Warlords Battlecry II Battle Report Number Two
“ELEGY WRITTEN ON
A STRIFE TORN BATTLEFIELD”
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The Summoner his mighty Daemon calls,
The Quasit to the quarry makes his way,
All safe behind the mighty fortress walls.
For Steve, a fearsome General, holds full sway,
Great author of a famous battlecry,
Surrounded by his minions, at their play,
Their pledge, to ward Steve, or to die.
Ambition blurs the line twixt right and wrong,
Plots hatched, foul traitors walk the land,
Oath breaking comes too easy to the strong,
And Love lies bleeding at their hand.
See Dean, his Dwarven terrors lead,
Inflamed by crafty promises of pay,
And Chris, all heedless of his deed,
Unleash the feral madness of the Fey
Brave Mick, to falseness will not bend,
But aid arrives too little and too late,
His struggles, unavailing, reach an end,
He proudly shares his master’s ghastly fate.
For now the Banshees scream and ululate,
The proud high Daemon towers slowly fall,
Which only serves to plainly illustrate,
You cannot keep out treason with a wall.
You just can’t tell some, people, especially important people. Beware the Ides of November said Microsoft Prophet Express(TM) a useful, if doom laden, application that is part of the ever expanding Office(TM) suite. But Steve (Big Caesar) Fawkner would not be told, and convened a meeting with his trusted henchmen Mick (Antonius) Robertson and Dean (Brutus) Farmer. Chris (Cassius) Proctor was there to make up the numbers.
Caesar, had correctly pegged Cassius as a ‘lean and hungry’ man who ‘thought too much’, but never dreamed that Cassius could persuade the hero-worshipping Brutus to take part in acts of mutiny and treason. Cassius and Brutus would have invited Antonius to join them, had it not been for his long prior history of backstabbing and turncoating, which had been revealed in the long gaming sessions that Caesar ordained for his subordinates. Ostensibly for ‘morale building’ purposes, they were actually designed to foment hatred and mistrust amongst his junior officers, and prevent any combination against Caesar. This policy had inexplicably miscarried, and thus Caesar was fighting for his life and Antonius was cast, reluctantly and without consent, in the role of Caesar’s ally.
Of course, being programmers and/or arty types, both factions were utterly unsuited to martial activities of any kind, and the coming war would be conducted entirely by proxies. The forces were arrayed as follows:
The Heroes
Caesar: Hero ‘Horny’ the Daemon, a Summoner leading Daemon armies. One assumes that Horny’s name was suggested by the Office Idiot(TM) helpware, as it almost certainly contributed to the tragic events that followed. Horny was equipped with high scores for Intelligence and Magery, and had also kitted out with the entire set of Summoning spells known to the darker arts, along with Daemonlord and Spell Mastery.
Antonius: Hero ‘Mighty Mick’ a Dark Dwarf Runemaster leading Dark Dwarf Armies. As a name, Mighty Mick is also not inspirational, though it would do quite nicely for a second string racehorse running at provincial tracks. Mighty Mick came with Dark Runes, Engineer, Book of Wisdom, Rune Mastery and Grandmastery. He also had his Charisma, Merchant and Magery scores increased, in order to make him a better spellcaster and producer of siege engines.
Cassius: Hero ‘Chris’ a Fey Thief leading the Fey. It is a melancholy fact that in internecine warfare of this kind, even on the winning side, casualty rates approach 99%. It is hard to imagine why a single army would even risk, let alone give their lives for a hero named ‘Chris’. But perhaps we merely don’t understand the Fey, and amongst them ‘Chris’ is a heroic name, hallowed in battles past and redolent of power and passion. Then again, maybe not.
Chris chose Rainbow, Banditry, Haggling and a speed upgrade that shouldn’t be named to spare him embarrassment, so you never read the term ‘Faery Wings’ here. The intention for Chris was to use the income enhancements provided by Rainbow and Banditry to make a very early start on paying for the Fey upgrades, and the Haggling skill to make everything cheaper.
Brutus: Hero ‘School Bully’ a Minotaur Barbarian leading Dwarves. School Bully is a much more inspiring name, evoking as it does images of schoolboys being slowly roasted over open fires. School Bully was intended as a total fighting machine, eschewing all thoughts of namby-pamby magic and concentrating solely on the ability to deliver maximum punishment as quickly as possible.
The Plans
Caesar planned to summon Daemons early, and rush his closest opponent, hopefully capturing thereby the extra resources that the Daemons need, especially in the late game.
Antonius planned to concentrate on building Golems and Siege Engines, using them to annex as much of the resources in no mans land as possible, while relying on Mortars to guard his base.
Cassius planned the construction of a Tower Farm for base defense, with a Spriggan rush for offense, backed up by Unicorns and Pixies.
Brutus planned to use his Minotaur hero to raze all resources he couldn’t easily control, since his hero was capable of trashing a mine in four seconds flat. Apart from that he planned to build at least six Eyries and assemble a large flock of Dragons, with which he sweep the map clean.
The Early Battle
Caesar started the first rush, in accordance with his pre-game plan. Caesar cast Circle of Power and Daemongate, summoned a strong Daemon who, along with a bunch of Imps, went looking for trouble. He found Cassius’ base, but after some early destruction the attack petered out, and Caesar retreated to rebuild his offensive power.
