MA Pythium vs Ashod, stock
 

What would be the best way to deal with Ashod playing Pythium without CBM ? Just Salamanders for the strength or would theurgs with some kind astral-spell script (mind burn, paralyze?) work together with mass velites ?

Re: MA Pythium vs Ashod, stock
 

You are going to need a lot of astral mages.

So you can cast Stellar cascades, enslave mind, paralyze etc.

Re: MA Pythium vs Ashod, stock
 

That's not saying much is it? I mean MA Pythium is the undisputed king of astral. All their mages have astral. But yeah, Pythium should find it easy to deal with giants since they have easy access to AN and fatigue spells. Just start research in Evocation, and recruit Arch Theurgs as normal. As long as you can get lightning bolt before getting rushed, giants are no problem, and Stellar Cascades reverse communions pretty much render giants useless.

Re: MA Pythium vs Ashod, stock
 

Sorry, can you elaborate on Stellar Cascades reverse communions. What exactly is that. I know about communions, but i never used it lol.

Re: MA Pythium vs Ashod, stock
 

Read the Baalz communion guide. It is linked in the strategy topic. Baalz wrote about it a lot more clearly than any of us are going to do in this topic.

Get some rune breakers also. Frozen heart spam might also work. Do not know how and if frozen heart scales if used in communions (Mix and match, against SC's if they do not have cold res, frozen heart spam, low MR, communion + penetration gear and soul slay). Having air on communions helps a little bit with damage prevention.

And as it is vanilla, get earth on your pretender for dwarven hammers, and get a way to forge clams. Spam heavenly choir.

And then, die horribly against the might that is vanilla ashdod.

Re: MA Pythium vs Ashod, stock
 

IIRC Ashdod has no native air magic, so lightning evocations should murder giants in the first few years. Otherwise you want things that attack fatigue like stellar cascades and numbness. Hydras aren't an ideal way to deal with ashdod giants, but if you can have someone cast luck on hydras they should be able to hold them off reasonably well and do some damage to them. It's almost certainly better going for normal troops though.

Re: MA Pythium vs Ashod, stock
 

Hydras are a bad idea. Against giants, every hit will take off a head, rendering the regen meaningless, and nature bless partly counteracts poison. And with how expensive they are, I prefer being able to recruit Arch Theurgs. Battle Vestals might be a good idea depending on the bless. Armor isn't going to work anyway, but dodging might with a water bless, long enough for lightning spam to do its work. Gladiators might be a better idea since nobody takes blesses for Vestals, the ones with nets, again the point being to immobilize for evocations, though I really hate using those guys.

Really, I can't think of any nation giant rush is less effective against than MA Pythium. Even Star Fires at Evo 1 will kill super expensive high protection giants when every mage Pythium recruits can cast it for iresistable AN damage.

Re: MA Pythium vs Ashod, stock
 

Giant rushing tends to fail on other giant nations. That said, MA Pythium is in a very good place to deal with it - I suspect that MA Arcocephale is similar, given that it also has a decent amount of Astral magic. Then there is Vanheim, which is quite good at raining lightning down on enemies.