Parrhesia and Integrity's Guide to Surviving Wesnoth

[Punished Dayni]

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

I know HTTT was written first, but chronologically, Kalenz's mate did sort of murder a shitton of dwarves.

And of course he doesn't care.

Senile in his own age?

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Kapoue is pretty decent as things stand. It's going to take a while for him to level, but he has a meaty 45 health, solid 7x3 melee, and passable 5x2 ranged chip. That said, Kapoue has no traits.

Shame about the lack of fraits. Why would he have none?

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Grunts don't trade very well with bowmen in day. I, uh... I like grunts as short-term meatshields more than I like them as long-term prospects.

Daytime is not fun time for grunts.

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Saying 'yes' basically gives you an extra challenge map. I don't feel like map 1x is the right time for a challenge map. One explicitly designed to punish you for Choosing Wrong at this intersection. So... pass.

No interest in seeing how awful that is?

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

With 20 more health than a lieutenant, and +1 more damage on each sword and crossbow blow, we're reaping the rewards of being, essentially, a boss mob. He's in a good place, but with 120 XP left to go 'til promotion in a very long campaign, I'll go slightly less hell-for-leather in the chase for tier 3.

27, 18, leadership, loadsa HP. That's alright by me.

35 minutes ago, Integrity said:

i went back and verified, yes, there is a one-hex otherwise-ordinary wall you can jam a unit into to discover a secret passage which is guarded by one (1) giant spider who will kick your fucking teeth in except kalenz dodged three 70%s in a row.

your reward is a great treasure of 200 gold.

I thought there was more. Kalenz of course didn't give a hoot.

HTTH: Novice In Name Only did not apply there, in principle. :P.

[euklyd]

11 hours ago, Dayni said:

And of course he doesn't care.

Senile in his own age?

why would he care about or remember some stinky dwarves?

[Parrhesia]

BLACK-EYE 2: Kapoue vs. Invertebrates

Spoiler

Onwards we go.

Man. Four different types of village in these two screens alone.

... I'd somehow literally never noticed that the dwarven fighter axes were, in fact, a full-fledged hammer on the converse. Neat.

Thanks Hadushnak.

Em-dash followed by a semicolon is extremely, extremely cursed.

So obviously we're gonna kill this prick.

WHAT THE FUCK IS A FLY DOING IN MY ROOM it's fucking 7.15pm???

Fun Parrhesia fact, I have a serious visceral fucking reaction to buzzing sounds. So, flies put me on fucking edge. Especially large ones. Like this one. I'm not talking a blowie, but, like, what the FUCK is it doing here, inside, at night. Where did it come from??? It landed on the light above me. if it strafes me I swear to fucking God. Anyway, my mother, literal world expert on one obscure strain of fly, shows a remarkable lack of empathy for the fact that I Fucking Hate Flies.

anyway yeah

A unit list isn't really meaningful at this stage. I recruit a ton of guys.

Bl- blemaker? Excuse me?

Hey, guess which of the guy with really good generic art or the guy with pretty good custom art is gonna stay relevant.

I made fun of the weirdly articulate goblin scout last map, but actually, new pet theory, maybe they're doing one of those 'they're actually perfectly articulate in Orcish' things. Which, respect, that's a good trope. Anyway, Grueue's death is duly added to the failstates.

That fly's still on my fucking light. Which, fun fact, it's this tattered piece of shit from the literal 1980s, and I really should replace it. It's like paper-thin so moths and shit bounce off it, like, audibly.

Grunts take so long to promote that, really, there absolutely is a caste system. Intelligent grunts are potential long-term prospects, unintelligent grunts are meatshields. These two are intelligent, but they're also just the guys I have available, so totally undercutting my point, they die.

Orcs without assassins are kind of a crippled prospect. They're never going to excel at dealing a lot of fast damage. 

Still, as long as you avoid caring if anyone lives or dies, you won't go too far wrong. Also if this fighter on the mountains keeps resolutely failing to dodge every attack coming his 30% way.

He did.

This guy gets plugged by the gun but manages to dodge literally every other attack that goes his way. Meanwhile, the scout dodges around everyone to cap the nearly-levelled archer, the son of a bitch.

This is a really spectacularly unfun fight.

Staging a fight entirely on 50% terrain, involving a guy with one attack for 28 damage, is, weirdly enough, gonna be luck-based. There's not enough forest to properly fight in, so you pretty much have to fight in hills, which they're better at than you are. All this and we've managed to pick up all of One Kill on a non-dead guy. It's becoming abundantly clear this is a losing fight.

Let's reset.

Take a more conservative vector. This guy has still not missed a shot across either save file.

Oh, yeah, Vrag's here just to cap houses. This guy somehow catches up.