This attack illustrated two major, and ultimately fatal problems for Caesar. Attacks were not, or could not be, pressed home, and attacks concentrated on Cassius, leaving Brutus unmolested until too late.
The horrific tower wall that Cassius was able to construct by the mid game illustrates the consequences of letting the Fey thrive.
Cassius hardly noticed this initial probe by Caesar, but instead sent his Hero out to convert resources, and built Keeps next to those resource points. Most Fey armies are produced at their Keep, so the Keeps were able to produce local defenders, and could also reconvert any resource points that happened to fall into the wrong hands.
Antonius was hampered by a bad start position, which left him with insufficient space for all his buildings, and only one Quarry, which is not good for Dwarves. On the other hand, the constricted terrain would channel movement by any walking armies, and Antonius planned a heavy mortar barrage as a warm welcome for any invaders.
Brutus was left alone in the early game, and was thus able to collar all the resources he needed, and to create groups of Beserkers and Crossbowmen to harass Antonius, while Brutus created the massive number of Eyries he needed. These harassment groups went willingly to their doom, surely a tribute to the inspirational power of having a Hero with a properly warlike name.
The Middle Battle
Caesar had created a second striking force of Daemons, Succubi, Imps and Salamanders and sent them to attack Cassius again. Although this attack succeeded in toppling a few towers, it came nowhere near to doing any real damage.
Antonius was having troubles of his own, as a force of Sylphs floated neatly over the difficult terrain around his base, outflanking Brutus’ slow Golem defenders. The Sylphs were followed by Spriggans, Faerie Dragons and Banshees. Although the Dwarf Mortars wreaked havoc amongst the Spriggans, this attack accounted for Brutus’ Level Four Keep, and the presence of enemy Banshees revealed the depressing fact that Cassius had already reached Level Five. See The Fey Attack.
Brutus had nothing to do in the mid-game, except to create and send off his obedient suicide squads, and build his economic power to even higher levels.
Cassius was able to create enough Fey to throw at both Caesar and Antonius, while building even more towers. These combined arms groups used almost every army in the Fey Order of Battle and were devastatingly effective.
The harassing attacks of Cassius and Brutus were in themselves effective enough to keep Antonius fully stretched, and he thought that despite some setbacks, he was weathering the storm. The true state of affairs was all too quickly revealed.
The thoughtful Cassius also found time to send some misery Caesar’s way, using massed Unicorns to destroy his Keep. Again, Caesar thought that he was holding his own, when all he was doing was coping with harassment attacks, while Cassius and Brutus built their power.
The End Battle
The end came quickly for Antonius, too quickly even for him to offer to change sides. Brutus had assembled a force of twelve (yes twelve) Dragons led by King Khalid, the Dwarf Titan. Cassius had researched Farseeing, which enabled him to see the entire map. When Cassius saw the Dwarven juggernaut roll towards Antonius, he unleashed his own attack force as well.
Brutus wielded his Dragon group as if they were a single unit, using queued orders to systematically eliminate all of Antonius’ defensive structures before crushing his production buildings.
This time, no amount of Mortars or other siege weapons would be enough to save Antonius. His base was flattened, and Brutus only lost two dragons in the assault. School Bully, who had spent most of the previous attacks skulking in the rear lines, went out in a (literal) blaze of glory, flambéed by the Dragon horde.
Once Antonius was dead, it was time to deal with Caesar. Caesar had finally woken to the gravity of the situation, and sent a large attack force against Brutus. This was either cunningly or coincidently timed for the moment when Brutus was absorbed in directing the battle against Antonius, and the attack did major damage, but it had come too late. Brutus already had his huge attack force, and even if Caesar had wiped out the whole base, the offensive power arrayed against him was already more than enough to seal his doom.
When Cassius and Brutus finally moved against Caesar with their full force, it was all over. Caesar found that a wall won’t keep out metaphorical treason, and it certainly won’t keep out an all too material force of a dozen Dragons.
Caesar was flattened, the conspirators crowned with success in a matter of moments, and a mighty tyrant had fallen, never to rise again.
Analysis
The Unit statistics reveal that Cassius out produced all other players in the game combined, and that while most of his units died without taking an enemy life with them, their sheer weight of numbers still told on the battlefield.
The Hero statistics reveal that the two winning Heroes only killed one unit between them, indicating that a fair amount of skulking was going on. The losing Heroes did not have this luxury, and managed a satisfactory amount of smiting before being dragged off (or back) to Hell.
The Building and Resource statistics reveal a life of ease for the winners and a life of desperation for the losers. Of particular note is the huge amount of Crystal harvested and used by the Fey.
Both Caesar and Antonius were sadly handicapped by their starting positions. They were denied early access to resources, and also had trouble constructing optimal defenses, due to terrain restrictions. Antonius in particular suffered as Cassius sent many attacks with armies which were able to float over terrain that Antonius’ slow troops could not traverse, making harassing attacks much more successful than they otherwise would have been.
That being said, Caesar and Antonius never operated effectively as a team. Brutus was attempting a high risk strategy by holding out for massed Dragons, and a coordinated attack on him in the early or even middle game could have been very successful. If Brutus could have been taken out, then Caesar and Antonius could possibly have slowly denied Cassius the resources he needed, and eventually demolished even his defensive line.
If the same players had been arrayed on different terrain, then the result may have been quite different.
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