Battle of Dragenheim (Turn 58)

Preparing the battle

That battle was occuring 2 turns too early. Indeed, I was on the verge to unlock Ench 8 and both Mass regeneration and Unraveling, but he had breached Dragenheim too soon. Indeed, Unraveling would have been the killer spell, ensuring me complete destruction of most of his army (all Abolethive ants are magic beings, and with unraveling they can decay to a MR check. Given their low age, that means a swift death). But I couldn’t let him take Dragenheim … And so I had to fight it with what I had. And, as such, I sent almost everything in the vicinity.

My analysis of the upcoming battle was the following : I thought I wouldn’t be able to kill them regularly, given they would throw Army of Lead + Luck + Mass regeneration. So I started to think, and the recent deadly Rigor Mortis of Ermor inspired me. Indeed, I had the means to cast it, so why not trying to freeze them out and then find the right tool to kill them ?

As it stands, Elementals are inanimate and don’t care about Rigor Mortis. And that’s around them that I built my strategy : cast Rigor Mortis and a Grip of Winter to help out, and then spam several Ice elementals to trample the enemy to death. The Ice Elementals would be also immune to Grip of Winter, as well as most of my troops. I knew the enemy would have 5 CR with spells, but that would still be less than my average CR amongst my army, and I then expected Grip of winter would have a small effect on him.

And to help my own troops, I also planned to get on with Relief. I also wanted to distract his mages on worthless targets, and so sent in Howl. Finally, I knew the Wailing winds were quite efficient against them and to ensure I would have it up, my Horror harmonica golem joined (though not scripted to spam horrors !).

Given this setup, sending in the Crystal sorceresses would have been like signing their death warrant, and that’s why I chose to let them out (as well as the Eludian moon mages). It would be only dragonkind, undeads, and inanimate beings. My only fear was that Rigor Mortis would backfire and that some ugly things would happen if the battle timed out (as a side note, I didn’t know by the time that a golem is insta-killed when a battle times out … if I had known, I’d have probably let my golem aside and given the harmonica to someone else).

And so we went into battle.

Fight !

On my side, 75 dragenheim warriors and 7 truebloods along with 140 supporting undeads, plus a few sea trolls. To back them up, no less than 65 mages, everything we could find in Dragenheim ! On the other side, 50 mages supported by 70 supplicants (communion slaves) and 280 ants of various kind, including 85 good sacreds and 2 enslaved dragenheim warriors.

The ants did what we expected them to do … except for a rather unexpected Solar Brillance. That came to me as a surprise as much as my Rigor Mortis was probably to him. It meant that all my undeads would die, and that any skelespam would fail … however, it also nullified his own ability to summon skeletons.

However, it was very well thought. Indeed, all ants are naturally blind ! They don’t see with their eyes ! And so it was a potential massive advantage for him, removing -9 to all the attack and defense of most of my army !

However, the Ice elementals I was starting to cast didn’t care either about being blind … even more so that as tramplers their attack values are irrelevant.

And so as both side mages were busy putting their battle enchantments on the field, some of my own began to summon the creatures tasked to win the battle. With 20 x size 6 and 12 x size 4 ice elementals, I hoped this would be enough to finish him when his troops would be exhausted. Also, we grew 320 giant insects to serve as a buffer while my other troops were preparing.

Also, on my part, 3 of the main spells came at the vary beginning of the battle from my artifacts : Wailing winds from the Horror harmonica, Will of the fates from the Sword of Aurgelmer, and Howl from the Soulstone of the wolves. I had no other means to cast Will of the fates as I was far from Alt 8, and in that the Sword of Aurgelmer was invaluable. However, the 2 other spells I had the means to cast them otherwise, but this way I was certain I wouldn’t be interrupted by some mental shock or other unwanted event.

And so as the battle started, his weakest ants immediatly started to flee in terror. The sound of the Wailing winds was too much for them to handle and, as slaves, their low morale backfired (some autospawned units have only 7 morale, and of the regular ones a number have between 9 and 11, all with a -1 malus due to fighting into my dominion).

As a result, the first fightings were of widely scattered troops that were easily killed by my massed warriors. However, at one point a real ant battle line was formed to face my troops and here things could have gone as wrong as it went during the battle of The Promised Land. Indeed, with my troops starting to be blind and the enemy empowered by a Lead Skin, insane Luck and Regeneration, I was pretty doomed.

But, here again, the Wailing winds did their job. The poor slave ants that had marched bravely to the front couldn’t sustain that sound anymore and gave up. That gave free reigns to the warriors to push ahead towards the enemy mage core. With them, the Ice elementals were finding their way to the frontline and were beginning to stir chaos onto their formations.

However, the enemy elite warriors had been mind shocking all along and as such had stayed close to their mages for a long time. And so most of them were ethereal … meaning the Ice elementals trampling attacks were weakened and not that efficient. This whole bunch of sacred ants could have stopped the dragon’s push and possibly beaten them.

However, here again, the unbearable sound of the wailing winds was too much to handle and they too gave up.

At that point, the battle had been raging for some time and those vulnerable to Rigor Mortis were starting to falter. Half of the dragon warriors had already stopped fighting to try to catch their breath and the most vulnerable mages were now quiet. However, the +2 reinvigoration bless of the ants coupled with some Earth power had left some of them still active. But, truth be told, that didn’t change much. Indeed their contribution to the battle had not been that important and those still up and active weren’t very efficient either.

And then began the last part of the battle. The Ice Elementals were almost the only beings still able to do something and they started to trample the ants unrelentingly. And … that’s were the magic of the Ants shined : most of the surviving troops and mages were Ethereal. That meant that 75% of all tramples attacks were nullified ! That, coupled with mass regeneration made them very hard to kill.

