Grand Strategy Noob plays Dominions 5

[Malakal]

Salt will absolutely demolish and stun them but after they are gone will be mostly useless. Never the less that is a safe bet to win the current war so go for it.

Fire ring gives 15FR, do you even have options for 10 or 5 FR?

2vs1 seems easy enough just make sure Vanheim eats their main stack fury not you.

 

[Johannes]

I bumped into Ubar (I forgot to reset the Vanherse to cast bless, after he was separated from his companion, blessbot, so it didn't go too well) and a large party of 12 jinn warriors and 1 emir.
Bless is (currently, before pretender awakens): Morale +2, Attack +2, MR +3, Magic Leadership +10.
He set his Jinn Emir to cast Air shield, bless, and filame bolts.

From F/S I would guess it's a Divine Glyph, super cheap chassis to maximize scales. Ubar can barely use a bless anyway so it makes sense. But not a pretender that would itself be useful in fending off a rush.

 

[Galdred]

I am in range of his capital and it is a divine glyph indeed.
3 helhirdings+ pd won Vs 12 jinns. When is
it a good time to siege the capital (he has at least 49 jinns but no ifrits, he recruited corrupters instead)? What could I use as siege chaff?

 

[Malakal]

Start the siege to kill his recruitment income and hope.

To actually finish it though... Great eagles would be best or cave grubs (you have E but no idea if you have a labbed cave). You can use many summons like wolves ( if you have many N1 mages which you do not probably) or hawks (from A which you have). I don't think your national troops should be massed for siege better use mercenaries just for body count.

Or siege items if you have cons4 (wall shakers) but those aren't really efficient.

 

[Malakal]

Ah wait I remember undead siege fine they just can't defend, you can spam skeletons too then.

 

[Johannes]

The human serfs are a passable recruit for siege strength, and aren't quite as useless in battle as indy militia. If they'd take multiple turns to get to the sieged castle though, then it's kinda low value regardless of the unit.

 

[Infinitum]

For siege chaff, probably use Corpse Constructs once you have the prerequisite lightning rods/storm spools to subzidize it. Them being immune to lightning also means you can use them as wrathful skies blockers.

That said, fuck sieges. Try stepping on his capital every now and then to shut off income and make him go AI, but standing armies on top of forts is a good way to get wiped. Leave whatever you need to contest his counterraiding and keep moving onto your next closest neighbour/s.

 

[Galdred]

For siege chaff, probably use Corpse Constructs once you have the prerequisite lightning rods/storm spools to subzidize it. Them being immune to lightning also means you can use them as wrathful skies blockers.

That said, fuck sieges. Try stepping on his capital every now and then to shut off income and make him go AI, but standing armies on top of forts is a good way to get wiped. Leave whatever you need to contest his counterraiding and keep moving onto your next closest neighbour/s.

He has quite a large counter raiding force actually (100 Jinn Warriors + 1 Ifrit Sultan), but you are right. I should only try to siege "for real" once he has nothing to fight back.
I should have Cloud trapeze in 3 turns. Do that allow me to drop on his whack a mole stacks? Or will they stealth out away, and attack anyway?

 

[Malakal]

If he stealth moves cloud trapeze won't catch them but then he can't attack a province with stealth so thats a mixed bag.

 

[Galdred]

Is there a good loadout to thug against his Jinn warriors? One that would preferably rely on Earth, Air and Death gems
GSS/moonblades + burning pearls + the occasional enchanted salt should let me deal with the Ifrit sultans and commanders just fine, but they won't help much against the 30 or so Jinn warriors(I still have the helhirdings, but they cannot cloud trapeze).
Frostbrands would be handy, but I cannot do a lot of these (only my pretender can).

Their bless is +3 MR, +3 morale mostly. So vineshields would not work too well, would they?

 

[Malakal]

Jinn warriors cap at 18 dmg (21 in M3 not sure what scale is where you are fighting) so solid prot should make them more or less immune to damage, maybe weightless kite shields plus whatever highest prot armor you can afford plus salt and a girdle of might for reinvig.

 

[Galdred]

Jinn warriors cap at 18 dmg (21 in M3 not sure what scale is where you are fighting) so solid prot should make them more or less immune to damage, maybe weightless kite shields plus whatever highest prot armor you can afford plus salt and a girdle of might for reinvig.

Thank you, that sounds great. My dominion is M0, his is M3, so we go back and forth between both (but mine has reached almost half of his Ring 1).
protection tanking would work well with barksin.
I guess I should also research Alteration 3 for mistform if I am to protection tank them, then.

Is it worth spamming Hurricane (but that's another lvl4 school to research...) to prevent recruitment in his capital?
I guess the 3% cas is negligible compared to the benefits.

 

[Malakal]

Yes, mistform is AMAZING if enemy can't instantly pop it and has to rely on the 1% chance.

I don't like unrest rituals that use gems but if you do want that consider blight too for a ED alternative (or supplement). It is worthwhile to shut down his cap as he is very cap centric.

 

[Johannes]

If you're not far away from beating him, unrest rituals are counter-productive too as they kill your future subjects. Tugging against a huge jinn stack you need to be able to tank the jinn melee attacks, but also to survive whatever spells the commander casts. So fire/shock resists, at least. Or how is he scripting the guy? Horror helm is kinda essential, at least if you don't have regen to tank indefinitely. Vine shield ofc if you can make it.

And whatever loadout you decide on, prob a good idea to test it in a sp game first.

