Counters to Niefelheim

thejeff · #1 August 23rd, 2007, 06:01 PM

I still think the best counter to Neifel Giants is to one-shot them. Even with a good mr, at least the ones you get die. (Or get enslaved, even better.)

With their regen you're going to have to hit them at least 2-3 times in quick succession to kill with magma bolts, or lighting, or fire arrows.
Maybe falling fires or better yet, magma eruption. Decent area, good damage and leaves a heat aura behind.

Juzza · #2 August 23rd, 2007, 06:42 PM

To get neifel giants have a fire bless, takes them down so easy, if your not planning on fighting them before game though, flame arrows a re good too, um the incinerate spells.

Oo maybe a thug commander with something like a Gate Cleaver, half there health down in one hit from him, even if he hits the shield

Micah · #3 August 23rd, 2007, 07:00 PM

Given that Niefel's sacreds should have a 19 MR after Antimagic goes off I really can't get behind an MR-spell based counter to them.

It might work in this case since the Niefel player is new, but it's not a good general strategy.

OmikronWarrior · #4 August 23rd, 2007, 06:44 PM

I've been messing around with the Sons of Winter a lot lately, single player only but I'm scheduled to be in an MP game with them sometime soon. Anyways, others have already suggested ways to handle them in battle, so I won't elaborate there. Except, they are incredibly tough with a good bless and you're going to have to pull out all the stops to beat them. One thing to keep in mind is their stats (Strength, Attack and Defense Skill, and AP) are all adjusted by the temperature scale. So, lure them into a hot territory (or make the territory their in hot) to get a much better shot at beating them. The difference between a 3-cold and 3-hot territory is -6. That isn't cheap change.

On the broader strategic level, Neifelheim's key weakness is its incredibly poor PD. Yeah, I know the manual says they have great PD, but its dead wrong. Developers must have changed something. Use stealth or flying troops to RAID, RAID and RAID some more. I see you're getting a new hard drive, considering a RAID configuration? Whats with all the bugs in the bathroom, somebody needs to spray some RAID. Pop in some of your own PD (assumming it isn't worthless), raise taxes, and make his economy cry.

You see, those sacred ice giants cost 150 gold apiece. To assemble 30+ in a single battle represents an enormous amount of resources. So, he's likely not producing much of anything else. Convince him he has to be in two, or three, or four places at once and he'll start spliting that giant army up into peices (of course, putting 30 of those guys together in one place is criminally inefficient anyways, but thats another story), to sizes you can actually have a shot at beating. Didn't say it'd be easy, but it would be doable.

Baalz · #5 August 23rd, 2007, 06:45 PM

The thing is, fire is AP (or regular damage) while lightning is AN. With an earth bless in a cold dominion the giants have over 20 protection so even with their fire weakness you've got quite the uphill battle...plus AOE is less effective because theres only one per square. Lightning, OTOH, benefits by there being only one per tile (damage is concentrated) as well as the air mage prescison bonus. Throwing down ~20 orb ligtnings per turn and you won't have much trouble lighting up each giant several times in short order. Besides, you're generally gonna have to hit each one several times to make a soul slay stick as well...

Lazy_Perfectionist · #6 August 23rd, 2007, 07:16 PM

In the category of smackdown...

The original poster mentioned an army of giants... I'd made a mistake. I'd thought of them all as a giants, but the op was probably refering to the Niefel Giants, not Jotun Huskarls.

Well... I'll withdraw from commenting for now. My advice was geared to somewhat wimpier units. I don't have much experience facing the big guys with a regen.

Xietor · #7 August 25th, 2007, 07:09 PM

I have often blamed KO for prejudice in favor of the cold races. There is a cheap spell that can be cast before battle to allow the battle to be in a cold climate, but no similar spell for heat?!

I would like to drag KO out of his cool climate and have him live here in New Orleans for a year. He would have a new appreciation for Swamps!

Meglobob · #8 August 25th, 2007, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Xietor said:I would like to drag KO out of his cool climate and have him live here in New Orleans for a year. He would have a new appreciation for Swamps!

There is a spell that heats up the entire world to be fair, second sun.

Quote:

BigDisAwesome said:
They were spamming disintegrate too Meglobob.

Oh, how did I miss that? Where any disintegrated? I thought your skele hordes hacked them to death.

jutetrea · #9 August 25th, 2007, 08:10 PM

But when he found that the lack of world affecting cold he invented Ilearth!

Jazzepi · #10 August 25th, 2007, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Xietor said:
I have often blamed KO for prejudice in favor of the cold races. There is a cheap spell that can be cast before battle to allow the battle to be in a cold climate, but no similar spell for heat?!

I would like to drag KO out of his cool climate and have him live here in New Orleans for a year. He would have a new appreciation for Swamps!

I'm really glad that the spells aren't symmetirical. There's nothing as boring as a game that has.

Fireball and Iceball
Fireblast and Iceblast

No, fire and water are completely different paths, and I like it that way! Also, fire has firestorm, and water has a semi-similar spell that deals /fatigue/ damage, but is not nearly as good.

Jazzepi