H2: Black dragons and armageddon

[Metathron]

What tactics do you employ against an opponent who only has black dragons in his army, the armageddon spell, and high spell power?

I made this thread H2 specific, but feel free to include the other games, if your tactics differ in any way.

[MistWeaver]

To win you must have:
1)one ultra speed creature (phoenix or cavalry)
2)Anti magic spell
3)Summon spell to take dragon's retaliations
4)As many titans as dragons (+/- ) in one stack.

[BoardGuest808888]

-. Very high Attack/Defense skills
-. Some kind of magic resistance (Spells, or Specialties like Dwarves)
-. Genies with awful lot of luck.
-. Powerful spells like Mirror Image & Teleport.
-. Awfully lot of skeletons

[Metathron]

I guess having the anti-magic spell in your arsenal is the most crucial, before any other of your suggestions. Next comes having a stack of sturdy creatures superior in numbers to the blackies, and having good attack and defense ratings from your hero.

Since there's a lot of ifs involved here, it seems that the blackies + armageddon is pretty much the ultimate tactic, to be feared by all?

[Mytical]

Sadly yes, though there are ways to combat it they require a lot of luck.

Magic resist items, skills, and a creature with natural magic resistance helps. Requires that you are able to find the items however.

Very good ressurrect (ie high spellpower, high mana, expert in the skill (of course) can offset this tactic also. Still requries a lot of luck that everything does not die on first attack and that you can raise more then they can kill.

Zerg the town. Before they can build blackies (which does take awhile and is expensive) just take em down.

There are other creatures that are immune to armeggeddon. Make your army out of these creatures. Better have a WHOLE lot of them, though, and some amazing skills/artifacts.

As mentioned earlier have a whole lot of high level creatures in a stack and make them magic immune. Then it just comes down to the following.

Your stats, skills, army vs theirs. If your stack can kill their blackies fast enough dracogeddon goes out the window.

[MistWeaver]

Lets not forget "Sphere of Negation"

[Metathron]

You may be speaking broadly, but if we are referring strictly to HoMM II:

Magic resist items, skills, and a creature with natural magic resistance helps.

The only artifact I can think of is the sphere of negation (I forgot how it was called, mistweaver reminded me), there are no magic-resist (or magic-enhancing, for that matter) skills in HoMM II, and I hardly think it prudent to assault black dragons with an army of dwarves or golems, however large.

There are other creatures that are immune to armeggeddon.

In HoMM II, I can think of only dwarves and golems, both extremely unimpressive when it comes to opposing blackies. Initially, I had thought the phoenix are immune to it, but when I attacked my friend's sorceress army with blackies & armageddon, the phoenix fried along with the rest of the army. Since it is a being of fire, that doesn't make that much sense to me.

The only useful skills I can think of in HoMM II, would be leadership and luck, and indirectly basic wisdom (for anti-magic) and diplomacy, for rallying more creatures of the same type to your cause.

[kitcat0]

In heroes III, it helps to play with conflux.

[gravyluvr]

The HOMM2 Warlock Armageddon with Stack'o'Black is the ultimate mop up king in the game.

Ideally, the best counter is a Knight or Barbarian with mad Offense/Defense skills and a big stack of Phoenix and Titans

Spells that rock with Titan/Phoenix
Mirror Image on either (usually the first time on the Phoenix Stacks)
LVL 3 spells include Anti-Magic, Mass Haste and maybe mass bless...
A lot of Cure, Dispel and other modifiers (Steelskin, Bloodlust, etc).

I always found that a Barbarian could really get around the map and pile up the stats a lot faster than the other Heroes. By the time you meet Vesper (8-10-24-20) with Black Dragons, your Thundax or Crag Hack might be sitting at 25-20-8-10 and if you've got the creatures, you should be able to smash the Blackies if you have Anti-Magic. Even without, you should have a buffed up core of creatures that should be able to take out the Blackies before the third Armageddon.

[lightknight]

People are (correctly) stating that it takes a decent amount of luck to beat someone using a stack-o-black tactic... but don't forget that it takes a decent amount of luck just to /use/ that tactic in the first place. Playing against a human opponent in a one-scenario campaign, it is neither easy nor brief for them to get a big stack of black dragons and it requires more than a little luck to get the Armageddon spell from their mage guild/elsewhere.

So although it's a powerful tactic, to be sure, it's not really a game-ruining one, in my opinion... it relies on getting a high-level spell and hard-to-get creatures.

Having said that, if they're lucky and skillful enough to get that combo, then yeah, that might be it for you in that game. But it's just one game. And if you think it's easy or consistent to use that tactic, well, then, just play as a Warlock yourself all the time.

[grobblewobble]

There is one very simple, obvious and effective counter strategy in H2, and I'm surprised that no one mentioned it.

Against Black dragon + armageddon, the best answer is black dragon + a might hero. Your dragons will be stronger in such a fight, and magic is of no use.

Personally, I almost exclusively use might heroes in H2 (with the exception of an occasional necromancer). They can easily cast some of the best spells in the game (haste, slow, blind), and the effect of even a few points of attack or defense is noticeable in this version. Moreover, building a high-level mage tower takes lots of resources (= time), and the spells you get are random!

So I rarely use the black dragon / armageddon strategy. Once I have blackies (or titans), I just hire some knight or barb and go kick some butt. With black dragons you're practically invincible already, anyway.

[BoardGuest808888]

I guess having the anti-magic spell in your arsenal is the most crucial, before any other of your suggestions. Next comes having a stack of sturdy creatures superior in numbers to the blackies, and having good attack and defense ratings from your hero.

Since there's a lot of ifs involved here, it seems that the blackies + armageddon is pretty much the ultimate tactic, to be feared by all?

Actually not. Like grobblewobble said, one of the best way against black dragons + armageddon, without having to have black dragons yourself is using very high attack/defense skills.

Anti-Magic is not that crucial. If you're going to wrestle yourself pound-to-pound with someone with black dragons, Anti-Magic just give you even, not advantage, and an even circumstance against black dragons would means a battle of attrition.

In other hand, a carefully selected spells, along with high attack/defense can do wonder you'll never suggest in the first place.

I've experienced that first hand.

I've been against my friend years ago, he used packs of hydra against my hero with black dragons. I plan a hit-and-run and direct-damage spell tactics. It doesn't work. He buffed up the hydra into terrifying monsters and when I ran out of spell points, the hydra literally tear my black dragons into shreds.

In other time, I used packs black dragons against his army of 200 something battle dwarves lead by a barbarian (it's Thundax if I remember correctly). He keep teleporting the runts and pounding my dragons. At the end, I lose.

Several years later, I was against other friend, he used Warlock while I'm Necromancer. The map is Peasants !. This time I've been a lot wiser . In the end, he tried to use elemental storm (yeah, not really Armageddon, but nearly as painful) + black dragons. Well, that time that didn't work against my 10K skeletons