Hello my friends and welcome to the next season of Heroes of Might and Magic 3. This time we are venturing into the Horn of the Abyss, which is a modification to the original game. A very, very sophisticated modification, which changes a few of the rules, changes a little bit of the dynamic of the ways that the towns and creatures work, introduces some new towns and some new heroes, and also introduces some new objects and other ways to interact with the map. So I'm hoping this will be an enjoyable video for people who know the Horn of the Abyss really, really well, and also might serve as a bit of a bridge over for people who might know the game, but aren't familiar with Horn of the Abyss, who are interested in giving it a try. So we're going to give that a go. Now the way I like to play these single player campaigns is on random map generation. There's a new game in a single scenario. And right off the bat we can see there's this new special artwork you get in the background as you're creating your random map that wasn't there before in the vanilla version. And what I love about what the developers have done is they've been just so respectful to the original game. The artwork is on par, it's up to scratch, the new sprites in the game that we'll see as we go fit nicely. Everything clicks together as though it was made by the original developers. And I've been extremely impressed as I've been playing through the Horn of the Abyss more generally. My specific mission for this playthrough is that I want to play on an extra large map. And something the vanilla game really struggles to do is create extra large maps at the XL setting that have genuine islands. So when I click islands it's often the case that I just get kind of continents with a narrow channel of water between them. Now in terms of our choices I'm not going completely random random. I ran a poll, incredibly my channel is now big enough to support a poll. I ran a question asking which town type we should play next. I got 100 people replying which I was just delighted to hear back from you guys. And it was an absolute dead heat between Necropolis and Tower. Now I'm going to be, so I'm giving myself permission to choose, I'm going to choose Necropolis. The reason is that the Horn of the Abyss seriously, well, refines shall we say the way that Necropolis fights and the way that it builds. So blah blah blah, we're going to be Necropolis. I'm going to let the computer randomize my hero and starting bonus. And we'll have a look and see how this template generation behaves. I'm hoping we'll get a dynamic map with quite a lot of water, plenty of underground, lots to go and see and do, and seven enemies to hopefully bludgeon under our heel. Which I couldn't decide which way I wanted to say that, but seven enemies that we hope to destroy over the course of the campaign. There's no prisoners, there's no alliances, there's no mercy in Heroes of Modern Magic 3. And here we are. Interestingly we have spawned above ground, which it's always kind of 50-50 with Necropolis, whether you're going to end up above ground or below ground. And our starting hero is Sceptiana, so we can go in here and have a look and see what she's about. Let's have a look, a level 1 necromancer. She suffers from what many call wasted magic. She seems to draw more life energy from her victims than she transfers into her minions. Some claim that she keeps the residual energy for herself, which may explain why she does not appear to age. Fascinating. So even though she looks like a young lady, perhaps in her early 30s, she's several hundred years old and don't get too close. Now her speciality is death ripple. And it means when she casts death ripple it does a bit more damage, and she'll have death ripple in her spellbook here. For 10 spell points we can do this thing. Sends a wave of death across the battlefield, oh yeah. Sounds amazing, but 20 points of damage is pretty low. And it's often going to be the case that I'd rather be throwing a magic arrow for 5 mana than death rippling for 10. But having said that, it can be a handy spell to have in the early game. And the early game is where we are going to have the most challenge on the settings we have, which I'll talk about again, I'm meant to talk about in the creation. She's also wearing the collar of conjuring, which increases the duration of spells by one. That doesn't help us with death ripple, that doesn't interact, but it will eventually once we learn slow and shield and stones and things like that. She has an okay starting army, nothing to be too excited about. And immediately we can see in the surrounding area, there are some gold piles, lots of sprites are a bit scary, but they'll probably die to death ripple. And it might be nice to pick these resources up. Let's have a look inside Dark Eternal quickly and see what we're working with. So this is the Necro, gorgeous graphics, all of which is standard stuff from the original game, I believe. I don't think any of these sprites or, I'll call them sprites, things that pop up on the screen have been edited. Still a lot of space for us to build our town, so it's looking okay at the moment, but it's going to look a lot more scary once we get our amazing dwellings up and other buildings. Now, I meant to explain in creation, I like to start on zero resources. So I think what we want to do is either make a decision about going for this pile here, with death ripple, or having a bit more of a look around first. So I'm going to walk here to start with, and there's a windmill there too. Okay. Ah, so lots of nymphs. Now for those of you who aren't familiar with Horn of the Abyss, there's a 10th town. 10th? An extra town anyway. It's 10th, right? Yeah. In addition to the starting nine towns from the original game called the Cove, and the level one creature of