Arcoscophile

[Blitz]

In the interest of contributing something to this forum aside from counter-vq arguments... I bring you (drumroll):

Blitz's Guide to Thug Arcoscphile Quick-Expansion

One of the more popular nations is Arcosphile, and it's easy to see why. They are the only nation with a national 3-random (elemental) mage, and have by far the cheapest 3-astral mages. They have elephants (nothing cooler than an elephant), heavy infantry, recuperating priestesses, cheap labs, a pretty nice bless unit, and a fantastic leader in the strategos. Downsides include very weak cavalry and archers, very little blood/death capability, and a lack of any bonus temperature picks. Your troops are either very expensive (elephant), require heavy resources (Hoplite), or even a little of both (Hypaspist). No problem.

Rainbow pretenders are pretty cool. Unfortunately they aren't too good at what we want to do, which is expand our territory, dominion, and domain at an exponential rate. Arcoscophile has the race advantage of being able to crank out a mini rainbow mage for 180 gold. Let's use this to our advantage and use more of a grunt attacker and really work those scales. Since our priesesses can heal all afflictions, we're not going to have to worry about getting our nice pretender all scratched up. Sadly her abilities don't work on the undead, so the GK is out. A vQ is going to cost way too much without killing scales. The other pretender who can really work those independants is the old favorite, the Wurm. For 75 bucks you get a big ugly snake that can lay the lumber on indies like no other. Even better, if we don't spend any points at all on magic, we don't even have to worry about him getting whacked. Just bring him back and heal those whammies and he's good as new.

If you just can't stand to think that your avatar will be obsolete by turn 50 just remember Arcosphile is most likely going to be swimming in elemental gems in the midgame, so the option is always there to empower our snake later. Frankly, I wouldn't bother because there's better things to spend them on, but 80 gems for Air 2 isn't a bad idea. We get mistform, cloud trapeeze, and mirror image... and a winged helmet brings him up to air 3. You can get astral for 80, throw on a couple of + items and bingo, astral 4. This gives astral weapon, gateway, and a few other toys. It's not always the best course of action, but if you cringe at the thought of a thug pretender, keep these options in mind.

For 180 points we get the snake and a hefty 8 base dominion. Cheap castles and quick expansion go together like peanut butter and choclate, so another 120 on a wizard's tower leaves us 200(!) for scales. I'd suggest a healthy dose of order, but spend as you see fit.

Turn 1

Our pretender is a real house against indies. I wouldn't send him in alone against knights, but anything but undead will likely rout after a couple of rounds. 90% of the time you can send him and your starting army out on the first turn... not advisable in serious MP, but if you are the gambling type, the odds are in your favor. Build a priestess, a couple of mammoths, and a few hypaspists. Your snake is army #1. This will be army #2.

Turn 2

Prophetise your priestess. Send out the snake if you haven't done so already. You could send out the mammoth army as well, but usually you won't need them, and if anything they might rout a battle you had won. Watch your snake trash the indies. Smile at your cunning. Build another priestess, and as many hypaspists as you can.


Turn 3

Send your snake off in a random direction. Barring that, send him on a beeline for the nearest chokepoint you wish to secure. Did you know that priestesses are Arcoscophile's best researchers? Neither did I. Now we both know. One researches, the other goes out to play with the army. Stack your mammoths with all your hypaspists and cardaces. This way they don't rout, see? I didn't know that either. If we had a decent bless effect we could use the Heart companions, since their morale is amazing. Amazing how many armies rout against a death 6 blessing and 4 mammoths. We're not using a lich today though so we'll stick to the 2-move hypaspists.

You are looking for a druid province. Look for "woodsmen/blowpipes". Avoid the Dark Vines, those are for the snake to take. Since our dominion is so high, we can see a lot farther than other people. Our scouts can do other things for a while. Like build a fortress in a choke point. How's the snake doing? When he gets to that chokepoint, let the scout build that fort ao he can do other things. Like eating barbarians. Careful with those barbarians though. They can take out a snake on his bad days. Build a Mystic and a few more elephants and hypaspists. 4-1 hypaspist/elephant ratio works nice. When we have 4 mammoths and 16 hypaspists we start our next army. No sense slowing down our expansion.


