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-   -   Blood SCs (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=48898)

Gurthang June 11th, 2012 11:18 AM

Blood SCs
 
I have a question for the experts of Blood magic out there :evil:

What is the best use of Heliophagi, Father Illearth, demon lords and other blood magic SCs? What are the best combinations of items/spells/scripts etc.? Should they fight alone or in command of small armies?

As a side question: how many demon lords are out there? The manual names only one, the lord of the plague wind. Are there any others?

Corinthian June 11th, 2012 11:55 AM

Re: Blood SCs
 
In my opinion, Father illearth is the best (most cost effective) blood summon and he can be used either as a SC or a battlefield caster or a ritual caster. He has no limits! But also no feet.

The ice devils are the best plain SC. But only against people with cold scales and they also do not fly. Weak magic. Usually, only *I* likes these guys.

The Arch devils are excellent battlecasters and can be awesome with lots of reinvig gear + phoenix pyre + cast spells. Caster-thugs only. Rather mehh as normal thugs. Flight is also nice.

The Heliophagis are even weaker than the arch devils but they usually have great magic and can be used to summon the Demon lords without risk. They mainly exist so that nations can get F4 and D4 without already having those paths though. If you are unlucky you get the plague guy. They are also stealthy. But this rarely mater as they are not great thugs.

The four(?) Demon lords are hard to generalize about as they are all different. They are often hard to make in to SC though because of the lack of body slots. They are all supreme battle and ritual casters due to their awesome magic paths. They are the ultimate diversity vehicles and can cast all the mass demon summoning spells except the frost fiend spell, because why not. No one want to cast that spell anyhow.

Amhazair June 11th, 2012 12:58 PM

Re: Blood SCs
 
To add to the above (which I mostly agree with) I like to equip the Arch Devil with S magic as an anti-SC, as he can teleport on top of your target, has great attack skill and decentish strength.

The Heliophagi can be used as SC with Soul Vortex and then Bloodletting to immediately get rid of the casting fatigue (ususally the weakness of Soul Vortex) and supercharge hit points. This does require sufficient opponents to make bloodletting worth it, and a way to replenish slaves, so I agree it's not necessarily the 'default' use.

Shardphoenix June 11th, 2012 02:52 PM

Re: Blood SCs
 
Heliophagi? Ah, yes, the guys I usually put black heart on...
And archdevils with full kit, fire shield and phoenix pyre can be NIIIICE.

brxbrx June 11th, 2012 04:41 PM

Re: Blood SCs
 
I wish blood magic were more practical.

Maybe a few spells where the caster uses his own blood? Obviously they wouldn't be as powerful as the ones that need slaves, but they could still be pretty cool.

Nightfall June 14th, 2012 03:45 AM

Re: Blood SCs
 
Agree with most of what Corinthian said, although I consider the ice devils to be high end thugs rather than actual SC's.

One thing missed is that vampire lords can be kitted to provide darkness for your blood troops.

Generally though the strength of blood summons is more in diversity than raw combat power.

JonBrave June 18th, 2012 04:16 PM

Re: Blood SCs
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by brxbrx (Post 806304)
I wish blood magic were more practical.

Maybe a few spells where the caster uses his own blood? Obviously they wouldn't be as powerful as the ones that need slaves, but they could still be pretty cool.

I assume(?) brxy is referring to same situation as I find: even trying to be careful with battle-blood-casts and slave location, it's hard to do much in blood battle without using slaves, and then it's hard not to get them all used up (e.g. on imps) throughout battle, whether you meant to or not.

Then again, I could be beyond hopeless...

Shardphoenix June 21st, 2012 02:10 PM

Re: Blood SCs
 
Quote:

and then it's hard not to get them all used up (e.g. on imps) throughout battle, whether you meant to or not.
Just put your blood slaves on scouts that don`t participate in battle, but sneak into the province instead. Same works for gems.

JonBrave June 21st, 2012 03:34 PM

Re: Blood SCs
 
True. But I kind of meant, for the slaves you do deliberately allocate with mages in the battle, they seem to use up more "spares" (I'll add some extra slaves/gems for safety/unexpected/whatever) on, say, imp casting than I think other gem mages use up on silly things --- gem mages will come out of battles with unused gems, but blood mages like to spend all of theirs. Or so it seems to me.

Immaculate June 21st, 2012 04:56 PM

Re: Blood SCs
 
nope.

If the caster doesn't deem the threat worthy of using gems, then they'll just cast sabbath master, sabbath slave without using slaves. Its sort of funny. I had it happen very recently in one game where my patrollers in my blood hunting province recently caught an enemy scout. All my blood hunting units just cast slave/master than the scout got hit with a few arrows an died. No blood slaves were harmed during filming.


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