MA jotunheim

[Evilhomer]

Planning on trying them out in my next MP game. What pretender and design would you pick ? how would you play them in the early game ? any feedback would be great.

[Xietor]

I really hate playing races with awful pd.

But I like playing the giants with at least a n9 bless. You need good scales though imho, so imprison your pretender.

It has been sometime since i played them, but 3growth and order are pretty much required. Their troops are both expensive, mages have old age, and they are hard to feed.

Because the cold dominion is crucial, the absolute min you should take is dom 6.

Make sure you cast wolven winter before every major fight if in enemy dominion. Supplement your armies liberally with undead and winter wolves to avoid starvation issues.

Your 60 gold commanders can be potent thugs early on with a decent bless.

[Kristoffer O]

A big mighty Heffah, with a lot of boozta and nice mixxta pawah to moppa stuff!

And lots of Meese!

EDIT: do they have poor PD? I thought otherwise, but I may be mistaken.

[Meglobob]

Kristoffer O said:
EDIT: do they have poor PD? I thought otherwise, but I may be mistaken.

Apparently they had good PD in Dom2, now the giants have poor PD in Dom3.

There main problem is morale, with so few units making up there PD, they break morale very easily, just kill 1 or 2 giants and the rest leg it from that mighty hoburg invading army...

[thejeff]

I like MA Jotunheim, but I haven't been all that successful with them, so take this with a grain of salt.

My last was based on W9/N6 sacreds for the initial expansion, then switching to Jarl/Gode and/or Skratti Thugs and trying to get a good blood economy going with the Vaetti hags.
I got into a war too early and then got jumped by 3 opponents. Never got the chance to build castles to pump out cheap the Vaettis.

I'd say the sacreds aren't worth a bless strategy, but the Thugs are. The sacreds are too vulnerable to archers and don't have the killing power. The thugs are very nice once you have a little gear and self buffs for the Skratti. It hurt not to have any access to Earth for hammers and armor.

Trying again I'd drop the water bless, take some earth magic and make more use of the Vaetti, backed up by the Javelin Jotuns and a few of the heavy Jotun troops for expansion. Build forts as quickly as you can and pump out lots of Hags for site-searching, research and blood. Go for Construction 4 early and build dousing rods and gear for the thugs.

Take Luck if you can. 2 of the 3 heroes are among the nicest in the game. Tsatse held off Pangaea practically single handed. I sacrificed Angerboda in a desperate battle to free my capital.

[thejeff]

They have really bad PD, despite the manuals recommendation.

Lots of hit points and strength, but low attack and defense and with only a few of them, they can't do enough damage before they're swarmed. Low morale too. Not surprising since they're militia, just big militia.
They can soak up more damage than some PDs on a point for point comparison, but with less than half the units they can't deal out damage.
(At least that's my theory of why they look good on paper, but work so poorly.)

[Maraxus]

Bog Mummy, Sleeping
Air3, Earth 2, Astral 2, Death 5, Blood 2
Dominion 6, Order 3, Cold 3, Misfortune 2, Magic 3.

Scales are up to personal preference.

Research Alteration 3, Enchantment 1 befor The Mummy awakes and then you have your cool SC pretender.

[thejeff]

I never thought they had good PD in Dom2. They seemed to break way to early then too.

I think it just looks good on paper, because you've got a lot of hit points.

[Xietor]

I like the n9 bless because it gives the thugs already high prot a bigger boost. And of course with high hps, more regen is better.

Berserk is nice, and with it even the sacreds are decent as that increases their prot a bit, as well as gives them a nice regen. But the sacreds are underwhelming.

The pd is one of, if not the absolute worst.

[Evilhomer]

oki, based on suggestions and my own ideas i have narrowed it down to four builds:

build 1:
great enchantress: f2a3w2e4s4d2n6b2 - sleeping
dom 6, order 3, sloth 3, cold 3, magic 1
points left: 0

advantages: strong late game, can forge basically anything (forge hammers, ring of wiz/sorc, robe of magi etc), can summon anything with boosters. Great site searcher when needed. Also gives a moderate bless for thugs. Decent chance of getting heroes.

build 2:
Bog mummy: e3s4d2n4b2 - sleeping
dom 7, order 3, sloth 3, cold 3, growth 3, mis 2, magic 1
points left: 5

advantages: strong mid game expander/sc, can forge most items (forge hammers, ring of wiz/sorc etc). Also gives a weak but useful bless for thugs.

build 3:
Son of niefel: w4d3n4 - awake
dom 9, order 3, sloth 3, cold 3, mis 1, magic 1
points left: 5

advantages: Can expand on turn 1-2 - rapid expansion early game. Good dominion (cold) spread. Also gives a weak but useful bless for thugs.

build 4:
Great mother: e9n9 - imprisoned
dom 8, order 3, sloth 3, cold 3, mis 2, magic 1
points left: 4

advantages: Very strong nature/earth access - for later globals/summons. Very strong bless - fairly rapid expansion. Good dominion spread.

Any thoughts or modifications ? Would these builds work ?