Let’s Play Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 (Parts I and II)

[Inky]

S10- The Source of Light

(This is my second attempt. The first time Mal Keshar died at the very beginning from being chain attacked by the mages and demons. I learned my lesson and kept him in the back this time!)


Great, we’re in an absolutely massive cave, and we’re lost.



Turn 1


Because most of my recalls are already level 3, I focus on new recruits. I get some hunters because hunters are awesome! Except for these 3, who all managed to be quick/intelligent (pretty much the worst possible trait combination in Wesnoth).

Turn 2

We start heading west, and encounter someone else in the cave. Maybe she’ll give us directions!


…or maybe she’ll try to kill us just like everyone else.


I get some fresh undead recruits (guess what, the dark adept is quick/intelligent too. I think I’m cursed.)

Turn 4


A list of things which are trying to kill us today: demons, fanatical mages, and giant robots. Just another typical day in the life of Galas!


There are quite a few high level enemies so we’ll make use of the 4-hex bottleneck to just hold the line.

Meanwhile Igor and the ghosts go on a mushroom picking expedition in the northwest dead end area for some easy experience.

Turn 5


It may have been best to just hold the line, but I decide it’s time for the hunters to start earning their pay.

I put them to work slowing everything in sight:



Turn 6


Miraculously, the very exposed hunter in the north managed to survive with 10 XP, so I pull him back to heal.

Priority #1 now is to get rid of that level 2 chaos magus, the most dangerous unit here.


First the captain attacks the goliath in order to level into a marshal so he can give leadership to the hero. The hero then softens up the magus, allowing the ghost (who does 5-3 damage) to circle around and finish. Success!


All those level 2 demons around are pretty scary, so we let some, ahem, less valuable units take the front lines. Mal Keshar just hides in the back, since the demons could chain attack and kill him if he was exposed to even one hex.

Turn 7


The nearby ghosts and bats have all been fried to a crisp (and to add insult to injury, the leech devoured one of the vampire bats and got +1 HP).


We clear out two of those dangerous demon zephyrs: the dark sorcerer and dark adept team up to kill one, and a hunter slows another for Galas to finish.

Turn 8


Another hunter bites the dust, but we’re finally seeing the last of the enemy army.


The dark adept kills the demon zephyr and levels, and the melee units tear apart those annoying chaos invokers. We also get a glimpse of the enemy leader.


Stats so far – we’ve gotten pretty good luck!

Turn 10

The demon leader dashes out for a desperation attack...


...and we happily finish her off.


Hooray! We’ve found the Lady of Light already! That wasn’t so bad, was it?


….sighhh. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.



Turn 12


Galas starts using the small western keep to recruit reinforcements – spectres are especially great because they can pretty much take care of themselves with their draining attack. He will then head southeast where there’s another keep to recruit from.

This is an absolutely huge map so we start splitting into small groups to explore. There will eventually be 4 groups (northwest, southwest, northeast and southeast).

Turn 13

On the western front, we divide into two groups:


Team Igor (Northwest): Igor, two spectres and a shyde; and
Team Mal Keshar (Southwest): Mal Keshar + Anlinde, the ultimate unstoppable duo. And a hero just tagging along for some free kills.

Turn 15

On the eastern front:


Galas starts getting some reinforcements and we’ll divide into two groups to take care of the undead in the northeast tunnel, and the fire spirits in the southeast tunnel.

Turn 16:


Galas, Althurin and some ghosts go to deal with the northeast undead, while a dark sorcerer/ necromancer team starts zapping fire spirits, which are extremely weak to cold damage.

Turn 17

Team Igor:


Yikes, Igor almost got eaten by the water serpents and then we would have had to rename the team! Our spectres will soon make short work of the nearby sea creatures though.

Turn 18


The sea creatures foolishly throw themselves at the spectres and are promptly wiped out. I should rename this group to Team Spectres because Igor isn’t doing anything…

Turn 19

Meanwhile Team Mal Keshar is just hanging around a southwest village and killing stuff that happens to come their way.


The Great and Fearsome Ancient Lich of legends, Mal Keshar, is reduced to battling with rocks. Oh well, not everything you do is exciting enough to make it into the legends.


Meanwhile the necromancer squad in the southeast has managed to clear out most of the fire spirits with their cold magic and can finally start heading into the lava filled cave. Somehow I think that when they were learning their evil magic in necromancy school, putting out fires was not the application they had in mind.


In the northeast, Galas & Co. are slowly plowing through the undead force, which mostly consists of some corpses and a lot of mud. They must have had some major budget cuts recently.

Turn 21


Igor’s wildlife expedition continues, as they finally make it across the river to an island which is infested by ants and mudcrawlers.

Turn 22


The expedition’s findings are that the island’s wildlife is excellent food for spectres. They discover a cuttlefish to the south, which also turns out to be an ideal snack for spectres.


Meanwhile Mal Keshar’s group slowly heads southeast into a larger central area.

Turn 23


They clean out the area and pick up some nice XP in the process.


In the northeast, we advance on the chocobone leader, and I do a quick calculation:

The chocobone can reach my shyde using the illuminated hex in front of her, and does 11-2 base damage, which is 22-2 with charge, or 44 HP. The shyde has 45 HP, so I figured it was completely safe to put her there.

Turn 24


…and that was how I first learned that this scenario is actually deep underground where chaotic units have +30% damage instead of +25%, so they get +5% in an illuminated hex. (I said in the beginning how much I hate the quick trait, and this is exactly why – a few extra HP really does make a difference.)


We get revenge on the chocobone though, with the ghost killing it and leveling into a wraith.

Turn 25


Team Igor Spectres starts whittling down the cuttlefish leader, and we get our first glimpse of one of the six runes we need to find.


Galas discovers another rune in the northeast, and uses the undead keep to recruit some reinforcements.


…and our necromancer squad finds a third one, along with the fire spirit leader.

Turn 27


We lured out and killed the fire spirit leader, and that’s pretty much all these units will do this scenario since they’re now in the middle of nowhere.

Turn 28


In the northeast, we come across a potion guarded by some revenants, which we lure out and kill one at a time.


In the west we finally managed to kill the cuttlefish leader and the nearby serpent, though the shyde lost a ton of HP from getting poisoned early on, so she’ll be spending a long time in the village.
These units will then start heading north to explore.

Turn 30


In the center south, a ghost triggers a touchplate...


…opening a sealed chamber containing a fourth rune. Two more runs left to find!

Turn 31


Galas inspects the green potion, which adds drain to a unit’s melee attack. It reduces HP by 5% though, and less HP is absolutely the last thing Galas needs, so I just leave the potion alone.

