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**The Painted Man** · 10-19-2020, 04:48 PM

Final tally on this one:

Victory By Rex Is The Necromancer Kingdom!
Game End Status Points

Place Kingdom Player Results-39 Grand Total

1 NE The Painted Man 98,709 140,398
2 UN Pine Needle 40,834 73,766
3 AM uncledarkseid 25,179 52,024
4 PI Eregnon the Black 29,922 45,978
5 NO Windstar 13,764 33,279
6 GN Acererak 9,318 23,340
7 CI Rellgar 6,117 15,523

**The Painted Man** · 10-19-2020, 07:23 PM

Ok, so the write-up... I played the NE kingdom and had a blast here. I had two main goals for the game, both based around trying to build a really fun military kingdom out of the NE. To do that, it meant a lot of recruiting early on and also trying to get 12 wizards so that I could have 4 groups constantly buzzing around. Both of these sort of fell into my lap, so I'll take it.

This game was full-diplomacy, both on and off the boards, which is my favorite as it really lets all the fun behind-the-scenes dynamics take place.

My risks early on were a military invasion, either from the evil Tyrant who lived next door in Mythgar or the Red Dragon... who while all the way over in Zanthia tends to like to head to Untamed (my home) for some cheaper recruiting. So, the first thing I did was start to reach out to my neighbors and see about securing borders, at least in the beginning. The RD actually offered me a deal to use a group to chase artifacts for him. Nothing huge ever came of this, but it did give me a chance to build some leaders early on and actually led to finding the adept twins... which was huge and put me on the doorstep of my 12 wizards very early on. While I was doing that, I had a group on auto-recruiting for goblins and then orcs to build up and was casting bounty as often as I could to build up the economy. In retrospect, I'd do orcs and then likely skip the goblins as the really aren't worth a lot other than their chaos ability. Against cities they die really quickly.

When SA and EL started arguing over which of them was going to drop first, I knew I had to jump into Nyvaria and take advantage of that power vacuum before someone else did. Sure enough, I jumped in to see SA still there in full, CI on his way down from the north, and UN coming to party as well. I blustered my way by UN but was unsuccessful in convincing SA to get out of the way. I get the feeling CI doesn't like me much, so there was not much of an attempt to talk him back out. The good news was this gave a lot of opportunity to get veteran and elite troops and test out various things against groups and PCs. Because of my bountiful bounties from early on, I was able to start getting greater castles (and then legendary a fair bit later) on the towns in the region. I had enough wizards in the region to dome most PCs under threat as well. My favorite part of the Nyvaria campaign was when I tried to run away from the 1CI and failed. I issued an organized withdrawal, a summon death and wall of flame, and tried to high-tail it out of there. The CI issued a determined attack (so ran through my wall - which in retrospect likely didn't do much) but apparently my troops were better than I thought (all four groups had forged arms and armor) as we hung around until the infantry phase before we had enough losses to retreat. However, while running away we managed to destroy the CI group. I'm not sure how that happened, but we got a lot of fun artifacts out of it, including the crystal of seeing, which got use every turn from there on out.

After Nyvaria was Mythgar as the IL looked to be close to winning. He had taken out the Tyrant, had his home region on lockdown, and was laying into the Pirate in the Sword Coast pretty good... so I backdoored him in Mythgar and took the region over two turns while starting to push into the Diamond Coast as well and my old friend the CI. The CI had the fortune of a water city that he had made his capital along with one other water town that I could not easily reach in one turn and so I couldn't get the region in one swoop as hoped. The UN showed up again and we agreed to fight over the CI stuff but let each other keep whatever we won. He got the town on the water, which effectively blocked my getting the region for quite some time as that left the city that I couldn't get to and the town, and CI had enough gas in the tank to destroy the other two towns that were on land, leaving me with a handful of villages. They were nice villages, but still only villages. For the next 10 turns or so I got to play whack-a-barb until I finally sailed an invisible army to the CI capital to take his city and the region. He never returned.