the Cove is the nymph. And my perception of nymphs, they teleport around the battlefield. They're very, very much like sprites, except not as good. They hit quite hard when they attack you, they have good movement, but they die very, very easily. So at some point we're going to want to kill them and get in a boat. There's a scholar there, but I really want the gold. That's what I'm really here for, that's what I'm about. And we're on the coast. So that's a promising sign that we may have been successful in generating a lot of water. I'm going to take that fight. I feel like it's something I can do even with these walking dead, which I don't love. The only reason I think we can do it is death ripple. Now this is, wow, okay. So again, for those not familiar, I won't say that every time and I won't over explain everything every time because I know how frustrating that'll be for the people who know Horn of the Abyss, but you get a combat preview screen where you can just accept the auto resolve right off the bat instead of going into the combat and then clicking auto resolve or whatever the old way worked. And if you don't want to apply that battle result, you click the cancel button and you fight the fight. I'll normally be clicking the cancel button unless it's an absolute crushing thing where I've got a huge late game army and it's five gremlins, stuff like that. I'll just be auto resolving those. Generally I'll be going in to have a look around. So sadly for the ladies here, I think they've spread themselves in the perfect configuration. Oh, this is just, this pains me. This pains me, but I have to do it. Oh, man, that's something else. That's something else right there. So that's death ripple folks. And yeah, to rub salt into the wound, not only are they all dead, but one of them come back. So let's talk about this, right? In the original game, that would be more like two, maybe three. The idea with the necromancy is that it has been halved in efficacy. So basic necromancy, Ception is bringing back 5% of the stuff she kills. It used to be 10. Advanced expert, all of the increments, the necromancy amplifier, pretty much everything across the board, all the artifacts give you half as many skeletons as you would have got before. So it's a proper haircut. It's a real, you know, it's a real change.  I can see wood down here and it might be that we're supposed to gallop around down here to get that as quickly as we can. My first investment is always either a second hero or town hall, usually town hall. I used to play by the rule of always town hall, but depending on how much resources are lying around at the beginning, I think this is a town hall game by the looks to me. So we're just trying to absolutely get the most out of our moves. Just want to adjust my levels here, make sure that I can hear what's going on. Can't get to any of this. It's guarded by a pack of genies and they're too strong for us. Can ride past though. I don't need the gems just yet. Someone else could get them at some point. Someone else on my team, I mean. Okay, see his hut, new graphic from Horn of the Abyss. Very nice, fits in very nicely to the surrounding. Oh wow, it's a very small island indeed. Although we don't know what's up here, it might be connected to something else. And we've got lots of nymphs guarding the underground. You probably can beat them, but I can see stone up here and I'm minded to try to go get that. That spell could be quite good for us. Given that I only know death ripple. Alright, there's probably a mistake to waste this. Well, I couldn't have asked for better. Magic arrow, brilliant. Yeah, that's a good day too. This is a new item as well. It's the Colosseum of the Magi. Everyone from the vanilla game, we all familiar with the Colosseum, where you get plus 2 attack or plus 2 defense. Colosseum of the Magi does the exact same thing except you're choosing spell power or knowledge. Very, very cool. And you see what I mean about it just slots in there in terms of once you're used to it and used to the graphic, you become just familiar with it and accepting. So it would have been great to pick up a bit more money in those first couple of days and I really wanted to get to 2500 today. It doesn't look like we're going to quite manage it. There's stables there, but I need to beat lots of fire elementals to get there. There's no way through. So it will be one more day, sadly. Ah, misclick. Okay, wasted a move there. Okay, we can see more oceanids up here and a crypt. So the oceanid is the nymph except it's upgraded. Yeah, so they're the nymphs, they're the basic level 1 cove unit. Oceanid is the upgraded. So the next thing she's going to do is try to break through the underground but don't feel strong enough. Well, she could either do that or come around to do the wood. Let's decide tomorrow. If we're building the town hall, no, we don't have anyone else to go and do that job. So there's the town hall and an extra level added to the top of the village hall and we're now gazing with this giant skull down out over the valley. Things are starting to get truly ominous. Cepchen is starting to feel her power waxing. Someone will come and crack through all of this. I'm in too much of a hurry.  