Turn 32


In the south the elvish champion, filled with rage at being rendered obsolete by the superior prowler unit, turns to performance enhancing drugs, giving him a berserk melee attack along with some extra HP and resistances. No one messes with him now!
(I wish I had thought of giving this champion the drain potion too.)

Turn 33


We get a glimpse of the second to last rune in the southwest.

Turn 36


Mal Keshar’s group advances southwest, and out a nowhere a bunch of wraiths attack him! Fortunately he survives, though he had everyone really worried for a moment there. The moral of the story is to always bring along a scouting unit.


Mal Keshar stays back to heal, and a ghost comes to hopefully scout out any other lurking surprises.


Meanwhile in the north, Igor’s wildlife hunting expedition gets more than they bargained for when they lure out a gigantic spider!

The shyde attempts to slow it, but she misses 3/3 times and the spider hits her 3/3 times. For her astounding performance she wins a free vacation to the spider’s stomach. (It’s a one way trip.)
I start to worry that I’m going to run out of shydes at this rate… (I have another shyde and a druid left now).

Turn 38


Mal Keshar’s group in the southwest kills the leader and activates the second to last rune. One more to go!

Turn 41


Igor and the spectres start exploring the northwest area…

Turn 43


NOT ANOTHER ONE

Turn 44


Guess what, you stupid spider, we are just going to ignore you and fly around to get to the rune. No food for you today!


And with the last rune activated, the chamber to the Lady of Light opens.


(I’m pretty sure there’s supposed to be an early finish bonus here, so I should have gotten about 150 more carryover gold, but it turns out the 187 carryover was enough to win next scenario.)


Even luck overall, though the two shydes got some pretty unfortunate RNG.
Losses: 2 shydes, 1 shadow, 2 hunters, 4 ghosts, 5 vampire bats.

Cutscene (Elynia)

We enter the chamber where the Lady of Light sleeps…

In a previous age when Irdya was green and wide, anyone who glanced at her radiant pale skin and glistening faerie wings would have been able to discern her identity without a second thought. Even as she slept, her strong bond with the essence of Light illuminated her surroundings and protected her from harm.

The legends told of the lavender-haired heroine of the elves and lauded her everlasting grace and splendor, but Galas never imagined the truth could possibly surpass the historical accounts; neither did he imagine how it would render him completely dumbstruck, unable to greet her as it was required of him as lord of the Elves.

Uh, I think Galas has a crush on Elynia already. She is a little too old for you, Galas…




If I spout off some fancy titles, she’ll be so impressed she’ll fall for me! –Galas’ reasoning


Mal Keshar proves time and again how much more awesome he is than everyone else.


Galas’ courtship attempt falls apart astonishingly quickly. Expect some turbulent diary entries in the days to come.


Igor, you are not helping things!!


Two? Wait, does that mean… Anlindë?
It’s time for Galas to learn the secret dark history of the elves.

South of the Heart Mountains lay one of the greatest and oldest domains of our kind, Wesmere. For long it served as the capital of our civilization, with its elven council — the Ka’lian — holding greater authority than our own kings and lords. The members of the Ka’lian valued knowledge over all other things, and they sought to plunder all the secrets of Irdya for the greater good. In time, this would bring about our downfall.

Meanwhile, the new Emperor of Wesnoth, in an attempt to increase his popularity, decides to gather together some magi to raise a second sun into the sky to make it perpetually daytime and banish all undead from the lands.

As part of their experiments seeking to unveil the nature of our reality, the most skilled sorcerers in Wesmere discovered a way to open portals to another world; and from one of those portals emerged a young elf seer who warned them of disasters to come; disasters that he claimed would destroy all elvish civilization, and with it, the knowledge hoarded by the good people of Wesmere. He promised them protection and more knowledge in exchange for being worshiped as a god. That was Zhangor, and that was the pact he proposed to elvish civilization.

Yes, randomly opening portals to other worlds sounds like a great idea. What could go wrong?

Knowledge begets power, and power begets ambition; the offer was only too enticing for the lords of Wesmere. Those who disagreed with the Ka’lian’s decision to accept the Demon Lord as their god would be the first to meet him... as offerings. As part of his requirements, these blood sacrifices were to remain a secret concealed from the rest of the world; and because of this, for a long time, we remained unaware of the corruption that took root in Wesmere.

Meanwhile, Wesnoth gets a new Emperor who forms the brilliant plan of raising a third sun into the sky (I feel like there is some kind of pattern here). If two suns are good, three is better! At least until the third one falls back down out of the sky, almost destroying all life on Irdya.

The humans were far from the only ones to suffer the calamities that resulted from their prideful actions. Elves, dwarves, humans, and orcs... they all fought among themselves for the scarce resources left after everything green perished. Naia and Sela also contributed by drying up every source of water on the surface. And while we at Lintanir Forest had to cope with this for some time until the situation proved unsustainable, Wesmere stood intact through everything, protected by Zhangor’s arcane magic. The unholy sacrifices continued, and soon he saw that he would be left with nothing to rule if the Wesmere population waned further; his thirst for blood became increasingly difficult to quench.

Zhangor starts sending hunters outside of Wesmere to get more sacrifices, and Elynia and her husband Argan are forced to flee from Lintanir forest.

Destiny works in mysterious ways, and it was only by chance that we made contact with the elves led by Lord Quetor’el of Aethenwood before they could be lured into a trap by Wesmere. Even though their military proficiency paled in comparison to that of Lintanir or Wesmere, their larger numbers proved essential to make our plan work. Our combined forces laid siege to Wesmere for nearly a year before Zhangor realized that the devotion and fear of his followers would never suffice to turn the tide in his favor.

Zhangor then reveals his true form, raining down fire and lightning to destroy everything in his path.

With little chance of prevailing, Argan and I called upon the Union of Light and Darkness, risking our own destruction by overexertion, and challenging a foe without precedent in Irdya’s recorded history. Of course, we did defeat Zhangor in the end, but our power was not enough to counteract his impressive regeneration ability and allow us to kill him; which is why we could only tear his hideous body apart, seal every piece, and send them all back to Inferno.

Victory was ours, but the cost was much greater than we anticipated, and less than five hundred elves of Wesmere survived Zhangor’s display of power, many of them priests and warriors. They surrendered and begged for forgiveness, and we did spare the civilians’ lives.

But the surviving priests, warriors, and Ka’lian members met a different fate, for we could not risk the possibility of them sparking another civil war or bringing Zhangor or other demons back to Irdya. No... we had no choice but to execute them, and then burn their bodies to ashes in case Zhangor’s magic could still be at work.

Summary: The humans practically caused the apocalypse by raising a third sun, and the elves helped a demon god become insanely powerful by feeding it sacrifices. And people still think orcs and undead are the bad guys!

