the prophet casts sermon of courage to buff up their morale and Word of Thorns to damage and entangle (MR resist)
What a sorry waste of Prophet's turns. He is
perfectly capable of fighting in melee, just keep him behind your main line. Self-bless and go killing, with that kind of armor and hp you don't have to fear some indy hooman defenders.
If you had a gud type of Smite, maybe it would be worthwhile. But Word of Thorns? A single-target 5-damage entangle? A shameful dispray on your part.
but we lose the Skinshifter that got surrounded up on the left flank:
You know what would prevent the flanking?
A FUCKING LONGER LINE OF TROOPS!
But who needs NUMBERS, right? A "line" of 5 units is much more appealing!
No losses would be better, but this was a risky expansion and we can be happy it wasn't worse
Eh? HAPPY? How about ADMITTING IT WAS STUPID and learning from your mistakes?
Nah, let's just clap our hands and be merry we didn't loose to indies. YET.
You were lucky these are club-wielding batmen, not the lancers. But even against CLUBS you suffered losses.
We therefore [did something stupid] and prayed for the best:
Basically your general strategy in this LP. That's you. That's how you're playing.
And easily avoidable too!
The best part of it? You got YOMI at those borders. A darkvision-demon-goblin nation. Good luck protecting those caverns from them!
Not with YOUR bless, damn you!
We'll certainly be using a few of these gals to supplement our forces, but it's unlikely they will play a significant role overall.
They will play NO ROLE WHATSOEVER unless you build a fort in this province. Which would be rather idiotic. Sorcs can be recruited using lab only, and this place is rather bad for a fort (the Throne province to the north is better). No fort means no resources to hire those units, or hire, like, 1 unit per turn. Farkin' hell, what a PAINFUL read.
The commander we recruited last turn is going back to our capitol, where we're adding the following troops to the single Skinshifter we recruited last turn:
This'll make for a nice expansion party of 7 dude
Nice expansion party, my arse. That's a reinforcement force at best. You will lose Skinshifters
- expensive as all fuck, mind you, - every time you go into battle, provided you can win a battle at all with such a lineup. It's a goddamn waste of gold and troops.
Not a great matchup for us unless we actually get attacked, in which case our Nifel Giants and Nifel Jarls can do a number on them with their AoE cold auras
Great analysis as always.
EXCEPT YOU ARE
WRONG.
Bakemonos are much easier to deal with using fear aura (horror helmets), due to their undisciplined nature. If you gonna rely on the chill aura,
especially in Heat temperatures - get ready to get rekd. Regardless, bakemonos are irrelevant - in fact, I'll be mighty surprised if Yomi player uses them against Niefelheim at all.
Yomi has access to cheap-ass D mages recruitable in any mountain with a lab. Do you have any idea how easy it is to counter your "troops" with a bunch of D1 casters or even simple commanders with Amulets of the Dead? I remember this game when I played as Niefels against Ulm, he managed to counter my low-number/SC/thug forces using those amulets
only. It was ridiculous.
And if gets to Conj 4 before your war begins, oh boy. You're in for a whole new world of pain.
Not to mention Dai Onis. They are on par with your Niefel Jarls when it comes to SC chassis. Hell, they might be even better given their superior magic paths.
Overall, Yomi is a dangerous neighbor for us to attack early on until we can get a good answer to the bakemono swarms
Horror Helmet is the OBVIOUS answer! A
single goddamn Skratti wearing a Horror Helmet! He doesn't give two shits about bakemonos OR heat scales! You'd better do it BEFORE Yomi gets access to national summons and heavy skellyspam.
Isn't this shit obvious? Are you fucking with me?
It could have definitely gone worse
It couldn't.
Here's the western expansion we ordered last turn:
I'm actually impressed we didn't lose any guys here, in retrospect.
Are you even keeping track of WOUNDS, damn you? If all your FIVE (!!!) units - a glorious expansion
army, no less - have no arms and legs, HEADBUTTING those humans - maybe it is time to SEND REINFORCEMENTS already?
Our new expansion group is heading north (green), and our western expansion group is heading back since we've met our NW neighbor. It's Fomoria! The only natively UW (underwater) capable nation in the game and our best potential ally against Atlantis.
We sign a NAP with them and tell them we're not gonna contest that throne and lake we've ceded to Atlantis, hopefully encouraging conflict between the two of them.
So you made a deal with Atlantis. And now you made a deal with Fomoria, hoping it will attack... Atlantis..?
WHY NOT SIMPLY CONQUER ATLANTIS YOURSELF, what the fuck is WRONG with you? Are jes SCHEMING for the SAKE of scheming?
Our overall plan for this turn is as follows:
Here we go again.
YOU CANNOT
POSSIBLY HOPE TO HOLD PROVINCES SO FAR AWAY FROM YOUR CAP!
YOU HAVEN'T EVEN
STARTED BUILDING A FORT
THE FFFFFUCK ARE YOU DOING?
I'm a fan of risky and aggressive expansion
More like a fan of gangbangs. Because right now YOU'RE BEGGING FOR ONE!
This means still no mages to research, but I wanted to take as much land ASAP
And still no mage! Now this is definitely overdoing it.
Just why. The fuck. Did you grab that Magic scale?
I'm also generally a fan of making one expansion party per turn early on
This may be less of a good idea for Nifelheim though
YOU DON'T SAY!
Still, an argument can be made it's better to grab land fast and catch up on other stuff later
Oh, ffs, you GOTTA be trolling!
1. None of those lands you'll be able to hold for long.
2. You're wasting troops and gold.
3. You could buy FORTS instead of wasting gold on troops. What Niefelheim really needs is FORTS, not single-use-expansion-parties, not even early mages, just FORTS. Your main power are the slow-to-recruit Skrattis!
What you SHOULD have done instead of this ridiculous suicide fiesta is CONSOLIDATE, grab nearby lands, fortify them SAFELY (because they are within reasonable expansion), then go aggressive on a good match (Atlantis!!). Meanwhile trying to NaP with the others.
Instead you are wasting your units, time, gold for the sake of one thing only: becoming the prime target for a gangbang.
Let's quickly talk about our initial research plans. Our first goal (currently pursued by a lonely Gyga researching in the capitol) is Construction 4
Although Constr 4 is the correct first milestone for Niefels (it was impossible to fuck up, so don't get cocky), good luck to that SINGLE GYGJA trying to reach it. God fucking speed!
It's not just the research either, we'll need mages for sitesearching ASAP as well. And we also need forts! Balancing this is especially hard as Nifelheim, and this is my first try at it. It could definitely be worse!
First try. That's the WORST excuse I've heard in me life. You are playing in a TOURNAMENT, FFS, the only Codex player there! Could you, I don't know, RUN A FEW FUCKING SP GAMES, TESTING YOUR EXPANSION STRATEGY?!
FUCK!