Dominions 3: The Awakening/Nations/Helheim

History
Helheim exists as an Early Age nation alongside Vanheim in the Age of Vanir, but later joins with them as Midgard in the Late Age. Helheim is one of several Dominions nations that are based off of Norse myth.

Pretender Gods
The unique pretender chassis for Helheim seems to be the Son of Fenrer, and they share the Keeper of the Bridge, the Allfather, and the Asynja with Vanheim.

Units
All Helheim units but the Serf Warrior and the Svartalf come with the "glamour" ability, which makes them fairly safe from ranged attacks... and close combat attacks for that matter.

Note that the Helhirding is listed twice: once as a capital-only unit and once as a nation-specific unit that can be recruited anywhere. There is no difference between the two. This is likely an error in the game code, but what it means is that you can recruit the sacred Helhirding from any castle with a temple, leading to the potential for a massive block of sacred cavalry by mid-game. [This is fixed in the 3.01 patch]

Unique Spells
Pack of Wolves

Starting Sites
Helheim comes with two starting sites, Helhalla and Gnipahala. Helhalla provides one air gem per turn and allows recruitment of the capital-only Helheim units. Gnipahala provides four death gems and one earth gem per turn.

Vanlade


Surprisingly, Vanlade is one of the few Helheim commanders to have the "Sailing" ability -- and given that Helheim has no way to get Water, he is one of the few options short of items to get across a water barrier.

Commentary
Helheim has some of the best cavalry in the Early Era. Masses of light horse with the glamour ability means that you can whip across the field without any real fear or arrows or artillery. The fact that one of these cavarly units is both sacred and (pre-3.01 patch) available for purchase at any of your castles (with a temple) means that you could theoretically pull off some really wicked bless strategies that will serve you well into the late game and only adds to the potential for mayhem.

There are several things that differentiate Helheim from Early-Era Vanheim:
 * A neutered version of Vanheim's Dwarven Smith
 * An expanded commanders list that includes some Death mages
 * The somewhat puzzling lack of the "Sailing" ability
 * Heavy/flying sacreds vs. Vanheim's berserkers (Helheim's high-defense sacreds synergize better with glamour, especially since berserk only kicks in after taking damage)
 * Vanheim has (capital-only) immortal pigs with trample