Is there a niche for Longdead Archers?

[Shangrila00]

So is there? They're pretty cheap at 10 for 5 death, but the requirements are a lot harder to reach than the same priced banefire crossbow, and according to the db, banefire bows only do a decay effect on hit instead of the aoe that the crossbow does. (am I right here?) For 5 death, it seems the crossbow is better at inflicting decay than 10 archers, much better against tower shields (does arrow fend stop the aoe decay?), as well as being easier to make, and the bows themselves have stats no better than a regular crossbow.

Maybe a nation without national archers, but even then, aren't indy crossbows plus a banefire xbow better?

[Knai]

Honeslty, the big issue with summoning Longdead Archers isn't the cost or how useful they are. The big issue is that you are using a mage-turn for ten fairly fragile archers. That's not to say that they are never worth it, merely that you will want to carefully weigh that against whatever else it is the mage can do.

[rdonj]

The biggest benefit of longdead archers is that they use magic bows. This can actually be pretty huge, mainly because this means that they ignore ethereal/mistform/etc. If an opponent is using seasonal summons, ghosts, or green lions, this is a form of conventional forces that can kill them, and generally for a much lower cost. The decay itself is usually not a big deal and I would never recruit them just for that.

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by rdonj

The biggest benefit of longdead archers is that they use magic bows. This can actually be pretty huge, mainly because this means that they ignore ethereal/mistform/etc. If an opponent is using seasonal summons, ghosts, or green lions, this is a form of conventional forces that can kill them, and generally for a much lower cost. The decay itself is usually not a big deal and I would never recruit them just for that.

Without the decay, it's seriously just a crossbow with double the rate of fire, albeit magical, and a bow of war is so much better at just spamming magic arrows against ethereal summons or popping fog warriors, while a piercer or vision's foe would be better against mistformed thugs/SCs. Though, as you say, the decay really isn't worth much, since you have to actually score a hit, which would already be doing physical damage which would probably kill the target first. The Banefire crossbow's decay effect is so much more useful since it's an unavoidable aoe on enemies not actually hit by the physical attack.

I just can't see any circumstance in which it's useful to spend a F2D1 mage turn, over a single path mage turn on a magic bow. Besides the odd case of facing tons of summons and better able to afford spending death than air gems to counter, are there any cases in which Reanimate Archers is better than doing something else?

On an unrelated note, the wiki has a size 6 divine mummy with awesome stats as a possible result of ritual of rebirth. How do you get it? I tried RoRing Hannibal, the size 6 elephant mercenary and still only got a giant mummy.

[Soyweiser]

Decay has some very small situational uses iirc. Disease + decay works, and if BoT is up it also helps a bit. But not enough usually. And there is a small bug with disease + decay on the battlefield and demon units. (Demons normally do not get diseased, or at least it heals every turn. But they can still get disease damage if they are decayed and diseased on the battlefield).

[GFSnl]

Zmey's are also good targets for decay bows. Very short lifespan and no parry .

[Shangrila00]

A mummy thug backed up by a bunch of banefire xbows sounds like it could be pretty powerful.

Though I've wiped out entire armies with that banefire spewing artifact wand. The direct damage only obliterates a single square at a time, so I've always thought aoe decay was pretty powerful against normal and short lived enemies. Maybe it only works against the AI.

Originally Posted by GFSnl

Zmey's are also good targets for decay bows. Very short lifespan and no parry .

There's an idea, a single target vulnerable to decay without parry, so lots of single target decay rolls works better than a single aoe.

Any other thug/SCs like this? Still it's seeming like there's just no general use for longdead archers. Too bad, as they are pretty cool, and the fire/death combo is so rare that I really want to leverage it for more than just flaming skulls.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

Any other thug/SCs like this? Still it's seeming like there's just no general use for longdead archers. Too bad, as they are pretty cool, and the fire/death combo is so rare that I really want to leverage it for more than just flaming skulls.

Fire death works great for battlefield spells. Banefire spam!

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Fire death works great for battlefield spells. Banefire spam!

Being able to pull that off is even rarer than having F/D.

A reasonable number of nations can scrounge up enough F/D for rituals/forging, but besides LA Agartha/C'Tis and Shinuyama, I can't think of anybody that has expendable recruitables that can cast banefire without expensive shenanigans with boosters or forced communions.

It would be nice if longdead archers were good enough to reward having modest F/D instead of just another extreme niche that almost never becomes useful...but then again, it's not as if most options in Dominions aren't extreme niche.

[Soyweiser]

[02:30] [Trumanator] umm, someone ought to point out to shangrila on srapnel that Banefire Bows are AP
[02:30] [Trumanator] or at least
[02:30] [Trumanator] i'm pretty sure they are

fyi