Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim

[DrPraetorious]

Actually, it's the *action point* bonus that really hurt him that battle. My giants practically teleported across the battlefield - in a hot province they're much slower.

Clearly, I'd have to be a complete fool to simply march on his capital. I'm going to make some quick gains while he reinforces (and yes I have scouts), fortify a new border, and then start freezing provinces remotely before battles start.

[Manuk]

You can't count in assasins. as cool as they are they are meant more to kill researchers than commanders. He just have to bring basic 30g commanders and your assasin's turn is wasted and his army moved away from him.
Altough it would be nice to kill his priests. Unless he has some tough prophet or something for divine blessing instead of the common blessing.

How about lizardmen shaman casting curse to the giants.

Indy archers plus fire arrows.

Raiding devils.

Devils on hold and attack large enemy monsters (if the
commanders are bigger than the common giants this can be a sort of assasination).

Body etereal on vanguard?

dunno.

[Ironhawk]

Those are some great ideas, Manuk. You could even combine them and have ethereal devils as your vanguard

I know Aby cant cast it but my #1 spell vs big targets is always Gifts from Heaven. Blasts big creatures to bits in a single hit.

Isnt there a blood spell that diseases an army? Rain of Toads, I think? Now, that is pretty useless vs a normal dom3 300 unit horde. But if all you are facing is a 40 unit army? Then it starts to make a difference.

The suggestion of an SC is a good one, too. Its not that hard to get an SC with truly heroic defense (25+). Which, against giants should be pretty good, given that you cant be mobbed in the traditional sense. Heart finding swords is also and excellent suggestion. In fact, if the giants dont have magic weapons (i dont think they do?) you could make an SC with a heart finder sword, etherealness, lucky, and piles of defense (dont bother with Prot, you will die in one hit anyway) and he would probably kick the hell out of a large number of giants.

[Shovah32]

Actually, due to their huge health disease isnt effective against other elite units(vans ect). If your going to raid him and manage to find a death mage somewhere QM taught me a very nice strat: Hire a few demonbred slayers, forge them rods of the leper kings and then summon fiends of darkness. Each rod equipped demonbred can lead 40 and the entire group has both stealth and flying.

[Manuk]

disease its not bad but i don't know how many of them would be affected.

[Baalz]

DrPraetorious said:
Clearly, I'd have to be a complete fool to simply march on his capital. I'm going to make some quick gains while he reinforces (and yes I have scouts), fortify a new border, and then start freezing provinces remotely before battles start.

Heh, yeah, pretty much all strategy is easier said than done against an opponent who is on the ball, but its good to know if you can force your opponent into a disadvantageous situation. I think the Abyssian dominion pushes heat the same way the Niefelheim does cold, so your strategy of fortifying and freezing him out should be applicable in reverse. Thaw those giants out! I'm guessing that those dual blessed giants have probably led to a low dominion score any chance of dominion push? Get a couple of blood sacrificers near the border and pair it with aggressive demon-bred raiding in his back country and the heat will really cut into the income necessary to crank out those expensive giants (I think heat-3 will give -30% income for Niefelheim). Give a "warm welcome" to the giants who try to come in and squash your temples, stay in the high heat dominion and play with the home-field advantage.

[llamabeast]

DrPraetorious said:

Actually, it's the *action point* bonus that really hurt him that battle. My giants practically teleported across the battlefield - in a hot province they're much slower.

I'm not sure the action points are that important - if both sides have melee armies, when they meet each other doesn't really matter.

The big problem as I see it is the cold aura. Most armies have about two hits at the giants - enough to injure them significantly if you have good men - then the army falls asleep in the cold, and the giants mop up with no casualties. Of course their extra armour and defence make a big difference too.

In my test games, Abysia beats Niefelheim trivially in a hot province, and almost can't win in the cold. But I think it's likely Niefelheim will have Wolven Winter (trying to estimate from the score graphs) and given that he'll probably be able to guess where any important battles are, how can I possibly beat him? I wish there was some kind of counter to wolven winter, but there isn't as far as I can tell, and so no matter how good my dominion is, for only 10 water gems he can turn the heat-3 province where a battle will occur to cold-3, dooming my poor soldiers.

If he hasn't got Wolven Winter he's stuffed.

[Huzurdaddi]

The giants do not regen during the magic casting rounds. So that means a *vast* numbers of Flames from Afar ( if you have space age research then Flames from the Sky ) should toast the giants. For 40 giants I *think* it would take something like 25 Falmes from Afar to kill them all. That is 250 gems so it is mroe than likely not worth it.

In combat Rods of the Phoenix, and lots of them, will do the trick, but you probably don't have the tech, nor do you have the gems, nor do you have the screening troops.

Othen that those insanely costly ideas I think that if you are fighting in cold provinces you are going to get smoked, uhm frozen, uhm whatever.

[mivayan]

stellar cascades, in combat, will make the giants nicely tired since they dont reinvigorate more than their enc.

[llamabeast]

Once again everyone, many thanks for all the advice, I'm thinking about it all carefully. Much appreciated!