The Dominions Wiki

LA Agartha Blindfighter Army Thug

LA Agartha 5 gem Blindlord army thug

Popularized by Zan - the idea broadly was a GSS Blindlord commander in a line of regular blindfighters could add some much needed DPS to an otherwise very tanky, but prone to fatiguing out line. It also gives a small, cleanly defined, easy to buff 'ball' of troops.

• Blindlord (in a line of Blindfighters)
• Greatsword of Sharpness
• Hold Hold attack closest (hold attack on blindfighters)

Jotunheim Cheap Giant Army Thug

MA Jotunheim - Cheap Giant Army Thug / Counter-Thug - 10-15B

This works because its incredibly cheap. It only uses blood slaves, hits hard, and is on a non-mage sacred commander so can accept a bless. Weapons can be interchanged, but flesh eater is a natural fit - since this line doesn't use any gems nor many slaves

• Jotun Herse
• Flesh Eater (X1 or X2),Ring Of The Warrior
• Attack Closest

Classic Elf Counterthug/Armythug

5 Gems Gear Vanherse Thug (requires E access)

This works because the thug chassis is already hard to hit/kill, and given a Greatsword of Sharpness can cut down highly armored enemy thugs. Luck is extremely good here - essentially layering with defense to make the counterthug very hard to kill, when the GSS does the killing work. Since this is a counterthug, a lot of buffs that would otherwise be good (e.g. Shroud of Displacement) are a bit redundant here, and we want to keep the script short and punchy

As an aside, with a longer script - this unit could be used as an army thug, and with enough def on the bless, potentially a very light raider (light thug). Greatsword of Sharpness on rainbow blessed elf cavalry thugs is a classic for a reason, it's versatile, powerful, and gives the elves a much needed way to punch through armor.

• Vanherse
• Greatsword of Sharpness
• Personal Luck, Bless, Attack Closest (Only 2 scripted slots so low fatigue and attacking early interrupts enemy buff scripts by getting the first whack).

Piercer Counterthug (may need 2 on harder targets)

10-20 Gem AN bow Counterthug on any chassis

The power of this counterthug line is its simplicity. It fires an AN bolt round 1 that's going to kill a great deal of targets. If you have 2, that's 2 AN bolts. Combine that with a decent chassis (there's a lot around), and you have a solid earlygame counterthug. You can use Horse independents for mapmove, scouts for stealth or just ordinary commanders for convenience.

Note this really only works against low HP targets. The unit holding the piercer will likely die if the target ever makes it pass the buff script.

Since the unit never goes into melee, this can serve quite nicely in an anti army-thug situation if your opponents thugs are on a predictable chassis (e.g. horses). It IS a bit of a surprise tactic though - since a player (with air access) will start buffing air shield once they know these are flying around.

• Horse Tribe Chief (This chassis is quite nice because of the high mapmove so it can zip around your lands defensively). It can also use fire - Keep distance against melee thugs.
• Piercer
• Fire Closest

Blood Slave Counterthug/Armythug

MA Jotunheim - Cheap Giant Army Thug / Counter-Thug - 10-15B

This works because its incredibly cheap. It only uses blood slaves, hits hard, and is on a non-mage sacred commander so can accept a bless. Weapons can be interchanged, but flesh eater is a natural fit - since this line doesn't use any gems nor many slaves

• Jotun Herse
• Flesh Eater (X1 or X2),Ring Of The Warrior
• Attack Closest

MA Ulm Knight Thug

Ulm Barebones Black Lord Army Thug (1 Gem with hammers!!)

This is a barebones, no nonsense army thug (or counterthug). Other nations can do similar things, or use indie heavy cavalry, but it works best on ulm due to their multiple earth gem discounts to forging - so this can cost as little as 1 gem and provides quite a lot of killing power on an armored chassis.

They get stronger when fluffed with low level earth spells (Temper Armor, Strength of Giants) and body ethereal (a classic). Obviously - they can be buffed more, but 1 weapon (typically GSS as it tends to outperform the alternatives), light buffing is the core (they can work without the buffing but it's a bit of a gimmie). Given ulm can easily buff Temper Armors Bracers of Protection are also a consideration for 1 gem at con3, as the extra 6 armor (once armors is cast) is non-trivial for survivability

• Black Lord
• Greatsword of Sharpness
• HoldX3-5. Attack Closest
• Best with a random mage fluffing Temper Armors, Strength of Giants, Body Ethereal

Vampire Lord Thug

Vampire Lord Light Thug - 96 Blood Slaves (0-10 gems)

The reason this thug is good is it's immortal (so your advantage rarely shrinks unless it gets seduced or the like), spammable at blood 8, and a flying stealthy thug that can raid distant provinces. Essentially - because its raids are 'free' due to immortality, it's all upside with very low risk - just a high initial investment.

This flies, is immortal (so is low committment), has stealth and can raid moderate amounts of PD solo even ungeared due to 25 invuln. Works well ungeared and with a single piece of armor. Also it can swap to horde of skeleton spam or melee variants on a dime which can cause counterthugs fits. Being immortal and flying means this unit can take otherwise risky lines. Boots and armor can be brought in to raid deeper and increase survivability for relatively few gems. A very powerful unit - but it's deep in research at blood 8. In dominions 5 it was exceptional at blood 7, now it competes with Three Red Seconds, so it's still good but lost some utility (the alternatives are stronger)

Also notable - this can be magic phased with Hell Ride

• Vampire Lord
• [No Gear or 5 Gem Armor]
• Soul Vortex, [Spells (Can end on Reinvigoration with 1 Slave)]

Hammer of the Mountains Counterthug

5 Gem Hammer of the Mountains Cyno/Caveman

This is an incredibly barebones counterthug. It is designed to deal with small units with the AOE stun - essentially stunlocking them until they die. It is effective against low str targets and defense stackers. This won in the arena against an objectively stronger unit through stunlocking it in Lucids Tournament Finals 2026.

• Cynocephalian Chieftain
• Hammer of the Mountains
• Attack Closest

Prot Supercombatant

Broadly - prot supercombatants tend to be vulnerable to construction items that give AN or ARP. Items like Greatsword of Sharpness early and Gate Cleaver later will rapidly kill a unit through any amount of protection. Otherwise - 1 hit kill spells like soul slay, curse and affliction chipping are generally effective. Finally if its a pretender relying on invulnerability like a Dracolich, magic weapons will kill it quickly.

Defense Thug

Web and Earth Meld tend to be the best answers at early research, albeit plain damage spells tend to do alright. The big 'strength' of these units is they do very well into a blob of ungeared troops. The solutions essentially all involve gems and magic (albeit in practice they're often tricky to counterthug).

The Overgeared Supercombatant

Curse chipping, AN/ARP weapons (to some extent), some specialized gear (like Star of Heroes) are all solid in the earlier phases of the game, Axe of Hate, Gate Cleaver are decent later on, and generally there'll always be some tricky way to counter it for less investment. Often something like skelespam to bog it down, and spamming some 1-hit kill spell is effective (even at 1% success it'll hit eventually). Without using const items, the more extreme variants of these can be hard to answer. Generally however - a small coterie of mages casting relevant spells will go a long way - as opposed to just more troops (be it chaff spam, curse, a one hit spell etc).

It should be mentioned the above answers are often finnicky at the best of times. But the reason for that is an overgeared supercombatant represents a huge committment, be it in bless, gear or otherwise. It should require a large commitment to counter - and there are often phases of the game where supercombatants are 'functionally' very hard to kill - especially without item trading. However if one of these costs say '100' gems to make - does your large counter-committment 'actually' represent 100 gems + a hellbless of value? Oftentimes the answer to that is no. In any event - in a game where a player has a 'supercombatant bless', players should at least be aware when picking research priorities to try to have at least one answer. As always - diplomacy (and item trading) is the best answer.

The Small Wight Mage

There are a few dedicated items for dealing with these. Flambeau is surprisingly good (albeit gem expensive) since it also provides an AOE that can clear any chaff. Holy Scourge is a cheaper but still passable option that requires less paths and is serviceable on a countethug.