I don't like running around with them. And I will spend this money, actually. Okay, I don't need the skull yet. I really just need to get the wood and stuff working. Pop in here. Lovely, there's some gold. Crystal, oh. Six crystal is a huge pickup for reasons we'll talk about right now. So the best thing you can do here, the best thing I love to try to do with Necropolis is to get the vampire dwelling up and then get the upgraded vampire lords dwelling. So let's have a quick look in here, talk about what that is. So we have the estate which gets us access to vampires. You really, really want your estate built in the first week to start collecting them and then after it's built you want to upgrade to the upgraded estate. And that allows you to start stockpiling vampire lords which are probably, some people would say the best unit in the game. The best unit in the Necropolis, absolutely in my opinion. Now having said that, do we want to do that right now today or do we want to invest in other stuff? We have a wizard she knows, two very good spells already though. We can consider Transformer, the thing about Transformer is it doesn't really do anything early unless you want to throw your walking dead in the Transformer. But it does unlock the graves which give you extra skeletons, but that's too grand. So just looking at the, probably we can look at the fights to try and figure out we can't beat lots of fire elementals without taking quite a lot of losses.  They won't like being magic arrow though to be fair. I don't think we need a heck of a lot more to beat these, lots of nymphs which I feel like is where we're headed. And we could also do that fight on the way. So I think I'm minded to gamble, I'm minded to say Sceptiana is, well, before we decide let's have a look at who our second hero is because tomorrow I could get them. Chana is a level one death knight. Find the grail, it's more powerful than you can imagine. Oh, I'll try. Yeah, so she's the tactics girl. And her army's great. Her army's very good. But her specialty's whites. Yeah, but I don't care because the tactics is good. The tactics is very good. Well, I say her army's great. I mean, it's alright. Yeah, 25, 6 and 5. And how many whites does Sceptiana have? 5. So that's 16 whites. Which that's pretty good to decide what I'm going to do here. So I think my decision is I'm going to resist the urge to hire Chana and I'm going to buy the estate and try to get ready for a big wave of recruitment. The reason for that is that we have got good fundamentals. We've got lots of wood and ore, which has come off really well. We've been able to flag those two mines relatively easily. So we can build this. There it is. There's the estate. Look at it. Fantastic. There's already four vampires waiting for us. By the time we've bought them and next week's ones and the skeletons and decided what we're doing with the walking dead, that's going to be a pretty expensive few days. And we don't want two stringly heroes, especially in a small area where I mean there's one way forward which is this. I mean we could jump in a boat but that's a thousand bucks and ten wood. Not quite ready. So I think it's better to pile into creatures for Sceptiana to pair with Death Rebel, to pair with Magic Arrow, get through here, get all this done, get into the underground, have a look around. I think that's the way to go. You really could play it any which way though. So at this juncture of the game if you'd hired Charna there and linked up the armies and done it that way, killed this, put Charna in a boat. Okay, that's a way forward as well. I'm more just trying to think about the balance of probability like when we get underneath underground here what happens if we find a really nasty creature stack that we are going to struggle to get past wouldn't it be nice to have all the vampires? You know, and plenty of money up our sleeve to buy the stuff that's in the Dark Eternal. What a cool name, Dark Eternal. Dark Eternal. Okay, we've been there this week. Let's come galloping on back up again. And day six, I don't know what I'm doing with my wooden ore. I could possibly do this or this. I've got tons of wood so that's good. And these are 360 bucks each. On day one I'm going to have three grand. Four of these, so eight of them is going to cost two and a half k. So we really aren't going to have enough money to build anything I don't think. Unless this scholar gives me ten grand, which he might. Let's find out. You come up on an obelisk made from some type of stone you've never seen before, staring at it intently. The surface suddenly changes to an inscription. Quickly you copy down the piece and we have a look at the grail map.  When you look at an obelisk in the Horn of the Abyss it reveals two or three pieces. I thought it was three, but it looks like it's two pieces of the grail map. To make up for that there are fewer obelisks out there on the map in the first place. And this is a change that I support because early in the game in the vanilla game I didn't want to bother with obelisks because it's so far away from being a priority. For me, figuring out where in the world the thing is. I'm going to go to the scholar. You had another cool feature. You don't have to be forcibly taught whatever the skill is. You can just decline if you don't like it. I think water magic on this map probably is okay to take. Especially as it's only a third skill. There's also a scholar which isn't great but isn't too bad as long as we get a decent roster going of heroes that are going to care. Okay, so we are riding back past the base and we kind of have a choice. We can either keep our momentum going or we can stay the night for an extra thousand bucks. Pick up an extra thousand bucks worth of troops. I think we do want to stay the night because we'll want to buy as many vampires as possible. Yeah, let's do that. Medusa Queens. Hopefully any of our dungeon rivals haven't gotten to Medusa Queens just yet. More vampires is good. And then any other money you've got just grab a couple of skellies. Let's leave these walking dead piling up here at home. That's okay. Alright. I want to learn how to be a better mage. Let's go do that. Try not to. So all by the power. I always say yes because you need the experience. And normally here I would auto-click but 39 imps. Well, actually I'm going to do this. I'm out of practice with vampires and skellies. Even this idea of what we've got here with the stacking is something that I haven't done for a while. It's really important when you're trying to build up a big pile of skeletons with necromancy that you have screening forces. These throwaway skeletons that are kind of there to either soak up retaliations or soak up hits. Now what can you do? You can get to there. So you just come back here for me. And so we have the sacrificial lamb of a guy whose job it is to die. I think that's just, yeah. So let's have a quick look at this. What did we do? 78 damage. That's 10 damage apiece. As you can see there, 5 to 8 is the standard damage. A key thing with these vampires is that you can't fight back. There's no enemy retaliation. And that's just lights out a lot of the time. Okay, we have movement 5. I'm in the wrong place though.  