Spreadsheet of Useful Equips with Minor Location Spoilers

[Helios]

Those are some good ways for Demons and Undead to regenerate. But I would guess that having to rely on the Hypnosis spell in other race situations wouldn't be very profitable for its high mana cost, making a long series of resurrecting either take a really long time or not possible.

Looking at the base defense numbers of units does make loading up on defense boosting items pretty pointless, especially if an enemy hero is involved. And it does make the most sense to be inflicting, rather than worrying about taking damage. I imagine with an all-melee army that one could somewhat minimize the hits taken even as counter-attacks if one sent out a phantom to take the first hit, and then mob the unit with every available unit. It would still be tough to do without Dryads putting half an army to sleep and dealing with 8 stacks of units. I suppose defense buff spells are probably more useful than hero defense could ever hope to compensate for.

It's the sort of dilemma that makes me think certain wives just aren't viable at all. Even on an all Dwarf run with the Mithril shield equipped to lower leadership requirements, I see Xeona being more useful for the two weapon slots than Gerda with a morale boost. Maybe I'm underselling the morale, but only one point boost doesn't seem to make up for her terrible equips (she's obviously built for a tanking approach). It's too bad the wives weren't more universal in their equips so that their morale or other boosts were more viable.

[Vulture]

Well, it's not like all 5 units take hits from all 8 enemy stacks. Firstly, you don't play with 5 melees as you don't have the space on the battlefield in the front row anyway. So let's say you have one archer. They take out a full enemy stack to begin with.
Secondly you put Icy Thorns in the enemy ranks that forces them to waste a turn, destroying them. Or an Ice Ball for that matter. And then you have Phantom or Target. All these targets are preferred by AI over any one of your troops.
Thirdly, if all of these fail you still have one unit that the opponent will pound the hardest and you can time Back them by the end of turn two.
Fourthly, if you play all melee, you don't use 4 melees that can't restock themselves. Not even as a mage. Nobody has the mana and/or the patience to ress up so many troops. Say they're level 4. That makes 120 mana to ress each stack only once. Of course you use the two vampire troops who restock themselves. That gives you one to ress and one to Time Back. I don't see the problem, nor the need for defense.

And Gerda sucks because the game isn't balanced to begin with ^^
Xeona/Rina > Neoka/Frog Lady > rest.

[Helios]

I don't make good enough use of Ice Thorns. I'm always too busy with the Ice Ball or Chargers. I still don't do a good enough job of making sure that only a few units take hits, rather than the entire army, thus making ressing too expensive and arduous. I need to make better use of Target, I think.

And I've been thinking about the suicidal attempt of melees that can't restock themselves, hence my thoughts on defense. But as you indicate in the other thread, it will be impossible without putting thousands of units nearby to restock in tough areas, which is quite pointless.

LOL that Mirabella didn't even deserve mention by name among the wives.

[Vulture]

Yeah, one must add that I'm a very patient player. Have always been in all games. Sometimes I take it too serious with the "perfect play". I don't play anything but no loss campaigns and I make sure I do everything to pull that off, even with Karador, Xeona, Baal and Haas. Whereas Haas is always a pain in the ass, more than Baal and that already is.

I also spend 40 rounds in battles against gremlins, keeping only two Friendly Gremlin towers alive to boost my ranks after a rank-up (Viscount, Lord etc), sacrificing Vampire Bats and Ancient Vampire Bats standing next to the towers to drain life out of what they summon every round ^^
Or with whatever Dragon or Demon Summon and let Poison Rain after Poison Rain fall on them and the Tower summons (not too often or the Tower dies, too ^^) with magic spring on them.

[Helios]

There's nothing wrong with patience. I've been adding that to my tactical repertoire more lately. Friendly Gremlin tower abuse helped me reduce my casualties a great deal last time out. Part of me wants to beat the game as quickly as possible to complete my current playthrough and start the next interesting one, but I find taking it slow and putting in the 60 hours to beat the game to be satisfying in the present. Plus, less losses = less backtracking to stock up on units.