurrection spells.

The problem is, that you spend both Inquisitior turn and your own spell. Plus, to have spell power comparable to the one from spell book, you'll need at least level 20. At some point they are not worth it. And if you're not paladin they're hard to get (limited numbers)

2: Horsemen are good. Knights are stronger, sort of, BUT too slow.

Horseman have no attractive abilities (no retaliation, furious, life drain, etc.). They are solid but nothing more. Knights are slow ase you said, no running = no use.

3: Demonesses has EXTREMELY powerful abilities.

Swap works only with one unit, so if enemy has like 5 or more ranged it won't make any difference. And you could spend this turn on making real damage with ranged unit.

Early on I really liked vampires. Eventually, though, they didn't have the stamina, strength, or numbers, to remain competitive.

It's true, but life drain compensates all these drawbacks. Just make sure they don't take beating from 4 enemy units at a time. Plus they're fast, good initiative, no retaliation AND they benefit from some special features: zombie form Rina (+1 speed and initiative) Dark Commader skill (+ 7 attack and +2 initiative). I use vampires and have lost very small number through the whole game (<10)

[Tosh]

Ive played through this game twice once with mage on normal difficulty and once with warrior in hard mode.

So far my conclusions are:
bears are nice, they have a nice damage output, crit often and dont die that easy, decent tanks imho
royal snakes, probably the best unit overall works wonders with the slow spell due to their no retaliation attack
necros high initiative, a nice basic attack and decent talents makes them prolly the best caster in the game
sea dogs great unit for a while but they loose their edge later, replaced them with cerberuses, more durable, good speed and a lovely basic attack (use them with timeback)