Actually, if you rush to tier 3 order as soon as you can, the ancient phoenix pretty much destroys anything it faces on the first 4 islands. With one red dragon and tier 3 order, you can get to 30+ easy.

Early Phoenix is amazing, I agree. Even Order 2 mature phoenix's will pull through the hardest part of the game (Rusty anchor) very nicely.

Late game I use it as a 2-of tank. Once on the first turn to light things on fire and lock down an archer stack, and again when it resurrects. It has similar utility to Demon Portal.

Now, Nature's Call.. there's a spell I cringe every time I pick up a scroll for it.

For the level-5 competition wouldn't there be a big difference whether it were a 1v1 or 50v50 say?


I did just that with the Phoenix in a paladin game, rushed to tier 3 Order just for the Ancient. It totally ruled until about half way through Verona when it started dying in 2 hits.


I hear you on Natures Call. Though I got Natures Call in Debir on the Paladin run and it was quite useful on Debir and on Scarlet, but only very early on there.
Always thought the mana cost could come down or maybe the leadership could go up. If the power increase were more balanced for level 2-3 it would be usable. Say at level-2 500 leadership more than the level-2 Demon Portal, and say at level-3 1000 leadership more than the level-3 Portal. That's considering the extra mana cost and the relative weakness of animals to demons.

Of course it would. I specified 1v1 to make things more interesting. At xvx, the higher x, the more relevant the first strike becomes (killed opponents won't retaliate). High initiative thus becomes very important, and guess who has high initiative? Again the archdemon. Consensus seems to lean slowly versus the archdemon winning in 1v1 too, but in 50v50 they would be unstoppable, I reckon.

Yeah, 50v50 would also benefit burning/poisoning as the amount of damage would be huge. But, once again, Demons do not suffer burn or poison.

It is actually amusing how good the Archies are when directly compared to most other Level 5's. Of course, we are ignoring the very important leadership number.

No Ogre or Giant? Why?
:):confused:

Is anybody playing with those units. They are so weak!

As for Ancient phoenix, they are very good, would have love if they could have made them the level-5 unit for humans and made it buyable.

At least they should have put it has a wonderer scroll, meaning you get some Ancient Phoenix base on leadership and they last for a certain amount of time if they don't get kill (twice) during battle.

Ogres has limited usefulness. Stealing movepoints isn't that bad, but in this bout, he loses to almost everyone. Besides, I never found it useful... Low Atk and Def, 50-60 damage and 680 HP for 1000 leadership. I'd take 4 paladins over 1 ogre any day.

Giants - once gain, limited usefulness. Atk and Def are generally decent, but he is very, very slow and that earthquake ability reduces its effectiveness with distance (100% for the enemies next to him and -10% per cell away).

This is why these 2 units aren't exactly popular :)

I`m not sure about Giants. Ad attack and giant retaliate, then earthquaqe ad no retaliation, then attack for attack, then first round again, so in 4 rounds ad hit 6 times, and giant 6 times hit, +2 no retaliation from close range. Not sure for ecsact numbers, but i think close call. giant have more % crit, ad can get maybe 1 crit in those 4 rounds, but giant will have 1 for sure. And 134 more Hp on giant side.

But i think you all forgot real winner in this compettition : Troll. Of course if battle played at night or underground :-)