MA Marignon

[llamabeast]

I would say dormant rather than imprisoned is quite important in a rainbow pretender. When he first wakes up you will want him to wander around site searching. It takes quite a while to cover ground site searching, and then bootstrap your way into the different magic paths, and being imprisoned is basically a 24-turn setback to that.

I went for level three in a number of paths because that's all that's needed for most things - for earth, water and nature, level 4 will only rarely be necessary, and level three is definitely enough to get going. Obviously level 4 gives you a minor bless, and is better if you can afford it. Air 4 is a good idea though, because the air boosters are level 4.

I haven't particularly missed having fire and astral on my pretender, with the odd exception (he can't make moonvine bracelets). Your mages can do most useful fire/astral stuff, such as forging fire/astral items, fire/earth items, and just high level fire and astral spells (I've had a couple of S4 guys, although that's very lucky, and of course F4 is very common).

For Evo, levels 3 and 5 are the major milestones in my opinion - fireball and falling fires respectively. Fireball is enough to make your mages very useful. If you have 10 or 20 fireballs flying towards your opponents every turn they won't last long. Phoenix power (Conj 3) is very important to make your mages more efficient though.

[Warhammer]

(casts reanimation)

There, I think I have it. Yeah, I'm bringing this thread back to life.

I recently got my tail kicked in a MP game using Marignon. There were a few items that I noticed in using them that I think need to be explored further.

1) The lack of any early summons was very damaging. I think it is necessary to get some early access to death magic if for nothing else than chaff for your crossbowmen.

2) Starting next to a nation that has large units that can trample is damaging to your health. An early possibility to counter this is paralyze. However, that is Thau-4 which means that you need to divert your attention from Ench-4 or Evo-4.

3) Which is a better research path, Evo-4 or something else early on in the game? Spamming Holy Pyre is nice, but is there something else my mages should be doing?

4) The Evo path makes the most sense so that my Astral mages can start casting Mind Hunt at Evo-6. Is this a good mid-game strat?

5) What is the best mix of troops? Crossbowmen make plenty of sense, but how many Men at Arms, Swordsmen, and Pikeneers should I be using?

6) Bless troops and a bless strategy, are they worth it with Marignon? Knights of the Chalice are nice and they can recuperate. With the right bless they can be very capable troops. What would the best bless be for them? How would that work with your flagellants? My guess is that a W9 bless or a F9 bless would be best. I could take an imprisoned pretender and go for a W9E4D4B4 bless and hope for the best. That would give a +4 defense, additional attacks, added strength, reinvigoration, and increased chance of affliction (great for flagellants). The blood would give additional summons, but how powerful would this be with only your pretender able to blood hunt and the like?

7) What scales work best for Marignon? You need cash for your mages, priests, and Paladins/Knights. Your other units, are high resource units. Death is definitely a no, no with your old mages.

Any thoughts about any of this? I know some of it has been mentioned before, but I am trying to take a fresh look at this.

[OmikronWarrior]

I usually end up with a S9F9 bless for Marignon for one reason, the Baphomot pretender chasis who starts with S1F1. He's imobile but costs 0 pretender points. Which is good. He has a base of D3, which is also good for buying masses of flaggelants. And the Twist fate bless bonus works out fairly well with flaggelants, who with very low protection are likely to die quickly when exposed to arrows or frontline action. Meanwhile, they get two attacks per turn so when combines with a high fire bless they deal incredible amounts of damage. Yeah, you'll loose alot of them, but they're pretty cheap and can be obtained at any fort. Also, since the sacred calvary get multiple attacks they work out very well with a F9 bless.

Thats just a side show though. The core of Marignon's offense is going to massive numbers of crossbowmen enhaced with flaming arrows (which you should have a Grand Master availabe to cast with out any additional enhancements. Be sure to place some melee troops in front to keep them safe, though.

As for scales, I'm always sure. I usually go for the money (order 3, growth 3) no matter what nation I play. With Marignon, this translates into very large crossbow armies.

For an end game, though, always look to use your national angel summons. The Seraph is probably the most powerful SC chasis in the game, provided you use the right equipment and spells.

[Burnsaber]

Warhammer said:
4) The Evo path makes the most sense so that my Astral mages can start casting Mind Hunt at Evo-6. Is this a good mid-game strat?

