What to do about Ermor ....

[Boron]

1. How to deal with Living Statues? (and other high prot non-undead MBs I guess)

living statues have fortunately only 15 hp . so use fire or better air spells against them .
most fire spells are ap so protection is halfed .
most air spells are an so no protection . so a lightning bolt e.g. has 14+ an damage and requirement of only A .
so when cast by a AA mage it should do at least 15 damage and if you cast before aim on your mages almost every lightning bolt hits .
you are standard jotunheim iirc . i am not very familiar with them because i like jotunheim niefelheim most so perhaps air and fire are hard to get with them .

but your jotun gigants should overcome the protection anyways because they have high strength .
the damage throw is : (strength + weapon damage + 2d6 oe) -
(protection + 2d6 oe) .
a living statue has 14 def so it should be not too hard to hit and 2-3 hits from a jotun gigant unit should kill it .

2. Why did my Bane Lord charge into the middle of the undead army and get surrounded, instead of flying to the back and offing leaders like he was ordered to? He only flew halfway down the battlefield.
CC

yeah as vynd said attack rearmost is not too good in most cases you attack the rearside of an enemy squad instead because of the morale checks .

iirc attack archers is without morale checks so attack archers might work better because the pc most times puts his mages in the middle of his archers .

but don't attack ermor with a single SC . they are one of the few nations where SCs are not so good because of the following :
-swarming , so some undeads will always hit
-undead = no healing through lifesteal , so no fatiguerecovery

a special sc with regeneration + reinvigoration items might work but is not worth it because destroying undeads is easy with anti undead battle magic like wither bones .

hope this helps

[LintMan]

but don't attack ermor with a single SC . they are one of the few nations where SCs are not so good because of the following :
-swarming , so some undeads will always hit
-undead = no healing through lifesteal , so no fatiguerecovery

For magnate's Firbolg SC's, the loss of lifestealing against undead could definitely lead to fatigue issues, but banelord SC's don't really have that concern since they are 0-fatigue anyway.

Swarming though is a concern for some single sc's as magnate saw. Better to use them in pairs which splits up the attackers, or use soemthing like a trampler SC that eats up swarms of cheap units. A favorite trampler SC of mine:
Summon a Golem, add these items
- Charcoal Shield (gives flame shield)
- Scrutata Volturnus (occasional shock attacks)
- Starshine Skullcap (+1S, +MR)
- Stymphalian Armor (gives flight, fear and tampling!)
- Boots of Quickness
- Amulet of Antimagic
- Stone Bird or Dancing Trident (gives an attack, since he's not carrying a weapon)
With 3S, the golem can teleport from the lab to a distant province, and in battle can cast Body Ethereal, Astral Shield, Personal Luck, Twist Fate, and Astral Weapon before stomping away.

That's pretty high-end, though and not well in line with Jotun's magic paths.

[Pickles]

Quoting Lintman
"With 3S, the golem can teleport from the lab to a distant province, and in battle can cast Body Ethereal, Astral Shield, Personal Luck, Twist Fate, and Astral Weapon before stomping away."

Hm you have not actually done this I take it - those spells cost over 100 fatigue with the 14 casting fatigue from armour.
I have one of these in a game at the moment he has
Accursed Shield, Main gauche of parrying, Wraith crown, Wings, boots, lucky charm & bracers of defence. The items duplicate his spells of course & he is a raider not a full on SC & he has yet to really take part in a proper battle.
I am Ulm with Forge of the Ancients & the items were a song. He has good prot & defence for a Golem but is magically a bit vulnerable I suppose - this has not come up in games I have played yet.
I just lost a differently equipped one when it fatigued out (It was an error to leave the Army with the relief casting witches)

Pickles

[LintMan]

Quoting Lintman
"With 3S, the golem can teleport from the lab to a distant province, and in battle can cast Body Ethereal, Astral Shield, Personal Luck, Twist Fate, and Astral Weapon before stomping away."

Hm you have not actually done this I take it - those spells cost over 100 fatigue with the 14 casting fatigue from armour.

