Best way to kill abominations

[mattzu84]

I recently encountered adominations for the first time, and I was rather surprised. I was Ashen Empire and had trashed Mictan on one front and moved off to deal with pythia. Mictan then sieged my castle which blocked him off with a small army and 4 abominations. They couldn't heart my walls but trashed every undead army I sent. I finally had to bring my main offensive army over. Between my mages casting paralyse, my undead archers, too many destroy skeletons, and more turns than I thought combat could go one; I finally killed all four abominations. There has to be a better way to deal with them; hopefully a way acessable to ermor. Any insight would be great.

[Ragnarok-X]

dont bet on it but i say disintigrate ?

[ywl]

Originally posted by mattzu84:
I recently encountered adominations for the first time, and I was rather surprised. I was Ashen Empire and had trashed Mictan on one front and moved off to deal with pythia. Mictan then sieged my castle which blocked him off with a small army and 4 abominations. They couldn't heart my walls but trashed every undead army I sent. I finally had to bring my main offensive army over. Between my mages casting paralyse, my undead archers, too many destroy skeletons, and more turns than I thought combat could go one; I finally killed all four abominations. There has to be a better way to deal with them; hopefully a way acessable to ermor. Any insight would be great.

Abominations have low protection. So they could be killed by a lot of archers. Their defense isn't that high, so I guess enough heavy hitters could also overwhelm them with a loss.

Also, was it the Abominations or the priests behind them who kill your skeletons? I'll be surprised to see Abominations' attacks, except for the Gaze of Death, effective versus undeads. If it's the priests who banished your skeletons behind a wall of unroutable units, it's the weakness of Ashen Ermor. Not much you can do.

[ywl]

Originally posted by Ragnarok-X:
dont bet on it but i say disintigrate ?

Abominations have very high MR (20). It's not efficient to kill them with spells. But if you have a powerful mage to defeat their MR, those instant killed or charm spells (Opposition, Control, Charm, Soul Slay, Disintegrate, Petrify...) are usable. The spells which check against protection, such as Blade Wind, are more useful. But still, it's easier, cheaper and more reliable to use lot of archers.

I have the feeling that Abomination is an underpowered summon. Can anybody prove me wrong?

[Teraswaerto]

Someone who can summon Abominations can almost certainly protect them from archers. Mist, Storm, etc. They heal quickly while meleeing living troops. Still, I agree that they are kinda weak for the cost/level of research.

[geo981010]

They are a very high level summon, so they are supposed to be very tough to kill!

Best way is to take out their commander, so they retreat. If a mage already Beserked them, that may not work though. Put some riders on each side with hold and attack rear and hope for the best.

You do want to curse them, as a blind Abo is a lot easier to deal with, as is a feebleminded one.

The undead archers are good - tie them up with cheap troops, and accept some friendly fire losses.

MR is 20 base for the Abos, so anything with a magic check is pretty tough. Disintegrate may be your best bet there, but you will need a lot of attempts (or a Spell Focus and a high death mage).

Since they life drain and have very high attack values, you probably never will be able to overwhelm them with cheap living troops. Slow them down with undead or summons so they don't get to regain life. A good number of calvary might be able to take one, but since they are strength 20 and the life draining is armour piercing, they won't Last too long. If you want to pin them, have some death mages raising soulless (more bodies each round), and eventually they will tire themselves out.

Elemental isn't bad - Incinerate will hurt them a bit and has decent range, and Frozen heart and lightning too. Need a couple of mages for that of course.

Also the heat/chill temp effects might be good - if you have some ghosts (they radiate cold) in the back with hold and attack, you can hope that by the time they engage the Abos your Soulless legions will have tired them out, and then the chill effect will keep them from wakening up.

Or get your own Abos

[Nagot Gick Fel]

As Ermor, one of the cheapest and most effective ways to get rid of Abos is to swarm them with hordes of longdead horsemen, set on attack large monsters.

[Sindai]

Originally posted by ywl:
I have the feeling that Abomination is an underpowered summon. Can anybody prove me wrong?

I've found them to be far and away the best summon (outside of Wish-only things like Doom Horrors) I've tried so far. The death gaze attack is just sick.

The only problem is that their AI seems to make them not want to use it when they're just basic troops, even if you set them to "fire closest." If you GoR them, however, they'll use it every turn when set to "fire closest." Two or more GoRed abominations will massacre any army not immune to the death gaze in short order.

[LordArioch]

The abomination gaze is good....but it's even cheaper to get a cross-bred Basilisk. I love when I get those things from cross-breeding..they're so evil.