Dominions 6 - Shinuyama - Pretender Design

[@yugonostalgia8961]

Shinuyama has always been one of my favorite nations to play so very excited for this series! For anyone reading this, playing Shinu without taking the Unaging bless is extremely sad. If you don't take unaging you're making me, personally, sad so don't do it!!

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

Another class of build we didn't talk about much was some other options imprisoned or dormant incarnate for buffing Sorceror thugging; like you could pick up something unusual and not easy to buff like Awe, Slowing Weapons, Unbearable Splendor, or Fateweaving (which is a huge boost to Soul Vortex and Fire Shield) if that fit how you wanted to play. Imprisoned Unbearable Splendor has a lot of opportunity cost... but killing Phoenix Pyre thugs that blind all your dudes could be a real nightmare :)

[@sunedenlyse]

Very excited for this series! There's a ton of Dom6 additions I haven't seen in action yet and Shinuyama is one of my favourite nations :)

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

This game features Pyrene, Nidvangr, reworked Asphodel, lots of heavy cavalry nations, and King Santa with the Odin mounted Titan chassis; one of the things I really enjoyed about this game was seeing a lot of the new nations / systems in action. Sadly we didn't have any major Glamour powers, though.

[@sesleri]

Unaging gives their mages sooo many stats. And twiceborning a sorcerer costs 16 death gems each time, kind of expensive. Demonthese might be too honorable but for people watching the guide, take a demilich that can teleport with scales and similar build - thing is busted right now.

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

Yeah I'm kinda coming to the opinion that Wind of Death should be a level 9 spell; it's too easy to abuse too early in the game. In any case, that spell will definitely be important in this series :).

[@DarkSideCookies]

In a different game without Demonsthenes I tried out the immortal Bakemono Kunshu. F2A4D5G3 to magic phase around casting either Winds of Death or Wailing Winds. Similar concept to the Demilich except it was disciples so I couldn't take a Demilich. It was fun for me even though I lost. I will admit though that I can only play so many demiliches before reaching a point where I'd rather play any other chassis even if it's less efficient.

[@reuswilde8583]

Interesting thing about the expander, I tried a single player with the giant spider and took the death weapons bless withering weapons. Surprising when they webbed something even though they didn't do any amount of damage because the damage type is web the bless activated decaying enemies. Some day I have to see if machakan black hunters also trigger weapon blesses with just web.

[@Lolztrel]

Looking forward to this series!

[@callumfinlayson-palmer8393]

If you really want to max out your goblin hoards the jade emperors gives a bonus to production and order.

[@andrewcole4843]

How useful are the human chassis in late battles now there is no twice-born? Surprised that first war farcaster/precision not considered? Are Earth & Water Shaman pairs usable to point buff?

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

You can do simulacrum, but also now that chest armor adds HP, they can be durable enough. Fighting in this game proves intense enough that I end up using the Pretender in combat quite a bit.

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

W1 shamans can definitely be used to point buff, as can E1/F1 ones, but you always need to commit gear or gems to do so. Personally I think there's too few spells available to 1 path Elemental mages given how common they are (Astral, Glamour, and Nature all have signature 1 path buffs, while D1s also are pretty limited without gem use). In practice, most of what I use shamans for is priest work, forging, and the occasional W1 with gear to do quickness. But given how heavily I invest into gear in this game, the forging work is quite a big contribution; you really really don't want to be spending Bakemono Sorceror turns on forging piles of 5 gem items, and even Uba turns are pretty expensive for the paths they can forge for.

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

And I did briefly mention precision/far caster as a build. I definitely recommend it as a direction for this nation; Precision/Unaging/Reinvigoration might be even better, since a lot of spells that Bakemono Sorcerers like already have pretty good range. While working on the build for this game, DarkSideCookies did some test fights against a generic Nidavangr build using such a precision/far caster build, and it did seem pretty devastating to be blasted by a bunch of buffed Sorcerors. I ended up not going that direction for this game, but would certainly consider investing more bless points towards precision next time.

[@andrewcole4843]

@@DemonsthenesDominions Thanks for info

[@andrewcole4843]

@@DemonsthenesDominions Thanks indeed I was playing SP and doing similar with them (forge/priest/early fire search) but used a pair because they are size2 & I wanted 2 squares buffed in 2 turns including shuten/celestial dragon human form (to make S10)/couple of sorcerers (S10)....sort of fits with this pretender maybe as well.

[@VugurothsVids]

was it dom3 where Shinyuma had the most reported wins in the multiplayer community? Lots of solid tools, but they were not considered an op nation that people rushed to kill.

[@LucidTactics]

Hmm not sure. I cant remember wins being tallied back then - i know there were some tournaments to sorta establish which nations were top... not sure beyond that - would be interested to know though.

[@Neplushka]

deez monster knees

[@MazuiLakon]

Question: how does the oni summoner trait work? Stacking or using the highest value?

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

It is an independent roll for each one. 100 of the ability gets you 1d6 Ko-Oni per turn in high unrest.

[@LucidTactics]

Its per unit. So you can put a ton of guys in a single province and get a lot of oni. Im not sure how you can stack within a single unit if thats what youre asking.