Paladins of the Veil

[Pyr0mancer]

Does anyone else routinely turn Ritualists and Cultists into Paladins? I discovered the joys of having waterwalking paladins with Tsunami in my current Mercurian game, especially since I can send Zealots next door to Cardith Lorda (teammate) and upgrade them to Cultists because he's OO but I'm Order. I've done Ritualists before from Sphener convincing them to turn from the dark path and embrace the light

Ring of Flames just doesn't compare with Tsunami + Waterwalking though. It's VERY hard to stop a quartet of Waterwalking paladins with Tsunami and March when they park offshore outside a city and kill off 4 defenders per turn, given that they're stronger than any ship is. On top of that, if one dies there's a good chance it'll come back as an Angel (usually with tons of XP) despite being OO. Although, occasionally one will somehow manage to go on to serve both Basium AND Hyborem, I suspect due to OO being an evil religion but Paladins being good.

Flavor-wise, I prefer to think of them as being empowered directly by Danalin

 

[abculatter2]

I never knew this glitch, mainly because I've never played the mercurians.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Mercurians are just the easiest way to 'build' priests of another religion, any teammate will do. Also, you can upgrade Dominated or Command-captured priests of another religion into Paladins/Eidola/Druids, it's just less useful since you have to bring them back from the frontlines.

 

[Ringtailed]

promoting paladins from cultists for water-walking isn't a bad idea, but I'd rather promote melee units with CR3 to paladins than ritualists(or any other priest for that matter) because extra city attack is more useful than ring of flames

 

[Blackmantle]

Druids are better and not just by a small margin. They also do finish off their Paladin and Eidoloa counterparts in direct combat (thanks to higher movement + entangle. And in edition they can move impassable + fast fortify in forest + poison recon weapons + terraform further dwarfing Paladins / Eidoloa)
And are one of the chief reasons Empyrean is really strong. (Entangle + Crown of Brilliance ftw. That one really hurts surrounding stacks big time.)

water walking Druids with Entangle + Tsunami are nice as well. And their pet Krakens counter anything which could really harm them inculding OO Paladins and Eidoloa.

But Unlike Veil Paladins or Order Eidoloa both doesnt sound unthematic.

The sunlight and water aspects of nature. With both beeing possible while staying neutral / without wild Religion-switching.



The "Order-Druids" are also rather nice if you play builder. But thats more in line with Veil-Paladins by beeing a bit unthematic.

Even though there is just now a thread about redemption in the lore section of this forum so this is indeed possible to picture in the background of FFH.
Imo Veil-Druids suck for non-summoner-leaders though. (Neither ring of Fire nor Balors can really compete with anything the other Religions have to offer for Tier 3 save perhaps RoK which is also rather weak. But Maybe RoK does indeed get a beef-up one day... So if the Tier 2 Spell is good like with RoK, Veil, FoL and also OO Paladins and Eidoloa seem useful. If Tier 3 is very powerful Druids seem very feasible especially if tier 2 is rather lame like with Empyrean.)
Also note the Story of Rosier the Fallen as an example how an Order Eidolon might come into beeing. Or the hints for the tale of saverous for the other way around. (Maybe well get more of this on Ice. We'll see.)
So its not that far-fetched to assume that goods and evils turning neutral are thinkable as well. Don't know from the top of my head if there is a story like that in the Pedia allready though.
Maybe its time for just that.

Lol to the Paladins soul beeing split between Hyborem and Basium at once though. Especially if they meet each other in the field later. Yery literal way to have to fight oneself.

PS: That whole thing doesn't require upgrading in an allies territory (which perhaps might be axed since it creates other problems like nonlimited tier 4 units...).
Just you building said priests and then if necessary switching religions. Priests might just be buildable for your State-Religion, but stay with you switching to another. Thats not such a huge deal...