Let's have a look at how the white kills 4 to 8. You crack back. I don't think 5 whites particularly want to do that, do they? So interestingly, another thing just to note, everyone's got plus one moves. That's because we're on dirt. Horn of the Abyss does change the way the native terrain rules work. I think. So being on dirt is obviously great for us at the moment, but when you're in the underground, the underground doesn't count as dirt anymore. There's something going on there. Again, the Horn of the Abyss pros will know what I'm talking about. So we go into the Colosseum. A big show is taking place, and you enter the arena and hold the audience in awe with your magical prowess. Insatiable hunger for knowledge is what makes a true mage. So you gladly accept the first prize, which is one of the newest, magical handbooks, which is just so nice. What's going to be best for us? Is it better to go for beefed up spell power to make death ripple meaner, or is it better to be able to cast it more often? The answer lies in whether there is any wishing wells nearby, I think, which we don't know. We haven't seen one. Yeah, so I think I'm going to go for spell power. Um... Normally I would take knowledge, but I've just got a funny feeling that once we go downstairs, that's going to matter. Um... Let's pick this up. And let's just do this. Some of these jobs that don't have to be done straight away. I've spent my life buying, selling and collecting artifacts, but lately I've been spending so much money acquiring new pieces I can hardly turn a profit. I think I might be able to start mass producing artifacts, but I've got to have one first to copy. Haven't you spent your life buying and selling them?  Your story doesn't make much sense, mate. If you could bring me the pendant of dispassion, I'll reward your efforts, okay? But you don't say how much you'll reward me. Right, lots of nymphs are going down. Okay, this is going to be... This is going to be over quickly. I'm not quite sure the best way to configure all these. Kind of feel like the Whites are something I want to protect. I don't really want to expose them to... Right, and, uh, so, this is a fight where you've got the upgraded version as well. So you've got nymphs and the ocean upgrade, and you can see the stats there. Health forward, just like a gremlin, but attack 5 skill... attack skill 5, quite potent attack skill 6 here. Damage 1 to 3, similar to a sprite. And you'll see when they start moving that they teleport around like that, just like a devil. Um... Yeah, how far can you go? You can go to there, 1, 2, 3, 4, go to there. It's not going to be pretty. Um... Yeah, it's not going to be pretty, and I think it might be a good opportunity to death ripple again, just because of the way they're all laid out. And the power level of this spell has gone up to 30, thanks to the Colosseum. Yeah, that's going to take a big dent out of all of them. My alternative is to take the hit. Probably going to lose to this, to this stack, I'm probably going to lose what? We have to assume that one of the three of them are going to make contact with our good stack, our 25 stack. That's 50 points of damage for a magic arrow. That just kills them dead. I'm going to save my spell points and do that. I get a magic, I get a water magic bonus for being a water mage, that's nice. Come on boys, stay alive. I can't quite get there. So the teleporting is going to matter here. I don't think you can kill a vampire, but I might be wrong about that. Oceanid goes first, doesn't kill. See, isn't that incredible? That gives you a insight into the difference. One on one, the skeleton kills it. Attack skill 5, I've got defense skill 9. I don't think you can kill a vampire on your first turn there. It's not going to happen, no. And only one skeleton comes back, but that's better than none. Just keep my house in order here. We still have some good death ripple mana and we're up against lots of hobgoblins and we have some gold for our efforts if we manage to pull that off. So let's try this. I don't hate death ripple here. What is a magic arrow cost now? It's only 4. They have 55 HP. When they attack, they're going to not kill a vampire. So yeah, let's just set this up for a nice I think I might need to move these guys to the middle. They're not quite in the right spot. See, he can't get there. Well, maybe it doesn't matter. It mattered before with the teleporting. It's not going to matter now. It matters for anyone who's flying though, right? So see this idea. The idea is that well, they don't get two hits on our big stacks.  