[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.