Operation 'try and pick cunts off when they're on flat ground' is paying off thus far, we're 4-0 for casualties, instead of 6-7. This stupid fly's still in my room, but I guess it's dormant. Not dormant enough to not escape me trying to catch the cunt, but whatever, stationary.

Update: I got the stupid fucking fly and hurled it outdoors when it settled on another, different, MOVING lamp.

I don't like thunderers much, but they hard-counter the limited force composition we have. They trade favourably with grunts AND archers.

Yeah, please keep hitting every fucking shot. Fuck me.

WE GET A FUCKING PROMOTION

We miss five consecutive 70%s. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate this map.

Fucking finally. After this turn, the ledger stands at 6-3, which will obviously become 7-3 when this thunderguard gets pasted by the trolls.

This map is a fucking slog. But watching the thunderguard miss his only and final shot before getting pulverised was nice.

Oh, now they're missing shots.

An intelligent grunt on ~4 XP isn't worth recalling. An intelligent grunt on 12 might be. I hurl both of mine at this guy. Trial by fire! Mighty Bork wins out.

The big men fight.

The economy war rages on in the north.

Trolls. C'mon. Focus.

Still thinking about that stupid fucking fly. I hope a crow ate it.

Thaaaaank fuck.

Hey, an IC explanation for the early finish bonus.

You literally all saw this coming.

A terrible, joyless filler map. Now, to be fair, we do have grunts 1 and 6 (Bork again! He got the steelclad) XP from promotion to count on, Kapoue's already 32 XP into levelling, and Prong is absolutely gonna be a slurbow next map. And financially, we're pretty healthy. Still. Ominous starts for the game. And next time... well, things aren't getting any easier.

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

6 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Fun Parrhesia fact, I have a serious visceral fucking reaction to buzzing sounds. So, flies put me on fucking edge.

Spoiler

 

And whilst I might not deserve to ask it now, how long does it take you to assemble one LP entry? Just curious since now I'm doing my own.

-I do enjoy reading your's by the way.?

Edited May 28, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Punished Dayni]

6 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

... I'd somehow literally never noticed that the dwarven fighter axes were, in fact, a full-fledged hammer on the converse. Neat.

"If ya cannae slice at yer foe with your hammer, you're not thinking dwarf enough."

6 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Thanks Hadushnak.

At least he found it funny.

6 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

WHAT THE FUCK IS A FLY DOING IN MY ROOM it's fucking 7.15pm???

Fun Parrhesia fact, I have a serious visceral fucking reaction to buzzing sounds. So, flies put me on fucking edge. Especially large ones. Like this one. I'm not talking a blowie, but, like, what the FUCK is it doing here, inside, at night. Where did it come from??? It landed on the light above me. if it strafes me I swear to fucking God. Anyway, my mother, literal world expert on one obscure strain of fly, shows a remarkable lack of empathy for the fact that I Fucking Hate Flies.

anyway yeah

That actually sounds sad.

The lack of concern and buzzing fucking up a bit I mean.

6 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Hey, guess which of the guy with really good generic art or the guy with pretty good custom art is gonna stay relevant.

Why's he not made of rocks?

Is he only half troll or something?

6 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

I made fun of the weirdly articulate goblin scout last map, but actually, new pet theory, maybe they're doing one of those 'they're actually perfectly articulate in Orcish' things. Which, respect, that's a good trope. Anyway, Grueue's death is duly added to the failstates.

Maybe so, but I'd also think trolls would still likely talk with simpler words.

6 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Orcs without assassins are kind of a crippled prospect. They're never going to excel at dealing a lot of fast damage. 

Sounds frustrating.

But I don't remember assassins being that powerful though. Is the poison that good?

6 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

This stupid fly's still in my room, but I guess it's dormant. Not dormant enough to not escape me trying to catch the cunt, but whatever, stationary.

Update: I got the stupid fucking fly and hurled it outdoors when it settled on another, different, MOVING lamp.

This has been another episode of BUZZ OFF!

[Parrhesia]

8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

And whilst I might not deserve to ask it now, how long does it take you to assemble one LP entry? Just curious since now I'm doing my own.

-I do enjoy reading your's by the way.?

I just make it while I'm playing the map. It makes it take... I don't know, probably not fully twice as long. I feel like some of the longest maps have taken over an hour to write up, the shorter ones probably around half an hour. Ike by contrast plays through first and writes up later.

6 hours ago, Dayni said:

This has been another episode of BUZZ OFF!

Fly post-script: it was still there on the outside window where it'd presumably landed the next morning.

[Integrity]

for my end, i'd say any given lp update takes between half an hour to an hour to write up and upload images, so his approximation was pretty good

[Integrity]

hey it's been a week but in my defense this cave map is just a pain in the ass but i did it! anyway here's wonderwall

 

Spoiler

We haven't actually moved much.

