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Jotun Hirdman - Good These are your best national troops, which isn't saying a whole lot. They will hold the line, but they aren't that powerful offensively. Jotun Woodsman - Mediocre They're very useful for early expansion due to their 9 resource cost, but the lack of a shield really hurts these units. They are not really suitable for a strong bless strategy and since they are capital only you don't want to rely on them beyond the first 10-15 turns. Commanders Chief - Mediocre Stealthy commander for leading goblins, wolves, and moose into enemy territory. However, Vaetti Hags are also stealthy, so you may go the whole game never recruiting one of these. Jotun Scout - Good Jotun Scouts come with javelins, but you'll probably rely on independent scouts since recruiting other commanders in your forts is more important. Jotun Herse - Good This sacred unit makes a good thug if you have someone to bless him. However, the Jarl is generally considered more useful because he can bless himself. If you do not have any bless, then the Herse is significantly cheaper to recruit in numbers. Jotun Jarl - Great The Jarl has all the makings of a thug right out of the barracks and is a level 1 priest so he can bless himself. Once you research the necessary spells Skratti generally make better thugs, but Jarls can still lead more troops (Leadership 80). Jotun Gode - Good Similar to the Jarl, but massively more expensive for an extra level of holy. Jarls are generally better unless gold is not an issue. Vaetti Hag - Great These units have 1 random pick of Astral, Blood, Death, or Nature. They are also stealthy, so you can lead small raiding parties with them. One of the interesting things about Vaetti Hags is that you don't need a lab to build them because technically they don't have a magic path until after they are recruited. This allows you to build a fort, recruit a Hag, and then use that Hag to build the lab. However, more important than any of that, Vaetti Hags are very efficient researchers for their cost and you want to build as many as possible for that purpose. Astral - Site Search with Arcane Probing. Excellent combat support with Body Ethereal, Luck, Star Fires Blood - Can forge Dousing Rods and blood hunt Death - Site Search with Dark Knowledge. Command 30 undead, and use Animate Dead or Frighten
The Skratti is a very interesting and complicated unit. They are Blood 2, Water 2 and get 1 random pick of Blood, Death, Nature, Water. In general, Skrattis are good offensive mages with Cold Bolt and Frozen Heart, and make decent thugs with Breath of Winter, Quicken Self and the ability to shapeshift into a Jotun Werewolf. This shape changing ability makes them extremely versatile, but can be difficult to use correctly. Blood Pick - The Blood 3 Skrattis are good for starting up your blood economy due to their 90% chance of finding slaves. Once you forge some dousing rods you can turn the blood hunting over to the Vaetti Hags while you summon Frost Fiends or forge equipment. A blood 3 Skratti with boosters can cast the global enchantment Illwinter without having to empower. Death Pick - I can't think of anything particularly unique about Skrattis with death magic. Generally the least useful of the 4 possible combinations. Nature Pick - Nature Skrattis with a water booster can make clams. Water Pick - The Water 3 Skrattis can cast Wolven Winter to lower the temperature of provinces you intend to invade. They can also cast Falling Frost in combat. Shapeshifting: Jotun Werewolf - Jotun Werewolves are the "thug" form of the Skratti. They have about 50 hit points, retain all their equipment slots, lose 1 in all their magic paths, regenerate 6 hit points per round, have forest survival, and leadership 40. Water 1 is enough to cast Breath of Winter and Quicken Self and do some decent damage on the battlefield, and the ability to boost leadership from 10 to 40 can be very helpful at times. If you change shape from a Skratti to a Werewolf in combat, you will exit combat as a Jotun Wolf and lose all your equipment except your 2 miscellaneous slots. Make sure if you plan to fight that you shapeshift ahead of time. In werewolf form you want to script Quicken Self->Breath of Winter->Attack Rear. Jotun Wolf: Jotun Wolves are the "travel" form of the Skratti. They have