Part 71: Turn 59

Turn 59

Last turn I mentioned that A2S4 for Conjure Imaginary Comedian is quite hard to reach. The main problem is that while clowns have a LOT of A1S2 casters available, and boosting astral up by 2 is quite easy, boosting air is a lot harder. The most common air boosters require a minimum A4 which we simply don't have. My solution then, to summon a single 9 pearl troop, is to use an uncommon booster - the 80 pearl Ring of Wizardry.


It's absolutely worth it though. Imaginary Clowns (shown here in turmoil 3) are my favourite of Kirkostaculis' troops. With chaos power 2, and of course Larger, they are fantastically strong and this is without even the in-battle portion of my bless! They have the kick we all know and love, and share the Invisible Box magic weapon with the mime. By far their biggest strength, apart from their strength, is their teleportation. They can hit any province on the map at any time, and teleport in battle too. I love them so much. Of course since they're only a troop they would need a commander who can also teleport to take full advantage of the movement...advantage. It'd be nice if that commander also was a level 3 priest so that they can bless all the Imaginary Clowns while they were in battle. Now where would I find a teleporting H3 commander? It would be nice if they spread some dominion passively too actually. You'll have to wait and see!


Okay back to the normal turn. We hunt the mind of the Anglian raiding force commander, again.



Our breaking siege still encounters a force with commander, which must have been the backup recruited in desperation last turn next door. In retrospect I don't know why I bothered taking anybody else along with Roland the Ancient Clown here, although their deaths to mass gunfire did give Roland the time to buff up with all your favourite icons. He barely took a scratch, Mistform is really good especially when you've mindhunted all Anglia's priests so they can't even turn on their thunderweapons bless.



We also clean up the dregs that Karanaac's (mind hunted) god brought along.


Two more Mantis provinces cleaned up, whatever. Bye bye Helmut, no improved forts for me. This is probably Too Many Clowns doing this easy duty though. Whatever. This war is essentially over (and has been for at least 10 turns).



This leaves this area mostly free of threats now! The mantises have almost entirely gone, Karanaac is gone (for now) and the Anglian raiding force was successfully neutralised mostly without loss other than a few pearls. Worryingly it looks like U has summoned up enough Illearths (corrupted earth elementals) to take over the lake. Maybe they'll finish off Karanaac's province there for us though, that'd be nice.


The main problem on this side of the world is Anglia's main force who are content to sit here and claim the throne for now but I'm sure will soon be a problem.


Jellybean continues his nuisance-causing escapades, and the chase squad continues to stay 2-3 provinces behind him. This is working pretty well!




It's working so well, in fact, that while the rest of this force is "helping" our immobile god bring down these walls we have another Clown Paramount that's also going to go for a bit of a wander.


Talking of raiding, Anglia has long given up on sending ghoul attacks but this turn they try another: Phantasmal Attack. It's alt 7 but costs only 8 gems. Also it's quite bad and fails to do anything given that we've been boosting PD constantly over on the Anglian border.


There are two main thrusts this turn from Anglia near our cap. The first is just 2 merc groups and is just like, whatever. Any even moderately sized and buffed clown force would wipe these guys out so that's what we're going to do.


The other attack this turn is a bit of a different matter, and it looks like this:


Yup that's a massive, smelly, regenerating, recouperating dragon that's flying around on a magic carpet. It's also been given an amulet of +4 MR, presumably in an effort to stave off our mind hunts. Speaking of, we're firing off all 5 mind hunts at it. I haven't seen any stealthy astral mages from Anglia but if there was ever a place where that trap would be laid, it'd be here. We'll find out I guess.



I'm very glad our main force did go back for those lolly-gagging clowns since Anglia did indeed attempt to snipe them with a small force. Instead we got a bunch of free kills.


Right back on the march! It's time to take the fight to Anglia, for real this time. And yes I did triple-check that the clowns here had all been assigned to a commander after the last time they tried to pull this stunt with the Emerald Impaler's "funeral" if you remember that far back.


The only event of note this turn was that a group of zealots was so impressed with us that they signed up as roadies. Of course as each one did so they grew about 3 feet taller.