And that's just suicidal. So I did take 12. Yeah, see and it's possible that I will over, I'll be over scared of the fights because I will have forgotten of our soldiers. And that's a recipe for death by the way. Is if you miscalculate. I just want to go get that money. Yes, look at all this thatched hut. I can't remember what that does. Construction options back home. Tons of wood up our sleeve. So this is a very low regret thing to do marketplace. Got to try and keep that momentum going. Really want this money. I think you get peasants from that if I'm not mistaken. Come off here. Get this. I've got to get all this. Yep. Okay. That's great. Yep. Sulfur. This is great that we've gotten broken in down here. So now that we've broken in down here and there are two different directions to go, we've got the boat, the idea of sending someone out. I think we need to talk second hero who can go pop down here, grab the windmill, come back, come down and help me. We can then join our forces, kill these and or jump in a boat. So let's see who we've got back at base. Nagash. I remember this fellow. It is said that all the vulnerability can humble the mighty black dragon. Let's think about that. Is that turns off their magic resistance? I don't know. Nagash has plus 350 gold per turn. So he's got a baked in its effect. In a game like this, that's magnificent where we've got practically no income. He's literally going to add an extra 35% to our income every day just by hiring him. He'll pay for himself in the first eight days. Sign me up. I mean, and look at his army as well. Nagash, where have you been? I wish I'd seen that on day one. I would have hired you then. Mate, welcome. You look terrifying. Nagash was a powerful wizard before sacrificing himself to an eternal life as a lich. He owns much land though now most of it lies within the desolate borders of danger. So he gets his 350 gold by taxing the peasants and the poor desperate people who live trying to scratch a existence out of the barren soil of danger and he is most welcome. He is most welcome indeed. What am I going to do with you, man? I've got 1,300 additional bucks on my sleeve. This army is solid. I'm thinking you could pop down here, come back up here and by the time you come back I'll have enough money to still leave the walking dead at home? He's got to come here obviously as well. I kind of want the two heroes in range of each other so we can make a big blob of skellies. We can make like 50, 55 skellies like that which would be really nice. Is it better to just buy these skellies and go hunting now and just let this go? Another cool thing in Horn of the Abyss is you can hold down the alt key and it'll tell you so he can go there and pretty much come back and come back to about there today or he can just gallop down, do this around here. So it's about a day out and he's scheduled to get whatever's in the windmill. I'm almost certainly not getting it if I don't do this so I'm gonna I'm not sure on an extra large map if I should just be absolutely no prisoners fanging it but like on a large map I would always just hit this windmill and not worry about it. Six soul for I mean that's impactful that matters. Don't tell me that doesn't matter. I guessed right so there you go. The sprite has changed so this looks like a vampire lord his little orange coat sitting on horseback there that's different to the necromancer sprite that appears in the vanilla game but it fits like it's it just looks perfect it just looks perfectly exactly right so I'm not building anything because I'm gonna use the money to buy skeletons and if I want maybe I could upgrade one of them let's just see so far so good but we don't know how well our opponents are doing we know they're doing generally better than we are. Let's do Nagash first pop back in here so we have to make a decision what sort of army does Nagash need when he goes and does the things we've got planned he's gonna be exploring this general area so the hovel isn't that way you get peasants for him so it comes out of a thatched hut I can't remember he comes down here lots of boars in exchange for the torso torso is level 5 creatures I think it's gonna be really really good but we've got time we don't have any hurry to get that there's a wishing well I didn't see before so Sceptiana can go nuts with casting whatever she wants so I'm glad we pick spell power and that's gonna probably make me pick spell power with Nagash as well guessing what's down here I don't think he's going to need well what does he know what spells does he know let's have a look so he basically knows nothing protection from air protection spells have been buffed right so basic protection gives you 50% and expert gives you 75% and I think it's a lot better now than in the vanilla game which these protection from X spells are pretty much useless so here's the problem Nagash doesn't know any spells and that's a problem I could build a mage guild right Sceptiana is a scholar so as soon as she talks to Nagash she's gonna learn what's in the mage guild without having to go home so now I'm starting to think that the mage guild is actually our best investment plus it's a stepping stone a mandatory stepping stone to city hall so let's build it up it goes up on the gloves there above the dark eternal and every necromancer in death knight will walk through its vaunted halls at some point and these are great spells summon boat is awesome it's like one of the best things we've got to hope for curse is great magic arrow wonderful and stone skin okay bloodlust not bad all of them are castable on undead creatures which is nice if you're watching the see how it's showing you stuff and then insufficient resources for research all of the abyss adds this new feature where if you don't like this spell you can click on it and you can begin researching a replacement so we're not gonna have anywhere near enough money to put to that at the moment but I might come back and have an experiment with it at some point just thought it was worth pointing out for anyone not familiar with that alright I got 650 bucks left give me whatever skellies you can we're gonna leave the walking dead languishing we're gonna go and learn how to be a better spellcaster and I'm gonna take power for the same