Counters to Niefelheim

[Nikolai]

Strange, no one seems to have listed my favorites. Mages with two earths are common randoms in Arco. So mages with one fire and one astral.

(With a Oreiad casting Wind guide and one mage casting Light of the Northern Star)
Two earth mages: Summon Earthpower, Gifts from the Sky
Fire/Star mages: Astral Fires
Oreiads: Lightning bolt/Thunder strike

Dead, dead giants.

Forgot to say: All above are armour negating, or don't matter (150 damage kills giants, or anything)

[Micah]

Good call on Gifts from Heaven.

[Folket]

For Niefelheim to cast anti magic you would need a rare S2 Gygja or a Gygja casting power of the spheres and then sleeping a turn before casting anti magic. Arco should be able to kill the Gygja with magic duel.

I would like to compare lightning spells to fire spells against Niefel giants.

Niefels with E9 blessing have 18 in protection. Could be more in cold provinces.

Fire darts, evocation lvl 1. 3 x 15 damage against niefel giants. That is 18 damage after armour.
20 fatigue. F1
range 25+
precision 4

lightning bolt, evocation lvl 2. 14 damage
10 fatigue, A2
range 35+
precision 4

Two out of three mystics will be able to cast fire darts. I do not see why I would like to recruit an oreiad for 400 gold to get some more range over a mystic for 150 gold.

Seems to me that most things will be cost effective against niefel giants this late into to the game. Earlier in the game it would have been hard to mass the mages needed.

[Nikolai]

Folket, one does recruit Oreiads rathers than Astrologers in capital because one can recruit Astrologers everywhere else. It's nice to have many Oreiads. Once you got, and giants are stomping your troops, you just use them. When giants come, and you have research, you send a castle of mages to the fight, and each script for whatever is best.

(EE) -> summon earthpower, gifts from the sky
(FS) -> astral fires (with Light of the northers star)
(FF) -> phoenix power, falling fires
(F) -> fire darts
(AAA) -> thunderstrike
(AA) -> lightning bolt
(NN) -> thorn storm (won't hurt much, but will waste a move)
(S) -> soul slay
(-) -> mind burn

Last ones suck, but hey, you fight with what you got. If you have bow and flaming arrows, you are better with them on the field than with them a province apart.

[HoneyBadger]

I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, when it comes to air counters. Roughly a fourth of all Niefel Jarls will have access to air magic, and that's roughly enough to ruin your day if all you're trying is lightning bolts and shock spells.

The biggest weakness Niefel has is it's provinces. Province defense sucks bigtime, you need a huge amount of gold and supplies to purchase and field your troops, and it's very hard to defend that huge area with those few, expensive troops. So, the best advice is to attack the infrastructure-hit them in their income and their bellies.

Spellwise, curse works really well. They can also be Feared out of existence, so consider horror helmets. They have really good morale, but not ironclad, and less ways to boost it-no morale, low numbers-than other nations.

Etheriality is great: 1 because if they don't have fire bless, then it makes your troops a lot harder to hit, and 2, if they DO have it, then you don't even need to research it, it's already done it's part since Fire bless is not the best bless out there for Niefels. It's not bad, but it's definitely not 1st choice.

Barbarians are terrific, and fairly cheap, against small parties of giants, or individual Niefel Jarls-even really tough, boosted, SC Niefels. Get enough barbarians together, supported by heavy calvaly, and you can pick Niefels off. Wolf Tribe warriors are even better, in numbers.

Provinces being hard for nIEFELHEIM to defend over a large area, also leaves them somewhat vulnerable to dom-killing. The cheapest Niefel priest is 200 gold a pop, so consider a praying war, especially since every unit they use to counter you is another few pounds of gold you've just committed to *not* building an unstoppable army. It's worked against me, and it should work against your opponent.

Finally, consider mass-producing the shields that inflict curse and blindness every time they're struck. These are great to pepper in with your chaff. So are medallions of vengeance and any cursed items you have lying around that a Niefel Jarl might pick up.

[13lackGu4rd]

unfortunately Gift of Heaven has been mentioned before. here is the first post in which it was mentioned, afterwards there are a few more.

Originally Posted by Nikolai

Strange, no one seems to have listed my favorites. Mages with two earths are common randoms in Arco. So mages with one fire and one astral.

(With a Oreiad casting Wind guide and one mage casting Light of the Northern Star)
Two earth mages: Summon Earthpower, Gifts from the Sky(should be Heavens, was a typo of his)
Fire/Star mages: Astral Fires
Oreiads: Lightning bolt/Thunder strike

Dead, dead giants.

Forgot to say: All above are armour negating, or don't matter (150 damage kills giants, or anything)