Warlords Battlecry II Battle Report Number Four
The Background
As readers of previous reports will have realized, SSG is split into two (heavily armed camps) one based in Sydney and one in Melbourne. One view of this relationship is that the people in Melbourne are all sneaky, underhanded and disloyal, while those in Sydney, are honest, upright and paragons of virtue. But wait, I hear you say, this is pure assertion, where is the proof?
Well it is my intention, as a completely unbiased observer, to prove the above proposition strictly be reference to the facts, as revealed in the events of and the circumstances surrounding the latest battle report.
The Fix
This battle was originally intended as a 2 vs 2 game. However, the team in Melbourne was able to so manipulate events that ultimately only one Sydney based player was available to uphold the honor of the Sydney faction. Their excuse for this delay was that one team member had to go and buy a car! An obvious falsehood, as no one in SSG is paid enough to buy a motorbike, let alone a car.
The Setup
The battle would be fought on a standard X-Large Random Map, with Level 20 Tournament Heroes but no retinue was allowed.
The Players
Roger (Sydney). Heroname: ‘Killer’ (Roger’s alter egos are always called ‘Killer’ which shows just what a dependable and steadfast chap he is)
Hero: Fey Ice Mage but with only Ice Ring and Freeze as Ice spells, complemented by the Illusion spells Transform and Mutate. Unfortunately for Killer, he neglected to increase the vital Casting skill in these Magic Spheres, rather giddily spending extra points in Speed and Merchant instead. The result was a fast, powerful, cheap but unreliable Hero, which has to be a metaphor for something.
Chris (Melbourne). Heroname: ‘Pansy’ (a somewhat debatable choice, impossible to dignify with further comment)
Hero: A Fey Bard leading Orcs. Pansy had Morale, Command, Resistance and Speed over 30, the Rainbow skill for extra income and Faery Dust for Illusion spells. The idea of having a Fey Bard leading Orcs is somewhat irregular, but irregularity is a hallmark of the Melbourne mob.
Mick (Melbourne). Heroname: It was intended that this hero be named ‘Mighty Mick’ but this was rejected by the Nomenclature Committee as ‘too boring’. In the spirit of fair play, the Committee has kindly consented to allow this Hero to be known as ‘Snidely’.
Hero: A Dwarf Priest Runemaster. Snidely bought all the abilities that gave him added damage and armor as well as the Rune Lord upgrade to get +5 to the rune casting skill. He increased his Strength and Dexterity to get better combat and speed, bought Dig to build faster and purchased Stone Skin in order to save his. Ultimately, Snidely was a flat out fighting machine, with great Armor, high Damage and Speed and 500 Hit Points. Would Snidely prove to have an Achilles heel? Only time would tell.
Pre-game Planning
Killer planned to build a large number of cheap units (Spriggans) and use his Transform spell to turn them into something much more lethal. Other Spriggans would be sacrificed as recon units, and Killer’s cheap hordes would allow him to gather lots of resources early and harass the other players.
Pansy intended to use the mass production capabilities of the Orcs to swamp the map and create early pressure for the other players.
Snidely was somehow expecting an early rush from the other two players, obviously information garnered through his extensive espionage network. Snidely’s plan for dealing with this was to use his super tough Hero to deal with any rushes by low level units. This plan had the unwanted side effect of constraining Snidely to an area not too far away from his base, in order to be able to deal with any interlopers. In the longer term, Snidely was intending to build a force of Crossbowmen, Rune Lords and Catapults.
Actual Game Experiences
The game started with Snidely and Pansy in the North West and North East corners of the map, and Killer in the South West. Killer’s early plans suffered an early setback when after three successive attempts, the Spriggans that he was hoping to transform into something lethal remained defiantly Spriggan.
Casting about for a new strategy, Killer’s eye was taken by a Demon Temple that was just too close to Pansy’s base for comfort. Rightly fearing the effect of a stream of free Daemons on the Fey, especially early in the game, Killer determined that the Temple should be his.
Pansy concentrated on building Orcs and Wolfriders, as they were cheap and conserved the resources vital for base building. As it happened, Pansy was equally covetous of the Demon Temple, and it became the focus of a series of battles between detachments sent by both players.