The Ravenous Swarm is quite effective as a spell since it only targets undead. It's especially good in army fights where there are a few wights in someone's army, since it will only target them (assuming no other undead).

Otherwise - general anti-thug tricks work. These smaller wights tend not to be too hard to deal with - but have high mapmove and can be kitted out in a variety of ways - so their unpredictability and speed makes the real threat. The real 'trick' is to predict where they're going if they're solo raiding tiles, and perhaps have an item or two 'prebuilt' to shuffle onto a counterthug.

It's worth mentioning these can be kitted very lightly - or very heavily, based on both the user and paths. A counterthug may work well against a lightly geared wight mage, but one with a load of paths, gear and high research may be harder to deal with.

Mid-Lategame - Fire Death wights specifically can pose real problems due to Phoenix Pyre + Soul Vortex. The solution typically is to either kill it really fast, use Axe of Hate to kick its fatigue up so Pyre turns off, or use some fancy magic trick. The pyre vortex variants though really serve as light supercombatants so watch out!

The Demilich

So the Demilich is a monster lategame. The combination of immortality, Teleport, Innate Caster and the option to either heavy thug or cast a battlefield wipe is gamechanging. How can one deal with it? It should be noted that most answers are temporary at best (it's that powerful lategame), but below are some options

• Curse variants. Essentially - if the demilich is cursed it will accrue afflictions. They all reduce its effectiveness, but Mute isn't always removed on respawn and can stop it teleporting around. This doesn't solve the problem but it does help
• Magic phase a fort under it. If a demilich gets teleported onto a fort - it can be quite hard to get it off. Typically, a player has to use a remote attack on their own demilich and kill it (and hillariously - the demilich being tough to kill often makes it hard to kill with remotes). Even if not a permanant solution, this is a passable one (and also protects the troops that would be inside
• Banishing to the shadow realm: Infernal Prison and Claws of Kokytos are passable short tetm solutions
• Soul Slay: Although hard to pull off due to the mage volume required (and likely sacrificed) and the high MR of the demilich (plus it being somewhat predictable for an astral nation) - this kills the Demilich for good (well until they call god it back up at least)
• Sic the demilich player on someone else Not really a solution but Diplo can mean someone else suffers the demilich for a while
• Set up a dramatic line to pop the enemy capital With the capital gone - the demilich dies for good. If you can pull off some sort of one turn siege shennanigans line (very hard to do most of the time), and win the combat, the cap will be taken and the demilich will die for good. Remember, you have to 'get' to the capital through the demilich, then siege it down, then take it, all with a demilich dropping on you - so this aint easy. Nevertheless, it's an option, particularly if you have the demilich locked down for a few turns.
• A billion Horror Marks. This doesn't work due to turn sequence order. The horrors will kill the demilich 'after' magic phase (https://illwiki.com/dom5/dom6/turn-order-sequence)
• Smaller deployments and retreat orders: Short term this can work - long term the problem is the demilich keeps constraining the other player. Even if losses are small - the ability to deploy on the map and claw back are also reduced.

Bronze Colossus

This is an inanimate pretender with innate caster, lots of prot, lots of resists, and air paths so it can teleport. Earlygame, a lot of nations simply can't answer this or require extremely dedicated answers. The bronze colossus - albeit boring - has a bad habit of winning games due to wiping out stacks with ease, and being a magic phase monster. Machaka essentially gets an awake varaint of this in the Colossal Fetish.

In theory it's a little vulnerable to thugs - GSS lines, Smasher's etc. In practice, it often moves via magic phase, can always embed in an army after a teleport, and usually has a sufficient kill mechanism that a few thugs won't cut it without some serious gear.

Normally, this unit will cast shockwave on spam for damage - albeit iron fists also works on hard targets. Finding the goldilocks balance of gear can be tricky - but this unit generally likes a lot of buffs. Just because it's a one man army doesn't stop you from fluffing Body Ethereal or some other multiplicative spell.

One core thing to remember - even though it has innate caster and is inanimate (low fatigue), if you give it too much encumbrance and a lengthy buff script - the fatigue can be non-trivial. Since any non armor-defeating hits are likely to do nothing - this is a real consideration.

Demilich

Demilich V1 - Battlefield Spells - 0-10 gems of gear, 3 gems to teleport, 1-2 D gems

This works because the demilich is immortal, and can use innate caster to bonk an entire army at the start of combat with some crippling battlefield wide spell. The basic idea is it teleports in, kills everything or mames everything (e.g. with disease), and either wins (fine), or dies and respawns, ready to do it all next turn, and the next turn etc. It wears Magic Penetration gear to increase the kill potential

Because the Demilich can do this time and time again, it rapidly can wear down any force not inside a fort, killing large volumes of mages and troops. It can singlehandedly make it difficult to move stacks around in the mid-lategame. Since few answers deal with it permanently (and if an opponent has answers, the user presumably takes precautions), this can be between nuisance every turn from the moment it comes online, to a game-ending stack wiping monster. This makes it the single most feared lategame pretender chassis in Dominions6

Such a build benefits from Blood4 due to the bonus 10HP, needs S3 (teleport), and at least D6 (Bone grinding). The rest of the pathing on the pretender can vary significantly based on player preference - albeit A1 is popular for Wind of Death

• Demilich
• Eye of the Void, Spell Focus
• Bone Grinding OR Wind of Death → Other Spells or recasts [also a 5x Magic Duel variant]

V2 - Phoenix Pyre Variant - 4 Gems (No Items)

This is essentially the anti-PD variant. It's an ungeared or reinvig geared variant that just keeps respawning and killing things with magic. Technically you can put the two builds together, but they have quite different functions and will often want different spells (It's not bad on wind of death to keep the spell up for longer). Of minor note - if the tile doesn't have a lab, the demilich can get 'stuck' for a turn where it has to build a lab to teleport again.

• Demilich
• No Items
• Phoenix Pyre, Soul Vortex, Other Spells (Reinvigoration can be nice, but there's a lot of options here)

Immobile Rock

Why The Early to Early-MidGame Innate Caster Giant Rock Pretender Supercombatant Works

At this phase of the game a big, inanimate, teleporting rock can be very hard to deal with. Layer on a few defensive buffs, and you have a super-combatant that can't move (ergo can't retreat) - so if it survives the combat - will rout the enemy. Of course, these big inanimate units tend to have a bunch of HP and can also just kill entire armies. However given the value of ones pretender - the safest use for these is picking off fringe parties, since dropping on someone's main army can be risky (with magic, and forged items and all). Nevertheless - it can drop on armies.

A popular meme strategy is getting some form of rock pretender awake and teleporting onto someones capital. It has its risks and problems, but if you can pull it off, it can obviously be crippling in a first war situation. Of course, this also leaves you on an awake researcher line with 'at best' an out of commission pretender for other players (or a big honking trade partner for a third party with E forging) - killing your pretender - leaving both players crippled and likely in a hellwar - in a position for said third player to swoop in). And if the monodrop fails for some reason, that's a very good way to knock one's self out of the game. As such - monodrop buids tend to be a bit of a meme

Typically this type of supercombatant has a few glaring weaknesses.

• They tend to die quickly to construction 3 E items - so they often need to take care. In higher skill lobbies, these items will be traded around in the hopes of sniping such as super-combatant so a nation's lack of E access does not prevent them from deploying these
• They tend to be very reliant on either Prot (e.g. Monolith) or a high HP pool with some defenses (e.g. Baphomet). Accordingly - they are vulnerable to high damage/arp/an, and magic weapons correspondingly.
• They tend to take some chip damage in a fight - so can't 'go forever'
• They want to teleport onto labs if possible so they can teleport to safety after
• It can be awkward getting the research needed to use these in a timely manner. They typically need Thamuturgy4 for the teleport, but their actual combat spells come from other paths. As such, they can often come online later than one might expect (since a user needs multiple researches at 2-4) where they are more vulnerable
• Come the midgame - these aren't incredibly sturdy. It's the phase before battlefield wipes - so they don't kill quickly - but after research 3-4ish, so players have some good magic, Evocation is creeping up in damage and construction items are flying around. They're still good, but as the game goes on, they become increasingly risky to use

Build 1 Mid Research Rock + Battlefield Wipe

These are often empowered. There's no requirement to start with the paths for the battlefield wipe.

