Beginner's Guide to Shinuyama MA

[Sandman]

Someone (I forget who) used just such a pretender in the Faerun PBEM game. It was very successful (holding off Mictlan and Ulm), until it got magic duelled and their war effort collapsed.

[Methel]

Thats just the thing, you're using all those points on a single unit that can be (with good chances too) killed off by a Astral 1 spell. Works great until that happens though.

[Shovah32]

Hes already ethereal and Shinuama have access to same astral magic(lucky pendants/antimagic amulets) dont they? He already has plenty of buffing to do so why not just drop the astral magic(and maybe 1 level of dominion, 10 seems a little much on a ghost king) and buy some more scales?

[Rytek]

drain 2 and old age combat mages makes me cry. those guys get off like 3 skelly casts then they collapse due to fatigue.

[Shovah32]

As a slight twist on that ghost king how about:
3 in all paths other than blood and astral
dominion 9
order 3, sloth 2, heat 1, growth 1, misfortune 3(or 2 with more heat or sloth), magic 1

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Shinuyama doesn't get astral magic, Shovah. Not even random or national summons.

That said, you could probably do quite nicely with two in all paths rather than three. There are a few paths I'd bump a bit higher, such as, perhaps, earth and air for dwarven hammers and watchers, but that depends on the flavor du jour.

[Shovah32]

I just didnt feel like changing the original too much. For a ghostking i would(at most) probably give him air 2, fire 2, earth 2, death 3 for combat buffing and, if i was using him to give shinuyama a magic boost i might give him a boost to air 4(can get up to air 6 with 2 air boosters then) and maybe a bit of nature magic if i felt i needed it.

With the combat paths listed he could buff with mistform, soul vortex, phoenix pyre, summon earthpower(more reinvigorration for phoenix pyre) and a protection buff(iron/stoneskin).

Going for awe dominion still seems like a little much on a rainbow SC to me but oh well...

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Shoot me. I killed my lengthy post accidentally. Double drat.
I'll have to give the cliff notes version.

Bakemono Kunshu, Pretender


Yukinaga, Heart Finder, National Hero (Dom 3.08, unmodded)


An immortal pretender plus immortal hero? Nice.
I've been working on developing the Kunshu into a supercombatant. I've had limited success, quite a few experimental builds, and I'll share what I've had the most fun with.

It does need tuning, but a Kunshu with fire 6, death6, air 2, Five dominion.

Script

Mistform-> Fireshield-> Flight ->Attack Rear

There are some issues with scripting close combat spells, and scripting, but you can try flight->attack->immolation. Unfortunately, you have no innate fire resistance (but immortal) and can only issue a random attack order in that sequence, no hopping to the rear.

[Shovah32]

I would have added some earth magic onto the kunshu due to the lack of natural protection and the fairly high enc.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Umm.. yeah. I've tried various things, but I'm looking for something dependable, in practice. That means I need tested directions for battlefield use.

I might consider adding earth magic into my 'rear-attack' build because I want watchers, but then I'd also want regen. Even with iron skin, though, he often doesn't survive long for encumb to be an issue. Perhaps if I comboed enough spells, like the suggested build in the manual- though that spell encumbrance of eight is killer, especially if I take any drain.

I'm all over the place. Point is, depending on my paths and 'magic' I can only script a few spells sometime. I need directions on use a little more than spells. What do you consider and effective use of immortals, and an effective return on your efforts, esp. considering you're not spending much, if anything, on equipment.
Do I use him as solo kamikaze, what happens if I have him kamikaze the enemy's rear while my armies take on their armies? Is battlefield flight range unlimited, or do I get better results if I place him a little further forward?

I've got to experiment a bit more before I hit on something successful- all my experiments so far were suicide solos- perhaps more protection will benefit. Though I did have better results against small groups of elite units in my different experiments.

Anyone know exactly how fire shield scales? It does seem more effective at six than three ... something like 12 to 10 AP. Is there a cutoff point or a point where it becomes ridiculously effective? Yep, I'll be tinkering.

Barbarians are my number one hurdle, so far, overcoming most spells i can offer up in short order. I'll have to try swarms of bakemono-sho archers while my guy kamikazes the front ranks.