Bogarus Quick Guide

[OmikronWarrior]

If my memory serves they have 9 HP and no protection. The blood vengeance aspect looks tempting, but in my own experience that won't get you far.

[Baalz]

Blood vengeance: will reduce the amount of hits they take
Iron skin: 20 protection will stop a decent amount of attacks from dealing any damage (depending, of course, on what they're fighting)
Mistform: those attacks that do land will only deal 1 damage

You'd have to have several of them for this type of tactic to make any sense, so you're talking about a group of them, not a single guy who's quickly surrounded. So...depending on what you're facing it seems likely they're only getting hit for damage a couple times a round, and each hit is just doing 1 damage. With a little bit of regeneration this turns them into something that requires a specific counter.

[Zeldor]

Baalz:

But when they are not hit hit blood vengeance won't do any damage. And doesn't damage from it depend on how much damage they receive? And they can still die from smites and spells.

[Baalz]

As I said, I haven't played around with BV much so I'm not sure how it's resolved but my thought was that if you fail the MR roll you attack yourself - so for instance casting a fire spell at a fire immune guy with BV could still hurt you. I may be wrong on that though.

And yes, of course they can go down to spells and smites, though with the blood vengeance and ability to be buffed with lighting, fire and cold immunity, luck, etc. seems like they'd be more resistant to that than most.

[Falkor]

Great thanks for a nation with old-slavonic motive!

Btw: Fivefold angel has fist attack, but description says her hands were cut off. Maybe 'useless kick' would be better? (like commanders with two schields)

[archaeolept]

no no, give them a falchion

[Nikolai]

I am only one who thinks that this good looking troops should not be just waste of space?

If this nation modelled after trade cities of Novogorov, Kiev, etc... they should have decent citizen militia. I like slow movement for peshti (infantry) because they would not like to go away from home. But broadsword guys should be a bit better. At least 11 in attack/defense - they would have SOME soldiers that are OK on foot.

The black hoods (karakalpak) feel a bit wrong too. Why the heavy, full helmet? Kalpak is 'hat', and in this case, it's a fur hat - like mongols, tatars, etc... Leather cap at very best. And they should have bucklers - same for Grid Druzhina - eastern horse archers mostly had bucklers.

Actually, lack of shields is strange. The knyaz also should carry a shield, with 'coat of arms'. Why does black hood carry the banner anyway? They were displaced nomads, working as mercenaries. Not ones to carry flags. Give it to druzhinik...

As for magic, I find dominance of blood over nature strange. It would make sense if we get a 'middle era' Rus, based on nature, wise women, etc... But as it is, without back story, it feel strange.

By the way, I am not Russian :-) Not my fault that my name could be.

[johan osterman]

The answer to all of your questions is that dominions does not make any claims of complete historical fidelity. Bogarus is not the nations which inspired it.

[Kristoffer O]

In the osprey books used for inspiration the black hats wear visors to protect their faces from incoming arrows, thus the name black hats/hoods.

The mid age Vanarus will be more nature oriented.

[DrPraetorious]

Those troops are *not* a waste of space. I would've given the Peshti kite shields (no need to change the artwork, those are kite shields they're holding,) and I think the Malai Druzhina is paying too many RP for his barding, but the army is useable as is.

Firstly, they suck, and you're never going to conquer another player with them, however many you recruit, because other players are geared to fight indies who also have hosts of crud. But hosts of crud are NOT useless...

Against most enemies, I'd rather have 5 Pre 8 shortbowmen than 4 pre 10 shortbowmen, and the combination of fire and air magic practically cries out for wind guide + flaming arrows, which you get relatively quickly for your research bonus, making you much better at this than Shinuyama.

The suck infantry are better than most militia, and they cost 8 gp. Against many enemies, it doesn't matter *what* you have because all your troops are chaff, so cheaper chaff is better.

The heavy infantry really wish they had javelins and a better shield, but:
* With spears, they are relatively low resource cost and have a repel attack, making them useful meat shields for your mages.
* The axemen and swordsmen do quite well against equivalent resource worth of hvy inf from other nations. Their armor isn't great but it isn't hugely resource intensive either.
* The voi infantry are cheap and expendable, and do fairly well as far as blood hunt patrollers go.

The big weakness of their military is the strategic move of 1. No human opponent is going to let you get away with that.

So their military is pretty weak, but you still use it, especially the elite components, and it's balanced against the strength of their magic.