Assasins

[MasterBoo]

Which nations got stealth commanders with the assasinate ability? I know about Abyssia but no clue about the rest.

[calmon]

Here you can find a list of all national troops in dom3:

http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/

(-> UNITS DB)

Abysia, C'tis, Ermor, Lanka, Pythium, R'lyeh, Shinuyama/Jomon

[Jack_Trowell]

Hum (from memory, might be wrong for one or two)

- Abyssia (EA and MA , but not the same units, and probably LA too, didn't play it recently)
- Ermor, Pythium and Marignon got the human "standard" assassin. (there might be more nations with this assassin)
- Lankha and Arco EA, and the monkeys LA (as the seduce ability turn to assassination when it fail, most of the time, and is better than assassination when it works, and those three have a recruitable unit with this ability).
Lankha also has an assassin as national summon
- Mictlan has a pretender assassin (lord of the night - might not be available for all eras), the only pretender with this ability. And of course with them it's easy to summon a succubus

... hum, that's all that I think of for now.

[Jack_Trowell]

Oh almost forgot : Shinuyama and Jomon both have assassins too.

The bakemono assassin seams weak, but with fear it can sometimes root an opponent that would have won the fight else.

And ninja have awesome stats (some of the best base attack and defence values in the game, as well as good precision) and get poisoned shurikens that can kill your target before it get to you.

Add some cheap magic items if needed and you have a ninja thug ^_^

[Manuk]

ctis and rlieh have assasins-mages.
machaka has a high cost superior assasin.

so:

Marignon, Phytium and Ermor - Assasin (also you get this by random events and a special site)
Abysia - Slayer
Jomon - Ninja
Machaka - Spider Warrior (not sure abour the name)
Rlieh - Star child
Ctis - Empoisoner
Mictlan - Lord of the Night

Also theres one from random events. An common assasin like ermor's but equipped with a ethereal robe, from a nation called "Elludia"

[Nick_K]

I'm just going by memory from Dom2 here, but I think Machaka's Spider Warriors are the stealth troop rather than the assassin. I think the assasin is called the 'Bane Spider'. You can get the ethereal assassin from a rare astral site as well (The hidden city of Elludia)

[Gandalf Parker]

Arcos also has a seducer unit. Its not quite assassination but can be more fun (except that it doesnt work on females)

[Frostmourne27]

Are there any summonable assassins? There are certainly several seducers/corruptors, but what about plain old assassins?

[Teraswaerto]

Lanka and Mictlan have national assassin summons. Wishing for a Lord of the Night is an assassin summon of sorts.

[PDF]

Last there's the Black Heart, a rather easy to forge Blood item (if you've any Blood mage..) giving any stealthy unit equipped with Assassin ability. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[jutetrea]

I'm liking a vamp count with black heart, +penetration and disintegrate http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

If find that adding items that will summon help can be a real lifesaver when you are up against mages.

Does anyone ever formation or script their assassins? For most of my assassins I like to set them all the way forward so they dont have to worry about so many castings or arrows.

[PvK]

I often place and/or script my assassins, especially if they have something worthwhile to do different from the default. e.g. ninjas.

[Jack_Trowell]

Assassin + skull charm ; set to the rear

You start the fight with a longded, so even if the target as rander attack, spells, or is flying, itwill often target the longded.

And each round after that one more longded for only 5 fatigue (item spells only cost 5 fatigue points)

Even better when you use the skull helmet (give the spell raise skeletons)

If your assassin got the "quickness" heroic ability, it can use the item more often (yes, quickness still works in dom3 for item spells). Just give him some reinvigoration so he don't get tired too fast.

[mivayan]

Are you sure that placement affects assassinations?

[Jack_Trowell]

Yes , but it has less effect in term of distance that in a normal fight.

By putting a ninja in the rear, a mounted commander will advance without being able to hit the ninja in the first round. Then the ninja act, having first strike (shuriken usually).

Without this, a mounted commander has enought action points to charge in the first round.

[Manuk]

an empoisoner or a starchild always back right?

[merlinme]

To return slightly to the original post, I also picked up "The Master Assassin" (I think he was called) as a mercenary. He came with an ethereal cloak and a sword of sharpness, so while not exactly a killing machine, I think he took out six commanders when playing against the computer, which was helpful (and quite fun).

[Baalz]

Jack_Trowell said:
(yes, quickness still works in dom3 for item spells).





Ahhhh, this little gem I missed. I assumed the quickness nerf applied to item spells as well. Good to know.

[Gandalf Parker]

extra attacks help alot. Also items which will attack on their own such as dancing trident, stone dove, and spirit helm

[Taqwus]

An Empoisoner... yes, back, especially if you're going to skellispam. Assuming he's not some weirdly heroic Empoisoner kitted out for hack and slash...

I've not found Star Children to be all that reliable as assassins, 'tho; the single Mind Blast is resistable and not especially lethal when not combined with other attacks to take advantage of the short paralysis. It's especially bad news if you end up trying to assassinate a skellispammer.

Should be noted that the etherealness of Elludian Stalkers is not associated with a Cloak of Shadows -- it's built into the unit type, so you can give them decent protection, resistance, or damaging-aura armor and keep etherealness. Or at least that's how it worked last I checked them. Nasty.

