Killing Commanders for Fun and Profit

I am against mega-commanders for many reasons. Regardless of your personal style of building PvP commanders, today I will make the case for minimalist hunters.

Dead commanders make more money.

Everyone knows that hides are very profitable. They sell for 2000-3000 gold each, and are very useful in crafting leather armor and mounts. Bugs are especially tough in Illyriad, and they drop plentiful hides as a reward. Yet their toughness creates a false conundrum for many Illy players. When you have the opportunity to kill a legion of scuttlers, scritchers or spiders, how many of you hesitate because of your commanders? Does the thought of resurrecting them pull your pucker string? It shouldn't, not if your hunters are properly built. Long ago in Night Squires, I learned to send multiple waves of commanders from different cities. To support this strategy, I keep my hunting commanders at levels 10, 15, or 25. This setup allows me to pay a single day of resurrection (and a few crafted items) to score major hides and animal parts.

Let's look at a battle from yesterday, from a nearby small hill.

This represents 115000 average defense, which is way more than any of my individual hunter squads can manage.

Wave #1: Quadruple elite Wolfrider commanders in vanguard leather (+100% attack), hill tribe spear (+60% hill), war wolf (+20% hill). Base Heroism 2074, total bonus +360%, total cavalry attack 38000. 61 wolfriders to supply base attack power, this is the absolute minimum I could have sent to fully power commander Heroism.

Wave #2: Quadruple elite Wolfrider commanders in vanguard leather (+100% attack), hill tribe spear (+60% hill), war wolf (+20% hill). Base Heroism 2074, total bonus +360%, total cavalry attack 38000. 60 death packs to supply base attack power.

Wave #3: Triple elite Fist commanders with adventurer sword (+60% hill), hillsman chainmail (+60% hill), riding horse. Base Heroism 2194, total bonus +240%, total infantry attack 22378. 150 fangs to supply base attack power.

Wave #4: Quadruple elite Death Pack with hill tribe spear (+60% hill), hillsman chainmail (+60% hill), war wolf (+20% hill). Base Heroism 3599, total bonus +280%, total cavalry attack 54705. The base attack for this army was provided by 500 kobolds, which is a neat cost-saving trick that we will discuss in a future article.

Note:  I accidentally deleted the battle report, but you can see the final result in this scout report. 68 kobolds killed to finish off the remaining scuttlers.

So, to recap, I got 2146 hides for 65 wolfriders, 60 death packs, 150 fangs and 68 kobolds. I did lose a handful of crafted items equipped to the commanders, but as you can see, I will recover some of those dropped items during harvesting. My hunting commanders are already back in action this evening, ready to take on the next legion of bugs. Until next time, my dear cannon fodders:

 

Misbehave. Kill lots of stuff.

 

<^^^^^^^^||==O    Skint Jagblade