Aya
Auto-translated
30.11.2013 SM spell vs Chaos League
=Stinger=(green, Castle, Valeska, Bronhild) + BISHOP(blue, Inferno, Calh, Brissa) def Ayauhteotl(red, Citadel, Crag Hack, Crag Hack) + Lim4(gray, Rampart, Kyrre, Kyrre) Teamwork 123
In the first few turns, we partially scouted our respawns - near my castle I have a Griffin Conservatory 3-4, one Dragon Fly Hive, goblin and orc hordes, plenty of resource buildings, and a couple of decent artifacts for magic stats. Lim has 2 Dragon Fly Hives, an elf horde. We also almost fully scouted the common zone (given its size, scouting it completely would have been quite difficult), and found a ton of useful stuff there: liches guarding a sword+6, a sword+6 behind the liches, liches and a sword+6... it's hard to list it all.
However, the towns were quite pleasing. On turn 111 Lim took a Castle, which we decided to build up, and on turn 112 I took two Dungeons. 2 portals, promising, but we can't portal orcs there... Well, we decided to look for a better horde. Scouted GO - centaurs, nothing special. Another pleasant thing - I picked up Boots of Speed from a skeleton)
On turn 113 I found a bird horde and another Griffin Conservatory. Not exactly conveniently located, but still not deep in the respawn. And with the portal'd birds, we could already take the Dragon Fly Hives and then the Conservatories. I took the horde on turn 114, gathered 12 birds, upgraded them, built resource buildings, and on turn 115 gave the army to Lim. In her turn, she hired angels, took both Dragon Fly Hives (4+4), the sword+6, found a Griffin Conservatory on her side, which unfortunately didn't fit into the chain at all, and returned the army to me. On turn 116 I took my Dragon Fly Hive (6), and went into the Griffin Conservatory. A level 3 Conservatory, taken fine, minus 1 Wyvern and a couple of birds, Crag Hack levels Armorer, Earth Magic, Tactics. Immediately chained the army to the second Conservatory, scouted into it. Also level 3. Those morale-boosting bastards ate an angel, but were severely punished. Anyway, no discouragement. Masha in her turn finds another 2 Conservatories on her respawn.
On turn 117 I bring her the army, anticipating around 12 angels in the end, but as always after taking big Conservatories the mockery begins - level 1, level 1, level 2. Still, it's pretty good. Crag Hack with doubled mana + scout stand before GO, on turn 121 we decide to upgrade the angels and run to the opponents without Town Portal. We're nervous about Stinger on the move, what if they've already come out and are about to crush us... the tactics are somewhat reassuring, but you never know. It turned out fine.
Turn 121 - I attack GO with 10 archangels, 13 Wyverns, 10 birds, and some fodder. Auto-combat lost a Wyvern. I'm greedy for Wyverns, replay the battle, wasting the timer, which was already tight. I start to hurry, scout into a Dragon Utopia along the way, forgetting to take artifacts. Mini Dragon Utopia, -1 Wyvern. Gave +4+4 to the Ring of the Magi and +3+3 to a necklace. I see another Dragon Utopia further in the sands, but realize I won't have time to take it. Pathfinding is just a dream for us, so the choice is either the Dragon Utopia or the opponents. We choose the latter. I approach, and am happy to see that their GO has already been cleared, and even happier to look at an already-taken Dragon Utopia nearby. But I ride a bit further and find their Dungeon, where Bronhild sits with (1-4)(5-9)(1-4) angels, and there's fodder in the castle. Her stats are glowing 4-24-6-6, Crag Hack has 18-10-8-8. Well, I think, great, gotcha. The idea that if two heroes are sitting in the castle, the second one can ransom and run away, was somehow news to me. I attack, there are 2-9-2 angels, an artifact +1 speed, but that doesn't matter anymore. I have archangels split 5-5, and from the first strike they don't kill 2 angels, one will remain with 15 health. I decide to wait, and then they subtract 8 Wyverns and the ransom. I almost fell out of my chair.
Need to urgently think what to do next. The timer is ticking, I hire scouts to scout, kill enemy scouts. In a hurry, I break the rules and give a scout a Harpy from the Dungeon; the opponents said to just dismiss that hero. Meanwhile, the timer is in bad shape, I'm nervous, hair standing on end, teeth chattering. What to do? What to do?! I make a stunningly idiotic decision to run out of the Dungeon and move 10 squares towards the Dragon Utopia.
The opponents naturally take the Dungeon back, Stinger hires Bronhild there, then a scout-Damacon, and runs them up into the treasure zone, judging by the fact that they break through 50+ Archmagi, with a decent army. And Bronhild takes the Dragon Utopia I was aiming for, and attacks me. Stats have grown nicely: 6-27-12-12, all that matters is the magic. My army: 11 archangels, an angel (from their Dungeon), 4 Wyverns, 1-1-1 birds, and 20 Grand Elves. They have an archangel and 1-1-9 angels.
Their turn first, they immediately cast Inferno, wound an archangel, kill my angel, 2 birds, 3 Wyverns, and a bunch of Grand Elves. But this means they won't be able to ransom this turn. We decide to cast Slayer and immediately fly the archangel to hit the main angel stack, because otherwise they'll shield it. I fly and hit, -3, -1 retribution to me. Their angels move, another -2 archangels for me. Second round, I expect them to ransom, so I immediately hit with archangels + Lightning Bolt again. They have 1 archangel and 1-2 angels left, we have 8 archangels, 7 Grand Elves, and a Wyvern. Then the opponents start messing around with Blind and Berserk, but their Ballista doesn't allow them to develop on that front. Good Ballista) They kill everyone except my 8 archangels and ransom.
Our next turn turned out to be fatal. We were planning to run to Damacon (and we would have caught up and killed him, he has 2 archangels and an angel), but we see that Bronhild has been hired back in the Dungeon.
And for some reason we think that if there's another hero there, when you right-click the castle info, it should somehow show that. We don't find anything like that, and think that maybe they didn't have enough timer, there were 20 seconds left during the battle, and we need to attack. I attack - ugh, damn. There really is a hero in the castle, so due to the artifact Bronhild moves first, Lightning Bolts another archangel, and of course ransoms. And of course, we don't have enough movement points left to reach Damacon. And the chances of winning say "Goodbye" to us.
Of course, this move would have been optimal if we had managed to kill Bronhild. But given that there was a second hero in the castle, it was just suicide. Moreover, even if there were serious doubts about whether there was a hero there or not, attacking was certainly not the right call. But unfortunately, we had almost no doubts. That's how badly we misjudged.
Damacon takes the town in the treasure zone, Bronhild is hired there, and in the treasure zone they find and take K.O.
The end.
Thank you for an interesting and instructive game. You played very strongly and precisely. Good luck in the future!
Thanks to the organizers for a great tournament, I really enjoyed it)
And I want to say to Lim, who was constantly worried that she would play poorly, let me down, and make mistakes - you did great, and you never let me down once.