Black Servant Gear

[AreaOfEffect]

Well, there certainly is a lot of logic in that. Yet their is a fault as well in assuming that there is a true line between thug an SC. A SC in reality is just a significantly better thug, and so the threat of losing your precious investment is still their. An avoidance of mid-tier units only perpetuates the idea that a SC is somehow different.

I will grant you that thugging has a cost and to use thugs that cost gems on top of the gear cost would be less then favorable.

Personally, I tend to neither use thugs or super combatants. Armies and boosted mages are my bread and butter. I just wanted to juxtapose a thread against the Seraph discussion. I think it's the second one we've had in a month to be honest. Maybe it's the same thread revisited though.

[NTJedi]

Black Servant is the best cost effective measure for exploring city of the damned and the other adventure site. I typically only provide one misc item for exploring.

[Aezeal]

Sure there is a continuum there but... When I have a SC the chance of loosing him too PD or small armies are so small I don't consider them.. They will be equiped with more than low level items though there is a severe difference between your balck servant and whatever I produce mostly.

I only use chassis with loads of HP and good stats.. races which don't have those.. well I just stick to armies then. Problem isn't loosing the items I think.. the problem is that the enemy can pick them up.. and that sucks especially if he has better chassis so he can use the items better than you could. (yes this is experience based)

PS I never even had a Seraph though but I'm trying to get one one of these days.

My SC are Niefel Jarls with Frostbrand, amulet of luck, boots of reinvig, eye shield and ring of regen. I know some slots are open but I'm trying to outfit one every 1-2 turns so I'm focussing on the basics here (also they aren't REAL top-class SC I know but they won't loose too PD and are decent for turn 30-ish if you have 4 of them and one or two dozen giants behind them) ... I admit that is more of a thugish use of them ... I use the one with the HP bonus as real SC though.. taking provinces alone.. the rest follows to take the castles.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by Ironhawk

QM is renowned for using black servant thugs. You should try and get him to weigh in on the subject

It's actually much harder than in Dom2... now even highish PD can squish the old black servant lite. Still, the classic research level 2, blacksteel armor set + luck amulet build has it's uses. As has been mentioned golden shields are also expectational useful if you still have a need for black servants at that point. Barkskin amulets are another great addition.