Countering End-Game Astral

[ComTrav]

Assuming you yourself have, at best, some Astral cobbled together from neutrals, what's the best counter to the ginormous astral communions certain nations can field in the late game?

Sending in armies against Master Enslave communions seems like a waste. Even with Army of Lead, it seems like they'll get enough of your army to mess you up. You can send in an SC and hope that none of them are set to cast Soul Slay/Paralyze (even with very high MR gear, against a large communion, all it takes is a lucky roll.)

Flyers set to "attack rear" and hope for the best seems like it might be the best option.

[konming]

Rain of stone works nicely against some astral nations.

[Micah]

Konming pretty much has it, you just have to bring in some heavies and nuke the battlefield and expect some losses...a clump of rejected tartarian chassis will soak up a lot of punishment while a BE goes off or you multi-cast rain of stones on your opponents' squishy mages.

[Gregstrom]

SCs or thugs with high MR could be quite good for stopping a Master Enslave.

[Kuritza]

Dont air shield, mistform, luck and etherealness all work against rain of stones?

[K]

Kuritza said:
Dont air shield, mistform, luck and etherealness all work against rain of stones?

And they all take time to get into play, and aren't completely effective against all the ways to foil a Communion.

[Agema]

Smashing the whole battlefield with big damage spells on the first turn or two before big buffs tend to arrive is a recommended tactic.

Also, master enslave is easy resist as I recall (+4). Add in Army of Lead (Earth) and ?Antimagic (Astral) each at +4MR and you should effectively be resisting at +12. Even if your opponent adds in some penetration, you'll lose only a very small chunk of your army. A bigger problem may be your battle mages targeting enslaved troops and catching your own troops rather than the opponent's big concentrations of units.

[Gregstrom]

Astral Tempest, Unraveling and Soul Drain. They don't really surpass Master Enslave a lot of the time, but they're nasty enough. Mostly the same advice for getting round them applies, I think.

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

Astral Tempest, Unraveling and Soul Drain. They don't really surpass Master Enslave a lot of the time, but they're nasty enough. Mostly the same advice for getting round them applies, I think.

But they all affect all units on the battlefield. So are they really that useful, given that you will hurt your units as well?

[HoneyBadger]

By the way, has anyone had any success casting both Army of Gold and Army of Lead on the same group of units? I've never tried this, but I always wondered if it was viable, and worth doing.