Pythium's Magery

[Ironhawk]

Novi said:
So how the hell can I put those lazy bums into good use? (Any advice is appreciated) =)

You should be banned from ever playing Pythium after insulting the Arch Theurgs so!!

But in all seriousness, you are actually shooting way too low with your arch-theurgs. Arch-thuergs are there for heavy-lifting, not day to day battlefield spells. They should be casting things like Will of the Fates, Doom, Solar Brilliance, Storm, Light of the Northern Star, etc. Stuff that your mages-of-the-line just arent able to cast. In addition, your arch-theurgs should be doing all your summoning and ritual work as well. Getting those Angels in play and Mind Hunting your enemy to death.

The regular battlefield spells should be left to your Theurgs. Commune them up and just let loose with Falling Frosts (for normal troops), Lightning Bolts/Orb Lightning (for heavy armored troops), and Soul Slays (for SCs). If you really insist on using an arch theurg for battle spells, they are great for Falling Frost of course but if you get a strong Air mage, they can just repeat cast Thunderstrike till the end of time which is really great.

[Shovah32]

Dont forget enslave mind ironhawk, its useful vrs all but the chaff-iest units.

[TwoBits]

Off the Theurg topic, but does anyone make any use out of the Battle Vestals? Seems that if they could be massed, with a decent light bless, they could do some damage (they're plenty cheap). But is it worth it going that route, with pretender design and all?

[Ewierl]

TwoBits said:
Off the Theurg topic, but does anyone make any use out of the Battle Vestals? Seems that if they could be massed, with a decent light bless, they could do some damage (they're plenty cheap). But is it worth it going that route, with pretender design and all?

Even if you could, I wouldn't recommend it; get a bless that fits your angels, not one that fits your vestals. Vestals make good front-liners against low-archer empires; beyond that, they're just a way to round off your resources.

[Huzurdaddi]

When you want to deal damage you have two spells: Thunderstrike ( which is great ), and Falling Frost ( decent ) and that is about it.

Enslave mind is decent aginst SC's but not usually worth it when you are facing larger armies.

OTOH you can buff your army with quite a few spells: Anti-magic, Astral Healing ( which your theurges will cast by themselves, and quite often in some battles. Leading to some comical communicants ), Arrow Fend, Mass Flight, Doom, Will of the Fates, Fog Warriors.

[Shovah32]

And of course dont forget the suicidal F2 mage with crystal matrix casting phoenix power with multiple communicants attacking closest If its a F2 arch theurg you could cast flight second turn too(and feel free to add in a screen for protection while buffing)

[Manuk]

Enslave mind is useful almost always.

[Cor]

TwoBits said:
Off the Theurg topic, but does anyone make any use out of the Battle Vestals? Seems that if they could be massed, with a decent light bless, they could do some damage (they're plenty cheap). But is it worth it going that route, with pretender design and all?

I have played with a triple bless and found them stellar. 9W9D6air they do some serious damage.

[Shovah32]

Almost any sacred unit would do serious damage with that bless. To put it simply you shouldnt plan a bless strategy on battle vestals because they are fragile and not particularly adept at dealing damage. If they recieve a bless from your pretender thats fine but you really shouldnt make your strategy around them as your already have a passable military and your nation benefits from good scales very strongly(a bit of a bless for theurgs/angels such as nature, earth or astral is another nice bonus but i dont reccomend planning a strategy around it).

[Baalz]

Hmmm, hopefully not too much OT, but has anybody put Bandar Log's recruitable mages to good use? Lots of potential communicants, but I can't find anything terribly effective to do with a S/N mage except in a few cases. Unscripted they do silly things like Touch of Madness and Healing Light. Ethereal elephants are pretty good, and Enslave Mind can be useful against some kinds of enemies, but I have a hard time justifying them as combat mages based on their effectiveness. Anybody more clever than I have something sneaky to do with them short of the high research straight astral spells?