combo: last stand and split

[juderiverman]

last stand is Knight's (or Ranger's) special ability emerging from defense skill; split is the usual trick to fool the AI.

the combo of last stand and split could be extremely unfair for the AI.

split two farmers (edited according to the reply below) and let it either to take the retaliation or to block/manipulate the enemy's movement or to cover the archer or whatever; combining with last stand, these two farmers are actually doubling. Not doubling in quantity, doubling in the # of troops.

Seemingly imbalanced.

[nevermindspy]

Hehe....
Wow ! Amazing tactic you invented there.. , I wonder why no one has ever thought about it before

[PhoenixReborn]

I think he's saying it's an exploit that should be removed?

[Ya5MieL]

But, last stand wont work if there is only one unit in stack, you need at least two.

[yuritch]

Be more creative. Last stand was given to most (all? I don't remember exactly) factions in TotE. So, think of it like this: you play Necro. You take Last Stand (Orson can do so easily). You have a stack of 2 Vampires. Cast Raise Dead on them a few times so that their max health becomes very low (something like 2-3 HP). Now comes the fun part: if an enemy stack attacks (and kills) them, 1 Vampire comes back via Last Stand and retaliates, immediately draining enough life to bring back the other Vampire. So even a stack of 100 Dragons can no longer destroy those Vamps (unless the Dragons get very lucky with Morale and act 3 times between Vampire turns).
What this means? Basically it allows you to take Dragon Utopias on week 1, among other things.

[parcaleste]

^ Thats funny, I'm pretty sure it can happen with Vampirism too

[juderiverman]

Be more creative. Last stand was given to most (all? I don't remember exactly) factions in TotE. So, think of it like this: you play Necro. You take Last Stand (Orson can do so easily). You have a stack of 2 Vampires. Cast Raise Dead on them a few times so that their max health becomes very low (something like 2-3 HP). Now comes the fun part: if an enemy stack attacks (and kills) them, 1 Vampire comes back via Last Stand and retaliates, immediately draining enough life to bring back the other Vampire. So even a stack of 100 Dragons can no longer destroy those Vamps (unless the Dragons get very lucky with Morale and act 3 times between Vampire turns).
What this means? Basically it allows you to take Dragon Utopias on week 1, among other things.

Very creative and huge imbalance if it is true.

[tb5841]

I just tried it, and it works... Just. You need 5 casts of Raise Dead on the same stack before it can drain enough health to resurrect a vampire when it attacks/retaliates (tested against Black Dragons, against something with a lower defence 4 might do). So you need to make sure your other stacks survive long enough for you to do this, so that if your vampires die early then they can be resurrected without losing the battle.

You can't cast Raise Dead on a stack with full health. Getting your stack hit 5 times so you can resurrect it 5 times, without losing the battle, is quite a difficult process. But it can be done. After this, you could beat a stack of a thousand black dragons, if you had lots and lots of time...

This becomes nearly impossible against two large unit stacks, so I really can't see it working in a Dragon Utopia.

[danhvo]

This becomes nearly impossible against two large unit stacks, so I really can't see it working in a Dragon Utopia.

All units in a Dragon Utopia are large, so if your vampire stack stands in a corner, it never has to fight more than one stack at a time, right? I know dragons can attack two or more tiles at once, but I don't think the AI would attack your vampire through its friendly stack.

I have to admit, I used to think this perk is pretty useless, but with this strategy, it might just be worth taking.

[yuritch]

You cannot order a 2-tile attack if there is a friendly unit on the 1st tile (however a friendly unit on the seconds tile doesn't prevent the attack), so a Vampire stack in a corner always has only 1 Dragon stack to fight. Also, with Last Stand you don't risk losing the battle before 5 Raise Dead casts - if Dragons kill your Vamps, 1 Vamp will come back, so the Dragons need to have another turn before your hero casts Raise Dead to finish the Vamps off. That means you don't want to fight Emerald Dragons, but Blacks (or Shadow Dragons) won't cause you much trouble - their Initiative isn't that high. Sorcery helps, too.
Other spells to use with the Last Stand trick - Regeneration with Expert Light magic will do the same, you only need to re-cast it on the unit when it's about to expire. Vampirism also allows that, but that's a 5th level spell, unlike Raise Dead or Regeneration.
Of course, this won't work against Phoenixes, Fire/Lava/Magma Dragons and all kinds of Necro dragons.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

You cannot order a 2-tile attack if there is a friendly unit on the 1st tile (however a friendly unit on the seconds tile doesn't prevent the attack), so a Vampire stack in a corner always has only 1 Dragon stack to fight. Also, with Last Stand you don't risk losing the battle before 5 Raise Dead casts - if Dragons kill your Vamps, 1 Vamp will come back, so the Dragons need to have another turn before your hero casts Raise Dead to finish the Vamps off. That means you don't want to fight Emerald Dragons, but Blacks (or Shadow Dragons) won't cause you much trouble - their Initiative isn't that high. Sorcery helps, too.
Other spells to use with the Last Stand trick - Regeneration with Expert Light magic will do the same, you only need to re-cast it on the unit when it's about to expire. Vampirism also allows that, but that's a 5th level spell, unlike Raise Dead or Regeneration.
Of course, this won't work against Phoenixes, Fire/Lava/Magma Dragons and all kinds of Necro dragons.

