Frost immune Devils?

[Chazar]

Wow, lots of useful stuff here! More on the background: We're on Karan, the game is quasi-over with me owning pretty much, but I refused to end the game without ever battling Abysia, since I never played a high-magic endgame before, so I insisted to get a beating! (There is Carrion Woods still there as well having quite some armies and most Artifacts as I can tell, but Cainehill seems to forget about this game despite occasional reminders... well, if the devils continue to remain unbeaten and Carrion Woods reawakes, I fear that I could still loose the game though... ) So I want to learn endgame-fighting. Inviting the devils for battle is not a concern, neither is wishing or clamming on my side, since that yields no insights for me...

At least for me, Research was finished a couple of turns ago. We are around 80+. There are healthy Tartarians on both sides (though I cannot heal them - maybe I should try some global spells other than a mere GaleGate...). EarthMagic is not a problem for both sides, too. My first mistake, I guess, was to split up my forces: ~40 StormDemons with AirQueens, ~40 Frost Fiends with 2 IceDevils, ~40 Vine Ogres with Tarrasque. Each pack backed up by 4-8 path-booster equipped seraphs, staff of storms, some seraphs and seraphines, few archers for chaff, etc. The IceDevils brought along an IronDragon, the Tarrasque an awakened Tartarian Sprit (Ember,Blood Thorn, Horrorhelm,Ded Dragon Scale,Rings of Warrior and Regen) and an afflicted spirit.

The enemy fields Devils, Heliophagus, ArchDevils, AbysianMages and a few storm demons. Boosters: Rush of Strength, Heat from Hell, Legions of Steel.

Some numbers:
IceFiends: 8 commanders, 55troops versus 6/340: 3 devils killed.
Storm: 6/50 vs. 10/475: 16 devils killed.
Tarrasque: 16/145 vs. 9/400: 105 devils killed.

So far, so nice. I was not impressed with the IronDragon, but it charged alone into the enemy ranks and died after dealing damage twice. I think it might not be well suited against size3 Devils because of its trampling attack despite having low AP.

Only the pack with the tarrasque did some damage, but that was probably due to three castings of NiefelFlames: A shot left most of the devils inside around 20hp (so 15hp damage), some few as low as 6hp, but never killing. However, I think it might be more cost effective to cast falling frost instead (considering fatigue and gems):

NiefelFlames: Range 35+, Area 25+, Fatigue 2/200, Dmg: 10(a.n.)
FallingFrost: Range 40+, Area 5+, Fatigue 20-, Dmg: 17+

Another thing I should have worried about is the heat: The last battlefield was around heat1-2, while the others where at cold1. I guess NiefelFlames are probably effected by the heat scale, so I shall retry (there are enough devils left ) with casting WolvenWinter before! And I will give Grip of Winter a try.

MurderingWinter was a disappointment though: I tried that a few turns ago, but the report showed only 10 hurt units, none killed for an army of more than 400! I did cast WolvenWinter twice that round to ensure that one of the castings was before, and indeed in the reports, one casting was beofre the MurderingWinter.

Wrathful Skies is nice, but I am deperately wondering what that Cold-Sensitivity of the Devils is good for...

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I meant DragonHelmets: 0 Enc, but 50% Fire Protection to complement the 50% from the burning pearl, sorry! But I guess I should not worry about that anymore: I will try Army of Gold instead, so 50% from the buring pearl might be enough if the boni stack. But Army of Gold does not protect from fires from the sky, so my seraphs should still wear more protective gear...

[Chazar]

Oh, to make AirQueens frost immune, I started out with giving them Rime Hauberks, which comes with a breath of winter effect built in, but maybe the 12 protection is a bit low. Better something else instead?

(BloodThorn+CharcoalShield or Hellsword, RimeHauberk,BurningPearl, Pendant of Luck)

[Huzurdaddi]

Chazar,

I may not know much about the game but I do know about killing devils

So I should have told you about murdering winter. It just will not get the job done in a cost effective way since you need quite a few castings to kill devils. I have gone so far as to cast Wolven Winter 3 times followed by 2 murdering winter without effect. I figure 3 castings of muredering winter should get the job done but that is a *lot* of gems.

Re: Air Queens.

I honestly do not think that they are "all that" against devils. In test after test I have found that prot is the big killer against devils and air queens just don't get high prot due to their low base defence. Ice Devils OTOH have 15 base prot and can get up to 30 quite easily.

