Lots of Umbrals, how to kill

[Viajero]

Umbrals...(Agartha, EA)

68HP
Ethereal
Undead: no encumbrence
Weapon: drain life

In addition Darkness is cast in battle. Say your opponent has around 75-100 or more of them massed, scripted to guard commander defending a castle storm, plus a varied number of sea trolls, and wide array of D3, and 1 each of E5, A5, W5, S5 mages in defense aswell

How to Kill?

[Verjigorm]

Massed priests is always worthwhile against them. If you have Astral priests, you can waste them. Dust to Dust an alternative....

What are your current assets?

Darkness might be a problem. If you have accuracy spells that helps. Also, penetration items or try drawing his army into a state with positive Magic scales.

If the army, when concentrated, is too powerful to defeat (which it might be), try to encourage him to split his forces.

Harassment can be used to thin the ranks before going all out. Get him to waste all of his gems by retreating then when he is no longer able to use Darkness, go for the kill.

Use of Iron Walls might be helpful. How many turns do you have until the siege breaks through?

[thejeff]

They're undead: Undead Mastery, Wither Bones, etc

If they're guarding commander, they aren't attacking you, so kill them at range. Flaming arrows, any evocations that do magic damage.

If you have to close, use magic weapons and/or undead that won't get life drained.

Without knowing who you are and what you've got available, it's hard to get specific.

[Viajero]

Thanks for the advice.

My opponent armies are based on tough agartha summons and/or Trolls. all buffed up with Army of Gold, Antimagic and teh usual Late game battle enchantments, coupled with Darkness.

I am playing with Vanheim, so plenty of A and E magic plus several SC with good W, A and F magic, but little death.

Tried to script a shock barrage, shimmering, thunder etc etc but to no avail as if the enemy is guarding commander precision of the evocs is dodgey even with Wind Guide as he also has Arrow Fend and Rain up etc

So im thinkking hordes of wights.... but his 3 or so D3 defense wraith lords may be an issue spamming wither bones, dust to dust etc

My mellee SC went in but took too long to do any dammage as tehy got tangled with the buffed up regenerating Trolls and the battle ended up in a draw at 50 turns out with my army retreating (most boring battle ever... guess thats the way of Agartha!) with no major losses for either side.

[Baalz]

Vanheim vs darkness you want to cultivate your blood economy (if you haven't). Vamp lords will get you some pretty decent D muscle - wither bones, wither bones, reinvig, wither bones, wither bones. Get 3-4 of the immortal guys and that's a whole lot of damage at the cost of 1 blood slave for reinvig. Army of gold, anti magic and darkness won't help a lick.

Summon some storm demons. They'll blast lightning damage and won't care about darkness (they may not care about storms because they've got stormpower, don't remember if that impacts precision). Sounds like you're in pretty late game so get a guy or two up who can cast infernal tempest. If you can cast that a couple times per turn and are looking at having 60+ relatively high precision lightning guys who don't care about pretty much anything other than lightning immunity. They've also got darkvision, magic AN weapons, etherealness and a good defense so once you slap a buff or two of your own on them (army of lead yourself) and they should decimate Umbrals/trolls under darkness (in fact, you probably want to use your vamp lords to put up darkness yourself when the trolls come out.

Trolls & umbrals are both large with bleh attack, so imps will tie them up pretty effectively. Slap a couple lifelong protections on your commanders and the high defense darkvisioned little buggers will keep them busy while you blast to your heart's content.

Now, assuming you've got no blood economy set up as you haven't mentioned it(big mistake! Vanheim should be a blood nation!) I'd look at stuff that doesn't require precision. Wrathful skies will comfortably ignore everything you've mentioned so far, just make sure whatever you're fielding can handle it. Put it up and let them guard commander all they want inside the walls. If their mages are all pretty squishy you could drop a few rain of stones via dwarf if thats an option. If you've got a decent W mage (no idea what your resources are) wolven winter is really, really nasty to cold blooded casters and you can combo it with grip of winter for the storming (again, prepare your own troops for it). Won't do anything to the umbrals, but it'll lobotomize their support.

[elmokki]

Last time I fought hordes of Umbrals was a MP game with me as LA Ulm against LA Agartha. Utterdark was on.

