How do you fight the Niefel giants?

[Kuritza]

I'm confused.
With their stacking chill aura, they make any number of opposing troops useless in a matter of 1-2 rounds, so anything not immune to cold cannot even scratch them. In my test game 15 niefel giants killed 35 helhirdlings and 80 van infantry with no losses.
Somebody has managed to defeat Niefelheim? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[Humakty]

Area attack spells are, to my poor game insight, the only easy solution at the beginning of the game. You can also try to raise your attack level with a fire bless, even pushing to a nice flaming weapon, which will take them down amazingly fast due to their fire vulnerability. All in all : burn them with anything you've got !

[Mind Elemental]

There've been a couple of "how do I beat Niefelheim" threads. Here's one: http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...part=all&vc=1.

The short version is, if you're Helheim, you shouldn't be fighting Niefelheim head on. Raid the heck out of him -- your sacreds should be able to easily tear through anything that's NOT a Niefel Giant (including PD). Force him to defend his capital, lest you pillage the heck out of it and shut down Niefel recruitment. Then hit him elsewhere.

[Edi]

Same probably goes for Fomorians. They are a lot like Niefel in that respect, except Fomoria can be really goddamn scary. They have Divine Serpent as one of the pretender choices, and going for an imprisoned, with N3 and startdom 3 that allows for N10 blessing (20% regen, +2 berserk), Dominion 6 and seven positive scales to start with. Alternatively, you could tack on E4 blessing to get them reinvigoration. At a cost of 110 each, you can start going to town with them very early, even without tax 200 & patrol and they just will not die.

They lack the Niefel Giant's cold aura, but they have 50% cold immunity and can go underwater, so if you start on the coast, you can gain holdings that are safe from all but water nations for a good while.

[Cor2]

Go for the nasty single target spells, Blindness, paralyze soulslay, rage etc.

Keep em busy with minor summons like ghost wolves.

Even better a small horde of undead with darkness works well.

[Evilhomer]

Fighting niefelheim in the late stages of the game is no real issue. The problem is if they come gunning for you early, you simply cannot stop that.

[Chris_Byler]

And now with Fomoria, even the water nations aren't safe from a regenerating giant rush.

Fomorian Giants have javelins, too... range 24 damage 27 javelins. Very nasty (although the long range and fomorians' 8 prec does lead to a lot of scatter, most humans won't survive even one hit).

[Lyzra]

I play usually C'tis of various ages and I admit these giants can be slightly stressful to face on early game.

My advice is very limited, it ties to the side that they do rely on cold. If not directly they cannot make sizeable lasting armies if you can spread hot dominion outwards. The supply of giants will be so penalized they succumb to diseases and starving.

Thus, my strategy is often based on just decent point defence supported with additional forces and simply wear them down, by spreading hot dominion against them. Considering they do not have great defense values or immensly good shields, missile troops probably would be good to use against them aswell. With C'tis that is not something to even bother.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

From the game itself.
Fatigues
Animate Skeleton (1): -30
Animate Dead (1): -20
Raise Skeletons (5): -40
Raise Dead (10): -40

Javelins? Nah. With a protection of 14 and no access to Armor of Achilles... If they've got an earth bless you're out of luck. For missiles, defense doesn't matter. Just the shield's parry and fatigue.

If you've got a race that combines hot and death dominions, its rather easy to starve them out- just be aware of the catches. 4 food apiece. One shaman forged bag of endless wine can support 12. But you'll be able to identify that problem after they steamroll any outer 1 point PD.

If you're going to war with them, it may pay to raise taxes in _your_ nearby provinces, so as to raise unrest and prevent them from gaining funds there or being effective patrollers.

As Ctis, I had some effectiveness against Abysia with Black Servant, Summon Shadesx2, Rod of the Leper King- though I didn't go far enough. I wasted gems on Wights and Bane Venom Charms, rather than going in wholly with one strategy. It may be worth trying against Neifelheim. Their province defense has poor attack and protection even for 20+ points (pg 114) and is pretty skimpy in quantity. Some support can ruin this tactic, but its a pretty expensive option for Jotunheim.

[Nikelaos]

Originally Posted by Kuritza

I'm confused.
With their stacking chill aura, they make any number of opposing troops useless in a matter of 1-2 rounds, so anything not immune to cold cannot even scratch them. In my test game 15 niefel giants killed 35 helhirdlings and 80 van infantry with no losses.
Somebody has managed to defeat Niefelheim? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

hellhirdlings and van infantry aren't the way to go.

send in some valkyries and a commander(there are a few elidgable choices) with a fire bless, split you're valkyries into several squads(maybe two or 3), script for each squad to attack at a different time so as to give the giants some time to clear some space adjacent to them so the next squad can hit them strraight away instead of waiting behind their buddies in the giants cold aura getting over fatigued.

the fire bless is what will give you're valkiries what they need to pack the punch to take the giants down and you should have you're commander casting buffs on the squads holding with him before they go out to kill giants, or just have you're commander casting evocation spells .