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In all my Ali Baba sims, just two or sometimes three skills appeared to enhance the attack, with different skills standing out depending on the situation. Overrun, Battle Frenzy and/or Garrison Annex usually had the greatest effect.
You're correct that Anslem is the best general in some situations where Dazzle cuts first strike damage in half, and you provide a good theoretical example with numbers. However, I simulated various skill sets to measure their performance against different Ali Baba camps . You'll be disappointed to learn there was seldom much benefit from either Lightning Slash or Master Planner. Where I did find a marginally better performance, it was with Lightning Slash, in situations where long combat times allowed it to synergize with Battle Frenzy.
I have an example to test your theory: in Treasure of Wisdom there's a camp (#25 in my
previous run-through of the adventure) that contains 60 Horsemen, 60 Dune Marksmen, 60 Desert Marksmen, and 1 Mysterious Thief. So it resembles your theoretical example. Untrained Anslem is the best general to kill this camp, and can do so in 3 rounds with a loss of 20 Mounted Swordsmen max. If you train Anslem with other relevant combat skills plus Master Planner, he can kill it in 2 rounds with a loss of 16 MS. Same result with Lightning Slash: 2 rounds with a loss of 16 MS. Master Planner might be the better skill than Lightning Slash for this kind of attack, but in this case the difference amounts to nothing.
In my
run-through of TOW, trained Anslem replaced Majors, Vargus or other generals as the best attacker for 7 camps. I had already trained Anslem when I did this run-through, so I didn't try simulations using Master Planner for comparison on the rest. But most or all of the 7 include first strikers and many also include bosses or leaders. So Hellvena, if you want to back up your theory, there's where you might find evidence.
I believe training skills can make Anslem better than any other general at killing bosses. That's why I chose Lightning Slash for synergy with Overrun, Battle Frenzy, and yes, Juggernaut.
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