Warriors of the North Spell Analysis Part 1: Chaos Magic

Spells work much as they did in Armored Princess, except as previously covered now they have a chance to crit, doing 150% of max damage just like a regular attack. ie Intellect is still 5% per point, an overall increase of 15% every 7 points, and every 20 points adds a turn of duration on most over-time Spell effects. The game doesn't mention Intellect affecting Burn/Poisoning/Freeze/Bleeding chance in Warriors of the North, but it's pretty obvious it still does, because you'll still see Spells hitting 100% Burn chance where that's not possible by their own intrinsic values; it's the same +1% per point of Intellect as in Armored Princess.

Summons with special Intellect scaling (eg Books of Evil) have been reworked. Now there's just a percentile boost to all of Health, Damage, Attack, and Defense, based on Intellect, instead of Armored Princess' 3 Intellect=+1 Attack/Defense. Specifically, it's 5% more of each per point of Intellect, which overall works as a boost to such summons, particularly the higher-end ones -a max level Book of Evil, for example, will gain 6 points of Attack from 3 points of Intellect, instead of the 1 they'd gain in Armored Princess, while the lowest level Book of Evil is still gaining 3 Attack from 3 points of Intellect.

Wanderer Magic is almost completely unmodified. There's two new Wanderer Scrolls -one of which is where the ability to summon a Chaos Dragon has been shuffled off to- and the Undead-summoning one has been commented out, rendering it inaccessible in normal play. I'm still not covering Wanderer Magic in detail, especially since Wanderer Scrolls are far rarer in Warriors of the North, making their relevancy even lower.

Before we start on Chaos Magic proper: as I just alluded to, Chaos Dragon is no longer a combat Spell at all, Totem of Adrenaline is gone as is the Spirit of Rage-based Spells (Soul Draining, Stone Rain, and Black Hole), and Ice Snake is no longer a Chaos Spell. (It's been stolen by the new Rune Magic school) Chaos Magic has picked up 3 replacement Spells... though they're all kind of bad...


Flaming Arrow
Crystal Cost: 1 / 3 / 5
Mana Cost: 5 / 5 / 5
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 70; Burning: 20%
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 140; Burning: 40%
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 210; Burning: 60%

Hits a single enemy for Fire damage with a chance to Burn the target.

No change.

It's been sidelined as a basic attacking Spell by a new option under Rune Magic, and it's Burn-infliction utility is increasingly largely sidelined by Gudrida's Rage. This is the low point in the series for Flaming Arrow, and it's entirely possible you'll never cast it at all.


Fireball
Crystal Cost: 5 / 7 / 10
Mana Cost: 10 / 15 / 20
Level 1 Statistics: Damage Center: 120; Damage Adjacent: 25-50; Burning: 10%
Level 2 Statistics: Damage Center: 250; Damage Adjacent: 50-105; Burning: 20%
Level 3 Statistics: Damage Center: 385; Damage Adjacent: 80-160; Burning: 30%

High Fire damage on one tile, with lesser Fire damage to adjacent tiles. All affected units have a chance to Burn. This chance is reduced outside the center.

It now has a reduced chance to Burn outside the center tile. That's it.

Well. That's what's supposed to happen. In actuality, it's bugged so the base Burn chance isn't counted in the center tile at all, and the outer tile chance is inexplicably 2.5% per Level instead of 5%; if you have 0 Intellect, a Fireball will have a 0% chance to Burn a unit in the center tile at every Level, and a 2.5%/5%/7.5% chance to Burn units in the outer tiles. The Intellect-scaled portion works correctly, meaning that each point of Intellect adds 1% to the center tile's Burn chance and 0.5% to the Burn chance of the outer tiles; as such, if you have at least 16 Intellect the center tile will still end up with a higher Burn chance than the outer tiles, but much less so than is intended. Notably, this means it requires rather unreasonable Intellect amounts to reach the point of Fireball being a reliable Burn inflictor.

Regardless, it's entirely possible you'll never cast it at all -where the Mage started with a Fireball Scroll in Armored Princess, the Soothsayer does not. Even though ice creatures that dislike Fire damage are suddenly a thing in Warriors of the North, Fireball tends to be shunted aside by other options -especially since one of the main new Fire-vulnerable units is immune to Spells outright.


Fire Rain
Crystal Cost: 7 / 10 / 25
Mana Cost: 7 / 12 / 22
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 50-70; Burning: 5%
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 150-210; Burning: 10%
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 250-350; Burning: 15%

Fire damage to all units in a 7-tile-covering circle, with affected units having a chance to be Burned.

Fire Rain has been reworked to have worse base damage but grow faster, with the end result being that at Level 3 it... well, its low roll is still noticeably worse than the Armored Princess low roll, but its high roll is a little bit higher. I don't really understand this change, honestly. Fire Rain was pretty unappealing in Armored Princess, just because either you were a Mage and it was difficult to justify casting it given how Higher Magic worked, or you weren't and so nuking things wasn't all that desirable. Warriors of the North hasn't changed this basic dynamic, either. (ie Higher Magic hasn't bumped up its allowed first-cast value by 5 points or something) This is basically just another nerf to a Spell that was struggling to justify itself in the previous game, and Warriors of the North adds in still more competition to further sideline it.


Armageddon
Crystal Cost: 15 / 25 / 35
Mana Cost: 30 / 40 / 50
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 200-300; Burning: 30%
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 340-510; Burning: 60%
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 480-720; Burning: 90%

Astral damage to all units and objects, friend and foe, with a chance to Burn. Friendly units only take 50% damage. Ignores Spell immunity.

No change.

With Black Hole not making a return, Armageddon is actually worth occasionally considering again. Not... often... but sometimes.


Kamikaze
Crystal Cost: 3 / 5 / 8
Mana Cost: 5 / 10 / 15
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 130-200
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 260-400
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 390-600

Attaches a bomb to a single unit, which detonates after either 3 turns or when the troop is destroyed, causing Physical damage to all adjacent units.

No change.

... in numbers. Its in-game behavior has a new delay: if you finish off the stack, frequently Kamikaze won't actually detonate until the next unit has finished its turn. Account for that when making plans; don't Kamikaze something, wipe it out with Rage or another Spell, and then charge one of your units next to it.

In practice it's not very important because Warriors of the North has added new mass Physical damage options that tend to shunt it aside past the early game.

Which is kind of too bad, as this timing change is actually part of a bugfix to address the prior issues with multiple Kamikaze resolutions.


Poison Skull
Crystal Cost: 2 / 3 / 5
Mana Cost: 5 / 7 / 10
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 40-140; Poisoning: 30%
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 70-250; Poisoning: 60%
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 100-365; Poisoning: 90%

Targets a single enemy unit for Poison damage, with a chance to Poison the target as well.

No change.

There's actually still no real competition for the role of Poison damage output, so Poison Skull remains occasionally useful. Not very often -you've got Ice damage options that tend to sideline it, for one- but it's doing better than Flaming Arrow.


Hell Breath
Crystal Cost: 2 / 5 / 10
Mana Cost: 10 / 15 / 20
Level 1 Statistics: Fire Damage: +20%; Duration: 2 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Fire Damage: +30%; Duration: 3 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Fire Damage: +40%; Duration: 4 turns

A single allied unit does additional damage with its attack and Talents, with this additional damage being Fire-typed regardless of what their own base damage is. Ice Creations and Demons are invalid targets.

In spite of its in-game description making it sound the same as always, Hell Breath has been quietly changed a decent amount. Like a lot of stuff in Warriors of the North, it now works on Talents, it doesn't work on Ice Creations, and rather strangely it now gets boosted by a Skill -the strangeness being that it's boosted by Creation in specific. If you max out Creation, it's a +52% damage boost, which is pretty darn good!

If you ever wanted to try to have fun with Hell Breath usage, Warriors of the North is probably the high point for it. Certainly, at least keep it in mind instead of dismissing it entirely -for one thing, this is one of those cases where constantly fighting Undead doesn't hurt a thing's viability, as no Undead resists Fire damage and most of them are in fact a little weak to Fire, further enhancing Hell Breath's effectiveness. And there's Ice Creations to potentially melt with it...


