Niefelheim Strategy for the Early Era

[Foodstamp]

Daynarr said:
You can start expanding fast with imprisoned N10 W9 Son of Fenrir (that Big wolf pretender) and still decent scales. Basically you can start expanding as soon as you buy 3-4 Niefel giants and starting troops on indie strength 9 with almost no losses. There is absolutely no need to wait who knows how many turns to get money and buy all at once. Other giant's are useful as well but cheaper so use them in combination with Niefel forces as support. This also works in MP.
DON'T make a prophet out of Niefel Jarl. You won't be buying him in first few turns and he’s already H2 so you only get additional 1 holy with him. You want to make a prophet of a unit that would usually sit back in battle and do nothing like scouts or army commanders. Don't make prophets of units that have 'so much to do so little time' syndrome in battle. Niefel Jarls are both SC's and casters so you definitely don't want to waste time with them on casting prophet spells someone else can do.

This is the exact setup I used last time I played niefelheim. Fenrir is an excellent pretender because he is also stealthy. In his own domain, he can reach upwards to 700 hit points btw. For a prophet, I usually use the starting commander, standard sacred commander with cold resist.

In my single player games, this has been the best setup so far, the lack of earth bless was no big deal once I got construction up, first priority for me in that game.

[Frostmourne27]

Ummm... if the 20% nature bless is that important, why not an imprisoned cyclops. Taking no scales other than cold 3, and without a higher dominion strength, you can do a 9/9 nature earth bless. If you took some negative scales you could actually HAVE a dominion, and maybe push one of the nines up to ten. Also, if you feel that +4 protection is unneeded, you could drop the earth down to eight and save some points there. For nothing but the magic, the cyclops is 19 points more expensive than the son of fenrir, and probably has a better bless.

[alexti]

If you take E9, you probably don't need more than N4 - that would save a lot of points.

[Frostmourne27]

Maybe, but since people here seem to be going Earth 9.... NO Nature 9... Earth 9... Nature 9...
I though it was an interesting compromise.

[tibbs]

I think an Earth/Nature bless would be better than a Water/Nature bless. I also like to do drain 3 and s4 for the extra +3 to magic resist if possible. It hurts your research and combat spellcasting but you won't rely on spellcasting as much as other nations, and you can forge the death research item at construction 4 so as not to far too far behind.

Give them enough nature to at least get berzerk and enough earth to get them reinvig 6 if possible. I've found that it is hard to get nature and earth gems so it is hard to rely on forging reinvig items for the commanders.I like to equip the Neifel Jarls with a wavebreaker and horror helm. Then you have them cast quicken self and maybe a mirror image if they have air, at the beginning of battle. That gives them 6 attacks. They can really mow through the enemies.

Another problem for these guys can be supply issues. Since the nature gem supply may be low you probably won't want to spend your limited supply of gems making supply items. I use the Skodas?(old ladies) in my armies. They ususally start with +10 or +20 supply due to their nature magic. Putting some of them in your army can help. You can then use the onces that get astral picks to cast luck and body ethereal on some of your giants. Of course if you can find nature indies it's much more cost effective.

Research order - I think I'd start researching Alteration? until Wolven Winter is researched and then move to construction4, then enchantment 2 for raise dead and then evocation until falling frost is reached. From there, maybe blood. It would be nice to be able to summon some fliers for help in storming castles.

[Rytek]

I dunno. Without some reinvigoration and no range I am betting 10 or so D3 mages would really wallup one of these armies with just raise skeletons..

[HoneyBadger]

Earth, nature, and water are pretty equally good for Niefel giants, especially when you consider their high defense and the ability for quickness (the spell) to stack with quickness (the blessing) and quickness (the heroic ability).

Nature's maybe the best of the three, and water's maybe the worst, but by a *very* small margin.