Part 34: Day 78: Defense of Einartoft (Day 2)

Once again, onto the bridge.

You approach the bridge, which gets a raised eyebrow from Fasolt, who is lugging a dead warrior over his shoulder. "Back for more?" he says. Glancing out onto the bridge, you can tell that they've lost ground on the bridge since yesterday.



Removing bodies avoids a fight for today, but it also increases caravan morale. Our morale is already good, and we need Renown, so we're here to fight.

"You know the drill," Fasolt tells you as you prepare yourself for another perilous fight. You're starting to wonder what the point of risking your life is if there's no progress to be seen.



Ekkill is taking a break today, on account of his injuries.



Enemy forces: A Sun Slinger, two Inferno Slingers, a Vicious Grunt, an Enraged Grunt, and a Scourge.

Lots of small units with dangerous skills. I'm going to try and rush them down.



That WAS the plan, at least, but Fasolt can't reach the enemy, and the Scourge is acting first. I advance to one tile short of his movement range.



When he advances, Krumr rushes in to knock his Strength down, while remaining positioned one tile out of the upcoming Grunt's movement range.



Once the grunt advances, Tryggvi rushes in to punish it - at 8 Strength, it'll be running Deflect chances on everyone in my army.



For his trouble, Tryg is repaid with a Sunstrike, preventing him from dipping into Willpower next turn.



This isn't a great fight for Oddleif - ranged enemies are tough to predict. Still, she can put out some good Armor damage.



Tryggvi's aggressive charge is being met with a lot of damage. I'm not convinced he'll make it through this fight.



This isn't even Rook going all out. All hail the Farthingjörd.



I can't even use Mend to mitigate this because he's at full Armor.



A full-power Arc Lightning cuts the enemy power nearly in half. I took the screencap a moment too soon - that Grunt gets hit too, for 6 damage.



I could have killed the Scourge here, but now it's one of the weakest units on the map, and it's about to act, so why not?



Scourge goes to summon. I don't intend to let it finish.



Krumr is my main Varl Facesmasher right now, and he's doing an admirable job of it.



Vicious grunts are dangerous regardless of their Strength.



Tryggvi may or may not survive the battle, but at least he got a kill in.



Oddleif finishes off the Scourge before it can summon reinforcements. An Inferno slinger drops bombs on Krumr.



THIS is Rook going all out.

Although I fucked up his positioning, so he's about to get hit by that bomb. Oops!



The other Inferno slinger makes it worse by dropping another salvo of bombs under his feet.



The enemies are too spread out for Arc Lightning to really be useful here, but dropping that grunt down from 11 Strength is a turn well spent. Instead of bashing Tryg or Rook, it drops by to harass Krumr.



Fasolt's goal here is to push the Sunslinger away while keeping it alive - that way, Krumr will have time to escape bomb range.



And this is exactly how I was hoping he wouldn't react. The Sunslinger moves back into position, boxing Krumr in.

But he can still do something! Screencap lost, but Krumr kills the second Inferno Slinger, reducing the impending damage from two bomb salvos to one.



Still, ow.



And then Krumr goes down.



Tryggvi gets another kill!



Rook loses another 3 Armor!



I need to start Pillage as soon as possible, but there's also the extremely real threat of Rook dying.



I'm amazed that he went for more bomb slinging instead of, you know, dropping Rook in a single attack.



I don't intend to let him recover from that mistake.



Eyvind Mends Rook back up to stable condition.



Just barely stable.



Fasolt kills the Inferno Slinger in a single blow, beginning Pillage.



Tryggvi ends it.



+8 Renown

You'd swear the fighting is getting more vicious and dangerous. Again you let the next line of varl push into battle when you don't dare to risk it anymore.

"Come back tomorrow if you're looking for more," says Fasolt. You sleep poorly, Eyvind's suggestion to collapse the bridge repeating in your mind.



Fasolt Promotes, gaining two more points of Strength. The rest is spent on supplies.



The battle for Einartoft has entered its third day.

Will we leave, destroy the bridge, or continue to fight?

Voting will last for 24 hours.