Turn 4

Look at your new Mystic. Does he have 3 of the same skill? No? Don't feel bad. This only happens 1/64 times. When you get one of these, save him. He's good. He makes bears and lions and air helmets and clam hammers. Does he have 2+ skill in water? This happens a lot more. If he has good water skill send him out looking for sites. We need water gems for clams. No not to abuse them... we're actually going to use them how they were designed! Lastly, if he has 1 in earth, fire, and air, you can send him out scouting too. Since we plan on giving each province a quick level 2 water scan, this guy will quickly cover the other three. if your new mystic dosen't have either of these two skills (or a nice triple), rename him to "dumbass" and put him to work in the library. Actually I tend to rename them to "WWE" for a 2W 1E mage, etc. You do what you like, but this saves me time.

Once we find 1 of each of the 4 elemental sites, we're going to stop searching and just use the searching spells. Just cast it whenever you can. Make sure you do astral scans ASAP. We're going to go through a few thousand astral gems, so best to get them coming in ASAP. Which reminds me. You researched that first. Get all the searching spells including archaic record before you bother with anything else. Since your mages aren't doing anything but researching and looking for sites this is probably what they should be thinking about when they are not looking for sites.

Your army should keep moving, have that priestess in the lab meet up with them. Your prophet needs to look for holy and forest sites. Remember you are looking for a driud. Can you guess why? That's right. He's going to look for sites too. Later he will make things for you, but for now that's his job. Priestesses can make both labs and temples and cost almost nothing. Make lots of these chicks and send them out. When they aren't healing they can make temples. Making temples is good. Our dominion dosen't kill people like emor or... kill people like Miasma, but it stops those bad things from happening to you. This is a good thing. If you have to chose between an elephant and a temple, you probably want to make the temple. Don't stop making mystics though. Except this turn. You have no money, so make a strategos. This guy is really good at standing behind elephants with a flag. Eventually you will have one standing behind all the elephant armies. He's a really good dude to have a herald lance on. They usually carry a bag of wine too. This is the fourth time I've erased the word "mammoth" and replaced it with "elephant". I'm not going to do it anymore, so from now on mammoth means elephant.

How's the snake doing? Unless he's got some nasty affliction like say... well he can fight through just about anything. So unless he's got 4 afflictions let him fight. Oh did you know that your priestesses can heal on the move? Set them to heal and move the army. They will work fast and do their healing before the strategos wake the mammoths up. This is a nice move to do say just before you search and then make a temple. Make sure the army always has at least one priestess in it though. The mammoths really like the girls and if they aren't around they sometimes run the wrong way and might turn said strategos into paste.

Turn 5+

Keep making mystics, elephants, and hypaspists. Some people use hypaspists on the flanks and hoplites in the middle. Those guys have it backwards. Greeks are kinda lazy... instead of sending someone ALL THE WAY AROUND, they just send their mammoths THROUGH people. No need for flankers, see? However that dosen't mean other people don't use them. Notice how much longer that pole on the hoplite is? Looks longer than a lance, dosen't it? Hoplites are better at countering a cavalry charge than any other arcoscophile unit. Ever wonder why those golden era myrmidions look good but basicly suck ***? They use short swords, which not only have a hard time getting through spear walls, but frankly any weapon at all. They also do horrible damage, which is why they are basicly useless for anything except meat shields. If they had spears they might not suck, but don't quote me on that.

Keep using snake to beat on indies. Don't worry so much about searching for holy sites, but if your priestesses aren't doing anthing feel free. They tend to do well at other things though, so this usually isn't the best use of their time. Check on your armies every few fights. Any limpers or badly injured units should be left behind for a priestess to gather up. If they can't keep up... leave 'em.

It took me a while to figure out how to use arco mages. They do have communion abilities, which is nice, but since we don't really have a good native slave it's not my standard tactic. Generally I give each and every mystic two items... a nice pair of boots of the messenger, and a clam of pearls. I try and have at least one carry a Banner of the Northern Star. This is an amazing item. Most of my priestesses will carry a Staff of Storms. This helps compensate for arcoscophile's lack of fliers and missile troops. I usually write a short script for each and every mystic, focusing on each's abilities. Since we have a clam on each of them, they can always cast Power of the Spheres. They also get access to Antimagic and Astral Healing, although I generally have an astrologer cast antimagic first. If you don't want to invest in a Banner of the Northern Star, you can always have two astrologers, one on antimagic, the other on Light of the Northern Star. This gets gem-intensive though, so I tend to avoid it. If you give one of your nature mystics a thistle mace, he can cast Relief after a power of the spheres. This is a VERY strong combination with your mages, and I highly suggest investing ten nature gems for the power to rejuvinate your whole army. If you don't get a green Astrologer, indy shamen work too.

