Mid-game crisis :<

[Zonc]

First 2 turns simply ignore vamps, focus on archers, necros and bone dragons first (try placing your Demons within enemy archers melee range so Demons retaliate). After this in turn 3 vamps die easily under mass fire, then slaughter slow melees (zombies and dark knights). Toughest fights in lotd are in the "dragon section", which I hate them, Karador is almost easy compared to these fights (btw my squad against him was fairies, sprites, dryads + Anga's Ruby, snakes + snake ring and standard Demon + Target + Timback procedure)

[Elwin]

Karador doesn't require melee only( i had 2 archers), however its good to have them to stand on corpse to not ress them, other way could be marauder who can explode corpse or smg like that. There is also another way (but according to what you write another spells is not an option )- using weak necro call on his fallen units, so even if they die again he wont rise like 50 vamps but maybe 10 or so depends on your necrocall power,

Karador armies indeed are much less in numbers than usual forces there, but this rressing all the time make it tougher

[Vulture]

To get my Demons directly in front of enemy archers I will have to go for tactics2 which is IIRC 14 Might runes (definetely can't afford them, not even remotely). Took tactics1 at lvl 6 already for I considered it crucial, but only 2 hexes + Speed3 + running makes 7. AI archers usually are placed 9th or 10th from my baseline.
I seriously want to replace necros and Vamps for further lotd (except for Karador, 3 raise dead charges seem priceless). The other problem is that my Elven Crown keeps going to 0 without elves in my army in the middle of nowhere so I will go with hunters instead of necros.

[Vulture]

Land of the dead was piece of cake with Demons, Blackies, Skellie Archs, Hunters and Inquisitors. Especially Dragon Fights were funny as hell. With the latter 3 locked behind Ice Thorns 90% of the Dragons went for the demons and got their beating. A few chose the blacks and dealed amazingly high damage on them... like... 50 ? ^^
Without enemy archs it was laughable with 1 spell used during the whole fight and enough rage to spare at the end of the fight to start the next one at full mana and 30+ rage. With enemy archs I just used mana potions every 2nd battle.
As an interlude after having cleared 80% of GW and DV I went for Xeona. Mass shackles, let demons and blacks lock the 3 hexes wide path and took out 100 shackled Demonesses with a DA-Shot from the skellies. I spent some money on runes to make the loss of gold due to the divorsal from Feanora cheaper and divorced, married Xeona, put in whip and dagger.

Guess for what units I went. Now it becomes funny as hell. 36k Sprite crit, ridiculous, seriously. Got Sprites, Lake Fairies, Hunters, Skellie Archs and Demons. Any non-dragon fight is a joke. The girls onehit everything, so do skellies, Hunters are ok, their damage is enough to remove an annoying stack in the back. But I do get serious problems with dragons. While I was laughin at them with my old setup I now felt the wrath of "Hm.. I'm a dragon, I'll go for some tasty elven meat". They constantly ignored the demons and hammered on the sprites and lake fairies, demons were useless except for catching range dmg through target. I tried target on sprites to timeback 'em but with only one retaliation they suck as tanks and they got seriously devastated so at the beginning of turn 2 they were already uselessly decimated to count as damage dealers (2200 --> 1200).
I was hoping for days to get the dagger and be finally strong enough for Xeona and now I have both and I'm annoyed again.

Now the final question: do all dragon fights end with 3-4 additional turns of loss preserving and stupid mana gain "exploits" with the Ls and Ss or am I getting something wrong ? With Blackies and Inquisitors instead of the 2 girl units I rarely ever had to compensate any losses. Sometimes I didn't even have to timeback the demons thanks to their fire resistance (finally more than 2 rage abilities usable) and just ressurrected 5-10 in the final turn and that's it.

[jwallstone]

You can still do dragon fights easily with Sprites and Lake Fairies. I did all the fights in LotD this way. The trick to avoiding large losses is to simply put vulnerable units all behind Ice Thorns. If you put 4 vulnerable units at the edge of the combat map, you can still cover them all with clever positioning. The only unit I had outside were Green Dragons, usually. Inside, I put units like Inquisitors, Hunters, Dryads, etc. My Sprites and LF's just sat out in the reserve slots for these battles. Besides a Time Back and/or a Resurrect from the Inquisitors, I never had to do much in terms of restoring losses.

[Vulture]

Originally Posted by jwallstone

My Sprites and LF's just sat out in the reserve slots for these battles.

That's all I wanted to know, thanks :>

[Elwin]

Originally Posted by jwallstone

The trick to avoiding large losses is to simply put vulnerable units all behind Ice Thorns. .

I read a lot about it here bot i wonder one thing, do you guys alays have rage for ice thorn in beggining , personaly i rarely got any on start

Now the final question: do all dragon fights end with 3-4 additional turns of loss preserving and stupid mana gain "exploits" with the Ls and Ss or am I getting something wrong ? With Blackies and Inquisitors instead of the 2 girl units I rarely ever had to compensate any losses. Sometimes I didn't even have to timeback the demons thanks to their fire resistance (finally more than 2 rage abilities usable) and just ressurrected 5-10 in the final turn and that's it.

Did i read correct, you resurrected demons ? Is that possible ? My inqisitors can't do that, dont have order lvl 3 yet so maybe ress 3 can do this?

[jwallstone]

As a Warrior, I usually have around 70-90 starting rage for most fights if I've walked around a bit (but not too long), or full rage if I start a new fight pretty much right away.

As for resurrection, I think he's using the spell, not the inquisitor ability.

[Elwin]

Originally Posted by jwallstone

As a Warrior,

That clarifies all, i thought you are talking about paladin. My bro plays warrior and he got rage all the time too so i know it.

[Vulture]

Yes, I was talking about the spell itself @ Order3.

Concerning Rage: as a Pal, to preserve rage you only have the chance to save it, even during combat. A dying enemy army doesn't need to be black holed or underground bladed, therefore you'll always have the ice thorns in the beginning against black, bone or emerald dragons which is highly recommended.

What I also use to get rage for a dragon fight is using mana potions and F5. Another trick is an item you can get early in the game. I don't remember the name but it's a mask that looks like a tiger. It gives +5 rage which is fairly neglectable but it has a use effect giving 20 rage. I simply put it on, use it and put my real helm back on. The 20 rage are kept and you can attack a dragon containing army.

This of course means a sh*t against red dragons since they always find a way to spray over the whole battlefield to get your archers including clearing an ice thorn hex opening the way for other dragons.

That's practically the reason why I stopped playing in Demonis. Red Dragons destroy any of your tactical preparations just by being what they are. Even lining up your units outside the thorns to give them an offer doesn't seem to help a lot. Besides the fact that in demonis the AI tends to present you 4k stacks of lvl 1 units crackin' up your tanks like nutshells, of course. More frustration than joy = no game.