Helheim - lets burn some rubber

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by TwoBits

Dang, thanks for that clarification, VFB. I for one (and there are likely others) was under the mistaken notion that slaves had their effective caster levels raised, just like masters.

Ttheir caster level but only when calculating the fatigue cost the slaves takes from the master's spell.

It's the reason why a 4-slave communion can cast more than twice as many spells as a 2-slave communion.

[Baalz]

Reverse communion works best with fire or earth spells because it's a lot easier to cast the appropriate buffing spell. If a master casts Earthpower/Phoenix power then power of the spheres it raises lowly F1/E1 guys up to level 3, which lets you cast the fun stuff like falling fires/blade wind. Air and water are a bit harder as you'll often be looking at just the 1 level bump from power of the spheres...and not even that if you're doing a sabbath with no available astral.

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

Ttheir caster level but only when calculating the fatigue cost the slaves takes from the master's spell.

It's the reason why a 4-slave communion can cast more than twice as many spells as a 2-slave communion.

I meant to say "It actually affects their caster level"...
Somehow my post didn't turn out that way.

[Agusti]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

This build did not work for me. I was annihilated by Vanheim. Perhaps I did not use it well. Expansion was great, but when it came time for war, Van beat the crap out of me.

Hi. Me too but I was eliminated by Lanka in a MP game. In turn 15 Lanka attacked me with a lot of sacred Demon troops (Palankasha, blood magic level 1). I wasn't able to recruit more than three Helhirdings (Dom. 3) and my economy was weak. Lanka defeated my armies easily an only one time I was able to defeat their Demons (when I put a lot of Helhirdings together my troops had a very good behaviour in combat against Lanka so maybe in other circumstances my nation could have defended well against Lanka). But it was a war of attrition and Helheim, with the scales proposed in this guide, cannot afford a long term war against Lanka in the first stage of the war (at last with the scales this guide proposes), so I had to put my nation under the IA.

Lanka was able to summon more Palankasha than me recruting Helhirdings and Huskarls. Its troops were very well blessed (Twist Fate, defense + , protection +, etc) so they were a hard opponent for my Helhirdings (my best troops).

I think it's necessary better scales in productivity to get more resources for the sacred troops and more Dominion scale in order to recruit more Helhirdings or Valkyrias. Only with a powerful recruitment of sacred troops Helheim would be able to defend against rush nations, as Lanka for example.

Nevertheless, if it hadn't been by the attack of Lanka my nation was doing things very well and I was leading research and gem income so maybe I could have done very well in the mid-late game

[cleveland]

A Lanka bless-rush is tough to counter for anybody. Those Palankasha's (sp?) are actually cap-only recruits, so your opponent wasn't even expending mage-time summoning them.

You'll want to lean hard on Helheim's air magic next time. By turn 15, you should have ~20 Vanjarls/Hangadrotts (min A2 each), and he's not going to be able to impart any shock resistance to his demons yet.

Send these guys out in small teams scripted for (Blessing)(Mistform)(Resist Lightning)(attack)(Shock Wave)Cast Spells. The AI will autocast Shock Wave, which will be pretty effective vs. those demons with that bless.

[Torin]

I would say that its better to do your own setup taking ideas from Baalz's guide.
Perhaps tweaking the magic on your pretender to gather the points to bigger dominion score. Lesser earth? more sacred units.
Perhaps going to somewhere else instead of construction to have some battlemagic earlier.

On the other hand I see this as a strategy as a gamble that you will not
be rushed so early to see the benefits of quicker research.

Other choice is to do the usual sacred units rush instead while doing a slower chase of constructing skulls.

[Agusti]

Originally Posted by cleveland

A Lanka bless-rush is tough to counter for anybody. Those Palankasha's (sp?) are actually cap-only recruits, so your opponent wasn't even expending mage-time summoning them.

You'll want to lean hard on Helheim's air magic next time. By turn 15, you should have ~20 Vanjarls/Hangadrotts (min A2 each), and he's not going to be able to impart any shock resistance to his demons yet.

Send these guys out in small teams scripted for (Blessing)(Mistform)(Resist Lightning)(attack)(Shock Wave)Cast Spells. The AI will autocast Shock Wave, which will be pretty effective vs. those demons with that bless.

In other circumstances and with other scales my nation could have done better defending against Lanka (with more money and more resources to recruit more Helhirdings...and more Dominion, of course). And quick access to air magic spells, I agree with you, but I spent the first turns researching construction as this guide proposes

I only had 4 o 5 Vanjarls in turn 15 and only one castle (a second one was about to be constructed) in another province and they were scattered everywhere conquering indie provinces. I would have needed a lot of money and castles to recruit 15-20 Vanjarls in 15 turns and I wasn't able to do that in my game with the scales Baalz proposes here (shortage in money and resources). Or maybe I could have recruited them instead of Helhirdings and infantry, but I don't like the idea.

