How to use mage in a battle

[Skolem]

well it seems that horror, undeads or phantasmal warrior summoning is quite common.
when I set mages to this spell after two/three turn most of them stop because of fatigue, do you every mage in armys recuperation items? or how do you solve the fatigue problem if you have no nature at our disposal?

[Cainehill]

Skolem said:
well it seems that horror, undeads or phantasmal warrior summoning is quite common.
when I set mages to this spell after two/three turn most of them stop because of fatigue, do you every mage in armys recuperation items? or how do you solve the fatigue problem if you have no nature at our disposal?

Booster items help to keep the fatigue costs down. (Note that I'm not much of a fan of phantasmal warrior, but it can be a way to produce minor amounts of chaff.) For nations with sacred mages (Pythium, Vanheim, etc) an earth blessing is always nice - 2 or 3 fatigue back a turn isn't much, but it helps, and stacks with normal fatigue recovery. A positive magic scale also helps lower the fatigue costs.

And no, I don't usually give fatigue recovery items to my mages - I think a booster generally gives more of a benefit (halving the fatigue cost for an 80 fatigue spell like bladewind, etc) than spending gems on a recovery item. Hopefully, by the time the mages go unconscious they've done enough damage to win the battle, or at least given the other person a pyrhic victory.

[Crash]

Well,

I'm not the greatest mage user, but I have gotten stomped by several different configurations of mages casting different spells.

One constant I've noticed, people tend to build armies around spells, rather than look for spells that compliment an army.

By this I mean, find a useful/damaging spell (or set of spells), Yvelina gave 2, wrathful skies and horrors, but there are others especially if you play modded games. And then find a country with national mages who can cast those spells with minimal buffing. Then for the army just throw in some 'blocker' type troops to keep the mages upright long enough to do your damage.

I haven't really explored this part of the game thoroughly yet, but I have been on the receiving end of several very effective firing lines .

Crash

[Ironhawk]

As I understand it the use of the Relief spell is commonplace to reduce fatigue. Just get yourself some Nature mages and script them to cast Relief x5 or something. Should put a major dent in your other mages fatigue without the need for equipment or boosting.

[Endoperez]

I think Man is one of the easier nations to learn how to use mages right: you have powerful N-A mages (although limited in number) that can Cloud Trapeze, cast lightning spells (armor negating, not resistable and no racial umminties present) and summon chaff (wolves/dragonflies/false horrors). They also have the mages for cheaply summoning masses of Vinemen and even Ogres if you have gems for a few Thistle Maces, and sneaky Bards who can cast Soothing Song (AoE relief available from turn 1).

You also have the option of Cloud Trapeze - Wrath with Call of Wilds/Winds, so that the battle Lasts long enough for enemy to take damage. You could also cast Storm after the hawks have attacked, so that they with their low movement score will prolong the battle even more.