reason I said before the fact that there's a well there it's just in that initial part of the game gonna make quite the difference I think septiana I can't think of a reason I can see gold here and I just really want to get these scouts off come across a camp of mercenaries practicing their combat tactics they welcome you because you appear to be a reasonable human being and it's only when they realize the true horror of the shambling mass of death walking behind you the mistake they've made nonetheless they're too terrified to do anything other than train you in the ways of melee combat and septiana walks away with an additional plus one to attack which is great yes I'm very eager to hit this now the pillar of fire the curiosity commands that I get that well someone boat I was gonna learn that anyway that's cool this gold is amazing as well okay you discover a tall gaslit tower it produces enough light to penetrate the subterranean darkness okay um right we have a huge area under the ground here we've got all this area this uh this though is a dead end which means septiana can't go through here she can kill these and try to kill the nagers but that's probably not advisable she can come down here and kill some gremlins so even yeah so there will be some master gremlins in there but they will hate death ripple if they're all spread out and if it's one big pile of master gremlins she can probably hit them pretty hard with magic arrow hmm she can kill like 12 of them with magic arrow the big risk is that the master gremlins shoot the vampires it's getting a bit ahead of ourselves let's finish scouting here we've got this thatched hut that I can't remember what it gives but I don't think it gives anything amazing a warehouse of all now this is new to all of the abyss you get these warehouses um and what that does is um each week gives you quite a large amount of that resource specifically uh as opposed to the windmill up here which you've got to hit every week um oh helm of chaos um as well in order to get the pay off um I've got stuff here these are new steel golems just a different type of golem why not okay notice how it's all just it looks like it fits these are semen which are the level 2 unit of the cove um one thing I noticed with the semen and the corsair and pirate out on the adventure map is that the sprite is a little bit bigger than just a little bit bigger he looks like kind of a giant you know he looks a little bit too big compared to the other sprites but having said that not all sprites are the same scale anyway it's it's a it's a symbol that represents what's there but anyway if I could change anything I would shrink him by about 80% um sorry I'd take 20% off his size if I could I just think this this kill here is too lucrative and there's gold as well so let's just come down and do this job I'm gonna win that fight come back drink from the well so I can spend all my points doing it this is a cool thing wine yard I've got no idea what that does I don't mind telling you we'll find out together this is looks like it's blocked off this is where this ends and then we got to beat the rogues to get past here so it's a kind of a low level area quite a lot to get done and probably how hard is that to get past lots of hobbies not too bad right to crack into here so we are going to want maybe a third hero I think Nagash is going to get the best bang for his buck down here uh that's that's I suppose assuming that we don't staple the two armies together we don't have to staple the two armies together right I mean because these are very very straightforward um fights let's just see anyway okay well we were looking right at it just as it happened that is terrible news we'll already have an interloper demer demer demer demer give me emphysema so he's conflict and dungeon so it's not clear whether demer is uh yeah whether they're dungeon or conflict I don't suppose it matters so he's kind of got a starting army from one of each yeah oh that's a problem that is a problem I really wanted this to be Nagash's playground for the two of them to just go rollicking around our territory getting all the good stuff and now we have to deal with this with this guy having said I think we can kill them right we can beat them what have I got 39 and 4 Sceptiana has so we've got a stack of about 65 odd Skelly's 12 vampires I mean it's not a crushing victory but if we staple our two armies together we might be able to beat them question is is it better to do that or so he's gone up here he's going to see the spells scroll he's going to want to get this stuff he's going to get stuck in here we know what's here if he comes back down this way then we can go for the joining the armies together thing I don't know especially since we don't have we're still struggling economically right I feel like if if he comes this way then we can deal with them while he's in here we can just go about our business I could just quickly grab this with Nagash now he doesn't need to go there but we know that we don't have enough money to upgrade the zombies walking dead I mean and buy a bunch of them like $1,900 just isn't enough to do that so so he couldn't travel much further today anyway I just don't want to risk that he's scouted this area and he knows that I'm here or as if I hang back here he can't see me there's no way he knows I'm here oh okay this actually opens up that's interesting it's very interesting I won't risk standing there even though I think that square is probably fine I'll risk stand there maybe no I'll just stay where I am and I'm gonna do this it's not the way I would normally like to play it but ooh goody although might be more important okay a horde of gremlins we've got the mana and there's a well here so come on down do the job do what you were born to do 58 normal gremlins okay so this