Ogre counter

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Kalenden

I've reached the goblin island and have found a couple of unit stacks of only Ogres (between 60-90 Ogres ). They are listed as Strong, but that shouldn't be a problem since I'm on Normal, Paladin, Lvl 38, and can defeat such stacks.
Royal Thorns (I know they are bad, but I really like them), Paladins, Red Dragons, Rune Mages and Inquisitors.

The problem is, they just rip me apart. They are with enough that they can drain most of my units of their action points, preventing me from doing the usual summoning spree. After the drain they easily cross the entire section to my troops and take out a large percentage of the troop (10%-20%).

Tanking with the Red Dragons fails miserably, they just smash them to pieces (even with stone skin).

I'm doing a semi no losses run (meaning I don't like losses and try to prevent them but don't mind occasionally losing some), so I'd try to not have huge losses, but when the ogres reach my ranged lines everything just falls apart.
Any hints?

Stack Composition is typically more important than the raw leadership.

Ogres have had a few changes in Crossworlds which is what makes them surprisingly more difficult to deal with now.

Ogres are just deadly, since they have been "fixed" to truly drain AP away, meaning you lose a turn, while they gain a lot of movement.

You actually do NOT want to use any flying units you CARE about. Ogres in Crossworlds does 150% damage to flying units AND slows them down (ala Heavy Mace negative status).

Royal Thorns are fantastic, if you can keep them alive! Plus they provide tanks.

However, one thing to point out

All Orc units get muuuch stronger if you feed them stacks to kill. e.g. summon cannon-fodder disposable unit tactics can end up hurting you since you give them more adrenaline, which means recharges on their drain, and other silly things.

Recently, using my Mage, I out-initiative the ogres (I got the initiative blue dragon in the beginning, and I have black dragons), then cast Helplessness and Ancient Phoenix, ensuring a triple burn on the pesky Ogres and someone to hit besides me.

You "could" try Phantoming your Red Dragon instead. They won't last long, but you want to buy time for your other troops to setup the summoner wall.

You really need to de-buff the Ogres, and annihilate them. I think I even use Crushing Blow, since it will help take out about 2 ogres per hit. If there is a really really big stack, you probably want to drop Ball of Lightning on them. If they truly overwhelm, you might want to sneak out a Mystic Egg asap.

You might even want to consider quaffing a Potion of Rage so you can start off with one of those abilities first.

Best debuff spells would be
- Helplessness Level 3 (lasts ... dunno, but more than 2 rounds).
- Plague Level 1 (lasts two rounds though)

Use helplessness IF you have a potentially high damaging stack (lots of thorns), and the enemy defense is ~40 HIGHER than your attack.

Use plague otherwise.

If you can throw in a Damage Over Time effect like Poison or Fire, that would be good, but I'm not sure how "smart" your Paladin is (intellect) .

If all else fails, you could try non-stop phantoming of your rune mages, so you can keep resummoning heavenly guards. Then use mana accelerator to keep the summon-spam machine going.