Skeletor - The rightful ruler of the Riverlands.

Days 1 - 3:

Not all realize it yet...but they will

We are out of gold, but our troops charge wildly in all direction, pillaging, burning and looting any that are not content under our rule! Non can stand against us. However, our enemies do not die alone. We wonder if in the weeks to come we will regret a few of our actions these early days

Turn sent!

Highmen Days 2 to 4.

We buy some property here, take a bit there, so our gold is OK, but our killing is not very successful, in terms of who gets the credit.

Skeletor:

Day 4 - enough troops retook the 1 hex towns that both could be looted...a tidy sum of 102 gold from between them to add to our coffers...and then take right out to bribe another 1 hex so we have enough troops to continue to expand Easy come, easy go!!

Turn sent to Unicorn.

Skeletor is not happy today!

Day 6 began with a stunningly good move by the AI! Two full stacks that we had not seen previously moved and attacked our strong forward war party. Our troops fought well and brought down several of the human troops, but the human archers proved too much...all 5 of our units were lost - which was even more devastating than the numbers seem since they were all experienced and were guarding 2 towns that will now fall as well!

Turn sent to Unicorn.

Skeletor is even less happy today!

Day 10 finds us losing ground!! This is inpossible...yet it has happened...the fumbling AI has sent large stacks of pikemen, pengiuns, swordsmen and even a ram against us...nearly 20 of our undead troops have been slaughtered during the night and incalculable damage has occured! Our hero tried to stop them...but alas, we failed to fortify when we should have.

We shall recover, but have a feeling it will be the Highmen leads massive armies against our pitiful forces in the near future!

Turn sent to Unicorn.

Days up to 11.

We have expanded fairly well and are holding our lands in the face of war with the frostlings, goblins and azracs. The frostlings are our main concern and we managed to wipe out a small army with a level 5 hero.

We now have a spellcasting hero, so now all we need is a spell to cast, and some mana to cast it

Whether we can get anywhere near the undead in their current troubles is debateable.

Skeletor.

Day 12 finds us looking into the horizen and seeing the smoke of a razed undead city...the Elves are ruthless as they march towards us...as if the Humans and Lizards were not enough!!

Turn sent to Unicorn.

Skeletor -

Day 15 find us once again mourning the loss our troops...this time our plans are truly set askew by the loss of our 2 doom priests...we had high hopes that these doom priests could dominate some much needed units to our side...but 3 attempts on a ballista all failed and now 2 doom priests are dead!

The Elves have returned, but we are ready this time...we shall not be easily taken again!!

Turn sent to Unicorn.

Highmen Day 16

The frostlings move on and do not leave themselves in a position where we were hoping to mount a pincer movement. So we come out and invite them to attack.

We take two dark elf cities and now hang around while they migrate.

The game also goes into hang around mode.

Skeletor -

On day 16, the Elves again prove to be annoying...taking a death node and will take (and probably ) raze another city tommorrow...it will be greatly annoying to lose the city, but my forces have rallied and shall beat them off if they do take the city.

Looking at our foreign relations we came to the sudden understanding that everyone hates us!

Turn sent.

The frostlings scurry out of reach and we chase after them, making a mistake which could prove costly.

Multiple stacks of goblins stream towards our migrating cities. We pop out and kill two of them but there is an annoying wall climber bringing up the rear, and I don't trust what the ai will do for me overnight if they attack.

BTW - are you talking about game relations, or USA relations?

Skeletor -

Day 17 brings no peace to our lands...the Elves indeed took our city and in our brillance our counter-attack managed to not only fail, but cost us our precious demon. Another Elven stack is a mere 2 day hike from our capital...we attempt to rally our forces, but am afraid it will not be in time. In other news our transport has been valuable in ferrying around our small forces...Of course then the sea serpent sunk it...a shame that archers aboard a ship can not fire their bows

Turn sent.

Highmen Day 18.

Frostling invading party is now trapped and split up. We kill 4 units at no cost. The rest won't be a problem but the 25 follow up units heading towards my outlying 3 hex will be. I was hoping the 16 goblin units camped outside it's walls might might be helpful, but now I notice those two races are at peace.

Skeletor -

At the dawn of day 18 reports come that rebels have taken control of one of our cities...our reinforcement garrison was only 1 hex away - alas, the reinforcement garrison killed the rebels and now enslave the population. Sadly migration must begin anew.

One bit of good news was that the AI had pity upon us...the elves heading to crush our capital inexplicably turned away and others left the most recent city to be taken from us. So we atleast managed to recapture *one* city!

And to answer an earlier question, I was referring to the ingame relations with the neutral races...they all dislike us greatly and having declared war upon us only increases their dislike for us.

Turn sent.

Skeletor

We awake on day 19 to find that our forward war party was ambushed in the city they had recently taken. Our gold medal hellhound and several crucial archers fell in the battle. Our hero took revenge this turn leading our reserves against them and although the catapults were accurate and painful...managed to overcome them. The 2 hexer is ours!

We look to the horizon - we need more sources of income...we need more cities...death will visit the lands of the the lizards, humans and elves.

Turn sent.

Skeletor

On the dawn of day 20, horrid news arrives...alters are unleashed and our mighty armies are no longer so great.

But there is little time as the day flies past quickly...

Turn sent.

