The glorious Sartar freedom fighters chose dead moon for an attack on the infelonious lunar scum. Large stacks setup at Glasswall and nearby, including skull ruin and the valley near the Dragon's Eye. A smaller group prepared to scurry slowly past Delecti and the Exiles towards Bagnot. Fortunately, the dinosaur's were well distributed without favouring either side.
The lunar lords setup in a rather puzzling line along the glowline, concentrating on Bagnot and Slavewall but mostly the latter. Some nervous groups clustered around the Hydra.
Unfortunately for all, rain interrupted the cricket match on the first turn and both sides slogged through the mush of dragon pass. Both side's plans went way askew from this point on! A large stack of Sartar moved via the roads to the Dwarf and asked for assistance, while a small unit (who need not be named as they won't be around for long, like the bodyguards in Star Trek) moved near Too Far to eliminate an attack along the road. A second larger stack moved along the same road, just north of the Dwarf, to provide backup as well as a second aiming point for attackers :-) Rain hampered much other movement, including the south soldiers, although the use of a DT runner and the wind children helped somewhat in the attempt towards the green dragon. A simple magic attack by three sartar magicians in the Dwarf mine towards the glowline did major damage destroying about 4 basic lunar units. The fight had begun!
The lunars seemed disconcerted by the rain, the dead moon, and some puzzling deportments. Two very large stacks moved to Too Far and one move further along the road, while another moved to falling ruin to search for puppeteers. Unfortunately, rain prevented units reaching the red dragon and a nearby trachydon. It would be a costly problem. The Red Emperor extended himself and slew two small units on the road between Aldachur and Herongreen. Being dead moon, the bat was forced to eat a cavalry unit and, satiated, was happy to raise a glowspot just SE of Too Far. This assist four (!) minor class magicians in a spiritless attack on the very large stack on the road 4-SE of Too Far. Simultaneously, four more magicians launched a spirit-assisted attack on the Dwarf Mine. It certainly seemed that the Lunars had been taken in for Harreck appeared at Dwarf Mine and shrugged off everything [about 40-50 points of magic! this uses our rules as per the previous emails], whereas the non-spirit-assisted attack did (relatively!! they did have 56 points of attack!) minor damage to the other, strongly magical, stack. Argrath was killed but the remaining units, including 30 or so points of DSM, had nothing to retaliate against. Although a reasonably poor result for the lunars, at least (one of the) Argrath failed to reappear.
Turn two opened with the rain easing and going away, but a devastating loss to the Lunars - the Red Emperor had to return to Glamour to quell some unrest in his lavatory attendants and wouldn't be back for two days. Terrible though this was thought to be at the time, fortuitously he was away at the right time. Read on :-)
The glorious Sartarites rallied magnificently and did little travelling. Delecti decided that some bodies were in the offing and so joined the cause. Likewise, the brown dragon awoke and assisted the Sartar cause as well. The large ex-Argrath stack moved to Falling ruin to join swords with whoever was there (must be many magicians - yum!). Harreck slept outside the Dwarf mine and thought about throwing the stone man, that had been offered, back into The Dwarf's beard. A general into the valley of the Eye and NE of the Exiles ensued, while the wind children found a triceratops to hide behind, while moving towards being in range of the sleeping red dragon. The lovely day was crowned with the wasps moving next to the two large stacks outside Too Far. Oh dear, a superhero, the bat, good cavalry, best friend, four minor class and sundry others. Oh dear. Splat. Smelling Jareels BO the wasps went ape and disrupted both stacks. Seeing so many sleeping people, stormwalkers sent a local blockbuster down on the Jareel's stack (unfortunately minus the red emperor who had left to go shopping). A soggy Jareel, beat pot and two minor class barely survived. At the same time, Falling ruin was hit with much magic, not spirit assisted, before the combat started. Two full moon corps [at CF3] went down and only one of the remaining three magicians survived the physical combat. Peace reigned.
