Best 0-4 level combat itens?

[parone]

i know nothing...so take that into account here.

but one of my favorite combos at low level is this

barbarian commander(cheap, easy to find, natural stregnth of 13)

thunder bow
eye of aiming
boots of giant stregnth
bundled with a mage who casts earth might
possibly bear claw talisman

if he is firing at high value targets(giants, cav, even casters) this guy is nasty nasty nasty.

of course, even with forge bonus, you have 6A and 6E in him. and really, you should put a bit of armor on him so you don't lose him to an arrow or two.

but if you were playing vanilla with d hammers, he'd be even cheaper.

[ghoul31]

Raw hide shields are good if you need to equip lots of sc's and you have lots of nature gems

I also like the shield of gleaming gold

Winged shoes are vital in getting your sc's to the provinces they need to be in

[Shardphoenix]

if you need to equip lots of sc's and you have lots of nature gems

...Then you should probably go with vine shields.

[ghoul31]

Raw hide shields give you more defense at half the price. And you need nature 2 to make vine shields. Its easy to find recruitable nature one mages.

[ghoul31]

wave breakers give 4 attacks per turn. They are great for 0 encumberance SC's


cat charms are great to help you get high defense

[Soyweiser]

iirc multiple attacks do not give multiple encumberance. Only one round of attacking gives enc in fatigue.

[rdonj]

Being severely undervalued here:
1. Winged boots. Winged boots open a lot of possibilities on both the strategic and tactical levels. Strategic has already been pointed out, but aside from hitting cavalry or archers (especially if you have fear), boots of flying can be invaluable against self-buffing SCs, and they are basically awesome. They also make it MUCH easier to escape a battlefield alive if things start going to hell.

2. Wall shakers. Some nations practically *need* these, and some nations practically require their use against them. The panic is nice, but the siege bonus is THE reason to buy them. Sieging a fort and having the ability to storm it instantly vastly reduces the amount of time the enemy has to get organized and prepare defenses, and lets you attack with much smaller armies than would be otherwise possible, or SCs, and the time saved storming the fort frees up the sieging units to go attack other provinces much more quickly. Tempo is a very powerful weapon.

And yeah encumbrance only matters for rounds of attacks, number of attacks doesn't hurt your fatigue.

Also under cbm 1.92 that barbarian loadout would be insane, you'd be much better off summoning a sleeper and just handing him a bow. In vanilla or cbm+hammers it's probably fineish though. But that's a lot of gear for just one man.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by rdonj

But that's a lot of gear for just one man.

esp with only 9 mr.

[Shangrila00]

Hmm, doesn't the Lychantropos' Amulet work based on MR? Hand it out to a barbarian chief for a not terrible superberserking high strength fighter that'll eventually turn into a much better skinshifter thug. Don't know how reliably that'll work though.

I don't even know where I heard the amulet works based on MR, the wiki seems to suggest a flat 2% chance per turn, which means it'll take forever to get a skinshifter out of it.

[Makinus]

In both vanilla and cbm i find useful to give a decent bow/crossbow to those indie N shamans (bear/wolf/etc tribe) and script them with Eagle Eyes and then fire at the enemy...

The bow/crossbow used will vary according to the available gems, but a group of 4 of these can do some damage to the enemy, you just need a screen of 20-30 shielded troops to protect them.