The Mantid Swarm Faces The Undead Legion! | Age Of Wonders 4 - Episode 5

If only Daniel was this resilient in Total War...
Difficulty: Brutal
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0:00 Intro
2:08 An Unexpected Tome
14:56 Facing Down Daniel Prideborne
41:31 Blightfall Conjunction
52:48 The Undead's Swift Counter
1:05:54 Chaos Besieged
1:23:01 Overwhelming Numbers
1:39:09 Hunting the Abyss
1:47:46 Daniel's Round Two
1:58:08 The Empress Swats Thorne
2:09:00 Supreme Mantid, Supreme Magic
#ageofwonders4
#ageofwonders

[@Fableheim]

Hello everyone and welcome back to Age of Wonders 4! Today, the Grand Empress chills out in a seemingly never-ending siege, but her Archer B-Team gets *very* busy standing off against the Undead Legions of fellow Eldritch Sovereign and Sha incarnate Daniel Prideborne starting at 14:56. 52:48 was a rude reminder of how swiftly the Undead can recuperate their army losses; after another fight at 1:23:01 and Daniel's return at 1:47:55, I really began to question my decisions and envision a true Skeleton legion with the new experience changes. Nevertheless, the walls Daniel's juicy city finally fell at 2:07:28, and its Halfling population will be put to use in Amber collection until the Imperium situation improves. Thanks for watching!

[@TiredMoonWitchTrit]

Why do I have a feeling the next one you do is either going to be an eldrich gul’dan or one of the eldrich chaos gods Tzeentch or who knows what you’ll surprise everyone with

[@Fableheim]

The future is full of potential! :3

[@drowsyCoffee]

36:00 For the morale damage bit (In case nobody mentions it) Fumbling actually reduces morale, and low morale increases fumble chance. So, the same virtuous circle of critting -> get morale -> high morale increases crit chance -> crit more -> get even more morale also applies to fumble in the opposite way. This is one of the dimensions that make fumble builds so interesting and/or synergistic with morale builds. Additionally, you can build into it through high crit chance, as being critted reduces morale, and some of the sources like Tome of Devastation for Flameburst already play onto affinities you might want (Chaos) in Revelry and Mayhem

[@drowsyCoffee]

Its also one of the main appeals in my opinion of the Doomherald tome, as stealing morale through Joy Siphoners affect both cycles (Enemies going into negative morale fumble spirals, and allies going into high morale crit spirals) simultaneously

[@Fableheim]

Wow, 400 hours played, and I never realized this -- thanks for sharing the great schemes! :D

[@Logan0503]

The new Magelock mechanics really are very fun. I need to do a Reaver run at some point.

[@josefgoldnagl3420]

I did alredy AIM and fire ore danke around Like bees😂

[@seltin1988]

the imperial mantid army is really strong! the general in charge of the southern army needs some medals! and the emperess royal guard is quite the force too!

[@AngryGerbils]

Fabe: "I've never felt Vegeta levels of rage."
You've never worked in customer service, I take it?

[@Fableheim]

Hahaha, nope. I did work as a cashier long ago, but it was a pretty chill place. Helped that all Customer Service went to its own desk. XD

[@splotchdog1480]

I'd like it if range penalties were scaled a bit more generously on the units' actual relative maximum range. It feels like everyone is working on the same model, which I get for gameplay and balance reasons, but it's starting to feel like archer enchantments are losing value.
I actually think that lots of units that have a very short range should be able to push it a bit too, just with a really harsh falloff. I'd like to be able to make risky 5% attacks with my Primal Darters at 4/5 tiles away, it would still feel fair IMO.
Ideally enchantments would adjust range AND relative accuracy. Perhaps some lean into one more than the other; Seeker Arrows feel like a heavy accuracy enchantment in this case, changing direction using magic, but running out of momentum at the same rate.
Then there's the 'realism' argument about IRL archers being able to shoot further if they're strong. It would be interesting, albeit cheesy, if strength buffs increased archers range instead of damage (archers specifically, not marksmen or crossbow users) but I think that would be broken, even if it has the more punishing accuracy falloff.

[@SoulRuninFree]

Man these battles are really getting packed with units and man are eldrich sovereign pretty strong at least against the AI.

[@Fableheim]

#JustUndeadThings
The Sovereign is definitely stronk, and it's in such a weird control-y way that it feels quite unique. I'm a little worried about how they're planning to balance them in the upcoming patch. The line between impactful and weak feels pretty thin for their playstyle.😅

[@SoulRuninFree]

@@Fableheim yeah fair point, actually sense I read them did not see anything nerfing them however I could be mistaken

[@Fableheim]

@@SoulRuninFree The changes to the Sovereign are still cooking. The devs are currently collecting further feedback before pushing those out, but we may see them this coming week.

[@cier5158]

The insectophobia heightens

[@Fableheim]

And its reaching a crescendo! :D

[@cier5158]

@@Fableheim 👍

[@SoulRuninFree]

Wouldn’t linked minds make sense for the mantid in tome of the construct that and I am really starting to like the mage lock changes

[@Fableheim]

Lorewise, there are arguments for and against Linked Minds, since the Mantid are not truly a Hive Mind, but I just think of that Tome as a Construct Tome more than anything. 😅

[@SoulRuninFree]

@@Fableheim doly noted

[@walkrvc]

Feels a little weird how you can increase your range for archer type units so much but then you can't increase their accuracy hardly at all. Idk maybe I'm missing something, but it feels off. The battlemage stuff generally feels better?

[@Fableheim]

Afaik, the only Accuracy enchantment is from the Tome of Scrying, which allows you to ignore obstacles. I'm beginning to think it's pretty mandatory for an Archer build, but Battle Mages benefit from it as well. 😅

[@walkrvc]

@@Fableheim yeah that guiding projectiles but it still doesn’t solve the problem lol. Well it probably would’ve helped in most of those fights for sure. But even with it, far range still reduces it so much.

[@conradmills4977]

​@@walkrvcMore sources of marked would fix that. It's part of the reason that the glade runner is better than the zephyr archer. Might break reavers though, their damage output gets silly as is.

[@walkrvc]

@@conradmills4977 oh yeah, i don't know why i didnt think of that connection. I continually was thinking glade runners would be strong here too instead of the zephyr archers but i don't think the mark they bring crossed my mind. that's a good point.

[@Fableheim]

@@conradmills4977 Glade Runners are definitely better than Zehpyr Archers, but their Tome is such a drag for most of my playthroughs. XD