Game #377 | 2v2 human Theo&Warlord vs 3 necro players

That was a hell of a game. First time to play a necro, I created a Tigran called Smokey Smartypants, with fire adept and shadow master. Tigran to get the spiritual resistance and shadow master cause that felt evil.

I had better luck than Skuns, for I started on a really big continent, while he was on a small island. From watching Hiliadan´s video, I realized that ghoul curse and revive undead is the key of the game for me. So I tried to lvl my heros until they could revive the deathbringer in the tomb nearby. That went smoothly and while expanding over that island, I was amazed to see knights, eagle riders, trolls and even evangelists joining the ever growing evil army of darkness.

The downside was that I was constantly low on gold so I had to turn most of the treasures into coin. I wonder why those braindead knights need money at all, but hey, the game is called Age of Wonders, so that would not be the last thing I wonder about in this game.

Skuns advised me to cast whispers of the fallen, which is quite a nice spell. Should have done that much earlier.

Sooner or later my scouts discovered a middle sized island, with some unguarded cities. I had a carrion bird there with the mission to be annoying. Firstly, I casted a few undead plagues and could take a city, try to plunder it and Dread retook it next turn. A turn later, another city was unguarded, so I took it and casted dark ritual, got three bone guys and send them to the next unguarded cities. So soon the zombies where rooming that island, keeping Dread´s strong stack busy, harassing the poor people while the land slowly turned to blight. That felt how necro is supposed to be played.

Meanwhile I could mass produce settlers to meet my ever growing hunger for gold and sent 3 stacks of troops against soon-to-be Zombieland. The strongest ones I kept on my continent to clear the high lvl sites.
Suddently Cbowers army, swimming warbreeds, nagas and elements, a hero and Cbowers leader, no-nonsense looking Larissa, arrived out of the nowhere at Skuns island and quickly eliminated everything that came into their sight. All swimming or flying and with regrowth, they blitzed over it. So I hurried everything back to my throne, just in time before he got there. He hurried beyond my ships with death march, a spell which I thought is quite crappy before that game. When he attacked my throne, he faced several factors like damnation, desecration, undead tomb, despair and some undead evangelists, so Larissa was overwhelmed by her own warbreeds and other dead meat.

So Smokey was rising even higher, Skuns was about to take out Larissa´s home and on Dread´s island no living brain was left. What could possibly go wrong, i was wondering?

The first thing was that Larissa somehow could kick Skuns out of the game by killing the leader and move over half of the map to his throne in one turn. Death march is just deadly.

So it was just me and Cbower, me having spread out over 80% of the map, generating 1500 gold and 800 mana every turn, having every buff casted, and conjuring death angels while searching for Larissa´s army. He had to be in the last corner. How hard could it be to hunt him down? That was the next wonder.

Where did the champion phoenixes come from? If he conjured them, that would take around 10 turns, so the numbers did not add up. So I was becoming curious, thinking this game was sure to win. Larissa revealed her full strength when crushing my strongest army with champion mantikores and phoenixes, cutting the death angels down like grass. Somewhere in the next turns I figured it out that he had to have a spell called True resurrect and was collecting the strongest tier4s against me.


From that moment on I rushed the production of fire dragons. Army movements went back and forth, and soon I had quite an army of around 10 dragons and a suitable hero. I tried to meet him, but he would not make a stand but outmaneuvered me and razed my dragon lair.

Then that tough iron Maiden single handedly killed all my dragons with her resistance to everything, tireless and life stealing. So the big empire I had built was doomed, nothing could withstand that overkill called Larissa and all that was left to do was surrender.

So, children, that was the story, how one hero alone stood up and defeated the army of darkness. Hope you enjoyed it.

Interesting report! Looks like one OP thing (Death March) beat another OP thing (Necro in general)!
As I said in the chat, I'm sure Necro still has many nice strategies to show, which will pop up as soon as the easiest ones are removed by the balance mod. Dark Ritual on captured cities is one

I have been trying to think about how to write up this game. What I wanted, and still want to try again, is see if a joint effort, with map settings would be enough to turn back an unmatched necro and win the game. What I did was let me ally down, failed to scout, misread and under estimated my opponents. I didn't play the game I set out to play, and lost the game before getting lucky enough to win it back.

One lesson I learned from this match don't get to high on yourself when things are going well or too low when things are not going well. Things started out well Dread was doing his sim city thing and I was doing my clearing thing. I made contact with Skuns home first, and got a feeling he was vulnerable. So I scrapped my plan to defend and turn the necro players, and decided to try to destroy Skuns base to cripple his ghouling. Meanwhile we were finding off scouts and light attacks. Then Johnny started doing something I haven't really seen form a necro before. He combined scout attacks with dark ritual spells. Since Dread was going sim city this was highly profitable, because the cadavers could spread quickly. It wasn't an invasion but it slowed Dread's progress, and forced us to defend. I continued on my quest to destroy Skuns base. Set a few MH and other units to he fend off light attacks, Dread moved to the mainland to continue creeping. 

