Fun with air magic

[Saxon]

I have been playing Caelum and recently researched the spell Fog Warriors. If you have not tried it, may I suggest checking it out? Very powerful, very useful for anyone with Air magic. Watching a small squad of arrow catching independent chaff Barbarians hold the line against some Guardians of the Seal was delightful. Watching my mammoths trash the rest of the 400 odd casualties was even more fun.

Anyone have a decent counter to a large army with this buff? I did get hurt when the same province was attacked by two different nations on the same turn. All my gems were burnt up in the first attack�

[Micah]

I believe magical damage will cancel the mistform, so any large AoE spells should work pretty well, especially the battlefield-wide ones.

[llamabeast]

Yep, exactly. Although mundane spells won't work - blade wind is no use!

[Gandalf Parker]

Against the ****heims it has been suggested to use area of effect versions of poison. Either by spell or equipment.

I also think that masses of shooters with bad aim seem to actually work better. Such as slingers.

[thejeff]

But against mistform that shouldn't work.

It's broken by magic or lots of damage, right? I'm not sure how "lots of damage" is determined.

Arrows and slings would just do 1 point. I don't know about poison. It shouldn't be affected by the mistform, but I don't know if it would break it.
Flaming arrows would break it. F9 bless (or D9?) will break it.
Trampling?

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

According to a website which is down, at the moment, even weak attacks have a 1% chance to break the mist shield. Hence the utility of slingers. Oh, and see page 228. If poison is counted as a strike each time it deals damage, it would be excellent. If it counts only when first tallied, nah. However ti lasts for two rounds, and attacks twice.

As to whether poison is magic damage, I wouldn't think so, but it falls under the same category as fire and cold in the manual. Tossup, have to lab it.

Various random crap, since I have more questions than answers:

As MA agartha, or another earth reliant nation, you'll have trouble. You'll probably want to take advantage of any minor paths- Firefly's magic, even weak as it is. Fire darts may have fewer attacks, but is more precise. Flame Eruption is dangerous to use, but available with a fire gem, and attacks a very large area. If earth's the only magic available, you'll have to counter this indirectly. Strength of Giants will aid in that, and since mistform is canceled by 25 points of damage "after armor", Weapons of Sharpness will help a little, even though its still mundane. Still, it's an awkward situation, and worthless if all you have are weak size-two humans. You can also try to make those units less effective via Curse of Stones, and your various protection spells.

If you're facing only a mistformed pretender/thug, petrify is magical, and still does damage if it fails its MR roll. As Agartha, I fortunately also have access to Magma Bolts and Magma Eruption, which are not mundane, and various low level fire/water spells for early, minor mistings. Is the chill effect of Cavern Wights magical?

Mistform doesn't mention that the magical attacks have to do damage, just be hit by a magical weapon. Though damage seems like a fairly obvious requirement. Will slime break mistform? What about something stupid like banishment?

[Saxon]

Having watched a few more turns, magic damage is very effective at dispelling the effect. My own Thunder Strikes on the enemy front lines tend to dispel the Mistform on my units. They then fight as normal and tend to be my main source of casulties. Yes, I know I need to boost their lightning resistance, give me time.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Here's an interesting question. Take one pretender with air and earth. Cast mistform, cast Earthquake. What is the result?

I suspect that EQ does mundane damage, and why would mist be bothered by a quake anyway?

So... that means I have two pretenders now I need to try out, my imprisoned phoenix, and that lightning-earth titan.

[Valandil]

Earthquake, Rain of stones, bale wind all do physical damage, so should have no effect beyond DRN results above 20.

[MaxWilson]

Saxon said:
I have been playing Caelum and recently researched the spell Fog Warriors. If you have not tried it, may I suggest checking it out? Very powerful, very useful for anyone with Air magic. Watching a small squad of arrow catching independent chaff Barbarians hold the line against some Guardians of the Seal was delightful. Watching my mammoths trash the rest of the 400 odd casualties was even more fun.

Anyone have a decent counter to a large army with this buff? I did get hurt when the same province was attacked by two different nations on the same turn. All my gems were burnt up in the first attack�

It's really weird that your barbarians worked against EA Agartha's Seal Guardians, because they have magic weapons and a hit from a magic weapon cancels Mistform.

I'm not sure about counters, but I wanted to note that Fog Warriors combines well with Rain of Stones. Use an Eagle King w/ Earth Boots, then <Summon Earthpower, Rain of Stones>. Since it's mundane damage your army will be mostly immune. This should kill a lot of the enemy mages and generally mess up any counters they were going to attempt.

-Max