I need a tactics lesson

[Wheeler Dealer]

In Tearing the Veil there is a set battle for Zahir with a large demon army with no hero. Maltz's walkthrough advised taking on this battle with a minimum army since all resources and gold carry over to the second half of the scenario for Duncan and Freyda. He suggested using a stack of gargoyles for a HP pool, presumedly winning the battle with summoned creatures while the gargoyles stand in the corner.

I haven't been able to make it work. Zahir is level 28 with stats 12, 7, 29, 34, 5. 9. He has Arcane Omnisceince so all spells are available. I can only muster 119 obs. gargoyles. The demon army has 31 arch demons, 50 pit lords, 72 nightmares, 143 succubi, 204 cerberus, 373 horned overseers and 712 imps. After the imps drain 178 mana Zahir still has nearly 500.

I have about 100,000 gold and perhaps six weeks worth of creatures are available for purchase. (I must have spent nearly 100,000 at the memory mentor to get Arcane Omnisceince).

How would you plan this battle? Would golems do better than gargoyles?

[Elvin]

I won that battle just from the tier 7 outside Biara's town month 4 That was through a barrage of lucky armageddons(with phoenix cape) but my best guess for alternative plan would be to frenzy/puppet. And of course divine vengeance when a unit has done enough damage.

[Wheeler Dealer]

Well, it wasn't as tough as I thought. I had overlooked the possibility of building an artifact for the obsydian gargoyles. I built an amulet with +7 HP (that added 35% to the HP pool), +9 defense and 78% magic protection (I doubt that did anything for obsydian gargoyles).

I took two hits from the succubi and one from the nightmares before I got the battle under control. In earlier attempts, that was enough to knock me out! I had 73 of my 119 gargoyles left. I cast conjure pheonix followed by puppet master on the nightmares. I used the nightmares to shield the gargoyles. A few frenzy spells kept the demons killing each other. I did need another phoenix and used summon hive to lock down the last stack of 52 pit lords.

I got pretty lucky with the demons missing turns due to morale. I wore the ring of broken will and the inferno army missed several turns early which helped me get my spells cast before they were all over me.

I thought it was pretty cool to have level 21 helper heroes (due to mentoring). I wasted a lot of gold and resources building up my town. It was completely built out and I never purchased any level six or seven creatures. I didn't even buy half of the other creatures available.

[Lord Lakely]

And that Children, is why Dark is so dangerous for Inferno.

[cjlee]

And that Children, is why Dark is so dangerous for Inferno.

Yup. Inevitably I am drawn to using dark vs inferno, because it is the best counter to them and they cannot fight back.

I wonder if anyone has won Zehir's campaign without using puppet master, frenzy, vampiricism or blind.

If you can do that, even on Easy, I'll respect you enormously.

[Elvin]

Never used any of them, heroic. Heroes offers many possibilities.

[Banedon]

I remember I went into that last battle with a fairly thin army (didn't summon Zehir's town). Had something like 49 Battle Mages, 20 Storm Titans and the 4 level 7 units. Didn't have Dark Magic, which left me with Summoning / Light / Destructive. Biara's armies were simply too large for Zehir's to take without Dark Magic, so I retrained with the Memory Mentor. That said, I'm positive she can be beaten without Dark Magic if you get a sizable army of your own first with Expert Artificier etc.

Going down the difficulty level, by Easy, she should be quite simple to annihilate without doing anything special.

[cjlee]

Care to give some suggestions?

I have arcane omniscience.

I suppose summoning phoenix+ phantom titan +banish might work, but I've never gotten it right before (e.g. phantom killed easily by enemy).

I know theoretically one could armageddon one's way to victory using artifacts + crystal ice + phoenix cape, but the enemy charged out when I tried.

Found a light magic combo rather hard to apply effectively, except for divine vengeance cheap kills.

Never used any of them, heroic. Heroes offers many possibilities.

[Elvin]

Your best bet is still dark, phoenix is unlikely to be of much help vs epic armies unless you have 40 power or so. Even then.. Likewise banish is barely useful with normal armies so I wouldn't even attempt it. Phantom if you have some some powerful stack can be lovely, esp with motw.

Say if you don't have academy then you could simply buy army from dungeon towns or just depend on the tier 7 stacks and the ones you summon. One cheesy strategy you could try is mentor some secondaries, attack - Frenzy/puppet Biara's army and retreat Do that a few times and it should be pretty easy.