Hamlets, Northerners versus MysteryExclamation's Loyalists

Northerners!

I had been hearing about how to play Northerners for a while, and a lot of buzz on the forum seems to indicate that having more grunts and other cheap units was the way to go. Specialty units were for specialty circumstances. I resolved to use more grunts.

I also started recruiting with a keen eye as to how to get the most villages the quickest. As was described to me on the forum, if buying one unit over another allows you to get to a village a turn earlier, you make +2 (or more, if upkeep is an issue), which can be thought of like 2 gold discount on the unit. Extra kudos if you place your units right so that they can get extra villages without buying units that need more move points to do so (I am, as always, bad at scouting, as can be seen in this map).

Anyway, in Hamlets I prefer to get the two villages behind and to the side of my keep with my leader. They are pretty out of my way, and it gives my leader something to do between buying units and getting sufficient villages. Actually, in this case, I went back and bought more units first, because Northerners are so damn cheap.

When we clashed, night was starting, so I pressed the attack with grunts and trolls (and an assassin) on the west, and... well, I hadn't been expecting to fight on the eastern side, but I managed to knife the fencer pretty well. If they were going to fight during the night, I was going to make the most of their nerfed damage, etc. Unfortunately, against 60% defense my naga only hit twice, which is above average, but not enough to kill the fencer I was attacking.

In response, Christy killed my Assassin, and my attack on that side crumpled. On the other side, I failed to kill a mage, but was able to finish off a merman fighter. Unfortunately, most of her units were on pretty darn good terrain, so there wasn't a whole lot I could do right away. Her counterattack put up some fresh targets.

In the meantime, I grabbed her middle swampy village. I've come to realize that with the bucket-load of HP and decent dodge, northerners on a village are pretty hard to dislodge - I was hoping to hang onto that position and get more gold that way.

I tried some mroe to finish off the mage, but missed all four times. Very disappointing. Meanwhile, I used my assassin against the archer on the mountain and moved my troll (fearless, all that) onto the hills next to my grunt on the village. Trolls aren't bad during the day, as the regeneration stays the same, and they are often fearless anyway. Which is odd, but I guess it just goes to show you can't have any expectations of what trolls are like.

So my right side was collapsing, and my left side had sort of collapsed. Christy hadn't pressed the attack during the night there, though I only had one unit, instead retreating to protect her wounded. I reinforced the position.

Holding the village didn't work out for me with the grunt, though he did good damage to his foes before dying. I had an assassin in range, and used that to reinforce, and put my troll on the... village? I led the reinforced western front to help the troll and assassin. Meanwhile, I fell back on the other side completely - daytime Loyalists are very powerful.

As I moved my units forward (and killed a loyalist with rebel tactics), I noticed ME attacking my my right with a bowman and a mage - no melee units to defend them. This made me happy, and I stationed two grunts, a troll, and my leader to intercept and ambush them. She attacked the grunt on the mountain with her magic, but then had to put her archer on bad terrain to try to finish the grunt off. I killed the mage with two grunts (as should be the case), and cornered her archer with a troll. Also sent up a grunt there, and retreated my assassin that way.

In hindsight I realize that by this point, everyone who had participated in my daytime assault against the loyalists had died, save for the archers. Turns out that attacking a lawful faction with a chaotic one during the day is just as bad as it sounds. Losses/kills by this point were 7/4, or 92/65 gold.

On the other hand, her response to her troubled bowman was... another bowman? More blood for the bloodgod, I guess. Meanwhile, I leveled up an intelligent Orcish Archer. The other orcish archer died, and I resolved to make the most of my level 2, who was too cornered for me to bother running (basically, I couldn't get him back to my own lines, and if he ran away, he would simply help the Loyalist nighttime retreat).

The crossbowman did wonderfully, counterattacking with his 4-3 (5-3, nighttime) attack all over the place, and managing to somehow give as good as he got. He also set up all my other units to attack the units he weakened.

When the smoke cleared, ME had gotten a fish leveled up, I had lost my crossbowman, and I had swooped in and killed 4 of her guys. It was a pretty good deal, really. I then trapped her fish, and took it down, while I distracted the rest of her guys with a troll and a grunt.

Note that one of Mystery Exclamation's bigger flaws is bad management of level 2s. A level 2 is not an army by itself. They need support to survive. My Orcish Crossbowman died because he was alone, but while didn't kill a single unit himself, I was able to send in reinforcements to reap all four of the wounded. ME's fish didn't even do that, attacking a unit who was out of the way, and then getting surrounded and dying. I leveled up a grunt by killing it.

