Bless nation recommendation, please

[ebenweb]

Hi all,

I'm a NOOB and am having a hard time finding a nation to play with what the forum members consider units worthy of a bless strategy.

I thought Pythium would be alright--I figured a good Water bless would make their sacred units very difficult to hit and counterbalance their lack of armour--but have read guides that say they're not good enough to be focused on. I was playing with C'tis using a high water bless on their sacred serpents and that seemed pretty effective early-game, but again read conflicting strategy guides.

Can someone give some examples of GOOD bless strategies? I'd like to play a nation that doesn't use blook magic as I want to keep things simple, and I like the idea of a pretender who is mobile but am happy to make them dormant.

Cheers,

Eben

[rdonj]

No mictlan/lanka, eh? Then take your pick of Niefel, Ashdod, Tir Na N'og or Gath. If Niefel or TNN, take an E9/N4+ bless. If one of the others, take E10/n4+. Or if you want to try something other than an E/x bless, try say, ma Ermor. Shadow Vestals bless nicely with something like w9/s9. Or Kailasa, s9/a9/N-or-E4 (/gets blasted for this last one ), or... yeah, any of these should work.

Btw, sacred serpents are a terrible sacred. They are just way too hard to keep alive. Taking a strong bless for those is a waste of points. They are better for keeping your morale up than anything else. If you want a bless as c'tis, consider primarily what you might like on your sacred summons.

[BigDaddy]

Earth bless E4 or something is good for Pythium. I've had a lot of luck keeping acolytes alive with E8 or 10 while in communion. The sacred unit isn't worth a bless, but the communion mages are.

Take Mictlan with a sleeping Moloch or Smoking Mirror with F9(or10!)D9. While berserking is tempting with the PD, all your best mages are sacred so don't do it. If MA Mictlan... Can you still get Moloch? Same thing works, mass your hire everywhere sacreds and send them with a blesser into battle. They will kick some serious butt. Typical is f9w9 but D9 is cheaper and I think better.

[Trumanator]

Ummm, F9D9 is about the dumbest bless you can take. For Mictlan the best bless is probably something like S9F9, S9W9, or W9F9

[BigDaddy]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Ummm, F9D9 is about the dumbest bless you can take. For Mictlan the best bless is probably something like S9F9, S9W9, or W9F9

Why S9? S4 maxes out the Jag fiends MR as far as bless goes. It might be nice to have on the pretender though. It's alot to pay for twist fate. I could see it possibly for preventing death do to archers... but you can just use slaves or x-breeds for that.

[rdonj]

IMO, mictlan really screams triple bless. Personally were I playing them, I would probably play something along the lines of W9F9N4+, or W9F9B4+, depending on how many giant nations were in the game. I'd have to play around a bit first though, I'm not a mictlan player so I don't know how the points work out. I've seen similar blesses used against me though, quite effectively I might add.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

Why S9? S4 maxes out the Jag fiends MR as far as bless goes. It might be nice to have on the pretender though. It's alot to pay for twist fate. I could see it possibly for preventing death do to archers... but you can just use slaves or x-breeds for that.

It's for the twist fate. It's not super-awesome for early game, but against late game evocations twist fate is exceedingly useful. And in the meantime it does reduce casualties to archer fire.

[Trumanator]

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

Why S9? S4 maxes out the Jag fiends MR as far as bless goes. It might be nice to have on the pretender though. It's alot to pay for twist fate. I could see it possibly for preventing death do to archers... but you can just use slaves or x-breeds for that.

S9 means it will take at minimum 3 hits to kill every jag. It also does wonders in lessening you losses in early game to that one lucky arrow that hits your priest. Also, S9 is one of the best late game pretenders to have. If EA had the Oracle it'd be even more of a no-brainer.

[ebenweb]

I guess what I should have asked was: "what nation has good sacred melee units that make blessing a good strategy". I get why it's good to have an air or earth bless for mages but it seems a waste to have sacred melee units that aren't worth blessing...

I thought pythium's sacred units would be worth a high water bless--then the only concern would be their vulnerability to arrows--but I'm guessing Pythium's mages would benifit more from an earth bless.

[BigDaddy]

If you have a sacred mages its nice to have even a little E4.