should be fine that's in one big stack don't love that but I just don't need to hedge can just throw my mana at them yeah I'm not doing any maneuvering or anything could get a morale flash would be really bad for us just gonna play it safe people I know this is cheesy no morale no morale do it man how many did you kill? oodles? oodles you say? oh vampires vampires feel so good practicing the dark arts of necromancy back so that was one out of 58 so you can see the difference give me that mana right I'm still gonna just work towards city hall so blacksmith something we need let's do that instead and this is kinda cool you get the blacksmith up it's all pink you know and it punches the colour into the pallet which is very very nice okay so we're happy with that we're still not investing in any walking dead and we have to just see what Dima wants to do here let's have a look what are you about Dima? yeah that's what I thought you're gonna go into the woods like a lost you're like Hansel little do you know that I've got plans for you I'd love to have come up here and all this instead of having to kill Dima but we'll deal with Dima is it too late for that? I guess I can decide after right I don't wanna do this gig so she's just coming to here regardless so that's not a hard decision Nagash can't fight Dima on his own anyway so the reason that's bad is if he gallops all the way up to here and comes to the gate but I can always deal with that right so that's how I'm gonna decide what to do I wanna find out what a thatch hut does halflings maybe oh they're free welcome welcome on board you little dudes a pack of mighty gorgons and lots of stone golem so I don't need to waste any more moves it's nice to know that at least that's not another how do I get to that why are there all these neutral dwellings like there's bores over here as well a lot of neutrals I wonder what the wineyard does so the wineyard I'm almost certain is a horn of the abyss that's a good decision now we don't quite have city hall level deniro but if we think sulfur is in our future I think that's an okay trade right and then okay terrible price for the five sulfur but we get to that city hall that crucial stepping stone we go from one grand income a day to two grand a day that's right two are you giving me chills oh no who is this demer alright that's fine we knew you were going to do that that's okay many slow isn't it demer who is this merist a couple of weeks worth of fortress troops good solid morale I think she's a spellcaster yes alright these both have to die if we have any hope of winning this game frankly with that in mind could septiana come up here and get some knowledge come running back down to here fill up at the well she could even come back down here as well to prepare if thingy comes crashing through here I am you know I'm ready for you we've got another 15 halflings coming too from there tomorrow demer can't get to us if we're clever about this we could use septiana to kill her and uh nagash to kill demer nagash hasn't been here so we could just let's invest in our heroes maybe do this they spell power here as well what if she went boom boom boom that's what I'm supposed to do isn't it this is my only chance to go to this one I think I said that we're near as many moves as I thought okay that's annoying I really don't want to get tagged no no mares can just come down here and kill us we're completely out of position with no spell points okay that's it's a bridge too far I think the gremlins nagash do the same thing man tingle of magic air fill as the school of the mystical arts and the acolyte office to sign you on for a thousand bucks incredibly this is a very tolerant acolyte right someone who doesn't bork at a walking lord of death you know with pits for eyes strolling into his establishment into his university not a problem we don't judge here even though you're two billion you know two thousand years old and you're responsible for the death of scores upon scores of tens of thousands of innocent innocent people I'll happily teach you for a thousand gold what I know not the worst than having your lunch taken off you which is what I feel what's going on could I come do this job quickly for both of us get it done my fear is he'll land there and get killed by mares I'd rather mares came down here took movement points to kill that maybe landed here and then I just boom could also send him there but I'm going to get the halflings right just in case something goes wrong right tan, mares, you're up okay well they've both run away from me c-dog so a c-dog is a uh cove level three guy right somehow they knew that we were onto them so setchener he demon has gone even further down the rabbit hole so I'm even less worried about him now I say we meet up here at the star axis give me everything you've got and I'm going to go and try and kill mares while you do this job here for us sound good nagash? sounds good c-dog so c-dog is kind of our lead hero but I think the logistics of this situation call for her to get with the program think more about how you can help the team so there she goes teaching him everything she knows both of you know magic arrow now gash mares will take that let's put that somewhere take it all man take everything I've got um give me back a few skellies I think this is alright something like this seems okay these 30 halflings are like bricking it you know just what am I doing here how did I grew up in this quiet thatched heart in the safety of the underground next to a giant mushroom now I've been enslaved by the lord of the dead to serve for him until I die and even after I die he's going to raise me back as a skeleton I might say you know what boys let's call it a day here I'm actually going to say that's okay you found several of the best astrologers gathered at the star axis rather