Epic 2.08 Game

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I'm surprised that you wouldn't have used that many wishes for something more durable, since vampire queens are very low in hitpoints and are undead, so are extremely vulnerable late game. A single wither bones will kill one. For the number of gems to get a VQ to astral 5 alone you could have wished for 5 or 6 doom horrors.

A power-wished Vampire Queen with Gift of Health has maybe 100+ HP. That's no slouch. I favor the vampire queen because it has a huge collection of innate powers: It's innately ethereal, flying, and immortal. With innate etherealness, I don't have to cast Body Ethereal. With innate flying, I don't have to wear a flying item, or cast flight (and have it end up casting flight on my fodder instead of my SC). Since you only get 5 spells, anything that you can get innately is something you don't need to get off an item or a spell. And nothing grants immortality!

With immortality, as long as I stay within my dominion, you can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I'll just come back and pick up all my stuff. A Doom Horror, while perhaps more potent in base stats, lacks item slots, having only a measly 2-misc. As such, if I were to make such an expensive investment, I'd end up with an SC that has 1 hp, anyway, since I'd have to slap a Ritual of Returning on to protect my investment. Toughness instantly becomes irrelevant as a result. I could use throwaway, basic off-the-grill Doom Horrors, but Last game, Navrunner already demonstrated his ability to cope with those. Besides, Doom Horrors, if I try to mass produce them, have a maddening habit of causing my lab to explode, instantly grinding everything to a halt.

So, given that I'm selecting from immortal units, what's the immortal unit with the most special abilities?

That's right, Vampire Queens. You can't beat Flying+Ethereal on an immortal chassis.

[mivayan]

Such a vampire queen is fairly impossible to kill, but it does not really kill much against an army unless you cast soul drain or something. It did however cause my army to auto-rout after 50 turns which I did not plan for in the marathon game.

Did you successfully invade and wipe out your enemy Last game?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
[QB]I could use throwaway, basic off-the-grill Doom Horrors, but Last game, Navrunner already demonstrated his ability to cope with those. Besides, Doom Horrors, if I try to mass produce them, have a maddening habit of causing my lab to explode, instantly grinding everything to a halt.

I still can't imagine that you would find 10-15 or so doom horrors to be less useful than a single vampire queen, since that's the relative cost involved here.

That's right, Vampire Queens. You can't beat Flying+Ethereal on an immortal chassis.

Sure you can. Quickness + dust to dust, wither bones, drain life works wonders as well. Push your dominion so you only have to kill them once.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I still can't imagine that you would find 10-15 or so doom horrors to be less useful than a single vampire queen, since that's the relative cost involved here.

Well, I ran a rather straightforward test: I started a game with two nations. On one, I produced 15 Doom Horrors. It took awhile. My lab exploded regularly. On the other, I produced the Uber-VQ.

Then I smashed them together in straight-out, head-to-head. The Vampire Queen won. I think that settles that question.

quote:

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That's right, Vampire Queens. You can't beat Flying+Ethereal on an immortal chassis.

Sure you can. Quickness + dust to dust, wither bones, drain life works wonders as well. Push your dominion so you only have to kill them once.

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Navrunner did, in fact, attempt to use Wither Bones. It failed to have any appreciable effect, although it did do an excellent job mowing down fodder. It seemed like my VQ was actually IN the area affected, and went unharmed. I think it could be the combination of Etherealness, which is supposed to reduce the effectiveness of spells like Wither Bones, Mistform, Mirror Image, and Personal Luck. I lay them on pretty thick.

So the basic chassis isn't unstoppable....but can you find a BETTER one? What would you choose instead? I get flying, I get immortality, etherealness, flight, cold immunity and zero encumberance. This is on a standard 7-item slot chassis...with stealth!

Here's the list of stuff I like to have:
Mirror Image/Glamour, Mistform, Ethereal, Lucky, Flying, Quickness, low-to-no encumberance, a damage shield, immortality. Immunities are good, too.

The VQ gives me *4* of these, plus the cold, poison, and disease immunity. Some of these you simply can't get from any spells or items: No spell or item lowers a unit's encumberance, and encumberance is the severe bane of any aspiring SC, in my book: An SC needs to be like an energizer bunny: It keeps going, and going, and going. Note that any encumberance counts once quickened. An encumberance 4 unit will need no less than 8 points of reinvigoration per turn, a combination which will take at least two normal items or an artifact.

[Norfleet]

Yeah, was taking a fair number of provinces before he gave up after being unable to stop them.

And I wouldn't say they can't kill very much. With a good loadout, you're looking at an optimal 4+ kills a turn against weak opponents. Over 50 rounds of fighting, that's 200 kills. Solo. Obviously, this is against human-sized targets and not against Tarrasques, which will definitely require multiple hits to go down. I've killed pretty sizeable mobs with these. And if you can't be killed, you can keep killing until everyone is DEAD, DEAD, DEAD.