I have done this and assorted variants of it multiple times, and I've gotten them a bit mixed up. I think I actually did have this exact setup in 1-2 battles and recall the golem fatiging out for a few turns before waking up to stomp its enemies. In those cases, though, the enemies couldn't really scratch it even when it was passed out.

Anyway, if you delete astral weapon from the list, you won't fatigue out. aw isn't that critical, since we're really planning for trampling damage here. If I expected to encounter some un-trampleable enemies (ie: size 5-6), though, I'd put aw back in and remove twist fate

I just lost a differently equipped one when it fatigued out (It was an error to leave the Army with the relief casting witches)

Why did it fatigue out? What spells were you casting?

[Pickles]

Why did it fatigue out? What spells were you casting?

I was being a bit disingenuous. It cast some buffs then used Tempest for an attack spell which is what did it in really.

It was my faulty programming & using it outside an army that did for it. There is no inherent flaw with the concept - which is one I also use.

Pickles

[Boron]

With 3S, the golem can teleport from the lab to a distant province, and in battle can cast Body Ethereal, Astral Shield, Personal Luck, Twist Fate, and Astral Weapon before stomping away.

That's pretty high-end, though and not well in line with Jotun's magic paths.

that is pretty dangerous . just 2 words : MIND DUEL .

i don't remember if i ever saw the ai cast that in sp but i think it does sometimes too .
in mp this is extremely dangerous though .

furthermore i see no reinvigation items / life drain items on the golem sc .
so i have to agree with pickles and add : after the spells he might have 70-80 fatigue but can't recover so after a few tramples he fatigues out .

imho this setup is extremely bad for a golem sc even against ai ermor .

[LintMan]

that is pretty dangerous . just 2 words : MIND DUEL .

i don't remember if i ever saw the ai cast that in sp but i think it does sometimes too .
in mp this is extremely dangerous though .

Yes, it's a bit of a concern, but hasn't been a problem for me in SP (I don't play MP).

furthermore i see no reinvigation items / life drain items on the golem sc .
so i have to agree with pickles and add : after the spells he might have 70-80 fatigue but can't recover so after a few tramples he fatigues out .

imho this setup is extremely bad for a golem sc even against ai ermor .

Golems are lifeless, 0-encumberance so they do not fatigue out just from melee/trampling. I've used them - they work well.

Note: I'm not claiming this is an uber SC combo. It's not - It lacks many resistances you want on a SC and is poorly equipped to deal with large (size 5-6) enemies or enemy SC's since it lacks a good weapon or high defense. Perhaps "mini-SC" or some other term might have been better. And the item set I listed is just my personal choice, which I freely vary to match my current situation -and Pickles' Version is arguably better than the listed one. But my only point in mentioning this golem SC was that it is very efficient for going against large masses of cheap units and killing them quickly without getting overwhelmed.

[Boron]

oh i thought you play mp too lintman .

have you ever encountered an ai casting mind duel ?
i am not sure if i saw them ever casting this spell but i am not sure and i think you have much more sp expierience then me because i always tend to boom there ( wish etc. and not be agressive earlygame ).

[Arryn]

have you ever encountered an ai casting mind duel ?

Not yet. OTOH, I don't play Dom 2 day and night for months on end so my observations may not be as statistically significant as that of some others on this forum (those die-hard fanatics know who they are).

[LintMan]

Boron said:
oh i thought you play mp too lintman .

have you ever encountered an ai casting mind duel ?
i am not sure if i saw them ever casting this spell but i am not sure and i think you have much more sp expierience then me because i always tend to boom there ( wish etc. and not be agressive earlygame ).

My playing time is usually extremely limited and I'm a slow turn-taker so mp would be hard for me to keep up with most games. I might venture into mp at some point if I can find a mega-slow game and when I'm ready to get my butt kicked.

Like Arryn, I've never seen the AI use mind duel, but I've seen other people on this forum say that the AI has done so on occasion, so it's not impossible.

In SP, I'm pretty aggressive in the early game, but in mid to late game, I tend to slow down and boom also - it's just too much fun forging items, making wishes, etc to rush to end the game.

It seems we've usurped magnate's AAR (DAR?) thread... How's it going there, magnate?