I can't seem get Vanheim to work. Need some help.

[Kuritza_Dru]

About making Thugs (I believe that's what they become, right?) out of the Vanherses. Aren't you affraid that you'll lose them to some stupid random criticals? They weren't able to fight several enemies at once when I've tried it.

[Sandman]

Hmm. I think Hirdmen rock, personally. Sure, you can recruit more Huskarls - but only in the short term. In the long term, upkeep issues and secondary forts mean that you can recruit almost as many. And Hirdmen are much better fighters. Their slow map speed is less of an issue when you've got leaders with the sailing ability, too.

Generally, I'd stick with mostly broadsword ones, with a few spear wielders just to mix things up.

I never build Huskarls. Anything that can get killed by a javelin will get wiped out by heavy infantry, so what's the point? In the early game, I do occasionally set my Vanherses to cast a few buffs on themselves (including aim), and tell them to fire nearest. They'll hit with every shot. It's probably a waste of time, but it does look cool.

[The Panther]

Ah, Vanheim is one of the best nations in the game. I have it in my personal top 4 along with Pythium, Caelum, and C'tis. The reason Vanheim is so good?

Vans, vans, and more vans. Don't bother to build anything but vans. Those guys are the single best troop in the game for the cost. There has been a bunch of analysis and some combat simulators which show this in spades.

The main thing you need to make Vanheim work ridicuously well is to get a Fire 9 Bless on your pretender. The best way to do this is with the Phoenix. In addition to the Fire 9, your Phoenix can also get Air 4-6 to give your vans a (mostly) free air shield when blessed.

To start, get a level 4 prophet so he can do Divine Bless on your vans. Then build vans. You really need Order 3 to have the gold to make lots of vans. Sloth 1 works fine because the vans are a lower resource troop. Dominion 5-6 is sufficient to have the capitol holy level to pump out the vans.

Put your starting Huskarls around as targets and use your vans to swoop in from the side and kill enemies. It is quite easy to begin taking Level 9 indies (except cavs or knights) on Turn 4 with this method. Once you use up all your starting huskarls, you have enough vans to kill pretty much any indie on the map.

Meanwhile, your phoenix can stay at home and research Alteration 3 plus Evocation 1, at which point he can take most Level 9 independants all by himself.

Fire 9 vans have the additional advantage that they can destroy enemy SCs with ease because of the 8 AP damage from the Fire 9 bless.

Try it and see!

[Boron]

Panther's bless suggestion is good but a few considerations:
For a mere F9 bless a moloch is the best pretender, no other pretender gets F9 bless cheaper. A F9 Moloch with fire darts+ your starting troops are enough to take weaker indies.
Meanwhile make a lvl 3 van mage your priest and start building vans and alchemize your earthgems for gold.
Soon you have a van army also going.

Problems with Vanheim though:
-No natural lvl4 Priests, so only your prophet can do the battlefield wide bless.
The normal blessing has a rather small area of effect so you need 2-3 to bless about 20 vans.
-Vans are quite expensive, so a dualbless is prohibiting expensive. So Vans are only the 2nd-best blessable troop.
Place 1 goes to the jaguar warrior.

[WraithLord]

Boron said:
Problems with Vanheim though:
...
-Vans are quite expensive, so a dualbless is prohibiting expensive. So Vans are only the 2nd-best blessable troop.
Place 1 goes to the jaguar warrior.

I didn't get your meaning on that one.
Why do you think Jag war. the best blessable?

[Boron]

izaqyos said:

I didn't get your meaning on that one.
Why do you think Jag war. the best blessable?

Because they are cheap. So you can afford a dualbless and still build a couple of them.
And Mictlan has holy4 priests, another advantage.

With Zen's Scale mod it is imho nearly impossible for Vanheim to do a dualbless but Mictlan can do it because the jaguars are cheaper.
3,5 Jaguars per Van Cost+Upkeepwise.

And 3,5 Jaguars normally beat one Van also. 1 vs 1 the Van would win but 3,5 vs. 1 the Jaguars win probably

[FrankTrollman]

I actually think the best Sacred Troops are Marignon's Flagellants. Back those guys up with Fire 9/ Astral 9 as the big giant head, and your scales can actuall be vaguely OK while you pump out vast armies of blessable crap from every castle.

They are made of paper mache, but each one gets Twist Fate, which means that as a whole they stay around for quite a while, and with two attacks each delivering flame blades - they go through ethereal or corporeal troops like a hot knife through butter.

Nonetheless, I'm not much impressed by any sacred troops. Flagellants are great against other nations, where you expect to take losses; but they really suck against independents, where the goal is no losses. A group of Flags will come in, take some losses, and kill way more than their cost against just about everything. Which makes them completely the suck when compared to Marignon Crossbows, who will happily kill most indep forces without taking a scratch.

The only time being sacred is really awesome is when your national mages are sacred (allowing you to put a Water 9 blessing or any Earth Blessing), as that allows you to lay down more spells in combat. Sacred Mages is a big deal, Sacred Troops is a stupid pet trick.

The powerful blessings are not worth their cost when applied to guys with swords. No matter how awesome (vans) or cheap (flagellants) those guys are.

-Frank