Abysia CB 5.0 AAR

[RedRover]

Shovah: Have fun! Happy to help!

SNAPSHOT: TURN 15
(picking up from the Turn 10 summary)

I have hacked through to the shores of the inland lake, defeating Heavy Infantry and a force of Woodsmen. Never seen a more ragged battle line than my Abysian Infantry. Of the seven survivors, the affliction count reads: 3, 2, 0, 1, 3, 3, 5. The recently hired Dante’s Stingers are in better shape: 4 dead, 7 afflictions, and one triple affliction out of 30 men. The army’s Salamander priest hasn’t seen a gem in so long he’s not sure what they look like anymore. The Prophet Warlord is holding this crew together, but intelligence reports 70 Longdead on the island. Oh, and there isn’t enough food here—I have to attack, withdraw, or starve. Can’t resist going for it…

A relief force consisting of the Second Army, plus Edward Blackfist, is cleaning out the rest of the interior, and just defeated a force of Heavy Infantry. They’re two turns away from the shore. Meanwhile, I have built a Lizard Shaman and escort near the first magic site. The Manticore turned up a 1-gem Astral site, so I can now probe for more. Still looking for the first Nature site, though. Also, I’m starting to hunt Blood Slaves south of the capital (15 in two turns!). I’m building an Independent leader to carry these back to the capital—I can’t afford a Lab here yet.

For research, I’ve cleared Thaumaturgy 2, and started on Blood 1. Now, if a random event gives me Nature gems, the Manticore can do remote searching for a few turns. Finally, I have no idea where Man is, but he just declared war on me, so I need to start looking for him.

This changes my plans considerably. Checking for new mercs, Hector’s Heavy Horse has just appeared. At a hefty 220 gp, I can (barely) swing this by cannibalizing almost everything in queue. I think Man may be east of me, across a major river line, but my side of the crossing can’t sustain a defensive force of any size. The chokepoint on the far side of the river might, and if Man’s capital is far enough away, that province might make a reasonable site for a fort. Intelligence reports only 20 Lizardmen. The downside is that I give up exploiting the island magic site for now. So be it. The battered First Army will cross eastward, with Hector falling in behind them. The Second Army can be on the island site in three turns (the only enemy province now in the way has mostly militia).

The big risk here is that I’m renting Hector instead of building Third Army. Anything breaks north or west of me and I will be in serious trouble, I have no reserve other than the nub of a regular spearman unit that I’ve been slowly building north of the capital, and I’ve put very little into province defense anywhere. Interesting times.

[RedRover]

TURN 16-17
Disaster! First Army is wiped out. The intelligence report was low—there were 40 Lizard Men. They chewed through the Abysian Infantry and Dante in short order. Only the Salamander and Prophet escaped the debacle, and the Prophet was Cursed. Even worse, Hector showed up in the capital, instead of at the east bridge (oops!), so he’s totally out of position for any offensive action. On the bright side, Second Army flattened the militia, and shortly will be in position to cover the bridge.

Time to settle for half a loaf. I can just as easily build my fort on this side of the river. First, though, I lay out a Temple and Lab. This will let me recruit Druids, and stock my Salamanders with Fire gems, both useful for an assault either on the island with the site or across the river to the east.

I can’t wait to build a second fort—I need a source for halfbreed spearmen that won’t keep running afoul of the Abysian Infantry heat ability. Tactical separation and orders can do only so much to preserve normal troops fighting alongside Abysians. (Typically, I have been deploying the Abysians forward and far right with orders to attack closest. The normal foot have been deployed refused far left with orders to attack rear or archers. Usually, the Abysians draw off the missile fire, which their heavier armor helps deflect, as well as any enemies with attack orders. The normal human foot engages either the rear enemy units or comes in on the flank of enemies fighting the Abysians, thus limiting their own exposure to “friendly fire” (at least it’s better than having the Abysians coming in straight behind them!). My assassin sneaks over the bridge to look for Man.

On his way to the first magic site, the Manticore discovers a Nature site—Farm of Plenty. Bah, but then I note that somewhere along the line I picked up 16 Nature gems (some troops did get cursed by a witch a turn or so ago). Manticore diverts south to the Lizard Shaman’s Lab—time to scry out some Nature sites and maybe forge something nice.

First Blood Slaves hit the labs. While I could start summoning Spine Devils immediately, I’m going to hold off until I can recruit a Demonbred leader and reach Blood 3, which would give me summonable Devils. Hector and my human spearmen converge northwest of my capital. When I get a little stronger here, I might try a breakout, but the two possibilities are Heavy Horse or Amazons with Nightmares, so for the time being, this group is defensive.