 

So the gist of this map is it's a proper cave map, with slightly more light tiles than usual but still full darkness. Somewhere to the northwest is a friendly dwarf and enemy troll; the troll will usually win that confrontation if you don't intervene, and saving the dwarf leader gets you the ability to recruit guardsmen forever. Somewhere to the southwest is an undead leader. Both must die.

 

Good news: we get the basic flavors of dwarf. This is especially good because elves move, like, three tiles underground per turn. It's horrible.

 

Since this map is already a slog that goes on too long (60 turn limit!) I'm going to do the same thing I always do and push both flanks simultaneously. Crime Squad will take the south with some support, and a buttload of dwarves with wizards will go north.

 

Cramming all these dues into the caverns sucks, but once Konrad leaves that point I'm never recruiting again without about a ten turn walk.

The mermaid is for an event later - there's a pool she has to get to, but I don't remember where it is.

 

South telegraphs, gently, that this is not the way to the dwarves. It's a nice exploration detail.

 

Your first guy to cut around the northern bend telegraphs that it's the right way.

 

Lo and behold, the very next turn a blue dwarf appears.

 

We've brought a lot of firepower. Don't worry. The mermaid sets off north, because I seem to remember that the pool is near the orc leader.

 

In the south, I have no idea what this sign's supposed to mean, but it marks where the undead will attack from. You can kinda see the open tile walls south of the dwarf in the blackness. If you move two hexes south from here, they come crumbling down to let the undead in ahead of schedule.

 

The orcs are a pretty standard mix of tier 1 and tier 2 units.

 

It's kind of boring, but I'm using all these positioning screenshots to showcase just how slow this map is to actually play.

 

First into this area reveals the whole thing and triggers an event. Blue isn't doing so hot.

 

Blue really

 

Blue

 

hey dude your guys are dying

 

guys

 

i

 

To recap, blue just lost everything except their leader in two phases. It may be time to swing some dwarves up from the undead flank, because holy shit. They literally all died before we could arrive in force.

 

Swinging the dwarves around I find out I was boo boo the fool 🙂

 

See you eventually, mermaid 🙂

 

Anyway, we take a quick casualty in a fighter but successfully distract green from the enemy leader. Things look a bit dicey, but I've got enough chaff to get in the way and Konrad is almost here, plus Laura and Delfador can each basically remove a guy a turn if I need.

 

Taking this house by the pond gives us a sob story and a blue loyal fighter, for some reason.

 

In my traditional impatience, I figure I'm in position enough to start the undead ambush.

 

Moremirmu has commentary when he gets close, too.

 

Now, note that this is two one-hex tunnels, culminating in good defensive terrain.

 

Time to start the experience engine!

 

North's a bit dicey and we bleed another fighter, but it's getting under control.

 

First things first, we got a Steelclad.

 

Last things last, we got a Thunderguard. Top is mostly ground down now.

 

There are a lot of undead in the caves, but they're mostly skeletons and occasional ghosts. Our thugs are exactly the ticket.

 

Not to mention, you know, arcane damage, with Moremirmu adding a level of light all around him.

 

We can, literally, do this forever. There is no threat of death, only rotation.

 

Our gunner discovers the enemy. He's just a big troll.

 

The final green minion, who killed my other gunner, pulls the blue boss out, which I don't want, but here we are.

 

The trades are poor, but he needs to die.

 

Or not.

 

Anyway I missed the enemy phase picture, but the big troll came out and got vaporized.

 

Blue's boss fucks off and our guy gets the kill. Green is over.

 

Now it's time to just punch through these guys, but slow enough that our mermaid can slither to the water.

 

Rotate a bit, now we have a second Ultimate Thug.

 

The dwarf steps forward to reveal the enemy boss and the, uh, not dwarf has lines.

 

Anyway, I dunno if they've popped up before, but Messi here is just an evil general. 6x2 pierce on a tier 3 is possibly the single most token ranged attack in the game.

 

Back to the grind.

 

Rotation, rotation. There are so many skeletons.

 

On the bright side, the mermaid finally mermaid it.

 

We're starting to see them thin out. Astute eyes will notice the tier 2 guy on the right has been there for several turns - he won't trade, because he statistically dies; he won't move to let someone in; I don't want to hit him, because if I trade badly my guy can die to him on the next phase or to the backup skeleton.

 

And here's the whole payoff for the mermaid event. Finally.

 

And, finally, we recruit this madman, a loyal and resilient ulfserker. Was it worth it, for a guy I will have to intensely pamper to be able to use? No. But I love ulfserkers too much, and you don't get to recruit them in Heir to the Throne.

 

Anyway, on turn 19, this happens.

 

There is a second way to approach the undead, through the pool. We will not be using it.

 

Time to start removing skeletons with extreme prejudice.

 

Our loyal blue friend jams himself in there, I guess.