This works because it combines 3 things. A big, hard to kill chassis, innate caster for quick casting, and a spell that kills everything. There are variants of this, some for cap defence (like god block and sphinx), others that can teleport (like monument), but the basic concept is the same.

• God Block
• No Gear Required (but typically a misc slot is equipped
• Foul Vapors

Build 2 Late game Idol of Sorcery Soul Drain SC

There's a few variants of this - but broadly - this uses an inanimate chassis, some battlefield wipe spell, and optionally something like Phoenix Pyre to keep the pretender alive (albeit usually they're pretty hard to kill and enemy units die fast). Innate caster making sure spells go off turn 1 is significant and The lategame battlefield wipes at research 7-8 (Winds of Death, Fire Storm, Soul Drain) are a notch better than the clouds and foul vapors at 6 (albeit vapors is very good). Essentially - with pyre access and better battlefield wipes, these become noticably more effective (and work with a more common spread of paths)

Note there isn't an idol of sorcery img on the wiki so we're using a monolith for now

Unempowered Lategame Idol of Sorcery

• Idol of Sorcery
• Eye of the Void, Amulet of Antimagic
• Soul Drain, Soul Vortex, Astral Shield, Body Ethereal, Shroud of Bewilderment

Protection Expander

Broadly - there are two distinct subsets of this supercombatant. Essentially these fall within some of the Monster pretender options like the Dracolich and Golden Lion one one side of the coin (relying on invulnerability), and chassis like Myrmecoleon and Thrice Horned Boar on the other (relying on prot). Chassis that rely on invulnerability tend to be a bit cheaper and a bit stronger in most use cases, such as against independents and most troop armies. They tend to underpay a little in return for relying on invulnerability. The Virtue is also an example of this to an extent. In return, they're very weak to magic weapons (and other pretenders thwacking them). Some need a little magic or a little help from the bless to fully function - others are good out of the box.

The classic ways these units get help are E3 (+3 natural protection), Personal Stoneskin/Barkskin (another prot or 2), Personal Regeneration, and Regeneration on the bless (which heals a lot on the bulky chassis)

Example 1 - Golden Lion (or the Cruncat)

• Golden Lion
• No Items
• Personal Regeneration, Hold, Hold, Attack Closest

Example 2 - Dracolich (strong into troops)

• Dracolich
• No Items
• Hold, Hold, Fire Closest

Xibalba Camazots Thug

MA Xibalba - I can't believe it's not a vampire lord (Invuln Vortex Thugs)

Camazots (D2) Cheap Backline Raider/Army Thug 2-3 gems + 5-10 gems of gear

The basic idea of this thug is it's cheap (it carries 2 gems to cast invuln and vortex), flies (so it can attack rear), and has D2 for invuln/vortex. It also attacks at 0 fatigue due to Reinvigoration. It jumps in the backline after r5 and wreaks havok on mage lines. It can also be equipped with a weapon like a Greatsword of Sharpness or Flesh Eater to increase its DPS. With 1 piece of armor, this unit has low 30's prot as well as soul vortex to stay alive. There are other shennanigans (in tham Xibalba can self-buff luck), but it's essentially a much earlier (and non-immortal) vampire lord thug. It's a bit light on stats for heavy thugging or supercombatanting. Notably, you can use more than one of these at once - and the same lines work on the twiceborned chassis.

They also can swap between skelespam lines and the above, so countering them can be complex due to the different attack vectors. Stealth and flying also do a lot for hitting annoying tiles.

Finally (and hilariously), Low base HP and morale means its quite easy to rout and self-trigger morale checks, especially with say a blood slave (for reinvigoration) and a retreating fluffer. Although amusing, this isn't good and is something to be aware of

• Camazotz
• Blacksteel Plate, Flesh Eater
• Invulnerability, Gift of the Fourth Soul, Hold, Soul Vortex, Reinvigoration, Attack Rear

MA Pan Ackerbeltz thug

Pending Coinneach MacAilpein

EA Vanheim Vanjarl Paired Thug

Pair of Vanjarl Thugs - 20 Gems Total - Radier and Army Thugs (weapon interchangable)

A stock Vanjarl Thug Line. Items be shuffled around with Barding/Dream Spool, spells with Personal Flight (counterthug on atk large), displacement/Blur for Shroud of Bewilderment (shroud requires a gem and is a self buff but is considerably stronger than many alternatives), or even stack them (take care on fatigue). Weapons can be swapped out for GSS or similar when counter-thugging. The line works because putting 2 in a tile reduces harass penalties, the str boosts damage and the reinvig keeps them going. Luck is generally avoided for fatigue reasons

Broadly - in these lines - blur/displacement is best for counter-thugging, shroud is best for raiding. They come at different research paths however so the issue may be moot early.

• Vanjarl X2,
• Girdle of Might, Frost Brand,
• Caster 1: Mistform, Air Shield, HoldX3, Attack Closest
• Caster 2: Blur, Air Shield, Bless, HoldX2, Attack Closest

Fire Shield Prot Thug

So although we are using mekone as an example - this is a full subcategory of thug. Essentially, Fire Shield is a very effective thug kill mechanism, and if the thug can be kept alive, it will kill most light troops or PD. Quite a lot of nations have variations on this - be it with fire shield on the bless, or fire Shield being cast by some unit. Generally - the core 'pieces' are some way to gain natural protection (to stack with the armor) , Armor, Fire shield, albeit HP is always nice.

Ephor Fire Shield Thug (5 gems)

This essentially is a prot thug that relies on Ench3 (Fire Shield) for damage. It works because for 5 gems - you get a very hard to kill unit with about 30 prot, not desperately high fatigue and a killing mechanism. It may be at a mathematical level better to skip temper armors for fatigue reasons. Notably - other nations like ulm have similar variants. Certain players like Monkeydew like layering this with a dormant Obfuscate bless for a very annoying raider.

• Ephor
• Blacksteel Plate
• Fire Shield, Earth Power, Personal Ironskin, Temper Armors

Ephor Fire Shield Thug BAD VARIANT(30 Gems)

This fails for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the extra prot for the most part doesn't help deal with a lot of units. Secondly - this fatigues out fast due to +4 encumbrance from the other build - and will get rapidly killed by armor defeating hits. It doesn't answer a lot more than the 5 gem variant (and certainly not a lot more than a pair of them), has fatigue problems, and is a very juicy target for a counterthug

• Ephor
• Full Blacksteel Plate, Blacksteel Helmet, Bracers of Protection, ??Mace of Eruption, Blacksteel Tower Shield
• Fire Shield, Personal Ironskin, Temper Armors, Strength of the Giants

EA Atlantis Basalt King Heavy Thug

20 Gem Basalt King Light Thug / Army Thug

Earth Fire paths and built in fear make for a good protection thug chassis. These can be chancey to use due to being Slowrec (and 'just' a prot thug so a bit vulnerable to things such as GSS), but are servicable in a lot of situations. Servicable at const3. Fluffable - and can accept a goodly number of buffs beyond what it can buff itself with (Body Ethereal is best).

The Basalt King raid into almost any volume of PD in a pinch but does best as an army thug where the fear can really put in work. Theoretically, with a good bless and unprepared opponent it can stackwipe, in practice, anti-thug units tend to deal with this quite effectively. Nevertheless, sometimes players will be caught unawares and this can stackwipe in that case - especially with another layer of defenses like regeneration on the bless.

The Basalt King can be kitted as a light thug, army thug, or heavy thug and accepts a thug bless well. Generally used as a 20+ gem heavy thug due to the high cost and 2 cap turns.

