Bless Effects
 

So I'm thinking about going into another multiplayer game and I want to try out a bless effect.

My 1st inclination is to try it with a nation with excellent sacred troops like Vanheim.

So here are some pretenders:

Water Dragon W9 D4, dominion 5, Order 3, Cold 1, Misfortune 1, Drain 1, watch tower.

Moloch W9 F9, Order 3, Sloth 3, Cold 1, Death 1, Misfortune 2, Drain 1.

Ghost King F4, W4, D4, B4, dominion 6, Order3, Cold 1, Misfortune 1, watch tower.

Lich: F4, W4, D4, B4, dominion 5, Order 3, Sloth 1, Cold 1, Misfortune 1, watch tower.

Lich: F4, W4, D6, B4, dominion 5, Order 3, Sloth 2, Cold 1, Misfortune 1, watch tower.

I kind of like the lich I have to say, you get an imortal combatant and that's nice! Of course the Moloch's Van's will tear through troops like nothing else.

What do you guys think? Of these which would you go for? Or would you try something else?

Re: Bless Effects
 

I would trade death for cold 2 in moloch Version. Temperature is unstable enough that this is bound to have a much lower impact on the game. Maybe it would be better if you also trade cold 2 for drain in other Versions. But, that's just my preference.

Re: Bless Effects
 

If you REALLY want to go for bless with vans I would do something like this:

Moloch F9W9 Order 3, Sloth 3, Cold 2, Misfortune 2, Drain 2, Mausoleum.

Re: Bless Effects
 

Do you really think that the 10 admin of the Mausoleum is worth the 40 points?

I did test out the F9W9 blessing 1st and as expected it kicks ***.

I have not tried out the F4W4D4B4 blessing yet. I figure it will be less potent. However the pretender is in many ways better. Immortal rainbow-ish. has a lot of the cross requirements for a lot of the good blood summons and he can seach well.

Any other ideas? Anyone know of other really good bless targets ( Vanhiem has 2! ).

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It provides twice the gold bonus of the watch tower.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, rainbow bless can work, if done right it can give you good bless effects, a SC, AND a rainbow mage.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Marignon flagellents are great with fire, Man's Tuatha theme has some nice, cheap van-like sacreds.

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I probably play a mausoleum about 40% of the time.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Vanheim has two, not including comanders, but they are both very expensive.

As mentioned, Marignon is good. Jotunheim is popular with a nature blessing as well.

Personally, while I am not a huge fan of bless strategies, I have been playing with some base C'tis blessings. Dancers, with a water blessing, have a huge defense (like 21-22 ? can't recall offhand since some had xp stars) and, of course, the quickness (which means they keep up easier with the Elite Cavalry which do nice damage but die easily). I would expand on it but I don't want to sidetrack too much http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

- Kel

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What I found was that the F4W4D6B4 troops were just as good against mortal independents ( did not get to try against undead, I figure they will not be as good ) but they caused less casualties. Pretty much as expected.

So they will be as good against indeps, but not really as good against humans.

But you do get an SC and a rainbow. Which is *really* nice.

Re: Bless Effects
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think it's 20 defence. Assuming W9. The thing I found really useful with C'tis was better a good sized death blessing for the fear. The dancers are cheap so you can mass them and still have a normal army ( unlike Vans ) and the mix of fear invoking troops makes the other side break almost instantly.

Re: Bless Effects
 

I had some fun testing a Neifel Jarl Prophet with 9E 9N. Decent enough SC even at turn 3, and racked up 100+ kills in a few turns, however i ran into a large barb province which killed him in one round of combat. And then killed the second Neifel Jarl i sent. And then beat the small army i sent! No archers is bad manner.

Re: Bless Effects
 

For Vanheim I like the Phoenix with Fire 9 and Air 9. Vans already have a revoltingly high defense so I think that water 9 is kind of redundant especially with the glamour ability. You need them to survive arrow fire, which defense does nothing against, long enough to deliver their initial shock hit and since they don't carry lances the Fire 9 flaming weapons helps to make up for the lack of the initial shock impact from lances and the addition of increased attack makes sure their hits get through, plus the 8 ap fire damage is not just for the initial hits unlike lances. Add the additional 75% lightning resistance and the natural glamour mirror image and you have a unit with a lot of artillery protection till it drops its payload on rear or front line units. In other words, with this blessing you can just field Vans and not have to worry about lugging along fodder.

Add all the above together with an immortal pretender that only costs 50 points and has flying or cloud trapeze for point defense or mass destruction spell raiding in friendly dominion without fear of pretender loss. Plus innate fire resistance and awe helps out with staying power. Only a head and two miscellaneous slots kind of bites but at least you can pop whatever resistance miscellaneous fits the bill for the situation and a helmet slot is just icing.

An added bonus to this is that because this blessing combination allows Vans to operate effectively without fodder to take missile hits you can fire up 5-10 man deep cover raiding parties that can pound any province defense out there including Jotun. With the super stealthy glamour ability and small size you can get deep into enemy territory and coordinate raiding strikes in several locations and all hitting at the same time.

The blessing strategy with the Phoenix Air 9, Fire 9 is my all time favorite and it is fairly cost effective for a double bless.

[ June 27, 2004, 16:46: Message edited by: Anglachel ]