As so often happens in war, the Temple spent most of the game in ruins.
Snidely was playing a lone hand, building his side’s first building, converting mines and completing quests. Was there anything he couldn’t do?
As skirmishing around the Temple continued, Killer was slain by a lucky blow. Obviously, the Fey were in terrible trouble. Not content with killing Killer, Pansy directed a serious attack at the Fey, which succeeded in destroying the Fey’s Level Five Keep.
Unfortunately for Pansy and Snidely, this attack was not pressed home. There had been continual skirmishing between Pansy and Snidely for some time, as both Melbourne men knew just how much trust to place in their pre-match plotting. Snidely had been beating off these attacks, thanks in large part to his Grand Mortar Battery. (Note: this is not an official game name, but a generally descriptive term employed by this writer because he thinks it sounds better than saying ‘Snidely had, like, heaps of Mortars’).
Perhaps because these attacks had failed to make any headway whatsoever, Pansy decided to emulate another aspect of World War One warfare, and attack again, this time with even more men. Unfortunately, while out gathering resources, Pansy ran into a Fey hunter-killer group led by Dragons, creatures much more formidable at fighting than any Fey hero could ever hope to be. Pansy had cometh up but was cut down like a flower. Despite this clear evidence of the fact that the Fey were by no means finished, the Orcs continued to concentrate on Snidely.
These renewed assaults were no more successful than the first, with one vital exception. During a skirmish, which his troops were winning handily, a showboating Snidely was poisoned by an Orcish blade.
Poisoning is a minor inconvenience to Heroes with access to healing, but a major crisis for Snidely; indeed it was his Achilles heel. Forced to skulk in a tower, Snidely ceased to be effective as a combat unit.
Gratifying though it may have been for the Orcs to poison Snidely, the shift in emphasis to the Dwarvish front was a mistake. The Fey typically build several Keeps, since so much of their production comes from that type of building. The loss of a single Fey keep is not the crippling blow that it might be for other races. The Fey were also producing Dragons, which should always be a sign of a clear and present danger. These signs manifested themselves in the shape of a devastating Fey attack on the Orcs, with self supporting groups of Dragons, Unicorns, Banshee and Pegasi.
The Orcs had no answer to this concentration of combat power, and were wiped from the map.
While the Fey were wiping out the Orcs, the Dwarves were left more or less alone, and had a golden opportunity to win the game. They built a Titan, but while it was being built had constructed no Dragons at all. The Dwarves paid dearly for this lapse when the Fey arrived with a very large force of Dragons, and duly wiped out the Dwarves with the same relative ease with which they had obliterated the Orcs.
The end result left the Fey, guided by the spirit of Killer, triumphant. Banners fly bravely over Sydney, while the Melbourne colors were trampled into the mud, leaving the losers to rue their mistakes and contemplate revenge. Should Killer take the field again, he can be sure of a very warm welcome.
Lessons Learned
Watching You Watching Me
All players should be aware that the Fey can, and if they have any sense at all, will, research the ability to expose the entire map. If the Fey have perfect intelligence, then why would their opponents settle for less? Both the Orcs and the Dwarves were guilty of very sloppy reconnaissance.
It Aint Over Till They’re All Dead
The Orcs were guilty of failing to put the boot in. It’s always tricky in a three player game, as the effort of finishing someone off may just weaken the attacker enough so that the third player can come over the top. However, it’s probable that a small increment of effort would have been enough to finish off the Fey, especially with Killer already dead.
Oh Death, Where is Thy Sting?
The sting is in the hands of Orcs, Dark Elves and any one else who has Poison. If a Hero doesn’t have access to a Cure spell, then he must be very circumspect about combat with those sides.
Oh Grave, Thy Victory?
The experience of the Fey, after losing Killer early in the game, illustrates that a side can recover completely from the death of its Hero.
There is no Honor Amongst Thieves
Despite their evil machinations and pre-game plotting, the Melbourne Bloc fell apart as soon as the game started, as both players knew only too well that any trust that they placed in each other would only be exploited as a sign of weakness.
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