• Basalt King
• Greatsword of Sharpness Blacksteel Plate, Dragon Helm, Bracers of Protection
• Summon Earthpower, Personal Ironskin, Fire Shield, Personal Quickness, Temper Armors, Attack Closest

MA Machaka Pyre Vortex thug

Machaka Phoenix Pyre Soul Vortex Anti-Infantry Heavy Thug [25-30 Gems] (Twicebornable)

This is a straightforward Fire/Death Pyre/Vortex/Invuln Thug. It's predictable but it's very effective, with vortex providing the reinvig to keep pyre going forever. This requires Alteration 7 for Pyre

Assuming wiki is in-date https://illwiki.com/dom5/twiceborn

If you're incredibly greedy - you can cast twiceborn on these then cast transformation (or do it the other way around albeit twiceborn will cost more gems) and hope for a giant chassis. This essentially will turn it into a proper supercombatant (in both forms). When supercombatanting - you would gear more extensively.

• Black Sorcerer
• Skull Staff [Any Armor], Boots of the Messenger, Girdle of Might
• Invulnerability, Soul Vortex, Fire Shield, Phoenix Pyre

MA Naba Malikah - Multifaceted Thug

The Malikah is quite a complicated thugging unit. Naba gets access to a range of buffs - so it can have a lot of buffs painted on. It has good paths (is slowrec so is expensive), solid stats (especially in magic scales), decent HP and human encumbrance (3). It even has flying/magicphase/stealth so it can pick favorable battles and shuffle away! It's complicated because there are so many good aspects - and yet the unit struggles to balance fatigue / thugging and it's easy to go overboard, fatigue out, and die.

The basic spells it wants to selfbuff (on Naba's paths) are Shroud of Splendor, Shroud of Bewilderment - both which add additional defensive layers. Fire Shield is another obvious choice. It can add self buffs depending on paths rolled (E for Earth power being the best).

It wants a few spells fluffed. Ideally it wants a skin buff like Stoneskin, Mistform (or self-buffed), Displacement (or Blur), Bless at a minimum, Temper Armors. The best of these (Stoneskin/Mistform) are at alt 4 however and a little deeper in research than the rest of the kit.

Put all this together and you have a lot of defensive layers at around research 3-4, albeit fatigue remains in issue. Fortunately - the self buffs aren't especially fatigue heavy, but a complicating factor is the best fatigue regen items come at con5 (albeit Rangers Boots exist at con3) and naba has limited N access in any event. As such, the earth random tends to be the best one for Summon Earthpower. Even with all the defensive layers the unit will be a little vulnerable as it wants to spam Shockwave in combat, which will tend to fatigue it out. However this makes it a very killy, very hard to kill unit for not a huge gem investment. However it's a versatile enough defensive 'base' to build in quite a few different ways (and lategame as a pyre unit as well).

You can build this a few different ways - as a cheapo thug, with a weapon element (like repel), as a mage, as a heavy thug with a shield. There's no one way to do this - as the chassis can hold a lot of buffs - but the core remains, multiple layers of defense, decent stats, and not too fatigue negative.

Example Malikah Heavy Thug - 15 gems (earth random) - 1 gem carried - Research 3.

• Malikah
• Blacksteel Plate, Ranger Boots, Thunder Whip (for repel), Burning Pearl (for repel)
• Summon Earthpower, Flying Shield, Shroud of Splendor, Shroud of Bewilderment, Personal stoneskin
• Fluffed - Blur, Bless, Temper Armors

Example 2 Malikah Heavy Repel Thug (E random)

This line requires at least +2 Reinvigoration on the bless (e.g. via a Myrmecoleon scales build). It is fatigue positive, and layers BE, Defense, Repel, Awe, Shroud of Bewilderment, Prot. This layering makes it extremely difficult to kill with ordinary troops. Bonus points if you use a fluffer as it can take additonal buffs

• Malikah
• Blacksteel Plate, Burning Pearl, Dragon Helmet, Enchanted Pike Bracers of Protection
• Summon Earthpower, Blessing, Shroud of Bewilderment, Personal Stoneskin, Shroud of Splendor

Acoasama earlygame Ghost King Supercombatant / Heavy thug

5 Gem Some Scales Ghost King - Uruk - Multiple Episodes

This is a light supercombatant. It has counters, however ultimately it provides diversity, scales with magic, has a big fear aura for helping with independents, stealths, goes underwater for expansion, and generally can wipe out non-magic armies. As discussed in the cast, it has some specific anti-undead weaknesses in magic (Solar Rays being the big one), but broadly - this is a decent option that balances a rainbow pretender for diversity, a light supercombatant, an expander and a site-searcher. This isn't going to be a world-beater - but it has enough power to wipe unprepared armies

• This example is episode 9 Timestamp 15:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiB-lKJ6TZE
• Paths - F2, A3, E2, D4, N2, G2
• Scales at -1 total (5 Dominion)
• Magic at Ench3 Alt2

–

• Ghost King
• Full Blacksteel Plate
• Personal Mistform, Shroud of Splendor, Personal Regeneration, Flying Shield, Blurred Body, Advance and cast spells?

– Varaint 2

Episode 12 7.56 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKjIRB2O1JU

• Full Blacksteel Plate, Blacksteel Helm, Boots of Long Strides, Enchanted Shield
• Personal Regeneration, Flying Shield, Protection From Lightning, ##2X Unknown due to script break, Attack Closest

TODO - Ind Pretender

Type100 MA Machaka Colossal Fetish

This is one of the most feared supercombatants in dominions. It starts awake, is very cheap at 260 design points (only 1 scale more expensive than a dracolich), wears gear, has resists and innate caster, is mindless, is resistant to damage, has a big pool of HP, magic phases, and to top it all off, has fists of Iron due to high E so it's a pretender killer. This is extraordinarily hard to deal with in the earlygame, especially if used in conjunction with other tools and not just solo, and arguably the best pretender chassis in the game (Fortunately only machaka has access).

There are no good answers early. There are tolerable answers in construction and with counterthugs in friendly dominion - but the speed which the fetish kills things and its high HP pool means these are shaky at best, especially if it's embedded in an army. It's spells + innate caster give counterthugs fits. Functionally, this plays like a bronze colossus, except it's 120 design points cheaper and awake - so essentially at -1 scale and awake. As a result of this - it speeds up expansion and tends to hit players before any viable counterplay is available. As the game goes on, the colossus picks up gear and becomes even more oppressive - and becomes a teleporting global caster

Arguably it's biggest weaknesses is it can run outside of dominion easily, where it loses the bless and dominion HP. This isn't a huge weakness, but it's worth remembering as ultimately this will significantly reduce the HP pool and potentially allow for counters.

Episode 12 Finals - 31.13 http://youtube.com/watch?v=SKjIRB2O1JU

• A4, E6, S4, N4 - Scales at -4, 5 Dominion
• Magic at Ench3 Alt1, Evocation 2
• Bless at +10FR, +10SR, Hardskin, +1 Strength

• Colossal Fetish
• No Items
• Flying Shield, Personal Flight, Gift of Giants Strength, Astral Shield, Air Shield Attack large monsters → Will offscript Fists of Iron and Shockwave

Episode 27 - Lightning Battlefield Caster

http://youtube.com/watch?v=k6w9zaAzjRs&t=3s 33.19

The colossal fetish takes its 'second form' here - casting battlefield spells and killing a large ind army that way. A simple but well executed supercombatant line wiping out a large army effortlessly in the magic phase. It even has a stealth item so it can fade away afterwards. The wraith sword plus girdle means it never has fatigue issues. Notable is the decision to not wear armor (less fatigue), which is a very good - but not intuitive choice here.

• Colossal Fetish
• Wraith Sword, Gossamer Veil, Boots of the Behemoth, Amulet of Antimagic, Girdle of Might
• Storm, Summon Earthpower, Astral Shield, Protection from Lightning, Wrathful Skies (Unclear if advance spells or attack command here)

Demilich Endgame Supercombatant Drop (full stackwipe)

R2G9 Maps - Ys Demilich Drop T52 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MF8wC7FJ1Q&t=357s

This is a brutal endgame Demilich line. Soul drain kills everything - and reinvigorates the caster - both through drain and howl. Although requiring heavy path committments, this is a true endgame supercombatant capable of soloing endgame armies that also have magic. A spectacular showing of an endgame Innate Caster SC by Maps.

