Black Servant Gear

[AreaOfEffect]

Forget Seraph equipment. I'd rather know some ways to turn a black servant into a PD killer. The lower the research the better.

[Ironhawk]

QM is renowned for using black servant thugs. You should try and get him to weigh in on the subject

[sum1lost]

I personally prefer self buffing spectre mages for this kind of thing, as the gem cost always comes out similar anyways for me.

[thejeff]

Well the key for Black Servant thugs is cheap and early.

I think the usual suggestions run along the lines of Black Plate, maybe Luck and a cheap shield. Horror helm?
Whatever you can forge with Construction 2 and your starting gem income, since you probably haven't done much site searching yet.

Ethereal with luck and high protection, plus native life drain goes a long way against indies and PD.

Obviously once you've got Conjuration 6, spectres are better, but that's much later and there are plenty of other options by then.

[archaeolept]

const 2: luck, eye shield, black plate (or the cheaper version)

[Wrana]

And if no great Nature income/mages? I run into such a problem some time before...

[ano]

Give him Pendant of Luck, Shield of Gleaming gold and Horror Helmet and he will almost never be hit. Any armor to your taste will mean that when he is hit he won't be hit badly. Such build will defeat, I guess, any PD in the game. Maybe except Mictlan 20+ PD.

[thejeff]

If you've got no/little Nature, you're just looking for a shield to block arrows.
Constr 2, you've got E1 Black Steel Tower, A2 Weightless Tower, E2 Lead, E1A1 Valor, N1 Raw Hide.
Lead Shield's probably the best, if you're swimming in Earth gems. The weight is not important since he's encumbrance 0 and not a caster.

Eye shield is by far the best, if you can.

Of course, if you're using him against PD without missiles, don't bother with a shield, except for the eye shield.


Shield of Gleaming Gold is good, especially with Horror Helm, but it's also Constr 6.
Even without it Horror Helm is nice and only Const 2.

Still it's all about efficiency with these cheap little thugs. What's the cheapest you can get away with using? 5D for the Servant, 5S for Luck, 5/10E for armor 10N for the eye Shield. It's already 25 gems for a PD raider, likely to be killed if he hits any real resistance, especially a mage or 2.

[AreaOfEffect]

That is indeed the point. How cheap and how fast can you get a cost effective PD raider out and about.

Sure, it might just be better to play as one of the glamor factions, but that is a very limited list of nations. The black servant on the other hand can be gotten by everyone. Even those nations without death mages and/or gems can use a site searching death god. That's why I think it would be a good thing to know.

[Aezeal]

I'm personally not so much of the thugs.. I prefer to use armies that will have near 0 losses or SC that will certainly win.

Thugs always have a lil risk of getting killed and then your gems are gone and so is your expansion.

Better use gems on research stuff and weapons to really pump the best unit you can get your hand on to SC status.