It went really well as I had tons and tons of my iron priests who spammed iron blizzard. That did quite massive damage, along with a decent sized communion spamming solar rays and a couple of well geared undead thugs/semi-scs.

My army was completely useless. Most of my Ghoul Guardians had been made blind by a clever statue casting Solar Brilliance-trick as the last resolt solution for dying LA Atlantis a few turns before, and even in general due to Utterdark lowering income bulk of my army was vampires and wolves. Too bad the fight was over by the time my army was actually taking damage.

[Viajero]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Now, assuming you've got no blood economy set up as you haven't mentioned it(big mistake! Vanheim should be a blood nation!) I'd look at stuff that doesn't require precision. Wrathful skies will comfortably ignore everything you've mentioned so far, just make sure whatever you're fielding can handle it. Put it up and let them guard commander all they want inside the walls. If their mages are all pretty squishy you could drop a few rain of stones via dwarf if thats an option. If you've got a decent W mage (no idea what your resources are) wolven winter is really, really nasty to cold blooded casters and you can combo it with grip of winter for the storming (again, prepare your own troops for it). Won't do anything to the umbrals, but it'll lobotomize their support.

Yes, big mistake of mine. Was relatively new to Dominions when started this game (seems like eons ago now!) and unfamilioar with blood economy and stuff so I have (almost) completely negelcted it. I can try and catch up though, I have a few Vanjarls at 4 or 5 in blood with whom I have started casting storm demons.

On the upside I have a very strong astral economy and astral indy mage supply, so I am also able to cast wish often, and managed to get seraphs and chayots etc

[Viajero]

Originally Posted by Baalz

If you've got a decent W mage (no idea what your resources are) wolven winter is really, really nasty to cold blooded casters and you can combo it with grip of winter for the storming (again, prepare your own troops for it). Won't do anything to the umbrals, but it'll lobotomize their support.

As I mentioned before I can not rely on stuff that needs Precision (i.e. flame storm, shimmering f. and the like) as the defending army is scripted to guard commander, so the above idea and other suggetsions about non precision spells like wrathfull skies, earthquakes and other look good.

On the specific quoted above... will that also be nasty if your enemy is not cold blooded or a waste of time? how can you prepare your army to withstand Wolven winter and then grip of winter? I presume Warriors of Niefelheim is enough? Would Wolven Winter take effect for the battle I launch if in the same turn? or do I have to wait for the next turn?

[Verjigorm]

Ok... You said they're currently laying siege to one of your castles, though, correct?

The first problem is that you didn't know they were coming. In the future, deploying more scouts/spies/etc. will alert you to your opponent's strategy in advance and you can be prepared to counter it in advance.

Secondly, the only tactics which are going to be effective now that he's invading should be based either (a) on what you already have augmented by (b) what your stored resources can provide.

What types of mages do you have ready for summoning right now?

What is your present gem stockpile at especially targeting the gem stockpile which you can consume most rapidly (which will probably be air, earth or blood).

What are your current research levels especially Conjuration, Construction, and Blood?

What types and sizes of armies do you have on the ground? Remeber, if they don't have magical weapons, they will get slaughtered by ethereal undead.

If you don't have a lot of D magic, then a "horde of wights" might not be your best bet. The Spring Hawk is ethereal and has storm power. It can't counter Darkness, though, so depending on how many death gems he has, you may have to harass him for some time to get rid of them.

You will also probably lose that castle. I would recommend burning the lab if he's deep within so he can't replenish his gem supply without replacing it.

Consider using a distraction... Even though your army is weaker than his, he is probably well consolidated I'm guessing. Send your forces to pillage his lands unless he's using a scorched earth strategy. If he has a lot of un-castled temples, go forth and burn them down. Don't siege his castles, just keep moving your army around setting tax rates at 200% until he is forced to divide in order to deal with you. The money you make in the effort will compensate for the loss of the castle. If you see some low-hanging fruit (like a poorly garrisoned castle) while ransacking his country seize it and if you cannot hold it, burn it to the ground.

Essentially, you want to make it cost HIM more to take the castle than you lose in the gambit. It is not worthwhile to dispose of your own armies to take his out if you do not have the resources to crush him. Preserve your units and use them in endeavors where they do not die in any great measure and try to buy yourself time to mount a strong counter-offensive.

[rdonj]

He's the one storming the castle.