Are Poison Aura Summons Worth It?

[PyroStock]

I know these summons can work as with enough gems near anything can work, but at the risk of upsetting the bogbeast dieties are summons with poison auras ever worth it?

If they required fire gems (which wouldn't be in theme) I might be able justify the cost easier. They seem to all have map move 1 and are slow in battle which doesn't help. Their attack and defense skills range from below average to puke awful. Catoplebas at least has a death stare, but is that enough to justify the cost? Perhaps one could create a large poison aura army for stacking the poison auras, but that's a lot of gems it wouldn't be very easy to combine with traditional armies later. The Bladder Stick(s), Foul Vapors, and/or Poison Cloud seem a lot cheaper and better if you want to go the poison cloud route.

Are there specific nations (regenerating giants or Ermor's undead or Pythium's hydras or?) where you have used these units regularly and found them worth the cost... or are they more of a "can be fun" unit?

[Baalz]

Well, I can argue the other side and tell you about a specific time they were useful against me. Playing MA Ulm I start invading MA C'tis. My heavy infantry/knights run into a fairly homogeneous mix of bog beasts, Sirrrushes (with a decent bless) and undead backed by poison slingers. The undead kept the Sirrushes from being swarmed while the bog beasts were a little slower and ended up being a little back from the front lines spitting (fairly ineffective, but hard to get to to kill). The Sirrushes were strong enough to kill off anything short of a major assault, but the prospect of breaking through the front lines with a large force and overrunning the bog beasts sent me back to regroup until I could field decent poison immune troops. Who wants to engage in a fight where the best you can hope for is that you can kill most of the enemy before everybody dies?

That's a very specific example, but you can extend the logic - go ahead and run over me with those F/W vans...who's cost effective now?

[Cor2]

In sp I often make posion armies. Monster Toads as infantry, bog beasts as skirmishers, maybe some vinemen, lead tham with nature mages. Its pretty easy to do if you have easy access to nature. Fun to watch the posion cloud take up most of the field.
But the armies always take heavy casualties. They don't last long, even with buffs like mass protection and mass regen. So i place most of them in the "just for fun catagory. The major exceptions being Catoplebas and the Big dragon thing whos name excapes me at the moment.

[Tichy]

Tarrasque

[Ironhawk]

Generally speaking, no, poison summons are not worth it. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but for the most part, no.

As for national units: I have used the pythium hydra to great effect as a solo small squad (3-4 hydras) early expander. They are quite good for that. But as the game progresses you have the same problem of not being able to easily field masses of poison res troops to support them.

[SlipperyJim]

Tarrasques rock very hard indeed, but they're an extreme end-game ploy. By the time you can manage to get a decent team of Tarrasques into the field, the game is probably over....

That said, I had a blast with Team Tarrasque in a SP game a while ago. One GoR'ed Tarrasque who had been empowered to S4 was leading a strike force of more Tarrasques all over the map with judicious use of Gateway. Utterly inefficient, but very fun.

[Sombre]

I'd just like to point out that if you want to mix poison cloud troops with regular troops, you don't need poison res troops, you need poison /immune/ troops. Even poison res of 99 will do virtually nothing to prevent you getting crippled/killed/morale-tested-until-you-flee if you spend a few rounds fighting alongside a poison cloud unit.

Don't believe me? Try Ctis troops + poison slingers or bog beasts or poison cloud spells.

[VedalkenBear]

Just a quick point. Probably the best nation to do a poison summon strategy is the Serpent Cult of Pythium.

[KissBlade]

I use poison troops with undeads relatively often against basic infantry. It causes morale to scatter like wheat.

[sum1lost]

Poison barbed troops work well against blessed vans and most cavalry, as the poison damage will do serious damage to them- the hooves are length 0, and two attacks a turn causes the poison damage to rack up quickly.