Plague
Crystal Cost: 5 / 15 / 20
Mana Cost: 5 / 15 / 20
Level 1 Statistics: Characteristics Decreased: -15%; Duration: 2 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Characteristics Decreased: -20%; Duration: 2 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Characteristics Decreased: -25%; Duration: 2 turns

Infects a single target with Plague, which lowers Attack, Defense, and HP by a percentage. The Plague is infectious, spreading to friend and foe alike, though Demons, Plants, and inorganic units are immune to the Plague. Undead can carry the Plague, but will not suffer the stat penalties.

Same as always.

Note that Undead Lizardmen fall under 'carries Plague without suffering'.

You're still better off fielding a Necromancer, and now even Decaying Zombies are meaningful competition!


Fear
Crystal Cost: 3 / 3 / 3
Mana Cost: 10 / 10 / 10
Level 1 Statistics: Duration: 2 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Duration: 3 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Duration: 4 turns

Inflicts Fear on a single target, which prevents the unit from attacking units of a higher Level than itself.

No change.


Doom
Crystal Cost: 4 / 8 / 12
Mana Cost: 20 / 20 / 20
Level 1 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-2; Duration: 2 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-3; Duration: 3 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-4; Duration: 4 turns

Afflicts a single enemy unit with Doom, which causes all attacks against them to be critical hits.

No change.

... directly.

This is the high point for Doom. Now that Spells, Rage attacks, and Talents can all crit, Doom is actually a widely-useful booster to damage, and for a Viking in particular Doom gets to benefit from the Viking increasing crit damage with one of their unique Skills. Slapping down a Doom on something so your immediate Rage move does doubled damage can actually be quite useful, and even a force leaning heavy on Talents for offense (eg Alchemists) is not left in the lurch anymore.

It's still limited by its high price and the Level limitation, but it's merely a bit niche, not basically garbage.

On the flipside, Evil Gremlins casting Doom on your forces is slightly higher cause for concern. Not... much higher cause, as they're still really bad about Dooming a target and then immediately Sheeping it thus clearing the Doom, but a little more concerning.


Weakness
Crystal Cost: 5 / 5 / 20
Mana Cost: 5 / 5 / 20
Level 1 Statistics: Duration: 2 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Duration: 3 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Mass; Duration: 3 turns

Affected units always roll minimum damage. Weakness cannot affect Undead or inorganic units.

No change.


Sheep
Crystal Cost: 8 / 16 / 24
Mana Cost: 30 / 35 / 40
Level 1 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-2
Level 2 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-3
Level 3 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-4

Converts a single target enemy into a sheep for 2 turns, preventing it from attacking, counter-attacking, or using Talents, and forcing Speed to be 2 and movement to be grounded. Additionally, a Sheep-ed unit is not under player control. Cannot be used on mechanical units.

No change.


Sacrifice
Crystal Cost: 10 / 20 / 30
Mana Cost: 20 / 30 / 40
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 250; Efficiency: 40%
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 500; Efficiency: 50%
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 750; Efficiency: 60%

Inflicts Astral damage on one allied unit to add health to a different one. The added health can increase a stack's size. Doesn't work on mechanical units.

Sacrifice is now boosted by Creation, improving the 'efficiency' rating; if you have Creation maxed, Level 3 Sacrifice will convert 75% of the damage into Health to add to the benefiting stack. Otherwise it's at first glance unchanged.

However, where Astral damage was very nearly always 100% effective in the prior two games, in Warriors of the North the Guardian Medal now provides Astral resistance. As such, Sacrifice's effectiveness tends to be a little lower than in Armored Princess, unless you neglect to get Guardian ranks.

Furthermore, Sacrifice's mechanics regarding Undead have changed; now you can't Sacrifice non-Undead to benefit Undead, in addition to being unable to Sacrifice Undead to benefit non-Undead. By a similar token, Droids are now fully exempt; no more Sacrificing Guard Droids. Which is a little annoying in timing, actually; shops providing Droids were common and generous from quite early in Armored Princess, where there was really no reason to care about the potential to Sacrifice up Droids. Warriors of the North has an early shop that offers Droids, and then a long gap before you get more opportunities to buy Droids; a player would potentially actually want to Sacrifice up more Droids in Warriors of the North, but can't!

As an aside, a difference in how battles are handled also impacts Sacrifice's utility: in prior games, if all enemy stacks are dead, but one of your units is hostile from being over your Leadership, the battle continues until none of your forces are hostile. In Warriors of the North, the battle will instead end -and the out-of-control stack is completely destroyed.

