Dealing with an early N9 E9 Niefel Giant rush

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by Nikelaos

just tried in SP

Agartha seems to pwn giant bless rush, magma children are ridiculously cheap and a few of them can fell the giants in no time.

pity agartha ain't amazing vs other nations

Hmmm, I will have to try the Magma Children route. I just tried 33 E9N8 Bless Niefel Giants v. 78 E9N6F9 Agartha Seal Guards. The results? Zero Niefel Giant casualties, all 78 Seal Guards dead within a few rounds. This is really farcical; no national unit can remotely challenge the Niefel Giants in head-to-head combat, because of the horrendous Cold Aura effect. The Seal Guards had may be 2 turns of swings each before they froze and were thus rendered ineffective...

I've tested the other big guns against Niefel Giants, and even the Hinnom giants didn't last very long and took very few Niefel Giants down.

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by Falkor

From my little experience I know three ways of stopping an early E9N9 Nifel rush:

- Stealth - Niefelheim has no answer on early stealthy raiders.
- SC's - either awaken pretenders or recruitables of Fomoria, Hinom will work fine with just some basic items and early buffs.
- Heat 3 scale - this works wonders, but only until Nifelheim starts spaming Wolven Winter (Alt.4) and it's one of the research priorities for them.

I don't belive some of the proposed solutions would work:

- Death magic - great counter to Nifelheim, but later in the midgame (Drain Life, Ghost Grip). Skely spam can stop giants from advancing, but you need to kill or rout them before your mages collapse. Spaming Fear or Terror doesn't work on berserked units.
In early game death works if combined with nature (fatigue spells) or astral, but it's not an easy way either.

- Fire magic - I just can't imagine it working. Despite fire susceptibility on giants, early fire magic doesn't cause enough damage to even considering it worthwhile. Abysia with fire immune, heat aura spreading troops is the only exception.

- Lightning spells - AN damage that causes fatigue additionaly. Works good on paper. In practice many shots won't hit the target some killling your own chaff. Also, lightning spaming is fatigue intensive and after several turns it's over. Still, it could work with Caelum, but you need a lot of mages.

- Cursing and afflicting giants - won't stop the cold aura from killing all nearby not cold immune units.

- Fire bless - would work perfectly on cold immune sacreds. Caelum's Temple Guard with fire bless is a waste though. Other sacreds will die from cold before dealing enough damage. Still, Mictlan and Lanka can make a good use of their fire blessed sacreds if combined with other options these nations have.

- Assassination - could work with Lanka's or Arco's powerful seducers, but it's a risky bussines for very expensive commanders.

The fact is that some nations look pretty bad against Niefel rush (or any rush, actually). Intensive diplomatic efforts always help.

_

I agree with a lot of your suggestions, except the Fire Blessed sacreds solution. A Niefel Giant with a N8 Bless will regenerate something like 10 hps per round. I just don't see how some of your suggested sacreds of Mictlan or Lanka can overcome this in 2-3 rounds (before they become fatigued out with cold aura).

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Epaminondas

I agree with a lot of your suggestions, except the Fire Blessed sacreds solution. A Niefel Giant with a N8 Bless will regenerate something like 10 hps per round. I just don't see how some of your suggested sacreds of Mictlan or Lanka can overcome this in 2-3 rounds (before they become fatigued out with cold aura).

Lanka probably can't. Mictlan can. Jaguar warriors have three attacks. For equal cost, you can get 8 jaguar warriors for the cost of 1 niefle giant. Mictlan Jag warriors are anywhere, vs Niefle being cap only.

8 warriors; 24 attacks; even if *only* 12 hit thats 72 ap damage. Well more than Niefle can regenerate, and thats not including niefle susceptibility to fire.

[Agema]

Originally Posted by Epaminondas

Hmmm, I will have to try the Magma Children route. I just tried 33 E9N8 Bless Niefel Giants v. 78 E9N6F9 Agartha Seal Guards. The results? Zero Niefel Giant casualties, all 78 Seal Guards dead within a few rounds. This is really farcical; no national unit can remotely challenge the Niefel Giants in head-to-head combat, because of the horrendous Cold Aura effect. The Seal Guards had may be 2 turns of swings each before they froze and were thus rendered ineffective...

I've tested the other big guns against Niefel Giants, and even the Hinnom giants didn't last very long and took very few Niefel Giants down.

I ran two battles against Nief giants (N9E6) as Agartha (F6W9N4) in a newbie MP game. I got rushed about turn 10, and fought a battle with numerical advantage (about 30 v 15) in my heat-2 Dom. The quickened Seal Guards and Ancient Ones dealt more damage than the Niefs could regenerate and I won comfortably. However, I fought a second battle later (about 40 v 25-30) and no heat, and my army was crushed with I think just one dead Nief.

I would certainly say that Magma Children might be a much better route for Agartha against Nief, although I never got my little burny ones into combat with them.

[Falkor]

Originally Posted by Epaminondas

I agree with a lot of your suggestions, except the Fire Blessed sacreds solution. A Niefel Giant with a N8 Bless will regenerate something like 10 hps per round. I just don't see how some of your suggested sacreds of Mictlan or Lanka can overcome this in 2-3 rounds (before they become fatigued out with cold aura).

As I said: ... if combined with other options these nations have.
We are talking about Nifel rush so key battle(s) will take place in warm provinces. The sacreds of both Lanka and Mictlan will deal good amount of damage against lower def, prot and weaker cold aura of the Giants.
Lanka will bring undead chaff to the battle. Mictlan, as Chris mentioned above, will have advantage in numbers.
Fire blees alone is not enough to stop Nifelheim but Lanka and Mictlan are far from defenseless.
_

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Falkor

We are talking about Nifel rush so key battle(s) will take place in warm provinces. The sacreds of both Lanka and Mictlan will deal good amount of damage against lower def, prot and weaker cold aura of the Giants.
Lanka will bring undead chaff to the battle. Mictlan, as Chris mentioned above, will have advantage in numbers.
Fire blees alone is not enough to stop Nifelheim but Lanka and Mictlan are far from defenseless.
_

Yet, are also considered some of the strongest contenders in EA. What about Tir 'na n'Og? Maybe Abysia? Kailasa? Marverni? For most nations, the ability to stop a strong Niefel rush has nothing to do with bless troops, but a reliance on researched magic, or nothing.

[Nikelaos]

indeed alot of nations stand no chance aainst neifelheim,

but many can though they may have some troubled, tir nan og can raid them into economic depression(as can any nation with stleath troops), abysia have the dominion and lots of fire to keep neifel out of their dominion. Agartha can hold them off via seal guards (more of a meat sheild than anything) and magma children.

has anyone tried researching panic? only n2 and a few mages casting that may force neifel to rout, and with neifel's rushes tending to head straight towards you're capital leaving 1 rout back you could take the province behind them and have them possibly rout to their deaths?

haven't tried how effective panic is but it's worth testing.

[chrispedersen]

I'll give you two hints from my book of stop niefle rushes.

Blight.
Bow of botulf.

[Nikelaos]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

I'll give you two hints from my book of stop niefle rushes.

Blight.
Bow of botulf.

Doh *facepalm*, awesome idea.

it's been so long since i ever bothered with bow of botulf, but provided you can hit the commander it does seem perfect.

[hunt11]

Don't know about the other ones, but Abysia is Niefelham's worst nightmare, full heat scales, heat aura (no idea what the proper name is), and powerful fire mages.