• Endgame Tech
• Gems = 5E, 5S, 7D, 3N, 3E
• Paths = 3F, 2A, 3W, 4E, 5S, 7D, 3N, 3G, 4B
• 23 gems carried, 25 gems in gear
• Bless = Shock Resistance 10, Poison Resistance 5, Defence +4, Reinvigoration +2, Blood Surge, Heroism +3

• Demilich
• Starshine Skullcap, Amulet of Antimagic, Amulet of Resilience
• Phoenix Pyre, Soul Drain, Howl, Meteor Shower, Wailing Winds - Cast Spells

MA Vanjarl army Thugs Kris Lighthawk t16ish

20 gem vanjarl army thug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC_yOkCbDak 1:02:04

Although this ultimately failed into the web-spam from machaka - these remain effective thugs and deserve an example. Obviously however - this fails into web since the thug gets stuck

• Vanjarl
• Blacksteel Plate, Ring of Tamed Lightning, Blacksteel Sword, Sword of Sharpness
• Script Unknown

Kleio assorted Ulm Thugs T17-22

• Bless = Fullscales Dumping Death/Misfortune/Drain Dormant Frost Father Rainbow → Resists bless
• 10 Shock Resistance, 5 Poison Resistance, 5 Cold Resistance, 80 Disease Resistance, Spirit Sight, Wind Walker (+6 Map Move)

Assorted ulm army thugs This is some generic Ulm army thugging. Morale buffed predominantly to handle a fear bless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a71Yw4DVhek 12:00

Assorted thugs with the following gear sets

Bracers of Protection, Pendant of Courage, Dragon Helmet, 1x with Wound Fend Amulet, 1X with what appears to be Sword of Sharpness. Units hold either 1, or 3 items

Turn 22 Counterthugging Squads Anti-Ghost King)

These were combined with 19 Ghoul Guardians as an anti ghost-king squad. Although they never made contact - these army thugs / counterthugs were roaming around hunting for a pretender snipe.

• Black Priest, Priest Smith
• Unit 1: Dragon Helmet, Pendant of Courage, Burning Pearl, Hammer of the Mountains (armored unit)
• Unit 2: Dragon Helmet, Pendant of Courage, Burning Pearl, Holy Scourge, Fire Plate
• Unit 1 Script: Strength of Giantsx2, Attack Rear
• Unit 2 Blessing, Holy Avenger, Attack Rear

Turn 25 UW Pale One Indie clearers (Sea Trolls - weak to fire)

An impressive UW indie clear with pale one commanders - famously awful commanders that have the amphibious trait (thugged out)

• Pale One
• 1) Burning Pearl, Bracers of Protection, Halberd of Might
• 2) Burning Pearl, Fire Plate, Burning Blade
• 3)Burning Pearl, Bracers of Protection,Greatsword of Sharpness
• 4) Burning Pearl, Burning Blade
• 5)Burning Pearl, Bracers of Protection, Burning Blade
• Hold*3 Atk Closest

Turn 30 Golem Heavy Thug (Fire Shield) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axpvKxUYxlY 16.25 E30

A stock standard golem prot thug used to kill Umbrals. The fight is a close run thing but the golem takes it

• Golem
• Main Gauche of Parrying, Charcoal Shield, Starshine Skullcap, Full Blacksteel Plate, Ring of the warrior, Bracers of Protection
• Astral Shield, Attack Closest

Episode 31 - Golem 2 - Prot/MR variant

This was a dodgy line. Two units teleported in - a Golem and a High Magus (Fire Plate, Bracers of Protection, Starshine Skullcap). Essentially PD and birds murdered the magus - which was worth far more than the province taken. 25 gems worth of gear, 3 gems, plus another 6 in teleports spent to take 1 tile - and the PD wasn't worth it. Nevertheless - the GOLEM worked - even if the magus did not - so this gets a mention as a success case RE the golem - and a fail case re thugging overall.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IAaRJ37yNRw 20.38

• Golem
• Fire Brand, Burning Blade, Starshine skullcap, Armor of Meteoric Iron, Chains of Reconstruction, Burning Pearl
• Body Ethereal, Astral Shield, Resist Magic #strictly speaking ethereal was fluffed here

Episode 31 - Fire Shield Golem 21.07

An updated fire shield golem with ring of returning to protect against the worst. As it turned out - this didn't achieve much, but the ring kept losses to a minimum. Same high magus fluffer High Magus (Fire Plate, Bracers of Protection, Starshine Skullcap) - same losses - but this time the battle AND gear were lost. Ouch. Hillariously it was a Lumber construct with a Greatsword of Sharpness counterthug that dealt with the golem. This seems tailor made as a capital patroller for the exact golem case - so kudos to panagea for being prepared.

• Golem
• Fire Brand, Charcoal Shield, Starshine Skullcap, Full Blacksteel Plate, Ring of Returning, Bracers of Protection
• Astral Shield, Attack Closest

Episode 33 - Fire Shield Golem Thug + master smith fluffer

Functionally the same fire shield thug as before (now with boots). Panagea was ready however with howl cast and with GSS on his thugs. This meant that although the golem didn't die (due to the ring), it didn't kill any mages, since they immediately procced ring of returning. A highly effective (and clever) defence from panagea from a golem drop. The lesson here - items can be left on mages and don't 'Have' to sit in the lab - and that can provide contingency from ring of returning lines reliant on prot.

• Golem
• Fire Brand, Charcoal Shield, Starshine Skullcap, Full Blacksteel Plate, Boots of the messenger, Ring of Returning, Bracers of Protection
• Astral Shield, Attack Closest
• Temper Armors fluffed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egaPPDgYpUE 12.20

Holy army thugs http://youtube.com/watch?v=IAaRJ37yNRw 23.49 - Gonna have to do this in a standalone session - this is insane

Malikah Army Thug NABA T18

Lucids Finals T18 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H90nBcBW9bg 4:50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlImIjd1E_A 4:45

• Bless = Reinvigoration +1 Mountain Survival
• Thug 1 - 3F3A 20 gems in items Blacksteel Plate, Blacksteel Helm, Blacksteel Kite Shield, Greatsword of Sharpness
• Approximate script - Personal Mistform, Shroud of Splendor, Shroud of Bewilderment, Air Shield hold - attack closest
• Bless fluffed

This is a last ditch cap defence, so the thugs aren't going to be at their best. This line worked in one video - failed in a second - but in my opinion it has some minor issues. At core, it's a Malikah defensive thug line, designed to hold off most of jotunheim's troops. It's a fair plan. The issue is going to be fatigue chipping at their defense, sheet unit volume, and jotun's mage answers. It's darned close - different RNG has naba winning and losing this fight - and these thugs are at the centre of it. Notably - in the video they failed and in the real game they succeeded. There's a second malikah but it seems dedicated to casting not thugging

This thug catches a large bloc of the jotunheim army and just holds it off when the rest of the Naba mages put in work. It has some fatigue problems but very clearly holds off a large number of giant troops, allowing the other mages the time to DPS everything down and trigger a rout.

Hezekiah Lich Queen Pretender

Lich Queen - multipurpose supercombatant

This is essentially a spin on the demilich - except the Lich Queen is an awake pretender so can expand, allows incarnates and can harass players much earlier. This was used to great effect in expansion and to raid in the early-midgame. Lategame it's a magic phase winds of death / bone grinding caster. The 'secret sauce' is the mirror images on glamor 4 work great with invulnerability and the built in fear.

