questions about fire magic

[Dragar]

Has anyone had any luck using the short range fire spells that emanate from/surround the caster? I've never tried before as I prefer to keep fire mages away from the melee, but notice that they can do a fair bit of damage over a wide area when someone gets close to them, and with a fire immune army like abysia's there is no collateral damage. Further you avoid the low precision most fire mages have, the fireballs and such tend to be highly effective only against very large numbers, else you spend a lot of effort burning grass.

Has anyone every built a thug on that premise? I see two major problems:

1. Fire doesn't do much for survival - would need a fair bit of equipment and/or buffing from other mages.

2. Is there anyway to get them to attack in that fashion? Give them an attack order and they won't cast, don't script them to attack and they will just sit back and lob longer range spells..

Perhaps placing all troops at the front with the mages, setting them to guard commander, would bring the fight to the mages and they'd choose the short range spells? That way there would be some decent protection for the mages too.

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by Dragar

Has anyone had any luck using the short range fire spells that emanate from/surround the caster?

I've used it a couple of times with abysia's flying mages. (Edit: I suppose you could do the same with any fire mage and a pair of boots of flying, though most will have a few less hp iirc) Giving them a bodyguard of devils (flying & fire immune) and scripting something like Phoenix fire, hold, attack, flame eruption (x2), cast spells. If you time it right you can arrange it so they come into contact with the enemy about the same time your foot troops would, (script in an extra hold if necessary, or cast long range spells, though that uses up fatigue you might prefer to use later) and if all goes well it gives truely spectacular results. It's risky though. On the first turn after the attack order they're generally quite exposed and might get killed, and after that they're still close to the front and might end up getting caught in any kind of nastiness. I would only risk it in a truely must-win battle that's otherwise hanging in the balance.

You could of course do the same with Arch Devils with some equipment without the risk of dying so easily, but then there's so many ways you can use arch devils... And of course using them as mages will fatigue them out, so if you go on and loose the battle you're likely to loose the devil too.