a mapmove of 3 with forest survival, and stealth. However they have no magic, and have about half the hit points of the werewolf form. Their leadership stays at 40, but they lose all their equipment slots except 2 miscellaneous slots. If you shapeshaft into a wolf in combat, you exit combat the next turn as a werewolf. Example Skratti setups: The order in which a Skratti shape shifts is Skratti->Werewolf->Wolf->Skratti, so if you are in werewolf form and you want to get back to Skratti form, you have to shift through wolf form first. This means you will lose all your non-misc equipment. It may take awhile to get used to this, so when you're first using Skratti as thugs your only "safe" slots are the 2 misc slots, so just stick with a Ring of Regeneration and a Pendant of Luck. As you learn to use Skratti, you can begin outfitting them fully. The werewolf form has particularly low protection and defense, so boosting those is a priority. To increase the survivability of your Skratti, team him up with an Astral Vaetti Hag. The Hag can buff the Skratti with Body Ethereal and Luck before he attacks, making him into a very formidable thug. Vaettis can also hold the combat gear while he shifts through wolf form to get back to a Skratti. Gygja - Good These units have random picks in Astral, Blood, Death, and Nature. Statistically it is possible to get level 4 magic on a Gygja but it is not likely. You will have to recruit many of them to get the paths you want, and you should forge Boots of Youth for the ones you want to keep around due to the risk of afflictions from old age. Gygjas are versatile battle mages with early spells like Mind Burn, Raise Dead, etc. or they can sit in your capital and increase unrest with spells like Rain of Toads, Baleful Star, etc. In the late game, Gygjas with an astral pick can be very dangerous due to Nether Bolt and Nether Darts. Gygjas have good prospects for boosting their paths through items due to the synergy of the magic; you can make Moonvine Bracelets and Armor of Twisted Thorns in addition to the traditional path boosters. Gygjas are capital only, so as soon as possible you want to dedicate your capital to Gygja production so that you increase your chances of getting the paths you need for the mid and late game. Scale Design Dominion - 6+ Jotunheim needs good scales, so high dominion is necessary to spread them. It's somewhat important to spread your cold scale into enemy territory, however the alteration spell Wolven Winter can also do that for you. At least Dominion 6 is recommended. Order - 3 Jotunheim pretty much requires order 3 because your units are expensive, and you need a lot of extra gold to build fortifications for Vaetti Hags. Sloth - 3 You can afford to take a hit here for the points. Money is generally in shorter supply than resources even with sloth 3. Cold - 3 Even though Jotunheim prefers cold 2, you should take cold 3 for the extra points Growth - 1 Growth scale is a matter of personal preference, although your Gygjas and Hags are susceptible to old age and you are a blood nation so I wouldn't take death. Growth 1 is usually sufficient. Luck - 0 Jotunheim can benefit greatly from luck. They have excellent heroes (Angerboda is 3S 3D 2N 3B), and Jotunheim has trouble with air, earth, and fire sites so the extra gem income is very helpful. Take as much as you can afford, but don't make it a priority. Magic - 1 The +1 research from magic 1 comes in very handy for Jotunheim. Your Vaetti Hags are very efficient researchers for the price, and since you will have so many of them, the research bonus is to your advantage. Pretender Design Things to consider: Jotunheim has no access to Air, Earth, or Fire magic, so you may want to take a pretender that can fill this gap. At least Earth 2 so you can forge Earth Boots and then Dwarven Hammers. Jotunheim has a little trouble site searching so you may want an awake rainbow pretender to get an early start. Finding water and earth sites are of particular importance. Jotunheim's sacred troops are underwhelming, but the sacred commanders make excellent thugs. It may be useful to have multiple weak blesses such as Nature 4, Fire 4, Water 4, or Earth 4. As you learn to rely on Skrattis over Jarls, this will become less important. Jotunheim needs good scales to be effective, and high dominion to spread them.
