Re: Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush
 

Flaming arrows are enchantment 4. I'd say that they are early game, seeing as how the earliest I have EVER been attacked is turn 14, and I have played rush-target nations before.

However, in the same light as flaming arrows, I would like to bring up Yomi's various oni, several of whom shoot some very nice flaming projectiles at enemies. One can buff them with a variety of buffs.

Re: Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush
 

Flaming Arrows are Ench-5 in CBM1.3, and quite a few MP games are using that now.

Re: Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush
 

A lot of it depends on the specific Nation, and whether or not you're expecting to be rushed by Niefelheim. There's usually a good Nation-specific or atleast Pretender-specific counter for them.

Re: Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush
 

D3 or higher. I don't think of D2s as really skelly spam-capable, even though technically they can cast it in a pinch.

You're right in that skelly spamming is not a tactic that most nations can use effectively--it just happens that I love playing death nations with recruitable-anywhere mages (Helheim, Ashdod, EA Ermor) and for them it's a viable counter to many attacks, e.g. "Defend the library from E9N8 Niefel Giants!"

-Max

P.S. Of course, this no longer applies to Helheim. *Sigh* My poor Svartalfs...

Re: Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush
 

Well, they'll get 3 casts off and then pass out, and a couple of turns later, do another cast. 20 skellies apiece isn't too bad for a D2 mage, especially if you have a couple doing something else to help those bones kill or rout faster.

Alternately you can just have them cast twice, and then switch to Ghost Grip or Frighten for the rest of their fatigue capacity.

Re: Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush
 

MaxWilson:

I think you'd really like LA Agartha :)

Re: Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush
 

Yes, LA Agartha is another of my favorites. Great mages, and Umbrals and Sepulchrals.

-Max

Re: Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush
 

From my little experience I know three ways of stopping an early E9N9 Nifel rush:

- Stealth - Niefelheim has no answer on early stealthy raiders.
- SC's - either awaken pretenders or recruitables of Fomoria, Hinom will work fine with just some basic items and early buffs.
- Heat 3 scale - this works wonders, but only until Nifelheim starts spaming Wolven Winter (Alt.4) and it's one of the research priorities for them.

I don't belive some of the proposed solutions would work:

- Death magic - great counter to Nifelheim, but later in the midgame (Drain Life, Ghost Grip). Skely spam can stop giants from advancing, but you need to kill or rout them before your mages collapse. Spaming Fear or Terror doesn't work on berserked units.
In early game death works if combined with nature (fatigue spells) or astral, but it's not an easy way either.

- Fire magic - I just can't imagine it working. Despite fire susceptibility on giants, early fire magic doesn't cause enough damage to even considering it worthwhile. Abysia with fire immune, heat aura spreading troops is the only exception.

- Lightning spells - AN damage that causes fatigue additionaly. Works good on paper. In practice many shots won't hit the target some killling your own chaff. Also, lightning spaming is fatigue intensive and after several turns it's over. Still, it could work with Caelum, but you need a lot of mages.

- Cursing and afflicting giants - won't stop the cold aura from killing all nearby not cold immune units.

- Fire bless - would work perfectly on cold immune sacreds. Caelum's Temple Guard with fire bless is a waste though. Other sacreds will die from cold before dealing enough damage. Still, Mictlan and Lanka can make a good use of their fire blessed sacreds if combined with other options these nations have.

- Assassination - could work with Lanka's or Arco's powerful seducers, but it's a risky bussines for very expensive commanders.

The fact is that some nations look pretty bad against Niefel rush (or any rush, actually). Intensive diplomatic efforts always help. :)

_

Re: Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush
 

Cursing + afflicting doesn't immediately stop them, but it will gradually but permanently sap their strength, and should get them looking for an easier target. The fact is, with a tough, determined Niefelheim targeting you in the early game, you're going to suffer some losses. They're giants! they smash things good!

Re: Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush
 

just tried in SP

Agartha seems to pwn giant bless rush, magma children are ridiculously cheap and a few of them can fell the giants in no time.

pity agartha ain't amazing vs other nations