[MaxWilson]

Eagle warriors have two low-damage attacks IIRC, and knights are size 3 so are easily swarmed. It's not surprising that the death bless does relatively well in this situation because:

1.) The 6 AP fire attack won't often hurt high-Prot knights.

2.) The Eagle Warrior's weapons (daggers?) also won't often hurt knights. Thus, fire bless is relatively impotent in this situation.

3.) Death weapons do something like 2.7 points of damage on average, when they get past MR. (Vs. Prot 17 knights it's like a Damage 19 attack.) Baalz says they ignore shields--I haven't tested it, but it's probably true given how shields are supposed to work. That helps offset the -4 to attack, relative to fire bless, since the daggers don't do anything to the knight anyway. I'm AFG, but 3 Eagle Warriors will probably hit 2 knights through their shields 3 or 4 times per turn for 8-11 points of damage, which kills one knight per turn (and causes about 2 afflictions per turn). Plus the occasional lucky dagger strike that actually does damage, call it 0.3 per turn. Fire bless will hit just as often, and will ALWAYS hit with a dagger, but breaks through the Prot much less often. I'd be surprised if it were more than 2 or 3 HP damage per turn.

So yeah, Eagle Warriors vs. knights would rather have Death bless than Fire bless because they don't need the boost to Attack, and they can't get through the armor with their natural weapons or with fire weapons. Fire bless would stack better with Strength of Giants, though. However, death bless helps mages and death magic is more fun than fire magic, IMHO, so I might take a death bless even if I didn't expect to fight knights with eagle warriors.

-Max