As such, doing something like Charming the last enemy Stack and then finishing them off with Sacrifice to boost one of your stacks, intending to whittle them down to controllable levels? BAD IDEA.

This is not Sacrifice's low point though.

That's next game.


Necro Call
Crystal Cost: 5 / 10 / 20
Mana Cost: 10 / 20 / 30
Level 1 Statistics: Total Health: 500
Level 2 Statistics: Total Health: 1000
Level 3 Statistics: Total Health: 1500

Animates a single humanoid corpse as a friendly Undead unit. In addition to Necro Call's health limit, the actual headcount caps the production in an intuitive way: a stack that began life as 5 units cannot generate 500 units just because your Mage's Necro Call can theoretically do so, it can only generate 5.

As usual, here's the txt file dump:

skeleton=,sprite,dryad,werewolf,druid,sprite_lake,robber,peasant,footman,goblin2,goblin,robber2,pirat,pirat2,skeleton,satyr,slinger_man,sunny_sprite,sprite_ice,dryad_ice,
    archer=,elf,elf2,bowman,archer,elf3,elf_hunter,
    pirat_ghost=,pirat,pirat2,
    spider_undead=,spider,spider_venom,spider_fire,spider_undead,spider_ice,
    zombie=,werewolf,druid,wolf,robber,footman,zombie,miner,orc2,orc,satyr,barbarian,skald,viking,werewolf_ice,dryad_ice,
    dread_eye=,beholder,beholder2,gorgon,mistik,
    zombie2=,footman2,zombie2,dwarf,cannoner,alchemist,catapult,ogre,orc2,miner2,troll,gorguana,gorguana2,ingeneer,witch_hunter,goblin_shaman,orc_hunter,barbarian2,viking,werewolf_ice,
    ghost=,druid,griffin,ghost,alchemist,giant,hyena,catapult,bear,graywolf,brontor,gorguana,gorguana2,berserk2,highterrant,
    ghost2=,ghost2,bear_white,bear2,ogre,shaman,unicorn2,unicorn,troll,giant,griffin2,ingeneer,ogre_chieftain,shaman_blood,gorguana,gorguana2,axthrower,gorguana_elder,gorguana_council,unicorn_snow,druid_high,gorguana_elder,gorguana_council,
    vampire=,bat,werewolf,horseman,knight,vampire,footman2,pirat2,priest,priest2,assassin,witch_hunter,axthrower,
    vampire2=,bat2,archmage,vampire2,assassin,horsevalkyrie,gorguana_elder,gorguana_council,
    blackknight=,horseman,knight,blackknight,paladin,yarl,horsevalkyrie,yotun,

necromant=,druid,archmage,necromant,demonologist,runemage,soothsayer,firemage,mistique,druid_high,gorguana_elder,mistique,

    bonedragon=,bonedragon,greendragon,blackdragon,reddragon,tirex,dragon_ice,white_hawk,
    undead_gobot=,undead_gobot,gobot,gobot2,
    gorguana_spirit=,gorguana2,gorguana_elder,
    gorguana_avenger=,gorguana_avenger,gorguana,gorguana_council,
    winged_shade=,winged_shade,highterrant,
    undead_brontor=,brontor,undead_brontor,

    necrox=,necrox,tirex,

Other than the unit list being updated, it's the same as ever. The most interesting thing to me is that the Dread Eye has flipped Beholder-type units from impossible to animate to being totally possible to animate, though it's also nice that Lizardmen get animated as Undead Lizardmen now.


Demon Portal
Crystal Cost: 6 / 16 / 26
Mana Cost: 20 / 35 / 44
Level 1 Statistics: Level 2-3; Troop Leadership: 700
Level 2 Statistics: Level 2-4; Troop Leadership: 1400
Level 3 Statistics: Level 3-5; Troop Leadership: 2100

Generates a portal at an arbitrary location of the caster's choice, which occupies the tile, blocking other units from entering. The following turn, the portal is replaced by a stack of Demon units, randomly selected from the types within the level range given.

Curiously, the Mana cost has spiked, adding +5/+10/+10 compared to Armored Princess. Otherwise it's unchanged. Obviously this means the level limit still works out to:

Spell Level 1: Imps, Scoffer Imps, and Cerberi.