Highmen Days

Things go fairly well. Risking an exposed postion, more by bad planning than design, we escape being attcked overnight, and over the last few days we have severely dented the goblin armies, to the tune of about 30 odd units including a level 4 hero and a troll (the rest were rubbish) without any losses. Our astra gains some experience elsewhere, but loses much health. Our frostling chasing army has done it's job and now moves back towards other frostling units, recapturing a 1 hex. And finally, the azracs and humans offer peace, which we accept as we still have work to do on the goblins and frostlings (we have no idea where the humans are, but we may as well be friends)

Skeletor

Day 21 arrives quickly and horror is at hand! The Elves have marched a huge army towards us. The strength is almost unbeatable! 3 heroes - all with spellcasting, a unicorn, catapults, a ram and about 6 cavalry. In all 22 units all bunched together. We fear that our walled 3 hex will fall soon...we have send some sacrifaces up the river in an attempt to distract the Elves, but fear it will be too late.

Turn sent.

We take the goblin 4 hex, which was comparatively lightly defended, so not much xp for our boys, but we decide to stay to make the place more habitable.

The frostlings try to take an outlying 2 hex, but our archers destroy the ram before it can do anything.

Our astra flies towards a 3 hex we once owned to find a few goblins in it, so she manages to wipe them out despite being still badly wounded. And it hadn't been migrated so that's good.

So the only real threat we face is a couple of unoccupied cities we are migrating rebelling and being pinched by the azracs who have major forces streaming through our territory. Luckily, we are fairly certain the azrac ai will not decide to attack, all other relations being equal.

Skeletor

Day 22 dawns and we are overjoyed to see that the Elves brought only a single ram against our walled 3 hex city - our archers managed to destroy it, while our wall held (if only barely).

However, great sadness has reached us. Our bold and strong (okay, not that strong) Hero has died...his wounds made him vulnerable to the nasty ice alter (fired twice in three turns now ). We shall save our gold and hope for some new heroes to join our army so they can lead it.

The news that the Highmen have already conquered the goblin capital would strike fear into the hearts of our troops...lucky they are undead and thus feel no fear

Turn sent

.... nor have any hearts

Mainly consolidating today. Some goblin killing though - have to keep in practice.

Skeletor

The dawn of the 23rd day was another painful one. We ponder how the AI could have generated such massive forces! Blood will be spilled in the days ahead. In fact the showdown with the 20+ elven units including 3 powerful heroes will be within the next few days. The humans are starting to get annoying again as well...they must have found themselves an Azarc city for elephants are everywhere and our walls no longer allow us to be safe!

Hearts only make you weak

Turn sent.

Skeletor

With the dawn of the 24th day, our forces surge (okay...stagger) forward to engage the enemy...only the Elves have pulled back! Leaving the human stacks to fare for themselves, we engage in numerous battles with the humans. Although are losses were great, we managed to take down nearly 30 human units and cut the number moving against our cities nearly in half. The Elves have pulled back out of the wasteland areas and we take the time to recover. We can see almost 60 Elven units now...somehow we need to start chipping away at them!

Turn sent.

Things are still quiet on the Highmen front. We pop out of migrating cities every now and then to kill anything goblin in range, but there's not much about. Same with the frostlings. And we move to cut off the azracs from going anywhere much, as we might start on them soon, and we would like them where we can see them.

Skeletor

The 25th day comes and goes. The main human army - 2 high level heroes, some various fodder, 3 elephants and a ram march towards my 4 hex. I made a run at them with my demon...risky but I needed to try to take out their wall crushing ability. The result was my demon fell, and 2 of the elphants still remain Unsure how long our defenses will hold.

Turn sent.

Highmen Day 26.

Migration finished, we start to venture forth. Well, backth actually, as there is a monster lair we missed.

Humans, orcs and elves all offered peace, which we ignored, partly as we have not seen hide nor hair of them yet.

Skeletor

As night falls on the 26th day of our campaign, we know the future will rest on what the human and elf hero stacks do in the days to come. Large powerful stacks of each are centered around the 3 hex and 2 hex (which used to be mine). They approach my 4 hex as I am busy building defenders...my wraith my make the difference if I am able to fight in TC, as they have only a few units that can harm the wraith...it is possible that my demon (a new one that replaced my old dead one) could attack and take out their magical strike units so that my wraith could have a massive party. Hard times ahead...but their is a chance that we will be able to pull ourselves out of this wasteland and spread it across all the riverlands yet!

Turn sent.

Highmen.

Good luck to the undead! We would rather beat them ourselves

We find a leprechaun in the monster lair. Of course they are tough little buggers but how come he also took big chunks out of our titan on the return swing - FOUR times! Fortunately, our palladins (which were supposed to support our hero) came to the rescue. Then the titan gets a massive hit in and goodbye leper. Pity, he was supposed to fall to the hero, as the titan was already gold. At least we get some marginally useful items.

Our other big stack retreats from a 3 hex containing what looks like the remnants of the goblins and linked to some powerful orc stacks. Bring up the reinforcements!

Skeletor

The dawning of the 27th day there is a red glow cast over the riverlands. Our demon and wraith combined to slaughter the major Elven forces that had been opposing us. Several archers also ambushed the unicorn and another elf hero. In all, 3 elf heroes lay dead on the field of battle along with over 30 other troops.

Our diplomats report that two major alliances oppose us. The Dwarves-Lizards-Elves are allied together and the Orcs-Humans stand shoulder to shoulder.

Since the Dwarves dare to stand with the hated Elves, we attack a three hex that they took - it had 20 dwarven troops, many of them boar riders...but by midday, they all were scattered upon the field having breathed their last.

Four weeks it has taken, but finally the undead are surging forward to claim more territory for their own.

Today was extra special as some of the Dwarven units were highmen soliders...their blood was especially tasty

Turn sent.

Highmen Day 28

Looks like we will now have to make sure our troops (not deserters in the pay of the dwarves) are well armed with enchanted weapons.

We find some more frostlings on the extremeties of our empire and they loose off chemical weapons at us, so they will get their just deserts.

We also find that it is FOUR hex that the goblins occupy with stong orc forces outside. So close to the other one. We push towards it with our main strike force.