Naked challenge

[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

[Razorflame]

nice

suprised u still don't have trapper medal haha

[impy]

Well, this is what I was thinking - I can find let's say 0-20 trap scrolls randomly in the game. Since I am not allowed to learn spells, what's the point of using 10 of them to get trapper level 1 and get one random trap generated per battle if I can save all the scrolls and use them as and when I really need them.
Update here - 250 fights, still going no loss. If the whole game is roughly 300 fights, it means so far around 85% of the game can be finished with completely naked character and no loss...
Couple of tips & tricks
- remember difference between HMM2 and HMM3? In HMM2 enemy attacked your strongest stack, in HMM3 it was the weakest stack. In KB it is usually the weakest stack. Take advantage of it - use one unit which has low resist + low unit hitpoints, which will attract enemy fire and gives you the most advantage. The idea is to use this unit special skills and after taking heavy damage cast time back for resurrecting and recharging skills. Examples - take gorguanas and use their mark of blood skill, resurrect at the end of round 2 and cast mark of blood again. Take goblin shamans with toadstool liquor, unleash astral damage in round one, repeat in round two. For slower melee enemy, you can combine gorguanans with goblin shamas for some serious damage. This is generally very useful tactics once you learn time back spell, in this challenge it has its limits.You can also combine mark of blood with pain mirror spell.

[Razorflame]

GJ u already finished it or that impossible?

[impy]

I haven't had much time to play..It was snowing in london for a while and I was hoping to get snowed in so I can do something useful - like playing computer games I am at 261 fights, still no-loss. I attached 2 savegames - one at level 2, after training, if somebody want to give it a try. Verona and Montero guardians are manageable as you can see from my previous screenshots. Game also has obscene number of time back scrolls, more than 10, which will be useful in endgame;I haven't used any so far.The second save is my current progress, if somebody want to take a peek and see what it's all about towards the end. Note : The saves are version 1.3.1. build 6170 unmodded