Part 4
UPDATE 4Last time, Kilburn got on a boat and Wrathmont was farting around in the snow.
Day 14
Of course the moment I step on my boat the mice come out to play.
He even has units above level 2.
Kilburn gets off the boat and in a striking bout of realism, in this game this costs him his turn.
Wrathmont continues doing what he was doing, namely getting gold (+2.000).
He also demonstrates the Warlock perk of having enhanced vision and spots another enemy. What kind of logic is that anyway? Why can warlocks see further?
I have plenty of gold, but I badly need wood. Considering the amount of enemies suddenly showing up I elect to hire another hero. That should shorten our resupply time and the AI is slightly less aggressive if there is a hero on a town. Even if it's a weak one.
I pick Whoopie Goldberg. She comes with sprites, a spellbook and the ability to be possessed by ghosts.
End turn.
Day 15
A lot of movement, the guy Wrathmont spotted ran away and I saw another boat sail by in the dark.
Anyway, Kilburn attacks the sorceress first.
We cover the archers.
The pikemen stay where they are as they can’t reach anything.
The archers kill the dwarves and the cavalry do a surprise backstab on the sprites. This doesn't do more damage, but it amuses me. That was easy enough. +1 defense for our knight.
Wrathmont gets the cabin and with it more peasants. He flags the mine and trudges back through the snow.
Whoopie stays where she is to protect the castle.
Day 16
New week, new units.
Kilburn comes up just short, but that’s okay. The enemy needs a day to board their ship, so we can kill them on the boat. The only downside is that the boat disappears when you kill the hero on the boat.
Wrathmont visits the cottage again, I want to take Wrathmont on adventure again. All peasants and no play make Wrathmont a knight.
Whoopie spends my money.
Day 17
Kilburn flags the laboratory and moves to attack the warlock.
The crusaders block the archers somewhat and get good morale. The enemy has two flyers, so blocking the archers was a good idea. However they received a good morale boost and as usual I drop my original plan and instead they attack the griffins.
They are struck down in their prime.
The enemy knows it’s going to lose so it casts elemental storm. This is bad.
Everyone on his side dies and look at my losses. Not worth the trouble or the cost. Good thing it’s a new week.
Still, this doesn’t bode well for future fights with them. Elemental storm wreaks havoc on low HP knight units. Also, some kind of lesson on saving the environment I guess.
Consider that Dragons are resistant to all magic and combine with Elemental storm to make a potent strategy. There is an even better spell to use in that strategy, but we haven't seen it yet.
Kilburn heads back. Wrathmont heads to his new home, buys what he can and moves to get more dwarves before venturing deeper into the island.
Natasha (Whoopie) buys the swordsmen we didn’t buy yet, but leaves everything in the castle for Kilburn. She moves to reclaim our lost ore mine.
Day 18
More dwarves!
More ore!
End turn!
Day 19
It appears to be quite busy on the water.
Kilburn comes back home and I finally remember buying him a spellbook.
I immediately decide to put his new found
This is the view mines spell. You know what, based on the comments of a goon I think that this could be useful. I now know exactly where blue is. I also notice a gold mine on my land. Blue seems to be the
Kilburn walks to the center of the island and tries to look menacing to keep intruders away.
Day 20
Kilburn never passes up free stuff and this includes slightly used boats.
Wrathmont is building an army.
Just so we’re clear on this I’m not sexist, she’s protecting our main base.
Day 21
Let’s see what’s up.
That’s not too bad. In fact, the resources are great and there is a pouch of endless gold! Unfortunately, the game is trolling me (literally) as the trolls that are blocking it are the strongest shooters in the game. Wrathmont is in no position to tangle with them.
Wrathmont picks up the gold first and is out of movement points second.
Kilburn tries to board the ship again and hopes the island doesn’t come under another attack.
Natasha picks up more peasants off screen.
Day 22
Nothing happens and we move Kilburn to the suspected blue island.
We quickly spot Antoine.
Wrathmont picks up more gold. Tomorrow is a new day/week and I want an army protecting my island.
We also find old Scorpigal.
I have no idea why, but Scorpigal is a big and recurring name in these games. More specifically New Scorpigal which was where Might and Magic 1 starts.
Natasha returns home. I really want to buy another mage guild level, but I also want to level up the second town. We need better magic and I want more money.
Day 23
Wrathmont picks up the rest of the stuff.
Kilburn ignores Antoine who did his French name justice by running away. I expect to find the blue castle on the island below so he disembarks.
