LA Utgard guide

[thejeff]

I'd argue against a large bless. The woodsmen aren't worth it. Capital only, large, no shields, no real special abilities. They're not good enough for a strong rush and to remain relevant into the mid/late game. Jarls are the natural focus for a bless strategy, but if you're gearing up thugs Skratti are better. For them, a bless with Shrouds can be nice, but it's hardly essential.
I'd aim for an awake or dormant pretender to add magic diversity, particularly Earth for hammers, and a minor bless or two. E4N4 for the regen/reinvig or E4S4 mostly for forging ES boosters etc.

[Dragar]

then where would you spend your points? No point having an SC pretender, bonus points for cold, high dominion a bit wasteful if not using blessed woodsmen.. I think high production is a waste given how much you will rely on thugs, when the woodsmen are there for early expansion.. that is the beauty of woodsmen, very cheap resources for a giant, letting you field good armies without production scales, with sloth even. After the early stages you have great thugs and strong mages

I agree that skratti are your best thugs, but shrouding them is awesome if running a powerful bless, far better than any other cheap armour. Shrouds are very useful on your mages too, especially E9N(X<9), giving reinvig and regen to avoid disease HP loss.

[thejeff]

Largely on the awake (at worst dormant) pretender. Not as SC, but to manually site search to jump start Earth gem income so you have hammers to churn out cheap gear for Skrattis and Jarls.
And/or better scales. Growth helps with blood hunting. Even with Order, Luck gives gems and better chances of the two incredible heroes.

I just don't see a massive investment in a double bless as paying off enough if it's just going to help against indies and give a slight boost to Skratti. I agree they're really nice with shrouds and a high bless, but they're still brutal without it.

[Agema]

If you go for an E9 bless, remember that you're getting +4 protection. Woodsmen will not only getting on +4 reinvigoration thus removing their fatigue worries, but they're now respectably armoured too (14-15?). Consequently bowfire is not as huge a risk as you might think. Plenty of arrows miss; your protec will then soak up many that hit, and you'll mostly get a pitter-patter of low damage hits spread across many giants, which can largely be recovered by N bless regeneration. You'll want to be slightly more wary of crossbows and longbows, you'll want to be wary with huge masses of any archers, and you'll never want woodsmen near flaming arrows unless you can cast Arrow Fend.

The E9 bless will also tie-in extremely with your thugs.

[Viajero]

Asuming an E9 N6 bless strategy, what overall mid-game strategy would you follow if you had Arco (with a phoenix as pretender) as main enemy?

Around turn 30, got a few werewolf thugs already geared up with Construction 4 items, and growing numbers of woodsmen.

- Best Research priorities?
- Army orientation? what mages/spell combination or tactics?
- What other thugs and SC should I be aiming for? Deat magic, Bane lords, Tartarians? do earth or nature magic offer decent SC somehwere I must have missed?
- Global spell strategy rather, mother oak + gift of health for further regen maybe and stick to woodsmen?

Any advice appreciated,

[Agema]

Raid their provinces with thugs, deprive them of gold, Arco will slow down to a crawl. Utgard's army is pretty middling: those giants might look fearsome but they're not that great all in all.

You don't need to summon thugs, you have three already. Least recommended is the Gode, the Jarl is okay, Skratti is awesome. Turn the Skratti into a Werewolf (Change shape on stratmap orders, DON'T do it as army orders). Lots of ways to make Skratti thugs work, but a classic would be Shroud of the Battle Saint plus weapon plus shield. I recommend frost brand and vine shield. That build relies on not being hit (high Def, Vine Shield) as protection is not great: don't send it up against things like heavy cavalry alone (multiple attacks and high damage) as it can readily die. BF orders: Cast quicken self, hold one or two turns, Attack.

All your thugs can be accompanied by Seithkonas - Seithkona should be on the same square as the thug and cast Body Ethereal. Skratti can risk hvy cav and so on when ethereal. Note you'll want your Seithkona to then leave the battlefield or otherwise find a safe place (like behind a bodyguard) so she's not attacked. In larger battles thugs can be accompanied by a bodyguard as well to act as a bit of chaff.

Note all those thugs have unexceptional MR. Amulets of MR recommended especially for astral-heavy opponents like Arco. If you've got air boots somehow, great, your thugs can now go pretty much anywhere. A Seithkona with your thug will also make mind hunts risky.

I think Construction 4 is your first urgent stop so you can equip thugs. I'm not thrilled by Utgard mid-level magic mostly, but later on you've got some great options with big Nature and Astral buffs like Mass Protection, Mass Regeneration, BF Luck, etc.

[thejeff]

If you've gone into Blood, which you probably should have, you can take a look at Baalz's Neifel guide for Blood item based Skratti builds. Armor of Souls helps with the low MR as well.

Breath of Winter can help your thugs with crowd control.

[Dragar]

Originally Posted by Agema

Note all those thugs have unexceptional MR. Amulets of MR recommended especially for astral-heavy opponents like Arco. If you've got air boots somehow, great, your thugs can now go pretty much anywhere. A Seithkona with your thug will also make mind hunts risky.

This is the key. Skratti are great thugs mid-game, look no further, but make sure to put their MR up - even with an amulet it is still their biggest weakness, and arco has no shortage of astral. If at all possible have antimagic cast for any significant battle, ethereal is a great idea as Agema said, and you certainly want those astral mages there to stop mind hunts.

Because they are so readily available, its better to have more with middling equipment (sword, shield, shroud, amulet) than to kit them out completely

It's normally quite easy to get a few in the HoF, so make sure to capitalise on whatever they get.

Aside from your skratti death thugs/SCs are your best bet, you have the death and nature natively so its easy. Gift of Health is tremendously useful with all your regenning giants, and because of your geriatric norna (they aren't too bad with nature and death, but still pick up an annoying number of afflictions)

Against the phoenix specifically you probably need to vary things a bit. Odds are he is elying on fire and shock for most of his damage, and you have nothing native against either.. i'd recommend the most important thing to do is kill him before he gets all his buffs up. Phoenix slots suck, he needs a good few turns of buffing. Have your skratti flying and attack first turn, it doesn't take a lot to wipe out a phoenix. Get hold of a ring of fire res to save your skratti, or just equip him really cheap, such as with flesheater and ring of the warrior.

naturally you want to lure the phoenix into you rdominion first if possible, and if you have a dominion edge over arco push as much as you can.

[Agema]

Norna are generally okay - they aren't too troubled by afflictions, especially if you took Growth. You don't need that many either: N2 is critical to get nature going properly, and S3/D3 are best collected as well, but Seithkona can provide much of your necessary spellpower, particularly as they can commune where necessary.

Certainly, as Utgard doesn't have earth (an imprisoned God arrives long after you've needed to kit out thugs) and if you can't get Dwarven Hammers, thug equipment will be a massive drain on your gem stockpiles, so minimal equipment on plentiful Skratti is good.

[Dragar]

I tend to only recruit norna in my capital for most of the game - decent levels of death and astral are never a waste. Easy to teleport them, use them for mind hunt, leprosy. Communion masters naturally.

Also, every so often you are really lucky and land an S4 or D4. The S4 in particular is crucial as it is your only easy (without trading) avenue to rings of wizardy and sorcery, unless you luck on some crystal mages for crystal coin production.

Take any opportunity you can get to trade for hammers or earth gems - as Agema says your pretender is out late, at th very least you want some earth gems ready for him to forge with