Couple spells

[Gurthang]

I have couple questions:

1. is the cursed effect engendered by Doom (Alt 5) the same as a Horror mark, or is there a difference?

2. Does Bloodletting (B5) only affect enemy units, or does it ffect your own troops as well?

Help appreciated!

[Soyweiser]

Curse is curse. Horror mark is horror mark. Look at the FAQ for more info.

Bloodletting effects all units. (Still a battle winner btw, you only kill your own slaves a bit to quickly, lower the enemies morale, horror spawn the retreat routes).

[Gurthang]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Still a battle winner btw, you only kill your own slaves a bit to quickly, lower the enemies morale, horror spawn the retreat routes

Would you expand on it a little bit? Should it be cast by a group of mages alone, unaccompanied by troops? And won't it affect the other mages involved in the sabbath?

[Soyweiser]

Sabbath? Why use a sabbath?

The important thing to understand about bloodletting is that it does 1 AN damage. Which means 1 AN damage + random roll attacker - random roll defender. With some luck you do a lot more damage than 1.

Vs a regular army use this. This tactic only works vs regular armies. Or large groups of mages supported by regular armies.

A few blocking units with loads of HP. (They do not get killed by the bloodletting, and stop enemy fast moving units attacking your mages). Like trolls. These are set in the front.

A couple of b4 mages. Each casting as much bloodlettings as they have slaves. You need strong mages for this, or sacrificial mages. (Or let them have big MR, so you could sabbath them up, and have one mage cast a mr increasing spell (there is an astral one, and a earth one, they do not stack). One mage also casts blood rain. (Lowers morale). Bonus if you also have terror casters and a wailing winds caster. Additional bonus if your blockers have fear.

There are 2 objectives, force as much fear checks as fast as possible to have groups of units run away. And remove 75% of the starting hp from the battlefield to force a retreat. (The additional fear checks help with this, as any unit that runs away counts).

Also, use flying, teleporting or remote attack spells to remove any retreat routes. With no way out, any dude who runs away is dead.

The best moment to use this is when your enemy is sieging a fort. You can easily kill the other provinces (No need to use flying to remove the province of origin). And your enemy probably doesn't move away.

I have used this to beat a very large marignon army using jotunheim. Wereform skrattir as support/blockers. And b3 skrattir with blood boosters and penetration items as bloodletting casters. (I gave all my commanders regen, so bloodletting didn't kill them). I already knew he didn't script antimagic. (Else I would have needed to use sabbaths, to reverse commune hellpower and power of the spheres for additional penetration).

If you have a large group of strong troops. (Giants for example) and your enemy uses only normal troops (10 - 15 hp humans). You can easily use a couple of bloodlettings to kill a lot of basic troops. While doing only minimal hp damage to your own troops. (Bonus if you cast antimagic yourself first, double bonus if you have the defenders advantage, and are able to cast antimagic and then a couple of bloodlettings before your enemy can react).

More nasty stuff, soften up the enemy army with a few rains of toads first. If you are not able to make them run away, or you do not take away all the retreating provinces, the diseased units will not regain the HP. And diseased units are easier to kill using bloodletting. (As they already have some damage).

Starving units are also a bonus. (Less morale).

Super bonus, having Gift of Health up for yourself.

You might not want to use this tactic as bogarus. Starets have 10 (-old age) hp and only 16 mr. They need antimagic first. But for a lot of the blood nations that have large sacks of HP as mages this works. (Giant nations, Lanka).

(Mix and match vs flying units, and other problems).

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Gurthang

Would you expand on it a little bit? Should it be cast by a group of mages alone, unaccompanied by troops? And won't it affect the other mages involved in the sabbath?

So to answer your questions in order.

1. Yes, I just did. See post above this one.
2. Do what is most advantageous to your own situation. (If you have troops that can survive, by all means use them).
3. The spell says all units on the battlefield, so yes, it hits all your mages. (Including the caster btw, but usually the spell saves him). I don't know if the regen effects are added to the slaves. I think not, but not sure. Quick test seems to indicate it doesn't give sabbathslaves back hp or fatigue.

[Soyweiser]

One more post:

Next time, choose a better subject title. List the spell in it. "couple spells" is horrible, and not informative.

Also, bloodletting does magical damage, so if somebody uses a lot of mist form (like casting fog warriors) you can use this to get rid of it.