I hate horrors

normalphil · #1 February 22nd, 2007, 01:37 PM

I'm with ranger here with thinking that the people responding to this thread haven't quite grasped a part of what he's saying.

I recently ran an EA Abyssia SP game with a F9B6 Moloch, got Malphus on the second turn, and decided to start Devil spamming with soul contracts. The horror marks didn't start showing for a while so I was cheap about it and used regular infantry to guard the contract holders. A few years later, I was getting a fresh horror attack on somebody each month, and started paying attention to them. They with little variation went like this;

Turn 1 (me): Contract-holder either casts Astral Shield or Fire Shield, depending if he's an Anthamat or a Warlock. Size 10 Bodyguard squad travels forward their full movement trying to come to grips with the Horror.

Turn 1 (horror): The Horror flies up to my now uncovered contract-holder and kills him.

Variations were those intances where the horror didn't manage to fully kill the contract-holder on the first turn and killed him on the second turn before the bodyguards could turn around and get to the fight, and that one time where the mage survived long enough for his bodyguards to get back to where the fight was and eventually kill the horror.

When it got annoying I started assigning Devils as bodyguards. That didn't actually work as well as I thought it would... they fly out and attack the horror well enough, but if they don't kill it on the first turn, you're back where you started.

Bodyguards in a Special Attack fight where the oponnent flies have a glaring weakness (although you probably weren't going to even be a speedbump to that Vastness anyway...). I can't really think of a way to fix it beyond positioning your gaurds so that they're a full movement behind the commander. But that's easy to screw up.

Baalz · #2 February 22nd, 2007, 06:38 PM

Bodygaurds I've found work the best against horrors are ones that fly and have magic weapons. Devils may have a hard time killing the horror on the first turn, but (Mictlan) fire blessed Eagle warriors do a knock up job. I imagine spring hawks, for instance, would do equally well.

But yes, in general bodyguarding against horrors is a bit difficult.

Teraswaerto · #3 February 22nd, 2007, 07:07 PM

I don't think it's a problem that a basic human (or something similar) will practically always die to a horror attack. You can avoid getting marked, and once marked the attacks are rare.

Just accept that the commander will die when the horror comes. It's not like Soul Contracts need to be made any better.

Ranger · #4 March 2nd, 2007, 03:00 PM

Should Horror Mark end the game?

If your god gets a horror mark he/she is doomed! They will die again and again while getting weaker and weaker!

I don't mind losing high power magic users, but a pretenter god (main character in the game) should have some defence, otherwize it's game over!

Velusion · #5 March 2nd, 2007, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Ranger said:
Should Horror Mark end the game?

If your god gets a horror mark he/she is doomed! They will die again and again while getting weaker and weaker!

I don't mind losing high power magic users, but a pretenter god (main character in the game) should have some defence, otherwize it's game over!

First - the game is not over if your pretender is not on this mortal plane (aka dead). Why do you keep saying that?

Yes, if you put your pretender in situations where he might be horror marked you are risking his life. Either live with the risk or don't.

I think most people here would agree that getting horror marked should be a very bad thing and don't have a problem with the fact that even pretenders can rarely stand against horrors.

chrispedersen · #6 March 8th, 2009, 01:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ranger

Should Horror Mark end the game?

If your god gets a horror mark he/she is doomed! They will die again and again while getting weaker and weaker!

I don't mind losing high power magic users, but a pretenter god (main character in the game) should have some defence, otherwize it's game over!

You know, there is nothing that says you actually have to bring hm back. He's perfectly safe in the nether world. Don't Call God.

NTJedi · #7 February 22nd, 2007, 08:31 PM

Quote:

normalphil said:
I'm with ranger here with thinking that the people responding to this thread haven't quite grasped a part of what he's saying.

I recently ran an EA Abyssia SP game with a F9B6 Moloch, got Malphus on the second turn, and decided to start Devil spamming with soul contracts. The horror marks didn't start showing for a while so I was cheap about it and used regular infantry to guard the contract holders. A few years later, I was getting a fresh horror attack on somebody each month, and started paying attention to them. They with little variation went like this;

Turn 1 (me): Contract-holder either casts Astral Shield or Fire Shield, depending if he's an Anthamat or a Warlock. Size 10 Bodyguard squad travels forward their full movement trying to come to grips with the Horror.

Turn 1 (horror): The Horror flies up to my now uncovered contract-holder and kills him.

Variations were those intances where the horror didn't manage to fully kill the contract-holder on the first turn and killed him on the second turn before the bodyguards could turn around and get to the fight, and that one time where the mage survived long enough for his bodyguards to get back to where the fight was and eventually kill the horror.

When it got annoying I started assigning Devils as bodyguards. That didn't actually work as well as I thought it would... they fly out and attack the horror well enough, but if they don't kill it on the first turn, you're back where you started.

Bodyguards in a Special Attack fight where the oponnent flies have a glaring weakness (although you probably weren't going to even be a speedbump to that Vastness anyway...). I can't really think of a way to fix it beyond positioning your gaurds so that they're a full movement behind the commander. But that's easy to screw up.

Well you could try providing the horror marked mage/pretender with blood slaves... yes they die easy but they will stay next to the commander.

Aleph · #8 February 22nd, 2007, 09:00 PM

Normalphil - You could have scripted the Warlock to cast Returning and made sure he had a couple astral gems on him at all times. I think you have to store him away from your capital, but besides that it's a foolproof way to keep your Devil factory going indefinitely. And the other solutions listed above work fine as well.

I think we understand just fine, though - we just disagree that it's a problem. Don't intentionally horror mark anyone you want to survive in the long term. Heck, even the astral corruption stuff I was describing on the previous page didn't cause horror marks - it just caused predictable horror attacks under certain circumstances.

Aside: Do horrors fly or teleport? If they fly you could drop a staff of storms into the picture.

Nick_K · #9 February 22nd, 2007, 09:04 PM

IIRC from Dom2 Horrors fly, but they can fly during storms

mivayan · #10 February 23rd, 2007, 11:32 AM

Quote:

normalphil said:
Turn 1 (me): Contract-holder either casts Astral Shield or Fire Shield, depending if he's an Anthamat or a Warlock. Size 10 Bodyguard squad travels forward their full movement trying to come to grips with the Horror.

If it's a strong mage that can kill a horror with a few casts of incinerate or frozen heart, 10 archers might be better. They'll not harm the horror but they wont move either.

Otherwise - oh well. The guy is dead, but at least he got to live in the palace while his friends died in war.