We just want our throne back Wesnoth SG 2

[haphazard1]

OK, sounds like it is around to me again to mop up. I should be able to play tonight, maybe 6-8 hours from now.

There is an early finish bonus if we kill both leaders. Killing both also gives us a choice of which scenario we want to play after this: Isle of the Damned or the Peninsula. I think we need to decide ahead of time which to go for. Isle of the Damned is harder but gives us the option to recruit footpads, thugs, and poachers (who can be recalled later but no longer recruited), who are very effective against undead. There is also a chance to gain a loyal white mage with a magic sword, but the conditions to get him are very difficult -- I did not manage it on normal difficulty when I played this campaign, and it will be even tougher now. We can not use or level up our existing troops in this scenario.

I have not played the Peninsula scenario, but the wiki describes it as offering a lot of chances to level up so presumably there is a lot of slaughtering to do. So if we want to develop our existing units further, this is probably the scenario to choose.

Let me know what you think about our choices. I do not think we will have much trouble wiping out the blue and green kings, we just need to get enough land units in position to swarm the green king effectively.

Edit: Isle of the Damned also gives us a loyal Outlaw unit, assuming we can keep him alive through the scenario.

[Ichabod]

OK, sounds like it is around to me again to mop up. I should be able to play tonight, maybe 6-8 hours from now.

There is an early finish bonus if we kill both leaders. Killing both also gives us a choice of which scenario we want to play after this: Isle of the Damned or the Peninsula. I think we need to decide ahead of time which to go for. Isle of the Damned is harder but gives us the option to recruit footpads, thugs, and poachers (who can be recalled later but no longer recruited), who are very effective against undead. There is also a chance to gain a loyal white mage with a magic sword, but the conditions to get him are very difficult -- I did not manage it on normal difficulty when I played this campaign, and it will be even tougher now. We can not use or level up our existing troops in this scenario.

I have not played the Peninsula scenario, but the wiki describes it as offering a lot of chances to level up so presumably there is a lot of slaughtering to do. So if we want to develop our existing units further, this is probably the scenario to choose.

Let me know what you think about our choices. I do not think we will have much trouble wiping out the blue and green kings, we just need to get enough land units in position to swarm the green king effectively.

Edit: Isle of the Damned also gives us a loyal Outlaw unit, assuming we can keep him alive through the scenario.

I recently started playing this game, mainly due to the SG, and I chose the peninsula scenario while playing this campaign. You fight against a necromancer that summons A LOT of units (I think he always fills his 5/6 summoning spots if they are vacant, so it's indeed a lot of units). The summons have low health, but can actually do a good amount of damage.

It's a very nice scenario to level up your troops and if you try xp farming, I think you can get a lot of levels.

Can't wait to see how you guys play the siege stage (the one after this). I couldn't defeat it .

[Mardoc]

You know, as much as I want extra loyal units - I think we could benefit more from XP farming. This might be a chance to get our current Loyalists to significant levels, and to get a nice mix of high level units to have as our core force in the future levels - especially some Shydes!

I vote for the peninsula, therefore.

[haphazard1]

Ichabod,

Are you referring to the map two beyond this one (after the split choices re-unify)? The one with the city on an island?

That is a very difficult scenario, at least I found it to be very tough when I originally played it. The orc forces on the island are difficult to defeat, and then you get hit with a ton of undead -- with most of your best orc-fighting units being very poor matches against undead.

One thing to do is to use the loyal mermen from the current map to control the river around the city. Another is to have some leveled up mages available to serve as your main undead killers. Horsemen and elves do not do well against skeletons.

I am happy with the idea of going for the Peninsula scenario -- I haven't played it before, so trying a new map is always fun. And we could certainly use a chance to pile up some XP for our forces. If we do, I would strongly suggest we recruit at least 2-3 more mages (and maybe more) and try to get them some XP. A couple more shaman to level into druids and sorceresses would also be very helpful.

[antisocialmunky]

I double checked and I went on the Peninsula. We can do both if we really want to, I kinda want to see how hard the island is. We can't recall any units to the island so its going to basically be thug/footpad spam (ftw).

[Ichabod]

Ichabod,

Are you referring to the map two beyond this one (after the split choices re-unify)? The one with the city on an island?

That is a very difficult scenario, at least I found it to be very tough when I originally played it. The orc forces on the island are difficult to defeat, and then you get hit with a ton of undead -- with most of your best orc-fighting units being very poor matches against undead.

One thing to do is to use the loyal mermen from the current map to control the river around the city. Another is to have some leveled up mages available to serve as your main undead killers. Horsemen and elves do not do well against skeletons.

I am happy with the idea of going for the Peninsula scenario -- I haven't played it before, so trying a new map is always fun. And we could certainly use a chance to pile up some XP for our forces. If we do, I would strongly suggest we recruit at least 2-3 more mages (and maybe more) and try to get them some XP. A couple more shaman to level into druids and sorceresses would also be very helpful.

Yes, that's the one.

