Ympes
From Ex illis wiki
- Fire, Lightning and Veil attacks
- Dangerous for enemy casters
- Agile but very vulnerable
Ympes are small, highly explosive casters (literally!) that can cause massive damage if handled properly. These small demons are difficult to hit due to their slippery nature but are also quite fragile if caught. A single hit is often enough to kill them.
- Teleport: Diagonal movements and terrain penalties do not slow down this unit when moving. It accumulates Veil instead of Fatigue for all movements.
- Cowards: Unless acting as a Retinue, this unit cannot charge unengaged enemies.
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Story Notes
The Ympes are a breed of small and common fiends from Christian mythology who started to appear with the first occurrence of the Flael. Presumed to be servants in hell, these demons are not so much evil as they are mischievous. They are eternal tricksters who love to ‘play’ regardless of the fact that the consequences might be quite dangerous or even lethal to their victims.
The Ympes, unlike larger demons, are more of a nuisance rather than real enemies of Christendom. It is considered a serious curse to have an Ympe infestation in the remote and dark corners of a castle. Hard to catch and unpredictably dangerous, they have caused the death of many servants who were trying to get rid of them. Some bold merchants attempt, nonetheless, to capture these demons, as they fetch an enormous price in the circles of magicians and witches who take them as pets or use them as ingredients for certain particularly potent concoctions.
While they seem to gather in social groups, Ympes do not directly communicate with other species. After a few years of (deadly) trial and error, a technique was developed to tame these devilish creatures. It involves supplying the demons with a live mouse daily that the Ympe can torment at will before eating. Today, it is common to see a lord or a mercenary company who owns a group of Ympes to add a magical punch to their rank.
However, even tamed Ympes remain unpredictable creatures. From time to time, one will spontaneously decide to make ‘a good joke’… like taking an ally for a target!
Gameplay Summary
The Ympes are extremely offensive casters capable of much destruction so long as they are kept from harm. They should be treated as glass cannons—deadly but fragile. They specialize in long-range fighting, with three main branches of casting: Fire, Lightning and Veil manipulation.
Fire spells allow the Ympes to act as archers or even artillery. This gives them an easy and versatile role to fill as support shooters with the added twist that magic missile use Elemental Resistance instead of Armour for their calculation. Lightning attacks are more specialized since they will always hit something (unless there is cover in the zone), but the target is selected according to the amount of armour worn by the warriors in a specific zone without much attention paid to who is friend and who is foe.
The small stature of the Ympes makes them hard to hit with range attacks. Cavalry units also have a hard time hitting these creatures since their high evade value provides a good defence against a charge (especially when Blink is activated). The best way to deal with these nasty creatures is to use tile-wide attacks like the Marrennes’ wind spells. The damage of such attacks isn’t all that high, but that doesn’t matter, considering that the Ympes have a very low amount of HP to start with.
Ympes are teleporters by nature, which allows them to leave melees without any penalty. This is particularly useful when Ympes get stuck in a melee with an enemy that could dispatch them quickly. But keep in mind that teleporting costs veil, which in turn translates to an added vulnerability to magic and less spell power when casting. Thankfully, the fiends have a few tricks up their sleeve to deal with this issue, like the ability to transfer their veil to someone else… and then make the accumulated Veil explode on the poor target.
Statistics
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Main Article: Stats
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Characteristics
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Muster
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Morale
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Skills
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Related Articles
You would like to add a unit of Ympes to your army? Get one from one of the following boxes:
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