Part 18: Mictlan - Turn 33

Well since you asked so nicely.

Turn 33

Okay so, when we last left off I was embroiled with a deeply bitter war with Arcoscephale that was sapping my will to live. Lets see how that's going.



So just a tactical map overview, I'm moving northeast with a somewhat sizable army to try and take back that choke point between Arco and I. It's a nice place because in large battle the first turn advantage is fairly huge, especially for things like communions. You can make or break a communion by killing some of its masters on the first turn before they throw up defensive spells, or enough of the slaves that the masters don't have the paths for big battle buffs.

I think I thought this was a good idea at the time because Arco had pulled back after taking the province, so I'm hoping he won't be moving forward on the offensive this turn. Likely I don't have enough units to really defeat his mystic/archer stack without the first turn advantage, so I'm kind of hoping he doesn't move that forward this turn.



The other thing I'm doing is Arco has sent Rainbow Dash underwater, I summoned up one of the arch devils in hope of getting one of the four or five that had F4 (for summoning zmey), but I got the only one who didn't. So I'm sending him into the watery depths to try and magic duel Rainbow Dash. Normally I would just teleport him on top of her, since he has S3, but unfortunately I don't have the research required for teleport.



He honestly has fairly decent stats. He would make a decent thug if he didn't have S3 and was therefore easily magic duelable. Even then though I wouldn't thug him outside of a vanilla situation though. There are so many better options, and he'd probably make a better support caster/forger/ritual caster anyways.

Turn 34



So remember that whole me hoping Arco doesn't move his army to that choke point? What an unexpected and surprising turn of events.



It doesn't go well. My commander deaths here are actually from magic duel. Another important factor to consider with magic duel is that it targets an entire square (AoE of 1 instead of one person). This means that his super clumped mystics result in my turkeys magic dueling two or three mages at a time rather than just one. It means I can efficiently magic duel, but it also kills a bunch of my turkeys. Normally it wouldn't be a notable issue simply because its such a risky gambit to begin with that you expect to lose mages. However with my turkeys I had them set to magic duel once and then retreat, this just results in a bunch of unfortunate deaths. Its something to consider when dealing with magic duel or planning out your own.



Additionally I attempted to take Arco's underwater province with a single icthyid since he can't place PD. However, recruitment happens before battles, and Dexanth was smart enough to recruit a handful of units to effective act as PD. His ploy worked out and I lost the battle.




So I'm moving back almost everything I have to defend my fortress province, since I think Dexanth is more likely to hit that province than my empty (blood hunting) province. Additionally I'm sending Smaug to attack the choke point to try and cut off his retreat. Normally this would be a good tactic simply because it makes it more difficult for him to leave if he wins the battle, and if any of his units route they'll automatically die.



However, my whole battle strategy at my fortress revolves around fear. I'm casting the battlefield enchantment blood rain which lowers everyone's morale. Additionally I'm sending in a couple of moon priests who should communion with a nahuali set to cast power of the spheres. This will boost them enough to summon some horrors that will hopefully target Arco's troops. I'm mostly banking on that because he has a much larger stack of units, so probabilistically they should flock to his side of the map and help them route. I also have something like 30 B1 priests set to cast summon imp to both act as spell fodder for his mystics and put more targets on his half of the battle field. (helpful since horror fear has a large AoE)

Honestly, this is my first time being able to use any kind of battle magic at all this game, but this is kind of battle I enjoy planning out. I really just love the battle magic system in this game, it's quite fun.