Dominion 6 Order 3 Sloth 3
Cold 3 Growth 1
Luck 3 Magic 1
Death 1 (Crone starts with this) Nature 4
For early expansion, you should recruit the Jotun Woodsmen because their low resource cost allows you recruit about 5 per turn. Your starting army plus ~10 Jotun Woodsmen should be able to wipe out most strength 5 independents without taking any losses. You want to quickly build a 2nd army consisting of a Jotun Jarl, about 5 Jotun Woodsmen, some Vaetti Goblins, and 10-20 independent archers (based on what is available). Depending on your bless, this army should be able to take out most of the weak and moderate independent provinces without any losses. As you get farther from your capital you want to ditch the Jotun Woodsmen for Jotun Hirdmen which are available everywhere. However, your national troops are not that impressive, so supplement them with independent archers, summons, or some magical support. As a nation of giants, you have access to giant soulless and longdead. One way to leverage this is to summon a Mound King and make him your prophet. As an undead priest he can reanimate for you relatively early in the game. A Vaetti Hag can lead 30 undead and 10 normal units and makes for a very cheap expansion army. You should be recruiting Vaetti Hags in your capital until you have at least 1 Death Hag and 1 Astral Hag for site searching. Money permitting, you should then switch to Gygjas because you'll have to recruit a lot of them before getting ones with strong magic in a single path. Get a 2nd fort up as soon as possible so that you can recruit both Gygjas and Hags. As soon as your gold income starts to stabilize, recruit a blood 3 Skratti (or you might already have a blood 3 Gygja) and start blood hunting. Once you have some slaves, forge dousing rods and let your Vaetti Hags take over. Jotunheim has access to excellent province unrest spells such as Rain of Toads, Baleful Star, etc. They also have decent raiding capability in the form of stealthy wolf riders and goblins. A mix of economic warfare with plentiful thugs should keep you going until you get to the powerful blood summons. You should be able to transition from a gold economy to a blood economy more quickly than most other nations, and from there you have a good chance at victory. Research Order Useful Spells: Alteration - Body Ethereal (3), Protection (3), Luck (4), Wolven Winter (4), Frozen Heart (6) Evocation - Cold Bolt (1), Nether Bolt (4), Falling Frost (5), Ice Strike (7), Nether Darts (7) Enchantment - Breath of Winter (1), Animate Dead (1), Raise Dead (3) Thaumaturgy - Frighten (1), Mind Burn (2), Paralyze (4)
Conjuration 2 and Evocation 2 gets your site searching started Once your basic needs are met you need to start researching Construction to outfit your Jarls and Skrattis and make Dousing Rods. Once you get construction 6, you may want to switch to blood or evocation depending on what you want to focus on. An example research order could be: Enchantment 1 Alteration 4 Evocation 2 Construction 4 or Conjuration 2 Then focus on Construction, Evocation, or Blood as needed. You can also get Mother Oak at Alteration 5 if it hasn't already been cast. 8.19.3 LA Utgard 1. The troops Huskarl... Your human light infantry is a good addition to giants, and should be used mixed with them. Mixed squads will have one huskarl + one giant in each square, reducing by half the main disavantadge of size 4 troops. Huskarls are available in two varieties, with axe or with spear (all having javelins in addition). Those with axe do more dammage if they hit, but have a real attack skill of 9 only (10 -1 for the axe), 1 less point in defense and a too short weapon for repells. As giants are the national dammage dealers, I'd rather use huskarls with spears. Jotun Militia... Low cost giants are interesting if you lack money and want high hps chaff (mostly usefull against elemental nations using evocation spells ; against troops their low att/def skills make them less interesting than a smaller number of better giants). With an adjusted attack skill of 7 don't expect them to hit often, but when they do their axe + strength 18 can dammage even heavy troops. Jotun Javelinist... An interesting unit, giants strength make them able to launch their 2 missiles at range 20, and doing 23 dammage ; then they fight with axes. They lack precision for a ranged unit, but as your giants usually survive the occasionnal friendly fire (and your humans are expandable) it's not a big problem. Their protection is medium, so they don't worth the professionnal jotun axemen in melee, but they only cost half ressources and have 1 more defense than them. Hurler... A niche unit you can use to speed sieges. Their awfull defense, medium protection and the small range of their boulders make them an extremely crappy unit on the battlefield. Jotun Spearman... Your best defensive heavy infantry, due to the length (5) of their weapon making them repell often, a shield and protection 17. Of course they do less dammage per hit than the axemen, but having one more in adjusted