Good Tanker units?

[Darmani]

I'm a big fan of Ancient Ents. Typically my first move in battles is to teleport them over and cast Stoneskin on them. If some of the enemy stacks have fire damage, I'll cast Divine Armor instead -- it replaces their 100% Vulnerability with 36% resistance. Oftentimes they can take a full round of hits from the enemy army without dying. I can't use healing on them, but I can use Life Light, which makes this strategy even more awesome for the Land of the Dead. When one of them dies, well, I keep a stack of Thorn Hunters for Sacrifice+Time Back for that purpose.

Yes, the enemy can move away, but the Ents can still use Wasp Swarm, and, if need be, there's Target and Mass Haste.

(By the way, having something low-level enough to use Time Back on in my army allows for major exploits. When I fight an army with a stack that has the No Retaliation ability, I keep it alive, get infinite mana by letting it bang on my Ancient Ents with Magic Spring for a while and get practically infinite rage by using Rage Draining. I then use Sacrifice+Ressurection to get free Thorn Hunters, and, once I've gotten them to full, use Sacrifice +Time Back on them to regenerate all my other stacks. Thus, I turn a heavily-depleted army into a full one for free.)

[Smash]

people miss a point, hp per leadership is not the most important thing but resistance and defense are thanks to them unit will stay longer.

Most important is physical resistance.

[player1]

Actually, both are important. If just cost effectiveness is important, not just 0-loss policy.

[Gatts]

well, I wonder where could be the catch - but for me didn't sacrifice work on green emerald dragons... (still I have them in my undead army for the "get me more mana" reason)

[Vilk]

Originally Posted by Darmani

I'm a big fan of Ancient Ents. Typically my first move in battles is to teleport them over and cast Stoneskin on them. If some of the enemy stacks have fire damage, I'll cast Divine Armor instead -- it replaces their 100% Vulnerability with 36% resistance....

Weird I never tried that, that's a non logical rule but totally true, with Divine Armor -100% is replaced by 30% or more depending of some stuff like Healer skill but also int and perhaps more, I pick two saves in my current game and got 39% and 44% with divine armor level 3, both with heal skill level 1.

That trick is huge and change a lot the tank point of view. Ancient Ent then are certainly the best tank or one of the best even against fire. The real weakness is the requirement to cast teleport but for a mage with Higher Magic skill that's less a burden.

For any tank Shield of Archmage is great and Peacefulness too, both against any type of attack. Also Stoneskin is useless against non physical attacks like magic.

[Vilk]

My favorite Tank is Cursed Ghost with Target spell, . They can be huge and I doubt even Ancient Ent can be better in many battles. Some posts here already explained some key point of using Cursed Ghost. I pick some snapshot of Cursed Ghost with target and joined them bellow, they show some sample where Cursed Ghost and Target can work very well.

But cursed ghost won't work in any battle:

• The best for them is a mix of non living and living.
• They can also work very well against a full living army. The key point is using target, protection spells and focus all on keeping control of the stack.
• They rule against full undead army except with Necromancers apart if they can be close to Necromancers that will then use a physical attack if you have used target.
• They rule against army with physical attack.
• They also work very well against a mixing of physical and living magical/fire like 80/20 depending of the enemy size.
• They are great against many units with no retaliation because you won't have to manage counter attack and it will be more easy to control their stack.
• They can work very well if there isn't too many red and black dragon in enemy army, typically the cursed ghost will take busy the whole enemy army but the dragons that will be attacked by all your other units.
• Don't use them against strong stacks of priests/inquisitors/black dragon/red dragon/more than one stack of necromancer.
• Don't use them against army with a strong sum of fire and magic attack.

Among the tricks to not have Cursed Ghosts out of control, some tricks already quoted in some previous posts:

• Start with a stack not at its max. That's not for all battle, that depend of enemy strength and how you manage the first rounds.
• Protect them more or less as the fight progress and enemy stacks lower.
• Make them attack a non living or guard to try lower the stack.
• Have a unit with a higher initiative than them in case they lost control at end of a turn.
• Wait end of turn for some of your long range units so they can reduce their stack if out of control.
• When you can keep your spell cast to later in the round in case you lost control.
• Use target on them to have enemy control your stack for you.
• Use target on them to allow you predict much more easily enemy attacks on them and possible counter attack to plan better a control of their stack.
• Use Peacefulness to slow down their stack increase/decrease, that also a way to increase defense.
• Use heal on them or another spell to decrease their stack.
• Take care have their stack lower before enter in a tactic that will increase their stack.
• If you make them wait in a round, be sure you have at least one other unit with lower initiative that also wait, this will give you the opportunity to decrease their stack if out of control. You could also have a unit with higher initiative to wait you you can act after the
• If you make them wait in a round, it can be useful to also have a unit with higher initiative to wait so you can react in same round and after the cursed ghost attack.
• With target stay close to a living long range to restore stack with the counter attack and not close to lower the stack.
• Against full living army and Target often your best choice will be to center all your army and actions around the Cursed Ghost to keep target, required protection and keep stack control.

[Amidamaru86]

Originally Posted by Vilk

Weird I never tried that, that's a non logical rule but totally true, with Divine Armor -100% is replaced by 30% or more depending of some stuff like Healer skill but also int and perhaps more, I pick two saves in my current game and got 39% and 44% with divine armor level 3, both with heal skill level 1.