As for Anlindë…

I knew there was something fishy about her!

And as for Elynia and Argan, they decide to go explore some dwarvish ruins looking for a lost civilization.

He’s definitely dead. 100% dead.


Yes, we’ve got another overpowered hero character! With Elynia, Anlindë and Mal Keshar around I bet Galas is feeling really insecure…

[skeptical_troll]

Here I used a cheap and coward tactic (I wouldn't even call it that way), feeling that I had done enough dungeon crawling that day. I sent an invisible shadow taking care of the western glyphs. He just moved unseen through wildlife and activated those two, preserving the ecosystem and saving some time and units. Of course, lot of XP missed in this way, but I felt I already had enough lvl 3 units, and I still had the south and eastern part to deal with.

I'm not sure if the trick could work with the other runes, I tried on the east, where the undeads are, and did not go well

[Inky]

I sent an invisible shadow taking care of the western glyphs.

Wow that's so clever - I wish I had thought of that!! While you do miss some XP, you also miss out on your units getting eaten by the native wildlife

S11- Strike on Herthgar

(Second attempt. First attempt quickly turned into a complete disaster, partly due to wasting too much gold on low level units.)

We made haste towards the keep, in fear that we had arrived too late...

This is the dwarf capital, which has a very nice deep water moat surrounding it. (I imagine one easy way to win this scenario would be to just head straight to the castle with some veterans and defend there, though I have not tried this.)


This is basically the final battle of Part I; the next two scenarios are more of an epilogue.
There’s actually no point in worrying about gold carryover, since we won’t be able to use the extra gold next scenario anyway.



Note: All enemy sides will get a small amount of gold on Turns 6 and 14.

It's going to be a big battle with multiple fronts. Here’s the overall layout of the map (on turn 2), with the 5 enemy sides labeled in the approximate order we’ll be going for them.



The eastern front and southern front don't require immediate attention because the dwarves will delay the enemies for several turns, so we can mostly focus on the northwest at the beginning.

Here’s the plan:

1. Send a large force northwest to wipe out enemy leaders #1 and #2, while a smaller force heads south to defend the dwarven castle. (I have enough gold to recall 3 full keeps of units, so the first 2 keeps will be the northern force, and the third keep of units will go south.)
2. Once the two northwest enemies are defeated, the large northern force will split up, with one part going east to kill Leader #3, and the rest going south to reinforce the castle.
3. After defending in the dwarven castle until most of the southern enemies are gone, the southern force will split into two groups to take out leaders #4 and #5.

Turn 3

Since gold doesn’t matter, my approach is to just recall everything and just go deeply negative on gold.

I don’t have enough gold to recall all my level 3 veterans though, so I prioritize recalling undead for their +25% damage bonus, and prowlers for their slow attacks.


I blow all my gold on 3 full keeps of veterans, going irreversibly negative, and start making an aggressive push northwest.

Turn 4


The battle begins! We’ll just settle for killing the nearby enemies, forming a line and letting them come to us.


Prowlers and necromancers make excellent frontline units- prowlers can slow and have great melee retaliation, and necromancers are extremely beefy and resistant to arcane damage.


In the north, we’ll form a line anchored by a beefy unit on the village (look at Mal Keshar, he's got four AMLAs!).

On the right we take advantage of the two lit hexes where the enemies will do reduced damage.


Meanwhile, some units go to help out in the south, though it will be a few turns before the enemy gets here.

Turn 5


Our northwestern lines are holding up with no problem. The western enemy is running low on units so we’ll make an aggressive push there, but the northern enemy still has a ton of units left so we’ll just hold the line.


We plow right through most of the western army.


And in the north we use a beefy necromancer to hold the critical anchor village. With his 60% terrain defense and resistance to the chaos invokers' arcane damage, he should be just fine.

We also make sure to keep our ghostly undead units out of the ranges of those nasty chaos invokers.

Turn 6


We suffer our first loss this scenario, a prowler in the northern line (I should have blocked that hex so the skirmishing zephyr couldn't use it), though it’s not a big loss at all since we have practically an entire army of prowlers.


We wipe out the western army and in the north the necromancer uses his plague staff to create a walking corpse, an extremely useful ability in situations like these.

We aren’t quite done here though, since the enemy leaders all got some extra gold this turn and will be able to recruit some reinforcements next turn.

Turn 7


The enemies get some extra units, and some dwarves kindly come and act as cannon fodder for us.


We clean out some of the more dangerous units with the help of skirmish and backstab, and we whittle down the western enemy leader.


In the north we easily clean out the nearby units, even making another walking corpse in the process. It won’t be long before this leader’s gone too.

On the allied dwarves’ turn, the dying western enemy leader gets finished off:


Rrrrrrgh killstealer!

…and in the southeast, the idiot allied leader rushed out onto 30% defense and got killed:


Some units are just too dumb to live.

Turn 8


We’re almost ready to finish off the northern leader.


Meanwhile in the south, the dwarves are mostly gone and the enemies will start besieging the city soon.

Unor, the champion with the Berserk Potion, blocks the southeast bridge, where he'll manage to kill 4 units on the enemy's turn. He's my new favorite unit!

Turn 9


The northern leader goes down, and now all the northern units can start moving south and east to help.


We’ve ignored the eastern enemy this entire time, so his units have almost completely demolished the dwarven ally in the east. Oops.

Southern front:


Our small squad in the south continues to hold out by blocking up the bridge chokepoints (we only need to worry about demon zephyrs which can fly over the deep water). They’ll need reinforcements from the north soon though.

On the enemy turn, the eastern dwarf leader finally goes down after holding out admirably:


Rest in peace, Furin, killed by a MUDCRAWLER.

Turn 10


In the south, we’re perfectly fine now, as reinforcements from the north start pouring in.

Turn 11


This time there are some demon zephyrs in the east we need to watch out for. I put Elynia in front so if they try to gang up on her or Galas they’ll have to use an illuminated hex.

The zephyrs both end up going for Unor (the Berserk Potion champion) though, and they promptly get finished off because nobody messes with him!

Turn 12


Meanwhile in the northeast, our necromancer has a near death experience and we have some annoying units to clean out.


The northeastern front is mostly under control now.


The siege in the south continues, and in the southwest we’ve got a winner for Dumbest Unit of the Year Award, the spectre who missed the dying demon 4 times and was hit 3/3 times in retaliation.

Turn 13


Sadly we lost two spectres last turn, one in the northeast (who was AMLAd too) and that idiot spectre in the southwest.


On the bright side, the siege of the castle is slowly starting to die out and we’ll be able to advance south soon.

Turn 14

With so many veterans concentrated in one place now, the enemies just don’t stand a chance.

