Combat for 922Magic has taken off.
Our men are spending weeks worth of wages on paper cards, which then they compile into decks of many paper cards. They then put these pieces of paper down one-by-one in games that last seemingly forever, then scream with joy or despair when the victor is determined. It's silly and ridiculous, but it keeps them out of trouble. The medics stationed in the area report fewer cases of sexually transmitted diseases occurring among our troops, likely due to the decreased amount of sex they've been having.
Aside from these fictitious "card battles", no combat occurs in the mountains.
No battles occur in the mountains.The only battle that occurs in the border between the plains and the tangia is an impromtu snowball fight between two squads of Arstotzkan troops. There are no casualties, thankfully.
No battles occur in the plains.Battle in the desert has not been going in our favor, and the theatre commander withdraws into the mountains. We'll return some day, but not today. Let those cowardly Moskurgs hide in their sands.
No battles occur in the desert.Almost as if the war had been waiting for an excuse to intensify, the jungle is painted red with blood this year.
Moskurg skirmishers are stymied as they attempt to lull guards to sleep. Our men are happy to note that their attempts fail every time, and the high-pitch hum the anti-magic charms produce alert our troops of imminent attack. We are able to mobilize quickly in response. Ambushes turn into full-fledged melees which Moskurg then lose with their smaller skirmishing force. The battles are still costly, but we come out ahead. Their men are decked out with padded armor and small bucklers - even their calvary! Without the advantage of surprise or adequate protection, our longbowmen slaughter their troops easily. Officers aren't immune either; their scalemail is decent at turning a blow from an axe or a sword, but an ash arrow cast from a four foot long bow punches right through it. The jungle provides some cover and favor their compound bows over our longbows, but they simply don't have any way of successfully ambushing us any more.
Our ambushes don't go much better, though. The Tower of Frost keeps the territory temperate, which our cold-acclimated men are thankful for. Comfort doesn't help, though, even if it does make wearing heavy plate bearable. They can easily our men coming during ambushes. Our fog is too dense to blow away, but by its very nature informs them of an incoming attack. Furthermore, the clanking of our armor tips them off if we try to bring heavy troops in to fight. Their arrows can't penetrate except at point-blank, but with mass volleys coming down on our heads it's not hard for a few to find their way into gaps and eyeslits. Our heavy calvary ends up doing the majority of the skirmishes. Our charges are devastating when they hit, smashing into their lightly-armored (or not-at-all armored) men with our crystal lances. We have trouble doing much damage with the thick mud and dense foliage hampering our heavy shire horses, but we come out slightly ahead. As per orders, our Elite Anti-Mage forces attempt to capture an enemy mage. Equipped with anti-magic charms, they ride in in the middle of the night and drag him away screaming. As they disappear into the jungle, through the dark and the rain, a single, massive, powerful bolt of lightning comes down with a glow that turns the world to day for a brief second. Apparently, the apprentice manages to squirm and gain a few feet of distance from our men, putting him just out of range of the charms. The lightning bolt that he called down upon himself was bright, brilliant, and bigger than anything we'd ever seen before. The apprentice- known to the Moskurgs as
Brave Maealij Albarq - was posthumous named a Master Wizard by their mages and immortalized for his sacrifice.
Two dice rolls at disadvantage: [1!, 3]. Moskurg gains a Martyr.The battles during the day begin to grow uglier. Rain is non-stop, and lightning touches down every few seconds striking trees and steel-clad soldiers alike. Likewise, fireballs stream through the foliage indiscriminately. Fires claw at tree trunks only to be put out within seconds by the downpour. Where the fireballs do hit their men scream and die horrible, agonizing deaths. Arstotzkan soldiers are braver and do not scream when lightning strikes - likely because they are instantaneously cooked inside their welded-shut armor coffins. Their fellow soldiers get incredibly upset by this, bemoaning about 'realism' and 'faraday cages'. Moskurgs just laugh in their filthy gutter language, and our men vow revenge against those who would so blatantly flout reality.
