Winning w/o a SC???

[Kel]

Originally posted by HotNifeThruButr:
I've just fought against a comp Pythium, and learned that Velites have 14 Def. Maybe you could consider them a good national response against Jotun.

Ctis has 20 gold, 5 resource, sacred, 16 def serpent dancers if you really want a high defense. YMMV with bless strategies.

With the elephants, yes, they can trample giants, but I don't know what Arco and Caelum can use to crack the armor. Arcosephale has an unhealthy obsession with spears

Arcos is my favorite nation. They have a great defense against Jotuns:
Paralyze / soul slay / enslave.

In other words, you're coming up with ways to minimize your own losses while I'm coming up with ways to maximize Jotun losses.

Keep in mind a heavy nature blessing strategy (not uncommon against the opponents I have played) with the giants might make for a different answer.

- Kel

[PvK]

Ya, I don't really care if my fodder can easily hurt the giants or not. That's not their job. Their job is to get attacked instead of the units who are hurting the giants. Preferably, those who really hurt the giants are out of range of thrown boulders, and are probably casting spells or firing arrows.

Ulm doesn't have anyone unarmored except mage types. The arbalests aren't a bad choice for the rear ranks. I usually have arbalests in a seperate army from my national Ulm HI anyway. I wouldn't send more than 1/3 Ulmish national troops in the main body against giants. They can sort of do that "nationally" by taking their best fodder indy province and building a fort there, using their usual high productivity on low-resource troops of the cheapest kind, to get a bunch of dummy targets for the Jotuns to try to kill. The Jotuns will tend to be stopped for several turns just trying to hit all the targets, and wearing themselves out trying to hit them all, while whatever else hits the giants.

There are various ways to help make this work when arranging the army on the field. If you do want to use some strong melee units on them, I'd likely send a wave of all-fodder first, followed by a wave of fodder mixed with good troops (mixed spacially - not necessarily in the same squad).

PvK