The massacre in the northeast:



Turn 15

...and the slaughter in the south:


We start to venture forth from the castle. The enemies also got some more reinforcements this turn.

Turn 16


We start advancing in the northeast. Unfortunately this chaos invoker just refused to die, so the nightgaunt is in a dangerous situation.

Turn 17


But in a lucky break, the nightgaunt manages to survive!


If I was that chaos lorekeeper I’d be very scared right now!

Meanwhile in the south we’ve divided into two groups to take care of the two southern leaders:


We have the western force led by Galas.


And in the east it’s a prowler party!

Turn 19

Northeast:


Down goes the northeastern leader, with an AMLAd spectre getting the kill for a second AMLA, putting him at 39 HP! He’s a Super Spectre now!


Speaking of AMLAs, Elynia actually has a nonstandard Strength AMLA path which eventually improves her melee damage. I go with the +5 HP.

Turn 21

Southwest:


Bye bye!

Southeast:


We leave poor Alazar alive so Igor can get the kill (I’d like to AMLA him eventually for the little bit of extra survivability). He misses 4/4 next turn though, so we have to wait til turn 23.

Turn 23


Victory!

But it seems it's too early to celebrate, as more enemies are coming so we need to evacuate Herthgar…




No don’t leave us Anlinde! Can’t we leave behind Galas instead? We all know he’s the most useless one…


I almost managed to not have negative gold. The gold carryover doesn’t make any difference for next scenario anyway.


Losses: 2 spectres, 1 prowler, 1 shadow, 3 walking corpses

My unit list is almost my entire recall list:




Just for reference, here is entire rest of my recall list:


(Random fact: I never again used the dextrous/resilient enchantress I gave the +1 speed ring to back in scenario 3, because I was afraid she’d die and then the ring would be wasted. I really should have given the ring to Galas instead.)

[Inky]

S12 – The Escape

After that exchange, I stayed behind in the dwarven throne room, and talked to Anlindë a last time before bidding her farewell.

She had always been there to guide me since my father’s death. Even now, at the premature end of our journey together, she imparted her wisdom to me. She spoke of our past leaders and the sacrifices they had to make for the sake of others; the great losses suffered by Telchior’s people before finding the Valley; the pact with Zhangor; the story of Kalenz and Landar; the betrayal of the humans and the war with the orcs...

We prepare to make our escape from Herthgar, with Anlindë staying behind to delay the enemies.




Galas expressed my thoughts exactly.


Basically, we’re only allowed to bring 6 undead veterans with us to Part 2 of the campaign. (Bats and necromancers don’t count as undead.)

Turn 1


I have 6 level 3 undead recruits so I recall those (I also have a leveling shadow, which we’ll have to leave behind.)

Turn 3


Great, this cave is infested with huge bugs. Fortunately Galas & Co. have dealt with all kinds of pests throughout their journey and should now qualify as professional bug exterminators.

Turn 4


Past the giant bugs, the wildlife begins to take a turn for the bizarre, as we encounter some assorted mud on the right and some Free XP on a Stick (commonly known as the Eyestalk) to the left, a laughably weak level 3 unit that is scattered throughout this scenario.

Turn 5

Continuing west along the tunnel…


We come across a cave with some more pests. Just another ordinary job for the Galas Extermination Squad. To make things even easier, the chaos empire and the trolls will waste time fighting each other.

Turn 6


When facing a troll infestation, the most effective remedy is a healthy dose of spectres (or wraiths, for those on a budget.)
Our two spectres occupy the two hexes where trolls get 50% defense, forcing them to attack from the surrounding 40% defense hexes.

Turn 7

Troll whelps vs. spectres:


Also, the troll leader already got finished off by the chaos empire. All in all, an utterly pathetic showing for the troll team.

Turn 8


We advance on the chaos empire now, and Elynia (who can hide in mushroom groves) sets up an ambush for the chaos invoker who will probably try to zap the spectre behind her.
In the south there’s another Free XP on a Stick.

Turn 9


The Galas Extermination Squad gets to work:


You can't really call this a battle, it's more like a one-sided slaughter.

Turn 10


We dispose of the first minor annoyance of this scenario, and continue across the bridge (where there’s more free XP on a stick!)

Turn 12

After crossing the bridge and heading north, we encounter minor annoyance #2:


It's like that weak Goliath boss from Scenario 7...except even weaker.

Turn 14


The Goliath is promptly backstabbed to death. We then head east through the tunnel to a large chamber…

Turn 16


…containing minor annoyance #3. Actually this is a potentially dangerous ambush if you moved your scouting unit too far into the chamber.
In this scenario it’s very advisable to only scout several hexes at a time. Fortunately that’s what we did, so Igor still has enough movement to run away out of danger.

Turn 17


The hellhound’s berserk attack is potentially a threat, but it also means that it’s guaranteed to die to a single spectre attack.


Like so.

Turn 18


We couldn’t lose this if we tried. Next!

Turn 20

We then head north of the chamber, toward the exit.


On the way we encounter minor annoyance #4 which is fortunately the last one.

Turn 21


The imp leader moves to a village, where he’s promptly taken out.


Just to be more annoying, he then dissolves into a bunch of mudcrawlers.


Elynia gets another AMLA. I go with the +3 HP because why would you ever use Elynia in melee?

Unfortunately I wasn’t being very careful here. I completely expected the demons to go fry the nightgaunt which is very exposed, but it seemed they had other ideas…


Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo he was my favorite character!

...I cannot believe I got the most important nonhero unit killed in the easiest scenario.

Turn 22


Oh well, he will always be with us… as a walking corpse. (Mal Keshar resurrected him.)

Well then just head to the exit, which is straight ahead.

Turn 24


We made it!
This was the last scenario in Part I featuring Galas’ group.


Some unfortunate RNG. Losing Igor was more due to carelessness though.


Well, we’ve got a corpse named Igor now. But somehow, it just isn’t the same…sniff…

Next scenario is kind of an epilogue, where we’ll find out how Anlinde is doing back in Herthgar.

[Inky]

This is the final scenario of Part I, and is pretty much a cutscene.

S13 – Face Your Fate

Meanwhile, back in Herthgar…


Whoa what are those creepy things!


Fortunately we have the help of the dwarvish ulfserkers! He’s being pretty morbid, which is completely understandable given that the average lifespan of an ulfserker is approximately 2 seconds.


This is basically a cutscene scenario; you’d have to try pretty hard to lose.

Turn 1


We’ve got a mountain of gold, and the ability to recruit ulfserkers and skeletal undead. We can also recall the shadow that we were forced to leave behind last scenario.
There’s the drone leader to the northwest of us, and a chaos empire leader to our south. Both will take a few turns to get here, so we just hang around the castle and wait.

