yeah, i tried all the 11 books strategies. only the 11 evil/dark books with summon wraith really worked well. other 11 books' spells just isn't quite as powerful as wraiths in early game.

This is true, wraiths are very, very strong early. That life steal is just brutal since it keeps their health topped off. Their only real big weakness are things that hit hard enough to overwhelm their life steal (high end summons, for example), and things with death immunity (death and sorcery creatures).

Torin doesn't fly. Gorgons need healing support (Nature's Cures is available, though). Efreet are squishy while Chaos Spawn are slow (and Chimeras may not have the power), and Sorcery has...Nagas and Phantom Warriors/Beasts?

11 book strategy? Flight/Invisibility/Spell Lock and warships. Just avoid the sky drakes.
And wouldn't Nature go with Gaia's Blessing for the Rare pick?

Because they fly and are illusion immune, thus able to kill your warships faster than your warships can kill them. Not avoid the research, but the enemy sky drakes.

Don't really post here, since my knowledge is far subpar to that of others, but I have been playing MoM on and off for more than 20 years. And I don't really like the "One extremely powerful unit" strategies, since it makes it a bit harder to have a two front war, so I usually go with the "adamantium champion halfling slingers buffed with everything you can find" route. If really lucky with the spells and nodes, you can have them one shotting anything, missile immune or not. Doesn't happen that often though :/

Ah ha! I was wondering, since Sky Drakes are quite useful if one can acquire them. Some units are niche because of the unit, but Sky Drakes are only niche because of how costly they are to acquire.

13 Sorcery books, Conjurer, Sorcery Mastery would take care of the cost to summon the Drakes. If you can't pay the upkeep, dismiss them, then summon them again as needed.
Mechanics abuse? What mechanics abuse?

Sure, if you can find the missing components after character creation. And assuming the game doesn't say "Here, have two sorcery books" but actually gives you two nature books.

No, I'm not irked. Why do you ask?

Sorcery Nodes don't give Nature books. Nor do Nature Nodes give Sorcery books.
Too bad getting Life and/or Death books is so much harder :(

Hmm.

Hmmmmmm.

Hmmm....

One would think. I had been counting on that sorcery node to give me the last two books I needed for zero cost Sky Drakes. It said it did, but it lied. The two nature books sitting on my wizard's shelf, and the 100 mana cost (or whatever it finally was) indicated that the node was a lying liar. I was really looking forward to spamming stacks of 9 sky drakes at everything within 4 squares of any of my cities.

tried that too. takes a loooong time to build a warship in early game. total cost/time of building a warship AND maintaining the spell cost of flight and invisibility is just insane. totally impractical. and i think elite(or white magic enhanced) halfling slingers can still kill a flying invisible warship if they're lucky.

EDIT: no wait, i remember killing enemy flying warships with a single unit of elite mithril-weaponed beserkers. that was fun. the flying warships are quite harmless once they use up their ranged ammo.

better off waiting for the skydrake spell to show up.

About a 1000 production cost, which is indeed high. Should be able to clear the surrounding area with the cheap phantom warriors you have, and you could hurry the production through abusing the hurry mechanic.
But yes, not a quick strategy. And you don't have one warship, you go with 8 of them (or 7 and a hero).

I do prefer the 2/1/1/1 Node/Warlord/Myrran halflings though, such abuse.

Warships have a 99-turn rock attack so the battle will time out before they use up their ammo.

However using flying/invisible warships certainly doesn't make for a quick game, but it is fun. I usually go with a stack of four, they are excellent against enemy towns and most lairs/towers (just use auto) but not so good against some tougher nodes, especially those with Sky Drakes.

11 life guardian spirits is probably the most powerful early game.
Invulnerable ,true lighted , blessed ,along with the undead nuke will kill anything demon or undead.