With their troops lightly armored and massed, our theatre commander decides to start off with a sudden, powerful charge from our heavy calvary. They can't maintain formation in the dense undergrowth, but there's enough of them it doesn't matter. Gleaming lances of magic crystal are clutched in the hands of each horseman, but just before they slam into the enemy troops they all vanish into a puff of smoke. It's a shock to the horsemen as their weapons disappear from their grasp, leaving them unarmed in the midst of enemy spearmen. It's not even close - only one in ten make it back to our lines. Our men are dead silent as our wounded and decimated calvary are shuffled off the field. That battle went poorly, but now we know they have some new brand of magic that dispels our crystal weapons.
Without our heavy calvary, we fall back to ranged combat and arrows begin to pelt both sides, making up the majority of the combat done by non-magical troops. Our arrows skewer their unarmored troops, and their arrows tend to clatter harmlessly off our rusted steel plate. Frustratingly, however, their arrows have a habit of finding their way through gaps and eyeslits with uncanny frequency. It doesn't kill as many as it would unarmored troops, thankfully, but it's still annoying. However, once our foot soldiers join with theirs it's no contest. Our armored axemen hack through padded armor easily, but it takes two or three Moskurgs to bring down a single Arstotzkan. Once again, our commanders are met with the same fate as our horsemen - the gleaming crystal axes, once the mark of their leadership, are returned to non-existence once in range of their battle lines. Our commanders become easy prey, and without leadership our men eventually turn and flee back north. Moskurg takes many prisoners, but unlike before they aren't released to us. They don't even ordain to tell us what they've done with our men - unease settles into the stomachs of our troops and imaginations run wild. With some relief, however, our crystal axes remain firm in our hands when Moskurg presses north. Their troops, while more plentiful, are utterly inferior to Arstotzkan armored troopers. Our fireballs blast through their men easily, and giant walls of fire section off entire areas of combat. It's still a tough battle - we lost many from our earlier disastrous assault. The battle is fairly even - Moskurg is too cowardly to use their lightning during combat, and it seems like we're about to turn the tied...until their calvary successfully flanks us. Without our own heavy calvary to turn the tide, we're left at a disadvantage. Lightly armored and armed with shitty lances, they turn the battle just
barely in their favor, and though they're forced to eventually pull back We lose more men than they do.
Myark and al-Mutriqa meet once again on the battlefield.
Through circumstance - or perhaps the divine will of God - they do not fight face to face. As soon as they approach one another commands or surges or troops separate them both, and they can do no more than spit curses. Perhaps this is for the best. If Myark killed him here, he would be without purpose and we'd lose his skill in combat.
We don't lose ground, at least. Both sides lost a lot of men - both nations have almost their entire army centered in this territory. We hold on, but another battle like that and we are pushed out of the jungle.
Our theatre commander is enraged. The anti-magic charms we've developed have limited range and prevent the enemy from casting on them, but that doesn't do anything against lightning called down from the sky. The only spell they seem to have that targets our men is their sleep spell, and while it helps during the night it isn't doing enough. If we could have it keep their arrows from going through eyeslits or stop them from casting their weather magic altogether,
then it'd at least be useful for full combat. But - and more pressingly - he's infuriated that the crystal lances we've outfitted our calvary with go up in smoke when charging the enemy lines. Thank God the entire army wasn't outfitted with those things, or we'd be building barricades on our homelands next year. We'll switch our officers and our calvary to conventional weapons until the problem is fixed, but he doesn't place much faith in you. He also gripes about the Tower of Frost - while it does make wearing full plate armor bearable in the normally hot jungle, it isn't the "Dooms Day" weapon he was lead to believe. He also points out that we've never had a skirmish we can point to as a "complete success" and the lack thereof is hurting our chances of pushing Moskurg from the jungle.
Neither side gains ground in the jungle.Both sides seem evenly matched in the western sea. Arstotzkan ships are large, sturdy, and slow. Moskurg ships are fast, light, and fragile. Their wind magic helps them move quickly here, scurrying around and flanking our ships when they can. Thankfully, their storms don't hassle us too badly since storms cause the entire sea to roil regardless of they make it rain. We are too slow to catch them, though we do spout fireballs out of the fog whenever they get too close. Without a definite advantage for either side, neither gains victory. Battles tend to be both sides standing a distance away, pelting one another with arrows and fireballs before retreating back to port. Once again, neither side gains ground here.