 

To his credit, he pulls Messi out, making the end of the missing a hell of a lot easier.

 

Moremirmu is disgusting, but actually only lands one from three.

 

Fortunately we have reserves.

 

Holy shit, what a death speech.

 

Note the Konrad:Anyone Else line distribution.

 

Hell yeah. With that, I can just phase out any non-promoted elf fighters in favor of the much cooler dwarves.

 

 

[Punished Dayni]

25 minutes ago, Integrity said:

Anyway, I dunno if they've popped up before, but Messi here is just an evil general. 6x2 pierce on a tier 3 is possibly the single most token ranged attack in the game.

44 is still decent, that leadership is great for the Undead as a whole and 12 is better than 0.

26 minutes ago, Integrity said:

And, finally, we recruit this madman, a loyal and resilient ulfserker. Was it worth it, for a guy I will have to intensely pamper to be able to use? No. But I love ulfserkers too much, and you don't get to recruit them in Heir to the Throne.

The absolute madman.

I missed this, because my response to caves and merfolk is Nope.

Well, kind of. We'll see.

(I've actually finished the final map of HttT since. Haldiel didn't die, so that was good.)

29 minutes ago, Integrity said:

To his credit, he pulls Messi out, making the end of the missing a hell of a lot easier.

RIP Blue Fighter, you tried.

27 minutes ago, Integrity said:

Holy shit, what a death speech.

That's one way to exposit.

Did he have that ready as his dying breath?

28 minutes ago, Integrity said:

Hell yeah. With that, I can just phase out any non-promoted elf fighters in favor of the much cooler dwarves.

I wish I could say that I agree on that.

[BrightBow]

It's probably easier to have a dying speech if you have no lungs to worry about.

Not sure if the dwarves with their poor mobility will be that much of an substitute for the elves once the caves are over.

[Integrity]

you underestimate my tactical prestige

[Parrhesia]

SON OF THE BLACK-EYE 3: Kapoue vs. Time

Spoiler

When I first had this game, I tried to play this campaign. This is the mission that stonewalled me, through a loss condition we've never seen in this LP before; I ran out of turns. It's apparently been retooled significantly since then. We shall see.

This is already different. Not only the Reverse Galtrid Maneuvre here, but the fact that the three guys in the middle have models that don't look like fucking garbage.

Exposition by name, expository by nature.

Rude!

Okay. The writing in Blackeye is so uneven so far. Everyone who isn't an orc has been spectacularly unspectacular; the orc lines have generally ruled. Also, this is a Vrag% run as of now. If I can get Egil through TBS, I can get Vrag through this.

I can't believe fucking Vrag got this moron to back down.

'Elven mercenary' is a badly underutilised combination in fiction.

Yeet.

Are we sure the right guy's called Exposition here?

This is one of Wesnoth's better attempts at humour, which is to say merely grimace-worthy. Wesnoth is, by and large, terrible at straight-up jokes.

Okay, we don't have to care about green's daves. That's good to know!

So you've seen the top-right and the centre. There's elven bases on every other side. We have a miserly 24 turns to kill four elven marshals with largely tier 1 northerners and 280 gold. I have... no real idea how I'm going to tackle this. It's going to require an exacting pace.

The shamans are pretty much explicitly non-combatants. Their ranged damage is semi-respectable in a vaccuum, but their health is appalling and they have no promotion. They have 70% evasion on houses for whatever reason.

And then I closed the game.
For a week and a half.

It's fair to say I haven't been looking forward to this map, no.

The barbarians aren't just at the gates; they're inside them.

This is what we're getting, plus we can make one more archer next turn. We're haemorrhaging cash, so, pays to blow it all immediately. It's also going to be day next turn. That's not gonna be fun.

We wind up squeezing two warrior promotions from this idiot.

Even in daylight, green is just about winning. Just... slowly.

Pretend that turn happens again but slightly different. Was Gruu out of position? Yes. Is this map terrible? Also yes.

nehhh

My mood doens't much improve when the westernmost fighter survives three coinflips, then the guy in the east just refuses to get hit on 60%s. Also I send three grunts to their death in the south for. Some. Reason. Vrag dies in the north, one XP from promotion.

I'm just, like, over it, by this point.

We miss 8/9 60%s on the two black guys in the east. It's Fine.

neh

I can't even articulate the amount of reasons I hate this map. You're restricted to four units, plus some escort shamans who are worse than liabilities; you don't keep half your forces. The enemy is four marshals to rush down, one a day, and they only recruit two types of units.

It's time for the shamans to flee.

It's time to start recruiting with our minus ninete

en money.

I unload eighteen bolts into this guy. Seventeen miss.

Sometimes, you do actually just have to take the L and fucking autoload.

ugh

Chance of killing: 82%.
Chance of death: 2.1%.
Fun fact: he fucks it up when I reload, too.