I then swept across the map. ME rallied for a brief while, but while she killed my second nearly-leveled-up grunt, I leveled up a troll anyway, with a lucky hit against a fleeing fencer. In a few turns I had most of the villages, and a massive army killing each unit sent at it. I won in short order, having recruited nearly twenty grunts in the game.

(ME's worse flaw: she often sends insufficient reinforcements to a losing front, and then they still aren't enough for the losing front, so the front is still losing while she sends more insufficient reinforcements. The proper response is to run away from the front, and get back to the reinforcements - not fight unless you have a decent number of units, all that. I think this is because she was raised on the neutral elves, who don't always run away during opponent's ToD. I was raised on DA/Skel Undead, who are immensely fragile on the defensive, and absolutely must run away during bad ToD.)

Hamlets, Drakes versus MysteryExclamation's Rebels

http://www.4shared.com/file/9NDKYqwg/2p_-_Hamlets_Christy_replay.html

So Drakes are probably my best race, all told. But, as I am lead to believe, my Drakes game is... different than most. I have a heavy predilection towards Drake Clashers, with their glorious 6-4 pierce attack, buttload of hitpoints, and good resistances. However, the way drakes are mainly played takes advantage of their mobility, and of their ability to pack a high density of attack power into a few open hexes of attack. Consequently, I've been trying to recruit units other than Clashers, Augurs, and Skimirshers. Like Burners, or like Fighters.

Thus, for this game, I tried to recruit a good mix of units. I did get two Augurs by accident. I also tried my best to measure out how to get a good second turn of everyone getting to villages. It worked... alright.

The lead-up to the first battle started more or less as planned. I jabbed at an isolated Scout to drive him off for the night, then retreated. (The scout jab was so he didn't prevent my retreat, and also target of opportunity.)

However, this got a bit derailed. I can't stem my blood-lust, apparently, and there was this juicy mage... right... there... So I killed her, taking one more unit than I expected. I put the Saurian on the far end, because it was night, and the thing was chaotic, right? Well, I neglected to put it on good terrain, and the different between 40% defense and 60% defense is him taking 150% more damage, and dying. To a shaman!

But after a mediocre assault on her side, I found that the majority of her forces were on relatively bad terrain, all clumped together. I decided that, since the sun was about to rise, I should trap them there, killing as many as possible. It was the reverse of my augur - now they were on 40% terrain, with measly elven hit-points.

Well, despite relatively high kill chances for a lot of my attacks, nobody quite managed to die, surviving with 7, 1, and 1 hitpoints. Also my leader managed to miss all 3 times against the archer, which was embarassing, since the archer had only 19 hit points. Silly mountains. Otherwise I would have been able to finish off the Scout with my Augur, and then use his square to finish off the fighter (or the Shaman) with my Burner.

Things after that went... pretty badly. My Skirmisher, the one who only hit the Shaman 1 out of 4 times, despite a 60% chance to hit, happened to be both at the edge and on bad terrain. He got shot four times by an archer, speared once by a Merman... and then killed by a shaman. A shaman who leveled up from it. Into a Druid.

Druids are... bad mojo. Not only do they have slowing attacks, which seriously mess drakes up, but they also heal 8 hitpoints a turn to everyone around them. "But Nil, don't villages do the same thing?" Well, two things: First, a druid can move with the troops, healing them every turn, and secondly, a village only heals one person for 8 HP. A druid can heal up to six people, each for 8 HP. That's a good 48 HP, more than a Drake Clasher. Even half of that (which happens more often), is 24HP, which is about 2/3 units worth of HP. Getting two units of HP every three turns is... not what I wanted.

On the bright side, she hadn't slowed anyone yet, and it was day, and I was Drakes. I attacked with my leader, who hit once, then with my fighter, who hit once, and then (cutting down the wounded scout) with a Clasher, who hit once. That's 10 attacks against a 40% defense. It hit at half of the average number, leaving the Druid at 6 HP. One more hit - is that too much to ask for?

On the next turn, MysteryExclamation opened up with an Archer, and with help, killed my Fighter, releasing the druid from her hard pin. She ran away, to heal and fight (okay, heal others) another day.

