usefulness of the high-end Construction summons?

[Tifone]

I'm not definitively an expert, quite the opposite, but I think a major point for the poison golems is that they require you the same Construction path you need to gear them. Ideally, I think you could go for a strategy (requiring a rainbow pretender of course) of aggressive remote site-searching with the spells (thaum 2, conj 2), some evoc or enchantment to keep you up, and then get to Construction 9 getting at one time the SCs and the artefacts to gear them up. You even get, on the way, to build Golems at Const7 and equip them of Const6 gear. Playing it nice you could start building Poison Golems equipped with artefacts around the time your enemy starts fielding medium summons with const-4 gear and alteration to buff them. Maybe a dream but it could be fast.

[sansanjuan]

Originally Posted by Tifone

I'm not definitively an expert, quite the opposite, but I think a major point for the poison golems is that they require you the same Construction path you need to gear them. Ideally, I think you could go for a strategy (requiring a rainbow pretender of course) of aggressive remote site-searching with the spells (thaum 2, conj 2), some evoc or enchantment to keep you up, and then get to Construction 9 getting at one time the SCs and the artefacts to gear them up. You even get, on the way, to build Golems at Const7 and equip them of Const6 gear. Playing it nice you could start building Poison Golems equipped with artefacts around the time your enemy starts fielding medium summons with const-4 gear and alteration to buff them. Maybe a dream but it could be fast.

IIRC an equipped poison golem won the last SC to SC (ladder?) battle.
-SSJ

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by sansanjuan

IIRC an equipped poison golem won the last SC to SC (ladder?) battle.
-SSJ

yeah but it was quite specialized to defeat SC's. I never took part in that battle, and don't know how I wold have prep'd for it, but it retrospect it is quite a common tactic to take down SCs with a commander or two with Standards of the Damned behind some linebacker. The tactic is fairly obvious in that respect, and ppl should have seen it comming.

still in this open situation, where I can make almost anything, it is hard to keep that kind of clarity and think of these simple things. Also, with that strat, the fact that it was a poison golem is almsot irrelevant; they are just simply about the only high prot mindless inanimate non-national commander available. A Marble Oracle or GoR'd Crusher could do the same thing.

I don't think the fact that it won in that situation argues for anything other than that poison golems are good at holding a SoD and beating SCs. However, I can do that much cheaper with a standard commander and something to hold off whatever SC is in question. So the Poison Golem is a good gladiator, it doesn't make them a good unit to use in the big picture.

[sum1lost]

Originally Posted by Omnirizon

yeah but it was quite specialized to defeat SC's. I never took part in that battle, and don't know how I wold have prep'd for it, but it retrospect it is quite a common tactic to take down SCs with a commander or two with Standards of the Damned behind some linebacker. The tactic is fairly obvious in that respect, and ppl should have seen it comming.

still in this open situation, where I can make almost anything, it is hard to keep that kind of clarity and think of these simple things. Also, with that strat, the fact that it was a poison golem is almsot irrelevant; they are just simply about the only high prot mindless inanimate non-national commander available. A Marble Oracle or GoR'd Crusher could do the same thing.

I don't think the fact that it won in that situation argues for anything other than that poison golems are good at holding a SoD and beating SCs. However, I can do that much cheaper with a standard commander and something to hold off whatever SC is in question. So the Poison Golem is a good gladiator, it doesn't make them a good unit to use in the big picture.

Except they still have a solid antichaffer in the banefire shield. As I understand it, this provides them with crowd control, and the standard allows them thug-control while healing them.

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by sansanjuan

IIRC an equipped poison golem won the last SC to SC (ladder?) battle.
-SSJ

I find this quite shocking. How was that Poison Golem equipped?

[sum1lost]

Originally Posted by Epaminondas

I find this quite shocking. How was that Poison Golem equipped?

Boots of quickness/staff of damned, with lifelong protection, if I remember right. Lifelongprotection is almost unfairly effective in duels, and several chassis had a lot of it.

[Baalz]

Well, I personally think poison golems are underrated. SC's have 3 roles:

1) Singlehandedly clearing chaff (and most things are chaff at the stage of the game level 9 spells come out). Poison golems are O.K. for that, cost effective if you don't have access to one of the really good choices like Tartarians.