[jutetrea]

I had an eater of the dead that got away from me, with a gift of kurgi - so flying, ethereal, etc... he was a beast. Played on a faerun map, and he could take out the "special" provinces full of high powered indys. Got charmed by an earth mother somehow... couldn't take him down for the life of me (wasted tons of troops). Finally sent in the black heart vamp with disintegrate - poof. Rather ironic after all the effort I went through to start.

Thinking High MR + high penetration + disintegrate or

Flying, eth, lucky, high MR + dimensional rod - anyone have good luck with the rod?

Can anyone point me to the mechanics on how the heart finder works? Seems to do really well...no clue how it really gets the 999 damage or so. Just living targets?

[Nick_K]

The magic item that gives etherealness is the *robe* of shadows. Presumably, as a robe it's too bulky to be used with other body armour. Stalkers have a 'shadow cloak' which doesn't appear as equipment - I guess cloaks can be worn just fine with armour.

In SP at least, I find that equipping most assasins with loads of magic items is fun but sub-optimal. At one commander/turn it takes a long time to be worth the cost as most victims are regular commanders or priests. A lucky mage can always turn the tables with a single spell, and an assassin caught by province defense generally dies... it might be nice if dom4 allowed different battle orders for assasination and regular battles. I'd like assasins caught by pd in border provinces to retreat, but of course scripting that is a big no-no.

The phoenix rod will kill most enemies before they can close. Boots of quickness doubles the damage as well. Of course, it might be more deadly to just put the magic item user in a regular army where he can burn up a lot more than one enemy per turn.

[jutetrea]

Definitely agree, but not as fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

That was a secondary advantage of the vamp, I was dom10 so he had a good range where he could still come to life.

In SP with a magic/research lead - Kindly ones and Wild Hunt are great spells. Kindly ones is a bit risky, but i usually make sure i have enough to dispel it myself if need be.

Then an assassin or 2 for specific commanders/pathways.

Still new to the game, like the concept a lot.

[Corwin]

Gandalf Parker said:
extra attacks help alot. Also items which will attack on their own such as dancing trident, stone dove, and spirit helm



Are you saying that items that attack on their own do it twice when the owner is under quickness?

[Gandalf Parker]

Im not sure if that happens. I hadnt thought of it.
But I meant that extra attacks help, and certain items will also grant you another attack during the round because they attack on their own. You can end up with a lot of attacks on the poor shmuck thats trying to get close to you.

[NTJedi]

Gandalf Parker said:
extra attacks help alot. Also items which will attack on their own such as dancing trident, stone dove, and spirit helm



Will the dancing trident and stone dove work for a size_6 unit which is trampling size_2 units on the battlefield?

[Graeme Dice]

Corwin said:
Are you saying that items that attack on their own do it twice when the owner is under quickness?



Yes, they would, since they attack once for every turn the owner has, and quickness adds complete new turns.

[Gandalf Parker]

So spirit helm, dancing trident, and dove; with the boots of quickness.. give an extra 6 attacks per round besides the units own attacks? Wow.

Add to that weapons that get extra attacks.

And then the pretenders with extra arms.

I wonder how high you can get it.

[jutetrea]

random question i had - do multiple attacks cause additional fatigue? Say a 4 armer, or sword of quickness, gift of kurgi, etc. How bout boots of quickness that essentially give another turn?

[General_Jah]

this is somewhat off toptic but I'm new a figured one of guys could answer this.

I'm having my commanders getting whacked in my current game with no one defending them. Is the only way for your commanders to be defended from an assassin to have a group of units (up to 5) set to guard commander?

[thejeff]

That's the most straightforward way.

Other strategies are to boost PD/patrolling high enough to catch the assassins before they can do to much damage.

If you're worried about your expensive mages being killed, hire a lot of cheap scouts and indy commanders to play target.

Don't forget to script spells for your mages to defend themselves. This tends to conflict with optimal battle scripting, so I usually protect battle mages with guards and let research/etc mages protect themselves except when I know their province is being targeted.

[Graeme Dice]

Gandalf Parker said:
I wonder how high you can get it.



Quite high. A Nataraja with Four swords of swiftness (Or two gloves of the gladiator), chi shoes, helm of headbutting (Horned helm), and a stone bird would get 28 attacks per turn with quickness. This gets truly ridiculous pretty quickly if your nataraja is wished for and ends up with the heroic quickness ability. The ettin mandragora is up there as well, but I don't remember how many sleep vine attacks it gets.

[Graeme Dice]

jutetrea said:
random question i had - do multiple attacks cause additional fatigue? Say a 4 armer, or sword of quickness, gift of kurgi, etc. How bout boots of quickness that essentially give another turn?



The way it works is that all of your melee attacks in a single action (ie. one standard turn) add your melee encumbrance to your current fatigue score. The number of attacks you make has no effecton this, so the nataraja only adds three fatigue per action if he isn't wearing heavy armour. If you get another turn through quickness, a blessing, or the heroic ability, then the set of attacks you get in that extra turn add your melee encumbrance to your current fatigue score. Just walking around doesn't add anything to your fatigue.

[Ironhawk]

thejeff said:
If you're worried about your expensive mages being killed, hire a lot of cheap scouts and indy commanders to play target.



Yeah thats what I do too. Although my research centers are usually patrolled by Call of the Winds or something similar so its hard to get an assassin in. I use the chaff commanders mostly with armies where I am trying to draw assassination attempts away from key leaders.