age of wonders shadow magic unlock tier 4 units

Still having a hard time justifying using a staff on a magic hero over the orbs though, particularly since it disables mounts (and it's a little weird to me that it's the only weapon that does so, I was actually expecting sword-and-shield would too). Which means most things actually seem pretty good to me, although I probably like mages the best on the whole. And crossbowmen surprised me with how much damage they can put out when flanking despite only getting one shot. Question for everybody: how do you like to set up your heroes? Is there any reason for them to ever not be mounted? Any weapons/skill trees seem sub-par/overpowered compared to the rest? I've dabbled in most of them at this point, and was actually surprised to find that the sword-and-shield setup doesn't seem inferior to the rest, since triple-attacking means quite a bit of damage, and they are pretty tanky, so the retaliation strikes aren't such a problem. But oh well, I should be fine, I only set the difficulty to normal. which may have been a slight mistake, since it seems like that map is low on free cities, and it seems like a lot of Order benefits focus around giving you benefits with those.

Started on story map 2 with Order Orcs (with minor nature leanings due to their culture). Especially with prospecting (probably helped that there were mountains all over the place in that map). Materium sure does give you a crap load of production though, holy cow. I wound up finishing it on something like turn 32, actually, only feel like I saw the low-level Materium stuff, so I'll need to bust that faction out again at some point. Had intended for them to minor in chaos magic, but that map is too small for that to have ever really become a thing. Played through a game on the first story map today, using Leonel with a heavy focus on Materium magic.

Age of wonders shadow magic unlock tier 4 units