Time to take stock. I have to keep killing one marshal a day. Forces are roughly even. They will sometimes be able to spit out an additional guy; I will not. And marshals are individually a bitch and a half to kill, trading favourably with archers and massacring grunts. It takes 5-6 turns to reach the north guy, 4-5 to reach the south, and 7-8 to reach the west. This map is going to waste away in transit. Would it really have been so hard to make them captains? Or to make the shamans heal, so they aren't a total waste of space? No, nothing about this is interesting, it's just Man vs. Number. Oh, and since there's no fucking villages anywhere, you're going to be haemorrhaging cash AND health. Galtrid's maps were a grind, but they let the player feel powerful. And there's no complexity here, no economy. You can't heal, you can't stall, you can't delay your recruitment or you won't be able to recruit at all.

There's little point even taking more screenshots. It's going to be more orcs killing elves and getting killed by orcs. Like these:

Why an escort mission? And I guess you could say I had to build more whelps... except that training a 4 move core with really low damage on an exceptionally timed mission is really, really stupid.

You know, fuck it.

At this rate, I'm not ashamed of saying I'm not good enough to beat this campaign. If this K:D isn't enough... it's turn 14. I have killed one leader. I, who have taken pride in completing stretch goals for every other campaign, in completing them quickly. If this is what Expert level is, then fuck it; the writing in this campaign has extremely not been good enough to bother.

I have already spent 74 hours on this LP. Fifteen more maps of this dross is not a worthwhile time investment for either of us. It's not that it's bad, boring, very long or extremely difficult; it's that it's all fucking four.

NEXT TIME: It is a mystery.

 

Edited June 5, 2019 by Parrhesia

[Integrity]

christ

[BrightBow]

Maybe recruiting more Troll Whelps could help since they heal automatically.

But either way, I suppose this is a appropriate ending for a campaign that gave you a "route split" right after the first map, where one of them is just the wrong choice.

Such a shame that this is the only Orc campaign.

Edited June 6, 2019 by BrightBow

[Parrhesia]

MEMOIRS 1: Really more of an autohagiography

Spoiler

Last time around was a crock of shit. Let's try again.

Memoirs is one of the more recent campaigns. To my recollection, it's the third-most recent; definitely older than Secrets, IIRC older than Dead Water, but definitely added after I started playing. So, like with Kalenz, The Character Of Delfador predates his origin story. That's not a good sign, but I vaguely remember this being a good campaign with a lot of curveballs.

First, draw an S.
Then, draw a more different S.

Fair enough.

Aaaand pretentious name, already.

Same, bitch.

(spoilers: the chanting keeps happening.)

Wesnoth's art: still, by and large, really good. Spot all the differences between these guys!

... that said I'm not flly sold on the posing here. He looks like Mario Balotelli trying and failing to put on a training bib.

, which is repeated by the other three.

Wait. But. Methor's wizard name's just two syllables. What did Third Oracle do for HIS ceremony? And what happens when someone's got four or five syllables of power??

"I AM A JAGEN. DO YOU GET IT? I'M. YOUR. JAGEN."

Anyway, they leave and we're onto the next map.

Er. Yeah, actually, doesn't Methor come up in HTTT?

Unpaid internships? Fuck that.

Oh, shit!

Okay.

So, brass tacks. Delfador is a neutral mage with +1 move, and is resilient / intelligent on top of that. Methor's support unit status is underlined by him being intelligent / aged; aged having shown up to date only on that guy in the Wesmere chapter 1, that 'gives' -8 HP, -1 move and -1 melee damage. Even so, 15x3 damage pulverises anything, and illumination and healing makes him invaluable.

Funny thing about magi in this campaign; they only need 54 XP to level, not 60.

Our unit selection is kind of disgustingly small, but coming on the heels of Black-Eye, having spearmen / magi / horsemen to pick from feels positively decadent. I figure I may as well give my wizards proper Wizard Names. And our goons get proper goon names, of course.

Fucking one-track mind, these lads.

Let's just reflect for a moment on this guy, who decided to run into a spearman, in daylight, with no support.

Well, not ours to reason why...

They kill a strong / intelligent guy! The bastards!

DEL FA DOR 's first kill.

Well, this guy gets eaten by wolves.

Small-scale combat is interesting, and a story best told in long vertical frames of a spearman dodging grunts.

The old man pummels this guy to near-death with a flail. A spearman finishes the job.

The pillager, uh, decides to get in one last recapture. Okay, my man, sure.

We proceed to miss. A lot. Methor shows how it's done next turn by flailing him to near-death, setting up Delfador for the kill...

A worthy final action as Jagen.

Carryover of 80% works out... roughly equal to normal, if there was a 140-gold base value next mission. Which there might not be, God knows what it is. In any case I don't have a marked preference between methods. But, hey, a fine little map.