Spell Level 2: As above, but gain all Demon units aside from Archdemons. (Except not really)

Spell Level 3: Add in Archdemons, but remove Imps and Scoffer Imps.

Warriors of the North -and Ice and Fire- doesn't even add any Demons to be included in this list. (It's not like the Dragon of Chaos is a valid summon...)

So seriously, it's the same as ever. Including the part where Executioners aren't part of the pool at Spell Level 2 the way they're supposed to be.

In real terms it's harmed a bit by Warriors of the North's accelerated combat pace. Waiting a full turn for a summon to be able to contribute is a lot more harmful when casting some other Spell could potentially get the battle finished before the summoned Demon would even get a turn.


Book of Evil
Crystal Cost: 3 / 6 / 9
Mana Cost: 15 / 20 / 30
Level 1 Statistics: Summons: Book of Evil, Level 3
Level 2 Statistics: Summons: Book of Evil, Level 4
Level 3 Statistics: Summons: Book of Evil, Level 5

Generates a friendly Book of Evil, which has a Talent that allows it to cast random spells. The Book can recharge this Talent by consuming allied stacks or by attacking enemy stacks.

No change to the Spell itself.

... directly.

One of the most subtle changes is an Item one; there are a handful of Items that claim to improve a list of specific Spells that happen to all be summoning Spells, but which in actuality apply to all summoning Spells. Armored Princess already had Items that claimed to boost only specific summoning Spells, and back then this was true, but no longer! So if you're fond of any of the summoning Spells not explicitly listed by such Items, consider equipping one anyway.


Book of Evil (Level 3)
Level: 3
Leadership: 1
Attack/Defense: 20 / 15
Initiative/Speed: 3 / 2
Health: 200
Damage: 20-50 Physical
Resistances: 50% Poison, 80% Magic, -100% Fire
Talents: Random Spell (Charge: 1. Casts a random damaging spell or negative effect on a random enemy), Drain (Charge: 1. Only appears when out of charges for Random Spell. Can consume a friendly unit of 200 or less Health to add 2 charges to Random Spell. This can go over Random Spell's charge cap)
Abilities: Normal Spells (The Book of Evil casts Level 1 Spells), Magic Immunity (80% Magic resist and immunity to spells), Persistence of Mind (Immunity to mental effects), Vulnerable to Fire (+100% Fire vulnerability), Poison Protection (+50% Poison resistance), Eyeless (Immunity to Blind, Precision, and Greasy Mist. Also can detect invisible creatures)

No change.

Except wait, the Spell list has been updated!

Slow, Helplessness, Magic Pole Axe, Flaming Arrow, Poison Skull, Magic Missile, and Corrosion

It's gained Magic Missile and Corrosion. It's also gained logic for avoiding wasting its charge, with Slow refusing to be called if the target already has 1 Speed, Helplessness refusing to be called if the target is Level 1 or the target has less than 5 Defense, and Corrosion only getting called if the target is Armored. (Annoyingly, Droids don't get recognized as Armored targets, so it will never be called on the targets you'd most appreciate it against...)

This isn't huge, but hey.

Also note that, like the Book of Nightmares, the Berserker Skill can in fact trigger on Spells cast by the Book of Evil. This is more funny than practical to leverage, but still.


Book of Evil (Level 4)
Level: 4
Leadership: 1
Attack/Defense: 30 / 25
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 2
Health: 400
Damage: 30-75 Physical
Resistances: 50% Poison, 80% Magic, -100% Fire
Talents: Random Spell (Charge: 1. Casts a random damaging spell or negative effect on a random enemy), Drain (Charge: 1. Only appears when out of charges for Random Spell. Can consume a friendly unit of 400 or less Health to add 2 charges to Random Spell. This can go over Random Spell's charge cap)
Abilities: Strong Spells (The Book of Evil casts Level 2 spells), Magic Immunity (80% Magic resist and immunity to spells), Persistence of Mind (Immunity to mental effects), Vulnerable to Fire (+100% Fire vulnerability), Poison Protection (+50% Poison resistance), Eyeless (Immunity to Blind, Precision, and Greasy Mist. Also can detect invisible creatures)

Hasn't actually changed, aside the list of Spells it can call:

Slow, Helplessness, Magic Pole Axe, Poison Skull, Weakness, Ghost Blade, Fear, Lightning, Doom, Pygmy, and Corrosion

Oddly, it loses Magic Missile and Flaming Arrow compared to the prior Book of Evil. So this is just the Armored Princess list plus Corrosion. As before, there's rules to what can be called when; Pygmy and Doom can't be called against units above Level 3, while Slow, Helplessness, and Corrosion have the same rules as the prior Book of Evil.