Turn 4


In the west, the drones start arriving, and we take them out with ulfserkers. It takes about 2-3 ulfs to kill one drone which isn’t very efficient, but we have such a huge amount of units it really doesn’t matter.

Turn 5


More drones come in, and we use the ulfs on them one after another until they’re destroyed.


The shadow also backstabs a drone and levels up.


Meanwhile in the south, the chaos army is just beginning to arrive.

Turn 6


With the help of ulfs and backstabbing, we clean out the rest of the drone army.


In the south, an ulfserker demolishes a chaos invoker. Ulfs are also pretty good at killing the headhunters and imps.

Turn 7


Most of the chaos empire units go up the southeastern side…


…and they’re wiped out by Anlinde and her skeleton squad. Most of the enemies on the map are gone now; the Hell Guardian is the only remotely threatening enemy around now.

Turn 9


He’s no match for Anlinde though.

Turn 10


The drone leader came out to attack, and was promptly backstabbed by the nightgaunt, so we won’t have to worry about annoyances from the west anymore.

In the east, there’s really nothing going on now; we’ll just wait until turn 14.

Turn 14

We had a massive amount of extra gold so we spend it all on ulfs just for fun (it really doesn’t matter; at this point the scenario is already “won”).


Suddenly, a passage opens up in the southwest!

Turn 16

A bunch of enemies suddenly appear in the southwest passage!





The conspicuous lack of a defeat condition and the name of the scenario should give a hint as to the only way to end this scenario.

Of course, you can try to defeat the chaos warlord using undead units:




…but it’s futile. She’ll not only heal to full…


…she’ll also kill off all your undead units.


We accept the inevitable and just have Anlinde attack the warlord over and over until she dies.


Anlinde brings the cave down on everyone. We’ll miss you, Anlinde…your +8 healing...your awesome arcane damage...

Oh wait. Elynia does all those things too, and she has more HP and illuminates, so we don't need you after all. Bye bye Anlinde!





(End of IftU Part I)

Campaign stats

Note: This is for Scenarios 1-12 only. I couldn’t figure out how to get it to include S13, which is completely separate anyway.


Overall we’ve gotten good luck on this playthrough!
(Restarts: restarted the campaign due to getting slaughtered in S2, 1 restart in S 10, and 1 restart in S 11. No save loads.)

Recruits (104):
Elves:
9 civilians They all died
4 archers
9 fighters
16 hunters Did I ever mention that hunters are my favorite elvish unit?
9 shamans
0 scouts

Undead:
4 Dark adepts
24 ghosts
29 vampire bats
0 skeletons, skeleton archers, skeleton riders (Personally I found the 7 MP, ability to fly, and useful abilities like drain or backstab/skirmisher for the ghost type undead to be so vastly superior that the skeletal undead units aren’t even worth looking at.)

Losses (77):
33 Level 0: 9 civilians, 3 walking corpses, 21 bats
26 Level 1: 6 fighters, 6 hunters, 2 shamans, 1 blood bat, 11 ghosts
8 Level 2: 3 trappers, 1 ranger, 3 shadows, 1 wraith
10 Level 3: Igor the direwolf, Volrand the outrider, 2 prowlers, 1 marshal, 2 shydes, 3 spectres

********************************
Finally, let’s take some time to celebrate the especially awesome / not so awesome units in the playthrough:

The Most Awesome Character:

What’s better than an Ancient Lich, you may wonder?


An ancient lich with 4 AMLAs!

The Least Awesome Character:

Remember Made the shaman from back in S3? We dragged her allll the way across the cave for like 50 turns in the hopes that she’d do something useful…


…only to have her not slow Mal Keshar. Ah well, I guess we can’t really blame her, I mean she was up against Mal Keshar after all. No one messes with him!


The Most Awesome Unit Type:


These cute, affordable pets are just what you need to get your economy going, and are great as distractions and bait too!

The Least Awesome Unit Type:

Like in UtBS, the cost of recruiting elves slowly goes up as you progress through IftU. I thought that 18 gold for an elvish scout was the worst ripoff in all of Irdya, but I was wrong:


Hahahahahaaaaa!!! That…has to be a bad joke, right?

The End!

This concludes Part I of IftU, along with this LP!
Thanks to: everyone reading this, shadowm who wrote the campaign, and vampire bats for costing no upkeep. Hope you enjoyed reading!

[Sire]

Thanks for doing this Let's Play! The Campaign Stats at the end was also a nice touch.

There are a couple things I don't remember about IftU, but that was before the revisions. (I don't remember a moat in the "final battle", and the layout of the "true" finale I think was different. I think there were some Custom Units as well, such as Fairies and Elvish Spirits, but I wonder if they have been cut from the revised edition.)

Do you plan on continuing the saga, play a different campaign or just take a break for awhile? These LPs are quite enjoyable, and I like reading about your style of play to improve my own.

[Inky]

Thanks, glad you liked it!

I think there were some Custom Units as well, such as Fairies and Elvish Spirits, but I wonder if they have been cut from the revised edition.

Ahhh yes, the Sprite would have been the winner for the most useless unit award if they hadn't been removed from Part 1 (you get to recruit them in Part 2 though) - 21 gold for a lawful unit in a mostly underground campaign! I miss the warrior spirits though (I think they were removed entirely)- they were my favorite units, even though spectres pretty much do the same thing.

Do you plan on continuing the saga, play a different campaign or just take a break for awhile?

I might do Part 2 in the future, but making these posts can get pretty tedious (I am so sick of copy/pasting image links) so for now I'm just taking a break

[taptap]

Thanks for your LP. I like the format. Hope the images will be available for a while.

I haven't played in a while, but dryads weren't that bad overground with the long days and 7-6 fire damage, although you always know that sooner or later you will be underground again. I never looked back at faerie spirits after they lost their cold resist without getting compensating fire resist (half of it my suggestion, but I hoped for more fire resist in exchange). The elvish ghosts were somewhat overpowered I guess, but I don't like the removal of ghouls and the alternative zombie advancement to ghouls. It was glorious when you could turn your hapless elvish fighter turned zombie into very tanky ghoul later and it still was more of a flavor unit more than anything. Imagine Igor getting all the hitpoints in death that he missed in life.

[Paulomat4]

thanks again for this awesome let's play! I really enjoy reading those. Keep up the good work!

[Caladbolg]

Thanks for a thoroughly enjoyable LP! You have a great sense of humor so I hope we'll be seeing more of these in the future

[Inky]

Wow, thanks everybody!!

Hope the images will be available for a while.

This was actually my main concern with using this screenshot format. Imgur claims that it will never delete images even for free accounts, but I have no idea how true this actually is so I guess we will find out.

