[HoneyBadger]

Niefelheim is a powerful nation with great troops.

By far it's greatest troops are the Niefel Jarls themselves-and they're equally deadly against living and undead enemies.

You can maximize this ability by choosing an Imprisoned Cyclops with totally negative scales (make sure temperature is set to cold, because that only helps you).

You can then add those points to Earth (10), Water (10), and Nature (10) for a practically unstoppable bless. The extra 7 points go right into Dominion (3).
Perfect efficiency!

Don't bother with regular Niefel Giants-atleast at first.
Build up your gold and buy Jarls only-you won't have much gold to begin with, anyway, but that should quickly change.

Also, kill off your starting army by any means possible, because they're a really big money-pit in the early game, and if you keep them around they may get you killed before you get your first Jarl (the longer you go without a Jarl, the more chances you have to lose your Temple or Lab to bad luck, and that'll finish you in the first turns of a multi-player game).

Your first Jarl should become your Prophet. Use him to expand your domain, and he can also help maintain your Dominion. If the Arena comes around early in the game (like within the first 10 turns), stick him in-he should be strong enough to beat anything else in the game at that point, except for a really tough SC Pretender, and if he wins, he'll get 3 stars of experience and a nifty trident for free. At that point, he should be able to tackle most neutral provinces by himself.

Keep buying Jarls-you should soon have enough gold income to buy 1 every round, if you're lucky. At that point, start leaving some of the Jarls in your home-provinces to pray and to research construction so you can arm your Jarls and maintain your Dominion. Don't worry about expanding your Dominion very quickly-as long as it's strongly maintained in your core provinces, you should be fine, and your poor scales will really hurt you in the long run, so out run them with swift expansion until you can inflict them on your enemies' home provinces with your Jarls.

You may want to avoid provinces with lizardmen at first, unless you need the province for strategic reasons, because their shamans are really efficient at cursing your Jarls. You can build a small force of non-Niefel jotuns for this purpose in the later stages of the game. Skin-shifters are ideal for this purpose.

You should also start building scouts and creating a scout supply-train by equipping scouts with an endless bag of wine and endles cauldrons of broth, each, and then attaching them to your armies. This becomes easy once your Pretender shows up, and forging these should eventually become his main job-after he's searched your Core provinces for magic sites.

Your Pretender also makes a handy defender SC in a pinch, if you equip him, but don't risk him without a very good reason, because he's your main earth/nature mage and he won't be much better than a well-equipped Jarl.

Expect some of your Jarls to become Cursed eventually. It shouldn't hurt them that badly-they won't get hit that often, but it's something to be aware of. Counter with the Ritual Spell "Gift of Health" (Enchantment 5/Nature 5) which heals afflictions on your troops, en masse, and grants extra HP-infact, stockpile Nature Gems (you'll need atleast 50) and research this spell as soon as possible after your Pretender awakens. Horror-marks are somewhat more dangerous. It's a good idea by late-game to protect your Jarls from assassins with regular Niefel bodyguards and to equip your Pretender with a ring of warning.

Look for neutrals that give you sacred troops-especially sacred calvalry-they'll help diversify your forces, which can make you stronger, overall.

Eventually, you'll have more provinces than just Jarls can defend easily, at which time you can put expansion on the back-burner and start consolidating your forces/ strengthening your borders-you can use regular Niefels, in moderation, to suppliment your Jarl-and building up a couple of stronger attack-forces to hit neighboring human nations.

Build labs and temples in your most strategically important provinces so that you can place multiple Jarls there, and then get the full benefits of their research and prayer. Fortresses will let you build boulder-throwers, javelineers, skinshifters and huscarls on the spot-expensive, but quick-it may end up saving your province from the longest and worst attacks.

When you've got a surplus of cash, put one Jarl in each of your border-provinces to help out your PD, and keep expanding. Your Jarls are actually better defenders than they are expanders/attackers, since they can move over 3 owned provinces in a single turn, but only 1 province they don't already own-allowing you to quickly dispatch reinforcements to troubled areas-a very useful ability indeed. Build up squads of 3 or more Jarls-possibly with supplimental Niefel troops-in centralized locations within 3 provinces of your borders, so that you can ship them off to relieve defenders in case of attacks. Afflicted Jarls should go here too, and incase of a massive border collapse, these locations can also serve as rallying-points and magic equipment stockpiles for specialty items, like Gate-Cleavers.

Don't buy non-sacred troops, unless you have a good reason! like buying mages who have paths you lack (fire, especially) and reacting to strong attacks. Otherwise, they're just cash-leeches, given your bless and the horribly bad scales you have.

Good scripted level 1 combat-spells for Jarls are Breath of Winter, Holy Avenger, and (for some) Air Shield.

Some good combat equipment for Jarls (off the top of my head) are: horror helmet, sword of swiftness, rhyme hauberk, hydra-skin armor, fire plate, dragon helmet, amulet of magic resistance, wraith sword, golden shield of awe, ring of regeneration, ring of fire resistance, pendant of luck, storm bow, midget masher, boots of the behemoth, lucky coin shield, amulet of rejuvenation, amulet of missle-protection, wraith crown, and hellsword.

When you've conquered the land, amulets of water-breathing should be easy for your Jarls to mass-produce.

Even if they don't have the very *best* equipment possible, it's a good idea to improve the quality of your Jarls on a quantity basis. If you can't make swords of swiftness fast enough, give them piercers or ice swords. You can save the better, more efficient equipment you can produce later on for your experienced Jarls with heroic abilities. Don't worry *too* much about saving gems for the end-game, while there are some higher end spells which will help you, the lower-end spells will help your Jarls a lot too, and the only one that's a real *need* is "Gift of Health".