Book of Evil (Level 5)
Level: 5
Leadership: 1
Attack/Defense: 40 / 35
Initiative/Speed: 5 / 2
Health: 600
Damage: 50-120 Physical
Resistances: 50% Poison, 80% Magic, -100% Fire
Talents: Random Spell (Charge: 1. Casts a random damaging spell or negative effect on a random enemy), Drain (Charge: 1. Only appears when out of charges for Random Spell. Can consume a friendly unit of 600 or less Health to add 2 charges to Random Spell. This can go over Random Spell's charge cap)
Abilities: Strong Spells (The Book of Evil casts Level 3 Spells), Magic Immunity (80% Magic resist and immunity to spells), Persistence of Mind (Immunity to mental effects), Vulnerable to Fire (+100% Fire vulnerability), Poison Protection (+50% Poison resistance), Eyeless (Immunity to Blind, Precision, and Greasy Mist. Also can detect invisible creatures)

Curiously, the in-game description for this Book of Evil's Strong Spell Ability implies that the lower level Books of Evil can't cast Distortion Spells nor mental Spells. This isn't correct, and is just a weird new claim.

Anyway, the only actual change is the Spell list being updated:

Helplessness, Magic Pole Axe, Poison Skull, Weakness, Ghost Blade, Fear, Lightning, Doom, Pygmy, Sheep, Blind, Hypnosis, the Beholder Sleep effect, and Corrosion

Corrosion got added. The rules are largely the same as with the prior Book of Evil, except that Doom and Pygmy now work on Level 4 units. Sheep, unsurprisingly, also refuses to be called against Level 5 units.

Annoyingly, this tier of Book of Evil quietly doubles the chances of Lightning being called. You know, the Spell that can easily backfire and murder your own army? Sure, it can be really powerful if you get it cast before any enemies are near your forces, but the Book of Evil doesn't get to act until turn 2 and has mediocre Initiative; if you want to Lightning the enemy without frying your own forces, you either need to cast it yourself or rely on a Spell-immune army, realistically speaking.

I really wish they'd just taken Lightning out of the Book of Evil list at some point...


Eviln Zlogn
Crystal Cost: 5 / 10 / 15
Mana Cost: 15 / 25 / 35
Level 1 Statistics: Kills: 30%, Resurrects: 10%
Level 2 Statistics: Kills: 40%, Resurrects: 20%
Level 3 Statistics: Kills: 50%, Resurrects: 30%

Destroys a target corpse, producing a Zlogn. If a non-Undead unit enters the tile the Zlogn occupies, the Zlogn goes off like a trap, ending their turn and inflicting Astral damage equal to a percentage of the stack's base total Health. If an Undead unit enters the tile, their turn will still end, but the Zlogn will heal them by a percentage of the stack's original size, resurrecting dead members of the stack. Additionally, the Zlogn has a 'turn' every turn, and if a unit is adjacent to it when its 'turn' rolls around, it will jump at them from its tile for the same effect, minus ending their turn. This 'turn' has an Initiative of 1.

Other than a different English name, it's the same as it was in Armored Princess, but made even more depressingly irrelevant by the fact that Undead make Zlogn a naturally occurring event now.

The main reason I might bother to use it in Warriors of the North would be to clear out a Loki's Aid fire tile, assuming I was using Undead forces and so was okay walking them into a Zlogn.

Curiously, its Undead-resurrecting capacity is actually improved by the Creation skill; with Rank 3 Creation, a Level 3 Zlogn will use 39% of the stack's original size for its resurrection value. The damage isn't boosted by Destruction, though, weirdly enough.