 

[Galdred]

He is casting lightning boltn then fireball off script. My bless has shock resist 10, but that still lets quite a lot of damage go through. I planned to cloud trapeze two Hangadrots, one to deal with the commander (large enemy monster if it is the Ifrit sultan, rearmost otherwise), and the other to deal with the Jinn warriors, but it may not be enough.

Are Wraithswords viable or are their stats too bad and their price too high. That would solve the regeneration problem (and help with fatigue).

 

[Infinitum]

Don't thug Hangadrotts; Vanjarls are almost as good at it and much more expendable.

 

[Galdred]

That is true! I wanted to send them because they have spirit sights and can cloud trapeze while the Jarls don't, but I guess some salt would remedy the problem as well without risking them.

 

[Johannes]

You can cast Protection from Lightning, which makes you very shock-proof together with the bless. Even without it, the lightning bolt will rarely hit and wouldn't do much damage, but it would break mistform making you vulnerable. But buffing is tricky ofc, since the jinn fly - are the scripted to hold&attack or just attack? If the latter, you just have 1 guaranteed buff that you can have before combat starts, which should be blessing or mistform probably.

How would you make one of your guys go after the commander while trapezing? The jinn will just surround both of your guys. Not that you'd need to reach him, beating the jinn is enough. With sending 2 guys it may be best to just put them in the same square, so they protect each other a bit, taking half the hits when fully surrounded. And you just need the horror helmet on 1 of them.

Wraithswords are ok if you don't need the hand slots for other items to survive the first rounds, and can hit the opponent. Which would be tough for vanjarls otherwise due to unseen, but with the salt they should hit automatically? I haven't ever fought an Ubar so not 100% on how salt operates in practice. Which also should mean you don't really benefit from Hangadrotts spirit sight, since the salt renders that difference less important.

Is the stack just basic bitch jinns, or also some of the guys with magic weapons?

 

[Galdred]

1 of his Jinn warriors was set to attack directly, and the other, to wait and attack.
He doesn't have any Ifrit warrior yet.
I could cast flight or gift of flight to get to the commander, or would they be locked in melee as soon as the Jinn arrive?
I could "seed" hiding small parties of Helhirdings to get some support actually. That would make things much easier but I need to guess right.

 

[Infinitum]

If you're counterraiding eachother just remember killing stuff is more important than holding provinces. Don't be afraid to concentrate forces. Wraithswords are pretty crummy for the price, never got them to work right. Stick with GSS and/or Moonblades for twohanders. Counterthugs don't need regeneration; the things they fight usually 1-2 shots them anyway. Amulets of Luck/Twist Fate can be nice though.

 

[Johannes]

They're counterthugs fighting off a 100 djinns, they do need to worry about getting worn down through hp and fatigue. Also makes you fear the possible mistform-breaking evocation less, when you have double the hp and way to quickly recover fatigue.

A big but plain stack like this one is often best fought off by just thugs, troops may not do much besides making the thugs run away.

And yes you get locked in melee when they arrive next to you. After that it's impossible to move (except to flee), and hard to cast spells.

2 trapezing vanjarls, with wraithswords and salt, one with horror helm, should do fine, fending off and routing them. Then for best effect cut any escape routes with other vanjarls. Or I don't know, maybe one vanjarl would be enough if you slap some extra gear on it.

 

[Galdred]

I decided to twiceborn the Handagrots before sending them on cloud trapzeing operations(I wanted to go with them because of spirit sight, and one has E1, so he could ironskin), but it was too late, as I destroyed the remaining Jinn armies at the same time. (I cloud trapezed one Vanjarl on top of a groupo of 30 Jinn warriors, with 15 Helhirdings sneaking in the province, then another group moved to reinforce the first one after I detroyed it, so I faced 2*30 Jinn warriors, but with my regular Helhirdings, a few moonblades + burning pearls, and 1 pack of enchanted salt).

He is now down to a 4HP diseased Ifrit sultan and no Jinn on his capital and no surviving Jinn warriors.
I just need to bring a ton of chaff to end it now, while my poneys go roam some other country.
Thank you for your advice!

 

[Malakal]

Give us feedback how salt did, I havent tested it yet in actual anti djinni combat.

 

[Galdred]

Salt is great, but I only made 2, because it serves no purpose outside of Ubar, and I had a ton of Helkarls. In retrospect, I should have taken more, as it makes Vanjarls way more useful than hiitting at -10 ATT.
I tested a lot, and with 2 Vanjrals equipped with chainmail of displacement + Moonblade + pearl going vs 12 Jinn warriors + 1 Ifrit sultan, salt made them go from 5 wins out of 10 (with 0.75 average casualty) to 10 wins out of 10.
salt is auto hit, stuns the target tile (so up to 4 jinn warriors), and remove unseen and glamour.
However, I am not sure they always salt the same target they attack with the primary weapon. The stun effect is not very reliable (roughyl 50% of the time), but it makes a huge difference anyway.

On helkarls or Hangadrots with moonblade + burning pearl, it is not as needed, but the stun effect is still great (and removing glamour is meaningful, but recovering fatigue is good too).

I failed to kill the Ifrit because I scripted the Vanjarls to mistform then gift of flight themselves with a helkarl, but they were too tired after mistform to cast GoF, so only a single Helkarl went to whack the Sultan, and he retreated at 11 HP.

 

[AgentFransis]

Alternatively you can use a frostbrand. The AoE frost effect bypasses all defences and jinn have frost vulnerability to boot.