Bandar Log

[Shovah32]

I like an oracle with S9 and either F9 or W9(generally water) which helps both white ones and sacred summoned thugs/SCs. With him imprisoned you can go Dom6, order 3, heat 3(temperature dosnt spread fast enough for it to be a real issue), misfortune 3, magic 1 and 2 picks in production and growth as you want to place them.

[Folket]

I tend to favour production with Bandar log. In general I do not produce that many archers. The bandar log with sticks and stones seems more useful. Two ranged attacks withg strength of longbow at half range. Then I use mostly bandar logs with Iron cudgels and elephants in the front line. That was how I played Kailasa. Bandar log have great capital only sacreds and fair other sacreds so a bless can be very powerful, but ordinary units can still hold in a fight.

A problem with their army is the low MR. Could be ugly against astral nations. When I tried them in single player I had a S9 blessing (for MR) and started to recruit independent scouts as soon as I found them to start my blood economy.

[Shovah32]

With their strong national astral mages i like to boost one or to up to a higher level(generally lucky S5 rishi's with skullcaps and maybe rings of sorcery) to discourage enemies from using astral mages in battle(and once you get your teleporting S9 magic dueling pretender out...).

[Micah]

Kissblade put up a Patala guide, some of the suggestions may apply for BL:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

I'd certainly agree with his assessment that your pretender needs to be out getting his or her hands dirty to compensate for BL's crappy troops. The Log sacreds strike me as worthless. The only time I'd want a tiger rider over an elephant is against soul slay, in which case I'd much rather have 5 other troops instead of either. 10 HP, 11 MR, non stealthy troops for 100 gold? Thanks, but no. The white one warriors are pretty mediocre as well.

Oh, and don't forget to abuse your elephants.

[Shovah32]

I like to take a bless to increase the power of the sacred summons which i use as thugs/SCs(extra MR and either attack and flaming weapons or defence and +50%ap). That, along with the fairly high dominion score i take to spread my good dominion means white ones are both fairly good troops and quite avaliable(also work well with elephants due to normal move speed, good morale and blessings morale boost).
Your troops arent too sucky for MA and patala certainly needs more military help than bandar log as longbows and other non-AP ranged weapons are still perfectly viable in MA.

and like Micah said: abuse elephants.

edit: woa, i just noticed those blood summons. They arent particularly easy to get but wow, that seems pretty strong.
The description of the summon rakshasa spells seems to indicate they are WAD -

Most rakshasas are found in the demon kingdom of lanka, but some are summoned by unscrupulous monkey sorcerors

[Folket]

Micah try the sacred tigers. As far as I know it is the only sacred with three high attack, high damage attacks. With any bless they eat any ordinary unit. Also their other sacerd are just heavy infantry. But with a bless they will be heavy infantry with an edge.

Also I think Kissblade is far off on his assessments on BL's troops. Light Bandar warriors and Bandar warriors with iron cudgel should be the mainstay of your army, assuming you do not have a bless. I know what I'm speaking of since I played Patala in "11p very large" and managed to become twice the size of anyone else. Unless I have a bless I would always take prod 3.

[Sandman]

For a 100 gold unit, the tigers have terrible hit-points and protection. In big battles with lots of arrows flying about, they're likely to take heavy losses.