Naked challenge

[Fatt_Shade]

1) i know Debir map`s are unguarded but i said where you get paladin, when first pala i ever saw was after returning amulet of illumination from Bolo dungeon = some kiting must be involved to move droid hero there.
2) rune mages and thorn army is great tactic as you said, but i just know this will hit wall hard very soon.

I loved your idea for 14 fights end game with droids/bone dragon... challenge. It left everything available in game, but only limitation was 14 fights. Here you cut out all things i lover in KB series, but leave as much time as player want to finish game. Dont know, just not my thing
Good luck nevertheless

[impy]

you're right about paladins, they're always appear after returning amulet on Debir. Although it is not necessarily their first appearance. I've seen them few times in the tent behind Hector Norbu; but that's random as we all know. And yes, one has to move the Bolo droid for the amulet, but since he is not a continent scroll guardian, it is ok
here is a small update after 154 fights. That is roughly half of the game, still going no-loss. I haven't got access to Elon, shettera or any of those later islands. I was quite lucky with relatively easy Verona & Montero guardians, but other scrolls are guarded by those overpowered orcs mostly. I have done all fights which although very difficult, did not require casting practically any spells. I also bought upgradeable items and gained experience there. My core army you can see in the screenshot. I have to say that difficulty of game rises faster than the strength of droids, rune mages etc, and no-loss seems unlikely, we'll see.
So here are the other possibilities:
- Mesmer quest gives black knights. I have around 8 x eviln scroll
- use Call of death to get ancient vampires (vampires) & use their drain ability. ideally in the fight where there are no strong shooters and there is a spot with limited access.
- use ghost + stone skin in similar way
- I found a few time back scrolls. So I can wreak havoc for two turns, divert enemy fire and then get the full numbers back. Ideally with strong special skills which would be handy for recharging. Royal griffins - they're level 4, damn, or maybe goblin shamas and their astral damage? or even royal snakes
- I have not tried those owerpowered orcs yet. orc veterans with haste? can loose approx 1600htp which rune mages can heal. How about little goblins? If I can divert enemy fire to some other target, they deal tremendous damage.
- good old fear spell. since my lowest unit is level 3 droid, units lower than that can be kept at bay. Well at least at end of the fight if repairing is difficult

[Fatt_Shade]

And yes, one has to move the Bolo droid for the amulet, but since he is not a continent scroll guardian, it is ok

You`re skirting around definition of kiting very closely
Nice work so far, if you get Dersu/Uzala/Tekron with no loss, some nice quests with no battles could be found there with wings even better (have you done Hagni in so far Montero?)
Good luck my fellow KB theoretician

[Razorflame]

so how's the challenge going?

it must be really hard to get heroes down who cast massive spells

I wonder how u are going to do bosses (A)

[impy]

Challenge is going well, thanks for asking I was getting a bit frustrated, because I could see I really needed to defeat some new continent scroll guardian in order to progress, and it looked immensely difficult. I had Dersu scroll earlier, but with tactics which I am not very proud of - enemy army was mostly slower melee, so I just grabbed a few dragons and flew around burning them, fooling shooters with nature call etc. Well, it did the job and that's what matters. Bosses? they will be done at the very end of the game, although spider and frog maybe earlier. Heroes? I've done only those which I could kill comfortably regardless of their spells - Odin, Spirit of Sorrow for example.
But I'd like to share with you fight for Nameless scroll on Umkas. so here we go : first, I moved an enemy around a map a bit to have centre blocked. It's not great but at least two hexes were occupied and that's what I needed. I could not let those enemy units with speed 3-4 reach my back rank, since rune mages had no poison resistance, summons were fragile, and any unit attacked by crit from hyenas was a beyond fixing (if not killed outright). I also needed to keep Ents at the back, so they do not use their nasty distant attack. I had allowance of about 10 scrolls I think, so I grabbed few fear scrolls, demon portals (which a better than nature call - they block a hex for 2 turns), and time back scrolls (that's why I grabbed level 3 vampires, not level 4 ancient ones). Droids were obvious choice, vampires were chosen for poison res., life draining, no retaliation, but due to enemy numbers they were doing more of finishing jobs while keeping numbers high. So three centre hexes were held impregnable by 2 x rep. droids and vampires. 2 hexes at the bottom of the screen were held by summoned spiders + demon portal. I casted fear on hyenas so they just have nothing to attack behind the barrier. The only unit sent forward was sturdy droids which pulled thorns and worked on them. After initial summon rune mages just kept firing on hyeans in order to sheep them. I also needed second summon to be thorns which were kept at the back and once weak enemy stack were down, I overwhelmed the centre with summons. There you go - It is all combination of previously mentioned tactical finesses and at the end it worked.

[Razorflame]

eh what the one in verona with 1k peasant stack + demoness?

when he losing the fight he ussualy cast armageddon?

u used fear one last peasant stack or something? ^^

impressive how far u can get with being naked lol

but i gues your build is soley based on the droids

so your next naked challenge will be without using droids

no loss ofc hahah

[impy]

I haven't done that hero with Armageddon yet. Once I am much stronger than him, I take only droids and mostly evade his army so his uses up his mana on weak demon portals then go for the kill.
Yes, I pretty much have to use droids a lot, since I do not have many means of resurrecting.
small update here - 200 fights done, rougly 2/3 of the game, still going no loss. A few more strategy tips (well known again )
- 4 x dryads + black dragons for fighting almost any enemies consisting of level 1-3 units. Dragon lowers enemy initiative, if needed cast Battle cry spell to make sure enemy does not get a turn. dryads put enemies to sleep, dragons kill enemies one by one
- single black/red/bone dragons stack or any combination of 2 or 3 of them for fighting slower melee
- rune mages + any decent army vs. enemy army containing inquisitors. Let few inquisitors live at the end and resurrect back all your army via rune mages summons.
- higher leadership vampire+ancient vampire combo. Once you have higher leadership and vampires can take a hit they become a solid all rounder - taking down shooters, blocking the middle etc.. Best used as combo, because single unit still cannot take all the beating. In this challenge used together with droids.
As I said, these are all known strategies, interesting thing is when they are pushed to the limit. For example, I used single black dragon for just flying around in one old challenge. Single black dragon could hardly generate enough damage so it was mostly evading enemies. Not when you have leadership 20000 and can take 8 blacks + 10 reds. Yes, standard strategy is single stack of blacks which can take even respectable armies down quickly (just defeated level 42 Rakatarh in 25 turns, or White Night), but if situation calls for it even medium size shooters are manageable - fear, Chaos dragon for 2 turns, cast trap for nearby enemies and attack, oil mist, destroy shooters quickly and than let the fireworks begin...Dryad strategy works well even if enemy has one level 4-5 stack. you just cannot let it approach dryads and fool it with dragon stack and spells. Worked nicely on Shiva for example... Rune mages + inquisitors trick works well with Demenion, Thomas Torque, marshall's batton, archmages staff for example