Death Star
Crystal Cost: 20 / 25 / 30
Mana Cost: 30 / 40 / 50
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 180-230
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 325-415
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 470-600

Targets a single empty, normally-traversible tile. All units in a direct line in every direction from the targeted tile take Astral damage. Ignores Spell immunity.

No change, surprisingly. It even still ignores Spell immunity!

It's also a lot more relevant now that Black Hole is gone and no replacement is around to shunt Death Star aside.

Well.

Sort of, but we'll get to that.

Corrosion
Crystal Cost: 3 / 6 / 9
Mana Cost: 6 / 9 / 12
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 80-120, Physical Resistance: -5, Duration: 3
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 160-240, Physical Resistance -10. Duration: 6
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 240-360, Physical Resistance -15. Duration: 9

A single Armored target has its Physical resistance reduced. If it's a mechanical unit, it additionally takes Magic damage.

The first of Chaos Magic's new Spells!

The .txt file has commented-out information for 'armor' and 'weapon', like so:
    //armor=,archdemon,berserk2,blackknight,demon2,demon,droideka,droideka_guard,footman2,footman,horseman,horsevalkyrie,knight,ogre_chieftain,ogre,orc2,orc,paladin,yarl,
    //weapon=,archer,assassin,axthrower,barbarian2,barbarian,berserk2,blackknight,bowman,cannoner,catapult,demon2,demon,droideka,droideka_guard,dwarf,elf2,elf,footman2,footman,goblin2,goblin,gorguana,horseman,horsevalkyrie,knight,miner2,miner,orc2,orc,orc_hunter,paladin,peasant,pirat2,pirat,robber2,robber,skald,skeleton,vampire2,vampire,viking,werewolf,witch_hunter,yarl,zombie2,zombie,

The Armor section is redundant with what the game actually does of just checking for the Armored Ability, while the Weapon section is cut content -at some point Corrosion was supposed to negatively impact the damage output of the listed units. It's a little unfortunate it got cut, because Corrosion is a bit narrow as-is; among other points, there's quite a few units with modest to severe Physical resistance who aren't Armored and so not susceptible to Corrosion. (Such as the ghosts you fight tons of)

Interestingly, not only does the damage scale with Intellect and get boosted by the Destruction Skill, but so does the reduction to Physical resistance; every 5 points of Intellect adds -1 to the effect, capping at 50 Intellect and thus a further -10, while Destruction of course adds -3 per rank; if you reach 50 Intellect with Destruction at Rank 3 and Corrosion at Level 3, that's a total penalty of -31; this is enough to reduce most Armored targets to 0 Physical resistance. (Well, it should be -32, but for some reason the calculation takes away a point)

Also note that Corrosion cannot reduce a target below 0 Physical resistance, nor does it affect anything except 'base' resistances; say you use your maxed-out Corrosion on a Warrior Maiden with their 20% innate Physical resistance. Not only will you still only reduce them to 0 instead of -11, but if Stone Skin is cast on them, Corrosion won't subtract its full 31 points from their total Physical resistance; it will still only subtract 20. This makes enemy-cast Corrosion notably less effective than you might expect, because the Guardian Medal's resistance boost can't be Corroded away, nor can resistance boosts from any Items you might have equipped.

For anti-Droid work, Corrosion is one of your best possible options; its damage is solid, its Mana cost is low, it hits on their Magic weakness so its actual damage will be 50% higher than the above numbers imply, and then on top of all that you cripple one of their key resistances, making it much easier to have troops follow up. (Assuming your army has Physical attackers, which admittedly is much easier to escape in Warriors of the North than in prior games) This also means it's solidly useful regardless of your class for this job; the Soothsayer appreciates the cheap, good damage regardless of whether they care about their army being able to follow up, while the other classes are perfectly happy to use it for the Physical resistance reduction (Which has nearly no competition as a niche) and treat any damage done as a freebie.

For taking away the Physical resistance of other Armored units, Corrosion is at least unique; resistance penalties are not something the series passes out readily. This is unfortunately possibly the worst game to be picking up an anti-Armored Spell in, as the factions Armored is concentrated in had more presence overall in prior games while Undead only have the one example... but to be fair, Black Knights are a huge pain to kill, so you may still appreciate Corrosion when fighting them.

I feel it's unfortunately a bit too niche overall, but the idea is cool, and the execution could certainly be worse.


