Wailing Winds

[Ironhawk]

Does anyone know how the spell Wailing Winds works, exactly? I'd never seen it used in combat before but I just had a massively numerically superior army routed by it! How does it work? Is it just massive morale penalty? Does it do damage? What are the counters to it?

[Teraswaerto]

Well, the manual says that "All enemy units on the battlefield Suffer a Fear +0 attack", which isn't the same thing as a morale penalty exactly. Kind of like Terror (except Terror is Fear +10) but hitting all units. No damage.

The obvious counter is unroutable units.

[Ironhawk]

Wow. A fear attack every round?? Thats insane. I cant believe so much power is in the hands of a low level spell!

[Nick_K]

The spell description doesn't say anything about 'every round' . I've never used it (gem cost spells need too much micro for me) but it looks like it's a one-off

[calmon]

Its a battle enchantment and it works every turn.

The effect is really strong for just one invested gem.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah its really astounding. I'd always overlooked it but now that I've faced it on the battlefield I wonder if its too cheap. I suppose the catch is probably that it effects ALL units (friendly and enemy) is that correct?

But even if that was the case it would seem to leverage things far too heavily in favor of an undead army. I mean... a fear attack every single turn against every single unit??? Its crazy

[KissBlade]

heh Ironhawk, there are a lot of battlefield spells that I feel are rather insane but yet surprisingly underused. Wailing Winds is actually tame to some of the other ones. =)

[Ironhawk]

Perhaps, yeah. But this one in particular just rocked me so I care more about it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Also: the relatively low level and cheap cost of the spell is quite notable.

[FAJ]

its a similar effect as a high fear creature landing amongst your troops, no?

[mivayan]

Ironhawk said:
I suppose the catch is probably that it effects ALL units (friendly and enemy) is that correct?


Pretty sure it is so, though the manual disagrees.


But even if that was the case it would seem to leverage things far too heavily in favor of an undead army. I mean... a fear attack every single turn against every single unit??? Its crazy


Evoc6 isn't that early, and your own commanders and mages might run away too. For an undead army, there's also Rigor mortis at ench6 (1 gem, battlefield enchantment, 10 points of unresistable armor negating fatigue damage for half the friendly and enemy non-undead units each round).

[Ironhawk]

Its a similar effect to a fear creature standing next to every troop in your army, every turn.

Someone pointed out in the irc channel that it would be simple enough to counter with Fanatiscism. But sadly I am playing LA Midgard and they have no natural H3 priests to prophetize to H4 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Teraswaerto]

How exactly would Fanaticism counter it? I mean, it will help your troops not to rout, but they'll still be more likely to rout with Wailing Winds cast. Fanaticism doesn't prevent all routs.