Ne'Khan

Big immpresive force is moving forwards to attack. No more tresspassers will be allowed.

Ts

A'shir day 21

Lost a precious unit today. One should think a silvermedal knight, with 9 hp left, could handle a plain frog in hand-to-hand combat it it starts with a "green" charge....but no. No chance.

Other than that we are preparing a surprise for whatever comes through the cavewalls the next few days

TS

Ne'Khan

A'shir himself was spotted. We hope we'll be able to reach him.

Ts

A'shir day 22

Ne'khan has now crossed the river with his powerful drillteam. I'm afraid he won't be able to reach A'shir just yet, but you are most welcome to drill a hole into my realm. I've prepared a party for you .

oh....I almost forgot. Your orc hero.....he's not with us anymore :P

TS

Ne'Khan

An annoying loss it is, but not more then that. We drilled through the hole today, but no signs of A'shir or his forces. They're probably sitting lazily in their halfling watchtower.

Ts

ts

Ne'khan

Still no sign of A'shir.

Ts

A'shir day 24

We have fortified a watchtower, trying to block Ne'Khans mighty strikeforce on it's way into my domain. A battle is unavoidable. We cross our fingers and hope that our puny defence can stop the invasion, or at least hold them off while we wait for back up.

TS

[This message has been edited by Troy Locker (edited 09-12-2009 @ 04:02 PM).]

Ne'Kahn

My troops hunger for blood convinced me to go into battle, but it wasn't enough. Although our troops have hit them hard, they still remain standing. We will regroup elsewhere to finish the job.

Ts

A'shir day 25

We killed a priest and a rogue. Other than that we are very glad to see that Ne'khan went for the bait. Our hero now has no match in this world. I will come for you, and I will bash my way through whatever lies in my way . I am a little concerned about the succubus though. I don't know where it is.....

TS

Ne'Khan

Still retreating. Thought of a new plan involving a fearsome succubus.

Ts

A'shir day 26

To my surprise I I found out tha my galley killed of the ranger and Succubus last turn, without me noticing. Mmmm...
I like this new development.....I pleased the gods today for a nice item and I will please them tomorrow as well.

Now I can push forward. The bladedancer was spared for now.

TS

Ne'Khan

Preparations for the final battle.

Ts

A'shir day 27

Pushing forward. No battles today. Preparing for battle though. Pleased the gods today and got rewarded quite nicely.

Good luck in the prison today!

TS

Ne'khan

The fight in the prison will have to wait one day. I hope we still have such time.

Ts

A'shir day 28

A quiet day. Manuevering. I must say that I'm impressed with Ne'khans "back-up-army". Tomorrow he will add some prisoners to his lines. Tomorrow we'll have some battles....

TS

Ne'Khan

Freed some prisoners, combined with backup, this should make quiet a formidable force.

Ts

A'shir day 29

Secret stuff ..... :P

TS

Ne'Khan

Not much is possible to remain hidden with those dreamweaver from A'shir, so no trouble is taking trying to do so. Our fresh prisoner recruited a fearsome creature, which will help us to pound our enemys into dust.

Ts

A'shir day 30

A treehulk, great! Good thing it only has 24 mp. Other than that, it and its host pretty much is a pain in our ass.

We try to make our own superduperhero, and we are pretty satisfied with his accomplishments in battle today....to bad it were all indies.

Stole a farm

TS

Ne'Khan

We moved our royal pain in the ass a bit futher up.

Ts

A'shir day 31

A minor setback for my hero, but we'll survive it. On our front we silenced a nosy scout. Come closer, come closer

TS

Ne'Khan

The brave scout will not be forgotten. Slow and carefull we push on.

Ts

A'shir day 32

We let the scout live today

Regenerating, regrouping and preparing for battle.

TS

Ne'Khan

Not trying that again.

Ts

[This message has been edited by LordDuck (edited 09-17-2009 @ 12:14 PM).]

A'shir day 33

Gregor is doing some serious heroism

You shall NOT PASS!(then what?)

TS

Ne'Khan

Going for the Frostling town to get a drink while A'shir sits in his lonely tower.

Ts

A'shir day 34

More manuevering. Hoping for Ne'khan to slip.
Will he go for the surface?....the frostling town?....maybe try to cross the river by ship?

Exciting times

TS

Ne'Khan

It seems that A'shir released his own prisoners. I wonder what he will show up with.

Ts

A'shir day 35

We have indeed freed the prisoners. I've put the them on display for you. Enjoy the sight of Gregor. He's on his way to the front with his new pets. Unfortunately Gregor and the sorceress had a little dispute. She is no more....

I must say I wonder what Ne'khans next move is....

TS

A'shir day 36

Finally Ne'khan himself has reached the other stacks....no! Wait! The evil stack is gone. Are you going for the Archon land, Ne'khan?

My hero got some more scalps in his belt today, while my incarnate is in search for a suitable host..

TS

[This message has been edited by Troy Locker (edited 09-18-2009 @ 03:41 PM).]

Ne'Khan

Light! There's light over here! After that we slew some Archons, this mountain top will soon be ours.

Ts

A'shir

We do things in a little smaller scale . We stole a mine.
Other than that we have a couple of very interesting projects going.....

The archon slaughter was very convincing.

