Let's Rip Off Something Awful - Dark Omen or No Love For 56K

[sqeecoo]

What x-com thread?

Help out your "old friend" in the silly hat.

This last battle was brutal, good job. How did you manage to lose so few troops in the melees? The enemy was not weakened by ranged troops, at least not much, eh?

 

[Jasede]

Attack the trolls! Feed our blood lust Jasede!

BTW did Jürgen Muntz have anything to say before battle 15 or did it go straight into battle after you made the choice to attack?

He said nothing. Dick.

This last battle was brutal, good job. How did you manage to lose so few troops in the melees? The enemy was not weakened by ranged troops, at least not much, eh?

The magic mortar wasn't that effective, but it did weaken a squad of skeletons and it destroyed the enemy catapult later on. How I lost so few troops? I rushed everyone as quickly past those fucking evil skeleton archers as I could to engage in melee/get out of their range. Apart from that, it's just my powerful troops. Level 1 flagellants as I have them are MEAN. In the tabletop game, flagellants are the Empire's most powerful infantry, and it definitely shows, even in a squad of just 9. You can see how powerful they are in the last shot of that battle: while Urblad and Morgan still fight their regiments, they already killed a unit of skeletal warriors more than double their unit size.

 

[The Rambling Sage]

Cool thread, made me install SotHR again.

My vote: Help fight the Trolls.

The magic mortar wasn't that effective, but it did weaken a squad of skeletons and it destroyed the enemy catapult later on.

I have yet to play Dark Omen and have half the thread still to read, so i do not know how useful this will be for you in this one or if you use it already - but back in SotHR i managed to turn the mortars into my main damage dealers by leaving one or two cheapy regiments just outside their minimum range and waiting until several enemy groups charge them... Then blast away into the melee, as a good Skryre.

Maybe that helps in making it more effective.

 

[Cthulhugoat]

Cool thread, made me install SotHR again.

Good luck getting past mission five.

 

[Jasede]

Mission five of SotHR is harder than everything I have faced in Dark Omen so far.

Way harder.

 

[abstract]

Is that the mission where you have to rescue Carlsson's family? It really isn't *that* hard. The final Border Princes mission is much harder (unless you abuse mortars)

 

[Jasede]

What's the final Border Princes mission again? Against the Grain? Attack the Orc Camp?

 

[The Rambling Sage]

Is that the mission where you have to rescue Carlsson's family? It really isn't *that* hard.

The one about Carlsson's family is the sixth, i believe. The fifth one would the one with the Rat Ogre charging your troops, who stand there ignoring your orders and screaming "My men fear the beast" if you try to attack it.

The final Border Princes mission is much harder (unless you abuse mortars)

Funny, since that was the mission in wich i originally used the Skryre battleplan for the first time :wink:

What's the final Border Princes mission again? Against the Grain? Attack the Orc Camp?

The Orc Camp one.

 

[abstract]

I believe the rat ogre consistently fell to a single hunting spear from Allor. I know I managed to beat that battle without any casualties (and I suck).

Against the Grain also is a pain as long as you keep sending your troops along the north side of the mountain (and I know I kept doing it for a long time).

 

[Jasede]

Ah, right.

The first hard mission is battle SIX, not five, then. It's a pain in the ass. Not super-duper hard, but still, incredibly hard, and people new to the genre or without any degree of luck or tactical aptitude will give up at it.

I agree that the Orc Camp, optional as it may be, is a very steep step up still - and I HATE mortars so I avoid using them as much as possible, so I don't abuse them for that mission. [Why? Because if you keep training mortars they soon gain level 1 and 2, increasing their (very low) accuracy and when you end up with fairly accurate mortars, it's very tempting to use them to kill all enemies, denying your more important troops the XP).

Against the Grain: it's a cool mission, but incredibly annoying. I usually waypoint Ragnar's men into the backs of the orces, circling the mountain from south.

 

[psycojester]

Nice job on the serpentines, i would have responded to the insanely unfair situation by cheating personally.

Teleport the Bright wizard ahead until he finds the screaming skull catapult and then restart the mission and the mortar target its location.

 

[Jasede]

Well, I basically did that, but I targeted it "blindly", just clicked at the general area of where the fireballs came from. Not very effective, but better than nothing.

Also, this mission sucked balls. It was totally unfair and all that was between my success and a costly mission with many losses was clicking just a bit less fast and less luck at not getting hit by that damn catapult.

