Mirror image (and glamour) does not protect units

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, it probably was necessary. Thematically, it's supposed to be a nation of Vanir, not a nation of little black dwarves with Vanir slave-warriors to do the dirty work.

-Max

P.S. Also keep in mind that those 160 gp researchers can each forge an owl quill for 3 air gems (once the Svartalfs start passing around the Dwarven hammers) as well having access as skull mentors and lightless lanterns forged by Svartalfs. The actual effect might be that Helheim becomes reliant on gem income for research, which is not necessarily all that bad a thing, but it does take some time to kick-start (time which the face-hugging can purchase).

[Micah]

Nice Max, as I said, it's going to change from a nation of dwarves to one of totemic shaman now. They're 50 gold cheaper as researchers than the Helkarls and you can pump em out without the 800 gold investment for a fort.

I guess it remains to be seen if the change will encourage people to play Helheim differently or if it will just shove them further down the double-bless path, hurting their income scales even more. I haven't seen how severe the resource hit is yet, so it's hard to say...forcing both magic and production scales on them might do away with double blessings, but just magic 3 is possible with tolerable scales. Anyone have the new Helhirding resource costs handy?

[MaxWilson]

Micah said:
Nice Max, as I said, it's going to change from a nation of dwarves to one of totemic shaman now. They're 50 gold cheaper as researchers than the Helkarls and you can pump em out without the 800 gold investment for a fort.

Yes, but they're not the awesome recruitable-anywhere battlemages that Svartalfs are. It's easier to view shaman as vassal researchers, since they're 1.) native to conquered provinces, 2.) sitting at home researching instead of leading armies into battle, 3.) relatively scarce. (Though not if you were counting ALL indy mages when you said "shamans.") Plus, they'll be wearing Owl Quills and Skull Mentors that they received from their gods (who were actually Hangadrotts under a glamour illusion), and that will do most of the real research.

Also, because indys aren't usually good battlemages, Vanjarls will be recruited instead of the superior Svartalfs, which helps keep the Vanir flavor.

-Max