To hit Skuns I let his forces by, believing that we could fend them off long enough. By the time I was taking Skuns cities I realized my mistake way way too late. By this point I had gotten the map from explorer. Johnny had a large expansion.Not only that he had already moved in force towards Dread. Are units were out of position and there was no way to defend Dread's homeland. I had not scouted Johnny and have not played him before, I underestimated him. Not only hd he enough to take Dread's homeland, I quickly realized he had even stronger forces left at home.

My invasion was enough to take Skuns out, but besides a single city of Johnny's, I got nothing. I was left to try and outmaneuver Johnny's better stacks. It was then I decided to attack a city 3 stacks to 2. I misread how powerful the walls, damnation, and spells were. What I thought would be a small victory completely wiped my leader stack.

Dread had fallen, I lost my leader Stack, 80% of the map was owned by my opponents, my 3 cities, 2 vessels versus a network off about 15 cities, vastly outnumbered by better unites, I was completely demoralized and beaten. I turtled in my throne, waiting for the end. It was Skuns who showed up first with about 4 stacks and t4 units. He was taking me apart slowly. It was then I realized Skuns had left me an opportunity. He had moved his leader stack a bit ahead of his other stacks to do some additional clearing. Using death march and Haste berries I was able to put to stacks onto him and win. From there he had been given a new throne by Johnny, but it was on Dread's old Island. I was able to take my leader and remaining units and put them at sea. I had no idea what was out there, but it was worth the chance to me, since I had nothing to lose. See there with a mermaid shrine and death march I could hit his throne the next turn, if I was lucky I could atleast take a player with me. Well I survived and found his throne the following, which turned out to be weakly defended and Skuns had lost.

Johnny still owned the game, but that small victory convinced me to keep fighting instead of just turning and waiting to die. Sooner or later Johnny would come and take my Homelands. I would not have enough to stop him. However out west was a completely undiscovered country. Multiple outpost, a giant vassal, and plenty of great sites to feast off of. So I decided to build a clearing party of war breeds and heroes and go west. I can;t remember which site it was but I received true resurrect as a reward, and suddenly I knew I had a chance. 

I was able to put together a t4 army from sites with true resurrect. I was able to level my hero to level 30 and get her immune to every non-physical damage type. While at the same time the giant vassal, and rewards money stabilized my gold to support them. Johnny took my homelands and found me out west. But when reach out west he did not expect me to have a t4 army and I was able to take his invasion force out at sea. From there I went home. Trying to re-establish something there. However at this point I was down to 2 stacks, losses from the previous fight. Johnny had seen me coming and had moved his 2 stacks of life stealing dragons back to my home. They reinforced 3 other stacks. I was able to death march and hit mermaid shrines and skip ahead of him. I hit some dungeons and grabbed some more manticores. Then I was able to sneak by to his Dragon dwellings and raze it. Johnny followed trying to catch me there, but I was able to use death march to hit a regrowth shrine. A level 30 maxed out hero with regrowth and and life steal is quite formidable. She alone with some resurgence units took out all of his dragons and another high ranking hero. Unbeknown to me Johnny actually had gotten degenerate from all knowing, but the AI failed to use it until it was too late.

At this point Johnny still covered most the map, but no longer had units that could travel and fight mine. Reaper's we actually not a good match, since I had gold dragon and phoenix's. The other units could large waters as well as mine. I had regained my throne researched manticores and could now start building economy. The tides had shifted. In the end true resurrect, plus high-level AD and Warlord hero, with items, and better maneuverability where more powerful then unpatched ghouling. Which is not what I set out to do at all; however it was the most dramatic comeback I have ever been apart off. 

I still wish I had done a better job of supporting Dread, if I had done that I believe we could have turned them back and fought them together. I was too aggressive for a team match, my arrogance and foolishness cost Dread. From this I hope to learn to be a better teammate, in the long run such aggressiveness will be make for more losses then wins. There is a better way to play then how I played this game. I need to keep working on this team stuff.

Confirmed by DreadReapr

good job 

Confirmed by Skuns453Lirik902

Match has been reported, please confirm!

This is a very interesting game. Many ups and downs. I will try to do a write up in the next week that will do it justice.

Hey guys, I am at a conference for the until Friday night, and I won’t be able to play my turns until then. Sorry for the delay.

Also thanks Skuns. It was a gamble, since I didn't know what was out there at sea, but I had nothing to lose.

Bravo! Good turn. To cover the distance of three moves for one turn - it's a feat
But I have never seen such maneuverability from Warbreeds, especially on the sea. Although I learned a little travelling by the sea in the game  

P.S. With such mobility of your stacks this session may last almost eternity

Ooooooh! Ok so it was due to settings! So no worries then.