"The strategy does not stand/hold the first contact with the enemy".The problem was that my strategy was not good to face Lanka and I made a mistake to not changing my strategy and my research priorities when I spotted Lanka so near to my provinces.

It's a hard lesson but a good one

[Baalz]

Yes, as Cleavland says Lanka is one of the classic bless rush nations and configured for such they're going to have a strong advantage against most nations in this situation. That doesn't mean you can't win, but it does mean you're going to have to outplay your opponent to win because in straight fights few troops can wade in and defeat well blessed palankashas. In this type of situation you'll need to (temporarily) abandon your long term planning and go into full emergency mode, divert your mages and research from what you had in mind to short term useful stuff. Evocation and lightning are a good suggestion, here are a couple others assuming you're following the template in this guide.

Turn 15 you should have construction-4 done and a pretty decent gem income with your research surging. Palankashas have a small buckler and are vulnerable to sufficient archery, so one option would be to delay them a few turns and push up to construction-6 (you should be able to achieve this pretty quickly if you pull your pretender back for research duty and leverage those skull mentors you're cranking out), then leverage those dwarven hammers you've been building to crank out bows of war. Your Vanjarls have a base precision of 16 and can self buff aim, half a dozen of them firing from behind your PD (which being high defense glamoured will last longer than average) will be very punishing. Any one of these should also be able to destroy Lanka's monkey PD (which is very vulnerable to archery) and is stealthy and very maneuverable, so you should be able to take 3-4 of their provinces for each of yours you lose. Combine this with lantern shields, which will auto summon corpse candles to the flanks of your enemy, making them run around to deal with them while you punish them brutally. Mix in a couple of black bows, visions foes, piercers, just man's crosses for Lankas thugs and just generally to put more of your gems to use. Don't hesitate to recruit a bunch of indie commanders if you've got more bows than Vanjarls - though once you see how that 20+ precision works you'll be in love with using them.

Meanwhile you've pushed up to evocation-4, a quick run with your strong research engine. At this point you're dropping blade wind and thunderstrike, and you're officially past the part where you're under the gun of a "bless rush". Palankashas go down very quickly when you can bring this kind of artillery to bear.

Another option would be hitting the alteration research. Palankashas are going to be coming in relatively small numbers, dropping destruction on them is probably all it would take to make your huskarls very competitive - but as long as you're there use false fetters to serve them up on a platter.

So, again, no doubt you're gonna have a hard time dealing with a good Lanka bless rush, but by turn 15 your options should really start opening up. Trying to fight them with helherdlings is a sucker's game, you're playing where they have a strong advantage. Particularly if you're using a build like the one I suggest here - forget about your sacreds as you're not built to optimize them. Rather than do that, try to shift the fighting to where you can leverage the strengths that you've cultivated (strong early research, lots of early vanjarls, good early gem income).

[Agusti]

Baalz, thank you. But one thing is what I would like to expect from the strategic point of view of your guide and the other the reality. And the reality was that my Svartalfs dind't find any earth gem site (very bad luck, I know) so in turn 15 I hadn't forge any Dwarden Hammer because I only collected 1 earth gem/turn. So my research was going very well but my gem production was not so good so I couldn't have forged magical items as easily as I/you would like.

I like the idea of recruiting Vanjarls as there's no tomorrow and use them to cast air spells, it would have been a better option than recruting Helhirdings as a priority. But I maintain that you can not easily defend Helheim only with Vanjarls and a bunch of sacred troops unless Helheim prioritizes his research in evocation and alteration spells very quickly instead of construction 4 or 6, specially if the gem production is bad.

Your guide is very interesting but need tweaks and adjustments specially when Helheim has to face a serious menace from a rush nation or when things are not going as was expected

[Squirrelloid]

Considering how common E sites are, finding no E income is incredibly unlucky. At that point its time to accept the inevitable and die with dignity, because nothing you can do is going to matter.

Definitely agree with baalz that your sacreds are not going to stand up to Lanka's sacreds. Lanka is the only nation in the game who can X9Y9Z9 (say FWS) bless and never look back. Even Mictlan stops and thinks for a moment before sucking down Drain 2 scales. Your sacreds are only going to melt against F9W9S9 palankashas. So once your gem-research engine fails, you really are done for.