Vanheim is a land of misty moors and bitter forests inhabited by a tall and innately magical race known as the Vanir. The Vanir are mortal enemies of the giants of Jotunheim and since the beginning of time they have waged a great war upon each other. They are masters of illusions and are able to trick mortals with their glamour. In halls under the mountains of Vanheim live Dwarves, smiths capable of crafting fabulous items. Vanheim is a land of magic and even the horses are enchanted and exceptionally fast. Vanir are skilled shipwrights and navigators and can sail the oceans. Lesser beings are not held in high regard and their blood is sacrificed to sate the Awakening God. – Nation Description

How the nation plays and what it is good at should go here, aka why would it be cool to play, what's good about it (in general terms) and where they falter possibly there could be a standard for nation classification (sacred heavy, elves, communion nation, blood nation, research, economical, forging, stealth, thug based, etc.) National Features

Race	Military	Magic Access	Priests	Buildings
Prefers 1 Van Elves Stealthy (65) Glamour +4 MR vs. Humans +3 DEF & HP vs. Humans +2 ATT & PRE vs. Humans +1 MOR, STR, & CS vs. Humans Expensive & Few Capital-Only Dwarven Mages	Sailing Elf Vikings Strong Thugs No cheap mages Berserking Vanhere sacreds	4 (Rare 5) 3 (Rare 4) 2 (Rare 3) 1 (Rare 2) 1 (Rare 2) Summonable: 4*, 3*, 2*, 2* , 2*, 2* *Can't be summoned natively.	2 in all Forts Blood Sacrifice	Standard (Fortress)

Andvarian Dwarves

Vanheim has recruitable Master Smiths who can forge equipment one level higher than comparable mages, though only for magic paths they have. The smiths are slow to recruit, and not quite as flexible as the other mages of the nation, but they raise Vanheim's effective magic access for the purpose of getting items:

• 4 (rare 5) ← There are only a few Earth items Vanheim can't make
• 2 (rare 3)
• 2 (rare 3)

All of the smiths will at least have 3 in terms of forging, and the crosspaths they can get in conjunction with their smithing skill lets Vanheim make a wide variety of things… just not cheaply.

The nation is made up of mostly Elves, long-lived and glamoured beings with high defense skill. The majority of your armies will be invisible on the strategic maps of other players, making you an ever-elusive threat that can steal land at any moment.

EA Vanheim's mage lineup largely lacks "efficient" spellcasters; all mages aside from the cap-only Dwarven Smith are skilled elves on horses and thus cost a heavy premium.

Image	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Van Scout 40 15 1	Stealthy (75) Glamour Mountain Survival Forest Survival	Scout for Scouting. Glamour makes it near impossible for most patrols to catch him.
	Vanherse 140 16 2	11 7 Sacred Stealthy (65) Glamour Sailing (Max Size 3) Mounted	Your army leader, your light thug, your infrastructure-builder, and your "cheapest" Mage. They can become "massed" Lightning Bolt and (with 1) Thunder Strike casters in a pinch if Storm is up; they can even make use of Shock Wave due to their high defense, near the frontlines if you so choose.
	Dwarven Smith 140 2 4 Capital Only	21100% 10% 11 Master Smith (1) Darkvision (50%) Mountain Survival Prophet Shape: Dwarf Elder	The smith that makes a lot of your thug gear. National Master Smiths are rare and good, able to forge a large variety of gear. National 2 mages are rather good in battle, but you lose out on speed and covertness by waiting for them to catch up.
	Vanjarl 275 18 2	212 11 Sacred Stealthy (65) Glamour Sailing (Max Size 3) Mounted	Your professional leader/mage/thug, and your "cheapest" Bloodhunter. 2 bestows Mistform and Gift of Flight, and makes their glamour grant 75% protection. in the later game, they can form Blood sabbaths and Spam Thunder Strike.
	Vanadrott 410 19 4 Capital Only	3121100% 10% 15 Sacred Resist Shock (5) Stealthy (65) Glamour Sailing (Max Size 3) Mounted	These "kings" (in the meme sense) are your best mages and leaders. 4 provides Storm, and/or Mass Flight, and Living Clouds, not to mention the boosters. For thugs, 1 randoms provide Ironskin, Stoneskin (if you worry about your other zappers), and Temper Flesh. 2's can summon Storm Demons, costly-but-powerful elites. 1's can lead your hordes of Storm Demons in the late game.

EA Vanheim is heavily focused on air and earth magic, with a side gig in blood, fire and death.

Vanheim has access to the following paths for the purposes of rituals:

Elements

• 1 on Dwarven Smiths
• 4 on Vanadrotts, 7 via Winged Helmet, Bag of Winds and Queen of Elemental Air
• No water magic
• 3 on Dwarven Smiths, 6 via Earth Boots, a Blood Stone (empowerment) and King of Elemental Earth

Sorceries

• No astral magic
• 1 on Dwarven Smiths, 2 via a Skull Staff (Master Smith)
• No nature magic
• 2 on Vanadrotts, as much blood as required via empowering and boosters.