Something like
Shiled of Charcoal Shield, blood thorn, Some prot-15 armor, Flame Helmet, and a pendant of luck on something with a high base prot ( eg: any devil commander, an earth troll king, maybe a wraith lord, the wraith lord does not have that much but the etherial does help ) with smack them around like no tomorrow.

The heat aura is a real killer, be sure to be fire resistant.

An AQ wearing the Amon Hotep will obliterate devils. But you can only have one of those.

A golem wearing artifact armor ( monolith, Asefik's ) can survive a long time against devils but he's only useful as a tank for wrathful since he's a clutz. You could also put armor like that on an AQ with a flame helmet that should give you sufficient prot to tank and crush.

As I said above ghost riders are shocking effective against devils. Heck they are effective against everything except specially made armies or really, really good SC's.

[alexti]

Under the domes (where GR wouldn't work) I prefer undead (like the one that comes from Army of Dead, but it doesn't really matter where it comes from) in the conditions of polar night. Bring enough undead and cast darkness+grip of winter+rain (probably it should be snow ) That makes one longdead roughly equal to one devil (less HP, but better att/def, and longdead are not getting tired), and it's not difficult to bring a mass of undead.

[NTJedi]

Huzurdaddi said:
As I said above ghost riders are shocking effective against devils. Heck they are effective against everything except specially made armies or really, really good SC's.

Yes for 5 death gems this spell is seriously overpowering. For the group I play with we've banned this spell... especially after discovering the computer opponents don't use it since most games have at least 3 computer players. In the game we discovered the computer opponents don't use it was Ermor which maxed out his research and owned at least 40 provinces including his capital of 10 death gems per turn... and after 30 plus turns never casted the spell once. Also another side note... Ermor didn't research any blood magic as his research bar flat-lined sooner then it should my guess is others also don't research blood magic.

[jeffr]

Most mention Staff of Storms as necessary to ground Devils. What do you do if you play a nation that doesn't have access to Air or Water magic (i.e. no clam hoarding)?

So, no Staff of Storms and no Air queens.

[Oversway]

Hopefully by the time they have massed devils, you'll have some sort of air access.. randoms on national mages/summons, or independants, or harbringers, fairy queens, etc.

[jeffr]

Thanks. In case I don't find independents or get a random air pick, fairy queens would do the trick.

[Boron]

jeffr said:
Most mention Staff of Storms as necessary to ground Devils. What do you do if you play a nation that doesn't have access to Air or Water magic (i.e. no clam hoarding)?

So, no Staff of Storms and no Air queens.

If you have no staff of storms vs. devils you have imo very very bad success chances .

It should be similiar vs. FoDs also and other strong fliers .

Devils are just the most economic troop atm in Dominions and they have that good abilities that they can also win vs. Thugs or bad equipped SCs when fielded in bigger quantities .

Because they fly if you use fragile mages , and in this special context a fragile mage is everything expect a tartarian or a SC or a pretender , the devils kill them probably already while buffing .

If you ground the devils with Staff of Storms though national mages which can do either water or airmagic have enough time to deal lots of casualities to the devils and then your Mech Men or other Tanktroops can hold off the devils long enough .
Otherwise the devils would probably kill your mages while your mech men are still unharmed .

[Chazar]

Ok, I found out what helps against >400 Devils supported by ArchDevils, Heliophagous and friends:

Fighting in Cold3, casting Army of Gold, Fog Warriors, Wrathful Skies, Murdering Winter, Warriors of Niefelheim, Storm Warriors, Doom and Weapons of Sharpness a couple of times, as well as bringing along 2 squads of mechanical men and two iron dragons, 3 raw tartarians, 1 healthy and proper equipped tartarian and 2 proper equipped AirQueens and cool WraithLord...

But one thing still puzzles me: Why didnt my army rout as they've done before? In previous battles, the AirQueens did almost nothing, for after their 5 turns of buffing & casting, my whole army routed before they waded into meele. This time every side fought to the very end. Why? Did it matter that I had a single berserked unit in my ranks? Again, scores of blizzard warriors (caelian archers) routed and left the high seraph communion (via crystal slave matrices 8 slaves, 3 serpah crystal masters in Earth, Air & Water, 2 relief druids) without any protection...the devils got dangerously close!), but this time, the whole army remained. In those previous battle non-routing mindless like Siege Golems were present, but no berserked units...

Seems like having a single berseker is vital if this is true. Or am I just obersving some odd chances?