2) Killing other SCs. Poison golems are O.K. at that to if you equip them propertly. My poison golem won the big SC challenge that was run awhile ago up against the best stuff everybody could build for an arena fight with 20 something entries I beleive. Boots of quickness and a standard of the damned, and they'll take down most things not custom built to fight them.

3) Heavy hitters supporting large armies - mean to be very tough while mages do the killing. Poison golems are pretty good at this to. Properly equipped they're immune to pretty much everything, while nothing is immune to their banefire aura. Great lighting rods to charge out front while your mages rain all kinds of stuff down which the golems are immune to.

All in all, pretty respectable units for the cost if you can cast them.


Iron dragons are good raiders. If you've been stockpiling blood stones and have flying mages (or pass out flying boots) you've got reasonably priced flying raiders who will take out any unsupported PD. Because of their immunities, plenty of nations will have trouble stopping a lone iron dragon even with a mage or two supporting their PD. Throwing a surprise iron dragon to trample the rearmost mages can be extremely effective.

Mechanical men are fantastic in lots of situations and I always assume they're gonna have armor piercing + strength of giant weapons so they'll take down the big fellas to. Storming Caelum's capital? Instead of taking horrendous casualties to thunderstrike send a mage with a rings of lighting and frost resistance and a squad of mechanical men. C'tis fatiguing you out with skellispam while poison makes your very expensive super-elite units keel over - mechanical men to the rescue.

Clockwork horrors are one that people overlook that can be a very nasty surprise. They're size 1 and have two attacks. If they're buffed with weapons of sharpness, strength of giants, mass flight (in a pinch several mages casting gift of flight will work - each square has 6 of them) and optionally quickness they will chew through the toughest SCs in the game, and neither protection nor defense, fireshields nor awe will help.

Manikins/Mandragoras are pretty hard to use cost effectively, but they can be worth their weight in gold as an unexpected surprise when your opponent is storming a castle and didn't expect them.

Everybody already knows and loves the golem.

Crushers are fabulous as linebackers, particularly to stop a hoard of tramplers. Watching 20 elephants stopped like they ran into a brick wall by two crushers while your mages leisurely take them apart....fun.

Lumber constructs.....uh.....well, they're cheap?

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Baalz

2) Killing other SCs. Poison golems are O.K. at that to if you equip them propertly. My poison golem won the big SC challenge that was run awhile ago up against the best stuff everybody could build for an arena fight with 20 something entries I beleive. Boots of quickness and a standard of the damned, and they'll take down most things not custom built to fight them.

Yes, I placed the Poison Golem in the competition, maybe I didn't make it clear with this statement. The poison golem as a chasis wasn't irrelevant, it was ideal for the following reasons:

High base protection. This means it's unnecessary to buff base protection with stone boots, earth magic, etc. This means you can get boots of quickness and armor of souls - or something different if you prefer. Bottom line, with halfway decent armor he's got very good staying power - particularly if you're spamming drain life twice a round.

Banefire shield. This is something you can't otherwise get (well, other than the king of banefires), and has the huge benefit of being effective against fire immune units - imps specifically. Lifelong protections were indeed common in the SC challenge, but then again they're not exactly rare when fighting any blood nation. The banefire shield makes the standard of the damned an option for general use - how many guys can handle chaff control with no fire/frostbrand or shield?

Lifeless/mindless - makes him immune to many of the standard SC counters. If you equip him to give him elemental immunity towards whatever your opponent is likely to use it's pretty much down to running forward and whacking through the banefire shield at an extremely high protection guy who's spamming life drain (as in his HPs are shooting up every round). He's lethal towards SCs. He's lethal towards chaff. He's immune to everything the bad mages can cast (with a few exceptions, which your opponent certainly may not have access to).

No magic - doesn't seem like a benefit at first, but the point is he doesn't need to spend rounds self buffing. Critical for the SC competition, but certainly an important factor for general use as an anti-SC. A secondary consideration is you don't need to do any other reserach, you've got a solid SC with nothing but Cons-9 done.

All in all, look at what you get for the cost! He's maybe not the best unit in the game, but certainly cost effective if you use him properly...

[Nikelaos]

i love clockwork horrors, not quite higher end but cheap, easily massed, and very deadly with those construction buffs chucked on.

mindless slaughter anyone?

[HoneyBadger]

I've always been a big fan of Clockwork Horrors. People say a lot about imps, but Clockwork Horrors are the Terminator version of imps. I'm surprised they aren't mentioned/used more often, since they're really quite lethal.