I could manage to almost defeat the orcs, kind of get into a mop up phase, but then I would get swarmed by undead, with the reduced damage thing (and, boy, they sure are many...).

I still didn't understand how to use the rogues well. They seem to be so weak. And I'm not sure about the best option to choose for them.

[haphazard1]

OK, wrapped up the Bay of Pearls scenario.

Turn 13

- Our mermen begin the swarm on the blue king, knocking him down to 21/58 HP.
- On land we kill two orc archers, with Konrad getting one kill and our sorceress the other. Advance north.
- IBT no attacks -- the blue king is wounded and apparently does not want to risk damage. I had a merman blocking his keep so he can't recruit. :neenernee

Turn 14

- The blue king is killed, with our storm trident wielder getting the kill and promoting to level 2. Several other mermen are close to promotions as well.
- The last green archer is killed, and our fast elven scouts begin peppering the green king with arrows.
- IBT the green king flees to a village to heal, no attacks.

Turn 15

- More elven scout arrows in the green king, with one elven scout promoting to level 2. Then the green king is finished off by a knight charge. (We need a knight charging smilie!)

We get a bunch of dialogue with Delfador, who shows up to tell Konrad to head for Elensefar to fight the Queen's forces besieging the city. Delfador has found some kind of important documents and has to go visit the Elf Council and will not be with us.

We get an early finish bonus, and will carry over 92 extra gold to the next scenario. I choose the Peninsula so we can farm some XP, and also because I have not played the Peninsula.

The new scenario has two possible objectives: flee down the road and escape (which it looks like we could do without fighting), or defeat the evil sorceror threatening the locals. The dialogue hammers us over the head that this is a good training opportunity. We have 232 gold and a 4-tile keep. We also have coastal access and there are a bunch of island villages -- we should include a couple mermen in our first batch of recalls and send them out to claim some income for us. Grab the trident-wielder and the initiate, as both have magical ranged attacks and should be able to hammer any undead that try to poach our island villages. Also remember that mermen do very well in swamps -- there are some on the map. But don't confuse them with the winter forests, where mermen suck.

Otherwise recall our loyals who need some XP, and start beating up the undead. Watch out for poor weapon matchups -- we may want to recruit a couple fresh mages and use them for offense. Good luck!

[Mardoc]

Got it - but I think I will wait to play until tomorrow; I didn't sleep well last night and I don't really want to start us off on a bad note.

[haphazard1]

Yes, that's the one.

I could manage to almost defeat the orcs, kind of get into a mop up phase, but then I would get swarmed by undead, with the reduced damage thing (and, boy, they sure are many...).

Yes, that was my problem as well. The key thing is to avoid losing units against the orcs, so you have enough to withstand the later undead attack. The best way I found was to use the rivers against the orcs, holding the land tiles and forcing them to fight from in the water where land units get very poor defense. Also, recall some of your loyal mermen and use them in the rivers to attack adjacent tiles -- the storm trident unit and the initiate can both do very good ranged damage and have excellent defense from those tiles.

Grab as many villages as you can to build up a cash reserve, and use healers to keep your units healthy enough to fight rather than recruiting/recalling more units. Then when the undead attack you hopefully have enough gold to recruit (or recall) several mages. Their magical fire attacks work very well against the undead, and your elven and human units can finish off wounded undead and then soak up the incoming attacks to keep fresh undead off your mages.

It is a little rough on your elven and human units. But with some luck you can keep most of them alive and start pushing back the undead. Then you just have to fight your way into the northern cavern stronghold of the necromancer, where it is always night and undead always get the +25% bonus.

I still didn't understand how to use the rogues well. They seem to be so weak. And I'm not sure about the best option to choose for them.

Two of the three chaotic human types (footpads and thugs) are very effective against undead because they do blunt damage. Blades, ranged, and cold attacks are greatly reduced against undead so most of our army (elves, horsemen, spears, swords, etc.) do very poorly against them. Footpads and thugs also are chaotic so they get the same bonus/penalties for day/night/underground as the undead do, so they don't face the heavy disadvantage at night and underground that lawful humans (like Konrad and horsemen) do.

Given a choice of footpads and thugs, I usually go with about 80% footpads because they have equal melee and ranged attacks. This allows lots of ranged attacks against melee-only undead, of which there are usually quite a lot, while still having some defense against ranged undead (primarily skeleton archers). The other 20% thugs have no ranged attack and are very vulnerable to skeleton archers, but if you can manage your ZOC properly and use them on offense their strong melee attack really smashes skeleton archers.

In any case, we have gone for the Peninsula map so we will not have the chance to recruit any footpads or thugs. So our best anti-undead units will be mages and others with magical attacks (sorceress, druid, merman initiate and the storm trident guy).

[haphazard1]

Got it - but I think I will wait to play until tomorrow; I didn't sleep well last night and I don't really want to start us off on a bad note.

Sounds like a good plan to me. These last couple sets turned around really quickly, but fortunately I had some time yesterday and today. No real rush, though, especially since ASM can not play until Sunday. We don't want to skip him TOO many times.