Tactic Suggestion: the Pythian Doom Pope

[Poopsi]

http://simianfarmer.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/lackoffaith.jpg

The idea is the following: Pythium´s arch-theurgs come out of the box with 3 astral, and often have other nice things along with that. You script one (or more) to cast horror mark several times, then Return (make sure they have two pearls). Then you teleport the Doom Pope into some province where you know there is some unit which could be improved by horror marking (particularily pretenders). With some luck you´ll both horrormark the sob, and manage to teleport home. Plus, I dont think there is any reliable defense against this barring keeping a stack of flying units to kill the Doom Popes upon arrival. Missile units will work against out of the box Doom Popes, but if you make them wear Shadow Cloaks, or air shield amulets, that becomes almost irrelevant.

A possible variant: spam Astral Geyser instead of Horror mark. Use multiple Popes. I still have to try this one, but I think that with a big enough number of popes you could overwhelm PD.

[Rytek]

Or, you could try to guess where that big nasty is going to go next and have some waiting S2 casters spamming horror marks while hiding behind a wall of PD. You don't even need a returning for that.

[OmikronWarrior]

If you're going to conducted an elaborate raid in an attempt to take out a high level target, I'd suggest doing it properly. Equip Eye of Void, the penetration amulet, a skull shine cap, and a rune smasher if you can get. Drop in, spam soul slay, retreat.

[HoneyBadger]

I always like to take over a lizardman independent, so I can make lizard shamans. I'm surprised there's not more written up about these guys. I *always* run into lizardman independents-it's a given in any game I've ever played-and they're a nifty caster with 1 Astral, 1 Nature, making them perfect for Curse, and good for Communions. Not so difficult to get them horror-mark spamming, either.

[Poopsi]

It´s not that ellaborate. Likely as not you´ll be spamming arch theurgs anyway (it´s not like there are that many worthwhile recruitable commanders at the capital). And you can make them do this thing out of the box. Heck, you dont even need the items: just script air shield, then whatever spell you want to use (horror mark is specially tempting because it works most of the time), then recall.

Soul slay is an interesting twist, but I dont know how effective it would be out-of-the-box (and one of the nice things about this one is that you can use it with your waiting arch-theurgs while you assemble an army, a communion, or whatever).

[Poopsi]

Addenum: Soul slay Doom Popes work very well, particularily against PD. In fact, I lost a Doom Pope because he wiped out the PD of a province, the coutnerattack had cavalry (solution: spam less soul slays, and beam back home sooner). The only objection I have is that Soul Slayers are more research-intensive.

[HoneyBadger]

This thread gives me an idea for an alternative to Watcher.

Læraðr: (Based on the Norse tree of protection/betrayal)
An immobile generic summon (Tree) that would require Astral and Nature, Conjuration 4 maybe, and blood slaves to cast. it would spam HorrorMark, and summon Lesser Horrors in combat (only). It would be similar to Watcher, in that it would be a defensive unit, but would have the disadvantage of the Lesser Horrors attacking any unit they came across, even your own.

[Trumanator]

What the heck is the "Doom Pope" I don't think I've ever seen it?

[HoneyBadger]

Arch-Theurg = Pope of Doom.

[Ylvali]

I´d say risking an AT to spam horror marks seems a bit of a waste, considering what other things they can do. A theurgh with a skullcap does it just as well.

Big guys attacking you will be horror marked to your desire anyway so it is only worthwhile against those who are unlikely to come your way. This narrows it down to uber-mages of different kinds and pretenders. Pretty niche.

Never really tried the tactic so I´m just speculating.

BTW I like teleporting in a communion against the cold races spamming living water followed by battlefield spells. Mistformed ice elementals backed by astral fires, soul slay, paralyze, thunderstrike, falling frost, etc, etc. Against warmer races combine with multiple wolwen winters and reverse communion spamming numbness and stuff like that.

[Poopsi]

risking an AT to spam horror marks seems a bit of a waste, considering what other things they can do. A theurgh with a skullcap does it just as well.

But that´s more expensive (or at least I regard risking starshines as more expensive than just risking archies, if you lose them). And properly implemented you wont lose the Arch-Theurg, so you can use this while massing them.

[Ylvali]

perhaps, I wouldn´t do that too often either. My point is that Arch theurgs are potentially devastating. Horror mark seems a bit meh, but I´m sure if you say so it might work. I just can´t think of a single turn in any of my MP games where that would have been the most viable tactic. I´ve mostly seen horror mark as a deterrent to attacking me.

[Poopsi]

Granted, there are other spells that can do better (through soul slay is not one of them. A more recent test shows that SS does nothing if the target has moderate MR), but you can do this one with minor research in thaum. And I think it can be potentially damaging (if long term)