skelliespam

[Groundworm]

I've fought against C'tis in all eras in several games now, and more often than not I'm unable to deal with skelliespam. C'tis will set up 10 or 15 of its mages to cast raise skeletons or undead horde, occasionally supported by swarm, foul vapors, or shadow blasts. Their mages are backed up by significant PD and chaff, to the tune of 100+ units. This is enough to defeat my forces despite equal levels of magic utilization and sometimes far superior research. I've lost battles despite having fully kitted thugs, flaming arrows with massed archers, battle mages casting falling fires, superior troops in superior numbers... I just don't know how to deal with it.

So how do you deal with skelliespam? Especially if you have a nation with weak national priests? (and I've never been a fan of recruiting priests anyway, because that usually means I'm not recruiting mages).

It's been a very frustrating experience.

[Doo]

Mod the game so there is no skelespam spell....

[PriestyMan]

try battlefield wide spells like earthquake and rain of stones. or remote assasination spells like manefestaion or E attack.

[Gregstrom]

And ofc spamming out H1 indy priests can work well.

[Fantomen]

Enc 0 frontline is a good start. Statues, mech men, wights, etc. Buffed with weapons of sharpness and backed by a decent number of priests. Sometimes earth blessed sacreds can do the job. The important part is to have some kind of unit in front that normal undead can't harm easily and that can fight forever.

Archers and flaming arrows are ok but you need to win before ammo runs out and they run forward and gets killed. I think archers are better against pre-raised hordes of undead than against skelespam.

Tough and large enc 0 thugs with charcoal shields are good to soak up undead. If you're using EDM the mechanichal giant is good for this role.

Earth and fire elementals are good against undead too.

Spells like soul slay and paralyze don't target the mindless undead, so if your opponent is using only mages skelespamming that is a way to target the mages directly.

If you can increase the fatigue of the skelespamming mages the wave of undead ends earlier. You might have troops that synergize with Heat from hell, grip of winter, soul drain or even rigor mortis.

Another way is to deal loads of damage very quick before the skelespam reaches critical mass, hoping to kill the mages. Mass flighted lance cavalry or flying troops on attack rear that connects on turn 1 of the battle. Or a swarm of flying thugs with brand weapons.

[DeadlyShoe]

Undead nations frequently use Cold scales so Ice elementals can work too.

[PriestyMan]

he said it was ctis. no cold for them. although that being said, casting wolven winter on the province the fight is in will greatly raise their encumberance making them much less useful

[DeadlyShoe]

er oops good point

skellie spam is kinda messed up anyway, considering that 5 longdead costs 1 gem from the ritual... but in battle your skeletons just scale infinitely with your number of death mages. raise dead is much more balanced cuz it needs corpses.

[TheDemon]

target the mages rather than the skellies
for me that means fatigue them out. Rigor Mortis, Heat from Hell, Grip of Winter, Curse of Stones. And on your side relief and mass regen. Also it's good if you can nail the mages with round 1 battlefield spells; rain of stones or earthquake. Flames from the Sky x2+ is also a good mage killer.

[zegc-ben]

If you are fighting only skellies and mage (+ troops on guard commander) you can put your archers in fire large monster mode. They will target the mage since a longdead only have 5 HP.