Is there any way to prevent being horror marked?

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

In a way... yes it can be prevented. The horror marking spell will target the largest creatures in the battlefield.

I don't doubt that you're right, but how do you know this? Is it experience or is there a reference?

(Edit)
I see that http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Horror_Mark says "Mages often target units with more HP. " Is that what it means?

[PsiSoldier]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Yeah they stack. But what is worse, having a horrormark stacked SC die after half a dozen combats, or have it die in once combat because the S mages were scripted to either cast stellar cascades or mind burn instead of horror mark/astral geyser?

Mind burn and such is not always an option. Particularly with SC's that have insane Magic Resistance... Yeah you might get lucky and Soul Slay him or something but you don't need luck with stacked Horror Marks because they are going to hit regardless of resistance. Assuming they don't hit someone else. If you have several mages capable of horror marking you can easily add a screen of chaff to delay the SC while your mage's horror mark for a few turns and then turn tail and run. The damage will be done and cannot be undone. You can't say the same for Mindburns unless they get lucky and even then a few mind burns are not going to kill most SC's.

[PsiSoldier]

Also I don't believe that is correct about horror mark always hitting the largest enemy unit... I was Horror marking a few turns ago in a game and it looked like it was just hitting normal infantry units when there were cavalry/Knights that were larger. It might normally prioritize higher value targets based on Size but from what I see that is no guarantee.

I had a good sized enemy army in my territory and I had cut off its provinces to retreat to so I teleported my Pretender there to do some horror marking and Horror Calling thus killing their cowardly soldiers who retreated with nowhere to go. Before my main army came in to wreak a bit more havoc. There were No SC's there only infantry and Knights so there was no huge size difference in units but still it didn't target the knights who were larger than the infantry.

[NTJedi]

The horror marking will "usually" target the largest size units. For example several size_6 and 100 size_1 will result with 99% of the time all the elephants being targeted first. For example several size_4 mixed with several size_3 and more horror marks will land on size_4, yet some size_3 will be marked as well.
Bottomline is having large size units\leaders on the battlefield will help prevent horror marks from landing on your valuable leaders\SCs.

[bbz]

Also having them closer on the battlefield helps too(in my experience). So consider having a mage at the front of the battlefield set to cast spells with 2-3 elephants/size 6 units set to guard him.(but that's not 100% good solution because once your Sc's advance then they will be marked instead. but if you keep them at the back with hold/self-buff x5, attack,
The enemy's mages' script will run out and they might be safe from horror marks.

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by PsiSoldier

Also I don't believe that is correct about horror mark always hitting the largest enemy unit... I was Horror marking a few turns ago in a game and it looked like it was just hitting normal infantry units when there were cavalry/Knights that were larger. It might normally prioritize higher value targets based on Size but from what I see that is no guarantee.

I had a good sized enemy army in my territory and I had cut off its provinces to retreat to so I teleported my Pretender there to do some horror marking and Horror Calling thus killing their cowardly soldiers who retreated with nowhere to go. Before my main army came in to wreak a bit more havoc. There were No SC's there only infantry and Knights so there was no huge size difference in units but still it didn't target the knights who were larger than the infantry.

Target priority is for hitpoints, not size.