attack skill they are probably more dangerous over time, especially when you fight not extremely heavy humans a strength 20 giant can one shot even with a spear. Jotun Axeman... Mostly usefull against big ennemies or heavy troops with low defense. Having 9 in adjusted attack skill is a serious handicap when the size of your troops don't allow you to reduce ennemy defense a lot. Jotun Huskarls... Same choice of axe or spear for the lighter huskarls. They are interesting units if you lack ressources but have plenty of gold. With better defense and morale than heavy troops, reasonable protection and a shield, they worth their 15% higher gold cost. Huskarl axemen still have an adjusted attack of 9 so I usually prefer spearmen. Jotun Hirdman... Finally, an heavy giant with good attack, protection and dammage at the same time, but expensive in both ressources and gold. Build them if you have to fight ennemies with both good protection and defense, like heavy cavalry. Jotun Woodsman... Capitol only and without shield but costing only 9 ressources and less upkeep than regular giants, and using a terrible axe (9 dammage, length 4, no attack reduction) woodsmen are for me a good enough sacred unit to envision a strong bless (especially when it will also help your thugs). Like the hirdman they have both good attack skill and high dammage potential, and their protection (11) is largely sufficient once they have regeneration and/or other defensive bless. 2. The leaders Scout/herse... Standard human leaders. Only usefull if you absolutely need a cheap commander/scout and can't recruit indie ones. Seithkona... A cheap human sorceress, with interesting paths : astral allow her to boost your troops or thugs with body ethearal/luck, death to use the powerful evocations of the nether line (bolt/darts), and nature to forge many usefull items, use healing light or buff herself with eagle eyes before chain casting nether darts. Also cost effective researcher (only 90gp, if not sacred), good site searcher (astral and death site spells being level 1) and cheap communion slave with good reverse communions potential, seithkonas are really a great unit, for me the best one the jotuns got for late age. But there is something to keep in mind : each time you recruit one you are not recruiting a skratti or other thug. Jotun Scout... A stealthy thug = good raiding potential. He is holy, but it's mostly usefull if you can find druids or other stealthy priests to bless him (or have an earth 9 bless so a shroud of the battle saint become a good enough armor). It's also your cheapest giant commander ; if you just want a thug (no interest in leadership or holy spells) and plan to forge full gear for him (don't need a good built-in armor), the scout is the most cost effective (and better than the herse in strength and MR, and throwing javelins as a bonus). Jotun Herse... An heavy thug (protection 17, shielded) able to lead troops and holy, armed with the powerful jotun longsword (dammage 9). The interest of this one is you can make him an effective killer for a very small number of gems (ie : just give him an amulet of antimagic and a ring of the warrior or other + att item, add your uber bless and the buffs your mages can cast like quickness, body ethearal, luck....he's ready). He starts to be less interesting if you fight ethearal beings or need resists (meaning you'll have to replace the weapon or armor). Jotun Jarl... Essentially a herse with holy 1, so able to bless himself (or your sacreds) before going to melee. He also has better leadership (80), 3 more hp (35) and one more MR and strength than the herse. Jotun Gode... Your best priests, also thugable (having one more MR they are less vulnerable to spells than other giant thugs, but you need to spend a little more gems to equip them, they don't have the Jarl heavy armor). Unlike the jarls, they have forest survival, an interesting skill considering your sacred woodsmen have it too. Jotun Skratti... Blood/Water giant mages (with possible pick in death or nature) able to take werewolf and wolf form (which is stealthy but has only miscellanous slots, be aware to remove other gear before using it ; as well always start a combat in werewolf form if you want to use it, if a skratti shapeshift in combat he will be in wolf form the next turn). Note that skrattis staying in one of the (were)wolf form cost no upkeep. Skratti are excellent thugs in werewolf form (but in need of gear), due to their natural regeneration and ability to quicken themselves when they already have a bonus bite attack (so they end with 4-6 attack per round = huge defense reduction for the ennemy). They are also your best blood mage and only water ones. Those with water 3 in giant shape are the best thugs, as they keep water 2 when they become werewolves, allowing them to cast quicken self and breath of winter without reaching a dangerous fatigue level (if you use water 1 werewolves as thugs and want to use the two buffs, it's better to send them with a blood slave, and use reinvigoration after, so they