Re: LA Utgard guide
 

I'd argue against a large bless. The woodsmen aren't worth it. Capital only, large, no shields, no real special abilities. They're not good enough for a strong rush and to remain relevant into the mid/late game. Jarls are the natural focus for a bless strategy, but if you're gearing up thugs Skratti are better. For them, a bless with Shrouds can be nice, but it's hardly essential.
I'd aim for an awake or dormant pretender to add magic diversity, particularly Earth for hammers, and a minor bless or two. E4N4 for the regen/reinvig or E4S4 mostly for forging ES boosters etc.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

then where would you spend your points? No point having an SC pretender, bonus points for cold, high dominion a bit wasteful if not using blessed woodsmen.. I think high production is a waste given how much you will rely on thugs, when the woodsmen are there for early expansion.. that is the beauty of woodsmen, very cheap resources for a giant, letting you field good armies without production scales, with sloth even. After the early stages you have great thugs and strong mages

I agree that skratti are your best thugs, but shrouding them is awesome if running a powerful bless, far better than any other cheap armour. Shrouds are very useful on your mages too, especially E9N(X<9), giving reinvig and regen to avoid disease HP loss.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Largely on the awake (at worst dormant) pretender. Not as SC, but to manually site search to jump start Earth gem income so you have hammers to churn out cheap gear for Skrattis and Jarls.
And/or better scales. Growth helps with blood hunting. Even with Order, Luck gives gems and better chances of the two incredible heroes.

I just don't see a massive investment in a double bless as paying off enough if it's just going to help against indies and give a slight boost to Skratti. I agree they're really nice with shrouds and a high bless, but they're still brutal without it.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

If you go for an E9 bless, remember that you're getting +4 protection. Woodsmen will not only getting on +4 reinvigoration thus removing their fatigue worries, but they're now respectably armoured too (14-15?). Consequently bowfire is not as huge a risk as you might think. Plenty of arrows miss; your protec will then soak up many that hit, and you'll mostly get a pitter-patter of low damage hits spread across many giants, which can largely be recovered by N bless regeneration. You'll want to be slightly more wary of crossbows and longbows, you'll want to be wary with huge masses of any archers, and you'll never want woodsmen near flaming arrows unless you can cast Arrow Fend.

The E9 bless will also tie-in extremely with your thugs.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Asuming an E9 N6 bless strategy, what overall mid-game strategy would you follow if you had Arco (with a phoenix as pretender) as main enemy?

Around turn 30, got a few werewolf thugs already geared up with Construction 4 items, and growing numbers of woodsmen.

- Best Research priorities?
- Army orientation? what mages/spell combination or tactics?
- What other thugs and SC should I be aiming for? Deat magic, Bane lords, Tartarians? do earth or nature magic offer decent SC somehwere I must have missed?
- Global spell strategy rather, mother oak + gift of health for further regen maybe and stick to woodsmen?

Any advice appreciated,

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Raid their provinces with thugs, deprive them of gold, Arco will slow down to a crawl. Utgard's army is pretty middling: those giants might look fearsome but they're not that great all in all.

You don't need to summon thugs, you have three already. Least recommended is the Gode, the Jarl is okay, Skratti is awesome. Turn the Skratti into a Werewolf (Change shape on stratmap orders, DON'T do it as army orders). Lots of ways to make Skratti thugs work, but a classic would be Shroud of the Battle Saint plus weapon plus shield. I recommend frost brand and vine shield. That build relies on not being hit (high Def, Vine Shield) as protection is not great: don't send it up against things like heavy cavalry alone (multiple attacks and high damage) as it can readily die. BF orders: Cast quicken self, hold one or two turns, Attack.

All your thugs can be accompanied by Seithkonas - Seithkona should be on the same square as the thug and cast Body Ethereal. Skratti can risk hvy cav and so on when ethereal. Note you'll want your Seithkona to then leave the battlefield or otherwise find a safe place (like behind a bodyguard) so she's not attacked. In larger battles thugs can be accompanied by a bodyguard as well to act as a bit of chaff.

Note all those thugs have unexceptional MR. Amulets of MR recommended especially for astral-heavy opponents like Arco. If you've got air boots somehow, great, your thugs can now go pretty much anywhere. A Seithkona with your thug will also make mind hunts risky.

I think Construction 4 is your first urgent stop so you can equip thugs. I'm not thrilled by Utgard mid-level magic mostly, but later on you've got some great options with big Nature and Astral buffs like Mass Protection, Mass Regeneration, BF Luck, etc.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

If you've gone into Blood, which you probably should have, you can take a look at Baalz's Neifel guide for Blood item based Skratti builds. Armor of Souls helps with the low MR as well.

Breath of Winter can help your thugs with crowd control.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

This is the key. Skratti are great thugs mid-game, look no further, but make sure to put their MR up - even with an amulet it is still their biggest weakness, and arco has no shortage of astral. If at all possible have antimagic cast for any significant battle, ethereal is a great idea as Agema said, and you certainly want those astral mages there to stop mind hunts.

Because they are so readily available, its better to have more with middling equipment (sword, shield, shroud, amulet) than to kit them out completely

It's normally quite easy to get a few in the HoF, so make sure to capitalise on whatever they get.

Aside from your skratti death thugs/SCs are your best bet, you have the death and nature natively so its easy. Gift of Health is tremendously useful with all your regenning giants, and because of your geriatric norna (they aren't too bad with nature and death, but still pick up an annoying number of afflictions)

Against the phoenix specifically you probably need to vary things a bit. Odds are he is elying on fire and shock for most of his damage, and you have nothing native against either.. i'd recommend the most important thing to do is kill him before he gets all his buffs up. Phoenix slots suck, he needs a good few turns of buffing. Have your skratti flying and attack first turn, it doesn't take a lot to wipe out a phoenix. Get hold of a ring of fire res to save your skratti, or just equip him really cheap, such as with flesheater and ring of the warrior.

naturally you want to lure the phoenix into you rdominion first if possible, and if you have a dominion edge over arco push as much as you can.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Norna are generally okay - they aren't too troubled by afflictions, especially if you took Growth. You don't need that many either: N2 is critical to get nature going properly, and S3/D3 are best collected as well, but Seithkona can provide much of your necessary spellpower, particularly as they can commune where necessary.

Certainly, as Utgard doesn't have earth (an imprisoned God arrives long after you've needed to kit out thugs) and if you can't get Dwarven Hammers, thug equipment will be a massive drain on your gem stockpiles, so minimal equipment on plentiful Skratti is good.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

I tend to only recruit norna in my capital for most of the game - decent levels of death and astral are never a waste. Easy to teleport them, use them for mind hunt, leprosy. Communion masters naturally.

Also, every so often you are really lucky and land an S4 or D4. The S4 in particular is crucial as it is your only easy (without trading) avenue to rings of wizardy and sorcery, unless you luck on some crystal mages for crystal coin production.

Take any opportunity you can get to trade for hammers or earth gems - as Agema says your pretender is out late, at th very least you want some earth gems ready for him to forge with

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Wow, I was not expecting so much good info! let me digest it.

I just left a battle victorious... between my 2 werewolves with ethereal against a small/mid size army including 4 o 5 S2 mages which buffed first a couple turns then casted mind burn non stop. It got one of my skratti a couple of times but the 11hp regeneration per turn plus antimagic and lucky amulets carried the day.

Wonder what could happen once my opponent gets his research to Soul Slay... hmmm id say my thugs have no chance at all and they should avoid confrontations with mages, no?

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

yeah, stay away from SS. one thing that is hit or miss as a counter, is to put a bunch of hirdmen in the area and the mages hit them instead. also, remeber that norma can cast antimagic easily.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

If you've got a decent Blood economy going, Armor of Souls can help bring mr up to a respectable level.

Soul Slay tends to target high hp units and you don't really have anything with more hp than Skratti werewolves, so it's hard to use decoys.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

The thing is that even with a higer MR, if my opponet fields say 6 or 7, or more S2 mages spamming paralyze or SS chances are in a few turns my thugs will be toast anyways, right? could even be worst if he arms them with a few penetration items, spell focus, star skull cap, lucky coin etc.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

There is a counter to everything, but there is a difference between being susceptible to a swag of mages with gear, and being a sitting duck for one astral mage

A group of astral mages is your biggest nightmare as utgard, got to find a way to be creative. I have that issue in a current game, there are no simple solutions and it is very painful. If you have decent earth somehow use rain of stones or earthquake on them, or fire storm if you have the fire. If you have blood high enough use some devil thugs or drop Infernal Disease on him. Cast leprosy. Bring your own astral mages and Banner of the Northern Star and mind duel if you have a heap of seithkona handy and are willing to accept the losses. Possibly form a communion and have the masters mind duel.

Failing all that attack where all those mages aren't, and remember that if he has a heap of mages out fighting they aren't at home researching or site searching. If an opponent can really play on your weakness you'll have to be more patient.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Yup, good advice, will have to become very creative to beat those mages! :-)

But as you say, if he is sending them out it means they are not doing any research or making items indeed which is good.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Note that Northern Star, communions, or any other kind of boosters don't help with Mind Duel.

Seithkona are cheap mind duelers and thus make a good counter to the large Astral mage forces. If nothing else they're a good deterrent.
LA Arco doesn't have a lot of strong Astral mages. Lots of 1s and 2s, but they'll have to have boosters, buff or communion to Soul Slay, which gives you a little leeway.
Your Skratti thugs make good raiders. They're not quite so good against large mage supported armies, but that's true against all but the toughest SCs.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

You can think about Starshine Skullcaps for the Werewolves. That's another +2MR (+4 from amulet) to 20 total, and brings the head protection up over 15. But 7-10 astral pearls is a lot in the gem-scarce LA, and you're wasting the +1S boost. Mostly, I'd just try to avoid soul-slay capable mages where possible.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Did not know that, I thought all those counted in a mind duel!

Anyways, the issue with skratii werewolves is not mind duel as it only deals with leaders with astral magic, but rather soul slay or paralyze.

Do the items above count towards souls slay and paralyze?

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Yes. Mind duel is special. Only the mages actual Astral level, without buffs or boosters count for the duel itself. Astral boosters still count towards reducing fatigue from casting the spell, I assume.

For soul slay & paralyze boosts work as usual.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

The mind duel is relevant here because you can risk your Seithkonas trying to astral duel Arco mages so that they can't Soul Slay your Werewolves. If you're trying to mind duel a natural S4, that's probably going to mean about 5 dead seithkonas per dead enemy. If you're targetting an S2 that's casting SS using boosters, you'll lose about 1.7 seithkonas per dead S2.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

exactly, very economical - especially given the equipment he is losing. Even if you get unlucky firs ttime you use it, it will certainly scare him

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Interesting... need to think about mass seithkonas then.

Also, is the mind duel then also unbuffable re protection? i.e. would luck help in the case of an adverse duel result for example? guess the answer is no?

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Indeed. If you lose mind duel you die with no get-outs.

Although... I don't know about Life After Death or Twiceborn. LAD+Mind Duel would be interesting if it worked.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

I would assume that any of the normal "Get another life when you die" effects would save you. Immortality and Twiceborn in dominion. Phoenix Pyre? Life after death. The Elixir of life.

How about second shape? It works on soul slay.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Second Shape works on Magic Duel too.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

So does twice born. And phoenix pyre used to before patches. I don't know if it still does.

I used to use it with marignon / Ea Ermor.

And I love giving B4 or S4 to the phoenix depending on what my nation has. S if it has blood, b if it has s...

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Playing Utgard again, got to love those werewolves. Now, beyond uberthugging, is there a life for Utgard? What would be a practical mid and end game strategy for the cold guys if the chalice and sceptre of regency were not available? Not really sure what to aim for other than Tartarians as the easy option...

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Oh yeah, Utgard has a lot of versatility that's often overlooked because of the obvious stuff. They've got extremely powerful communion potential with triple path 90 gold Seithkona supported by blood magic (reinvigoration). Norna are amazing and by mid game you should have several set up to teleport wherever you want. They won't be thugging obviously, but dropping in to lead a 4 man (er woman) Seithkona communion is a hell of a lot of whoopass for under 600 gold. If you keep popping reinvigoration those 90 gold communion slaves go a long way 4X shadow blast, or raise skellys, or disintegrate, or charm (use gems) or wither bones (gems) or ... well lots of nasty stuff every round till you run out of script. Don't overlook fun things you can do buffing your troops with that communion master, even your PD takes some work to bring down when you stack battle fortune on top of mass regeneration & mass protection while the Jotun Hirdmen become positively beastly.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Thanks yes. Re communions I presume one has to apply care and ensure the teleported Nornas actually deploy at the bottom of the army set up list so to allow the reverse communion you indicate with the local waiting seithkonas, or otherwise arm them with a bow or something, no?

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Yeah, exactly. What I was really thinking though is since you're mixing magic movement with non-magic movement you'll often want to stage them a turn before combat so you can make sure everything's peachy, the teleporting is really mostly to make you not have to worry about them being cap only with a map move of one...though its not hard at all to teleport 5 Norna into a province you expect to be defending an important fight in and making sure your communion order is good that way.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Indeed communions should be a powerfull tool for Utgard, but... in my short experience these have prove indeed usefull up to mid game. Once Fires From the Sky, CloudTrapezed Tartarian Cyclops with A2E2 casting Rain of Stones, etc etc start appearing, communions are effetively cancelled as an offensive tool: move out of a Dome and you're fried. Unless one starts diligently crafting tons of Ring of Fire, Robe of the shadows etc that is.

Which begs a question which may deserve its own thread: How to efectively use communions on the offense past the mid game?

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Life after death, elixirs of life, crystal heart. 2nd forms like nahulis, aldermen.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Also, offensive defense. Raid a province, move communion in to defend against reprisal. Get your opponent to attack you somewhere you're unexpectedly strong.

And use a crystal matrix on your master so you can drop something worthwhile turn 1, possibly with a mage who didn't have astral to begin with. Mistform or Invulnerability suggest themselves, and can easily be provided by summons. (if the matrixed master is on the bottom, all the slaves will join the communion first, and thus be protected by whatever the master casts - making them far more resilient to whatever communion counter your opponent has).

Or drop something that doesn't require the casting mage to be communioned: Army of Gold (Tart Cyclops or Troll King with boots) or Fog Warriors (Faerie Queens are the easiest, probably, but you can get tarts which are good for it) are probably my favorites.

Re: LA Utgard guide
 

Its too bad there is no summon spell that lets you summon *your* spell casters into battle.

I wonder if you could make a ritual spell that sends him into a protected dimension- and then use a battle field spell to summon him from that dimension.