Cloud of Poison
Crystal Cost: 5 / 15 / 20
Mana Cost: 10 / 15 / 20
Level 1 Statistics: Hits: 5, Poison Power: 20%
Level 2 Statistics: Hits: 6, Poison Power: 25%
Level 3 Statistics: Hits: 7, Poison Power: 30%

Generates a cloud that Poisons units underneath it several times.

You might intuitively expect Cloud of Poison to be a Spell version of Sleem's Cloud of Poison from back in The Legend, and that... wouldn't be entirely wrong... but it's an expectation that's liable to end in disappointment.

First of all, this Cloud of Poison doesn't move. In and of itself this seems like it should be good -I commented at the time that Sleem's Cloud of Poison being willing to move was a big part of the problem with it- but then we get to...

Point the second; this Cloud of Poison just Poisons targets. It doesn't do damage directly. Right away, this means its 'number of hits' parameter is very difficult to care about; a target that stands under the Cloud of Poison for its full number of hits probably at most has the duration of its Poison extended by one turn.

Point the third: if you looked at that '20%' at Level 1 and got excited by the idea of Poison that wipes out 25-30% of a stack per turn, that's... not what it means. It's 20% as in '5-10 becomes 1-2'. As in, at Level 1 it's an incredibly weak Poison that only does 1-2% damage.

It does both scale with Intellect and get boosted by the Creation (Yes, not Destruction) Skill; it adds 1% to the Poison Power rating for every 3 points of Intellect, while Creation adds 2% per rank. So theoretically you could get it to over 100% Poison Power and thus stronger than regular Poison, but you'd need well over 100 Intellect for this to actually happen. Warriors of the North is generous with Intellect boosts, but not that generous.

And of course having somewhere over 100 Intellect is the kind of number where you should be able to negligently wave a hand at an endgame army to instantly wipe it out with a single Blizzard or the like. So... why would you bother, even if you hacked your game or something to get such high Intellect?

Bizarrely, the number of hits also scales with Intellect, and uses the same calculation as with Intellect boosting damage. So 5% more hits per point, plus 15% more hits every seventh point of Intellect. This is incredibly weird and also basically useless.

I really don't understand why this Cloud of Poison is so undertuned. An immobile, Spell-based version of Sleem's Cloud of Poison would've been amazing, finally providing a good Spell option for Poison damage, and escaping most of the problems with Sleem's Cloud of Poison back in The Legend. Instead, we got a way to inflict regular Poison en mass, with a very weak scaling factor to... not really help at all...

As insult to injury, if a target currently has 80% Poison resistance, it will be immune to Cloud of Poison even if it doesn't have innate immunity to the Poison status.


Heat Focus
Crystal Cost: 8 / 14 / 20
Mana Cost: 10 / 20 / 30
Level 1 Statistics: Center Damage: 90-150, Outer Damage: 30-50, Burn Chance: 30%, Freeze chance: 15%
Level 2 Statistics: Center Damage: 190-315, Outer Damage: 60-105, Burn Chance: 60%, Freeze chance: 30%
Level 3 Statistics: Center Damage: 290-470, Outer Damage: 90-160, Burn Chance: 90%, Freeze chance: 45%

Targets a 7-tile region. The center tile takes Fire damage with a chance to Burn, while the outer tiles take Ice damage with a chance to Freeze.

Chaos Magic's last new Spell. It's a nifty idea playing around with physics ideas, though it's rare you'll fight a battlegroup where its behavior is all that synergistic. (You don't normally see Plants fighting alongside Demons, for example) The fact that the center damage is its highest damage and is Fire damage is also a strike against it, as Fireball is a more economical way of dishing out good Fire damage, even if Heat Focus can roll higher in the center than Fireball's central damage. If it worked the opposite way, it would at least be getting Chaos Magic a workable Ice damage Spell, something to break out when eg trying to rapidly kill a Demon of some sort with an Olaf whose Chaos Magic is Level 3 and whose Rune Magic is still Level 1.

So it's a cool Spell idea, but while it's definitely the best of the new Chaos Magic Spells, that's not really the same as saying it's a good Spell.

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That was pretty straightforward and lackluster.

Next time, we cover what Warriors of the North has done with Order magic.