Shaman Karrakh quest chain..?! (Spoilers)

[Vulture]

@msp: well, that's what he said he has. Btw my Paladin game, which when I started didn't know the scanner existed, so that wasn't even hand-picked but random, had 2 Batons.

@Madstrike: you're trying too hard. And you're overanalysing things. You're doing fine. The reason why you can't annihilate everything in 3 turns is because that's just how it is ^^
But I have a few suggestions because I see some difficulties in your play

1. The dispel-trick only makes sense if Haas has to pay 40 Mana (lvl 4 unit) for the Sheep and YOU only pay 5. That requires you to bring lvl 4 units and higher only :> The dispel trick is only there to drain his mana so you don't have to fear (m)any Armageddons. If you bring lvl 1 units and give him the chance to sheep them for 20 or pygmy them for less it's no wonder the dispel doesn't do anything.

2. Shamans are there to distract the enemy with the totems and heal Dragons (but not the undead) with his Axes and the Healing Totem. Their atack itsself is irrelevant so their order of priorities should be:
a) Heal up a low hp stack of unhealables/ressables like Dragons to prevent death
b) Distract an archer or anything else, offer an easy target for hard hitting units to keep damage off your strikers.
c) Block Paths with a totem in the way that going around it costs the unit a turn so it decides it might as well kill the totem instead.
d) Set up a nifty trap for Red Dragons who think the can score a nice Flame Breath by placing a totem in a row with, say, one or two of these: Ice Ball, Phantom, Summon. Knowing the Reds will go for that gives you the chance to put Trap in front of that line. Or just for Black Dragons unless they choose to Fire Flight over them ^^

3. You might consider divorcing Mirabella and instead just get Xeona ^^ I don't see the point having your wife for just one unit in your army while with another wife you either have bonuses for more units or better item slots. And well, Xeona is the clear winner with 2 Weaps and an Artifact.

4. If you change your setup to an all-lvl4+ team and decide to oom him you won't have any of these problems. Just make sure you annihilate Giants first before they get anything off, block the Cyclops so they can't throw and avoid more than 1 or 2 of your units being hurt by Dragon attacks at the same time. As long as no 20 stack of Reds fires through all your units at once you should be fine.

5. Definitely yes to the Elven Crown. It's a 1000 ldr. That's huge ! You should have first dibs through the Ancients Vamps

6. RSnakes are good if you want to take him down fast but for a drain mana attempt where you can ress up they're too fragile and too low lvl. 3 guesses why Sprites are a pain in the ass for this approach.

7. Demonesses are fine through their Fire Resistance although both, her charm and Infernal Exchange spells are useless in that fight. You can't swap Black Dragons, everything is in close quarters anyway and there's no male humanoid in his setup. So what's left is a unit that has one no retaliation attack every 3 rounds. I usually don't bring them but there are by far worse picks.

8. You can't avoid Armageddon entirely. There is no lucky 3rd round devastation of Haas :> I mean, I'm sure others can do that. I for one have never been able to just smash him like that. And since I play no loss per se I don't feel the least bit bad about it

9. The Vampire thing is your own fault ^^ They ARE in every carved coffin, even in the Marshan Swamps as I said and not in "one crypt" as you put it. The savegame scanner can't tell you what's in coffins and it doesn't show it, either. You just sold the carved coffins or dismissed the vampires you pulled from them early in your game. Shame on you xD Because they're the only lvl 3 unit you can bring to a drain mana attempt as Haas almost never crowd controls them, hell knows why. But well, since there's no battle left (big mistake. Remember for the future: keep one upgradeable item (especially that of Human race because of the Gremlin fights) to sacc up whatever you need in case of emergency :>

10. about the Ancient Vampires being left over with only Cyclopses left: why didn't you just sacrifice something living for those and resurrected them a turn later ? ^^

About the 2 Geyser spamming Dragons (Wirz and Zerro, I just did them both because I'm in the Lab in my current game ^^). Both have weaknesses. One has a ridiculously low leadership and poses no threat (for a strong damage dealing army). The other one can be tricked because the only other spell he does is Phantom and that costs him 40 Mana each. Did you know you can dispel a Phantom and kill it with that ? He phantomed 54 Ancient Vampires out of 124. Gone with one click and guess what he cast next round ? Right, Phantom. 1200 Fire Dragonflies. *click* :> So I played him like I play Haas. Two Vampires, Demons, Shamans, Inquisitors (I was too lazy to go get my Black Dragons from Daloer) and just oom him, eat his Geysers and play "kill the 1000hp healing totem" with 8 poor lonely Ancient Vampires when he was oom :>

Hope I could help you.