... or gargoyles, or golems, or any fast no-retaiation creature. Depending on the enemy stack size, spell casters (druids, e.g.) may also be a problem. Still, the explot is quite obvious, once mentioned.

[Slepytchee]

nice

[Macros the Black]

So, to recap..

Needed
- 2 vampires
- Raise Dead
- Small army to take the heat (quite literally, if it's dragons you're facing)
- Last Stand

Useful
- Mass Slow (normal Slow is too dangerous, Haste won't help)
- (Mass) Endurance (so your army will last long enough)
- Sorcery (so you can Raise Dead fast enough)
- Destruction Magic (if you like to speed things up)
- Guardian Angel perk (your back-up plan)
- Ballista (can last a while with max 3 creatures attacking it, and deals some damage..) <- If you only take a balista and no other war machines with you, is it placed where the ammo cart usually stands? Because if so, and you pick the right corner for your vampires to stand in, only one creature will be able to attack the ballista at a time..?

Dangerous Creatures / Dangerous Creature abilities
- Small creatures
- Shooter
- Caster
- Flameshield
- Griffins
- No Retaliation
Abilities that grant creatures 2 strikes in one turn (ex. Bash) <- not sure about this one; do they still perform the second strike after Last Stand triggers?
- High initiative creatures
- Regeneration (will be hard to kill)
-- Magical Immunity/Resistance/Protection

Alternative Strategies
- Regeneration
- Vampirism
- Expert sorcery, Raise Dead, 2 small creatures that deal alot of damage in melee combat (maybe Flameshield ability or some such could help) and don't run when attacked (it'd be kinda dumb to try this with goblins ^^), and enough mana. This one depends on your hero being fast enough to use Raise Dead in time.
- Army of only Vampire Lords + Last Stand + Armageddon ?!?!?!?!?!


I think that's all?

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Edit: as for the Vampire Lords + Last Stand + Armageddon trick, I'm gonna try it out with a dual preset hero..

Skills I'll be using:

Expert Destructive Magic:
- Master of Fire

Expert Defense:
- Protection
- Evasion
- Last Stand

Advanced Light Magic:
- Master of Abjuration
- Fire Resistance

Basic Luck:
- Magic Resistance

Other skills that could have been useful: Expert Sorcery with Arcane Training, Intelligence (need Basic Enlightenment), Banshee Howl, Mana Burst, Fiery Wrath, Ignite, Master of Conjuration with Fire Warriors (need Advanced Summoning Magic), Battle Frenzy with Power of Speed (need Advanced Attack), and Master of Wrath (need Expert Light Magic).

But alass.. You can't have everything

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Edit2: Tried it, works great
Don't think this would be a good trick in the normal game, but for a Duel Preset it's very good.
I gave him the following artifacts:

- Staff of the Netherworld (would have given him Staff of Sar-Issus, but wasn't sure wether that also works on your own creatures when you cast Armageddon): -20% enemy creatures' initiative
- Shield of Crystal Ice: +2 Defense and +50% protection against fire
- Armor of the Forgotten Hero: +2 All Stats and +20% magic resistance
- Ring of Speed: +20% creatures' initiative
- Boots of Magical Defense: +10% magic resistance
- Phoenix Feather Cape: fire spells damage +50%
- Crown of Sar-Issus: +6 knowledge
- Ring of Sar-Issus: halves mana cost of spells
- Pendant of Conflux: gain one mana point for every 2 mana points spent by enemy hero (didn't really need this one as it turned out, the hero had 120 mana.. More than enough. Changed it to Necklace of Victory)

Had him face off against a Stronghold hero I'd made previously.. Was a mistake, hehe, the Stronghold hero had enough spellpower to render him useless by way of Might Over Magic
Then tried against a Haven hero (vampires versus Haven isn't really fair, but what'cha gonna do ). Put both sides on auto combat. The haven's griffins used battle-dive quite wisely, and alot of Endurance was being cast all around which is wise against both vampires as well as Armageddon of course. Haven hero had the Preparation perk, which you'd think would work wonders against vampires.. But it didn't.
Each Armageddon took out 1 vampire per stack, and alot of Haven units (although the Haven hero did seem to have the fire protection artifact, so half of his units kept resisting the spell).
2 stacks of vampires were succesfully destroyed by Haven before he bit the dust, but the other stacks were all still at full health.. So in the end, the Haven hero didn't stand a chance
The strategy works quite well. Nice thing about it is that as a side-effect from all the fire resistance, the vampires are also 60% resistant to any other magic