| High Elf Magicians | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Race | High Elves | |
| Req. Town Buildings | Wizards' Guild | |
| Construction Cost |
 180 | |
| Upkeep Cost |
 4 1 | |
| ||
| # of figures |
 4 | |
| Moves |
 2 | |
| Melee Attack per figure |
 1 | |
| Ranged Attack per figure |
 5 | |
| Defense per figure |
 3 | |
| Resistance |
 10 | |
| Hit Points per figure |
 1 | |
| ||
|
 Fireball Spell x1 | ||
High Elf Magicians are a type of Normal Unit. This unit may be created at a High Elf town, for the Construction Cost of 180. The town must already contain a Wizards' Guild for this to be possible.
Like all Magicians, High Elf Magicians are specialized Ranged Attack units with some spell-casting ability. Their primary attack is a fairly-strong Magical Ranged Attack, accurate over any distance and quite dangerous to most units - even low-tier Fantastic Creatures. Once per battle, High Elf Magicians can cast a Fireball spell which is even more dangerous. High Elf Magicians possess an excellent Resistance score, and are also incredibly resistant to 
Ranged Missile Attacks. They are also surprisingly fast for Walking units.
High Elf Magicians require an Upkeep Cost of 4 and 1 to maintain. Failure to pay these costs will result in the unit being disbanded automatically.
Unit Properties
Physical Description
High Elf Magicians are a group of tall and slender humanoids with blond hair and beards. They dressed in colorful tunics, and carry staves topped with blue spherical gems. These staves are used to channel magical energy into a destructive force, which the Magicians hurl at their enemies. In an emergency, the staves can also be used for hand-to-hand self defense. The strong magical field surrounding the High Elf Magicians deflects incoming projectiles, and makes these elves very much in-tune with nature.
High Elf Magicians are a Multi-Figure unit, containing 
4 figures when fully healed.
Attack Properties
High Elf Magicians rely primarily on a strong Magical Ranged Attack, which they can use up to 4 times in each battle. In emergencies, they will switch to a Melee Attack which is significantly weaker.
Each Magician's Ranged Attack has a strength of 5. Coupled with the unit's innate racial bonus of 
+10% To Hit, each Magician inflicts about 
2.0 points of Damage with each attack - a fairly good amount capable of going through light armor rather easily. Note that because this is a Magical Ranged Attack, it does not suffer from distance penalties and is accurate against any target on the battlefield.
When they run out of ammunition and/or are forced to do Melee combat, each Magician attacks with a strength of 
1. Even with the innate racial bonus of +10% To Hit, this amounts to only about 0.4 Damage points per Magician, and will struggle to get through any armor. High Elf Magicians are therefore discouraged from doing hand-to-hand combat, and will normally use their fast movement speed to evade their enemies rather than engage them.
Defense Properties
The High Elf Magicians possess an above-average Defense score of 3. They can deflect about 0.9 points of Damage from any damage source, on average. This is a decent amount of armor when fighting low-tier Normal Units, but will not protect the Magicians from any serious opponent.
As with most Normal Units, each High Elf Magician possesses only 1 Hit Point. In other words, each point of Damage inflicted on this unit will kill off one of its figures.
The combination of low Hit Points with a low number of figures ( 4 Magicians per unit) means that High Elf Magicians are very poorly defended, and will die very easily when attacked. This is one more reason why they should avoid Melee combat at all costs.
Fortunately, High Elf Magicians are surrounded by a magical field that will almost completely deflect any Ranged Missile Attack direct at them. When such an attack is made on the High Elf Magicians, their Defense score is temporarily boosted to 50 (!), making it almost completely impossible for any damage to go through.
High Elf Magicians possess a "perfect" Resistance score of 10, making them extremely resistant to Curses and other ill effects, including some types of Special Attacks. In fact, they are by default immune to several such effects. With each additional Experience Level they earn, High Elf Magicians become immune to a wider and wider variety of ill effects, and can potentially become immune to all of them.
Other Properties
High Elf Magicians move relatively fast compared to other Normal Units, at 2. This is a movement speed generally associated with Cavalry and other similar units. With this high movement rate the Magicians can easily evade enemy units during battle or even on the overland map. This is important, because High Elf Magicians are rather fragile and may often be required to maneuver on the battlefield to avoid being attacked.
Like most other High Elf units, High Elf Magicians possess the Forester trait, which allows the Magicians and any units stacked with them to move through Forest tiles at a cost of 1 Movement Point per tile. As long as the stack only contains units with a Movement Allowance of 2 or more, the entire stack should be able to "cruise" through Forest tiles like they were Grassland - moving at least 2 tiles per turn.
This makes High Elf Magicians into decent scouts, but only if there are plenty of Grassland, Desert and Forest tiles to move through in the region they are scouting.
Fireball Spell
Once per battle, the High Elf Magicians can cast a single Fireball spell at a targeted enemy unit.
The Fireball spell executes a single Immolation Damage attack against the chosen target. This is a very specialized kind of attack that is stronger against Multi-Figure units - the more figures, the stronger the attack! This is exceptionally potent against enemy Normal Units and low-tier Fantastic Units.