[Madstrike]

Oh, thanks for all the help, man I totally forgot about sacing other creatures for the vamps... and that was a lucky 3rd round without armageddon lol. Anyway, even If I do bring only lvl 4 units, and prolong the battle somehow to make him spend his mana on sheep/pigmy, sometimes it is just not possible to double ress 2x units, and single ress another 3x units(Im talking about over 200 mana just on ressing), where do u get such mana????I have chargers at 5, 3 rage, 2 mana, giving 8 each at the cost of 35. I guess EGD do help here, but I always find myself needing his mana drain ability, when its almost over, so its not very helpfull since he will kill the surviving unit. If I try the mana spring/cloud of poison on my summon trick, the cloud always travels to the enemy unit. Should I use inquisitors? that would severely weaken my fire power, but I guess in teh end it would mean I can ress everyone? My max mana is 114, so its not like I can go on ressing endlessly, but still what would it be better keeping a lone giant left when trying to get the mana, or a lone cyclop?

I have mirabella, not because "I want to use sea dogs", its because I have 2x batons, and I only have shitty artifacts and weapons(except for the 2x dragon slayer swords xD), and a shitload of boots/helmets/shields, it was more of an equipment choice really, also the portal is closed so its not like I can get xeona anyway, unless I backtrack to one of my older savegames, which Im not rly keen on the idea atm.

In the end I think I should take a different approach on my spell selection, In the first turn battle cry seems like a given, but Im not so sure on mass dragon slayer, maybe I should bless the team instead, and attack the giants(retaliating the dragons), or helplessness on one of the giants stack and attack them? Even though these spells might seem worse than dragon slayer, it might be worth trying. I just hate leaving those black dragons flying and hitting sometimes2/3 of my units.

[Vulture]

Mass bless is a terrible idea with Ancient Vampires

Just check back with my tips on distraction techniques to avoid damage to more than 2 units at once. Especially about Phantoms. Did you know that in 9 out of 10 cases the AI prefers to attack the Phantoms instead of other units within range ? Try a better positioning altogether and make use of Distortion magic, not so much Kaboom. With 2 Swords you have enough damage. You don't need Dragon Slayer so much if you want to outlast Haas rather than insta-rape him ^^

About the mana: At a max of 114 Mana it is very easy to get the mana to ress everybody up using chargers (your mistake, they are supposed to be 3 each, not 2 mana only and give 10 mana/rage, not and magic spring even without Inquisitors. Plus, your Ancient Vampires should be full anyway and your Emeralds, too. Makes only three units that must be ressed. Plus you can spare one unit the Armageddon if you just Glot's Armor it which saves another ress or sacc. Having Concentration at lvl 3 and maybe even wearing a "Well Of Mana" Belt that should be a piece of cake. My Warrior only has 80 and can pull that off. But well, he has 3/3 on Chargers ^^

Another trick is to watch the effectiveness of your resurrects. If for instance you have a stack that didn't lose too many units you can, instead of resurrecting them, sacrifice them for one that is slightly over 100% effectiveness. After that they both have, say, 80% or whatever. This way you can spare a third ress and only need 2.

The next trick is that Time Back works after round 2, too :> If you don't have the mana to ress, use sac lvl 2 on something else for 10 less mana and Time Back after that.

But if you ask me, you should just smash him and not care about losses. I mean your character is misspecced, you threw away good units, your Spirits aren't levelled perfectly well (4 rounds rest on Time Back is devastating and discouraging to restoration attempts; your Chargers suck), you're a little mal-equipped (24 Def ? Oo) and your wife gives no synergies, plus I'm sure you haven't played no-loss throughout the entire game, have you ? So on your victory screen there will be losses listed anyway, so who cares ? ^^ It's best you take your experiences from this playthrough onto the next where I am sure you'll ace it beginning to end :>