Machaka and a W9 bless

[archaeolept]

I like machaka, but I've never found their bless units worthwhile; which is a pity, as they are cool.

I'd rather go w/ a more conventional army - the hoplites are pretty solid troops, albeit w/ map move 1 - and aim towards magma spam, following flaming arrows.

or you can try black sorc thugs: earth power, invuln, iron will, fire shield, hold, attack. the spider form only has two misc slots, i believe.

[TheMenacer]

In the growth vs. death argument, it's also of note that their black sorcerers and sorceresses (I think, any of their units who turn into spiders on death) can't die of disease. Every time they run out of hitpoints to the disease, they heal back up to full health with all of their afflictions removed, which makes getting huge amounts of fever fetishes a good idea. I'd definitely recommend a Solar Disk chassis for that reason, you can really exploit all those fire gems that way.

[archaeolept]

TheMenacer, I did not know that. They must change to their spider form, then revert back to their normal form. That's very cool.

[licker]

Originally Posted by TheMenacer

In the growth vs. death argument, it's also of note that their black sorcerers and sorceresses (I think, any of their units who turn into spiders on death) can't die of disease. Every time they run out of hitpoints to the disease, they heal back up to full health with all of their afflictions removed, which makes getting huge amounts of fever fetishes a good idea. I'd definitely recommend a Solar Disk chassis for that reason, you can really exploit all those fire gems that way.

Very interesting information. I like the growth scale for other reasons as well, but not having to take it would either allow for more dominion strength, or slightly higher 2nd/3rd blesses...

The hopelite is a quality guy, but the strat move is a killer to my current strategy. Indeed I don't build any of them until I have a fortress on a border where the fighting is of a more static nature, and even then I normally have dozens of sacred spiders running over everyone anyway.

Going back to the bless question for a second though...

Cost of going to w9 aside, what other 9 bless is as effective at making your spiders killers? The 3 attacks going to 6 is absolutely huge, and couple in the variety on the attacks and they can handle more than just indie/fodder. W9 gives them a defense of 17 before experience, tac move 30, and the 6! attacks. Their attack starts at 13 which is reasonable, considering they have 6! attacks. F4 is rather trivial to get which gives them a very robust attack of 15, and with their quickened speed they are in the back of the enemy immediately.

Regen only helps after the rider is gone, and then they lose an attack (or is it 2?), reinvigoration isn't needed (from my tests) and while going from prot20 to 24 is a big jump, 20 is already very high, but they don't need that as much as they need to be able to chew through foes quickly, and with 6! attacks they are going to be able to drop the defense of their foe quickly, and if the web hits make it 0 anyway.

I can see the use of death for the AN, and fire for the magic weapons, but 6! attacks just seems to outweigh any other advantage, especially when they also get +4def out of it.

Twist fate isn't that useful (though MR boost is) and I don't even know what the blood9 is . Air9 also does not really synergize in any way with Machaka.

So for my money if you're going to go bless with Machaka W9 seems the clear winner, though I'm also not sure what good W9 is for late gameish activities...

[rdonj]

Actually, one attack is a lance isn't it? So it's really 4 attacks per turn, as the lance only strikes once per battle.

Astral isn't a bad bless. Fire is good, and so is death. Air is pretty pointless for them. Earth wouldn't be a bad idea, to prevent critical hits on your spiders. Blood blesses give a bonus to strength and something called "death curse", not sure what that does as I've never used it.

If you're completely happy with their current survivability, adding either the fire or death bless would increase their ability to kill things the most. For fighting things like an awakened cyclops I think the death bless would be better. But I wouldn't get rid of the water bless to do it, the extra attacks add a lot and synergize extremely well with either bless.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by TheMenacer

In the growth vs. death argument, it's also of note that their black sorcerers and sorceresses (I think, any of their units who turn into spiders on death) can't die of disease. Every time they run out of hitpoints to the disease, they heal back up to full health with all of their afflictions removed, which makes getting huge amounts of fever fetishes a good idea. I'd definitely recommend a Solar Disk chassis for that reason, you can really exploit all those fire gems that way.

