INSANELY GOOD that is.

I only today realized how useful the Conflux Elementalist Hero Luna is.

Previously Ciele, Grindan and Gelare were useful. Ciele especially as her Magic Arrow always does +50% more damage. And ofc the +350 Gold from the other two was so good as well.

Fresh out of the box with her 1 Pixie Luna can take on quite a few enemies single handed with no more troops as long as you know how. She also starts with Basic Wisdom & Fire Magic along with 3 Spell Power & Knowledge.

LUNA's special ability DOUBLES the damage of Fire Wall. Right out of the box that makes it able to deal 80 damage per hex. Basic Fire Wall covers 2 hexes and Adv/Expert 3. Firewall can be tricky to use as it will always form in a specific way. From the hex you target it will spread to the one just to the top right of it (when your the attacker), basically in a / (forward slash) angle. Advanced and Expert FWall does the same but also covers one more but ends up looking greater than > sign but again starts at the bottom.

This lets you take on non shooter troops quite easily without risking your main army, although Flyers should wait till you have Adv or Ex Fire Magic. Also if you can get Expert Water Magic and Forgetfullness you can even take on those shooters relatively easy.

Here is a brief table of the damage she can do for each step they take through it.

Starting at 3 spell power as she come with that by default.
Basic/Advanced/Expert damage


3. 80/100/160
4. 100/120/180
5. 120/140/200
10. 220/240/300


Take a look at the you tube video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5hEh-MnIQ8

Here is one of her taking out 540 Gremlins fresh out of the tavern with 1 pixie at lvl 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G29vSPGbDPY

You mean she's a lunatic?

BTW, why did you never give me any feedback on my AOW:SM mod?

The only Age of Wonders I have played so far is the original and even that one has not been played in 6 months or so. Although I did just recently get Shadow Magic as an xmas gift I have not installed or played it yet so will have to let you know sometimes in the future.

Yea guess she is a LUNAtic haha, nice play on words I didn't think of.

The key thing about her you see is when she only has the 1 sprite the computer will always split up the bad guys into 7 stacks that way you can get more of them to walk through the same fwall as it's not used up until the 2 turns duration expires.

Had no idea what all the raves about Luna were about until seeing those videos. Thanks for the heads up. She's amazing.

Yea especially the 2nd one. It has no sound and is only like 90 sec long but she takes out 540 Gremlins, at only level 1 YIKES.

I still cannot believe how I never actually looked at her special till I saw those vids and discussions. I finally clued in about her in a thread that was actually discussing whether or not you chose certain Heroes based on their pics. To tell you the truth I still think she looks a bit to freaky but heck so willing to put up with it now.

Wow.. this game is so great - yet another fun tactic(not cheap tactic) to play the game :)

Heh, as if Conflux wasn't already overpowered enough.

But it's so boring. I'd rather play Fortress or Stronghold.

+1. Conflux is a cheaters' town and all these tactics should be considered 'cheating' also.:))

Luna's portrait is one of the developers, apparently.

Well, I made some goofy mistakes with her, like trying to play her vs. a pack of sprites, who fly through flames untouched. Also, I found her tricky to play against gremlins. One or two shooters in a bunch is all it takes. I had better luck fighting them when I added extra troops. That made the gremlins bunch up, and a pack that had greeted my single sprite with four melee gremlin stacks and one stack of upgraded shooter gremlins changed into a single pack of melee gremlins that was easy to handle.

Also, I got killed more than a couple of times when enemies had good enough morale to attack twice in a single turn. I also couldn't get away from centaurs, at movement rate of 7, with my sprite at a movement rate of 8, long enough to kill them all before getting hit. Luna is great, no doubt, but can take a bit of luck to play. You can pick and choose so as to never go against potential shooters or high-movement-rate enemies, so that's no big deal. But you can't prevent the occasional double movement turns, and one hit by anybody is all it takes.

She levels really fast, which is nice,because she can take on so many stacks and roam very far very early.

After a while it's time to fit her out with a proper army, but it's great fast gameplay while it lasts. I'm going to play her a few times to see if I can figure out instinctively when it's time to start working my way back home to buy troops.

This is why you have to be really careful fighting troops with a possible archer upgrade, namely Gremlins, Giants, Air and Water Elementals, Flyers and really fast troops.

