OW's Guide to Midgard, Scales and Skinshifters

[DonCorazon]

OW, I am playing Midgard in the Artifacts game and the guide has been helpful. I like your strategy and agree Midgard does not need a major bless. I like rainbow pretenders. It might be useful to talk about how to raid with the cloud trapezing Van's (good gear is Vine Shield, Brand, etc.) in conjunction with Starshine Skullcapped teleporting Volva's if you need to watch for mind hunts.

Other tactics: as you mention, Evo is a great school. Mist plus Storm will shut down archers and most non-100 precision spells allowing your berserkers to get in close for some bladework.

I disagree that the hero's are not worthwhile. At least Vanlade the D3A3B2 hero is useful for bootstrapping quickly into death.

I'll probably have some more thoughts later but nice job on this guide.

[Horst F. JENS]

nice guide !

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by OmikronWarrior

*To be completed at a later date*

OW, first thanks for the guide.
Are you planning to add more to it or is it complete?
Would you mind if add it to my KB?

[OmikronWarrior]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

OW, first thanks for the guide.

Your welcome.

Are you planning to add more to it or is it complete?

I would say yes, but that won't make it true. The last section was supposed to be dedicated to specific strategies, such as how to set up a blood economy or specific Pretender builds. So, whats there is complete, I just wanted to add some addendums. There are one or two fixes I would like to do, though, such as discussing how to deal with archer armies. However, I find myself quite busy lately, and its hard to find the motivation to mess with it.

Would you mind if add it to my KB?

As long as I recieve proper credit as writer and it isn't changed or placed on an open source "wiki" (so as to make changes inevitiable), feel free to copy and place elsewhere.

[DonCorazon]

Originally Posted by OmikronWarrior

I was reviewing this guide and saw one or two places to make an improvement, to say nothing of finally adding the third section (which was suppose to be dedicated to specific tactics). I was wondering if anybody else had a chance to try this strategy or just any other observations about Midgard in general that get worked into my edits and addenums.

Thanks.

OW, couple useful strategies I have found in my Midgard game. Midgard should really focus on developing an earth gem economy. With some minor blood empowerment and the use of a Ring of Wizardry you can have access to all the blood boosters (Blood Thorn, Armor of Twisting Thorns, Brazen Vessel) With boosters you can get an A2E1B1 to forge Blood Stones.

The beauty of a nice earth income is you can churn out Blood Stones and Earth Boots, and now any Galderman with an E path suddenly becomes one of the deadliest units on the map, because he can cloud trapeze in on an army and catch them with a Rain of Stones (E3A1 needs 1 earth gem). The A2E2 guys just need boots. Equip him with a Robe of Shadows, Pendant of Luck and trapeze him to an enemy province on your border and he can blast mages and still be in good shape to retreat. Or don't use any gear and cast Mistform first. It is amazing how much damage RoS can do and how quickly an army can route with such massive losses.

Defensively the Galderman with RoS can shut down any offensive communion if he casts it immediately since defenders go first. And even if the RoS kills him, he still will transform into a werewolf and stick around to fight, retreat, or whatever. The best defensive move though and when it becomes really wicked is when you have a fellow Galderman cast Fog Warriors before your RoS. You can obliterate an entire batallion of enemy mages and lightly armored army without a single loss.

[Ludivico van]

This is just a method for strong early expansion, which has resulted in a huge amount of income and a solid foundation of research going.

I just started an sp game to get a feel for the strategies, so i just chose a GE as my god with E3 S1 D3 N7 and a dominion strength of 6 or 7 (can't remember) and have thus far used to great success skinshifters with a vanjarl and I made a prophet out of Vanlade (got a hero turn 2 with misfortune 2) so he could cast the battlefield wide blessing. I don't know if you mentioned this idea; i gave a cursory look over the specific strategies. I like going by babysteps.

[Ludivico van]

I just started an sp game to get a feel for the strategies, so i just chose a GE as my god with E3 S1 D3 N7 and a dominion strength of 6 or 7 (can't remember) and have thus far used to great success skinshifters with a vanjarl and I made a prophet out of Vanlade (got a hero turn 2 with misfortune 2) so he could cast the battlefield wide blessing. I don't know if you mentioned this idea; i gave a cursory look over the specific strategies. I like going by babysteps.

[OmikronWarrior]

Originally Posted by Ludivico van

I just started an sp game to get a feel for the strategies, so i just chose a GE as my god with E3 S1 D3 N7 and a dominion strength of 6 or 7 (can't remember) and have thus far used to great success skinshifters with a vanjarl and I made a prophet out of Vanlade (got a hero turn 2 with misfortune 2) so he could cast the battlefield wide blessing. I don't know if you mentioned this idea; i gave a cursory look over the specific strategies. I like going by babysteps.

Of course you're having good luck with the strategy, if it was not a solid one, why would I bother to write a guide for it?

Anyways, creating an early prophet (not uncommonly the player's starting scout) to cast Divine Blessing is a very well known tactic regardless of nation, but one I do not feel has much worth for Midgard. Keep in mind only sacred units benefit from a bless and unless you have a really good bless (two 9's) Midgard's Vans are to expensive to recruit early on.

Also, did you really get N-7? Cannot see the utility behind that. N-6 is all you need for the bless and all you for casting. Realistically, I'd say N-3 is plenty unless you want to use Vanjarls as Mistforming thugs, then go N-4 and use the points elsewhere. For example, buying Astral-3 would have allowed your Enchantress to reach S-5 with the Starshine Cap and Crystal Coin (which also requires Earth-2, which she had). At S-5, the player can build the Ring of Sorcery, equip it and build the Ring of Wizardry, which will be much more useful in the long run than more nature magic.

Hoped this made sense and isn't to much for somebody just getting their feet wet.

[Viajero]

I know this is a guide FOR Midgard, but maybe it is also the best place to ask:

How on earth do you kill those %&#ing bastard Midgard skinshifters? :-)

Arrows may be a good one but whenever they get storm, arrow fend et al it is game over again. Is area evo magic the only solution? Any good melee option?

What would be the efficient ways to dispose of this freaks of nature?

[Baalz]

Shifters are pretty good under storm, no doubt. Area evo is the most obvious solution. Even under storm enough archers will still give them problems, particularly with flaming arrows/wind guide. They've got a measly 10 MR so any magic resist stuff will give them problems - curse of stones, winds of death, shadow blast, bloodletting. Forge a few banefire xbows and hit & run from behind your PD, you'll be surprised how fast they thin out. Their morale is only 12 so fear/terror/panic spam is another option. Melee with them is not generally where you want to be unless you've got top notch units yourself, but keep in mind they are 25 gold apiece so you can sometimes win on a gold basis even taking 2:1 losses.