Questions

[Hylobius]

I'm looking for counters to Flaming Arrows. Arrow Fend and Storm are both useful, but are both are Air 3-4. I suppose that things like Darkness and Mist would help. Is there anything else that I'm missing, particularly if you don't have easy access to Air magic? I'm assuming that Rain would not help.

Also a question about sieges. If I attack from an adjacent province into a location of mine that is under siege, and also break siege with units that are under in the city under siege, do the two groups fight together? If so, and I lose the battle, it sounds like the units that are breaking siege from inside the city are eliminated. Do the armies from the adjacent location retreat back?

Thanks.

[Finalgenesis]

I'll assume army of gold is too high up the research ladder, fire ward can alleviate the fire portion of the damage but not the higher hit rate of the normal arrow damage itself, though fire ward on good prot troops (with shields) would do well. Mechanical men are also excellent flaming arrow soakers if abit expensive, being fire immune and high prot.

Spells aside you could roll mini-thugs & arrow catcher into one. Something like sleepers / banelords with a good shield positioned correctly can soak up the arrows and thug at the same time, you may even choose to throw in fire resistance in if you're paranoid (and if opponent is a fire spamming nation which is likely, FR really can't hurt). any high parry shield (enchanted shield, the low lvl earth/air shields, air shield armor/shield, awe shield ...etc) together with a cheap brand would make a cheap mini-thug (use in teams), they also happen to be bigger then normal humans, so fire monster command is covered as well unless you field even bigger units that are vulnerable, though of course there are plenty of thug counter (much less your mini-thugs). If you go for high end thug / semi-SC route, GoRed crusher/gargoyle or golem with a good shield will laugh at fire arrow barrage (but will cry to their specific counters).

The flaming portion of the arrow does 8 ap, so anything prot 20+ with a decent shield (or even just 50% fire res, cutting it to 4 ap dam) can stand up well to it. The other overlooked portion of the spell that is on par with the 8 ap damage is the +2 to hit bonus on the arrows (and ability to hit ethereal/pop mistform), allowing it to go through parry rolls a lot more often, you ideally want parry 7 or more to parry most of it, with prot to absorb the ones that did go through.

Contrary to what the manual says, if your army routs from breaking siege (from inside a fort) they can still retreat to adjacent province, your fort even stays under your control (unless stormed). And moving an army into a sieged province with another army breaking siege there will allow them to fight in the same battle.

[Kobal2]

Some other ideas (all purely theoretical, since I'm a nooby noob):

- missile units have pretty uniformly crap morale. Wailing Winds + Terror/Panic spam should send them packing fast. If you can dump a Blood Rain on top of that, so much the merrier.
- clockwork horrors are fire immune, high prot, fast, small and relatively cheap. They'd mow right through non-Fog Warrior'd archers. If you can summon those, you can bring Cave Drake arrow bait as well, they have enough HP and prot to suck up a few volleys while the horrors close in.
- In the same vein, imps and devils are both flying and fire immune, so a pack of them should mess up flaming archers nicely.
- Flaming Arrows relies on masses of low HP, low MR, low prot troops. If you can't beat them on the field, maybe you can whack them with remote attacks and/or disease.
- If you have high astral or plentiful communion fodder, Battle Fortune/Will of the Fates would help, but they're somewhat high up the Alt tree.
- Corpse candles and similar spells that summon stuff from the edges of the field mess up archer targeting something fierce. If you can build Lantern Shields, even better as they'll be summoned from turn 0.
- Fire drakes could work too. They're fire immune, high HP and spit AoE fireballs.

[Nauquan]

Another way to counter archers is by troops placement. One or more groups of cheap, cannon fodder troops set forward of your main body will atract arrows away from your main body.