Hi all, nice to see people arguing about tactical choices in this game.
I agree that a one race army isn't really the point, the morale bonus of 1 isn't that big, the right skills can allow some nice mixing, not to mention all the interesting Neutral units.
That said if it could not be the more efficient, it's fun to play sometimes. At this point I tried full dwarves, elves, undead and human.
Let take and example, dwarf army, just one long range and all units are slow, not the more appealing combination but if you get the right items:
- Ogre Sandals giving giants +1 speed.
- King's Hammer giving -10% Leadership of dwarves.
- Mithril Shield giving -20% -10% Leadership of dwarves.
- Ale Barrel + Telescopic Sight giving +1 morale +100% attack to archer + +30% chance of Critical Attack to archer.
- The dwarf wife giving + 1 morale to dwarves.
- If possible (don't remember if a slot is free for it) the Banner of Heroism giving +1 to Initiative for level 1-3
This gives you:
- A huge bonus of -30% Leadership for you whole army, this means in fact that it's like if your leadership is 42% higher than it is, that is more than huge.
- For the first strike you have the more powerful long range strike particularly with the +42 Leadership bonus and the morale boost, the tripple attack of the Cannoner. And an excellent long range attack for the Alchemist. And the Giant first Earthquake move to 3 forward then Earthquake does a good damages to all units (again the 42% bonus is nice).
- Now if you play a fighter and use rage more than magic, get Order magic to 3, your first or second spell will be haste all to transform your slow lazy army as a terribly powerful tornado even even can make huge the first Earthquake.
- Still more for a fighter, the initiative skill to +3 give your units those initiatives: Cannoner 9, Giant, Alchemist and Dwarf 8, Miner 7. Not bad for the first strike.
And that dwarf army has some nice tactical possibilities, particularely with a haste all spell:
- The special Alchemist attack that get a huge tactical bonus with the haste speed.
- The regular giant earthquake is quite powerfull.
- The giant suddenly becomes a huge unit with the haste spell and the ogre boots.
That said this army involves various problems like:
- A problem is how manage to keep all your units at their max number.
- You got a good initiative for all units but no unit will give you the first attack during later battles.
- For long battles the lack of more real long range units can be a problem.
- No flying units can be quite a problem in some battle area.
- It's far to be the best army for gremlins towers fights.
But clearly giving up the -30% leadership bonus for some units and a morale not that high open up much more choices for a more powerful army. But I feel it's a good one race army for a special battle and a more common use will be with this base to replace Miner, Dwarf or both or even Alchemist by some other unit.