Good blood summoning spells?
 

Hi all.

I´m newbie in blood magic.
What´s the bests summoning spells in blood magic?

Thnks

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

Yes.
It's pretty much what blood is about.

What you use in any given game depends on what cross-path mages you've got. For the troops, Devils and Demon Knights are particularly good, Storm Demons close behind. The main problem with the early spells is they only summon 1 at a time, so they're expensive in mage time. Ritual of 5 Gates is nice because it summons 5 different demons at a time.
If you've got astral the various Horror spells make good remote attacks or battlefield spells. Hordes from hell is a decent remote attack and you get a demon commander out of it. Nice if you don't have flying commanders to go with your flying demons.
Later on, Ice Devils make good SCs. All the uniques are worth summoning if you can get to them first. Some are better for diversity or battlefield support rather than SC duty.
Of course, if you're playing Mictlan, Lanka or Ashdod/Hinnom/Gath, you also get really nice national blood summons.

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

Keep in mind 1.82 cbm nerfs demons (and 1.7 too I believed) via an upgraded cleansing bell, which does AoE 6 AN 10 non-resistable damage every turn automatically vs demons, thus nations with good national demon troops/commanders and blood summoned demons need to be careful of serious usage of demons as it will result in getting spanked by mass bells.

If you play in those newer cbm games you don't want to overuse the excellent demons and use them sparingly and where unexpected or else risk getting bell spanked.

Otherwise blood has vampires, vines, spawns, none as generally useful as demons but each with their pros. Vampires for defensive stealth (and offensive if you have good dom and/or push it out), the vampire lord is an excellent stealth caster (with obvious syngery leading vampires) that can bloodhunt if you have nothing else for it to do, vines for tanking and spell decoy but is slow to move, spawns only really useful with luck 3 for the elite spawns, in particular basilisk for the death gaze (like a catoplebas), but otherwise summons mostly chaff.

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

The Lords of Civilization (Hinnom national, and limited quantity) should take the prize. Nasty buggers.

Mandehas (late-game Lanka summons... quantity unlimited) come to mind. Decent magic, high hitpoints, flight... and autocasting Darkness, which is /very/ nice if you've got a lot of demons (which you quite probably do if you've done that much Blood research and have the blood income to get Mandehas).

Crossbreeding is nice for the instant volume (quite the bulk summons); even chaff can be fairly nasty with large-scale buffs. One might laugh at at a few hundred chaff... but perhaps not so much if they're Army of Lead + Mass Flight. :D

Lower-end, frost/storm demons are nice for flying shooters.

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

Storm demons are also one of the few archers that can shoot underwater. A nasty shock for any underwater player.

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

Sorry, noob here, but what are flying shooters good for exactly? Two rounds of arrows then melee?

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

Flying archers are good because they offer very good strategic flexibility. Storm demons are just very good in general, though.

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

Storm demons 1) deal an damage 2) this damage actually increases when enemy casts Army of *. So even with LR ring your SCs are not safe.

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

Yes. Or *ammunition* rounds of shooting, then melee. Or directly into melee. They're excellent switch hitters, which makes them unpredictable. Unpredictable is good in Dominions.

Back on topic, I think the only bad Blood summons are the bone fiends and the flying snakes (venom fiends I think ?), and they're only bad in the sense that they're not 100% awesome. Everything else is just groovy.

OK, the cross-breeding spells are also meh if you have neutral or negative luck scales. With positive luck however they'll generate some insane units for the price, not to mention a cheap wall of arrow catchers.

Re: Good blood summoning spells?
 

bone fiends are bad? you really really need to take a second look at them. they are super cheap and you get 7 for 3 slaves. they are by far the most commonly used early blood summon.

and the secret power of cross breeding is seiges. cast it and you get 50+ guys with 10-15 str for holding up those walls.