Tactics and Strategy

Illuminated One wrote:Hmm, I have only seen Niefel via a scout.

Niefel Jarls have good defense and very good protection, good mr, too.
He has earth-9 and nature-9 bless so reinvig takes care of fatigue and he regens 15 hp per turn.
However he has a high fatigue after buffing so that might be an opening.

What worked in a test of mine was spamming tangle vines (he breaks free after a turn but he can't attack and his def drops to 3) and then hitting him with my sacreds. But that's just theory, I guess I'll attack him in 127 now and find out...

Fatigue spells could work extremely well. Stellar Cascades or Ghost Grip (but his armor helps against both, probably not enough though).
All armor negating/armor piercing spells with high damage and no mr negates. .

Darloth wrote:Oh, the tanglevine strat works nicely. I killed some skinshifters and then a Jarl with it.

Sadly, you can only script vines for 5 rounds (and won't be in range for the first two), and they take longer than that to kill, at least with chaff level stuff/undead.

You should be aware that his buff cycle is basically two holy spells (Blessing then Holy Avenger, which is better than I thought), so he only has fatigue of around 8, and it goes usually before anything can close in. Don't rely on that.

rdonj wrote:
For niefelheim the previously discussed tactics for mammoth countering still apply, plus you should try to hit them with armor destroying spells. At least this will work on anything not wearing magic armor. Using fire bola-wielding commanders against them could be pretty useful. What illuminated one said was good advice as well. And if you can get high defense commanders, get them immune to cold and equipped with armor piercing/negating weapons, they could be quite useful in taking out jarls. Equipping these sorts of thugs with chainmail of displacement is highly recommended.

Illuminated One wrote:
Caelum is pretty nasty in siege defense with their ability to fly in troops and the siege/defense bonus they get.
Agony looks like a great spell against elephants (wide area damage and fear), leaching touch and hand of death look great if you can get next to an eagle king (don't know about the touch mechanics though, if they require an attack roll they might not be that good) - Raksharya look like the perfect thugs for doing this. Arcane Bolt will kill an eagle king if it hits almost certainly and the precision is rather good. You don't have the astral but Abysia, Sauro and me have.
Depending on what he's using lots of missiles might rout him as well. On the other hand shockwave would kill markata in droves.

rdonj wrote:False fetters and earth meld are a good idea on mammoths. Ideally you can hold them up and kill the mammoths one at a time as they come through. You'll still take losses but not as many. Also it is a good idea to use high defense units on them, as trampling is armor piercing and defense will allow you to take less damage. It would also be good if you could cast strength-enhancing spells (strength of giants, earth might). Ideally you would also have ranged units to take some hp off of them before they get to your lines.

Illuminated One wrote:I don't know that much about Caelum, but maybe very small squads of troops could serve as decoy for thunderstrike?

rdonj wrote:The most effective way I found to deal with thunder strike spam is with lightning immune thugs, it doesn't take much to make thugs that can walk through anything caelum can throw at you and if you use them in small groups it will be tough for his recruitables to bring you down. Then he'll probably bring in mammoths to squish your thugs, but you already know how to fight those.

Decoying with small squads does help a lot too, especially if you can decoy with one or two high hp units. They'll draw a lot of fire but it will be hard to hit them, especially if he casts storm. And even if he does with high hp decoys it can take 2 or 3 direct hits to take them out. Decoying works best if you have some fast unit that can then run up and pummel the eagle kings in melee. I used undead cavalry, but horrors should work quite handily. I know abysia doesn't have access to nature magic, but casting swarm would be a very good way to make caelum's life harder. He won't be able to cast at your real units if he's dealing with dragonflies, plus he may end up shooting his own eagle kings as they try to defend themselves.

If you can spam undead or something that can also be useful, so long as you have decoys set up to take the initial tunderstrikes. Otherwise the thunderstrikes can take out your mages, since they can hit anything on the battlefield.

Illuminated One wrote:I thought of Horrors before.
But none of the flying summons work (Swarm etc).

Rdonj suggestion about the lightning resistant thugs seems best however I think our problem is the flying.
Caelum will jump on those armies that are designed against Niefel/Hinnom and vice versa. Same goes for Helheim with stealth.
If we let them decide where they fight we'll loose probably (Well, I'm guessing that we have more losses than the vets).

So the nations that are not to hard pressed should invest into flying/assassins/teleport/cloud trapeze stuff.
With the first two we could spring a nice trap on Caelum and the latter can just be airdropped onto them.
If we just kill one of his armies that's a loss of several thousands of gold and a good bunch of gems.

Darloth wrote:Helheim has a F9E9N4 bless, and has so far used stealthed groups of a pair of Helhirdlings, commanded by a Helkarl and a Vanherse against me. They can take out my PD -_-. Not that C'tis PD is great, of course.

darloth wrote:Helheim have struck!
Regenerating double-blessed helhirdlings, with a jarl and a something else commanding.
Their bless is heavy fire, heavy earth, with a smattering of nature for that extra spice. Combined with their glamour and natural kickassitude, I'm very surprised one of my PD managed to kill one. Nevermind though, I'm sure it didn't cost him much.

P3D wrote:Your chariots are size4, perhaps trample glamoured troops?

rdonj wrote:Yes. This is actually why many people recommend using slingers when fighting flamoured units, because all it takes is one hit to get the glamour to pop, and glamour doesn't protect aggainst missiles.

Illuminated One wrote:Hmm, skip the part about using flying summons against Caelum. He has enough 100% lightning resistant guards to fry them before they can do any damage.

P3D wrote:Hinnom (E9N4S4 bless) is using single Thug/SCs and 8-pack Dawn Guards against indies. No sacred giants yet besides the thug.

My main counter will be infantry with glaives to hurt them.

P3D wrote:Caelum has E9N4 bless.

Several nations get their own special Soulless and Londead. While most people know about Lanka's undead bandar and markata or Caelum's winged undead, few people know that Atlantis gets undead that have coral armor and weapons.