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AGANYA'S WORDS OF WISDOM
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Spells and magical items make FG more fun and to use them efficiently
we should know their main features and, more importantly, their strange
features. 

The main reason why players choose Aelcar and Krell is their
character spells, but are the spells so useful? In a word, yes. 
The fear spell can break even units that possess the Bloodlust ability 
which can't be broken any other way. These include Barbarians, Werebears, 
and Shadow Knights... Broken unit always retreats when attacked by a
melee unit (heavy cavalry, heavy infantry, light infantry), so the 
broken Werebear potentially is already dead. But be aware of Shadow 
Warriors, they don't retreat even when broken, so the only way to move 
a Shadow Warrior is to use the Apprentice's spell 'Summon Banshee'.
Or consider casting Fear on an enemy archer that is defending a Lionmen 
or Samurai and making it extremely hard for you to force those units
to surrender. Broken archers can't provide defensive fire and these 
"saved" lives of your attacker can play a decisive role in determining 
if the enemy unit will die or not.

The next spell that the magicians have is Fireball... It is much 
stronger than a Staff of Fireball or a Wand of Fireball, especially 
in a high MUG game. Never park your flyers above ground units (especially 
above archers and siege engines) if your opponent is Aelcar/Krell unless 
this placement is absolutely necessary, because Fireball affects all units 
in the target hex. Fireball can break the target unit and it is sometimes 
better to cast Fireball instead of Fear on an enemy archer.

Now some words about my favorite spell - Weakness. The Weakness spell takes
away 50% life from its target if the spell hasn't been resisted and 10% life
if it is resisted. This means that if you cast the spell on a unit with 15
lives the target will lose 7 lives or 1 life, so you are guaranteed 
some harm. Even "resistant to spells" units (like Phoenix Hawks and Phoenix
Knights) lose 1 life if they had 10 or more lives. It is especially
useful if the unit has 10 lives max (like Seekers and Nightmare).
Weakness is the only spell that can hurt "resistant to spells" units.
And like Fireball, Weakness affects all units in the target hex, so once
again never place your ground and flying units into the same hex, even
if you think that these unit rock. Just several days ago I wasn't
careful and placed my Shadow Dragon over my Shadow Warrior... It was a big
mistake because my opponent (Iselian) cast Weakness, and both my units
lost 7 lives and died in the same turn. But never cast Weakness if you
can't kill the target in the same turn or prevent it from healing,
because Weakness causes wounds only. And don't confuse the character
spell Weakness with the weakness spell produced by the Wand of Sickness.
The Wand of Sickness doesn't cause any damage if it is resisted, so don't
ever try to use the item against "resistant to spells" units or a unit
with the Amulet of Resistance.

The last spell of Aelcar/Krell is Whirlwind. It affects only flyers, but
it causes more damage than Fireball does (and can break the target unit too)
so if you want to cast a spell on a lone flyer you should pick Whirlwind
instead of Fireball. Sometimes Whirlwind can be even more devastating than
Weakness and can cause more than 7 wounds,  or break the unit in addition
to causing 7+ wounds.

I already mentioned some magical items so let's consider them more
carefully. Amulet of Resistance... One of the best and the most useful
items, but it has some strange features. The item doesn't make its
carrier resistant to spells as you might expect based on its name. 
A unit with the Amulet of Resistance still can be targeted with the
Fireball spell (both the character spell and item spell), 
the Whirlwind spell (both the character spell and item spell) and 
the Storm Staff. The unit still can become broken due to the
Whirlwind and Fireball spells so don't overestimate the power of your 
unit just because it has an Amulet of Resistance. The second strange 
feature of Amulet of Resistance is that it doesn't work properly when 
it is equipped by a low level sky hunter (like a Wing Rider, Flying Monkey 
or Flying Snake); it doesn't change those units' Magical Resistance to 150
so beware. Fortunately the Amulet of Resistance functions properly with 
ground units and high grade flyers and even makes your unit resistant to 
Weakness (both the character spell and the item spell) though a unit with 
more than 9 lives still will lose 1 (and only one) life when the character 
spell Weakness is cast.

A few other items notes:
-The Staff of Healing and the character spell Heal can't heal mech
units, as mech units don't take wounds, they take damage.
-The Sword of Death Wounds doesn't make melee wounds become kills 
(as its description says), it makes ALL wounds become kills, so there 
is nothing wrong with giving the Sword of Death Wounds to bombardiers 
or skirmishers.

Finally, one more note about tactics. When a sky hunter attacks a 
ground unit the target always retreat up (north) unless this hex is 
occupied. So investigate the battlefield carefully- perhaps you can 
kill a unit this way. Always try to keep your opponent to the south, 
as this way your ground units attacked by sky hunters will be retreating 
from enemy units instead of to them.

Aganya
Salient Columnist