Northgard - The Clan Of Fenrir Guide

Clan specific guide for those who already have a general understanding of the game. Also newb friendly.

Intro

Note: Credit goes to FrozenDogma

Fenrir is the clan of the bringer of ragnarok. They are a clan best suited for fame, domination, and map special victory conditions due to their unique bonuses. The most notable being

Military units cost 30% less food and provide happiness.
You can colonize areas for free instead of having to pay food (You still have to pay 1500 to colonise the world tree).
Your units are 15% stronger when fighting outside your borders.

Their relic is also quite powerful, having a strong food economy means you can have a small army on demand at any point.

Playing as the fenrir clan is about abusing the hell out of their bonuses, making this clan easy to play but hard to master, unlike most other clans. Utilizing their potential to max is key to success.

Most people believe the fenrir clan is weak, but I will show you why that is not the case at all.

How to Abuse the Bonuses

The first bonus presented to you is killing wolves and bears provide meat. Wolves will yield 15 food and bears 120. This means if you are near sources of wolves and bear, you can comfortably go into a food deficit in order to focus on production in other areas. You generally are able to take up to a -5 food production if you have a reliable source of wolves nearby that you can farm from their attacks. Just don’t forget to switch out anything that isn’t food/wood focused during the winter to make sure you survive.

Coupled by their military providing happiness and their first unit being free, you can use a villager to become a warrior and take on areas alone with 2 wolves by killing one and returning the warrior back a villager before dying, switching the warrior with a fresh villager for free and killing the last wolf with the now full health warrior. You do not need to worry about having -1 happiness from too many wounded as having just 1 warrior will provide +1 to your happiness. Meaning you are free to abuse as many villagers as you want with this strategy. This will work on camps with more units however you will have to suffer more wounded villagers, but with 2 healers you’ll have no issues with wounded villagers later on. I suggest waiting for your berserker before taking on tougher camps with this strategy, having the warrior take the brunt of the damage and the berserker taking damage when you pull the warrior out to switch it with a fresh villager.

Once you hit 200 fame your berserker can colonise areas for free every 5 minutes, this makes the fenrir clan excellent at rapid expansion. For this reason I like to rush my scouts early so I know where I want to expand later. What has spawned on the map will HEAVILY impact how you play as this clan.

Gameplay

Though you want to change your playstyle depending on the map, the early game is usually the same. My build order goes as followed:

1. Build a scout camp and a house at the same time (this is to save the woodcutters lodge for a potential forest).

2. Train 2 scouts and immediately scout the bordering tiles.

3. This will depend on the tiles surrounding you. If you see any tiles with food such as deer + fish or field + fish or field + deer. Immediately colonize it and build the appropriate huts to farm them + a silo. If you see a forest colonize that first over singular food tiles such as 1 deer or fish or field; then place your woodcutters lodge in the forest. If there is no forest, prioritise single food sources. If no forest and your tiles are bordering monster camps like wolf or drauger I highly suggest building your woodcutters lodge on that bordering tile so that the woodcutters can defend it for you when they attack.

4. Ideally you should have 3 tiles with 2 food sources and 1 woodcutters lodge. You will then want to take either increased coin or wood depending on whether you got a forest tile or not. If you did then go for coin, if not then go for wood. Keep in mind while you’re doing all your building you are still scouting with your 2 scouts and you only stop when you’ve scouted everything they can. If a tile you want is being guarded by 2 wolves, you can use the warrior bonus trick i mentioned earlier. If you do be sure to making a healers hut shortly after.

5. You should now have discovered the whole map if you’re playing on small and are ready for the next phase. You now want to priorities stone and iron, preferably stone. And looking for potential tiles to place your merchants and brewers. The things you want to be considering depend on what your scouts have found and determine your win condition.

Fame: You want to go for this victory type if you have found a wyvern camp. Build a seaport for sure and trade for fame. Utilize a small army while trading for jotunns aide getting as much fame as possible from other tiles. It will take a few attempts to kill the wyvern without the jotunn or a massive army, white wolves are essential without the jotunn. Desired army comp for the wyvern is 3 shield bearer, 3 axe thrower, 1 skirmisher, 1 warrior, 1 berserker, 3 white wolves (Military strategy upgrade is a must). Since the wyvern is a ranged attacker, you can’t go wrong with spamming shield bearers either provided they’re upgraded. Go for conqueror or tactician.

Domination: Go for this at any point if you feel your enemy is weak, or if other forms of victory have no longer become an option. If you have a map with an abundance of food that can support a large army then you can easily go for this too. Tactician is my preferred path for domination.

Map special…

*Yggdrasil: Rapidly expand focusing your efforts on food happiness to make a large army. You will need 1500 food, meaning you have to build 2 upgraded silos and cap out on food. Once you have established your main borders only colonize with the berserker to save food. You will need a large army in order to clear the defending mobs in one go either hiring the jotunn or rushing the unqiue relic. You will need the 3 white wolves, 1 berserker, 3 warrior, 1 shield bearer, 1 skirmisher, 3 axe thrower, and take the military strategy upgrade which will give you more damage for each type of unit. Target focus the Valkyrie one by one and be sure to pull out the weakened units out to which the aggro before putting them back in. This one is quite an easy win if you gun for it. Conqueror or tactician paths works well here.

*Odins sword: This type of victory is much harder then any of the other types but not impossible at all. It will require 3 trading posts and 3 merchant stands in the late game in order to buy all the iron needed to finish the sword. You will want to establish control of the anvil as fast as possible and set up your defences. Do not think that you have to avoid spending any iron in order to go for this victory. I have won games where I’ve upgraded all my food producers, woodcutters, merchants, smith, made an anvil, spawned my berserker and still had more than enough iron left over. Its all about having the gold income to buy the iron required. However, you could just bait your opponent into spending the iron to start making the sword, then attack them for a domination victory when they’re low on iron and gold. Guardian path is very helpful but tactician works too.

*Gates of Helheim: By far the easiest victory type. Your unique relic makes victory inevitable. Take control of the gate, pop your relic at the border. Spam wolves every time Valkyrie spawn. Defend for 8 months. Simple as that. Building a strong economy to support defending against enemy attack is key to victory. Guardian path is a must.

Generalized order: