Part 89: Lanka - Turn 38
Turn 38 - Get off my blood soaked lawn
Yeah yeah, whatever.
One retreat cut and one raider.
The enemy army is still in Nardago. Unfortunate, but maybe I can take them.
Fatigue after self-buffing.
Unfortunately the Dawn Guard pops his Mistform the first round of melee, thanks to their magical weapons. Mirror Image would have been a smarter buff to use.
That's one thing Dawn Guard are in fact good for.
Builds is right, that was mostly stolen equipment anyway.
My raider discovers 3 Ba'al sitting out in the open. One is E4, which I believe is about a 1 in 100 chance.
The E4 charges in and engages in fisticuffs. What.
I kill another, and the last flees
That's more like it!
The main event:
I've brought troops and buffers, he's kept two of his thugs.
I'm using a Sabbath in this battle to cast...
Darkness. Darkness is one of the "Nuclear Weapons" spells of dom3. It decreases attack and defense by 50% and precision by 75%.
Undead and Demons are completely unaffected.
Aside: This is also a good example of the dom3 gemcost rules in action. Darkness requires D4 and costs 4 gems base. You can never spend more gems than you have levels. Normally you can spend an extra gem to boost one level, but it counts towards gem total. So in the case of darkness, if you have a D3 you can't boost to D4 with an extra gem, because you need 4 gems to cast the spell. 4+1 = 5 at D4 = impossible.
My mages have D2. How do I pull it off?
Firstly, a Skull Staff
Now I have D3. Then I use a Sabbath.
This is identical to Communions, except the spell costs a blood slave and has base fatigue of 100. Fortunately I have B2, so cut that in half to 50. Two sabbath slaves means a +1 boost to all levels for the master.
So, D2 Sabbath Master plus Skull Staff (+1) plus Sabbath Master with 2 Sabbath Slaves (+1) = D4.
Before:
After:
Ethereal is the bane of my demons, however. Fortunately my placement means the enemy is stuck clearing my undead chaff, and eventually fatigue up and take damage and run away.
Too bad I didn't get that retreat cut in.
KILLCOUNT
pre:
Avvite Light Infantry 2 @ 30g = 60 Barbarian 5 @ 13g = 65 Battle Total 125 Ba'al 2/3 @ 500g = 1000 Battle Total 1000 Avvite Scout 1/1 @ 45g = 45 Battle Total 45 T'ien Ch'i Grand Total 905 Hinnom Grand Total 8022 Sauromatia Grand Total 7454
There's a lab in Cacian Forest, and builds is right to wonder why I didn't use it to Cloud Trapeze away risk free (he can teleport on top of me unless I also teleport out).
Firstly, I know he knows this and I double bluff him. Truly I am the master Sicilian.
Secondly, I want to cut retreat for my attack into Nardago this turn. Hopefully I will be able to trap a large portion of Hinnom's forces there and rout them with no retreat.
Next turn: everything goes exactly as planned, just like you already saw, of course