Quote:
Originally Posted by P3D
All those archer cavalry is nice but they need to be combined with Vine bows. With an Attack of 10 they re unable to hit any half-decent thugs - or opposing cavalry for that matter.
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Well, that's rather a big part of my point, isn't it? That's the the wrong tool for that job. Against high defense troops I'd suggest Imperial Horsemen with 3 attacks apiece, or Imperial Guards to just hold them there while your mages, bows or xbows do the damage.
@Hoplosternum - I disagree that lack of solid thugs is an innate problem. Thugs are useful if you've got them, but not every nation should play the same. You could as easily complain that Neifelheim has a limited ability to drop battlefield evocations.
I don't think getting to constr-4 without battlefield mage support is much of a problem, you've got a very solid troop lineup and production-3 scales - and several things you can construct to give you a good edge against a lone SC or small group of super-elites. What SC enemy pretender is going to give you any trouble at all in year one with my suggested xbows + a couple vine bows? What sacreds are going to come in sufficient numbers to ignore every type of troop you've got - from lances to bows to glaives while being hammered by a pair of ice pebble staffs? Or thunder bows? Or piercers? When you're talking about an early rush by 10-30 uber sacreds plunking off one or two per round while they chew through your 100+ [whatever-seems-most-likely-to-work] will be quite effective. You really should have several castles up before even an early rush is threatening, and with production-3 scales you're going to outnumber any rusher *significantly* while fielding fairly good troops yourself. What specifically would you be worried about? I find TC (particularly if you are on the ball with your troop mixes) to have a pretty solid early game with no need of an awake pretender or immediate mage support for any fight. This is not Marverni or Bandar, TC's troops can hold their own (particularly if they have a good numerical advantage).
Transformation is a poor choice for capital only units who will be used in combat. Against any halfway clever opponent it will significantly increase your casualty rate because of your lobotomized MR. You're only ever going to get one alchemist per turn (less than that as you'll also want a few CMs) so I generally see you being more worried about keeping them alive than their upkeep.
I really don't see any need for an awake pretender, nor a blessing for your sacreds (ignore them). Something like a dormant master lich with D + N + one level of fire will get you blood & death (through lamia queens) and fire skulls. You can forge almost every booster in the game, assuming you empower once from 2->3 in astral you can forge a ring of sorcery & wizardry, so I'm thinking:
Fire skull + ring of wizardry on a 2F alchemist -> fire helm -> elemental staff = F6
Water bracelet + robe + ring + staff + 3W celestial ->W7
Thistle mace + moonvine + ring + ring + 3N alchemist -> N7
A2 alchemist + ring + staff -> air helm + bag of winds -> A6
S3 Astral guy you just empowered + cap + ring -> S5
boots + staff + ring + E2 alchemist -> E5 (you'll eventually toss in a blood stone via lamia queens)
If your pretender doesn't cover you, the lamia queens will leverage you to liches and whatever D you wanted by late game.
I'm just not seeing any trouble casting anything much. Yeah, you're probably not spamming earth attacks or anything specialized like that, but you shouldn't have any difficulty doing big summonings, casting globals, forging artifacts, etc.