Wow, it turns out limited unit variety can work out okay!!

 

[Integrity]

wow, an okay map

[Parrhesia]

Not only is this map a safe 6/10, but next map is... also a safe 6/10. It's fucking wild.

[BrightBow]

Seeing proper orcs lead by a goblin feels wrong. Especially one so dim.

I mean, yeah sure. Try to enslave an elder wizard. Surely that can't go wrong. Does he not know that old wizards don't become old by being easy to kill?

Also, are all mages going to have leadership or is it just Delfador? Seems unlikely but it seems a bit weird to me that they would have male and female portraits in the class description of Delfador's personal class.

Edited June 7, 2019 by BrightBow

[Parrhesia]

Wizards are untouched apart from Mage (maybe also promotions? I haven't cross-checked) levelling faster. It treats 'mage' (and then, later, 'red mage') as the base class for Journeyman Mage / Leader, like how dark adepts in Descent were slight variants in that they couldn't promote to lich. But yeah, Delfador is the only Journeyman Mage / Mage Leader / etc.

[Integrity]

hey boys it's a short one

Spoiler

mood, buddy. only one more to go.

 

She caught us! Oh no!

 

Oh, Vart. Classic.

 

17/41 screenshots for this entire update were that monologue. This map gives you 30 turns, and is the size of a postage stamp, Son of Black-Eye.

 

Anyway, here's the starting situation. It's... not precarious, per se, but expecting to lose a guy turn 1 is right out there. Li'sar starts with a pair of loyal royal guards, Her Brand. They will likely step into the caves and die. There are many more trolls in the black. Delfador opens up by obliterating the lower goblin with four from four lightning bolts, and for some reason I don't take any screenshots until the middle of the enemy phase.

 

The first guardsman begins to fulfill my prophecy.

 

And, immediately, Kalenz eats six from seven attacks (two troll, three from four knight, one troll) on 60% cover and dies instantly.

 

Anyway, I reload and this dwarf decides to switch it up and go four for four on hammer shots and destroy a troll without taking a hit in return. Damn.

 

End of turn 2, things have stabilized. Li'sar is doing badly, having already taken a casualty unlike me, but things look fine and I can start cranking out guys.

 

Lots of trolls show up.

 

None of them survive, but Li'sar continues to disintegrate and, frustratingly, makes a line that both guarantees her units' deaths and prevents any poachingintervention from me. I'd be taking more pictures, but they're all dudes moving 2-3 hexes and fighting trolls.

 

Anyway, after plugging the northern gap and our Steelclad getting 2/2 from his hammer again, I decide to check a funny. Scoot the main dwarf out of the way, and

 

hahahahahahahahaha

I do absolutely pull the trigger and he gets fucking pasted, but then I reload.

 

The Steelclad continues to hold out one on one against a tier 3 troll. Absolute legend.

 

Absolute fucking legend.

 

And then this happens. I stare at my monitor for about fifteen seconds, completely tense. Don't lead with your zerks, my dudes.

 

never in doubt haha

 

Meanwhile, on the right, God it's good to have dwarf gunners again.

 

Backstabbing trolls is a, uh, risky proposition.

 

The thief survives, and the other fighter promotes off it. Our trollslayer is on point.

 

With a few javelins and a near-promotion, the east cleans up. There's one enemy left.

 

He recruits a bat, confusingly, and our fighters take him down hard. Note how fast the ogre yeeted up here. They have normal move in caves.

 

This is the end of our rivalry with Li'sar. We're friends til the end now, even though she's still working on taking the scepter before us.

 

Anyway, that's it. Short map. Not bad.

 

[Integrity]

haha i fucking lied to you it's a short two get rocked losers

 

 

 

[euklyd]

petition to have you post a relevant youtube link for the map music for each update

wesnoth music is sick* and i think the readers are really missing out

 

*reasonably so, at least

also can i apply to sub in for the next insufferably unplayable campaign, if one exists?

e: im rly enjoying ur voiceover ike ty for picking that up

Edited June 8, 2019 by euklyd

[Parrhesia]

Hhhhhhonestly I don't play with the music on because I've heard each track around 400 times. That said:

Yeah, it's pretty solid soundtrack.

[Punished Dayni]

On 6/5/2019 at 11:30 AM, Parrhesia said:

When I first had this game, I tried to play this campaign. This is the mission that stonewalled me, through a loss condition we've never seen in this LP before; I ran out of turns. It's apparently been retooled significantly since then. We shall see.

That sounds like a challenge at best.

On 6/5/2019 at 11:30 AM, Parrhesia said:

Okay. The writing in Blackeye is so uneven so far. Everyone who isn't an orc has been spectacularly unspectacular; the orc lines have generally ruled. Also, this is a Vrag% run as of now. If I can get Egil through TBS, I can get Vrag through this.