It seems I was wrong.   Larissa is a custom leader and she has the resurgence as a starting skill (it's not an item, I saw). But I forgot that at the start of this session there was not disabled the setting "All heroes have resurgence". :'( 
I've played many sessions when this setting was disabled. So automatically I became think about this session similarly   

Good game, i had a lucky position and could take advantage of the great island. I don´t think that Larissa had resurrection, that must have been an item, isn´t it? I had strong economic problems the whole game, since the army is just growing to fast and without happy bonus, thats hard. But luckily Mental had quite an economy, so from now on i could really get rolling.

Hi there! I'm not sure to understand what's up? Larissa is a custom leader? She has resurgence as a starting skill?

Really good game     I wouldn't mind another game too, but such map is not good.   I understand, that you would kill both of us during first 10-12 turns on tne continents map. But so many water is not good for me :'(  Cbower said: "Anyways well played both of you, espcially Johnny." Yes, Jonny is well played for Necromancer.    But we won because his island was huge and it gave great scope for actions    On my island was almost nothing to make progress. :'( 
If we will make another session, we need to change 2  basic parameters.
For the first, Larissa is an almost unkillable leader.   She has Resurrection ability And it is in session, which has a ban on the hero's resurrection. It's not a cheating, especially at fighting against Necro. But it will give very good start in any case (at any session with such rules). It turns out that we are in unequal starting conditions for at least the first 5-7 turns. Larissa's growth is unstoppable with her ability
For the second, the map need to change too. May be it should consist of continents with minimum water and with UG. Then I think each player will have enough space to growth and extension

Let me know how you want to finish it out, kill me in my throne or accept my surrender. I wouldn't mind another game like this, if you guys are up for it. I'll just need to find someone to replace mental. I think the good side can put up a better fight then what we were able to do this time. I think going on the offensive was a really bad idea, really bad. Probably you still win anyways, but it could have been more competitive. Anyways well played both of you, espcially Johnny.

Sorry for the possible delay, friends. I can only play at home. But yesterday there was power cut at my place for all night.  :'(

Sorry guys the game crashed on a battle and I had to restart the turn.

I think it will be the opposite. And soon we will see how hordes of Warlord and Theo will rush at the Necro's territories

Little more water then I would like as well. Settings are not the best for necro, but necro still has a very strong build.

These small islands didn't allow space for growth in both the heroes and the army in general. :'(   The more so since there is not even UG

So, if i loose i will claim that it´s all because of the absence of death bringers and has nothing to do with my bad decision making! Thats for sure

Don't worry, at early turns we will do without its somehow. Besides, there is the site which contains one of it near my capital - so it easier for me than for Johnny

I put it on Strong start instead of battle, I think I was thinking battle with 3v3, but I forgot after we waited for some  time. I mostly just put in what I initially described in the settings. Hopefully the lack of death bringers doesn't slow you guys down much.

Maybe you have missed out something, but there are no Death bringers, promised by you at the start. :'(  Perhaps you mean that they would be almost at the start?

Sorry for the confusion, yes Drizzt is my brother account that I am using for this game. Dread's AOW is mental. It looks like everyone is in the right spot I'll start the game as soon as I get out of work.

i joined the right team now, i didnt knw drizz is cbower's 2nd account

Maybe you, cbower, should identify the participants specializations at the players table to avoid mistakes in the future?

The situation only worsened with the creation of teams :'( I thought that Jonny and me would play necro. But Dread decided to play at the 2-nd team   I wonder whom he will play: Theo or Warlord?  Apparently, he decided to spy for the enemy camp :ninja:   

Joined, at least i think it is most possible that i joined the right game.
Let´s rot and roll!

so drizz is your 2nd triumph account?

Thanks Skuns, yes teams would be good. I have rehosted same settings but with teams.

No team? It's strange. How fighting good versus evil  is possible when anyone the good may create alliance with other the evil?

We would like to have an epic battle of good versus evil. It will be a city start, fast game play, many starting skills & resources, surface only, strong starting units, strong defenders, large map, far start, continents map. Everything else average. Plenty for a Necro to feast on and to create a horde. Looking for experienced players who are comfortable using necro exploits. We want the chance to face down an overwhelming horde of the undead.(Or be swallowed up by it) No quit, fight to the end, I certainly will either way.  

The game is hosted as 2v2 Theo/Warlord vs Necro. The password is battle. I did put defenders on very strong, other then that it is as described. Sorry for the wait guys, I ran out of spots, I talked to my brother and borrowed some space from his account. Let me know if you need anything. Good Luck and have fun.

May be I have missed something, but I didn't find session with such name on the AoW3 PBEM-server. Or this session is already started?

Excellent, I will host the game tonight.

i don't mind im ready. i can play both theo or warlord

yeah 2v2 we will do large continents surface only. Probably do strong starting units. So what do you say mental do you want to try it?

only chance is with large and far distance bcz we have time to produce units to hold necro converted units. otherwise dnt bother trying.