MA Ermor advice please

[Lord_Bob]

Well, I like the idea of having high grade non-undead armies to kill legions of priests.

W9-S9 bless seems very, very nice, BUT everyone should remember that MA-Ermor has similiar troops to MA-Pythium.

And that means very tough.

[Meglobob]

Shadow Vestals are excellent for early expansion, MA Ermor can easily grab a huge empire in the first 12-20 turns with Dom 10, S9/W9 bless. A thermaturg with 20 shadow vestals will slice through ANY lvl 5 indie. Like a knife through butter. Pump as many of those armies out and conquer indies like you have never conquered indies before.

However, when you start running into other players, your invincible shadow vestals will then run into serious problems. They have huge problems with any fire nation such as Marignon and Abysia. Vestals hate fire! There are also many other undead counters. So I advise, using them in a stealth, raiding capacity after that.

Switch to your human troops then, backed by your strong astral/death magic.

Shadow blast, later nether darts are great offensive spells. Remember, communion/communion slave. Banes/Banelords/Tartarians. Well of misery for extra death gems, other players normally will not try to dispel this global.

There are lots of other stuff to play with but I will leave that for you to discover.

[Shovah32]

Meglo, I havn't used W9S9 too much but 8 F9S9 Vestals led by a thaumaturg(dump any spare resources from that turns recruitment into a legionaire meatshield) is more than enough to challenge most indies level 7 or lower although avoiding knights would probably be a good idea.

[Aezeal]

hmm evil homer seems to have the same idea's as I get when reading all this.. if you dont'go for sacreds then I shouldn't go for a bless build after all... then I can better go for high prod. with a SC but that is a whole other game, appeals less to me (I want a high level mage (pretender for late game high impact spells)) and in all my games so far I've been relatively light on troops and certainly in teh start I always needed as much cash as I could find
... so far.. I'm thinking in the direction of a W9S9 bless with at least 2 order, preferably 3 luck, a reasonably high dominion and if I need negative scales I'd put 2 in sloth first, maybe some heat and cold to since I figure I need less supplies --> do you all agree?

my most pressing concern now remains wether Drain is a problem or maybe even good for my nation (drain 2 for only -1 RP means I can go) --> or are ther otehr things I should take in consideration?

9S9W
3 order
2 sloth
2 cold
0 growth
3 luck
2 drain
and keep dominion on 8
with a imprisoned oracle

so far 3 lcuk has been a given EH used 2 misfortune even which means I could put 5 scales more positive elsewhere.. but compared to my setup just above here.. which one would you all trade for luck.. or would you leave the luck too?

[Jazzepi]

Don't get luck 3 with order 3.

Take order 3 misfortune 2.

Jazzepi