Dark Castle: Turn 20

This looks like an eventful turn. Let's see the action:

Spires of Ascension

Marignon had more troops then I was expecting with 50+ Knights of the Chalice (KotC). They opened up on us with crossbow bolts and banishment that did a lot of damage to my chaff. Our horde surged forward to engage, and while Marignon was preoccupied my Knights charged across the battlefield -- bypassing Marignon's main army -- and smashed into Mari's exposed backline, killing several of Friars -- including his prophet. Good job boys!

However, this wasn't enough to force a rout and his KotC did an excellent job of trying to hold the line against my Knights, Lictors, and remaining chaff. While they were exchanging blows my Knights in the back line chewed through his crossbowman while his remaining priests cast waves of banishment, but this actually killed his own priests via blood vengeance. After a few more rounds of combat his forces fled for their lives with my Knights and Lictors in pursuit.

This was a pretty bloody fight where I lost almost half of my army. However, I only lost 14 out of 44 sacred units, which is what really matters since chaff is very replaceable, and Marignon's losses were much more significant.

I looked through the battle several times and I can't think of a thing to improve. The rear strike on Marignon's commanders by my Knights was amazing and saved a lot of my units by reducing the amount of banishment that hit us.

I did wonder if he would reinforce this province knowing I was unlikely to attack his capitol, but I also wonder if Phaeacia tipped him off because I didn't see any attacks from him this turn. I asked him about this on Discord and he said he was reforming. We'll have a better picture next turn what his intentions are because if there was ever a time to hit an opponent it would be now when their army is shattered.

Glen of Wisdom

Our Knights struck Marignon's back commander again and ended the battle early. It's a good thing because those barbarians hit hard and almost killed one of my knights with a lucky strike.

For our efforts we were rewarded with the following sites:

I love fire income -- especially when I don't have to search for them myself.

Nifel

Those damn dirty apes in Bandar Log attacked us while we were preoccupied with Marignon. I heard that Bandar Log had it in for me and was part of this coalition that formed against me.

This situation underscores my point about how difficult it can be to to play a despised nation like Ermor because it can be very challenging to use diplomacy to protect yourself from attacks like this. 

Anyway, we had no hope of winning this battle, but it's great source of intelligence to see what we'll be facing.

The most important thing to see is his bless, which is Quickness and Twist of Fate.

In the battle he uses Guru's to cast Body Ethereal on his sacred Tiger Riders. Here is what they look like blessed:

My javelins might help mitigate twist of fate, and magic weapons doesn't care about Body Ethereal, but that quickness is pretty brutal. Those riders already have 3 attacks, so that's 6 attacks a piece. He also has his prophet here:

Great. An H4 priest.

He cast fanaticism, which is a good strategy with those low morale elephants. The Guru's are also set to cast Mind Burn and Star Fires. I almost wonder if I should just let him hit my sacred commanders with mind burn to see if I can kill them with Blood Vengeance, but I think I'll just make sure I have plenty of ghouls around.  

I'm assuming that all of those astral gems are for casting Anti Magic, which means he definitely knows about my bless. Also, his elephants and Tiger Riders are set to attack my rear formation. Not sure if that will make much of a difference when he fights me because of the number of units he'll have to carve through.

I must say this army is a pretty solid  -- it would be especially difficult for me to fight without magic weapons, but fortunately we factored that into our bless.

I think it's worth looking to see how much siege strength this army can reduce a turn. He has a total siege strength of 108 while I have defense strength of 60 in Karene. If he attacks me here (directly north) it will take him 6 months to reduce the walls to 0. I love ghouls.

I need to abort building my temple/lab complex in Shade Forst because I think there is a possibility Eriu might attack me. Based on his attack on Man, he seems like he might be pretty opportunistic, and his troops are difficult to spot. Instead I'm going to build a temple in The Caverns. As a Hail Mary I'm sending my dusk elder with F2 to site search -- maybe I can find some indy mages hidden in one of my existing provinces.

Speaking of Eriu I see him massing troops next to my throne:

He has 3 armies of 30 next to Panuonia, and his troops can sneak around a lot so who knows if he has anything in my territory already. 

After we consolidate a bit we can put together the following army:

• 211 chaff
• 21 knights
• 35 lictors

This is very borderline whether it can take Bandar Log. I feel like I need more time to generate a larger army because even if I did win with this force, I'm pretty sure I would have almost nothing left.

I'm not feeling great about my strategic situation now having to fight two different opponents. This doesn't stop me from posting how awesome I am on Discord to everyone:

Just when Bone Daddy thought the day couldn't get any better after defeating Marignon's army (tasty horse burgers -- delicious), we now have monkeys and elephants to add to the menu! You're going to need a bigger army if your going to march into the heart of darkness, Bandar Log.

My current strategy is to focus on Bandar Log and hope that Phaeacia bottles up Marignon, in his capitol, which should, hopefully, be easier now that I shattered his main army.

On the recruitment front I hire 2 scouts and a priest.

Here was our event this turn: