Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?

[thejeff]

Inspired by this guide, I've been playing around with Skratti thugs in Jotunheim. MA doesn't have the skinshifters and the regular troops are resource intensive and unimpressive. This means it's hard to expand with the lousy scales Neifelheim can use: sloth3 particularly.

I was trying to see what was the minimum Skratti needed to be able to clear indies with some efficiency. In EA, they did well with Quicken Self and a pair of ice swords. In MA, you don't have the starting water income and my trials with other weapons ended in early death.
Anyone have thoughts on how to get quickly get them up and taking at least the weaker indies? I'd rather not wait for Const 4 & blood income.

Once you're using Baalz's Skratti build, how do they handle archers? It seems the lack of a shield would leave them vulnerable. I've used them before with Frost Brand and whatever shield I could afford and that was brutal.