It was glorious when you could turn your hapless elvish fighter turned zombie into very tanky ghoul later

That does sound awesome! But I can't say I miss it because I did not even know that corpses could advance to ghouls in the original version.

@Caladbolg: I also really enjoyed reading your recent playthrough and analysis of HttT - very insightful!

[Inky]

It’s back!!

I’ll be playing Part 2 (on Wesnoth 1.12.6 and IftU version 1.99.4), continuing from my Part 1 save.

S14 – Bye and Behold

Part I left off as Galas and everyone escaped from Herthgar as it was overrun by the Chaos Empire, and they’re now travelling to seek help from the Northern humans.

I knew that from that point onwards, I would have to make decisions for our people on my own, as Anlindë was longer there to provide me with her — seldom unwise — counsel and guidance. And I knew there was a possibility that I might come to regret some of those decisions. But someone had to take the reins of our fractured civilization and move us forward. And that someone, at least for the moment, had to be me.

Galas is officially our leader now. We’re doomed…




Poor Mal Keshar can’t get a break!




Can you feel the love tonight?


The Northern humans discover us, ruining the romantic mood.


Sighhhh…looks we have to clean up their mess before they’ll take us to the capital.

Scenario setup:


This scenario is extremely easy if you’re continuing from Part I with all your veterans and overpowered heroes, since there’s also an option to start Part 2 of the campaign by itself.


There are two enemies on the far north – the blue saurians in the northwest and purple orcs in the northeast. The purple orcs will arrive much later, so it’s easy to demolish the saurians first and then focus on the orcs.


We now get the ability to recruit sprites, which are not so great in general unfortunately. They’re expensive, fragile, and worst of all, lawful in a campaign which is often underground, though they’ll come in handy next scenario against the undead.

Turn 2, First Morning


I get a couple veterans, including my favorite unit, Unor the berserking champion, but I mostly go for fresh recruits. I don't have any resilient prowlers or shydes on my recall list and I managed to recruit a resilient shaman and hunter, so my next priority will be trying to level them.

The dwarves have left us but were nice enough to leave us a barrel of explosive arrows, so I recruit a skeleton archer to take them next turn:


He’s ready to set stuff on fire now!

Turn 4, First Afternoon

Heading north, we encounter a frozen forest along with some local wildlife.


Yeah whatever, just hurry up and kill it for the free XP.


Fine, be that way!

Good thing the orcs and chaos empire aren’t cute, or we’d have a problem.

Turn 5, First Dusk

Continuing northwest, we get a glimpse of some less cute wildlife.


Not as unusual as a talking water serpent!!

Turn 6, The Short Dark


The serpents have brought all their reptilian friends: nagas, saurians and mud. Uh, wait, one of those things didn’t quite belong in that list.


Mal Keshar and the spectre, who are pretty much invincible with their drain attacks, hold them off while the rest of the army catches up.

Turn 7, Second Dawn


The biggest threats here are the level 2 water serpents so we’ll focus on killing the two nearby ones first.

Mal Keshar zaps the rightmost serpent.


And a sprite finishes off the other with the help of Galas’ leadership.


The hunters then use the forest to (try to) slow stuff.

Turn 8, Second Morning

In the far northwest, a scouting bat reveals the purple orc leader:


The orcs can’t cross the deep water, so they’ll have to circle west and then south to reach us.


Meanwhile in the west, one of the hunters died but it was one of the useless (non resilient) ones so we aren’t too sad about him.
The remnants of the blue army are really weak so we just go for whatever easy kills present themselves.

The sprite roasts the nearby mudcrawler, which is pathetically weak to fire.

Next we focus on the pesky saurian augur on the 60% defense hill, which can be annoying to take down...


...unless you're Unor, the elvish champion with berserk!


Everyone else just attacks everything in sight. Things look pretty safe, don’t they? Well guess what…

Mudcrawlers do impact damage and skeletons are weak to impact.


It’s only the first scenario, but I think we’ve already got a winner for Most Useless Unit of Part 2. He never got to use the explosive arrows at all!!

Turn 9, Second Midday


The purple orcs from the northeast have started to trickle in. Fortunately we’ve got the perfect counters for those annoying dodgy assassins:

Mal Keshar zaps one with his magical attack….


…and Unor continues to demonstrate why he is my favorite unit.


We get a glimpse of the saurian leader, who is mostly out of units now.

Turn 10, Second Afternoon


The main orc horde has arrived! They’re mostly too far to reach though, so we just kill the nearby enemies and make a line.


Galas acts as a meatshield to protect the weak level 1 units in the back.

Turn 11, Second Dusk


Galas got pretty beaten up last turn because the orcish grunts decided to suicide into him one after another, walking corpse style, but as a result there aren’t that many orcs left now.

Our first priority is killing the saurian leader who came out of his keep to attack.


There’s pretty much no problem in Wesnoth that can’t be solved with an open hex and Mal Keshar.


We clear out the nearby wounded orcs and make a formation which protects the heavily wounded hunter in the middle.

Turn 12, The Short Dark (1)


The orcs all ganged up on a little ghost last turn, and pathetically didn’t even mange to kill it.

We have a pretty easy job of finishing off the remaining dying orcs.


In the south, the spectre and hunter had to take a detour to deal with a stupid rabbit who was grabbing our villages.

Turn 13, The Short Dark (2)


The main orc army is gone now, so all that’s left is to make our way to the orc leader in the northeast.

Turn 16, First Dawn


We slowly start making our way north across the river, and then east.

On the way, the sprite reaches level 3, getting two pretty cool advancement options.


The dryad is more damaging but I prefer the forest spirit since it is much more survivable, with +50% resist to blade/impact/pierce, while the dryad has none.

Turn 20, First Dusk


We approach the northeastern orcish keep.

Turn 23, Second Morning


It takes a few turns to kill the orc leader since I made sure to give the kill to someone who needed the XP (the druid ended up getting the kill).


These useless guys were just sitting around observing the battle the entire time and not helping....




Losses: 2 hunters, skeleton archer (taking the explosive arrows with him…), vampire bat.



Cutscene:

We’ve made it to the capital!


…Who didn’t see this coming?


“But he’s tame, really!”


Yeah, you tell them!!!

At the council meeting:



The Aragwaithi agree to the proposal and send Erathan to watch protect us. Well, it's another free loyal unit, so we're not about to complain!

[Inky]

S15 – Shadows of Time

Of all the things that I had been through during this twisting journey across the continent, playing ambassador to an orcish chieftain was amongst the most bizarre of them. We had gone from killing orcs on the sands without a single thought to having relatively amicable conversations with their kin in the west.

Little did I suspect then how things would soon take a darker turn.