 

[Shannow]

Again I have a different memory of the AI. When fighting against me they never cared about their own losses. I had to try the serpentine mission about six times until I finally manged to get through (without too heavy losses). The problem was that the undead artillery and archers just kept firing not caring if they killed their own.
And let me tell you, losing the Grudgebringer cavalery to enemy artillery while they are engaged with some zomebies is not fun.
Another problem was they my troops weren't as leveled as Yasede's. His ignoring of weak infantery is really working out.
When I finally pulled through it was because I was lucky and the enemy artillery didn't score any major hits and because I used the Horn while charging enemies with Bernhardt. Fleeing zombies = dead (for good) zombies.

About the new choice: I always went with Ragnar, so I'd be interested what happens if you don't take him. So, if you're up to the task, don't take him and see what happens, then load and take him anyway *g*

 

[thras]

I'm always interested in more battles, so attack.

Also, the wizard was more interesting for the brief time that he was flaming gay. Can we have a battle narrated from his, ah, queer point of view?

 

[Jasede]

The troll battle it is, then. And I don't think that would make good narration for that and the next battle. Maybe when we reach the glacier where the Hand of Nagash is imprisoned?

 

[thras]

Sure -- you're the artistic genius here.

 

[Jasede]

lol

 

[Cthulhugoat]

I believe the rat ogre consistently fell to a single hunting spear from Allor. I know I managed to beat that battle without any casualties (and I suck).

Yeah, but thanks to SOTHR's horrible pathfinding and the lack of any pointers indicating the range of Allor's spell, it becomes a bigger pain in the ass when it looks so simple. I ended that mission with my cavalry and infantry routed, and only my crossbowmen sniping at the remaining skaven while the barbarian mage picked his nose and did nothing.

 

[Jasede]

If you click the "select spell" button twice, then click the rat ogre while in line of sight, Allor will cast his spear as much as he can each magic turn, and only when the ogre is in range.

 

[abstract]

After a while (ie. a dozen "out of range" messages) it's possible to more or less properly estimate the proper range of wizard spells.
Anyway, when I talk about missions that are "not that difficult" I want to say that they're quite easy to beat if you do everything, or at least most things, right. The "hard" missions are those where you just have to pray that the die rolls go your way.

And mages suck in SOTHR. With no active pause they just take up way too much of your attention to cast some piddly fireball that will kill one or two soldiers at most (if it doesn't hit your own regiment on the way).

 

[Jasede]

Correction: Bright Mages suck in SotHR.

The Amber Wizard is sheer murder. His flock of doom literally kills everything, no questions asked. His curse of Anhur enables the mortar to rape all advancing enemies.

And there's no active pause in Dark Omen either. B-) (This is why I never deploy too many troops: since the game isn't pausable I need to control as few as possible to have time to pull off some neat things with the bright wizard, but as you can see I am not doing this much anymore since the infantry takes too much attention).

Anyway, huge update (four battles, we're nearly done, I think) coming up at the weekend together with a new choice. Until then!

 

[abstract]

I've finished SotHR >_> Unfortunately the game gets piss easy once you get the cannons and (especially) the elf archers, who are just ridiculous.

 

[Jasede]

That's quite an achievement, abstract. Elven archers made me hate archers who aren't crossbowmen. Fucking cheap queers. <_<

 

[abstract]

The Amber Wizard is sheer murder. His flock of doom literally kills everything, no questions asked.

It may kill, but first you have to level him up using only the hunting spear. I picked Allor for literally every battle and could only get him to second level with the shitty tangling thorn. The curse is useful, especially early on, but artillery kills everything even without it.

And regarding artillery, I think the relative ease of the game is caused by bad balancing. In most battles you are free to assume defensive positions while the enemy regiments come at you. In the beginning you have only one ranged troop and the battles are tough and exciting; then you get additional (free) crossbowmen and the mortars and you just start murdering the oncoming enemy with concentrated fire. The one or two regiments that aren't decimated or broken while advancing are easily dispatched by your own melee troops. Add to that the cannons with their insane range and crazy accuracy (you can effectively kill a regiment from across half the map) and the elven archers with their ridiculous rate of fire, plus the fact that you are still facing the same stormvermin and clanrat warriors you were fighting in the beginning, and you get the full picture. I practically only had to replay a battle if a mortar or cannon misfired and blew itself up.
Now, when you take the battles where you cannot assume defensive positions and artillery is unavailable (ambushes, attacking missions), they were far more difficult and exciting, however they were also few and far between. If the balance wasn't as skewed in this way, the game would probably be much more challenging. It's still fun, though

On a semi-related note, is Mark of Chaos as bad as everyone is making it out be?

 

[Shannow]

On a semi-related note, is Mark of Chaos as bad as everyone is making it out be?

No...it is worse. Seriously, it doesn't use Warhammer rules and if you think balancing in SotHR wasn't as good as it could have been you're in for a very bad surprise with MoC.
Let's not ruin this thread with talk of that pos (although I liked the voice acting).