Game #892 Tournament game#5 | Round 1 : 2018 PBEM 2vs2 Tournament #5

Unfortunately this very dwelling became Olops vassal some 3 turns later... Which meant trouble for 2 reasons: 1st it was a summoning space for them to quickly invade our realm with crows and animals without having to go through the trouble of passing a map full of independent roamers and 2nd my wonderful quest was gone.
About that time Olop and Gilafron discovered us and we could see that they played Elven Archdruid (Olop) and Halfling Rogue (Gilafron).
Not the best match up we thought as both can play very aggressive and sneaky and neither Warlord nor Dreadnought have good early scouting to detect incoming dangers and let’s not start to talk about detecting concealed hunter parties or a few assassins. Also our only counter to stalkers would have to be (forge) priests.
Our game plan became a bit more concrete namely: Take the fairy dwelling and then try to reach the other side of the map with our main armies as quick as possible trying to put pressure on them lest they put real pressure on us and keep running circles around our realm with concealed quick units.
Apart from the grim start the game started to get better as I could clear a column of champions, a sphinx temple and, with the gained Blood brothers buff, a castle of the Lich king (due to my before mentioned fighting skill this cost me 2 monster hunters). All gave me a massive boost as I gained a
seeker item for my Theocrat and the head of the feathered serpent (floating, Heal and some resistances) as well as a crystal skull (vision range, true sight and res) for my main leader.
I felt much better now with a 6 hex-vision-floating-truesight warlord and thanks to the sphinx temple and Thorgals friendly mana fuel cell support I was already pumping monsterhunters with “Scales of fortune” and “Shield of Dispassion” was also in the making.
Not sure about the exact turn but somewhen in the early twenties Thorgal finally took the fairy dwelling and we immediately started heading towards the mid of the map, on my way I cleared another sphinx temple (staff of divine vengeance, well not such a good item but I needed the research points so I didn’t sell it...) and was on my way to complete the explorer research tree - Including master cartographer to make up for our poor scouting.
In the underground a Goblin Dreadnought was slowly making it’s way towards the center of the map too where we found that olop had another fairy dwelling vassal.
On the surface we found a dragon dwelling in the middle of the map and – oh wonder! - it was still up for taking in it’s northeast there was a big lake and Thorgal went the northern route while I went south to reach the dwelling. Unfortunately that was when I saw olop and he seemed to have brought nearly 3 full stacks of units.
Together we could have pushed olop away, but unfortunately Thorgal was on the other side of the lake and alone neither of our stacks was strong enough to stand against olops army so I had to retreat, fortunately Thorgal had another stack of knights lead by a newly bought hero coming from home and after 3 turns of retreat my main army could meet up with them and quickly take out a column of champions and a ziggurat before olop would get it to evolve his T3 shock serpent. But in return the dragon dwelling and yet another quest was lost to olop and Thorgals main army was somewhat cut off and he was stumbling with just one drone as scout towards the west. Where, and I think this surprised everyone, he practically stumbled upon Gilafrons realm. It was our luck that Thorgals stack was not expected there and we believe Gilafron was involved in some murky “underground-business” with a Naga dwelling at that time and Thorgal could take one of Gilafrons cities pretty much undisturbed. At that time also master cartographer finished and we could finally see what were always wondering about when checking the diplomacy menu, namely that olop and gilafron indeed both only had 2 cities. With 4 elite knights and 2 heroes in the middle of our adversaries already somewhat weak economy and Olops forward push deflected we felt quite confident. Even with them still controlling the middle of the map.
But again things didn’t quite go as planned and Thorgals leader stack, who was trying to retreat over seas to evade the incoming defenders both from Gilafron and Olop rallying to save Gilafrons city was caught embarked and even though they fought valiantly and turned the sea red with the blood of their foes, they were ultimately killed. Only a single one of Olops shamans survived the battle.

While things got tense on our doorfront my Leaderstack with the 5 remaining Monster hunters (I lost 2 in a sunken city and had to replenish my stack with one which lost me a turn or two) was spotted south of Olops city and viciously attacked by Olops troups that were pumped by a shrine of the frozen beauty. But my leaderstack proved too sturdy, even though 3 monsterhunters were lost.

My attacking force was quite diminished but my leader was pretty strong (21 defense, 85 hp, tireless, 20% phys and shock protection, 100 % spirit protection and 40-60% protection of of everything else) and I hoped that what attacked me and lost had been his complete defense stack. I was wrong as I learned when I opened the next turn in which, for whatever reason, Olop decided to give more of his shamans another go at my decimated leaderstack. The result was similar: I lost a unit but the price he paid for one monster hunter was 4 shamans.



I took his city the next turn killing another shaman and a dread spider queen. Without losses this time. In the meantime my Dreadnought had cleared a lost city in the UG and found a fantastic item: The armor of the black knight. My leader was going to become a real monster
The dreadnought and his army had also broken to the surface and were on their way towards my leader to reinforce and continue the push into olops realm.


Things were going better for Olop in our realm though as he found an angle in my defense forces to attack from the back (I misjudged and thought he couldn’t reach there) and what a victory that was 16 of my units including my Theocrat, that gave resurgence and holy champion to his whole stack and also had a valuable seeker item. Other notable units that died in this unfortunate fight were a trustworthy champion 1 firstborn, a champion berserker, a champion 3 Boar rider and my very first Phalanx. - RIP
In return olop only lost 6 units



Luckily enough the military-industrial complex of Thorgal and me had produced enough units and Gilafrons troups couldn’t follow quickly enough to catch up with Olops bold push. So Thorgals leader could lead the retribution blow. His leader died in the attack to defend the homeland, but so did Olops army.




Without an army, only one city left, his leader in limbo and my charming little dwarven warlord on his doorstep Olop surrendered and Gilafron did likewise when it was his turn.
Attached is a (nearly) complete overland map with the routes of Thorgals and my main armies during the game as well as the scores. Overall it was a rather equally matched game with mistakes being made on both sides, I would be really interested to know what happened to Gilafron. We were pretty afraid of stalkers and/or nasty armies of converted units, but he seemed to have had a very bad game and rarely participated in the fights. Olop had a very tough stand with Archdruid units against masses of Monster hunters and Knights, but nonetheless brought his team close to winning.