One thing you may have noticed is that when using only the 1 sprite those gremlins always split into 7 bunches and there is never more than 1 of them upgraded. You deal with that one group with a direct damage spell like magic arrow, Ice/Lightning Bolt or anything else u can use to kill them before they shoot.

Also yes the FWall only hurts troops WALKING through it. It's an obstacle so flyers just soar over top of it. HOWEVER ounce you get a measly 2 extra spell power (5 total) and Expert Fire Magic your FWall does 200 damage this can take out most flyers which still take damage from the FWall when they land, before hitting you. So if the 200 damage can 1 hit the stack your safe.

You NEED at lest Advanced Fire Magic before you can ever take on flyers safely no matter your spell power.

200 damage can kill 12 Gargoyles/obsidian, 8 Griffins/royal, 1 **Angel, 66 Pixie/Sprites, 8 Air Elementals, 14 Harpy/Hags, 2 Mant/Scorpigores, 10 *Serpent/Dragon Flies, 2 Wyvern/Monarch, 11 Wight/Wraiths, 6/5 Vamp/Lords, 6 *Pegasai/Silver, 3 Roc/TBirds and 5 Genies/Masters.

* - Note that if fighting the Flies or Peggis that you better have tactics so that you can position your sprite before combat as the single upgraded stack (if any) can make it across in the first turn and kill your guy. Also DO NOT fight them on their own terrain, although this can still be done with the unupgraded ones if you have tactics, you can get your wall up before they reach you.

** - Fighting Angels only works if their are no Arc Angel stacks sadly as they are fast enough to hit anywhere on the field with their 18 speed not to mention they would go before your barrier was up.

Keep in mind that the number I posted above is for the split stacks, thus you could attack a group of upto 7 Angels as they would actually be 7 stacks of 1. This is the key reason you use the single pixie only, although perhaps the pixie could be replaced by any other 1 hex flyer from Serpent Fly to Angel although not sure if the stacks would keep dividing into 7 for stronger enemy. I don't believe they do as well if you carry more than the 1 pixie but will have to research this more.

SETTING UP FOR BATTLE

On the Heroes 3 Hex Grid you will notice that the very top and bottom hex's are indented a bit. The Hex you want is either just above or below those ones as they are farther from the enemy thus giving you the time to setup the fwall before they reach you.

So, using the TACTICS PHASE, you setup your pixie on the 2nd line and then cast Fwall on the hex just below them which then, with Advanced and Expert Fire Magic, creates Fwalls on each of the 3 hexes surrounding you. This way the enemy flyer will have to LAND in the FWall before it can hit you and thus die.

When you don't have to worry about enemy reaching you on first turn, like with gryphons or gargoyles, then you can do the same trick right from the starting hex.

Also yes I know them getting Morale can be a problem but if you get the SPIRIT OF OPPRESSION misc artifact it negates all morale. This is a really easy to get arti to as it is quite common and would negate any problems.

Hope this helps a bit.

Great info and suggestions, thanks!

I've played Luna 3 times now, and twice I didn't have magic arrow to start, so eliminating that single shooter gremlin stack was impossible. Magic Arrow makes a huge difference in how far Luna can roam and what she can fight.

Never thought about using Spirit of Oppression, for some reason. That's a great solution to double-movers.

Amazing that Luna can take out an Angel!

One thing I've found helping a good deal sometimes is upgrading the sprite. The extra two movement hexes of an upgraded sprite can make escapes a lot easier and create move positioning choices.

One other thing I've noticed -- I'm exhibiting a tendency to pick fights with Luna, which is all well and good and accomplishes many things, but ... it tends to slow down my getting a second castle, which I've almost always found a huge help in creating more money and power (which tend to go together). I've got to remind myself to keep my eye on the prize, even if I do enjoy playing with my new Luna toy.

I've never heard that before, though you're probably right. I always thought that Luna was made to look like Alyson Hannigan.

Luna: http://www.heroes3.eu/images/wrotazywiolow/bohaterowie/luna.gif
Hannigan: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004989/?ref_=tt_cl_t3

If that was the intention then they failed, because Hannigan looks far better :p

Sir Mullich is a more obvious one (and of course, also considered overpowered).