The theatre commander urges you to develop some way to speed our ships along - or even develop a lighter skirmisher that can support our heavy troop transporters. He also waves his hands wildly as he describes a giant fireball spell so big that no Moskurg could ever hope to dodge it. He demands you develop something of that nature to kill those cowardly Moskurg sailors before they can flee.
Neither side makes coastal gains in the Western Sea.It is 923, the Design Phase.Northern Taiga: 4/4 Arstotzka
Central Mountains: 4/4 Arstotzka
Western Jungle: 1/4 Arstotzka, 3/4 Moskurg
Eastern Plains: 4/4 Moskurg
Southern Desert: 4/4 Moskurg
Northern Sea: Arstotzkan
Western Sea: Disputed
Eastern Sea: Moskurger
Southern Sea: Moskurger
Mundane Equipment
Broadsword: Officer weapon. An iron age classic. A double-edged blade designed for speed, flexibility and force. Requires training to wield, can be used one or two handed. Expensive.
War Axe: General infantry weapon. Can be used as a tool in a pinch, this is a single-handed weapon that does well against heavily armoured foes. Can be used with minimal training.
Wooden Shield: General infantry equipment. Couples well with an axe, cheap, easy to replace. Works best in heavy melee. Can be used with minimal training. Cheap.
Hide Armour: General infantry armour. Cheap, thanks to the plentiful sheep in the taiga. Turns aside weak blows. Cheap.
Chain Mail: Officer armour. Expensive, due to the steel required. Very effective against most weapons. Expensive.
Plate Mail: General infantry and officer armour. So well designed it costs surprisingly little to make. Normal cost.
Longbow: General infantry weapon. Difficult to find wood and requires a lot of training, but long ranged and powerful. Cheap.
Shire Horse: A heavy riding horse. Survives and rides well in cold weather. Powerful charge. Normal Cost.
Longship: Oar-rowed wooden ship. Slow, but sturdy, and can carry large numbers of landing troops. Very Expensive.
Magical Equipment
Wand of Fireballs - Hurls fireballs at a distance, able to destroy whole squads at a time. A National Effort.
Tower of Forever Frost: An astoundingly expensive tower that has to be assembled in place and requires the skill of a master wizard to operate, as well as countless other skilled wizards. Creates a very powerful cold evocation and then channels it directly into the air, consistently lowering temperatures within a radius of about fifty miles. A National Effort.
Anti-Magic Charm: A magically enchanted quartz crystal. Hums loudly in the presence of magic, and prevents magic from being conjured inside the very limited range. Very Expensive.
Magic Lance: Conjures a set of lances for a cavalry squad. Thick enough not to break on use, and lasts long enough to be useful in combat. Expensive.
Magic Axe: Conjures a set of long axes for officers. Weapon is anchored to a small gem in the handle, allowing it to exist longer than 24 hours.
Anti-Wizard Guard: Guard thanes against mind-readers and other threats by shooting them. Also partially negate spell support of other units.
Obscuring Mist: Cloaks a squad in a fog cloud, hiding their numbers and equipment, and making them harder to hit at range.
Variant (Channeled Fog): A denser form of Obscuring mist, continuously generated.
Summon Swarm: Conjures a swarm of stinging wasps to harass foes. Expensive.
Variant (Fire Wasps): Conjures stinging wasps that can start small fires. Expensive.
Webs: Conjures a sticky web, immobilizing an entire squad and preventing them from moving. Very Expensive.
Fireball: Hurls fireballs at a distance, able to destroy whole squads at a time. Damaging side effects harm morale. Very Expensive.
Streamlined Fireball: Hurls small balls of fire that explode on impact, not as devastating as full fireballs but much easier to cast. Cheap.
Firewall: Creates static walls of fire. Long casting time, concentration sustain. Very Expensive.
Crystal Caltrops: Jagged crystals designed to lay in the grass and catch enemy troops unaware. Good for defense. Normal Cost.
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Topic: Wands Race - [Arstotzka] {COMPLETED} (Read 393051 times)