Immediately after murdering a bunch of orcs, we’re sent by the Aragwaithi to convince the orcs to join the northern alliance.




Well, things aren’t starting off too well.


Our “negotiations” are interrupted by the arrival of another orc.


The undead leader will also summon some nasty forefathers, which are like spectres except more powerful.


And there’s also an ancient lich. Galas’ day is just getting better and better.


Well on the bright side, Quogar’s now willing to ally with us running to us for protection.

Scenario setup:





Here’s the overall layout of the map (the map is under shroud from turn 1 though; this screenshot’s from the replay):


There’s Galas and Quogar in the southeast, Tanstafaal’s undead in the southwest, orcs in the northwest and Mal Hekuba’s undead in the northeast.

Quogar’s orcs will do a pretty good job of distracting Mal Hekuba’s undead in the east, so the main battle will be a two front battle with the western undead and central orcs.

Turn 3, First Midday


We call in the professional undead exterminators, two elvish enchantresses, but mostly focus on fresh recruits which are good against undead, such as sprites and dark adepts.

Everyone hangs around the keep for now because there is a nasty group of high level undead coming from the west, and it’s best to let them come to us.

Turn 4, First Afternoon


The army of forefathers arrives from the west. They’re basically like spectres except much more awesome. (I really miss being able to recruit them in earlier versions of IftU.)

We have some heavy arcane hitters in range so we’ll try to get rid of as many as possible.


Sadly, “as many as possible” turns out to be only two of them. We use two bats to screen the wraith so that it can only be attacked from one hex, since it’s very weak to the forefathers’ arcane damage.

Turn 5, First Dusk


Unfortunately, despite our planning the wraith got itself killed from 1 hex.

I give Erathan the kill on the dying forefather (the sooner he levels the better, as his 39 HP is just pathetic),


The rest of the units stay cautiously back since night is approaching.


Meanwhile, Galas and a small detachment are patrolling the northeast, though at the moment nothing much is going on in this area (besides the idiot orc ally sending assassins against undead).

Turn 6, The Short Dark


Since it's night, we’ll just kill the two nearby undead units and stay back.


The allied orcs are kindly acting as cannon fodder for us too, though they won’t be around for long.

Turn 7, Second Dawn


The undead tried to attack Elynia, but weren’t very successful at all.

We start frying them with sprites and zapping them with adepts.


Mal Keshar, the one lich army, goes north and murders an orcish grunt. He’ll also lure the northern mob of undead his way and kill some of them in retaliation.


Meanwhile in the center, some sprites have fried the last forefather, and the orcish army is marching on Galas’ small group. They aren’t very threatening though, so we’ll advance and kill the nearby enemies.



Turn 8, Second Morning


In the west, we’ve got a bunch of undead just lining up to be fried, so we happily oblige. We focus on the melee oriented skeletons since all our units are ranged based.


We managed to clear out all 3 skeletons, so the enemy’s stuck with archers.

Mal Keshar continues to singlehandedly destroy the group of undead in the north.


Meanwhile in the center we’re being swarmed with a bunch of weak units. We’ll just attack everything in sight and try to make as many kills as possible.


We make some pretty good progress plowing through the orcish army.

As an added bonus, we've (inadvertently) set up a kill for the dying allied orcish archer, who will finish off the grunt and level up.

Turn 9, Second Midday


Remember that horde of undead in the north? They’re pretty much gone now because they unwisely decided to attack Mal Keshar last turn.

The remaining undead here aren’t long for this world either.


The western front is now under control!

Most of these units will now head southwest to kill the undead leader, while a few will go to help out in the center.


Meanwhile on the central front, we continue to make as many kills as we can each turn. The orcish army is thankfully thinning out, but the mass of undead from the north has started to arrive, so we'll have to retreat soon.

Turn 10, Second Afternoon


One of the sprites died last turn and we’re severely outnumbered, but fortunately many of the enemy units are dying. We try to make as many kills as we possibly can while it’s still daylight, focusing on the skeletal undead since they’ll be the most dangerous enemies during the night.


Unfortunately due to some bad luck we don’t manage to make many kills. We’ll just have to hope that most of units survive the enemy turn.

Turn 11, Second Dusk


Well fortunately all the important units are still alive. Since it’s no longer daylight it’s no longer safe to go out and attack on open ground, so everyone retreats into the forest.


The vampire bat takes the most dangerous spot in the formation (vampire bats are the true heroes of this war!)

Turn 12, The Long Dark (1)


Meanwhile one the western front, a small detachment is slowly advancing on the undead leader.


The rest of the units from the west have split off to go help in the center battle.


With their help, the central area is now secured!

The main battle is over now, so all that remains is to just make our way through scattered resistance toward the 3 enemy leaders.

Turn 14, The Long Dark (4)


In the southwest, we managed to give Erathan the kill on Tanstafaal.

Turn 16, First Dawn


Meanwhile, the units in the center split into two groups and start exploring.

While killing off stragglers, Erathan advances to level 3:


The precision weapon special is just a worse version of marksman (always at least 50% chance to hit on offense) which is pretty bad. Choosing Slayer for the extra hitpoints is clearly the better option, in my opinion.

Turn 19, First Afternoon


We get a glimpse of the orcish leader in the northwest….

Turn 20, First Dusk


…and our eastern force gets a glimpse of Mal Hekuba.

Since the short dark is approaching, we just hang back on both fronts and wait until the next day to attack.

Turn 24, Second Midday


In the west, we set up a kill on the orc leader for the trapper.


And in the east, we attack Mal Hekuba with Mal Keshar to soften him up, but he runs off like a coward once he’s attacked.




Losses: wraith, adept, 2 sprites, 3 bats.



Another victory, which of course means…another lengthy council meeting. Galas explains his plan to infiltrate the heart of the Chaos Empire.


The Aragwaithi are skeptical, until Elynia mentions it’s a great way for them to be rid of Mal Keshar.




Mal Keshar eloquently sums up everyone’s feelings on all these council meetings.

[kjn]

Just remember that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

[Inky]

Just remember that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

I agree, all too often "free" loyal units are a liability since future scenarios assume you have them even if they're not heroes. (I think there's sort of a vicious cycle: Most players restart whenever they lose a loyal -> most campaign authors assume players have all the loyals and balance the scenarios accordingly -> therefore it's usually a good idea to restart whenever you lose a loyal.)

S16 – Dawn of War

I wondered if we would ever return to the northern country as victors; whether we would become stranded in enemy territory and die before accomplishing our mission, or be killed by the demons after vanquishing their leader.

But there was one thing we did know for sure: this was the beginning of the end, the dawn of our war against the Empire of Chaos. Us three were at the center of the storm, and we would make sure the Empire and Uria herself would feel the wrath of the peoples of Irdya.

