Lots of excellent detail in this mod, even on the loading screens. |
I decided to play as Ostland. Four small provinces on the eastern fringes of the Empire, along the Kislev border. My capitol is Wolfenburg, I've got a pair of castles (Lenster and Bosenfels), I'm led by Count Valmir and his family.
I'm informed of my background fluff as I chose. Ostland has good all-round armies, but their heavy infantry isn't much compared to other, non-human factions. |
Here's home - snowy and wintery right now, but green and woody later. |
I've got a decent army, mostly halberds and crossbows, but with some meaty Knights of the Bull bodyguards for any characters. And a couple of specials, like some elite handgunners or a unit of pistoliers. I've got one diplomat, who's my only way of communicating with other factions, one spy (excellent line of sight and can open gates from the inside for sieges), a couple of merchants who can trade resources from the map and a pair of Sigmarite priests, who can stamp out corruption and keep the peasants loyal.
Great! Swords! |
Proper banners and colours for Ostland, apparently. Stirring stuff. |
Charging downhill adds extra impetus. This is a tall hill, it adds lots. |
Okay boys, now you can release them. |
Not only do I vastly outnumber the occupants, but the friendly Kislevites send a large force to help out. We wait a few months to build proper rams, so that the timber gates and walls of Beastman Temple won't slow us down, then assault in force.
Towns are horrible deathtraps for attacking armies. It's well worth making multiple breaches before heading in, so the defenders can't concentrate on you one at a time. |
Friendly fire. |
Thanks, you tossers. |
This backfires - the beasts put all their defence against me, and Kislev's Red Bear flies over the city when the dust settles. Maybe I should start that war after all. In fact, I'll have to if I want to win, as this town is one of the ones I need for victory.
But the Kislevites outnumber me here, and besides, they're a handy buffer against the Chaos Wastes. I go and conquer another Beastman Temple (turns out to be called Ertburg), then try and consolidate.
I've taken a few lumps in all this fighting, so the main army heads for home to recruit noobs and patch up the battered. I start the settlements building an array of impressive new options with my hard-won gold. An artillery school in Wolfenburg, so I can get cannons, and a bunch of improved farms and markets for the rest, so I've got a good financial backing.
I also send merchants off to try and get gold map resources. The most valuable one nearby is...
Knew I should have brought a warband with me. |
Meanwhile, I've sent spies, ships and diplomats North, to see if I can get intelligence on what's coming. Kurt Helborn, my diplomat, doesn't see all that much (his line of sight is awful). But his diaries must be interesting, as he treads the trackless wastes beyond Kislev seeking people to start diplomatic conversations with. Behind him comes my spy, who spots a hoard of black orcs and hobgoblins, led by chaos dwarves, heading into Kislev. But there's nothing he can do about them. All the same, it's nice to see the accuracy of the battlemap, and spot familiar places out in the wilds.
I've been here. Sort of. |
I get to watch a High Elf force get pushed back by these Tzeentchians in the far north. |
Uh-oh. |
How many? |
Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film. |
The Nuln Engineers do sterling work, bringing down a pack of Ungors before their ram can reach the gates. But they still get towers and ladders against the walls, and worse, the south gate goes down to a ram.
Leaving an honour guard of light troops to tie up the invading beastmen, I rally the knights and halberds in the town square. As the first wave of beastmen rush in, the halberds from a deadly box around them, penning them up at the entrance to the square. I can charge my knights in and out at the corners of this, using the impact hits to great effect.
The Black Guard are an impressive-looking lot. |
Alas, there's still another army coming in from the north. My light troops have inflicted reasonable casualties against the foe, but have inevitably been overrun. I've just managed to get the Nuln engineers away in time, and line them up along the edges of the square.
Worse, I've got no halberds left, just a single unit of battered Greatswords, some arrow-less archers and the now rather weary cavalry squads. I line this vestigial force up anyway, so that the gunners can fire into the sides of whatever the greatswords fight. The cavalry can charge into anything that makes it past. Or through.
Except that the cunning Beastman has been sending about half his remaining troops through the darkened streets of Wolfenburg. Even as the engineers line up their long rifles for a first volley, they get hit in the back by a full hoard of Minotaurs. The Greatswords perish in a huge wave of Bestigors, my cavalry take terrible losses from vast packs of spear-armed ungors, and, well, that's it, really. Count Valdir dies alone, killing anything his runefang can reach, but still dying.
[I did take video clips of this, but I can't upload them, I keep getting error messages.
Let's just say it's too horrible to watch and leave it at that.]
I've lost my capitol, most of my generals, the vast majority of my tax revenue and pretty much any chance of winning this game.Luckily, it chooses this moment to crash. 'Chaos has overwhelmed us!' the mod makers have changed the error message to read, 'Closing the gates to preserve our souls.'
Well, quite.
That's re-enactment for you, I suppose - Ostland goes down first in a wave of mutants, paving the way for Archaon later. Great mod, very accurate and much less crashy than it used to be. A few rough edges, but not so you'd mind. But I can put it aside again, with the late breaking news that I've won a cheap Shaggoth on Ebay.
Yep, looks like my suggested puny humans performed about as well as they did in the Mark of Chaos trailer.
ReplyDeleteNice to follow a strategy game vicariously, instead of playing one myself and risk regaining consciousness at the computer at 3am, nursing sore eyes and the nagging sense that I only switched on to check my emails.