TS

Ne'Khan

Moving around a bit. I wonder when A'shir will dare to pop up his head.

Ts

Ne'Khan

Recruited a nice fellow on a mammoth. Other then that my trip wasn't as productive as I hoped.

Ts

A'shir day 38

While Ne'khan is slaughtering archons on the surface, I am stealing bits and pieces af his "former" land in the caves. Today we stole a Capitol and some other stuff. Tomorrow we'll use a little mre brute force to take what we want.

TS

What is going on?! This sounds like a true epic! Make sure to make some screenshots!

A'shir day 39

The message has reached the frontlines: Ne'khan has surrendered his forces. We are victorious!!!

After the loss of his Capitol his moral sunk to a minumum for all his evil troopers, and they desserted from his campaign.

Thanks for a great game! You had a couple of massive quality stacks wich I could take out in an offensive battle. That's why I had to set up roadblocks wich didn't allow more than one stack to attack at the time. I also controlled the waters. This pretty much gave me the economical advantage because I contolled more income-structures.

This is how it went down seen with my eyes:

I had a great start of this game and the seduction campaign went brilliantly, but trying to save one day I tried to take out the frostling town while sufficiant backup was only a days march away. I lost 5 quality units and just managed to flee the battlefield with my heavily wounded wizard and hero. At this point I was pretty sure I was far behind. I gained some hope though when I saw Ne'khans entire army standing on the bridge for a couple of days trying to show muscles to my riverblock. He did not dare to make a go at the goblintown or the frostling town, or the dwarven town I found out later. After that he blasted into my riverblock with everything he had (on water). I still controlled the river, and I think he gave up trying to "get in" that way.

His plan number two was to dig...I put up a road block of three medium stacks with ranged weapons around the watchtower just south of my frostlingtown. He smashed into the walls with everything he had (2 powerfull CC-stacks), but it was not enough. 6 of my strongest units survived leaving me on the offensive. As I had placed a dreamweaver the marketplace in the center of the map I had pretty much the complete picture of what Ne'khan ruled over and what he did, and he still had some firepower. I decided to go for the slow win.....When I saw that Ne'khan went for the Prison, I had to do something. I decided that I had to send Gregor on the same mission, he was getting STRONG, and he had bard skills (50mp and haste was nice to have as well). I must say that my chin dropped a little when his incarnate went for the treehulk....alone.....and made it.

Meanwhile I had taken control over all the lands on my side of the river and put up an impossible block around the rivertower. Here I think Ne'khan was thinking a lot of how he was going to take advantage of his powerful army. I think he spent too much time standing at the caveopening deciding wether to go up or go for the frostlingtown. After three or four days standing there he went up. I slipped 5 rouges, a prawler and a centaur, all hasted, unseen in to his realm between his stacks. And found his capitol sold out and undefended some days later. The last 7 or 8 days Gregor had made quite a legend of himself, hacking and slashing down countless numbers of whatever came in his way.

I was kinda hoping you would have problems with moral after that, with only a halfling and an archon town left. I think I had the upper hand on the game anyhow, but it would have taken a long time. I would have gone for the longterm economic siege. Wich I think would have worked. I would have been the only player in the caves next turn, and I would have blocked the entrances/exits to the surface.

Again, thanks for a great game! Now I can spend my time trying to win an "impossible" game against Charx. I'm far behind, but hopefully I gain enough time to get back on my feet. ...... After a disasterous battle wich gave away control of the entire surface. I hope that what I have gathered in the caves have enough BITE!

Troy

[This message has been edited by Troy Locker (edited 09-22-2009 @ 04:23 AM).]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is TNS reporting live from the scene where Troy just managed a win over LordDuck.

Troy, congratulations and thanks for your analysis! You managed what seems to be a hard fought win over the mapmaker. What did you think of the map?

LordDuck, it must have been a hard game for you. Do you think there were things that you could have done differently?

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 09-21-2009 @ 07:26 PM).]

Yes, it was a great game indeed . The end was a really stupid oversight though. I was counting on losing the town, and had started migrating the Archon town to nomads, but didn't count on the fact the halfling population was just a tad bigger. Because of that my evil units deserted right away in the new turn.

Anyway, at start I planned to just get as much recruits as possible, and hurry over the river to strike A'shir while his troops were hopefully spread out. I arrived a day too late at the river though, and he had already blocked. Got some units together and tried to break through, but it wasn't enough. After that I expected to see A'shirs army in my areas any minute, so I stayed close. A'shir didn't came though and I just wasted important turns. Then I got my forces back to recruit some more, and tried to dig my way into A'shir realm, but A'shir had already fortified his watchtower. Attacked anyway, as I though I would have a decent chance with the large ammount of gate crushers, and lost again. With my leftover troops I liberated the Dark Elves, and got myself a nice treehulk. Got the last recruits out by selling the buildings in my town, and left for the surface. (I had to get my leader to safety, that was why I waited ) My plan was to sell my own tower, and capture A'shirs. Then he would have no tower to return to, and I would charge his leader with my armies, in the hope to take him out before the economic advantage could overcome me.

I must say one more thing. I loved the map. I will definately play this one a lot in future head-to-head games. A perfect head-to-head map. More balanced than any I've ever played.

Good job, Lordduck