Part 12: Turn 8

Turn 8

We're in the last few turns of expansion now.
Giant clowns once again rip through a few indies


although this time something slightly interesting happens. After taking the militia apart the clowns decide to, instead of just running at the archers, engage in a ranged duel with them. A barrage of pies vs arrows follows and, well, let's just say it didn't go well for the archers. I can only assume that a magically enlarged pie thrown by a size 5 clown is roughly the size of a size 2 adult human.I looked in the manual and this was the only reference I could find on what sizes meant:

This squad heads back south to finish off some of the smaller provinces we've previously skipped.

We also finally take our cap circle province with the lizards in. I would like to place a lab and temple here at some point to pick up that sweet sweet nature access but am spending so much on enormous clowns that I don't have the cash just yet.


Last turn we agreed to give U back their cap circle province but recall that it gave 60 gold a turn so it would be nice if we kept it a few more turns if we could. As hoped for, U tried to take it back with just a scout and I messaged them saying "oops when I said empty I meant that I just put 1 PD in it reflexively". That's a 59 gold gain right there. Hopefully they won't have forces in place to take it back this next turn either.


We got to see Eljudnir fight this turn! As expected they're massing the life drain wraiths and have their starting hero that needs as much XP as possible.



We get to see their bless too: 5 shock res, 15 fire res, swiftness (1 defense, faster combat speed), 20 undead leadership. What doesn't make sense there is they have only 2 death bless points and 4 is the minimum - they must have an incarnate component and a god that hasn't woken up yet. It's probably decay weapons or undead regen but there's always the chance of something more leftfield. I wonder if reanimator bless stacks with Touch of the Netherrealm?


It's worth noting that they took a barb province with zero losses. It was only 20 barbs, but they're considered one of the harder indie types to take. 3x life drain attacks per square is a hell of a thing.


No real advancements on the east side, we can see Anglia's troops moving around taking all that juicy land that Fennoscandia is selfishly blocking us from.


In the north-west, there's an interesting situation: there's a nice looking province that is 1) equidistant from mine and Eljudnir's cap and 2) both of us have forces next to it. Could we finally be getting that bump that we've been craving? The province is in our hot/turmoil dominion so I'm feeling even better about our chances compared to if it were cold.


Down in the south-west, what's this flag that I see? That's right it's Karanaac. Absolutely the favourite to win going in and U are already gearing up to make a move on them before they can secure a critical base. Karanaac are very hard to kill with huge, tough, powerful, and immobile mages. Literally just giant rocks that can cast spells at you.


We've met all our immediate neighbours now. I'm not scared of Fennoscandia or Anglia, and U isn't a threat until really late game. Eljudnir would be annoying to invade until we had some fire magic online. Karanaac is definitely a midgame threat but with my bless I probably have the edge early on. I'm in chats with U talking about war with Karanaac and one with Anglia talking war on Fennoscandia but I don't know which one I'll commit to yet.