The first thing you should do after building a Mage Tower or Temple of the Damned is train a Death Knight or Mage. Death Knight or Mage can then build up their mana while they are researching their spells.

Two or more Mage Towers or Temples of The Damned are best as you can train using one, and research spells in the other.

( Blizzard ) ( Death & Decay )

Know What Is Going On Where You Cast Your Blizzard
A funny thing to see is people that Blizzard some place without checking to see if the enemy is actually there. Be sure to scout before Blizzarding unless you are sure the enemy is there.

Don't Be Afraid to Blizzard Your Own Units and Buildings
Sometimes there are enemy units in your town and casting a Blizzard is your only choice. Feel free to Blizzard your own town. Usually, your Blizzard doesn't destroy any of your buildings and you can always repair them afterward. Try to move all of your units out of the way before casting a Blizzard.

A Blizzard hits a 5x5 area with minimal damage of 7x7. When cast on a building it centers over the top left of the building.

A Mage or Death Knight cannot be hit by their own Blizzard or Death and Decay! If someone attacks your Death Knight, cast Death and Decay right in front of you and walk into it or have the Death Knight cast it on itself. The enemy must walk through the Death and Decay to reach the Death Knight. If you want to kill a group of Peasants, stand in the middle of them then cast a Blizzard right on top of the Mage.

Blizzards and Death and Decay increase in intensity and damage the longer they go. If you want to do the maximum amount of damage, cast it once and let it continue until out of mana.

While it's quite easy to kill a stationary building with a Blizzard killing moving enemy units can be more difficult.

Double Blizzard
You can take out a huge army of Ogres or Knights with only 2 Death Knights or Mages. Cast Death & Decay right in front of your Death Knight. Wait till the Death & Decay is going for a few seconds then use the other Death Knight to cast Death and Decay right on the Ogres or Knights. The Ogres will then charge into the already going Death and Decay and will be severely damaged and sometimes all be killed.

See how to do the double Blizzard

Mage Bomb
A term coined by Shaf, a Mage bomb is done using only one Mage. The Mage casts Blizzard once on collections of enemy units, then immediately begins casting Blizzard on himself. The one cast of Blizzard sets off, or wakes up the enemy causing them to charge the Mage. They will run into a full blown Blizzard and will die in great numbers. Using only one Mage, which usually dies, you will kill quite a few enemy units putting the enemy behind in resources lost in the battle.

[ Click to Enlarge - 82 KB ] The Human player casts Blizzard on the Orcs with Paladins up front. The Orc player in a brilliant maneuver runs through the Blizzard charging the Paladin while at the same time uses a Catapult to fire over the trees and a Death Knight to cast Death and Decay on the Paladins and Mage.

Normal Buildings
With the exception of Towers, you just walk until your Mage is within range, then aim the center of the Blizzard on the building, next use the entire mana on that building. You may find it is better to click just right, left, above or below the building instead of clicking on the actual building because you can control where the blizzard will hit much better.

[ Click to Enlarge - 82 KB ] Mages destroy enemy Orc Farms.

Towers
Towers only have about 160 hit points which means they do not require full mana to destroyed.

Take the Death Knight or Mage, and cast just to the side of a Tower rather than clicking on the building. Then cast the Blizzard. Watch the mana bar. When you see 50 mana - 75 mana go down on the mana meter, hit stop on the Mage. You can also watch the Death Knight or Mage's arms. When you see them move 2-3 times, stop.

Depending on how you aim the Blizzard sometimes you can destroy Guard Towers with only two casts of Blizzard while sometimes times it takes 3. Cannon Towers seem to take at least 3 casts to kill.

Place Flying Machines around to spot for incoming enemy attacks. Use Mages to cast Blizzards on the enemy as they come in.

[ Click to Enlarge - 52 KB ] Yellow Human tries to invade with 4 Mages at the same time. Big mistake as they were not invisible, and easy victims to one defending Aqua Mage casting Blizzard.	[ Click to Enlarge - 51 KB ] The Yellow Mages were bold and sloppy and paid the price.

Make a Mage Invisible then walk all the way to your enemy's mine. Cast a Blizzard on the enemy Peons. It's best to stand in the middle of the Peons and cast the Blizzard as close to you as possible. Aim the Blizzard aiming icon as close to the mage as the computer will allow. Then cast the blizzard in a line from their Great Hall to the Mine. You don't have to worry about hitting yourself. It is almost impossible to kill that Mage with the Peons. We tried it. Who cares if you Mage dies. If you can get him out great, if not too bad.

You don't have to be in the middle of the Peons. You can cast Blizzard on the Peons from a distance away if the Peons are heavily defended.

The only Orc equivalent is to sneak near the mine and try Death and Decay. You could cast Unholy Armour and Haste on the the Death Knight and Walk straight to the mine. But this really does not compare to ease of Invisibility.

Defending Against Invisible Mage's Blizzarding Peons
The best defense is to wall of the town entirely so no enemy unit can get in. This can be hard to do while making your town so you can get out but using Barracks it is possible.

Keep a Mage near your mine and cast Polymorph on any enemy mage that starts to Blizzard. If you are Orc, use Death Coil. You can put a few arrow, or cannon Towers close to your mine. You can place a few Archers, or Axe Throwers near the mine to kill the Mage and still be out of range of the Blizzard. The whole key is to have these guys a little away from the mine so they will not get hit by the Blizzard. Some Cannon Towers and and some Archers probably would be the best defense.