MA Argatha - go punch a mountain

[JimMorrison]

You don't even need B4, as by the time you can actually build secondary stone forgers, you'll be able to forge yourself a Ring of Sorcery. I haven't looked at the points, but that might buy you a scale, maybe get you to Turmoil2.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Jazzepi

What? No props for the B4 bloodstone factory Forgelord idea? :O
Jazzepi

Heh, despite my disclaimer that I don't claim to have come up with any of these ideas myself, I will admit there was a bit of teeth grinding as you posted this straight out of the written portion but as yet unpublished guide I was putting together.

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

You don't even need B4, as by the time you can actually build secondary stone forgers, you'll be able to forge yourself a Ring of Sorcery. I haven't looked at the points, but that might buy you a scale, maybe get you to Turmoil2.

The B4 blessing is not inconsiderable, and as long as you're going to B3, the points to get an extra +2 strength on your sentinels is worthwhile. It really adds up when you look at battle after battle.

[Jazzepi]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Heh, despite my disclaimer that I don't claim to have come up with any of these ideas myself, I will admit there was a bit of teeth grinding as you posted this straight out of the written portion but as yet unpublished guide I was putting together.

I guess great minds think alike?

If you're going to turn your forgelord into something other than just a blood stone ***** (BSB), I would consider dropping the silliness of all those high level paths. Give him S3, F1, E2, B3. Forge boots, a hammer,a crystal coin, a starshine skullcap, then you can push out the next two levels of rings from there. Personally, I don't know where you're going to get all this astral from. With no natural mages, you better hope you find some lizard shamans. Not that you can afford to dump a temple + lab into an empty province with such bad scales

To me, Argatha is a lot like Ulm, but with national mages who don't happen to have a forge bonus. I wouldn't even bother trying to get secondary bloodstone mages up, I would focus exclusively on making the forge lord your sole source of bloodstone forging.

But I think I'll get in on a CBM MA game with Argatha, and see how I do.

Jazzepi

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Jazzepi

I guess great minds think alike?

If you're going to turn your forgelord into something other than just a blood stone ***** (BSB), I would consider dropping the silliness of all those high level paths. Give him S3, F1, E2, B3. Forge boots, a hammer,a crystal coin, a starshine skullcap, then you can push out the next two levels of rings from there. Personally, I don't know where you're going to get all this astral from. With no natural mages, you better hope you find some lizard shamans. Not that you can afford to dump a temple + lab into an empty province with such bad scales

To me, Argatha is a lot like Ulm, but with national mages who don't happen to have a forge bonus. I wouldn't even bother trying to get secondary bloodstone mages up, I would focus exclusively on making the forge lord your sole source of bloodstone forging.

But I think I'll get in on a CBM MA game with Argatha, and see how I do.

Jazzepi

Again, I don't think you should underestimate the benefit of the minor blessings to your holy statues. +2 attack means that awesome damage gets delivered *much* more often. +1 MR helps against the biggest threats you'll have to face through most of the game. +2 strength really adds a significant amount against ultra-heavy opposition, and the 2 reinvig not only helps your mages (significantly) it makes quite a difference in fielding your non-cold immune troops under grip of winter, etc. Those points you're paying for the blessing, not for the forging.

[Jazzepi]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Again, I don't think you should underestimate the benefit of the minor blessings to your holy statues. +2 attack means that awesome damage gets delivered *much* more often. +1 MR helps against the biggest threats you'll have to face through most of the game. +2 strength really adds a significant amount against ultra-heavy opposition, and the 2 reinvig not only helps your mages (significantly) it makes quite a difference in fielding your non-cold immune troops under grip of winter, etc. Those points you're paying for the blessing, not for the forging.

I just don't think it's necessary. It feels too narrow to me. I'd rather have more troops on the field, then less troops that are slightly better. Also, if all your golem crafters have W1, there's no reason to worry about the 2 reinvig off of the bless when you can simply script them to cast cold resistance, and you can forge 3 gem (with hammer) rings of cold resistance for the few oracles you might want to field in a battle. IMO, the statues aren't going to be fatigued a significant amount to even make it worth worrying about. Obvious 0 fatigue is better than 10 fatigue, but the difference isn't by much. The +2 reinvig bless is the only one I would really consider worth while out of all of them since it makes it easier for your mages to spam spells when combined with summon earth power.

To make my point I compared the magic paths you posted above to the ones that I did. To pay for the bless you're advocating it costs 152 more points then the build I pointed out, which is 3.8 ticks on the scale chart (I'm sure you can work 4 ticks out of it total by fiddling with dominion).

At the end of the day I'd rather have better scales, then a minor bless.

Jazzepi

[Radio_Star]

When I was trying (and failing) to hammer out a guide for Agartha, probably the most fun I had was with golem crafters on the field behind the golems. You've got the earth/water/fire for all the rust/acid spells which don't faze your armorless summons in the case of friendly fire and even the 16ish AP of acid rain isn't really that detrimental to your mid to high 20 prot. On top of this, I've found it brutally effective to hold the line with attentive statues, break down the armor with rust/acid spells and then finish up with that old chestnut blade wind. Your high prot statues will laugh it off but whatever they're holding in place(who've recently had their armor nuked) won't be laughing long.