Tackling Banelords?

[Foodstamp]

Fully geared Banelords seem like an incredible obstacle to overcome. Fully decked out with decent items, these supercombatants seem very hard to take down.

I am curious as to what strategies work best against equipped Banelords considering they take no fatigue from combat. Do they still receive penalties from facing multiple attackers? Magically or mundane, how do you topple these foes?

Thanks!

[Rathar]

I hear that spells that target undead only such as maggots work quite well.

In general it seems that for every SC type there is a specific and somewhat simple counter. Sometimes that somewhat simple thing requires you to have fire magic for example and if you don't well..

Rathar

[Jazzepi]

Undeath to death is great.

Jazzepi

[Xietor]

They are one of my favorite thugs as well.

Like all scs though, they can be brought low by paralyze, soul slay, smite, etc.

[johnarryn]

Generally things that dont check MR rolls are good, as many people kit out their SC's with MR-boosting equipment. I've found simple spells like incinerate and even lighning bolt can work well.

[Xietor]

I have found it hard to resist paralyze, even with really high mr. If you get 3-4 mages spamming it, you likely are toast.

[squeezing]

just lost a Angel of Fury to Drain Life spam , does that work on undead?

[MaxWilson]

Drain Life always hits, is impossible to resist, and comes on a D4 item. You won't gain any fatigue back from the Bane Lord, but item-casting is cheap anyway. The tactical AI is pretty good about casting Drain Life only on tough enemy units, so you should pick him out of a horde of chaff pretty quickly. Depending upon what "fully decked-out" means, the specific anti-undead counters (Inner Sun, Just Man's Cross, Solar Rays) may be more cost-effective, but Drain Life items are useful to have lying around anyway and AFAIK there's no way to counter them except killing the casters.

-Max

[Wish]

the drain life item is an artifact, however, which diseases whomever holds it.

[MaxWilson]

No, you're thinking of Sun Slayer (which is D5 incidentally). At Construction-6, D4 mages can construct the Standard of the Damned, which casts Drain Life. Give it to a non-spellcasting commander and set him to "Cast Spells" and that's all he'll cast. The Standard of the Damned is a pretty sorry melee weapon (you lose -2 att, -3 def), but it does cause Fear +0 and besides, you're using it as an oversized magic wand and not a melee weapon. Downside is that you can't hold a shield so you're vulnerable to missile fire.

-Max