I mean, it's a bit mean to the donkeys.

On 6/5/2019 at 11:30 AM, Parrhesia said:

Meet them.

Sure,

Totally not a cover for something more sinister.

On 6/5/2019 at 11:30 AM, Parrhesia said:

'Elven mercenary' is a badly underutilised combination in fiction.

It's not something I remember seeing anyway.

On 6/5/2019 at 11:30 AM, Parrhesia said:

Yeet.

Okay, that's a bit funny.

On 6/5/2019 at 11:30 AM, Parrhesia said:

The shamans are pretty much explicitly non-combatants. Their ranged damage is semi-respectable in a vaccuum, but their health is appalling and they have no promotion. They have 70% evasion on houses for whatever reason.

6 and 14 is pretty bad damage in all honesty.

Would these keep following around?

On 6/5/2019 at 11:30 AM, Parrhesia said:

I unload eighteen bolts into this guy. Seventeen miss.

Sometimes, you do actually just have to take the L and fucking autoload.

Sometimes there's just no hitting the one asshole.

On 6/5/2019 at 11:30 AM, Parrhesia said:

At this rate, I'm not ashamed of saying I'm not good enough to beat this campaign. If this K:D isn't enough... it's turn 14. I have killed one leader. I, who have taken pride in completing stretch goals for every other campaign, in completing them quickly. If this is what Expert level is, then fuck it; the writing in this campaign has extremely not been good enough to bother.

I have already spent 74 hours on this LP. Fifteen more maps of this dross is not a worthwhile time investment for either of us. It's not that it's bad, boring, very long or extremely difficult; it's that it's all fucking four.

NEXT TIME: It is a mystery.

Is this on the lowest difficulty?

74 hours sounds like a horrible experience no matter how low the difficulty.

On 6/5/2019 at 4:01 PM, BrightBow said:

Maybe recruiting more Troll Whelps could help since they heal automatically.

But either way, I suppose this is a appropriate ending for a campaign that gave you a "route split" right after the first map, where one of them was just the wrong choice.

Such a shame that this is the only Orc campaign.

The Orcs and Drakes: Neither faction gets respect as leading forces in campaigns. How oddly fitting as some of the most extreme factions in terms of time of day.

Regardless, that first map choice was so stupid, maybe this is just designed to be ridiculous.

On 6/7/2019 at 12:50 AM, Parrhesia said:

Wesnoth's art: still, by and large, really good. Spot all the differences between these guys!

Shame on No. 3 for getting no Tattoos.

On 6/7/2019 at 12:50 AM, Parrhesia said:

Wait. But. Methor's wizard name's just two syllables. What did Third Oracle do for HIS ceremony? And what happens when someone's got four or five syllables of power??

They probably just circle round back to 1 and split the talking at the end.

They've probably determined the name before they come out.

On 6/7/2019 at 12:50 AM, Parrhesia said:

These guys seem like they should be marching down the street chanting Pei Jesu.

Also, Open them again. Did they give him two sets of eyelids?

On 6/7/2019 at 12:50 AM, Parrhesia said:

O O

This gave Delfador further shock.

On 6/7/2019 at 12:50 AM, Parrhesia said:

Unpaid internships? Fuck that.

As someone trying to get on the work ladder, part of me still wants to say that.

Another part of me still looks at those to try and get some dammed experience.

On 6/7/2019 at 12:50 AM, Parrhesia said:

So, brass tacks. Delfador is a neutral mage with +1 move, and is resilient / intelligent on top of that. Methor's support unit status is underlined by him being intelligent / aged; aged having shown up to date only on that guy in the Wesmere chapter 1, that 'gives' -8 HP, -1 move and -1 melee damage. Even so, 15x3 damage pulverises anything, and illumination and healing makes him invaluable.

Least Methor feels sufficiently powerful.

We all know what Delfador's going to end up as, ferrying a certain thing around. I assume we don't get any chapters with Old Man DelfadonewithWesnoth'sshit.

On 6/7/2019 at 12:50 AM, Parrhesia said:

DEL FA DOR 's first kill.

Delfadogkiller

9 hours ago, Integrity said:

Oh, Vart. Classic.

It's surprises all the way down!

9 hours ago, Integrity said:

Big splat.

It's also funny that there's so little of a chance he doesn't get hit it doesn't even display in the line chart (though it is at least above it).

9 hours ago, Integrity said:

This is the end of our rivalry with Li'sar. We're friends til the end now, even though she's still working on taking the scepter before us.

Well that's convenient. 😛

9 hours ago, Integrity said:

haha i fucking lied to you it's a short two get rocked losers

 

So wait, you doing this campaign at the same time?

Good fucking luck.

[Integrity]

6 hours ago, Dayni said:

So wait, you doing this campaign at the same time?