Natasha buys an army and a second mage guild level since I depleted my money so I wouldn´t be able to upgrade the other town anyway.
Regarding the spell selection, really? Are you kidding me?
We’ve already "seen" turn undead. Well, at least there are undead here to try it on. Completely useless!
Anti-magic is slightly better I suppose. You cast it on your best unit and like the dragons, it becomes magic proof. Better than nothing at least, I can always cast it on my crusaders if I expect the computer to use spells (always). Of course, all other units are still fair game.
Where is my lightning bolt!
Day 24
Kilburn finds a shrine and learns a brand new spell. This looks familiar. If only peasants were faster, we could use them for kamikaze purposes.
Storm is a spell that does 25 times spellpower in damage on the whole field.
I have located the blue castle.
Wrathmont accidently finds the green castle. Run away!
Back home I buy a thieves guild. I want to know what I’m up against.
A fearsome force.
Day 25
Fortunately I don’t think green saw Wrathmont because he turned away. Actually scratch that, I'm pretty certain the computer can see through the fog of war. They probably just ignored me due to desert and wolves standing between us. Blue meanwhile shows off their strongest hero as it sails by to destination unknown.
Storm the castle! We start great as my catapult lightly damages a tower. And so the stare contest begins. Fortunately, we’re much faster so I park everyone around the archers. I briefly consider using my offensive spell might. But we won’t like our own elemental storm and I’d rather save curse for when I attack the Hydras.
Any bets on how many archers I’ll have left at the end?
Still backstabbing. That griffin looks so sad as it’s stabbed.
Griffins are annoying as they are the only unit in the game who have unlimited retaliations. Interestingly, in later games they always seem to die quicker than you would expect them to.
There are only 4 archers, so I shoot the centaurs first. I elect not to have my cavalry attack the Griffins as I expect them to live through the barrage from them and the Crusaders.
I have no idea what I’m doing.
Apparently they die quicker than I would expect in this game as well. 
Finally a hole. My archers killed their archers. My cavalry head to the top wall in case that one breaks. The crusaders are slightly closer and the size of the hole is only enough for one unit so sending them both there won’t accomplish anything.
Why them? We also have sky high morale.
I wonder if their beer is just that good. 
Meanwhile my archers only do 19 damage to the hydra. They have an impressive 75 hitpoints. Yes, that is more than my crusaders. I also lose a swordsman to a sneak attack from the peasants I was ignoring. Sneaky little bastards.
The swordsmen press on. There is no room for another unit there. But ganging up on hydras is generally a bad idea since they attack all adjacent hexes.
Archers help?
During their surprise at being shot, the swordsmen run away allowing the others room to play. The catapult finally made another hole.
I decide to use my curse! Time to hit it with all we’ve got!
Attack!
The crusaders show the swordsmen how swording things actually works.
The second demonstration isn’t quite as good. One hydra left.
Come on, we even showed you how to do it!
The pikemen finish the job. I really didn’t expect them to be able to hit from there. I just found it while moving my cursor to the skip button. It's such a strange angle.
Did anyone guess five archers left? Level up attack +1.
This looks good and have you heard how it sounds yet?.
They have all the good stuff.
The new spells:
Blind: Blind troops can't move, but will retaliate. Any damage to a blinded unit will cancel their blindness. It's a great way to put a unit out of commission so you can focus on other things. The AI likes casting it on your strongest units.
Fireball: This does 10 times spellpower in damage on and around the hex you point at. I don't like it very much. Damage always seems low to me unless your spellpower is huge. But by then, you probably have better spells.
Berzerker (This is the spelling in the manual): Berserked troops will attack the nearest unit. This is a pretty good spell, though I haven't used it very often in the past. In later games most of the units you want to use this on are immune to it and your spellpower compared to the HP of the stack determines if you can cast it on them. Not here though, everyone who is not a dragon is fair game.
Wrathmont enters the gate and…wait a minute, this isn’t home.
We did find a village made out of a rare Atlantian resource.
Those druids are doing a bang up job protecting that artifact. I hope they won´t mind if I take it through the back door.
Day 26
I expected Blue to become nervous without a castle, which is why I left it unguarded. I stop by the castle to swap in some gargoyles and attack!
The flyers she has are going to be a pain. I wonder who they´ll gang up on.
FEEL THE POWER OF THE SUN! Right, so that did 10 damage to each unit, fireball is not very good on a knight.
Male gaze activated! 
Nooo! 
Lady luck laughs at us as the gargoyles kill one of ours.
