Balanced Ram Army

Hi all,

Been rolling with a Ram army that seems nicely balanced but struggles against Magician of Alahan/Sparkling dependent builds.

Necromancer, Lv. 5 - Morbid Explosion; Recovery; Wave of Death; Focus (-1 ACC, but who cares it's a Necro lol)
Black Paladin, Lv. 4 - Occult Erosion; +20% bonus; Exhausting Touch
Skeleton Warrior, Lv. 3 - Hard-boiled; Martyr (Disfigured, which is +1 fear - yay!)
Skeleton Warrior, Lv. 3 - Hard-boiled; Martyr (Disfigured)
Skeleton Warrior, Lv. 2 - Hard-boiled
Skeleton Archer, Lv. 2 - Ferocious
Skeleton Archer, Lv. 2 - Ferocious
Total = 400 AP

Tips to improve? Have these units too:

Skull Warrior, Lv. 4 - Hard-boiled; Taunt; Scourge: Living
Gargoyle, Lv. 3 - Hard-boiled; Dive-bomb
Priest of Salauel, Lv. 3 - Aura of the Crepuscular Princes; +20% bonus
Necromancer, Lv. 4 - Respite of the Dead; Mastery of the Arcana; Putrefaction

Levelling the Paladin atm because I want Scourge-Living to make him a pretty brilliant fighter vs. Wolves and Alahan. Eventually want to get the Priest to Lv. 5 and start nuking from long range with him and the Necro vs. Humans and Undead, or take the Paladin vs. Wolves because they get close faster and hide behind cover.

Don't take Skull Warrior - imo not worth it at the AP cost. Not particularly looking at conscience either, it's an extra 12 AP on top of the +3 damage boost. Have 13,000 ducats, was saving eventually for Golem but happy to reinvest if I've made some errors somewhere.

Comments, etc. appreciated

It seems a very nice army you have there, maybe on the Skeleton Warrior lvl 2 I would have chosen Ferocious more than Hard-Boiled but the remaining party is very well balanced and I don't think you can get a more balanced army if you want to keep those units & combo. When your Black Paladin will reach lvl5, you can put away the Skeleton Warrior lvl2 and try giving Incapacitating Shaft to the 2 Skeleton Archers: slowing down the enemy is very useful in a Necro-based army!

About the units you have in reserve:
- Skull Warrior is useless till next patch (too expensive like all the elites!)
- Gargoyle lvl2 Hard-boiled is always an obvious choice, while the third lvl ability is not so an easy choice: Dive Bomb is nice (I'm using it atm) however not so easy to use (you can't move the turn you use it), while Assassin may be very useful if you use 2 Gargoyles lvl3 and you have a lots of troops so that you can move both Gargoyles at the end of turn (you get in that way 2 attacks completely for free on an enemy units and that's very powerful). Moreover, since atm we can't reassign the abilities, maybe it's better to keep them lvl2, so that you can fit them more easily (APs wise) in your armies.
- The Priest "Inversion" is a very nice spell once you get used to it, much more than Aura of the Crepuscolar Princes atm (note that you can use it also on enemy units, and so you can do many nice tricks with it! ).
- The second Necro is ok as it is, no need to lvl it up to lvl5 (he'll cost a lot more if you lvl it up with Conscience and for his purpose Focus is useless)

PS: Heal that -1ACC on the necro, because when he is attacked he can attack back the enemy (he's not an archer that can't!) and sometimes you may win the match with just those 6-8 HP... Happened just yesterday against me

As a long time ram player (back to closed!) my tips:

ferocious is useless unless you have some spare points. Why? right now the meta favor zerg tacticts and the heaviest unit you might face is the Rune guardian (TOU 13) or the Grave guardian. If im not mistaken you will deal still 6 or more damages to these units. Elites right now are non-existant and legendaries even less. In case you will be "lucky" and meet a legendary you have the exausting touch. I approve of hardboiled + martyr as the two skills fit perfectly together.

Use the skeleton archers lvl 1 as you will never ever feel the need to have ferocious in the current meta. I would invest these 18 AP on the pala (scourge living is pretty cool for 16 AP + increased faith area making his DAM 14 vs most units).

Other than that it gets down to personal preferences anyway the list is solid i think.

one more thing on the gargoyle...i dont know how "harboiled" is an obvious choice there. I took elusive and im very happy with it as the "bane" of the assault units is being surrounded as they are much easy to hit. For a mere 4 AP you can usually safely disengage vs 2 units or even more with defensive stance. I add that it allows to go straight for the enemy caster/ranged without having your precious assault unit life reduced by attacks of opportunity. I'm not a big fan of dive bomb and i prefer much more Sneak attack for its cost as you can safely attack other melee units. My tip is: wait for the next talent reset and give the gargoyle a go! Keep in mind that other than the skull warrior and flesh golem it is the only unit capabable of oneshotting a mage with an offensive (if charged). Elusive makes it a cheap reliable unit for its AP.

@Almanro
Think I'll get his ACC fixed then :p and yeah I've never found Aura of the Crepuscular Princes useful, certainly never enough to warrant 3(!) faith points, the same as a Spiritual Aggression. Will probably just hold him and wait for the next talent skill reset or a purchasable re-spec comes in...

@Deep Blue
Yeah I've found it's a lot of quantity over quality in this meta, especially with basic ranged units. I don't think I've ever needed ferocious so will probably just buy new archers and save the AP to bounce the Black Paladin up to Lv. 5.

Keep in mind that other than the skull warrior and flesh golem it is the only unit capabable of oneshotting a mage with an offensive (if charged).

Sure? IIRC he didn't charge an Alahan Magician and dealt 19 damage on both hits..if the Wizard lost 1 toughness from the stun then he'd take 19+20=39 damage right? With all dem sparklings flying around you really need to kill the magician asap. Elusive + Sneak Attack seems nice, but should I throw Assassin on top of that as it's like 11 AP more?

@Almanro
Think I'll get his ACC fixed then :p and yeah I've never found Aura of the Crepuscular Princes useful, certainly never enough to warrant 3(!) faith points, the same as a Spiritual Aggression. Will probably just hold him and wait for the next talent skill reset or a purchasable re-spec comes in...

@Deep Blue
Yeah I've found it's a lot of quantity over quality in this meta, especially with basic ranged units. I don't think I've ever needed ferocious so will probably just buy new archers and save the AP to bounce the Black Paladin up to Lv. 5.

Keep in mind that other than the skull warrior and flesh golem it is the only unit capabable of oneshotting a mage with an offensive (if charged).

Sure? IIRC he didn't charge an Alahan Magician and dealt 19 damage on both hits..if the Wizard lost 1 toughness from the stun then he'd take 19+20=39 damage right? With all dem sparklings flying around you really need to kill the magician asap. Elusive + Sneak Attack seems nice, but should I throw Assassin on top of that as it's like 11 AP more?

20+20 as charge -1 TOU is for the 2 attacks