With Power of the Spheres, Summon Storm Power (staff of storms on your priestess, remember), and Summon Earthpower... even your least powerful mystics are now blade winding and thunder striking. 3/4 of them are hasted. Ones with double abilities are most dangerous, but the rainbow mystics gain the most from power of the spheres. Your rare triple mages should probably be kept in the library for ritual spells, but they can wreck hellacious damage on the battlefield as well. Ritual of Returning on these guys is a good idea, and I would load them up with defensive items as you would a rainbow mage in combat.

Arcoscophile's weakness (whose isn't?) is the supercombatant. Elemental magic is *** against a good player, as are elephants. You do get paralyse, mind burn, and some other toys, but in all honesty you need to fight fire with fire. a SSSE Astrologer can easily summon Golems, and those rare EEE mystics can summon all sorts of nasty lifeless beings. Remember to build one of every magic boost item, and you will have little problem getting mages for even the most difficult rituals.

One thing Arco pretty much sucks at is blood magic. Blood Astrologers have a few battlefield uses, and I usually send a few out bloodhunting for forging, but you can't get a healthy blood income going, and even if you could about all you can do is send horrors. You can also empower a mystic and summon some of the devils, but this gets unbelievably expensive, and usually isn't worth the time invested. Getting a couple of the higher-powered devils can be rewarding, but are you really going to research all the way to blood 6-7 for a couple of units? Probably not. Best use is for forging, and limited use at that.

Hope this stream of conciousness ramble helps a few players.

[JaydedOne]

I love reading Posts like these. Keep coming with them.

I would like to point out one minor note. Arcoscephale is not as synergetic with a no-magic wyrm as any other nation, just because it's Heal Troops ability is more useful on Pretenders you can't call back easily (unlike a no Magic Wyrm).

Though to each their own, it's always nice to be able to Heal any/everything.

[ May 06, 2004, 22:04: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Blitz]

Arcoscephale is not as synergetic with a no-magic wyrm as any other nation, just because it's Heal Troops ability is more useful on Pretenders you can't call back easily

I'm not sure the logic here, maybe you can elaborate. Dead wurm = oh well. He loses nothing but priest time when recalled. How is that different than a dead wurm for say... emor (yeah right).

Originally posted by Blitz:

quote:

---

Arcoscephale is not as synergetic with a no-magic wyrm as any other nation, just because it's Heal Troops ability is more useful on Pretenders you can't call back easily

I'm not sure the logic here, maybe you can elaborate. Dead wurm = oh well. He loses nothing but priest time when recalled. How is that different than a dead wurm for say... emor (yeah right).

---

The ease of use of Healing and ridding a Pretender of Afflictions is usually associated with Pretenders you want to live (worry about dying because they lose paths, get crippled, etc).

With such easy access to the ability to heal afflictions it is less important that you heal them as it is throw your No Magic Wyrm at something, if he dies, pray him back. It takes 40 Prayer points, or 10 Indy Priests 2 Turns to call him back. Whereas if you use a Priestess to Heal, it could be 2-5 turns to heal all the afflictions, have to have a Priestess nearby to sit and heal, and your Pretender is sitting around (not much good researching and forging with no magic) while waiting to be patched up.

Any other nation had a no magic wyrm, they'd just kill him off and call him back good as new ready to kill some more heathens. It's actually not a very painful process. Whereas with Arco, you can load up say a Nataraja with 3 or 4 magic paths, or a Titan etc and know that if he gets beat down some you can heal him and not lose his paths.

[Blitz]

Any other nation had a no magic wyrm, they'd just kill him off and call him back good as new ready to kill some more heathens. It's actually not a very painful process. Whereas with Arco, you can load up say a Nataraja with 3 or 4 magic paths, or a Titan etc and know that if he gets beat down some you can heal him and not lose his paths.

Maybe you just never lose your gods (or stick to the VQ), when a god is called back with "call god" he often still has 3-4 afflictions, especially if he's a big regenerator that's gonna take some shots like a Wurm. Although the regeneration reduces affliction chance, It's not at all uncommon to see a wurm revived with more than one affliction. Arcoscophile can deal with these before or after death.

Combining no magic with affliction removal means a wurm can be used almost as indiscriminately as a VQ by an arcoscophile player, provided he is willing to pay the cost in priest time.

