lanun assassin question

[alberta jefe]

so I captured abashi and had a great time pillaging the Lanun coastline until I landed my troops. I have a stack of assassins that, I thought, were there to guard my mages. The Lanun assassins go right by them and kill my mages.

Is this a lanun trait or do all assassins get to kill whatever they want?

 

[Tielby]

Assassins don't defend any differently than other units. In order to protect your mages (or any other units) from attacking assassins, those defensive units need to have the Guardsman promotion, which is, I believe, only available to the melee line.

 

[Senethro]

You use units with Guardsman promotion to defend against assassins.
Most Bannor units begin with it. Royal Guards begin with it. Melee units can take it as a promotion after Combat III I think.

 

[Onionsoilder]

You use units with Guardsman promotion to defend against assassins.
Most Bannor units begin with it. Royal Guards begin with it. Melee units can take it as a promotion after Combat III I think.

Combat IV, which sucks. It really should be I or II; it's not that powerful.

 

[Marksman77]

Or keep expendable low-strength units in the stack, they'll get attacked first. Workers or slaves would do.
Or does that not work anymore?

 

[Emptiness]

Workers and slaves won't get attacked until all combat units are eliminated, and then they are all captured at once. So no, it won't work.

The Channeling promotions make casters more likely to be targeted by Assassins. So much so, that even weak units like Warriors will be ignored. You'd probably need a diseased or even plagued Warrior in order for it to be weak enough for an Assassin to attack it before a caster.

 

[xalien]

Give your mages death 1 and earth 2. Stoneskin will give them defensive str of 6 and make skeletons the weakest unit in a stack.

 

[alberta jefe]

Give your mages death 1 and earth 2. Stoneskin will give them defensive str of 6 and make skeletons the weakest unit in a stack.

Yeah, I was thinking about stoneskin, that's probably easier than getting a dude all the way up to combat 4.

thanks!!

 

[Grey Fox]

Problem with stoneskin is it lasts only one battle, so if any mages happen to defend once they are once again the target of an assassin.

 

[Humakty]

Turn raging barbs on, by midgame, when mages are available, you should have aplenty of combat 4/guardsman dudes.

 

[xalien]

Yeah, but it should (hopefully) give them a lesser priority than skeletons for assassins so they won't have to defend at all.

 

[Smakemupagus]

to the OP, your own assassins can indeed help to protect your mages: use them offensively to thin out the ranks of enemy assassins

 

[Luckmann]

Am I the only one that is conjuring up images of two opposing sides? Inbetween, a battlefield! On either side, two big camps. Generals, plotting. Soldiers, dug in. Mages, chanting. And a whole bunch of assassins absolutely everywhere, tripping over eachother, killing and murdering eachother as everyone else eats and sleeps all around them.

 

[Tasunke]

the most fail-safe defense against assasins, even if its limited, is having scouts accompany the party. Perhaps gaining withdraw promotions only? and mobility (or something to keep it weaker than an adept which took no combat promotions)

Skelletons also work well, but they seem to be permently 1-move, and are therefore some-what inflexible, while scouts are the exact opposite when it comes to movement flexibility. The only problem of course, is that a scout still costs hammers, about the cost of a warrior iirc, which is a bout 1/3 cost of an adept iirc. Not a bad price, but still are invested hammers.

I'd say having a good number of scouts (at least as many as the # of assasins u expect to face at one time) accompanied by assasins for killing off enemy assasins, and perhaps a blur spell to keep everyone immune to first strikes, would be the most cost effective strategy which does not rely on the guardsman promotion at all.

 

[Marksman77]

Upkeep on those scouts would kill you.

BTW skeletons are not permanently 1-move, they benefit from caster's spell extension promotions.

 

[phizuol]

Upkeep on those scouts would kill you.

BTW skeletons are not permanently 1-move, they benefit from caster's spell extension promotions.

Yeah, speedy skeletons are great for keeping enemy workers hiding in towns. Hehe.

 

[Tasunke]

mobility skelletons are nice ... having several advantages. I suppose the scout strategy really shines tho when you have the raiders trait, and when you don't have to build much more than 5 at a time.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Can you still build Scouts after Hunting anyway?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You can build Scouts in cities that lack Hunting Lodges.

 

[Veqryn]

summons have upkeep too don't they?