Questions about Hinnom

[archaeolept]

Originally Posted by SlipperyJim

Use Dawn Guards & Chariots as the bulk of your armies, with those lovely Avvite archers for fire support. Dawn Guards are really amazingly good. They're heavy infantry with good stats, magic weapons, and strategic move of 2. You can recruit them anywhere, and they can go toe-to-toe with anything other than dual-blessed Niefels. Rawr.

eh, that's rather an exageration. most good sacreds will cut them up. They're giants, with the weaknesses giant troops generally have - expense, supplies, and being swarmed.

[JaghataiKhan]

Originally Posted by archaeolept

eh, that's rather an exageration. most good sacreds will cut them up. They're giants, with the weaknesses giant troops generally have - expense, supplies, and being swarmed.

The thing is you need an expensive air bless against them, not the best thing unless you ONLY face hinnom where it should be a common used one, I think I can say that with the experience I had from a bit of gaming. Plus a Dawn blade, a non sacred unit weapon which is basically a magic item to itself with very good attack and damage in the hands of a hoardable unit type is really good. Plus 3 supply isn't too difficult to provide if you can crank up a few food carriers, easily recruitable achas bearing the wineskins they can easily make...

[SlipperyJim]

Originally Posted by archaeolept

eh, that's rather an exageration. most good sacreds will cut them up. They're giants, with the weaknesses giant troops generally have - expense, supplies, and being swarmed.

Eh, the Dawn Guards aren't unbeatable. Sorry if I implied that they were. But they are really, really good.

They're giants, but they're only size 3 giants. So you can get two of them in every tile. The Dawn Guards are well-equipped, with good stats and even a magic weapon. But that's not what makes them so special. Dawn Guards are extra-cool because they can be recruited anywhere. You can literally fill your opponents' provinces with these guys.

W9F9-blessed Helhirdlings (as just one example of uber-blessed sacreds) are going to cut through nearly any normal troops like an oxyacetylene torch through tissue paper. Dawn Guards won't be much more than a speed bump for them. They'll survive a bit longer than most normal troops, but they still won't get the job done by themselves. But that's okay, because you can recruit a lot more Dawn Guards than your opponent can recruit uber-blessed sacreds. While he has one unstoppable army rampaging around, you can have three or four armies scarfing up all of his provinces. And your scales are better than his scales, so you win a battle of attrition.

Anyone is going to have trouble against a well-played bless rush. Hinnom might have less trouble than most other races, but they'll still have trouble.

Hinnom has answers for the common problems of giant troops:

• Cost -- Good scales help here, as does rapid expansion. Honestly, anything good will be expensive, so everyone needs gold.
• Supply -- Add a couple of Acha with supply items. Poof, no more starvation! As an added bonus, the Acha can heal your troops when they start racking up afflictions.
• Swarming -- Throw in a number of chariots for flanking attacks to trample the swarmers.

Androphag Archers would be a problem because of the poisoned arrows, but the Dawn Guards do have shields. That should help a bit, right?

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by SlipperyJim

Androphag Archers would be a problem because of the poisoned arrows, but the Dawn Guards do have shields. That should help a bit, right?

The poison damage still affects a unit, and stacks up, on shield hits.

[SlipperyJim]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

The poison damage still affects a unit, and stacks up, on shield hits.

D'oh! So fighting Sauromatia will be highly annoying. Bring along some Acha with Nature boosters to cast Poison Ward....