Compared with the alternatives this is either a far superior (rainbow mage, mortal SC), or patheticly inferior (munchkin VQ) way to pay for the death of your Avatar.

[LintMan]

Great post, Blitz. I'm playing an Arco game right now myself and have some questions/comments.

1) What is the independent difficulty level you have in mind here? Does a no (or low)-magic wyrm stand up well against level 7-9 indies? How about your elephant/hypaspist army?

2) You avoid the routing trampler problem by grouping your elephants in with your hyps: The elephants don't hurt the overall morale too much by doing that? Also - if your elephants are lumped in with your main melee units, don't you end up with lots of situations where your elephants end up standing around in the middle of a mass of your own units, while your very front row of units does most of the work?

3) I don't think you mention chariots at all - do you think they're not worth it? As I see it, they're smaller (size 5 = less damage) and more easily killed, but they're also far cheaper (30 vs 100, I think), and have 1 extra morale over the elephant.

4) I'd prefer to use tramplers in a flanking role, where they can race ahead and devastate the enemy. But of course, then I get the morale/routing problems. I've seen a recommendation to group a few heart companions with the tramplers to help keep their morale up. I tried this and it helped a little, but not really enough. Can you group elephants with stuff like mindless 50-morale vine men/ogres to get a much bigger morale benefit?

5) You seem to prefer hypaspists over hoplites. To me, the hypaspists seem to cost more and have less armor and a shorter weapon than hoplites. The only benefit is they are faster - is that worth it?

6) You also slightly mention Cardaces, but not Peltasts. I like putting a big group of Peltasts on "fire closest" behind a wall of hoplites, which seems to work fairly well. I haven't seen much use for Cardaces, though.

7) I like your staff of storms/no missile unit army plan. Slingers are stinky. I'm guessing, though, it must make the attrition rate for your melee-ers a good bit higher, since they'll have to do most of the killing.

8) I love the priestesses, but I sometimes find it frustrating that the tend to start casting wimpy 1-nature buffs once their scripts run out, rather than, say, "sermon of courage" or banishment. For my priestess-prophet, it's even more annoying when they're casting Protection on some slingers instead of casting Fanaticism! Do you find yourself sometimes wishing Arco had a Holy-3 non-mage as well, like I do?

9) I also think the lack of a cheaper Holy-2 priest is a bit of a gap for Arco. The high cost of a priestess (110 vs say 50 for a H-2 priest), makes me tend to have less of them in my armies, making me more vulnerable to undead. Indie priests are easy to find, but I often don't think to recruit them.

10) Another Arco weakness is death magic. It takes some effort (and a lot of death gems) to bootstrap your way up to be able to cast the higher-level death summons.

11) While priestesses might be more efficient researchers, cost-wise, I would never recruit them expressly for that purpose. I'd much rather spend the extra 70 gold for a roll of the dice on a mystic. I can never have enough level 2 and 3 elemental path mystics for site searching and item forging, and of course they also research when not doing those things. And for pure research, I rely on sages once I can find some.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by LintMan:
2) You avoid the routing trampler problem by grouping your elephants in with your hyps: The elephants don't hurt the overall morale too much by doing that? Also - if your elephants are lumped in with your main melee units, don't you end up with lots of situations where your elephants end up standing around in the middle of a mass of your own units, while your very front row of units does most of the work?

The entire point of this exercise is to bolster the morale of the elephants. The effect this has on the hypaspists is completely irrelevant, since you only care about the elephants: They're the ones doing damage.

[Blitz]

Good questions. I'll try to answer as many as I can. I'm sure there are lots of other Arcoscophile players out there who can help too.

1) What is the independent difficulty level you have in mind here? Does a no (or low)-magic wyrm stand up well against level 7-9 indies? How about your elephant/hypaspist army?

Most of my games are on difficulty 5. Naked wurms have to pick their spots on larger settings. Avoid large Groups of barbarians, and anything with a lance for starters. However, in my Last MP game I lost my wurm to a tough indy on turn 6. Normally this is a huge blow (it hurts still), but it took only 3 turns for a few of my researching priestesses to call him back. It sucks still, but as noted, he's no worse for the experience, and all it cost me was around 60 research points. He died I believe 4 times in that game, the rest to opponents. If you can bear the taunts, feel free to pick fights you might normally avoid.