That trick is huge and change a lot the tank point of view. Ancient Ent then are certainly the best tank or one of the best even against fire. The real weakness is the requirement to cast teleport but for a mage with Higher Magic skill that's less a burden.

For any tank Shield of Archmage is great and Peacefulness too, both against any type of attack. Also Stoneskin is useless against non physical attacks like magic.

Sorry can't aggre with that, finnished the game 3x on impossible (with all possible classes):

1) Ents, Ancient or not have low initiative
2) Movement speed is like 2-3..
3) The leadership is too big
4) Pesky fire abilities hurt them much
5) teleporting them (even for a mage) is a burden = it will cause more deaths in your army, cause you didn't use a damaging/crowd controlling spell.

Best tanks so far are Horsemen = most versatile = good initiative, good amount of hp, good speed, good damage, unlimited in shops, you can get them at lvl 1-2.

Other good tanks are:

Griffins (flying, good initiative, always retaliate, good amount of hp, magic and physical ressistance, good items to boost them)

Royal Snakes (good amount of hp, initiative, no retaliation, good attack, decent speed, Immune to poisons, Lunge ability is awsome)

Veteran Orcs (but only if you are lucky to have a shop which sells them - great speed, defence, hp, attack, initiative, bad part is that items which boost orc armies are hard to find)

When looking for a tank, don't just look for HP, look for defence/speed/initiative, abilities, overall usage = would you use black knights on a map where there are many inquisitors/monks ?, try to pick a tanking unit which will at least tank in your army in 2-3 maps, Horsemen can tank the whole game - and you can be 100% certain they will be in the capital.

[Vilk]

1: I agree initiative is a burden but for a tank it's a less major burden. You can manage that and if you use target you don't care much of the initiative for your tank.

2: It seems you never used Ancient Ent so don't even start to suspect how strong they are. Ancient Ent moves of 1.

3: Same than above, use them before talking about them.

4: You didn't read the Divine Armor trick, it cancel fully the fire penalty and add the full resistance from Divine Armor.

5: Easy.
With mage learn Higher Magic.
With Paladin and Warrior learn tactic level 2. Put Ancient Ent as far than possible from your side. Cast Target on it, long range are already busy with it and won't hurt your other troops. Other enemy troops won't reach you in round 1 or Dragon and Archdemon won't care of your target and tank anyway. Round 2 teleport Ancient Ent at the best tank place.
I agree that slow tanks are more for the mage.

Overall, my comment about Ancient Ent is more for a mage but that need more testing with a warrior. Also I have to admit than if I use them including a little as tank, I haven't yet tried with the Divine Armor trick that change a lot the point of view.

I also agree with you that mobility is an important factor for a Tank. About using only Horsemen as tank through all game I'd say that tank is a major role and use one or even two reserve slots for more tank options is a more efficient approach.

[Vilk]

About Ancient Ent as Tank, low mobility is a burden I agree, low initiative is a handicap I agree too. But let see it from a defense point of view with few sample math:

• First quote, the life ratio: Life per 100 Leadership is 83.33. That is huge for a level 5 unit and that match or does better than most level 2 to 4 units and many level 1 units. For example Horsemen has a lower base life ratio of 72.22. Well for a warrior with Iron fist skill the picture is different but for mage and paladin that cannot be improved without a very very rare items set (Knight set). Such high Leadership cost means an average Leadership lost of 500, that's significant but the more Leadership you have the less 500 is significant. Still, Ancient Ent have an exceptional life ratio for a level 5 unit.
• Second quote, the defense. For Ancient Ent this brings between 50% and 25% less damages than Horsemen. See bellow the little math for explanation.
• More over Ancient Ent also have 50% resistance to poison and 10% to physical. For example in comparison Horsemen has 20% to physical and 20% to fire.

So if you consider the Divine Armor trick that fully cancel Ancient Ent penalty against fire, the 50% to 25% less damages than Horsemen, the excellent life ratio, it's clear that Ancient Ent is an exceptional defender, good for a tank, could worth the low mobility and low initiative in many battle. For a mage I'm almost sure but haven't yet test. For a Paladin more tests need to be done. For a warrior that could be a less interesting option with an investment in Iron Fist. Still damage reduction is more important than life ratio and even with warrior, Ancient Ent worth a try as tank.

About the reduced damages:
Higher units compensate lower leadership ratios with higher defense and attack. For a Tank let see the defense of Ancient Ent: 50. In comparison a Horsemen has 25. For an attacker with an attack higher than enemy defense, each added attack-defense point gives 3% more damages. But let consider the less favorable option, as the hero has many defense bonus and with a such high defense base the average ratio will be more roughly 2% in average. That means roughly 50% less damages than Horsemen. If we use a negative hypothesis with an average of 1% instead of 2%, it's still 25% less damages, that is huge. That's why Ancient Ent are so strong, exceptional life ratio and very high defense.

EDIT: As already quoted items can change many things, for example the Steam Armor inflict a huge mobility penalty but if for some reason you still want try it, Knight become non mobile as Ancient Ent but gain 30% defense ie get a defense of roughly 36 but also has 30% resistance to physical and fire. With Iron fist skill, circle attack and 30% attack bonus given by Steam Armor that can build an interesting non mobile tank option.