On using poison cloud units...

[Ironhawk]

I've been playing around with some of the poison cloud units (particularly Pythium hydras and BogBeasts) and I am having a lot of trouble making them effective on the battlefield.

The main problem seems to be routing. The units themselves are pretty powerful and, of course, they poison. But big units usually means smaller numbers and this made me unable to keep them in the fight. I tried banding them with smaller high morale units (as you might with Elephants) but of course these units all get poisoned and die (even with Ctis!!). Even with what I considered adequate priest backing they were not very effective. You know, I even got to the point where I was afraid to even put normal units in the same army (not the same group) with a poison cloud unit because they would do more damage to me than the enemy!

The only tactic I found that really made a dent was to play Pythium/Serpent Cult with a 4+ nature pretender for the Beserk blessing. This was great in that it drove the hyrdras on like the maddened poison spewing powerhouses that they should be. But bad in that it also did the same thing to my priest, who was promptly poisoned and killed :}

Can you more experienced players advise me on the use of poison cloud units? How to get them to attack effectively? And how (if possible) to use them in armies with normal troops?

[HJ]

Originally posted by Ironhawk:
But bad in that it also did the same thing to my priest, who was promptly poisoned and killed

Serpent priests immune to poison, who were you using to lead them? And hydras have a morale of 15, which is very very good even without berserking. I usually have an army of them commanded by my serpent priest prophet with fanaticisms, just in case. Or, if they're not sacred, give them to an archtheurg with poison ring for the same effect. To make large Groups, recruit around 2/3 hatchlings for numbers and 1/3 big ones for the punch. It worked quite well for me. They don't mix well with any other troops unless other troops are undead, which is not unthinkable, but not too easy to do with Pythium. In one of my Serpent Cult games, I used PoD pretender for this very purpose, and as C'tis you can easily do the same with your mages - e.g. mix them with behemoths. Just remember that C'tis slingers will in fact poison themselves with their shots, as they have short range and will advance into the clouds, but you have lvl4 priests again to counter that. In regular C'tis, you can use the dancers in combination as well.

Cheers,

[ June 11, 2004, 20:31: Message edited by: HJ ]

[NTJedi]

I build up the poisonous troops with large Groups of undead troops and/or other units immune to poison. Archer types with poisonous troops works well too... just make sure the poisonous troops won't be retreating into your archers.
(archers on middle left and poisonous troops on right front)

As far as keeping morale use a bane lord with one of those nature command horns to keep morale going.

[ June 11, 2004, 20:47: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[HJ]

Other troop types to use with them are constructs, anything lifeless, and, of course, lamias, but don't necessarily put them in the same squad with hydras. Just find your mix that you like, and enjoy the carnage. Very few enemy troops come out alive to fight against you again out of those poison cloud army battles.

[ June 11, 2004, 20:55: Message edited by: HJ ]

[Ironhawk]

Pairing undead with poisoners is good I agree. But Pythium doesnt have any access to them? I can't recall offhand but I dont remember them having any intrinsic death magic in thier mage/priests.

Which other units are immune to poison? Certainly none of the pythium regulars are and the Ctis have only 50% resist which is useless since they will die if they get poisoned anyway. If they had like 75-80 some of them might survive I suppose.

Additionally, getting a decent amount of undead together (except if you are Ermor or Ctis/Tombs in which case you lose the immediate BogBeasts anyway) is not something you can't do from the get-go. Am I mistaken about that?

Archers might be a complement to a poison cloud unit cause they could stay out of the way. But I am talking here about Ctis and Pythium, who pretty much dont have archer units. I guess I could get some indy archers or something but... really why bother?

[ June 11, 2004, 21:01: Message edited by: Ironhawk ]

[Vynd]

When I have played around with Pythium Serpent Cult I found that grouping the little hydras with the big hydras was pretty effective, both in terms of damage dealing and also keeping morale up and the troops in action. As others have pointed out its not as if the hydras have bad morale to begin with, it's actually quite good.

People have mentioned that you can add to this army using undead, and potentially archers. I'll add vinemen to the mix. Get some Vine Crowns going and you can churn out a lot of these suckers, and later on, vine ogres. They're both completely immune to poison, and their cost in gems is low enough that you can afford to make a modest amount every turn while still stock-piling gems for bigger and better things. If you're really overflowing with gems and you want a little more punch than vinemen, Horned Serpents are a low-end summon with poison resistance, albeit a somewhat pricey one for what you get.

As for commanders, I thought that the top-end Pythium mage-priests were 100 percent poison resistant. But even if they're only 50 percent, have them, or the cheaper Pythium mage-priests if you prefer, start a fair distance away from the hydras and script them to cast poison resistance first thing. Or make some poison resistance items for them. Either should keep them safe.

So right from the start, if you're willing to spend some gems, I think you should be able to start building an army based around a few big hydras, a lot of little hydras, and as many vinemen as you feel are necessary. It's hardly a perfect army, but it should be highly serviceable early in the game, which is what you're asking about right? As time wears on and you get more gems, and better magic, you can start adding in undead, powerful constructs, etc. And you'll get poison resistance spells that you can use to help you bring more conventional troops into play.