Except... ME took a really long time on deciding the placement of her fleeing units. Suspiciously long. Checking my units, indeed, one of the forward Fighters had a move speed of 7, just enough to get him in range of of her Druid. My wounded Drake was in range to kill one of the wounded units screening the Druid, and so I was off! I slew the wounded unit, and flew past his corpse with my other drake to slay the foul witch. Druid. It worked. (I also freed my leader from being pinned, so I could move down and get back to my castle to recruit.)

Well, it worked, except that instead of having roughly equal losses on both sides, I left myself exposed and took heavy losses the next turn. As in, both my Fighters died, including the one that was almost leveled up, and then she killed my healing Augur and a Clasher. This left me with my leader and one Drake Burner against her entire army. She had 7 units, and her leader. Drakes are tough cookies, but that's pushing it, especially since drakes are uniformly weak to pierce (Clashers aren't technically weak to pierce, but they are resistant to almost everything else).

What to do? Well, I thought I was going to lose, but perhaps the situation wasn't that bad. Losses on both sides were roughly equal, albeit because the Druid counted as a lot of money lost, even if she didn't have to pay to recruit it directly (she paid 15 for a shaman and got a druid, rather than paying 35, the actual value of the unit - leveling up makes you money, you see. And that's not counting the insta-heal).

I got back to my castle, and suffered an attack by a spearman on my leader, which put the unit 1 xp away from leveling. I got to my keep, and recruited a bunch (two) of pierce-resistant Clashers, a Burner, and an Augur. Woo, built-up money!

However, on the next turn, the spearman attacked again and leveled up. Fortunately her horde of units was still only entering my field of sight (specifically, killing my original drake before he could level up). I attacked her level 2 with an Augur, my leader, and two drake clashers. That's 13 attacks of 6 damage each from the melee units, and a 5-3 magical attack. Understandably, he went down like a brick of bags. He also gave one of my Clashers half the XP he needed to level up (Clashers take 32 XP to level up, and a level two gives 16 XP, twice that of a level 1).

The next few turns were... tense, but the sun was rising and she was attacking with Elvish Fighters and Mermen Hunters. My Augur held out admirably against three attackers (finally on good terrain, see?), and then I killed one of them with my experienced Clasher, and then another with the mighty fire attack of a Burner and a Clasher's massive attack. Her counterattack almost killed my experienced Clasher and my Augur, but they lived with a little health.

Now, here I had options. As previously mentioned, leveling up heals the unit fully. I wasn't about to sit around and heal via villages when she controlled the majority of the map - it was live or die, kill or be killed. ...I used my leader to weaken a Fighter, then killed him with my Clasher, leveling it up into an Arbiter, and then used a Clasher to weaken the (primarily ranged) Hunter, and finished him off with a magical attack (70% to hit, one hit needed, but if the opponent got an attack, they would have a 60% chance to kill me. But 60% of 30% is only a 18% chance, so you can see where attacking is handy - the Drake case was very similar). I finished off another unit with my Burner and a Clasher, using that obscene Drake attack power to my advantage.

Suddenly I was winning again. She may still control most of the board, but I had more better units. A Clasher is nothing to trifle with, and I sheer outnumbered her now. With Drakes!

I swept upwards, wanting to take back my villages and end her economic advantage. My Clasher's enormous 18-2 attack worked wonders against any elf with less than 36 health (I.e. all of them), and my units were still clumped together. She recruited a Wose, for whatever reason (more on that later), and I killed that. I chopped up Archers as they came by, etc. She didn't do a very good job of grouping up for a counter-attack, and I carried onwards up the map.

I was leery of making the same mistake as her, and so when I pressed near to her castle, I made busy getting villages and converting my field advantage into an economic advantage. Her leader, a Druid, came out of the castle to fight or die, since without the money she was going to lose anyway.

One of my Arbiters killed her in two hits.

Victory!

(Notes: Woses are a questionable choice against a Drake player - this is not just because fighters and burners deal fire damage, but also because because they only deal impact damage, to which every drake has a 20%-30% resistance. Additionally, Woses are slow, which means drakes can avoid them until they can grab a burner to attack with, and since drakes are fast, they have a sight-range that sees Woses moving into forests to hide. What's more, Woses are resistance to Impact (40%), and pierce (60%). However, every Drake unit has a blade melee attack, so there isn't even that advantage. The only thing they can do is slaughter Saurians, who have 26 and 22 HP, a 10% weakness to impact, and happen to melee in pierce and impact only. (And a ranged attack of cold, but why the Augur is attacking rather than running away is beyond me).)