This scenario starts off as a cutscene where Galas wanders through the forest to meet up with his troops.



Uh oh. Galas has only been leader for two scenarios and he’s already cracking under the pressure.


Great, he is having elaborate conversations with himself now. This is what happens when you spent too much time writing in your diary.

We finally make it to our allies though.

"Paramount" is a pretty big word for an orc. Then again, he is clearly one of the smarter orcs, seeing as he is allied with us!


Of course Galas recommends the cowardly sneaky approach, but we're going to ignore him and just defeat all the enemies.

Scenario setup:


This scenario contains a major recall list wipe: we can only bring 6 elves with us for the rest of the campaign, so it’s really important to recall some healers since we won’t be able to get more!

Also, we only get to keep the veterans which we recalled this scenario; however this isn’t much of an issue as we won’t be able to use many of them in later scenarios anyway due to low starting gold values.



Clearly, Ben did not get the memo about Chaos overlords needing to have threatening and epic sounding names.

Here’s the overall layout of the map: Us and our two (useless) allies in the north, and four enemy leaders spread out in the south.

Our two allies will do a decent job of distracting the two outermost enemy leaders, so the main battle will be us dealing with the two central leaders’ combined forces.

Turn 4, The Long Dark (4)

(This is the first gameplay turn; the previous turns were part of the earlier cutscene portion).


The 6 elves I choose to keep for the rest of the campaign are: Unor (my favorite berserking champion), a prowler and trapper, the dextrous/resilient enchantress with the speed ring, and two healers.


I think Galas has lost it... I nominate Mal Keshar to be our new leader.

Turn 6, First Morning


I spent the rest of my gold recalling as many veterans as I can afford (I had to leave behind a necromancer, wraith and a bunch of leveled sprites).
In retrospect, recalling that lawful sprite was a complete waste, since I didn’t realize that the next scenarios all take place during perpetual night.

Turn 7, First Midday


A few powerful units which I had sent village grabbing in the west go to help out the allied orcs with the western army.



Meanwhile, the other armies are starting to converge in the center.




We start advancing and making kills.

Turn 8, First Afternoon


The western army is starting to thin out.


I make some kills but unfortunately do something completely stupid here, putting the prowler on 40% to kill the chaos invoker. I was expecting the orcs to act as cannon fodder, but I think I should have learned by now never to rely on allies for anything!


In the center there’s a huge mob of orange units around. It’s still daylight and my personal Wesnoth philosophy is that the best defense is a good offense, so I decide to make an all out attack.


I start killing my way through the mob, starting with the northeast units: The sprite roasts the northeastern chaos invader, Galas gets rid of one of the drones, and Unor kills another chaos invader.

My main goal this turn is to kill the two chaos invokers, since they’re extremely dangerous to the ghostly undead, as well as the nearby level 2 demon since it’s also dangerous and we have a lot of hexes to attack it from.


A lich and spectre soften the level 2 demon for the druid to finish, puttering her at 78/80 XP.


Meanwhile a spectre and necromancer finish off the rightmost chaos invoker, and the nightgaunts team up to backstab the other invoker. Annoyingly they don’t manage to kill it, but I guess you can’t have everything.


Meanwhile in the far east, a few units are helping the allied Aragwaithi kill some of the eastern leader’s units.

Turn 9, First Dusk


Sadly the western army ignored the tasty orcs to gang up on and kill the poor prowler, especially tragic given that we can no longer get any more for the rest of the campaign.


I can’t really reach the leader due to ZOC, so I just slow him to keep him on the 40% defense flatland so I can finish him off next turn.


In the center we’re being swarmed by the remainder of the orange army, and the other southern leader’s brown army is starting to arrive. We’ll need to make lots of kills quickly, before night comes.

Our main priority here is to get rid of that group of three level 2 demons on the right, as they are the most dangerous units around.


The first thing I do is use my wounded necromancers from the back, so that I can screen them with other units later.
I also leveled the druid by having her attack the level 2 demon, and place her so she’ll heal the necromancers.

The next priority is the two remaining high level demons. I’ll need to use beefy units to kill them, since these units will also be acting as a shield against the brown army coming from the right.

Unor is conveniently about to get a full heal from leveling, so he’s the perfect candidate for taking out that pesky demon zephyr.


Unor wipes the floor with the zephyr, and a lich softens the demon warrior for the spectre to finish – the lich with his extremely high cold resistance is perfect for attacking the demon warriors which do cold ranged damage.

The other units get to work finishing off wounded orange units.


A big success overall! We’ve made a lot of kills, and have a pretty solid formation too.


In the east, the eastern enemies and Aragwaithi have been busy demolishing each other. Our three units on this side just run off to heal.

Turn 10, The Short Dark


In the west, we finish off the eastern leader with Mal Keshar.


Mal Keshar has the best ideas. Remind me why he isn't the leader instead of Galas?


In the center, one of the necromancers got pretty beaten up but he is Quick, so he will just run away to the north out of range.

Our main priority this turn is to get rid of the three chaos invokers on the right, and then finish off whatever other wounded units we can.


Unor makes quick work of the northern invoker, the nightgaunts continue their backstabbing spree on the rightmost invoker, and the lich will finish off the dying invoker in the south.


Everyone else kills what they can – I use the necromancer to make a corpse out of the dying chaos raider, hoping to provide some tasty bait for the enemy.

Turn 11, Second Dawn


The enemies decided to gang up on the necromancer, who was fortunately shielded from an extra hex by the walking corpse.


We make short work of the remaining orange units and start healing up and heading south toward their leader.


The eastern leader has pretty much run out of units too.

At this point, the battle is pretty much won, and all we need to do is kill the remaining 3 leaders.

Turn 13, Second Midday


Talk about being mobbed! I almost feel sorry for the poor guy.


Meanwhile in the east, the almighty Unor has gone to help out!

Turn 14, Second Afternoon


The central leader goes down, but not before issuing another cookie-cutter death speech.


And in the east, a prowler slows the imp so that that the almighty Unor can finish him off.

Turn 16, The Long Dark (1)


We start sending Galas south while we converge on the final enemy leader.

Turn 17, The Long Dark (2)


I don’t kill the leader this turn because I have a trapper which is 20 XP from leveling and I want to give him the kill next turn, if possible.

Turn 18, The Long Dark (3)


I soften up the enemy leader with weak attacks like the necromancer’s melee, so that the trapper can finish him with one hit, leveling into a prowler.


Galas then moves to the southern edge of the map.




Losses: a prowler



Since the unrecalled veterans are permanently lost, this unit list will be my entire recall list for the next scenario.