1/8 finals

01.12.2010 Mizrael(red, Castle, Caitlin, Tyris) def FAVorite(blue, Rampart, Kyrre, Ivor) 2sm4d(3) 127

We used 3 restarts out of 4, I still had my 111, but the red color, a ton of money, and a good hero pushed me to play. There were absolutely no caches on the respawn, one road to ГО, the other to a pack of ice crystals and a wood mine without stacks... Bleak, but by day 3 I realized it wasn't all that bad — the hut gives air magic. After breaking through the ice crystals, I realized it was even worse — the passage to the snowy secondary is guarded by snipers... Too late for a restart, I squeeze what I can from the respawn, finally found some wood and with 2 horses (thanks to the external stables) Tyris took down the snipers at the cost of half the archers. In the Tower, I stocked her up with a spell book and built the lookout, total chaos — it would take at least a couple of days of trudging through snow to reach the metro to the treasure zone, the alternative was a path through rough terrain to the swamp, so I sent scouts there, and left the main hero at the Dwarf Cottage in the snow. A Gnoll hut and a lookout in the swamp helped clear the secondary pretty quickly, the main hero maxed out air magic at the grand Dwarf Cottage and another hut gave Pathfinding... I gave up on the treasure zone and rushed towards the opponent's respawn, with Tactics and Mass Haste being strong in the open field, maybe I'll catch something, or even reach the castle by day 127. On my turn 126, Ivor breaks through the guard right towards the swamp and runs away, I don't spare mana for a View Air and see that right under my nose there's a group of blue units, lucky! Tyris reaches Ivor and with Tactics and Mass Haste engages in melee, the opponent surrenders. Thanks for the game.