• Bless = Stygian Flesh, Fear, Heroism
• (A3, D9, G4 Dom6 (Scales Chaos3, Sloth1, Heat2, Growth0, Misfortune2, Magic3) - total -4 (if you don't count chaos on ind - then +2)

• Lich Queen
• No items (most of the time)
• Mirror Image, Personal Mistform, Air Shield - Blurred Body, Hold, Advance and cast spells

If anyone knows the turn the Lich Queen took the throne - I can check if it was geared

Episode 27 - Lich Queen Light Supercombatant (Mute Lich Queen) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6w9zaAzjRs&t=3s 15.25

This surprised me in it's effectiveness. High armor, fatigue positive, fear aura and layered defences means vanheims units can't get a clean hit in - so it chips away at the enemy army until they fear rout. A very creative and effective early drop - and a fun/unique kit for a Lich Queen. A very nice 'light supercombatant' at construction 5 - and a potent use of the Lich Queen prior to battlefield spells

• Lich Queen
• Mirror Armor, Moon Blade, Dragon Helmet, Boots of the messenger, Burning Pearl
• Shroud of Bewilderment, Mirror Image, Protection from Lightning, Displace Body, Personal Mistform, Attack Closest

Episode 32 - Repel anti-sacred Heavy Thug LQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKKaF-M6RLg&t=3220s

This is a repel variant - built to deal with any number of sacreds. Basically - it stacks prot, repel, shroud and a bit of defence (displace body), plus an extra damage source in the buff cycle (dance of the emphemeral swords), with fear layerd on top of that. The glue that holds this all together is the lich queen's natural invulnerability and low fatigue - so she can go on repelling forever.

• Lich Queen
• Mirror Armor, Dragon Helmet, Boots of the Messenger, Burning Pearl, Chains of Reconstruction, Enchanted Pike
• Shroud of Bewilderment, Personal Mistform, Displace Body, Mirror Image, Damce of Ephemeral Swords

Axone Panagea anti-Indie Heavy Thugs

45 Gem Pan Heavy Thug to take water province

E21 33:37 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e8ufUe-UkI&t=2181s

This is a fairly heavy thug that is dedicated to an indie province. It's less expensive than it looks, since it's at low risk - its opponents are predictable and can be ungeared after the fight. This is a very good use of a heavy thug to clear an otherwise tricky UW province

• Pan
• Thorn Spear, Eye Shield, Horned Helmet, Full Blacksteel Plate, Boots of Long Strides, Ring of the Warrior, Ring of Water Breathing
• Personal Regeneration, Personal Ironskin, Personal Poison Resistance, Temper Armors, Enlarge, Attack Closest

Double thug + fluffer to clear Sea Trolls E27

So first of all - mad respect to this line - thugging trolls is HARD and this had to have been tested. This is essentially a line that relies on high prot, decent repel weapons to fend off the claws, enough reinvigoration to protect the stats, and body etheral/temper flesh gluing it all together. Having 2 units in 1 square to avoid surrounds is a huge deal. This is a very well crafted line and in the authors opinion - should be studied as a masterclass in sending heavy thugs into indies/thrones/mageless armies. No one aspect is likely to get this build over the line, but the combination works beautifully.

23.33 http://youtube.com/watch?v=k6w9zaAzjRs&t=3s

• Pan, Lizard Shaman, Centaur Hierophant
• PAN - Moon Blade, Helm of Horrors, Fire Plate, Ranger's Boots, Ring of Water Breathing, Ring of the Warrior
• Centaur Hierophant Stinger, Eye Shield, Horned Helmet, Fire Plate, Rangers Boots, Ring of Water Breathing
• Lizard Shaman Ring of Water Breathing
• PAN - Summon Earthpower, Regeneration, Enlarge, Temper Flesh
• Centaur = Summon Earthpower, Blessing, Personal Ironskin, Temper Flesh
• SHAMAN Body Ethereal,Body Ethereal, Barkskin

T24 Fire Resist Axone Panagea Army Thug

15-25 Gem Cenataur Hierophant Heavy Thug

Episode 24 3:56 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH4tiENWFbE&list=PL-SHZMz9R6beYyNwGVVu1KUE53C44SCnT&index=28

These frankly were underwhelming. An armY of GSS medium thugs - a bunch still died, and the thugs only killed about 6 units each - not awful - but not a 25 gem units worth of value. On the other hand - they hit hard, and its possible they did a lot of damage but other units got the killing blow - so they're under-represented by the kill count. A few did seem to get caught behind the main army - so its also highly possible they're under-represented in the numbers due to being trapped

Bless = 5SR, 5FR, Blur, Blood Surge, Awareness, Slowing Weapons

• Centaur Hierophant
• Greatsword of Sharpness, Fire Plate, Horned Helmet, - some had Ring of the Warrior
• Script Unknown - at least a few layers of buffs

Failed Crun MA Marignon Commander Army Thugs (GSS)

E25 24.37 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c53utmRp584

These units have a very potent rainbow bless, sit in a buffball, then attack with GSS. Simple, uncomplicated and effective. The troops and mages did all the real work - the thugs were insignificant in this fight. Used to defend the mage ball it seems. This isn't to criticize thugging - but in this fight it was ineffectual it was the mages and sacreds that put in the work.

• Body Ethereal, Spell Ward, Regeneration Buffed
• Bless 5SR, 5FR, Blur, ReinvigorationX2, Magic ResistX2, Str X2, Righteous Wrath, Darkvision, Enchanted Blood, Undying X10

• Paladin
• Greatsword of Sharpness
• Bless *5, stay behind troops?

Failed Frost Father last ditch van SC T26

When Ind was finishing off Van - this was the last ditch defence. It actually did pretty good (albeit not doing enough) so it gets a honorary mention. I have a lot of respect for this SC as it follows most of the rules for making a great SC - but for the chassis itself (but there weren't a lot of options here). It survived until twilight - which is as much as can be hoped for in most cases - but unfortunately Ind had skelespam to keep his army from routing until the key moment. In any event - Kris made a real fight of it and this is a good showing of 'what could have been' - even though it didn't quite get over the line. A great example to template other earlygame rainbow SC's off.

Couple things of note. The temp scales hurt this quite a lot - substantially lowering the cold aura and the defense. This had a full 'fluffer squad' and absorbed a lot of buffs - and a bless well suited to resisting a lot of problems. A few people have con5 by now so presumably frost brand was purchased. But for the temp scales - there's a world the fight goes the other way. Finally - the pretender survived until twilight - so although its kill speed was insufficient - it made a hell of a fight of it (and into skelespam). But for the skelespam, it likely would have won and caused a rout. Arguably there could have been a boots of the ranger + spells line that may be more resistant to twilight - but its a tough sell as its weaker before due to fatigue issues. Overall - a very respectable performance.

• Bless = Shock res +5, Fire res +5, Defense +4, Undying +10, Enchanted Blood, Dark Vision +50 ,Unholy Weapons (dormant)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykfQDw0urYM 12.50

• Frost Father
• Sword of Sharpness, Frost Brand, Dragon Helmet, Blacksteel Plate, Ring of the Warrior, Stone Bird
• Summon Earthpower, Personal Ironskin Fire Shield, Astral Shield, Shroud of Bewilderment
• FLUFFED - Body Ethereal, Enlarge, Temper Armors, Iron Will, Luck, Cold Resistance, Gift of Giant's Strength, Protective Winds, Battle Fury
• There was an attempt to fluff Regeneration but unfortunately an imp cancelled it

Type100 Machaka Black Sorcerer Anti-Indi Thugs)

T27 http://youtube.com/watch?v=k6w9zaAzjRs&t=3s 49.41

These were 3 identically buffed thugs put in a single square, fluffed lightly and with the same buff script. They were used to take out a moderate to large volume of heavy cavalry. Highly effective - if a little late in the game for anti heavy-cavalry shennanigans. Essentially these layer Prot/Awe/BE/Mistform/Regeneration/Temper Flesh and are fatigue positve

F2E3D1G1, F3E2D2G1, F2E2D2G1

• Black Sorcerer
• Flesh Eater, Dragon Helmet, Fire Plate, Boots of the messenger, Girdle of Might
• Summon Earthpower, Gift of Splendor, , Temper Flesh, Ironskin (used as an AOE), Temper Armors, used as an aoe
• FLUFFED - Mistform, Regeneration, Body Ethereal (fluffers on retreat)

V2 Later - this same line was used to storm forts. The scripts were Earthpower, Shroud of Splendor, Shroud of Bewilderment, Fire Shield, with BE and gift of flight buffed. There was an Anansi with a Thistle Mace mixed into the tile of 3 for regeneration/enlarge etc, but functionally - the thugs all had the same base fluffing and gear E30 19:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axpvKxUYxlY

