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FANTASY GENERAL STRATEGY: USING SPELLCASTERS
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Most players avoid using spellcasters in pbm games, since general wisdom says that most spellcasters
are useless. But if you stop to examine the possibilities that spellcasters offer, you realize that
they do have some uses and can turn the tide of battle in certain situations. So I'd like to point
out some nice uses for spellcasters; so before you choose your next pbm army, consider the following...

Apprentices:
The weakest spellcaster; their spell can make a unit retreat. Now this seems like a trivial spell
but it has several uses. The obvious one is to force enemy units to retreat to positions advantageous
to your army. An enemy unit might be blocking your access to a town, or to a wounded enemy unit;
an enemy archer might be protecting units or perhaps another enemy unit is keping you from recruiting
by sitting next to your only town. A banshee spell can clear those unit out of the way, esp since you
can predict where the enemy will retreat and make them retreat to where you want.

A related tactic is to force a unit to retreat into a position where you can force it to surrender
with your next attack. A banshee spell keeps you from wasting a melee unit on this task which is useful
if you need to force many surrenders and are short on melee units.

The more inventive and lesser known use of apprentices is to actually KILL an enemy with the banshee spell.
Since the spell causes an enemy to retreat, what do you think happens when the enemy has nowhere to retreat?
It dies, or more accurately just disappears from the map. This will work on almost any unit.
The only units are not affected by this are units such as nightmares, that are immune to magic.
You thought those shadow warriors never retreated? Wrong, they not only retreat from apprentices but can be killed with the spell.
EVEN flying units are not immune... did you eveer wish you could makes those shadow dragons surrender?
Well with apprentices you can but the the target flyer must be surrounded by AIR units on all sides,
which is not so easy to do but worth the effort. You might wonder what your chances for success are against the
stronger units such as shadow warriors and shadow dragons... they are no different than your chances against
low level units; the only factor that matters is the MR of the target unit. Even against units with a MR of
90 you still have a 10% chance. A few attempts will usually be enough for the spell to work. This success rate,
coupled with the types of units this spell can kill, make the banshee spell one of the most powerful in the game,
and it is possesed by a lv 0 unit!

Conjurers:
I must admit I have rarely seen this unit used by my opponents. But I have seen people use swords of death
wounds in pbm. Now I'd rather buy a 20 gold conjurer and cast death wounds on different units than
spend 60 gold to have one unit get this ability permanently. So if you are inclined to use swords of death
wounds, I think conjurers are a better choice. The ability to inflict kills on the enemy does prevents you
from fighting the enemy units more than once. When you inflict kills on an enemy unit, you do not have to chase
it down to prevent it from resting and you do not have to worry about it being healed by an enemy healer or staff.
That unit is permanently crippled unless it goes to a town. And if that unit has a shield or more of exp
it will lose it by recruiting at towns. Even if the unit does not have exp it will still cost your
opponent some gold to replace the kills, especially if it is a high grade unit. Using conjurers lets you confront
and enemy unit once and forget about it. Consider how many times you could not prevent a unit from resting or
healing and had to fight it over and over at nearly full strength. Conjurers can prevent this.

Healers:
The uses for this spellcaster are obvious. What I would like to do is give you a reason to use
a healer instead of a light cav/other non-healer with heal staff. Often you have item limits so by using a healer
instead of a heal staff you can save an item and still be able to heal your units. If you have
a low item limit or need to use your items for other purposes, a healer is a good choice. A healer can also be
used the same way as a reinforcement unit since you won't be able to recuir any heal staff units after the battle
starts. Another advantage of healer vs cav with staff is that you can give a healer a cloak and he can heal and stay
hidden throughout, while for cav this is not the case. Even for skirmishers this does not work because the
skirmisher can only cast invisible or heal each turn, not both!

