When you first play the 'Phage, you may be sorely disappointed when you first get into battle with your starting army. Your Foragers will do decent damage, but take a great deal of damage in return. How are you going to put together an effective fighting force with these guys as your vanguard?



Foragers = Kamikazes



My suggestion: send them to their deaths over and over again. This tactic will work very well against slow melee units, pretty well against average speed melee, and not very well at all against ranged units (at least, not until you can overwhelm them with numbers and/or outgear them). Since battles only last 6 phases, you send the foragers at the enemy, and keep your hero at the back of the map. Your shock troops will do some damage and probably be killed by the first enemy to take a swipe at them - but no worries. Against slow enemies, they'll never catch up with the hero within the 6 phases, and the battle will reset. Faster enemies may catch up with the hero, but you maneuver him/her to minimize the phases they have to slug it out. The key to this is keeping your hero as unscathed as possible, while not caring at all about the physical and psychological damage inflicted on your poor foragers.



So... the battle is over, you've done some damage, your Foragers were eliminated, and you ran away with your hero. But of course, now your foragers are back with 1 health. Mostly dead, but not all dead... and as Miracle Max will tell you, there's a big difference. So you're left adjacent to your enemy with a completely beat-up army, what now? Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! Attacks don't cost movement points, so you can repeat the process until your enemy is all dead.



Equipping for Kamikaze Tactics



I redesign my at-start Foragers to use claws rather than axe & shield. You're treating them like expendable missiles, so you want them to do as much damage as possible on impact. When you get higher up the tech tree it makes sense to give them armor, but early on that will actually make them less effective, since iron armor reduces initiative. High initiative is important, since some enemies will prevent you from swinging back if they initiate melee. Glassteel claws are great, especially at level 3: high damage, high initiative, chock full of win. When you get up to Dust armor with fourth age techs, then it's well worth suiting your foragers up. Dust armor gives you lots of defense, lots of added life, and no initiative malus.



Hero Options



'Phage heroes work well, since they become very survivable as they level. Their battle speed of 3 lets them run past enemies that might have cornered a slower hero.



Then again, WW & Vaulter heroes have the advantage of sniping from range as they fall back. Between the two, Vaulters have the advantage of a four-hex range.



Outrider Armies



Keeping an outrider army within three or four hexes of your main army is an effective tactic for all races. When one of the armies attacks, or is attacked, the other army will be brought in during the battle as reinforcements. This lets you scout more area than a single army, yet both armies are mutually supported if the natives get restless.



Having outriders is particularly effective with forager kamikaze tactics, since you'll end up with more to throw at the enemy. That not only results in inflicting more damage, but it makes it a lot easier to keep the enemy busy for six rounds. One thing to keep in mind: You want to keep one unit from the outrider army alive. Even if you win the battle, if the entire outrider army was destroyed then they won't resurrect.



And finally...



This works well in practice, at least as of 0.4.5... I run around with near-decimated armies, but tear up nearly everything that gets in my way, while avoiding anything that might pose a problem. Admittedly the tactic is a bit cheesy, and can be tedious at times... but effective!

Great article, thank you Glassteel claws are actually a good idea, much better than axe/shield for kamikadze tactics - I'd definitely change my Foragers outfit

Great article



The Key to Forager Units is to remember the Last Stand ability. You don't care if they die as long as they do decent damage before they die. And if you don't care if they die, then they really don't need to start with ANY health. Until late in the 2nd age, I don't bother with armor, nor do I care how much starting health they have. I just keep rolling over enemies as quickly as I can get to them (though use extreme caution with the Ended as that Chain Lightning ability now works and I watched a single ended wipe out all 6 of my Forager units in one shot, thank goodness there was only a single surviving ended at the time!)



A ranged hero is by far the best choice for the Necrophage as you should place your first hero in your starting city as soon as he levels up the first time and you can get +5 food in the city.



Outrider Armies should IDEALLY be composed of Cavalry type troops so they can get into battle quickly and protect that ranged hero who is likely killing 1 enemy per turn.

A part of me says that this is probably OP and another part says that this is probably fine because it's just the way that you play the Necrophage, who are designed to be like a never-ending tide. I'm not sure if I like the fact that Last Stand works on a draw and not a won battle, since I feel like you could play this with little to no risk while gaining a pretty considerable reward. I could literally have a unit that does not interact with the other army at all, just trying to run all day so that any Foragers that were cut down would get up and fight again.



I suppose that's a viable tactic, but I'm not sure that it would be that fun to play against, since there isn't very much in the way of countering this, apart from maybe trying to focus the unit that is just running away all the time. Just my thoughts on the matter.