Unknown Build Thugs

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IAaRJ37yNRw E31 5.24 Jotun Skratti Thug into Hcav (Ironskin, Body Etheral Fluffed, Liquid Body Quicken Self cast (GEAR UNKNOWN)

Uruk Thugs

E31 Uruk spectral mage thug (UW Kululu) http://youtube.com/watch?v=IAaRJ37yNRw 5.53

Boring, fear aura thug used to take UW provinces. Spectral mages typically are used for diversity - so this is essentially multi-purposing the chassis. Although this is a rare D3 varaint, D2 + 2 gems also would have worked

• Spectral Mage (D3)
• Greatsword of Sharpness, Enchanted Ring Mail Hauberk
• Invulnerability, Soul Vortex, Horde of Skeletons, Horde of Skeletons*3

E31 Uruk Howl Counterthug

An ingenious counterthug - this is just an enkidu shaman casting howl. It's essentially skelespam on a budget - and highly effective against small squads (particularly when combined with PD)

8.30 http://youtube.com/watch?v=IAaRJ37yNRw

• Enkidu Shaman
• Boots of the messenger
• Howl → spells

E31 Uruk Mashmashu (s3 teleport variant) anti-pd http://youtube.com/watch?v=IAaRJ37yNRw

Poison thug gets caught on Animate Trees and dies. Otherwise an effective anti-PD thug. Good showcase of both a good concept and failure due to a mage deployment simultaneously.

• mashmashu
• Snake Bladder Stick, Blacksteel Full Plate NA gem
• Body Etereal, Personal Mistform, Personal Poison Resistance, Astral Shield, Personal Regeneration

Axone (Pan) other thugs

Lumber Construct anti-prot-stack counterthug

This seems like a tailor made cheap solution to golem teleport drops. It sat on patrol and dealt with a teleporting golem. Highly effective.

• Lumber Construct
• Greatsword of Sharpness, Blacksteel plate, Boots of long strides, Ring of the warrior
• Attack closest

V2

Just used to clear zot PD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caAhBe_wuzE 16.39

• Lumber Construct
• Greatsword of Sharpness, Armor of Knights, Horned Helmet, Boots of the messenger, Burning pearl, Bracers of Protection
• Attack Closest

Jotun Thugs

Archdevil Heavy Thug F3S3 → Into Machaka spiders http://youtube.com/watch?v=IAaRJ37yNRw 45.43

Hydra Skin armor appears to be for poison resistance as well as regen. A fairly stock lategame thug. Has a N1 fluffer with 1N gem. Fairly easily clears a squad of the machaka sacreds - even with the resists.

• Arch Devil
• Greatsword of Sharpness, Horned Helmet, Hydra Skin Armor, Boots of the Messenger, Ring of the warrior
• Fire Shield, Body Ethereal, Astral Shield, Attack Rear
• FLUFFED → Enlarge → Flee

Archdevil Line2 http://youtube.com/watch?v=IAaRJ37yNRw 58.04

2X Archdevil army thugs to deal with anzu-pocalypse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKKaF-M6RLg 30.59 E32

These 2 archdevils held off a lot of enemy units, distracted anzu, and ultimately caused a lot of friendly fire. It's a complicated fight and arguably jotun 'lost' due to the mage losses, but the archdevils overperformed, both scoring lots of kills and functionally causing a lot of chaos in the enemy ranks when they held off large blocks of troops.

• Arch Devil x2
• 1) Greatsword of Sharpness, Armor of Meteoric Iron, Boots of the messenger, Ring of the warrior, Amulet of Antimagic
• 2) Flesh Eaterx2, Horned Helmet, Hydra Skin Armor, Boots of the messenger, Amulet of antimagic, Ring of Regeneration
• Buff Script Unknown
• Looks like 2 fluffer mages per archdevil - at least Body Ethereal + Enlarge buffed, looks like Strength of the giants. Presumably regeneration is buffed as well as is Fire Resistant Warriors. The rest is unclear.

Archdevil Line 3 - SF with S1 Fluffer

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RKKaF-M6RLg&t=3220s 17.19

This line is a little different to others - as it attempts to 'go infinite' with 20% regeneration, 3 reinvigoration and additional fatigue restoration from the blood thorn. The poison resist from the hydra skin armor is also nontrivial, as is the heat aura. Notably - this build only has 22 prot (24 after berserk), and relies heavily on regeneration. This was sent into a large machaka army

Notably it breaks through a Voice of the Hunter counterthug with 2 Flesh Eaters. The buff script is short because it expects to be interrupted after t1 by fliers

• Arch Devil
• Flesh Eater, Blood Thorn, Horned Helmet, Hydra Skin Armor, Boots of Quickness, Girdle of Might, Ring of Regeneration
• Astral Shield, Attack Closest
• Body Ethereal Fluffed

Dracolich (A Empowered) Winds of Death Drop http://youtube.com/watch?v=RKKaF-M6RLg&t=3220s 22.22

A stock standard ring of returning + winds of death line with +4 magic penetration and a bunch of MR to avoid being 1hit. Used to cripple machaka. Notably - machaka HAD anti-dracolich golems, but they never made contact because ring of returning proc'd before they made it into melee. Caused massive casualties.

• Dracolich (Bog Mummy form)
• Rune Smasher, Lead Shield, Armor of Meteoric Iron, Eye of the void, Ring of Returning
• Wind of Death → zots procced ring of returning

Machaka Thugs

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IAaRJ37yNRw (50.30) 4X Anti Returning Golem - Golem Counterthugs

Thug Ball

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6YgQL7QbBM E35 10.34

Boring thug ball used to deal with barbs

• Black Sorcerer x7-8
• Flesh Eater, Dragon Helmet, Boots of the messenger, Girdle of Might (some slight variations but this is the core 4 items, some have fire plate, some have 5/6 items)
• Temper Armors, Regeneration fluffed
• Temper Flesh, Summon Earthpower

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6YgQL7QbBM E36 15.37

Same core 3 items but more gear. A few Winged Boots, Ring of the Warrior, Horned helmet intersparced, and one had a wraith sword. Buffs are also wider - including Strength of the Gaints, Body Ethereal, Iron Will, Gift of Splendor, Mistform, Protection from Fire, in addition to the buffs in the prior line (I didn't see it but presumably stoneskin or ironskin was buffed)

17.15 Divine Mummy E41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7BkYeCINPE

Apparently Machaka's mages twiceborn in mage size but ritual of rebirth in spider size (so size 9). Neat trick for supercombatants! This is a very cheap (15D) supercombatant chassis for the mid-lategame. Nice trick! This also very happily accepts the extra prot and resists from the bless. The itemization seems fit out to deal with some form of pyre unit or supercombatant (fatigue axes), and the mask of face borrowing lets it raid around and stealth away. The fatigue axes were to catch any Arch Demon supercombatants flying around (albeit it didn't come up)

• Phoenix Pyre, Iron Will, Summon Earthpower, Temper Flesh, Ironskin
• Axe of Hate X2, Mask of face borrowing, Shroud of the Battle Saint, Boots of Quickness, Amulet of Antimagic, Girdle of Might

Variant 2 26.50

• Blood Thorn, Flesh Eater, Horned Helmet Shroud of the Battle Saint, Boots of Quickness, Amulet of Antimagic, Girdle of Might
• * Phoenix Pyre, Iron Will, Ironskin, Temper Flesh, Shroud of Splendor

Ind Thugs

Anti-Throne Ind Fire Shield Golem

Used to take out a big throne stack with a lich and lots of longdead. Notably - the biggest 'trend' this game is to buff golems with enlarge specifically. As it turns out - 30% HP on a high HP chassis is great! Otherwise, it's essentially the same golem chassis and build we see other players use.

