Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?

[Inigo Montoya]

Ozymandias said:
Just to clarify a few things, EA Vanheim has capitol only sacreds that aren't nearly as good a chassis as Van or Helhirdling. Their defense is a respectable 12 before they berserk, but only 7 after. They cost three times as much as elite infantry of other nations. I don't believe that EA Vanheim has sacreds of excessive power.

Helheim and MA Vanheim are different. Van and Helhirdlings both have stock defense of 19. Oiorpata are the next closest sacred with 18 defense. White Centaurs, Equite of the Sacred Shroud, Tiger Riders, Wind Riders, Androphags, and Red Guard all have defense 17. Vanir cavalry have very high defense, particularly with a water blessing. This means that they are very rarely hit in melee, which provides normal troops very few chances to remove their mirror images. All of the previously listed sacred cavalry become very survivable in hand to hand with a water bless; Vanir cavalry have only a small advantage, but it is magnified by their mirror image. Also it is worth noting that of all the sacreds listed above, only Van are not capitol only.

In addition to their excellent tactical attributes (helhirdlings are arguably the very best national troop of any era; van are only slightly worse) they also have superior strategic abilities. The standard MA Vanheim army of a Vanjarl and a half dozen Van is sailing, glamorous, and map move 3. Helheim loses sailing on their Vanjarls, but they have flying Disr and Valkyrie forces to help compensate. One thing that all of the people who have rightly said that Vanir armies are beatable have neglected to mention is that the Vanir nations get to pick their battles. Even if they are beatable by large carefully scripted armies, they are more mobile then those armies and can easily bypass them. EA Abysia's sacreds are very powerful, but they don't appear all through your empire attacking wherever you are weak because they have to move in a visible, ploddingly slow group.

Finally the blesses. Water 9, fire 9 gets mentioned a lot on this thread, and personally I believe that water is the most powerful bless available to high defense sacreds. Fire is the best bless which provides magic weapons. Death and earth blesses are both helpful to casters as well as melee troops, and nature blesses are strong in direct proportion to the hit points of the sacred units, but for nations with basically human hit point sacreds suitable for combat fire 9 water 9 pretenders will be chosen often. I would prefer for the less optimal blesses to be made more useful rather then nerfing the big two. Making the earth blessings armor bonus not contingent on armor, making the save for death weapons at -4, not limiting the magic resistance bonus from an astral bless to 18, and removing the save for blood curse would all be good starts. I'm not sure what a good improvement for the air bless would be, but it needs help too.

I agree with this post entirely. Vans in particular are overpowered. The ability to choose where you fight (glamour) in conjuction with a non-capital only production gives this unit too much benefit for its cost. The solution is to up the cost slightly with the next patch. The thing we should be arguing is how much the cost should be increased.

As far as improving the Air Bless, I'd really love to see A9 be 100% shock resistance.