Haha! The luck is on the other foot now!
The griffins then return the favor. If you’re wondering why the crusaders aren’t moving. They have been paralyzed by a spell.
So I wanted to help out my crusaders by using dispel! And I miss my click, sending my gargoyles all the way back and the enemy scared by my unorthodox tactics casts storm on us.
That cut into my army quite bad. On the bright side, the crusaders woke up after getting hit with rain. In addition, their gargoyles followed mine. Meaning everyone can reach them now.
I suppose I could still try to claim it was part of my strategy to move my gargoyles there. 
We kill the dwarf and…
Gang up on the gargoyles! The pikemen deliver the finishing blow…again.
An expensive victory if you ask me. But at least a level up and knowledge +1.
We get a lucky rabbits foot with Wrathmont. I notice a yellow flagged saw mill. I really wanted to grab the obelisk, but bad pathfinding means I can’t reach it.
Day 27
Wrathmont fails to return home again, but my new town would love that sulfur mine I ignored earlier. Sulfur is required to build a Black Tower and to build dragons.
Without resupplying we kill the centaurs in a curbstomb battle. The only thing you’ve missed was me discovering that a berserked enemy doesn’t block other archers.
I really wanted that.
Back home we buy a maze. The reason is simple, look at the building schematics.
The warlock town, or mountain castle has two branches and both need to be built before you can build a black tower. They were only missing the maze.
Day 28
I flag the sulfur mine and want to try to get home again when I finally notice the skeleton above the gate. Let’s visit that first.
Kilburn flags the sawmill.
It occurs to me that I haven’t seen blue come rushing back to their castle when I know that there is another hero out there. So I check the thieves guild. Nope, blue doesn’t have any more castles left, nor do they have any towns.
Day 29
Look, it’s Kastore to visit our main island. Looks like Natasha is going to get some exercise.
Kastore is another big name in the Might and Magic games being a protagonist in Might and Magic 3 and crash landing on Enroth after the events there. He shows up again in Might and Magic 7 and Heroes2. Supposedly he was to have a role in Heroes3 as well, but the Forge town incident ensured that that didn't happen.
I elect not to send Natasha yet. He’s faster than us due to faster units, so let him come to us.
Nothing in the skeleton for Wrathmont.
After two more trips through the gate he ends up on our new island. Guess who gets a new castle?
Kilburn hangs back as Wrathmont makes his way here.
Day 30
Yay a new week means an army for Wrathmont and new supplies for Kilburn…once he gets home.
Wrathmont flags the mine, Natasha runs to meet with Kastore who flagged my sawmill and ore mine. Killburn attacks more centaurs since those need to be cleared for Wrathmont to arrive.
See those stupid puddles? My cavalry can’t cross them meaning we can’t reach the centaurs in a single turn.
Did you know different units produce different death clouds? This is the gargoyle death cloud. Nothing on my side died and no level up. We did get the 1.500 gold chest.
Day 31
What do you think you’re doing Kastore? He even picked up my peasants! He will pay with his life!
I cast anti magic. I have never used this spell before as far as I can remember.
You may have been able to infer this from my comment on the centaurs earlier, but did you know that if the enemy has large units allow the cavalry can attack them in the same turn?
The enemy was not amused and immediately blinded my cavalry.
That’s what you get for taking my peasants.
I have to say I like how anti magic is protecting my crusaders.
What is it with pikemen and getting the last hit?
Day 31
Bye blue, thanks for the spells.
Meanwhile, Natasha reflags my mines and Wrathmont spots another obelisk which prompts Kilburn into action.
Day 32
Where is it?
Wrathmont takes ownership of the new castle and buys to his heart content.
Day 33
Kilburn takes the swordsmen. Wrathmont won’t be needing those veterans anymore. They served him well, but are now part of a greater mass of faceless goons.
If I wait two turns I can buy dragons.
Day 34
Kilburn sails the seven seas.
Day 35
Black tower get.
Kilburn spots another enemy during his voyage.
The cavalry get to work.
The cavalry keep working.
Berserker is a great spell. I want to keep the enemy from casting spells. All those drizzles have put the fear into me. Though I already see that the dwarves are going to get their turn.
She just used blind.
I love cavalry. And the archers helped twice as well.
Spellpower +1 for Kilburn, now we’re talking magic. He heads home to get more troops, meanwhile I end the update here. A vanquished opponent, a new town, dragons and ending with a slaughter against our next opponent seem like a good point to end things with.
Next time we go dragons on their ass!
