Impossible, Mage - No unit loss.

[Vilk]

Not really it's just that you need take care of this. They can take care of so many thing that it's not a problem to lost one attack from another of your units to drop down their number.

Additionally with experience there's many possibilities to exploit this in combat maps that aren't too small. For example the cursed ghost is thrown far to enemy lines near enemy archer and you let them do the job when you take care not have your units in range of the cursed ghost. Another excellent application is using Target on them, particularely with some stoneskin or other.

And again you have many tools to manage this problem like move the ghost in middle of a pack of enemy and not attack but defend or wait. To use or not protection spell on them. You can even use Holy Anger to weaken them, and slow on an uncontrolled cursed ghost to keep them out of range from your troops or teleport to move them out of range or even use slow on a controlled cursed ghost that you think it will be uncontrolled after their attack.

One important point to take care of is related to initiative, for example a cursed ghost close to become uncontrolled it's very dangerous to wait end of turn to let them attack if they have the best initiative so next round will have them act without to let you a chance to do something. To avoid that you could use another troop to wait until the cursed ghost has act. And stoneskin, battle cry, speed and slow that all change initiative are tool to help manage this.

I don't say it's easy to always control but with experience that's much more easy and with target + stoneskin + Magic Shield they are an amazing tool against numerous enemy long range. In fact they are quite better than horsemen for this sort of tactic expect when enemy has many priests/cardinals. For any other archer enemy Cursed Ghost are better.

With mage with High Magic in a combat with many enemy long range it's extremely powerful to start the fight with target and stoneskin on the cursed ghost and from this base there's many variation depending of enemy army. And using Archimage with them is a total must.

EDIT: And there's few objects that lower undead moral it's quite good use them with cursed ghost because they'll lower significantly critical attack chance making more easy to control them.

[Ryastar]

They are a terrible idea if you are trying to go for no unit losses, though, which is kinda the whole point of this thread.

[Vilk]

Lol I agree it's hard to unsure no Cursed Ghost lost in all fights even if minimal. It's much more easy to ensure your cursed ghosts will do no damages to your own troops. I bet you under evaluate this point because you didn't use them enough.

But without Sacrifice you'll suffer with your horses when you'll won't have anymore enough of them. The penalty of a weaker stack will become more and more a problem and apart cursed ghosts I don't see anything to replace them until later in the game.

But ok use them will certainly be quite rude anyway for a no loss.

[Razorflame]

shamans are the shit for no losses
^^

[Vilk]

If there's Shaman they are probably a better choice, I just forgot them. But at the game point Chase was he was far to have done the Orc Embassy battle.

[Razorflame]

i mostly get them at the tavern when u ccomplete the dragon fang quest

[Chase]

Ok, Im almost done with Freedom Islands now. And Im not going to lie to you, it has been painfull at times. Yesterday I beat Krakken in turn 47. Basically I wouldent have come close to killing it if I hadent used my Royal Thorns. In the end I had Thorns on all but a couple of squares. Decent stacks of 3-400 aswell. Prior to this I upgraded my 2 original Royal Thorns to 15 as I was all but ready to give up. Ive never played with Royal Thorns so I wasent really sure how good they were. But hello meat(plant)wall!

Ive gotten: Sacrifice, Gift, Ice snake, Hypnosis (After failing 15 times on a gremlin battle!) and no Resurrection yet . I got 113 mana now and I got 1 point in higher magic.

During most of FI I went with Inqs, Alchemists, Cannoners (found a few for sale and sacrificed until I had enough), Evil Beholders (Was lucky and found these for sale here aswell) and Arch Mages actually. Thats right, 5 ranged! I never thought it would be effective, but with alot of slow+ice snake spaming it actually worked. Basically I need to kill them before they get to me thus rendering Royal Snakes and Horsemen somewhat useless except for certain fights. (I also Sacrificed me a nice stack of Horsemen!).

I tried taking alot of screenshots as you lot would really enjoy a few of them, but I couldent find them on my harddrive afterwards . So I think they werent actually recorded. I had a screenshot with Krakken dead and several thousand devilfish left with several thousand plants as a plant wall . I also took some screenshots of my spells and general army makeup etc as I had planned to post them in this thread.

Oh I also got 1 Demon from the Dragon Fang quest, but it will probably take me a while to reach a point where I can use them so I wount get me a stack just yet!

Please keep posting as its nice motivation .