So a strange dance of Ice elementals walking around ants could be watched for amateurs of Art. To be honest, it was a boring performance … and after a long time of that boredom the battle timer ringed its bell.

So every army started to retreat. However, all the fatigued units needed to recover to do so, meaning that at first all undeads mages got out. That removed immediately rigor mortis that had been cast by my Wraith Lord. A bit later, when the second bell of the battle timer ringed, the Golem was insta-killed. I was very upset to learn about that mechanic only then, because I lost him and all his equipement, all of that worth almost 150 gems !

Finally, when the last Aboleth left, the surviving supplicant communion slaves where left without commanders. Being mindless beings, they dissolved into oblivion. Also, due to the fact that most of my troops were on the enemy rear, they had a lot of walk to retreat (made even longer due to the fact that they were blind). That meant that when the last enemy retreated, only my troops were left on the battlefield : I had won.

Aftermath

The battle result need some thorough analysis to understand its true implications. First, Abolethive lost all of his 70 supplicants, a force worth 3500 gold and several turns of recruitment. Without them, he would not be able to send in another strong communion as he did and I believe it was decisive to make him give up on my cap afterwards.

About troops, he only lost 11 of his good sacreds, and a small 40 of other weaker ants. However, it’s quite probable he lost more to retreat given he had only 1 province to go. His mage force on its part lost 14 of its members, and only some of the weakest. I estimated the total cost to almost 6000 gold, not counting the retreats and potential freespawns.

On my part, losing my Horror harmonica golem was a huge loss. Indeed, that meant I lost a powerful tool to destroy enemy raiding parties … and rebuilding it would need a few turns and a lot of gems.

The other losses have to be evaluated separatly. First, for the regular troops, only 8 warriors and 1 sea troll had been killed. That is, almost nothing … however, almost 100% of them were now blind and this considerably diminished their combat effectiveness. Thankfully, it wouldn’t prevent them to take hits and hold the line, but I couldn’t really count on them for much more … however, the Chalice could help a little and that was also an incentive to put Gift of Health up.

The loss of my undeads was a setback too. 98 corpse constructs was about 6 turns of production. And these were direly needed to crack fortresses … so it was a real blow to my ability to counter attack.

Finally, I had lost all of my communion slaves. Indeed, the battle had been so long that they couldn’t cope with it … mass regeneration would have saved them, but, again, it was 2 turns too early. All in all that doesn’t look like a much, 12 average mages lost for an important victory. However, only the right randoms could fit that role and it was that many potential communion slaves that I wouldn’t be able to use in a future battle, and these were crucial to cast Unraveling. I still had enough, but it reduced my flexibility.

I then estimated my loss as low as 1500 gold, but 150 gems for the golem and almost 30 other gems used to cast combat spells, for a total of 180 gems.

It wasn’t a decisive victory, but, by pushing the ants away from Dragenheim, I was now able to concentrate on conquering the remnants of Ochreil. And I knew that the next time I would fight the ants, the new spells coming from Ench 8 would give me the decisive edge I needed to win the war.

I also regreted not trying to cut his retreat. It was a risk, but had it been done he would have lost everything !

The end of a dream (turn 60)

After raiding the last Ochreil’s provinces, I finally went for his last fort. Here, I supposed that some 30 warriors and as many archers, along with my last dragon would be enough. But how foolish was it on my part, again underestimating a dying enemy … He had pulled a large PD dump (no less than 60 !) and was patrolling with everything he had left. My army was wiped out and my very last dragon, dead …

… and the end of Ochreil

It took me a few turns to gather the final force to terminate Ochreil. They did not want to die, but I really wanted them to. With Abolethive giving up on me and moving everything against Drakonia, I could finally finish the job for good.

On turn 63, I sent my revived Harmonica golem on his last fort and there he easily eliminated the massive PD on top of it. The following turn, a large army of warriors and mages followed and massacred the last remnants of his forces. Immediately thereafter, the fort was stormed and his last province was the Iron throne.

By turn 65 it was taken, and on turn 66 the last raiding parties were destroyed and the once proud Ochreil empire had been entirely removed from the face of this world.

Meanwhile, with many veteran warriors still blind after the battle of Dragenheim, I finally took time to cast Gift of Health. This also strengthened my defenses and gave me more options for thugging. At the same time, I reached Blood 7 and summoned my first Vampire lord, with plans to go Alt 9 and unlock some Army of Gold/Lead.

… and the beginning of the end of Drakonia

The sacred alliance of the Dragons, be they blue, green or red, had raged on as they all tried to overcome the Ants and their masters. However, the dragons had had a hard time and even if Dragenheim managed to stop the ants offensive, Drakonia was struggling.

The red dragons were completely defenceless against the relentless mind hunting of the insects. Their leaders were picked apart one by one and their mind crushed without mercy, leaving scattered armies disorganized and losing precious mage support.

And if that wasn’t enough to break the morale of the proud drakes, the recent battles had shown them powerless against the superior battle magic of the Aboleth. Against enraged ants protected by a skin as hard as iron, and a devilish luck, the ants looked unbeatable and the dragons suffered defeat after defeat.

But the nail in the coffin was when the newly revived dragons proved unable to turn the tide. Tiamat had tried to follow the example of their blue cousins and Awaken the Dragon Blood hidden within their senior Redwings. As such, many Red Dragons started to fly around to raid the enemy lands. However, in spite of their initial success, the ants quickly recovered from the surprise of their arrival, and the beasts were picked apart and either mind hunted or killed in battle.

And so, by turn 64, Tiamat had given up on ascending to godhood and had left his body to some lower spirit as he tried himself to find salvation in the depth of tartarus (player went AI). The nation still held on as most were fooled by the new personnality of Tiamat, but in the end the erratic commands of their fake god would mean their downfall.