Good fucking luck. 

it's actually kinda fun to showcase just how much the rng really matters in wesnoth - rigging everything to go right for about two maps, and on the third map i have a massively overswole squad and don't actually have to savescum all that much because my trolls are so huge.

 

anyway, in news of campaigns i'm not flagrantly cheating on

 

Spoiler

Note that this is actually a map mechanic. We're coming up on a really good map.

 

So, Scepter of Fire. The opening narration is actually helpful, and outlines the map really well, but in character and not too detailed.

 

the screen rumbles

Oh, uh, alright. Sure.

I...

...needed that....?

Scepter of Fire is a fairly randomly generated series of tunnels and caves. Down some branch of all the mess is the Scepter of Fire. Take it with one of your main lords to win. There are fissures scattered through the map, which grow when the earthquakes happen, limiting your mobility (and potentially eating units). Delfador can rest one turn (doesn't move, doesn't get attacked) to give a general direction relative to him of the Scepter. This is a really good map.

 

I don't remember if I showcased it back when we fought her, but Li'sar has the interesting property of giving units around her first strike.

 

We set off with a corps of dwarves.

 

Gomthus is fuckin' Shakespeare, here.

 

First contact is made! It's goblins.

 

It's a lot of goblins, and our first branched path.

 

This is gonna be something.

 

Li'sar makes contact down the little branch. She's gonna run away.

 

The goblin/dwarf matchup is, uh, hilariously stacked.

 

Kerblam.

 

Resting Delf in the back gives us our first sense, as promised. So we know it's somewhere down the north branch, and that little one sex to the right is just another front.

 

The goblins do not last long. I concoct a Plan for the right.

 

Delfador will, incidentally, do this every single turn he doesn't move.

 

yeet

 

With that, we've knocked down one keep of an ambiguous non-one number. I think it's four.

 

Third contact after a second branch, and it's ogres. I hate ogres.

 

The other branch has no enemies, but does have a fissure.

 

My plan comes to fruition on the right. One guardsman, endless shit enemies, tier 3 leadership and healing behind him, and a green fighter in case i need to swap and let him heal. Kalenz is there because it's too much work to move him. These five units will not move until the end of the map.

 

The center branch finds Saurians. Yuck.

 

Now we've got three distinct branches. The right one holds.

 

The center branch seems to be the headquarters of the guy sending tons of guys at my guardsman.

 

The left branch (which is the correct one, Delfador said northwest from the keep) comes under a bit of a nasty surprise.

 

Part of why I really like this map is it feels like proper spelunking. It's a map you need dwarves for; only some of your previous units are useful, but you've had a few maps to build a dwarven core in more forgiving maps where you could rely on your veterans. You don't know going into it quite what you're getting into. The fissures add a good sense of pressure, even though they won't ever block off a passage entirely - the walls are always safe. Exploring the branches that don't have the Scepter could do with a little more reward, but that's pretty minor criticism considering everything else this map nails - and, actually, spoilers, the left branch gets bogged down and I end up finding the Scepter down a different one. @Parrhesia, I just realized this map is just the evolved Road North, holy shit.

 

Anyway, back to it, this wolf rider takes a weird trade.

 

The right branch is going pretty well for our boy.

 

Our zerk picks up a kill.

 

And, meanwhile in the center, we spot the Scepter! Delfador had some dialogue right before I moved this guy, about how we're super close, but I skipped it.

 

Uh-oh. Contact made with mighty Ugg.

 

Meanwhile, Delfador and the Thunderguard combo perfectly on the remaining ogre.

 

loyal berzerker

 

I don't think we've had them. They're ulfserkers, except with 7x4 instead of 4x4 and a pile of extra health.

 

Anyway, Ugg fades our noble Scepter finder. The map's one casualty..................

 

Guardsman promotes.

 

Casually, south of Delfador and crew, I found what I suspect to be the way to purple's headquarters and left a Steelclad there. He's a Lord now. He's just been casually farming tier 1 orcs.

 

Some jobs are just for Delf.

 

ugh i love dwarves

 

And with that shot, the map's all but wrapped up.

 

Here's the map as we discovered it. Took a pretty breezy pace, finished in half the turns.

 

My other criticism of Scepter is that it's a bit easy - while the difficulty scales up as you probe deeper (which is really good design), it's never especially threatening besides scattered ogres and trolls, and you have terrain advantage.

 

40%

That said, part of that criticism is definitely down to the fact that I developed a sincerely huge dwarf squad really fast. That wasn't really because I was anticipating this map or anything, just because I really like dwarves in Wesnoth. Dwarven fighters and thunderers are genuinely my ideal core melee/ranged daves.

 

So ends a very good map, possibly my single favorite in the Wesnoth campaigns I've played. Salut, Scepter.