2) You avoid the routing trampler problem by grouping your elephants in with your hyps: The elephants don't hurt the overall morale too much by doing that? Also - if your elephants are lumped in with your main melee units, don't you end up with lots of situations where your elephants end up standing around in the middle of a mass of your own units, while your very front row of units does most of the work?

This happens with larger armies. I don't usually have more than 4 elephants in an expo army, and maybe 8 in a midgame offensive. Use two Groups of 20 units (4 tramplers + 16 morale boosters).

3) I don't think you mention chariots at all - do you think they're not worth it? As I see it, they're smaller (size 5 = less damage) and more easily killed, but they're also far cheaper (30 vs 100, I think), and have 1 extra morale over the elephant.

In my experience, these are inferior. They get annihilated by lances on the flanks, and elephants take a bigger pounding in the middle. If there's a good way to use these, I haven't found it. The Golden Age choriots are much stronger, I use them quite a bit... but the attrition is awful. It's not unusual to have 4-5 star mammoths later in the game with your priestesses around. Every star gives a morale point, a definate bonus.

5) You seem to prefer hypaspists over hoplites. To me, the hypaspists seem to cost more and have less armor and a shorter weapon than hoplites. The only benefit is they are faster - is that worth it?

Hoplites are MUCH better toe to toe than Hypaspists. This is one of the unique situations where unit synergy makes one choice superior. The 2 move rate and extra morale point of the hypaspists mean they work well with elephants. Try grouping them together and watch how little actual fighting they do against independants. The tramplers charge ahead, and in 1-2 rounds the enemy usually routs. Hypaspists in expansion are only there to keep your elephants from routing and mop up. You will find that there is little or no attrition in their ranks with expansion, and it is the elephants you must replace from time to time, not them.

I love heart companions. At times I will use a 6D Archlich pretender, which happens to give them +fear and +morale. It wasn't something I took into account when designing the pretender, but it's a nice bonus. 16 fear aura units combined with the killing power of 4 elephants is a rout waiting to happen, and the morale boost with bless means you will almost never rout. So yes, heart companions, bless effects, and elephants have very nice synergy. Without significant blessings I prefer the hypaspists.

6) You also slightly mention Cardaces, but not Peltasts. I like putting a big group of Peltasts on "fire closest" behind a wall of hoplites, which seems to work fairly well. I haven't seen much use for Cardaces, though.

Well you start with both, and that's all I ever use them for honestly. Playing Golden Age I use both to a great extent until I can summon better, but only by default. If I were facing a specific opponent (say, Marignion or Ulm) when I expected to see very little shield use I might buy a few... but that's theory and something I can't remember doing in practice.

7) I like your staff of storms/no missile unit army plan. Slingers are stinky. I'm guessing, though, it must make the attrition rate for your melee-ers a good bit higher, since they'll have to do most of the killing.

Slingers are the worst unit in Dom2. Having made that statement, I'm sure someone might come up with a worse example, but I doubt many could come up with a use for them. Flaming Arrows? No idea. Seems their only use is to make Arco PD worse, it might actually be decent with peLasts in their place.

Melee attrition isn't so bad, it's the elephants who die a lot. Using body earthreal on them isn't a bad idea, if your mages cast it properly that is. Crossbows are a *****, but humans tend to target the elephants first. In the middle stages of a game you definately want to augment your troops with summons. Seasonal spirits on the flanks (bear/lion) and on their archers (spring hawks) do well. Longbows do a far better job than crossbows against elephants incidenly. Don't even bring any against Man. Best case they die. Worst case they rout. Either way leave them behind.

8) I love the priestesses, but I sometimes find it frustrating that the tend to start casting wimpy 1-nature buffs once their scripts run out, rather than, say, "sermon of courage" or banishment. For my priestess-prophet, it's even more annoying when they're casting Protection on some slingers instead of casting Fanaticism! Do you find yourself sometimes wishing Arco had a Holy-3 non-mage as well, like I do?

The strategos and hypaspists should keep your mammoths from routing until they've taken some bad losses. Herald Lance is key here, because the elephants outrun the commander and you need range to compensate. For 5 nature gems you can extend the range (horn of something) further. It's not a big investment, and it helps against undead as well.