The lunar response was swift and harsh. It turned out the the Red Emperor had been shopping for Androgeus and had got her on special. She appeared next to the recently converted travelling stone making a dangerous double act [12 heroic movement after another turn stacked together!] The Hydra, usually adverse to being part of proceedings, decided that only three units need suffice; duly seeded, she trundled slowly out the hills while emmissaries finally reached the red dragon and dinosaur. The puppeteers were at falling ruin, but were practising their singing and couldn't accept the overtures of the emmissary. Other units pulled back inside the glowline and attempted to regroup, awaiting Androgeus and other help [ta da. Ominous music. Heavy diplomacy at large]. A desultory magic attack by the remaining one, possibly two [ha!] magicians, was thwarted easily. The sun went down on dying day.
The next day dawned bright again. Today the lucky lunars were only forced to battle plague in their fortresses. One of the two units in Bagnot succumbed, while the other decided to fake it for the day anyway. They should have know better. Strangely Furthest, filled with tricertops and various other heavy hitters, threw off the plague entirely. There's no accounting for the Red Moon...
Mighty Sartar was rewarded with great blessings. The DT runners were eaten by the Green Dragon (?!), but the thunder delta slinger emissary to the red dragon was killed by the wind children who were lazily sleeping atop a tricertops wading through the Wrong River. Today was the first day that the meteors from the moon could appear, so dispersal was at the top of the agenda: the dragons eye area become a sea of 2-3 units carefully looking up at the sky. The Dwarf, perhaps miffed at Harrecks treatment of the stone man, sent out something he could *really* use - the alchemical transformer. Nonplussed, Harreck simply gave the toy to the Egglord Warlocks and decided he'd had enough sleep and wanted to kill someone. A single cavalry just outside falling ruins seemed a good choice before breakfast so he joined the already very heavy stack there and munched away. The myopic green dragon, aroused from slumber, first has joined the slowly arriving Praxians in their absolutely massive camp near Dangerford. Wanting to see where it's friend Argrath had perished, it flew to join the remainder of the dwarf mine group. Fortunately the alchemical gift didn't seem to help the dragon [2xinfinity. yeah :-) ]. Simple magic accounted for many units seemingly scattered around awaiting death to stop anyone approaching Bagnot. The Egglord Warlocks decided to try their hand at this alchemical thing and, chugging a couple of pints, threw up on a stack north of Bagnot. Unfortunately, they were very surprised at the amount of their drink and rather overdid things. The stack ceased to exist. Unfortunately, the cratermakers were hiding at the bottom. Pity. Heh heh heh.
The stunned lunars again tried to regroup, pulling back into the glowline and bringing the dreaded hydra closer. A desultory magic attack was again easily repulsed.
What turned out to be the final day dawned. At last nothing happened to the lunars. Well, except that the earth shattering twin stars appeared in furthest. Good for them :-)
Sartar moved diplomatic mountains and, knowing this was the final call, converted the exiles to their way of thinking. At this stage, it was rather a waste of time since there were very few stacks worth hitting with them, and all of the sartar magical union except for stormwalker's spirit, was still alive and half were near the frontline. Oh well, that's diplomacy for you. ZOC'ed here and there, little could be done except remove the pesky irritations and slowly move forward. Nothing extraordinary happened. Except that two large stacks between Dunstop and Bagnot, one of which just *had* to have at least one superhero in it, were visited by a dragon. Everyone except Jareel burst into flame and much of the remainder of the Lunar missionaries and their positions were immolated. Beat Pot recovered after a long and dangerous journey through Jamie Oliver's kitchen and rejoined Jareel later.
The lunars, for the first time under this command, gave enough jewels, men and rabbits to the dragonnewts and convinced them of the desperation of the cause. The Dragonnewts were slightly bemused by this, as the appeared on the mortal plane essentially surrounded in the Dragon's Eye by a large number of Sartarites and Praxians who, seemingly, had just been waiting for their appearance. It did not bode well. A fast moving chaotic stack near Dunstop was finally unmasked as Androgeous, Hydra and the spirit of movement. This arsenal was going to be used a hard, nasty striking force out of Bagnot but the Lunars sued for peace before that could occur.
The lunars sued for peace on the grounds of sleep [2am - 3.5 hours of play] and Sartar accepted the surrender of Bagnot and Slavewall in reparation for the battle they had started.
The (sleepy) end.
Rob
Powered by hypermail