I'm not really familiar with Marignon, but you should take into account that Mind Hunt attacks with either Mind Burn or Soul Slay, depending which you have researched, so it basically requires you to have Thau4 as well. You'd also need Con6 for Starshine Skullcap so that your S3 Grand Masters can cast it. (Spell Focuses wouldn't also hurt)

But if prepared correctly, Mind Hunting is an awesome stragedy. But it takes some time to set up so you won't fend off any rushes with it. When I play Abysia (which also has the Astral + Fire combo to some scale), I start with evocation 3 to get fireball (this also gets you Astral Probing quickly) and then Thaumaturgy 2 to get Radars (Augury, Auspex you know). The more early you find the gem sites in your territory, the more gems you get from them during the game. Then I see who my neighbours are and change my research accordingly to get the right spells.

[Warhammer]

I'm not too worried about rushes. Rushes are going to be fended off with our troops. I think I made some errors in judgement with the standard Marignon forces.

I think Marignon IS a bless nation. I just need to figure out the best way to do that. Flagellants and your old mages are very good candidates for a N4+ bless. The Knights of the Chalice and the mages are good candidates for an Earth bless. The Knights of the Chalice can also readily accept both a Fire and a Water bless. Flagellants can benefit greatly from an Air bless, but I'm not sure that taking an Air bless specifically for that is a good idea.

The only downside to a Fire bless is the lack of magic diversity that Marignon has. Therefore, my pretender should have at least Water, Death, Nature, Air, and Earth magic.

So the question comes down to what is the best major bless for Marignon?

[Huzurdaddi]

I think that marignon is best served by focusing on it's most potent offensive weapons: Crossbows and Flaming Arrows. The crossbows are recruitable everwhere and do heavy damage. The Grand Masters are only recruitable in the home province, but you only need 1 per army.

By focusing on crossbows this leaves you free to go for an SC pretender that you can use from turn 1, like the Wyrm. This allows you to get a good jump in provinces which allows you to make more crossbows.

Yes, you sacrifice magical diversity for the long term. This is a problem. Lucikly you can use Astral gems as a substitute for death gems for you Thugs/SC's. Angels are simply not as efficient as Banelords as when used as thugs but hey, at least you have something.

Anyway, give me LA Marignon any day of the week over MA Marignon, what a nation!

[thejeff]

Why a Nature bless for Flagellants?

Flagellants die. In masses. That's what they do. I see blesses for flagellants as a way of keeping them alive long enough to reach the enemy (Air, Astral9) and doing more damage when they do (W9/F9). What does Nature get them? Regen on their low hps won't help much. It'll keep them from getting more afflictions, but they start with afflictions and often die on the first hit anyway?
For the ones who start with disease? Throw them into battle and let them die.

Fire doesn't help with diversity, but it is thematic.
Maybe W9,A4? Water helps both sacreds, even the small Air bless helps Flags. A minor Earth bless is nice but not very helpful even for the mages.
A minor Death bless might be good, but it's so unthematic for Marignon, I don't use it.

[Warhammer]

I noticed with the nature bless that not all flagellants had afflictions. The affliction "bonus" also helps your old mages from getting any as well. That is a great boon in and of itself, even taking flagellants out of the equation.

You're right about the Earth bless. I can change that to an Air bless. That also takes care of the lack of air booster problem. A1 on a mage can't do much, but A2 or A3 is pretty nice.

The problem with water is that it does not help your Knights' or flagellants attack skill. The flagellants are going to get hit even with a good water bless, so the +4 attack seems more appealing to me. But, you are right it is limiting as far as diversity goes.

Now, what might be good is a W9F4A4D4. I need to check chassis and see what will work.

[thejeff]

What the water helps the Flagellants with is the extra AP. Obviously extra attacks, but the movement lets them spend less time crossing the fields getting pelted with arrows.

I didn't know about Nature bless helping with starting afflictions for flagellants. How sure are you of that? Not all flags start with them anyway, just most...

I'm also pretty sure it doesn't help with mages getting old age afflictions. Growth scales help, maybe. Nature magic on mage increases max age, but the bless should only affect them when they're blessed, not with aging checks.

[Warhammer]

If the Nature doesn't help the mages then the points there might be better spent on Growth scales.