The Fireball has a strength of 5. Unlike the version of this spell that can be cast by dedicated spell-casters (or the wizard himself), it is not possible to adjust the amount of 
Mana invested into this spell, thus it cannot be made stronger. It will always have a strength of exactly 5.
Targets with Magic Immunity or Fire Immunity will suffer no damage from this spell whatsoever.
Basic Strategy
High Elf Magicians are possibly the most powerful Ranged Attack units in the High Elf military. They rival the Longbowmen in strength, and the additional use of the Fireball Spell can greatly help to tip the battle in your favor. On the other hand, High Elf Magicians are quite expensive to produce and maintain, making their use less prevalent.
The primary advantage that High Elf Magicians have over Longbowmen is the Magical nature of their attack. Not only can it do damage to targets with Missile Immunity, but it also does not suffer from To Hit penalties for firing at distant targets. Where Longbowmen may be forced to wait until the enemy draws closer, High Elf Magicians can attack enemies anywhere on the battlefield with the same end results. This makes High Elf Magicians terrific at taking out enemy Ranged Attackers on the first few rounds of combat.
The Fireball spell should be used early in the battle to take out (or seriously injure) the most threatening enemy Multi-Figure unit on the battlefield. Again, the more figures there are in the enemy unit, the stronger the spell, so choose your target carefully. Remember that this spell costs you nothing, so never forget to cast it!
With a few High Elf Magicians in an army, it is possible to cause plenty of damage to an advancing opponent or his Ranged Attack troops before Melee combat erupts. If the enemy goes after the High Elf Magicians themselves, make sure to use their speed to keep them as far away from combat as possible. They are unlikely to survive Melee with any enemy unit. If necessary, High Elf Magicians can retreat one tile and then use their Ranged Attack - at least until they run out of ammunition.
Always remember that enemies possessing Magic Immunity will shrugs off the High Elf Magicians' attack. In these cases, Longbowmen would have the upper hand.
Ability Overview
Ranged Attack x4
- This unit may use a Magical Ranged Attack instead of a Melee Attack 4 times in each battle. Once the unit's ammo is expended, it must resort to Melee Attacks.
+10% To Hit
- This unit has an extra 10% chance to hit its target with every attack. This improves its statistical chance to inflict more Damage with each attack it makes.
Forester
- This unit may move through any Forest tile at a rate of 1 Movement Point per tile.
- When this unit is stacked with other units, the entire stack may move through Forest tiles at a rate of 1 Movement Point per tile.
Missile Immunity
- Any Missile Attack performed against this unit will temporarily raise the unit's Defense score to 50 - allowing it to block virtually any incoming damage.
- Magical or Boulder attacks do not trigger this effect, and will damage the unit as normal.
Fireball Spell x1
- This unit may cast the Fireball spell once per combat at any enemy target. The spell is cast at its default strength (no additional Mana invested).
- This spell-casting does not take Mana out of the Wizard's pool, nor does it reduce the Wizard's Spell Skill for this battle.
- Immediately after casting the spell, the unit's turn ends. It may not move or attack until its next turn.
Experience Table
The following table illustrates how High Elf Magicians improves as they gain Experience. Any properties that are not listed here do not improve with Experience in any way.
| Level Icon | Level Name | EP | Melee | Ranged | To Hit | Defense | Resist | Hits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Recruit |  0 - 19
|
1
|
5
|
40%
|
3
|
10
|
1
|
|
Regular | 20 - 59
|
2
|
6
|
40%
|
3
|
11
|
1
|
|
Veteran | 60 - 119
|
2
|
6
|
40%
|
4
|
12
|
1
|
|
Elite | 120
|
3
|
7
|
50%
|
4
|
13
|
2
|
|
Ultra-Elite | 120 *
|
3
|
7
|
60%
|
5
|
14
|
2
|
|
Champion | 120 **
|
4
|
8
|
70%
|
5
|
15
|
3
|
* To achieve this level, either the Warlord Retort or the Crusade spell must be in play.
** To achieve this level, both the Warlord Retort and the Crusade spell must be in play simultaneously.
Average Damage Output
The table below details the average amount of damage that each Figure in a High Elf Magicians unit will deliver with each type of attack, based on 
Experience Level. It can be used in comparison to the target's Defense rating to figure out the chance of hurting that target.
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* Magical Ranged Attacks do not suffer To Hit penalties for distance. Therefore, the values in this column apply at any distance.
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">Acquisition
High Elf Magicians may be produced in any High Elf Town.
A town must contain a Wizards' Guild to be able to produce High Elf Magicians. Should a town lose an existing Wizards' Guild, it can no longer produce High Elf Magicians until a replacement structure is built.
The Construction Cost of this unit is 180.
High Elf Magicians may appear for hire as Mercenaries. They may already have some Experience on being hired, and several units may be hired simultaneously. Hiring these units requires a certain cost in Gold that depends on many different factors. High Elf Magicians Mercenaries have the same Upkeep Cost as a normally-constructed unit.