Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I'm pretty sure it's province scales that determines whether old-age units get afflicted in late winter.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Is Relief better than the manual makes it sound? Reinvig 1 is pretty pointless.

-Max

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

"I wanted to point out a potentially game breaking exploitable bug. It’s listed on Edi’s short list, but I think it’s not been apparent how game breaking it can be. Normally I’m all for playing the game as it is, but I can’t in good conscious suggest that anybody really exploits what I’m about to point out. Skratti in werewolf form have no upkeep. They go from 8 research to 6, but if you really ride this and switch all your skratti to werewolves while recruiting nothing else you quickly overcome this and the consequences are nauseating. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the student the implications of doing this in conjunction with the next few paragraphs I lay out."

I should echo that this should definitely not be included as part of any strategy. It's a flat out exploit that players shouldn't be encouraged to use.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I spent a lot of time with Skratti in KingMaker playing Utgard and came to enjoy them. I used a traditional E/N bless and Shrouds (only 5S in a non-CB game). In conjunction with Vine Shields and Brands, these Werewolves ripped through everything they faced. In the arena deathmatch, one of them dropped a kitted out Bane Lord in one round. Good times...

The most effective way of stopping them early on is an Eye Shield (only Con 2, amazingly) on a high defense unit, like a Sidhe. Forces any surviving blind Skratti to retire to the lab, or start a new career as a Blood hunter.

Fatigue can also be a counter. My one disastrous and humbling engagement in KingMaker occurred when my opponent cast Rigor Mortis, combined with tons of chaffe and Fog Warriors, and Drain Life spam. That was one battle I will never forget so would work towards having those spells as a late game counter to massed Skratti.

This probably goes without saying when playing but I'd always cast Wolven Winter and drop the scales to Cold-3 before any engagement. I didn't waste time with any Skratti self-buffs other than Quicken Self either, preferring to eliminate my opponents ability to buff before the wolf-slaughter began.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

PS I didn't know about that bug but did wonder why my upkeep was not killing me. As the game wore on I got tired of the micro and stopped changing shape, leaving the Skratti in wolf form. Now I know why upkeep wasn't such a problem. Hope that gets fixed as I agree that is a major exploit, especially in a long game like KM...

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I do agree with the guide jotun skinshifters are a very overlooked unit, but not that it makes sense to discard the bless with niefel.

In essence, I think you can have your cake and eat it too, a bless and make use of skinshifters as needed. A dominion 7 imprisoned cyclops with e9n4 actually gets you _better_ scales than the master liche baalz suggests (or dom 10 with the same scales).

Not only does this make you even scarier in the early game, it really pays dividends once you reach the mid game. No encumbrance regening niefel jarls are passable scs right out of the box... start adding items and they really get mean. You don't need to use these one dimensionally, but the bless to make them into these killing machines is not hard to afford, you can easily pursue other options as needed.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Well, yes certainly there are other ways to play it, but I don't think the gain of crystal coins specifically can be overstated. It's the difference between having teleporting thugs or not, of which Niefel has none naturally, not to mention opening up the real nice astral stuff. That's a pretty huge difference, bigger IMO than a little extra protection and regen on your sacreds. Also, the teleporting immortal pretender himself is a huge asset that adds a lot to Niefel's flexibility. Not to mention the difference in having an awake site searching pretender makes in your gem flow - astral and earth specifically (not to mention pushing your initial dominion). That imprisoned cyclops is very likely not going to be contributing any dwarven hammers until after he goes out manually site searching a bit, comes back, forges one, then another a few turns later when he has the gems - what into year 4? Contrasted, the awake master lich likely has the first hammer out before const-4 is hit, and almost certainly has several out by const-6 when they're needed, he's probably cranking out crystal coins by then (with the astral and earth income he provided). All this before the cyclops ever shows his face...and then the cyclops doesn't really add much when he does (as opposed to a air drop heavy hitter)

Granted, yes it goes without saying that E/N Jarls are good, and I'll concede that you can have a legitimate difference of opinion, but I wouldn't call that having your cake and eating it to.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Wow. I had not realized how amazing Blood Thorns on a high-strength unit can be--that's as good as Soul Vortex. In a quick test game, I had a Skratti whom I forgot to set to "attack," so he cast a couple of spells (including Quicken Self) and then got hit by an arrow and went berserk when he was around 53 fatigue. One disintegrated square of indies later he was down to 32 fatigue, and the next time I looked he was at zero. I have to admit I also had him blessed (via Shroud) with an E9N4 bless, but it's quite obvious that Blood Thorn is quite capable of draining enough to offset encumbrance and recover from buffs. The combination of high-strength, extra bite attack, quickness, and blood thorn for healing/reinvig is simply amazing.

I do agree with QM that E9N? bless still looks quite tasty (and lets you put cheap shrouds on skrattir to tide you through until blood thorns are available). Forging Crystal Coins doesn't seem like a big deal to me--save up 50 pearls and Empower your pretender to S1 and give him a skullcap. YMMV of course because there are consequencs to an S1 pretender (can't use him in combat).

Thanks, Baalz, for showing me where Blood is useful--forging magic items. From now on I will be about a hundred times more likely to wish for blood slaves... I may give Wraith Swords a spin, too.

-Max

P.S. You've also inspired me to write up a Skratti + Athame, etc. thug as a unit in order to drop it into battle replays as a test. Paralyze is still a great counter since Skratti MR is mediocre.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

It is just absolutely amazing the number of cool and interesting combinations there are.

I've been playing since the first release - and I still get excited about nations - most recently, LA-Ulm and EA-Arco.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Let me say, I think it is your best guide so far :) But I prefer a man of your experience to make guides about our underdogs ;)

Keep those coming!