Druids:
A druid is invaluable in any game with a good amount of forest terrain if you are playing with
MUG = 3 or 4. LI and skirmishers are tough to take on in the forest terrain but a druid or two can
severely injure those units when they are in the forest. In fact most units with armor below 30 will take at
least some damage from druid attacks. Not only does using druids damage the enemy in the forest but it
will probably make your opponent avoid the forest altogether when he sees you have a druid; depending on
the map this can greatly impede his mobility. And if the opponent avoid the forest it leave his units out
in the open where your cavalry can get to them. The cavalry druid combo is especially effective on random plains
forest maps where you the whole map is either forest or plains.

Fire Wizards:
The only use for this unit is to do damage to archer/seige engine formations. Since the fireball spell
affects only units with very low armor, it is ideal against seiges(esp mech ones) and archers. The advantage
of using fire wizards in this case is that they can damage several archers/seige combinations(or other weak
units) at once without losing any energy themselves.

Earthmasters:
To appreciate these units you have to be willing to look beyond the fact that they do not do any physical
damage. A natural reaction upon reading the manual is to wonder why such a high level unit should only be
able to decimate morale, and try to understand why that would help you. A unit does a morale check each time
an earthmaster attacks, and if it fails the unit becomes broken. The lower the morale the more likely the morale
check will fail. Each spellcaster attack causes a loss of 30 morale points and then the unit has to perform the check.
Once a unit gets down to under 50 the chances of it breaking on the next spellcaster hit are fairly good. And normal
units start with 100 morale(which is decreased after each time the unit loses life), with 5 extra morale points
per exp level. If you are playing krell subtract 20 from that, for Calis add 20. So even for Calis,
a non-experienced unit will be down to 60 after just 2 attacks. For krell one attack will put him
at 50. The point is that earthmasters will quickly decimate the enemy morale for most units and get them to the breaking
point. Since their attack works on groups of units, two well placed earthquakes can put 7 units on the verge of breaking.
If a unit still does not break at 0 morale(it can happen) then you can break it with the following
tactic. Use any attack(preferably one where the enemy does not retaliate) against that unit and it will become
disordered. The next attack after that will break the unit every time.

Once you break an enemy unit, there are many options available to you. Not only is the unit now weaker by -5, -5
until it rests, but that unit cannot provide archer support(if it is an archer), and will retreat every time it
undergoes a melee attack. So the best thing to do is surround it and then attack it to make it surrender. Since
this unit will automatically retreat it does not matter how much damage you cause, in fact you can do 0 damage
and it will still surrender. So why waste your good units for this purpose when any old unit will do? Pick up a
goblin or peasant and use it for the attack. As long as the attacking unit does not die the defender will surrender!
This is a great way to kill much stronger units with junk. Just remember that shadow warriors will never
surrender and earthquake will not work on units that are resistant to magic or air units. The whole purpose of
earthmasters is to disrupt groups of the enemy army by breaking several units at a time. Breaking important enemy HI
and Cav is a useful skill, making earthmasters a valuable addition to your army.

All spellcasters can also be used as skirmishers and perform ok in that capacity, especially with full exp.
Just don't abuse this ability or your spellcasters will wind up dead near the front lines.

That sums up the uses of spellcasters; the other thing to consider is what items to equip them with.
The best choices are cloaks of hiding so that your oponent cannot target them nor see what you are doing.
If the opponent sees your conjurer or healer he is going to try to kill it and if your opponent sees other
spellcasters he will maneuver his units so that they are harder to attack with those spellcasters. A cloak
is the best protection for any unit(including non-spellcasters), since you can't kill what you can't see.
Spellcasters generally stay in the background and don't engage in much front line fighting. With invisibility,
spellcasters are impossible to spot and the opponent will not be able to figure out how you are killing his units.

The second best item for spellcasters are the boots of rapid movement. This will help them get to the battle quicker
and allow them a quicker escape after they cast their spell. The other items do not compensate for the spellcaster's
weaknesses at all and thus I would recommend tsicking with boots or cloaks as items for these types of units.

I hope I have demonstrated the power of properly used spellcasters...
the key to using them is knowing each one's strengths and using them in combination with
other units and items as part of an overall strategy. []

A special thanks to the Executive Committee members for their contributions to this article.

BloordLord the Lich
FG Laddermaster at the General's Guild
http://idt.net/~grochon/gg/main/index.html