Winning Biara's fight WITHOUT a single dark magic spell

[cjlee]

Hello Everyone

I'm stuck on Biara's fight; the very last one in the official campaigns for TOTE.

I've actually won this fight more than 20 times, including on Heroic. But I like replaying using different artifacts, abilities, tactics, troops, etc. Sometimes I play it on 'handicap' to see whether a particular strategy works.

I've been able to win it without casting a single summoning spell; I'm also able to win it without casting a single light magic spell.

But I can't win it without casting a single Dark magic spell. Dark Magic seems absolutely crucial towards winning this because 1) Biara can't save her own troops from mass slow 2) vamp spell needed to overcome puppet master permanently.

If anyone can beat this without casting a single dark magic spell, please let me know and give a detailed description of how you did it, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!

[parcaleste]

I am pretty sure you can. I remember the first time I fought her I didn't had DM and it was real pain in the ass. I believe the Summon Hive and Blade Barrier saved my ass then.

[cjlee]

Well, I can see the utility of summon hive (since enemies don't attack it and it knocks them down the ATB). But how does blade barrier work? You are playing with a full army of 7 stacks and the enemy essentially has 14 stacks with a fantastic ranged attacker with anti-phantom stack capability. There are 4 (2+2 gated) stacks capable of teleport. Any delay you get from the blade barrier won't be enough to keep them from getting at you.

I like using blade barrier to take down huge neutral stacks with a tiny army. But you have too few titans to make a serious dent here, not when Succubi are killing so many titans every turn. Because Biara loves puppet master, you are forced to cleanse nonstop leaving barely enough time to renew your blade barrier. I'm afraid I just don't see how it works.

[red255]

Biara has 200 devils. Puppeteering a stack of 100 of them IS very useful.

you have 75 lava dragons 75 Angels 75 Shadow dragons, 75(?) titans, 75 behemoths.

If you had Gotai with his 560 behemoths you could easily tear down that wall or just phantom image and huck goblins at them until they die. 635 behomoths I guess with the 75 reinforcement is technically possible. If you have the complete dragon armor set (gotai had it at the end of his map) You also get +1 behemoth a turn.

Gotai's stats were godlike, why they make kujin attack the city instead of Gotai I got no idea. but you just abort the charge, town portal to the town (Or use the stairs) and hill fort the guys to a single stack of upgraded behemoth) and Gotai or Zehir should be able to burn thru that with minimal difficulty.

Zehir, specced with retribution and his city having a grail can probably put a phoenix in the doorway to clog the passage, and just fire with the behomoths and titans until the demons stop existing.

Well I suppose it matters the difficulty you are playing on but not much.

Biara and yourself will both have more Angels, lava dragons, shadow dragons, and Behemoths.

Biara has one stack of horse, one stack of succubi, a stack of both devils and a stack of both pit fiends.

Leadership for Empathy + Artifical Glory + Retribution.
Logistics for teleport assault. Assuming 75 titans (normal) you can keep them primed with teleport assault, and empathy (+ lion set) and sorcery.

with an artifact giving them +4 morale +30% initiative +4 luck or something. If you could manage a full dragon set by that point giving you more titans it would go better.

But I wouldn't be surprised if you could manage purely with Empathy + retribution + lion's set and maybe an unicorn horn bow.

So, Lion crown, ammy, cape. Dragon eye ring, ring of speed, Dragon armor, Dragon shield, dragon bone greaves. Golden Horseshoe. Unicorn horn bow.

Logistics (teleport assault)
Leadership (Empathy/retribution)
Attack (retribution, archery or mass haste)
Light Magic (mass haste?) Sorcery.

and enough academy units with +morale +initiative +health artifacts.

[Diplomat of Irollan]

If you have version 3.0, oh yes it's very winnable.
Go to memory Mentor with Zehir and get Expert War Machines + Catapult and give to Zehir 900 cyclops, if you have something to erase the puppet master it's easy win.
BTW split Cyclops in 2 stacks 450x2 because of annoying puppet master.
And don't smash your monitor XD.