• Conjuration 4 31 for 1: Summon Valkyries ( Valkyrie×7)
  Summons flying, glamoured sacreds. These can be useful for pressuring back lines in combat, but they can't be scripted (since they are summoned), making them equally-likely to divebomb the enemy's frontlines or middle-ranks instead. Blessing them is also tricky, requiring either a delay in casting Divine Blessing or a particular grouping of your other Sacred troops for the standard Blessing.

• Conjuration 3 2 for 6: Sloth of Bears ( Great Bear×10+)
  Undisciplined animals with low attack density but a lot of strength. Makes decent siege chaff. Note that casting Summon Animals in Highlands yields more bears on average (13 vs. 10), if you're in a rush.
• Conjuration 4 2 for 12: Awaken Draugar ( Draug×3)
  Undead medium-heavy infantry with fear and a cold aura. They change into size 3 Draugar once under 20 hitpoints, increasing their Strength by 3 and their Combat Speed by 2; like with other size-changes, this doesn't displace units in the same square as long as none of them advance. Compared to Wights, Draugar are much less mage-turn efficient, weaker until pushed to their Size 3 forms, and lacking the decay attack that counters thugs and elites, but their fear and chill auras give them significant utility when mixed into front lines.
• Conjuration 8 43 for 62: Summon Dwarf of the Four Directions
  Summons one of the four Dwarves of the Four Directions, powerful mages who have significant combat, ritual-casting and forging capabilities (432200% and Master Smith 1). Also increases the likelihood of Hurricanes ravaging the world for each dwarf summoned. If all four dwarves are alive at once, the world is plunged into a Perpetual Storm and all battles will have Darkness over them; this is a somewhat-roundabout manner to apply what amounts to two Global Enchantments at once, but the only way to dispel either effect is to kill one of them.

Note that only the Draug Ritual and the Valkyrie Combat Spell are natively available to Vanheim.

Vanheim relies more on their surprise attack with hard to hit troops and commanders that can solo battalions over traditional magic artillery. Your thugs will be forced to take up the artillery role late game when Glamour stops being a huge advantage in combat, though this is defiantly not the most gold efficient roll for them.

Early game combat involving Van is having a thugged wizards cast Mistform and Flight then attack rear, with summoned Air Elementals for extra support.

Have capital only Dwarf Smiths which bring Earth magic to combat, improving amour with Marble Warriors and harass with Maws of the Earth, Rain of Stones and Destruction. But their movement on the map is see-able by most scouts.

Vanadrotts make up your wind power, being the ones putting up Storm so your Vanherse and Vanjarls can spam lighting spells.

Blood communions are also important to the nation. Vanjarl are expensive for nearly sitting around but are the only national way to empower your mages. With the addition of boosters, can cast higher Air, Earth, Death, Fire, and blood spell (can empower any Dwarf in Blood to join). For example, you can cast Storm without Vanadrotts. Blood is useful for taking out dangerous units with Life for a Life, and shift fighting in your favor with Blood Rain, Wailing Winds, and Rush of Strength.

Wind of Death is an interesting spell as Vans still have between 100 to 500 years of life in them, So armies made up of shorter-lived races and, more importantly, the elder mages that are the backbone armies, will be crippled and die, while only some of your will only be a few decades from retirement. (There are more races in EA with long Life spans, so not always effective.)

Vanadrott and Vanjarl can Cloud Trapeze, Letting them immediately pounce on any province in range, including a surprise blood sabbath.

Late game use Storm Demons as they are strong demons. Also getting Bind Heliophagus and Elemental Royalty for Stronger power.

Your recruitable thugs are mounted mages that are really hard to hit. They may need not that much extra prot, but shouldn't but that much encumbrance on them as they will be casting spells. The better thing is giving them weapons to stab better (Fire Brand, or Frost Brand for AOE, Flesh Eater for anti thugging). Can make Earth, Blood, and even the hard to make air boosters (some rare Dwarven Smiths can forge Skull of Fire). Even make a Robe of the Magi for late-game magic boosting.

• Dwarven Hammer Cont 2, 3, 12: A quintessential item for forging. Forge Discount on an item that gives you Forge discount is an economic win.

• Lightweight Scale Mail Cont 2, 1, 4: light armour for non-van thugs and mages.
• Weightless Scale Mail Cont 2, 2, 8: pay more so the Scale Mail has no encumbrance of a thug build that's more consciences about fatigue produced per turn.

• Cauldron of the Elven Halls Cont 4, 3, 12: if your glamoured army does get reported by a scout or contains non-glamoured units, only a fraction will be reported. If you into mind game strategies having a massive army mistaken as a small raiding party grants you a greater level of surprise.

This is probably the most difficult section to get consensus for. Describe how strong the nation is during expansion, the early, mid and late game, and what makes it strong/weak at each of those points. This should give readers an idea of where the weaknesses of a nation lie (if they have not been shown already) and when to take advantage of a nation's strengths.

List some example expansion strategies here. If a strong bless or pretender is required then leave the specifics for the pretender section.

List some example pretender builds. Try to use the following format to keep authorship and pretender design rationale clear.