[Snaps]

How could Ceremonial Magic best be used in an Army?

If two armies have access to Mages that can use Ceremonial Magic, what common tactics do you think they would employ?

For now let's assume that each army has 3 Mages, and each mage has 100 Supporters. For the sake of this exercise let's say that each of those mages knows every spell in the book at 15. (But I'm think realistically each army would have more mages, each knowing a handful of the needed spells and they would lead the Supporters as needed).

Let's also not bring any of the Enlarge Spells into this.

I think any of the Create Spells are going to be important. For Battle the Create Elemental spells are hard to beat, but you run into the problem of creating elementals that later on are so powerful they'll just run out of control.

I think it's also hard to beat Mass Zombie, but Turn Zombie is a pretty good counter.

I think a Spell Shield would be pretty standard to protect an armies camp and army, but this won't stop Missile Spells or Thrown Spells from getting through. It also might be too expensive to maintain, even with 300 supporters.

Is there a way to stop Telecast Spells from hitting you behind enemy lines?

Spell Mortar seems like it would be the standard. You put an area spell like Rain of Stones in a Throw Spell, toss it over your army and have it go off. Actually, I think throwing a Delay spell would be best. You could Throw a Delayed Area spell, set to go off once it reaches its maximum distance. The next round the Area spell would then go off and it wouldn't have to be centered at the impact point, you could throw it and have the delay activate it with its edge beginning at the maximum range of the throw spell (80 yards).

Not sure how you could stop Thrown spells like this, since they wouldn't get close enough to use Catch Spell or be effected by a Missile Shield. Utter or Force Dome would work or course, but I think you'd only be able to protect your mages with those.

Thoughts?