Once I realized the Diamond Coast would take time I moved on Zanthia and decided that I'd just go for broke at this point and see if I could get 7 regions. IL was no longer a threat, UN and I had our arrangement, and GN had held AM down long enough that his military couldn't keep up with mine (wow). So, Zanthia and the Amazons here we come, and looks like the Nomad is there as well and he's been cranking out wizards lately... Took the region in one turn and actually had my fourth but no desire to really push the W button just yet, so I wandered up to Triumvia to go for more. NO put up a good fight and I met his main group in the desert - exactly where I didn't want to fight him - so I threw a summon death and moved on to taking his PCs. I took his city and was holding my breath when he came to took it back... but it looks like the city was just strong enough to hold him off. After that, I knew there wasn't really a threat to the win.

At this point everyone was pretty much waiting for the end. UN and I had agreed as part of our 'truce' to pull the trigger on the win on turn 39, so that gave me until then to push for 7. I ended up at 6, and am very cross with NO over it. I was putting legendary castles everywhere I could to discourage NO/AM from trying anything silly, but just couldn't hold enough villages in Triumvia to secure 7 regions. I did get to finally fight him at the end, though, which was fun. And got to fight AM a couple of times. Somewhere in there I went into Krynn but GN had blown up enough that I only needed two towns and the city to get the region.

Anyways, fun game... reinforced that NE are my favorite military in the game, and that they can do just about anything. Only SA really held their own against me because DuPont kept resisting my death spells. Fortunately UN was also angry with him.

Good game, all!

**Ry Vor** · 10-20-2020, 12:04 AM

I enjoy The Painted Man as much as any post. Love his sense of humor.

But players you cannot just avoid him. You can't let him go as he will. You have to do your part. I'll just leave it at that before I go out of bounds. Be not afraid. The Gray Mouser I believe took out the Red Dragon of Painted (in 2020 do we still have to discus gender?) Early with the Amazons. It can be done.. Do not cower.

Go Cowboys.

**uncledarkseid** · 10-20-2020, 12:10 AM

(10-20-2020, 12:04 AM)Ry Vor Wrote: I enjoy The Painted Man as much as any post. Love his sense of humor.

But players you cannot just avoid him. You can't let him go as he will. You have to do your part. I'll just leave it at that before I go out of bounds. Be not afraid. The Gray Mouser I believe took out the Red Dragon of Painted (in 2020 do we still have to discus gender?) Early with the Amazons. It can be done.. Do not cower.

Go Cowboys.

I am winning a game he is not playing in! That is my new strategy.

**Pine Needle** · 10-20-2020, 12:45 AM

UN-All
Pretty epic. Loved the UN. Darkover.
AM was the only one who bought my services, so I tended to support her. At a certain point, I was like- ummm... pay me? but AM was awesome crushing the RD before turn 10.
SA and EL had some tiff, so I snapped Stormgate from the SA with a food deal from the NE to build a legendary castle and lock it up.
At this point, my recons showed the GN had a massive sea town in Crown, and AM suggested we take him out.
GN had a level 7 and some other wizards close to that, so the plan was I take out the wizards and AM take the massive sea town. I lost a couple of level 14s but smashed his wizards, and AM took the massive town.
Worked like a charm, and my plan was to make the AM a cat's paw, that the GN would go after while I cleaned up.
Not so fast--- GN went after me. Oh well. GN fought on to the end- really stopped me from a victory. Nice job, Ace.
So I aimed at the SA and took Pellinor fairly easily.
So now I needed a fourth, and so did NE. He suggested a truce, and I agreed. Mistake, as the truce had no expiration.
I wanted to renege when he blocked me in Diamond against the CI, then it was pretty much all over, so I agreed to declare with him on 39.
I had too many truces, and didn't want to go after the NO or the AM, and built population in Crown with many spells, taking four regions on 38. Too soon. PI stole Pellinor from me on 39, and I didn't get a victory. Didn't deserve it, really- All hail Painted Man.
PS- UN- I usually had 2 max agents. You need more. They do die from time to time. Train, train, and train some more.
PSS Max agent cost, with a thieves guild, you pay less than everyone else. its worth it.
PSSS I was the lord of the rings- all three. Awesone.
Nice job Painted.

**Ry Vor** · 10-20-2020, 11:17 AM

Thanks Pine Needle, well done.

Ring of Power, Ring of Spells, Ring of Invisibility.