start the melee with 0 fatigue*). Those with blood 3 are excellent (if not cost effective) blood hunters, and allow you to forge blood boosters without empowerement, once one of your norna has forged a ring of sorcery. Those with nature make Utgard one of the rare astral nations with clam hoarding potential (you just need one water booster), and also allow the forge of armors of twisting thorns once you have a ring of sorcery (or another blood booster + thistle mace). Skratti with death are less usefull but have access to some interesting summons (with one water booster : hidden in snow and catoblepas, with 2 death boosters : leviathan). All skratti can also find uses as battlefield mages, with blood allowing them to join your communions with the sabbath spells, and water to spam frost evocations. * unfortunatly this use of reinvigoration actually only work if your werewolf is with a big army, and not too close from ennemies ; the stupid spell AI will overwrite reinvigoration to cast summon imp if your forces are outnumbered (or spells like cold blast if ennemies are at range) Norna... Your capitol only human witches are your best death, astral and nature mages (also sometimes having blood) but they have many weaknesses like being slow (mapmove 1, but all nornas have astral 2, and so can use teleport once you give them a booster), having only 8 hp (be aware of ennemies able to use foul vapors, astral tempest, earthquake etc..), and being old (but as you have blood you can make boots of youth for the nornas with good picks). Anyway, the powerful astral and death magic they provide make them so unvaluable that once you have other forts it would be silly to build any other mage in the capitol. If you are lucky you may find a rare astral norna (1/160) with s4 able (with a skullcap) to forge rings of sorcery, a key item for a nation mastering all sorcery paths (then the forge of wizardry rings, blood boosters and treelord staff is possible without empowerement) if you don't have one when you reach construction 6, it's a good idea to trade for a crystal coin or empower an s3 norna. As a secondary skill, norna have the fortune teller ability at a really meaningfull level (15% to cancel bad events when most fortune tellers have 5), so except if you are unlucky in the very first turns, you can consider your capitol (and other key provinces where several nornas will be sent) safe from bad events, let's use misfortune 3. 3. Making a pretender Your main strengths are holy thugs (=strong bless recommanded) but also astral/death mages (whose good spells are rather high level -7 for nether darts- and MR negate). As you will often recruit thugs in your forts or use your seithkonas on the battlefield you will have a smaller number of researchers than other nations, so better to take a positive magic scale (+1 because it's hard to have both +3 and a strong bless) If you have a strong bless, 9 ressources sacred will be your main troops for initial expansion, so dominion and gold will be the only limiting factors in early game, sloth 3 order 3 and as much dominion you can have with a strong bless look logical. Your nation prefer cold 1 but with all your giants troops/thugs immune to cold (no additionnal fatigue), and your werewolfs going to use breath of winter a lot, taking cold 3 mean less money but a defensive advantage for you. You have the best recruitable fortune tellers, so you can take misfortune 3 without too much risk (but note that the nation has some very powerful heroes, so a build with luck can be an interesting option). Your capitol mages are old, but blood / death magic offer ways to save good mages from old age, so growth isn't really needed (death 1 is a good idea, 40 pts for a negligible effect). 3.1 Double Bless As your sacred / thugs are giants, with a good number of hit points nature is the magic providing the best bless, and as your mages are not holy you can take nature 9 or 10 without risk to see them berserking. Then for a second bless there are several options : fire (more attack and dammage), water (more defense and quickness) or earth (reinvigoration and protection), astral is less interesting (your sacred have reasonable MR, your thugs can be geared, twist fate offer no synergy with regeneration), death as well (when your sacreds/thugs one shot most foes increased affliction chance is not the best bless). Fire... In addition to the bless, fire/nature allow your pretender to forge some fever fetish to get a better fire income (considering you have 30hp scouts to carry them, it's not too much microgestion), and fire also offer some good anti undead items/rituals (good to take as LA Ermor may be around), but it's not a really powerful magic, and it offer no synergy with your cold based nation. Also if it's a very good bless for the troops (allowing the woodsmen to hit ethearal beings) it's not as usefull for the thugs (who can have gear to boost their attack, and magical weapons). Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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