Good luck

Halflings
A quiet start. This time we are going to look after our hero a lot better and try a little less stupid scouting when we know bad things are bound to be lurking ...

Good luck, GillB! Days 1 and 2 of the elves v the halflings goes very slowly too, as we huddle together waiting for the inevitable...

4 frogs attack in the night and kill 2 archers - which actually leaves our party quite exposed!

Day 2 late post
Our hero walks through fire to capture some mines. We look at a rather nice 2hex just outside our immediate area and find they want 252 gold for it. I call that extortion as there aren't even any decent units living there. I'm afraid they will be attacked.

Day 3
No overnight attacks. We've never been so careful in our lives before ... having a hero with regeneration helps a bit ...

Elves v GillB

No overnight attacks. We attack a one hex, which was friendly but we are saving our gold for better things!

Day 4 (whilst Christmas dinner is in the oven )
Just movement. Waiting for our hero to reach the expensive 2hex to kill it.

Elves v Gillb (whilst Christmas dinner is in the belly!)

A very far flung scout meets his doom before he can do anything useful.

No other action, whilst we wait for sufficient force to wander around relatively safely.

Day 5
Took the expensive city although our satyr was completely unsuccessful and ended up dead.

Elves v GillB

Very strange! We've been bypassing a friendly 2 hex which wanted a huge amount to join up, but keeping our eye on it. Then we come across a friendly 3 hex with more troops that only wants half as much! Which we can afford, and buy. Now we have a nice little army! And we occupy a shipyard and even seduce one if it's guards.

Halflings
We take courage in both hands and start exploring. Haven't found anything, friend or foe as yet though.

Elves v GillB

4 kobbolds are "released" from their task of gaurding a mana node, so now we have positive gold and mana. We head towards 3 sprites who look like they are going to cause trouble.

Halflings
Still trying to reach somewhere. Also spotted some indie frogs but don't think they can harm us overnight.

Elves v GillB

Sprites captured a one hex. Can't see that they razed it, so they will die tomorrow and we willo get it back!

Halflings
We found a nice friendly 3hex with good units ... but they wanted over 300 gold. They were joking, of course. Not strong enough to overcome them though.

Elves v GillB

All goes according to plan with the three sprites and the unoccupied one hex that now rejoins the elven cause. And we end up with a considerable army outside the expensive city, which we attack! Our catapault gets free rein breaking a hole in the wall, then the defenders foolishly stream out. We kill them all except a rider who we seduce, and a cleric, which we expend considerable effort on also seducing, as our one loss was our only cleric, so he was nicely replaced.

Now we must venture into unsafe lands in order to progress any further.....

Halflings
We too kill some kobolds for a node. Still looking at the tempting 3hex, but with no seducing or charming at the moment we don't want to go for it.

Elves v GillB

No action, apart from the killing of a scout overnight by a huge flock? gaggle? spinerette? of spiders. We haed for the heavily gaurded ruin of a life node, with our builder in tow.

Halflings
A distastrous attack on a pile of gold - used FC when we really shouldn't. A better attack on some fairies. We need to locate the indie frogs before anything else happens.

Elves v GillB

Oh. The node guards rush out and comit suicide against our oncoming forces. Unfortunately, we were towing our catapault along and now we don't have it. Not that we can see any use for it at present. But we do see a monster lair to explore....

Halflings
We found the frogs. Or rather they found us but we suffered no losses luckily.

Elves v GillB

Finger trouble delays our progress a little, but we capture a shipyard en route to the lair.

Halflings
Nothing happened really. Waiting for our satyr to complete his trek to catch up with the others.

Elves v GillB

The visit to the monster lair proves very productive - 2 massively powerful items and 7 xp for our hero.

We move off with a jaunty gait....

Halflings
Another wasted day, waiting for the satyr.

Elves v GillB

No action at all, on our way to battle some indies with our beefed up hero, who made a level as well.

Halflings
We took the 3hex but with great losses. None of the units we wanted seemed to be charmable. It wasn't the Halflings' finest hour.

Elves v GillB

5 spiders previously met are met agin, but this time we progress in force. Well, an 8 stack, of which 6 die. Then the remaining two die as the spiders are backed up by 4 sprites. Back to the drawing board.

(We think we have solved the mystery of the expensive 2 hex - it was already upgraded)

Halflings
The 352 gold 3hex was still level 1 And will remain so for a long time to come.

Elves v GillB

Ah, the mysteries of high AOW finance.

A level 1 hero offers to join at the standard rate. Never a one to pass on a hero, even so puny, we accept and find he has dominate! Very useful, if we can beef him up a bit.

And we may have cause to use his services, as we did an oops with our hero, and he is to close to our next targets with only one unit in backup.

Halflings
We lost a scout and didn't gain a hero. We are very few in number but very strong ... but are we strong enough for the indie lizards who appeared at the end of our turn ...