Dark Side - New Units/Spells/Skills

[Zechnophobe]

Dragon Riders are pretty amazingly powerful. Summon dragon stacks, big full screen damage every other turn? Magic immunity? Zoiks.

The Female Vampires seem to be... I dunno, a typo? Why do they have the same leadership as Ancient Vampires, but similar starts to normal vampires? Their special abilities aren't that great. I feel they just have about twice the leadership cost they were intended to have.

The hyena rider shamans are pretty 'meh'. I do like a ranged cold damage dealer, but I just don't find their special skills all that wonderful. And they are SO fragile.

Got to level 60, haven't seen a wolf rider yet.

The Metamorphs are... uh, I don't see the point. If I wanted a specific stack I'd just bring it with me. The only possible value is if I wanted to switch between different types, maybe to reset charges/cooldowns?

The Spies I dunno about either. Interesting idea to be sure though.

Units aside, I *really* like the rage skills and skill trees in this iteration. Black Hole has a lot of cool uses other than just damage, especially after the area increase. The ability to cut out large parts of the battlefield, berserk enemy stacks, and lots of % damage + summoning... I feel there's a lot of great stuff to do here.

[Shadowcran]

The Wolf Riders are a collaboration between the Military dept and the Research Dept. You need to get Elven Cedar, which is at the end of Aralan conquest(late in the game) and some item from Dragandor. After that, you'll be asked for a lot of prisoners to turn into the riders, then 100 wolves(witches usually have them). I only recently(2nd playthrough) started trying them out and they're pretty good. Here are the stats:

Name: Orc Scouts
Level 4
Leadership 200
Attack 24
Defense 32
Initiative 5
Speed 3
Crit 10%
Damage 10-15
Health 180

Talents-
Piercing Strike-12-18 physical damage and ignores physical resistance
Support- Select another of your troops, Without using Action points, the Orc riders fires at same target as that other troop. Does 6-9 damage to that target regardless of that distance, lasts for 3 turns
Companion-Summons a troop of Wolves each having leadership 150. 132 of them was producing around 533 wolves.

Abilities:
Of the Dark
Shooter
Crossbowman
Wolf Cavalry
Greed
Adrenaline

The Metamorphs suck, take my word on it.

The Spy is currently bugged for steam players. I haven't gotten them and there's no prompt to do anything else to obtain them. If someone could post their stats I'd sure appreciate it.

The Female Vampires make little sense and for the reasons you highlighted. I did read though that you can spam the spell "Armageddon" while using the female vampires "Transformation" ability. They take no damage from Armageddon while in this mode.

[Zechnophobe]

Female Vamps - Armageddon isn't particularly compelling hehe.

[Shadowcran]

Is there a Necro call in this? I haven't seen it yet in all the playthroughs

[Shadowcran]

Don't know how, but finally got the Spy. Here's his specs...god, do they suck

Level: 2
Leadership: 55
Attack: 10
Defense: 16
Initiative: 3
Speed: 2
10% Crit
Damage: 2-4
Health: 45

Fury Attack: 2-4 damage to 3 cells in front of it
Transformation: transforms into a little girl hanging bombs on enemy without retaliation and can't be attacked while a little girl. When bombs explode, turns back into Strongman

Night Vision
Persistence of Mind
Known Enemy

[Shadowcran]

In building an all undead force, I found the 5th. Pirate Ghosts
1. Necromancers
2. Ancient Vampires
3. Vampires
4. Bone Dragons
5. Pirate Ghosts

Notice how hard it is to get the treasure award in this one? Well, Pirate Ghost is your answer, plus makes a handy creature that's actually useful in battle.

Places to get:
1. Ghost Ship on Inselburg
2. Ghost Pirate on Sandy Isles(Jim Hawkins Quest)
3. Ghost Ship on Sandy Isles