Halt Heretic - Opinions

[Ylvali]

Oh, I wouldn�t say that. I�ve had some great times with ulm.

[Zeldor]

Hehe, in SP I guess

[Tuidjy]

Once upon the time, I challenged people to duels to show them how utterly
worthless Ulm is. Later, I wrote long posts explaining why Ulm's troops suck,
and backed them up with probabilities. Even more recently, I ran battles in which
Ulm mighty and finely equipped warriors were whipped by non-sacred, build anywhere
troops like principles, men at arms and defenders.

And still, there are those who chime in with 'Oh, Ulm is not so bad'.

So I have decided not to engage in rational discussion anymore. My answer now is
'Shut up you newbie, you have no idea what you are talking about'.

[Twan]

I've already seen Ulm winning in MP, it just need an awake great sage to avoid to lose the magic race, some luck for starting position -not being rushed by a neighbour- and not too strong indies (indie 9 or maps like WoG are not good for Ulm).

As your troops are tough you don't need many summons, so you can keep your gems for some globals and/or forge boosters for all your battlefield mages (once you have the level for magma eruption it's sad to continue to cast magma bolts).

The only big ulmish problem is how slow the infantry is. Instead of any other boost I would have given mapmove 2 to all troops without black plate.

[Ballbarian]

Ulm may not have a chance in multiplayer against experienced players, but it is still one of my absolute favorites.

[Endoperez]

Tuidjy said:
Oh, in case anyone wonders... The iron angel is nothing much. Nice hps, OK fighting stats, great magic esistance. But he is a level 8 summon, and he cannot hold a candle to, for example, a Nifelheim Jarl, let alone a high level summon from a real nation. And I assume that it is simple sloppiness, but his uberweapon (which is anything but uber) goes away if you give him a weapon.

Is Iron Angel really that bad compared to other units available in MA? I don't remember what angel Pythium/Marignon get at level 8, but I think it's Angel of Fury. One against one, it's Blood Vengeance won't do anything against the Iron Angel, and I think they're comparable besides that. Halt Sacred +8 should stop attacks even against blessed, sacred commanders, though. And as far as national go, the only buff mages I can think of are Deep Kings and Skratti.

The special ability of Guardians' Black Halberds and Iron Angel's sacred fist is 15 armor-piercing stun damage on AoE 1. That means that it works better against light sacreds (anything that is massed) than heavily armored sacreds (sacred thugs). The fist goes away because his whole idea is "strength in self", not "strength via items X, Y and Z". The attack he loses deals pretty bad damage to magic beings and stuns sacreds, but it's not that special - against most things, he's better with a forged weapon.

Iron Darts and Iron Blizzard seem to be about in line with Magma Bolts/Magma Eruption, but I'm not sure how the armor-piercing affects their use or how useful their scaling is.

[Dedas]

Twan said:
The guardians don't have this ability, only the lord guardian (commander, you may recruit one per turn in the beginning, so you will have less than 10 of them -imagining you know you will be rushed and never build priests or mages- when an ennemy rusher arrives).

So I'm not really sure it's sufficient to stop a sacred early rush (especially when most blessed sacred have 14 or more morale).

ps : not tested so I may be wrong

Anyway the new priests and other new spells give a good boost to Ulm (darts look really awesome for their low fatigue cost).

I didn't write that they have Halt Heresy, but that they have Bane Heresy. Click on the black halberd to see this.

[Zeldor]

IF someone is too lazy to check, stats of Iron Angel:

63 HP
6 base protection
6 encumbrance [ouch]
Morale 30
MR 21
Reinvigoration 4
Str 22
Attack 16
Def 13
Precision 12
Move 3/11
Ldrship 0

halt heretic +8, flying, FR 50, SR 50, NNE

Built in black steel full plate, black steel helmet, swword of sharpness, divine graps.

[Twan]

I didn't write that they have Halt Heresy, but that they have Bane Heresy. Click on the black halberd to see this.

Oooh thanks I missed that. It looks like an interesting power.

[Jurri]

Ahem, the Iron Angel has
base encumberance 1
base magic resistance 20
base defense 15
base move 3/16
(You obviously observed it in drain dominion and didn't take into account the equipment modifications to the stats.)

At a glance, it's an excellent chassis for the cost. Especially for earth gems, which don't have many good options aside from Gargoyles and those have their weaknesses and require lots of nature gems. Flying, high hp and high MR chassis with some built in resistances... Yummy! (Of course you'll wanna replace his equipment, especially that hideous armor, but with some regeneration and some good gear it will be a nasty piece of work.)