As for the protection on slingers, solve that by not using them. Protection on the elephants on the other hand is quite nice. I do understand your meaning though. My armies usually have a 4:16:1:1 ratio. 4 Elephants, 16 morale troops, 1 strategos, 1 priestess. As your troop numbers increse, add support troops to match. Don't bother bringing mages until later (maybe one to earthreal the elephants, but that's it)

9) I also think the lack of a cheaper Holy-2 priest is a bit of a gap for Arco. The high cost of a priestess (110 vs say 50 for a H-2 priest), makes me tend to have less of them in my armies, making me more vulnerable to undead. Indie priests are easy to find, but I often don't think to recruit them.

I make TONS of priestesses, remember they are your best researchers and get better as your magic scale goes up (sacred reduces upkeep cost, which will be exponentially higher than your initial investment), as well as your combat medics.

As for dealing with undead, indy priests are cheap. Augment your armies with independant druids. They are decent priests and can cast relief with a thistle mace. They are a staple of any army I play without strong nature magic. On that topic, might as well mix in some indy shamen for healing light and more earthreal. Try scripting one to cost body erthreal 5 times... more often than not she'll hit all 4 elephants and herself.

10) Another Arco weakness is death magic. It takes some effort (and a lot of death gems) to bootstrap your way up to be able to cast the higher-level death summons.

Great point. Death magic rocks, which is why I often use a lich pretender. However, death boosting items are the most plentiful around, and you can scan for death sites with both dark knowledge and of course AR (which you should be using asap). With all those sites and nowhere to spend the gems, it's 40 death gems to get an astrologer to death 3 (empower for 30, then a skull staff). That's enough for most stuff, although the nice astral/death rituals often have me augment him further, even when I have my archlich in play. Always keep an eye out for those indy raptors, the leader has DD and flying. She's impressive to say the least. There are a few other rare sites which give death leaders, but empowering an Astrologer is more likely. Don't expect high level death summons with Arco, look to astral and elemental magic for that.

11) While priestesses might be more efficient researchers, cost-wise, I would never recruit them expressly for that purpose. I'd much rather spend the extra 70 gold for a roll of the dice on a mystic. I can never have enough level 2 and 3 elemental path mystics for site searching and item forging, and of course they also research when not doing those things. And for pure research, I rely on sages once I can find some.

Sages are better. Usually I keep 10 or so priestesses in the capitol, that's almost enough to bring back your pretender from death in a single turn. Use the wizard's tower as you might expect to... to crank out the wizards. On turn 20 you should have 3 bases. That's not exageration for effect. Using Acro, you only have to invest 600 gold for a fortress with the works. That's 150-300 gold cheaper than other nations (depending on castle and with the exception of Man/Pangaea). This is one of your strengths, and by using a no-magic Wurm you are playing to them. You should have the gold from scales, and the territory from your big lizard. Expand, build up, make wizards, and build temples. Eventually your dominion will start to invade neighbors, and they'll start wars. The idea is to control the choke points, or at least have a wall of wizard towers on the border. Dominion power means they play on your turf by your rules. Advance slowly, templing and towering as you go. Your magical advantages are at their highest in the lategame, and your expansion at best in the earlygame. It is the midgame when you lack a SC answer when you are vulnerable. Make this period as short as possible through massed research in several fortresses throughout your empire.

Originally posted by Blitz:
Maybe you just never lose your gods (or stick to the VQ), when a god is called back with "call god" he often still has 3-4 afflictions, especially if he's a big regenerator that's gonna take some shots like a Wurm. Although the regeneration reduces affliction chance, It's not at all uncommon to see a wurm revived with more than one affliction. Arcoscophile can deal with these before or after death.

Combining no magic with affliction removal means a wurm can be used almost as indiscriminately as a VQ by an arcoscophile player, provided he is willing to pay the cost in priest time.

Compared with the alternatives this is either a far superior (rainbow mage, mortal SC), or patheticly inferior (munchkin VQ) way to pay for the death of your Avatar.

I don't play with the VQ outside of BF Ulm, but thanks for asking. No, I don't lose my pretenders all the time, but even when I lose my no-magic wyrms, a few afflictions isn't going to kill me, since they are fairly randomish. Getting Blind is bad, but even a limp, or feeblemind, or any of the rest isn't that big of a deal (though losing a head can make him a bit harder to use).

The point of having Arco is so that you never have to get to the point where your Pretender dies, he can always take 5 and come back with only a Curse and Horror Mark, ready to whip some ***.

But if you'd rather have the ability to throw a wyrm down the drain and heal him, by all means do so. I prefer to have Pretenders if built for combat, have the highest likelyhood of success. Hence the Natrajah.