Actually, they don't heal ALL afflictions. My last run with Machaka, was specifically to test this trick. They usually heal *most* afflictions, however I had a lot of Fetish wearers who were just falling apart. Occasionally they get Mute or Feebleminded, cutting into your research a little - and not always going away.


Regarding the W9 bless, it's only 50% Quickness from the bless. So you don't double your amount of attacks.


In my experience, F9 bless is not that great against anything big, only for insuring instant kills on chaff. The 6AP damage is calculated separately from the base physical damage, so it has to get a really good DRN to actually hurt anything with say 15+ Prot.

[licker]

Ok, 50%, I was too excited

How does that affect the attacks then? Do attack 1-2-1-2-1-2... by rounds for each attack? If that's the case then you can finagle it to get your double attacks on the likely round you make 1st contact and still do some solid immediate damage.

I agree that F9 isn't a worthwhile bless here (even if you can get it pretty cheaply), I really don't see the point in going dual 9s though, I just can't see any of the other 9s being worth the cost, reletive to spreading a little between fire and astral to let your attacks hit more and help against magic. A low air bless might have some utility, and it gives you air coverage which otherwise you lack nationally, but I don't see it being that useful mid/late game compared to having astral.

[llamabeast]

In my opinion E9 is invaluable. With prot 20, the riders are only rarely hurt by typical troops. With prot 24, they are almost never hurt. Also, the reinvig stops them getting tired and vulnerable. So with E9 they can hold a solid line for a very long time.

W9 is also useful because of the defense bonus, but because the spiders are size 6 they will still get ganged on and get hit. And the +50% damage output is also handy, but not overwhelmingly so.

I've just tried a test with an E9W9 bless. It's pretty good. No injuries in the first couple of battles. But it is quite expensive.

[licker]

The marginal utility of 20->24 is very small compared with 13->17 (even though the defense can degrade, but there are AP/AN...), the %gain in damage reduction is tiny going E9. I've also not seen the fatigue being an issue at all, but I've also not had too many huge battles.

Swarming the spiders is harder than you think if you mass them (8+) its unlikely for them to get attacked more than 3 times unless they are completely surrounded, but in a battle where the army sizes are that big you should have some other units to take off some of the pressure anyway.

Realize that money is the easiest commodity to come by, and to hoard. Most other size6 units are production or gem (summons) limited, which makes them alot more difficult to mass (talking early game remember).

I would like the E9 bless alot more if the mages benefited from it, but they don't, and the additional attacks from water is much easier to synergize than the additional protection (also realize that quickness adds more fatigue, and I still don't see it as a problem).

Now I'm not saying E9 is a bad bless for them, indeed my early efforts used it (because for some weird reason I thought they had holy mages...) with N and F, but I didn't like the killing speed, and the longer they stood around getting hit the more afflictions piled up. Water decreases the amount of attacks they face, both due to the higher defense, and due to the fact that they kill things faster.

I tried a sleeping sphinx the other day with W9F4S6 and liked the results there as well, though I normally shy away from immobile pretenders.

[llamabeast]

You may well be entirely correct about W9 being better than E9 (you've obviously thought about it harder than me), however this bit

The marginal utility of 20->24 is very small compared with 13->17 (even though the defense can degrade, but there are AP/AN...), the %gain in damage reduction is tiny going E9.

I don't agree with. That last extra bit of protection greatly reduces the probability of any damaging hits getting through. Adding bonuses to already high values is an effective thing to do (for defensive values that is) - it's the same reason giving a water bless to a mounted van is a good idea, because it takes their already excellent defense and makes them almost unhurtable. Similarly, I'd argue that a prot 20 spider will suffer occasional hits and get worn down, whereas against conventional troops a prot 24 spider will almost never be injured.