• Vintefolei Shaman Chief fluffer (N/D/B 1 gem)
• Golem
• Mace of Eruption, Charcoal Shield, Dragon Helmet, Fire Plate, Boots of Quickness, Chains of Reconstruction, Ring of the Warrior
• Astral Shield, Body Ethereal, Resist Magic, Attack Closest
• Enlarge, barkskin Fluffed (mage on retreat after these 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6YgQL7QbBM 2.37

Round2Game1

Gath Heavy Thug - fluffed to take on cavemen

A repel thug - this layers a few more defences than the malikah in the prior examples - and it noticably pays off

• Gadol (E3B2) - Regeneration Bless
• Stinger, Enchanted Shield, Dragon Helmet, Fire Plate, Ranger's Boots, Ring of the Warrior, Flask Of Holy Water, Fire in a Jar
• Summon Earthpower, Iron Will, Resist Lightning, Temper Flesh, Personal Ironskin
• Body Ethereal, Enlarge, Gift of Cat Eyes

UW Gath Thug Abba (Icthyds) - DICEY (replay had it die, won in game)

A very expensive thug that's right on the line (ergo probably not worth it since if it dies - the cost is huge). In short - it has fatigue problems and risks getting an unlucky crit then bleeding out - but it's also fairly tanky and can survive. In the actual game it got a fairly lucky early morale rout - but in the cast it died - and given it routed the enemy after only 17/50 kills in the actual game, I'd guess dying to be fairly common outcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Rbdu5LErs 11.21

• Stinger, Enchanted Shield, Dragon Helmet, Fire Plate, Ranger's Boots, Ring of the warrior, Amulet of water breathing
• Summon Earthpower, Personal ironskin , Temper Flesh, Personal Regeneration, Enlarge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBCLQqZi4BI

Also Seren army thugs with a single weapon

9.07 - Kohen Gadol Army Thug

Pretty straightforward heavy army thug - this unit stacks prot really high, uses regen from the bless and chews through enemy troops with its 2 weapons.

• Stinger, Flesh Eater, Dragon Helmet, Fire Plate, Ranger's Boots, Ring of the Warrior, Amulet of Antimagic
• Summon Earthpower, Temper Flesh, Personal Ironskin (et al)
• Fluffed Body Ethereal (blessed with regen), Enlarge,

11.08 Golem Thug anti UW-Indie

A neat little fear thug with lots of armor. Note this costs a LOT of gems (80 including the chassis)

• Implementor Axe, Chains of Reconstruction, Horror Helmet, Blacksteel Plate, Boots of Quickness, Ring of the warrior
• Astral Shield, Body Ethereal, Attack Closest

21.58 Vanherse Army Thug

• Frost Brand*2, Dragon Helmet, Fire Plate

TODO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s34KAF4qG90&t=5s 29.09, 30.58

Gadol Light Supercombatant (AN) 10.53 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s34KAF4qG90&t=5s

A nice variant of a Gadol Supercombatant - albeit this framework is used a lot

• Gadol → Regeneration on the bless
• Frost Brand, Duskdagger, Dragon Helmet, Armor of Meteoric Iron, Boots of the messenger, ring of the warrior
• Summon Earthpower, Divine Blessing, Temper Flesh, Personal ironskin, Iron Will
• Body Ethereal, Gift of Cats Eyes

Fallen Angel Supercombatant variant 14.46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s34KAF4qG90&t=5s

A very light script on the fallen angels to make them reinvigoration supercombatants. 1/2 died in combat to friendly battlefield spells + chip damage. This is a good highlight of how the supercombatants can be both effective but ultimately insufficient. Given the amount killed and the limited effect these had - this will be chalked up as a failed supercombatant. Arguably - some more reinvigoration would have gone a long way to keep pyre going (or some shock resistance to stop self-killing with lightning)

• Fallen Angel
• V1 Horror Helmet, Armor of Meteoric Iron, Boots of flesh, Lifelong Contract, Amulet of Antimagic
• V2 Frost Brand X2, Dragon Helmet, Armor of Meteoric Iron, Boots of the messenger, Amulet of Antimagic, Heart of quickness
• Phoenix Pyre, Soul Vortex

29.09 Damage vanherse thug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s34KAF4qG90&t=5s

• Frost Brand X2, Dragon Helmet, Fire Plate
• Blessing, Personal Luck, Personal Flight - Attack (rear probably)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ng7DRihuyk&t=636s 12.38 14.47 17.20, 17.36 on for lists rewatched to 28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_PteYXxUZo 1.04 General Golem Note for earlier - no encumbrance

Fear Golem Thug

Punched through a demilich spamming undead. Unclear how potent

• Golem
• Implementor Axe, Horror Helmet, Blacksteel Plate, Boots of Quickness, Ring of the Warrior, Chains of Reconstruction
• Resist Magic, Astral Shield, Body Ethereal

14.03 UW Abba Thug anti PD

• Frost Brand, Vine Shield, Dragon Helmet, Shroud of the battle saint, Ring of water breathing, Ring of the warrior
• (Regen bless), Summon Earthpower, Personal Ironskin, Temper Flesh, Personal Regeneration, Enlarge, Attack Closest

R2G6 Unfinished

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SwlfzS3aSg&list=PLH9LasyqriLyjukZKNsAaPfLYQzVNSFgV&index=1 E1-2

29.27 Failed Gorgon Pretender t3 throne attempt 42.19 Succeeds in game, dies again in replay.

Mekone Attempts a T3 Throne. Dies immediately in replay. Loses but doesn't die in actual game. Mistform popping doesn't help. Takes it t4 ingame, in the replays it dies both times. At best a dubious call. Gorgon dies to Lizardfolk t6 (dies in both replay and ingame) 24.36

Regeneration +5SR Bless Gorgon Personal Mistform, Personal Stoneskin, Air Shield, Attack Closest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7XWhuGC3JE&list=PLH9LasyqriLyjukZKNsAaPfLYQzVNSFgV&index=6

25.00

Heavy thug used in expansion party - unexciting but may be interesting later. Noticably - Fomorian national item used to provide fatigue neutrality cheaply

Fomorian King (+5 Atk and reinvigoration? on the bless - Repel Bless) Spear of the Morrigan, Blacksteel Plate, Chi Shoes, Lucky Charm, Flask of Holy Water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC7w4YeVvGE&list=PLH9LasyqriLyjukZKNsAaPfLYQzVNSFgV&index=6 Fomorian King used again 55.09. Died to pangean army (unholy/slowing/def/other rainbow dormant)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2btY70f3YY0 15.10 Ungeared E1 Pan Hierophant soloing a 1PD tile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3d6X_tH8cg

Panagea Thorn Staff Thug 1:10 (used to clear trogs)

A Demonsthenes special - this is just a slightly souped up commander. Thorn staff is discounted for Pangaea and gives a lot of stats (+3 Attack +5 Defence, 3 Length) as well as the infamous AN death poison and mweps. A very nice choice for light thugging - and layers well with the bless. Note 3 of these weaponed and buffed thugs killed about as much as 7 plain sacreds. It's not exceptional.

Fire Resistance, Shock Resistance_x2, Defence Skill_x4, Heroism_x2, Slowing Weapons, Unholy Weapons, Blood surge, Low light vision Bless Enlarge Personal Ironskin Group Blur Group Barkskin

Bless = +4 Defense, Unholy Weapons, Slowing Weapons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRVf4ZuM7eE T29 Sidhe Lord Prophet Thug Sword of SHarpness, Ring of levitation, Eye Shield, 1N gem

Dryad Mother Counterthug (Demonsthenes) + handful of Acorns 9.27 Trueshot Longbow on a Dryad Mother (Swarm X3 then firing) (to snipe the thug) - plus unholy weapons. Worked perfectly. Note unholy nerfed since

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eFtCQ9WlMc

TO REVIEW 15.09 (lots of fun thugs - Longbow thugs - army thugs and mass buffed quickness et al). NOTE THIS IS LATE - T32)

14.38 GSS army thugs failing horribly vs the heavier blessed Panagea (Pan V TNN). Pan army thugs were fairly significant TNN's did nothing.

32.44 Ulm v Mictlan Thug light but has a few

39.57 Fluffed UW Bane Thug

Failed Horribly but into a hardish tile

GSS Blacksteel Full Plate Stoneskin, BE, Temper Armor, Enlarge Fluffed Hold Hold Attack Closest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAkWuDexJ48 2.22 Pan army thugs effective

8.45 Bane thug worked - differekt kit / fluffing

37 Thug Ball (Bane Based) - MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL