Re: Niefelheim Pretender Design Question
 

Yes, that is why you go for the bless. You can make very cheap thugs, a minor astral bless can be worthwhile as well, although in most cases it will only yield +1 MR.

With Robe of the battle saint for 3S you get 13 armor, 4 reinvig, 10% regen, and +1 MR. That is a nice kit for 5S.

BTW: QM has done a great job nerfing Niefelheim. The cold aura is what made them great and he has really slashed it, they are still decent but not wtfomfgbbq.

Re: Niefelheim Pretender Design Question
 

Illuminated One: that's assuming you're trying to duplicate the bless.

Every time you can substitute blood items instead you come out ahead, vastly ahead, because slaves << pearls, and can't be converted.

Also, think about it this way: you're gaining 1 gem at the cost of how many design points? Now think about how much better your scales could have been, and how much more cash and therefore jarls/skratti or castles/temples/labs you would have had with those better scales.

(Ignoring whatever the increased cost for dominion is because you're using a dom 1 chassis, the cost of the E9N4 alone is 336 on a master druid. That's *8* scales. I'd spend an extra gem for +8 scales - ok, no, I'd choose better items instead, like dual blood thorns.)

Re: Niefelheim Pretender Design Question
 

Can't agree with Gandalf that Nief should be a defensive nation: in my opinion you want to take a heavy bless and do a blistering expansion. By the time anyone can compete with you you should have a huge amount of territory. Sounds like squirreloid disagrees though.

I've fought in a couple of games against E9N9 giants, and they really do make you want to cry. They are very hard to hurt, due to high protection. They heal anyway. They never get tired. They never flee, since they go berserk. And if you don't kill them almost immediately, all your troops will fall asleep from the cold.

Re: Niefelheim Pretender Design Question
 

Well, I don't agree they should be defensive either. But the bless feels like Overkill, and spending a lot of limited resources (pretender design points) on something that is overkill is probably a waste.

Re: Niefelheim Pretender Design Question
 

While blood magic just got that huge boost through the removal of clams, it still has its cost. Assuming you wanted to make two skratti and a Jarl each turn with dual blood daggers you need maybe 10 bloodhunters (lets say 450 gp/turn with excellent scales, depending how lucky you are with hunting). And +8 scales doesn't translate into +8 order, but rather suboptimal choices (o3l3, m3 with expensive mages and skull mentors, p3 instead of s3), since you can afford o3s0c3g0l0m0 already with a sleeping god. I.e. your extra scales have to give you 25% extra cash for a 2000 gp income, assuming you are as large as without a bless.
Another problem is that the blood daggers don't work always (undead, high prot stuff, high def stuff), and won't shrug off afflictions.

Re: Niefelheim Pretender Design Question
 

Indeed, you'll still want regen for jarls as skrattis have it in werewolf form, and it comes either from bless (which eases early expansion, meaning stronger late game) or items, which cost gems - 10n when not counting in a hammer. And take either misc slot (I'd rather take ama+luck instead of luck+regen+bless) or chest (pop in chainmail of displacement or if you are swimming in pearls, robe of shadows against chaff, and there are other choices too). Also, missing out an earth bless means you must get the reinvig somehow, and while blood thorns are a good choice against most things, you'd preferably want something that hits with area or at least has more damage/att than athame. AP/AN weapons are ideal as skratti and jarls have huge strength. If you're trying to get high def thugs such as vans (who are kitted for cold immunity) you really can't trust athame to do the job, as it hits one troop and if you are against three-four you can barely even hit 15% of time who can whittle away your jarls hp easily enough with flesh eaters or such. Of course again, counters to counters exist such as getting some extra troops to kick down those vans def and so on.

So, my point was that I think the bless is optimal, as shrouds are not that expensive for skratti and jarls benefit quite optimally from "free" reinvig+regen. You can get o3s3c3g3 dom6-7 quite easily with e9n4 or e9n6 which can't really be boosted incomewise for much additional benefit (sloth->prod). I think it requires some misf or drain though for the e9n6 at least.

Re: Niefelheim Pretender Design Question
 

E9N9 giants get tired and can be killed by skelly spam (net enc 2 after berserk). E9N8 giants have net enc 0 though.

-Max

Re: Niefelheim Pretender Design Question
 

I think berserking units actually get "berserk encumbrance", which is worse. You gain 2 fatigue from just moving around, not just from melee.

Re: Niefelheim Pretender Design Question
 

It's pretty hard to gather the skellyspam to stop them though, it has to be said. And if you do, it uses up a lot of mages/mage-time. I also think the counters to that skelly spam are easier than the skelly spam itself.

In order to really overcome blitz tactics like that you need to do more than just survive, because otherwise your entire economy and research end up wrecked and you'll lose regardless.

Re: Niefelheim Pretender Design Question
 

True, I was being imprecise. For instance, "berserk encumbrance" would not double from being Quickened. Maybe we should call it "berserk exhaustion(2)" to make it clear that it's like turning reinvig(4) into reinvig(2).

-Max