than recoiling in terror at the very sight of you they're happy to have some company and they teach you how to use some moon stars to enhance your spell casting ability which that's just excellent because now I'm spell power 5 that's going to help I should have used septiana to get that that was a mistake can you find out what that does for us please I don't have time I think I want to fight marist with this army I think well do I he's got basilisks and wyverns it might be better to hang around in the area I'm just going to go back to base and we could get vampires and stuff down here beef the army up a bit I could come here with my intelligence I could visit this first okay again a bunch of people are happy to see you and they teach you cure I don't know if you can cure undead in terms of restoring the HP I don't know if you get HP back when you cure something that's undead yeah I'm okay with this do I want to invest in this 10 marist is long gone I have not heard from demer so there must be a way through down here okay did you visit this no you didn't go ahead and do this let's get your knowledge up now I feel like I need to get back to base why you ask well there's some stuff I want to buy here there's not that much really how much do these cost not very much I could get a pretty big pile of zombies together at this time there's sort of a point at which you decide fair enough I can buy the stupid soldiers that are you know these guys in zombie form septia can stay in this area with most of the important parts of the army she can oh he could do that too actually while he's here he could go boom boom boom and then back up this way he's been there septia stays here with the army and just protects the gate against tan and demer if demer comes back along this way okay I can fight but I could hire a second hero bring some troops down to her third hero so I think that's what I'm going to do so while the cat's away I want septiana to learn what she can at the star axis and then just stay away from that border this guy's teaching cure which she's going to learn anyway when she talks to negash so we take the knowledge maybe come here and these mercenaries man are they open minded man are they open minded not a problem I don't find your visage to be horrifying so I'll destroy I think we can go a day without building anything and be happy citadel's quite a big investment this would be amazing if we could get this upgrade done have to get the vampires back home to upgrade them could try to go for mage guild level 2 but the 4 crystal really stinks we really want to save the crystal for that job there and that requires an amplifier I might just build the amplifier cool graphic of this thing right across the land immediately septiana and negash feel a jolt of energy as the amplifier is switched on okay let this necromancy roll forth okay merest what are you doing okay he's back dima doing all the funnest things oh no as he moved up to so that connects through I didn't realise he's just getting all our stuff that's just so bad that's just terrible oh dear so that changes my plans completely um she just needs to go and kick his butt okay oh well negash could do it actually and she could stick to plan A which was to stick around here so I was going to give the army to septiana but I guess I'll take the army with me I might even be too late as it is this or 10 or that was new music as well I think very very nice septiana should we go together and give you the army you could run up here do this job come back to me let's stick together plus one knowledge I would say no to back home citadel seems right I'm going to go a little bit all in here if merest runs around and takes my town off me while I'm up here doing this stuff then games over I think she's busy this is just who's going to get to that pile first I think is the question he goes boom comes up here gets to here I go boom boom boom boom I learn back about here might get this fight done today by the time we've finished all that together he then has his turn he gets the gold I think so my alternative is smash through right now and lay a trap for him he hasn't he hasn't seen this so his radius is about here so I could get this gold and just stand here waiting for him so if she does this job she will use almost all her moves and she'll by the time she's done that she's going to be stuck there just doesn't work so come through here okay 48 skeletons is not a gimmie so I think I want to move the forces south I might need to rethink the way all this is laid out these screening forces now that the halflings are here everybody waits just coming back here man do nothing that good's a halfling not bad little dude not bad at all why would I why don't I just wait lovely whoever said halflings were garbage to be fair I don't think I ever did say that I enjoy killing them but I kind of also statistically enjoy enslaving them to serve in my undead shambling horde four come back now you are getting amplified do you feel that amplification do you feel that wave of undeath sweeping across the land I could come to here and just utterly slap the gauntlet down having said that I think he's scouting he came where did he come to here he came to here so he will have scouted to about there previous escapades I don't think have shown him any of the area I'm about to tread so I could go and bogart the gold just to make sure it doesn't come on I think the gold is what I care about right give it to me give it to me come on a thousand bucks don't tell me that wasn't worth making a big fuss about now let's see stand here man I think we might just about be able to tag him it's still not going to be a doddle right it's not going to be the easiest fight in the world could sepchan do this with no army now there's an interesting prospect because that gets me the crystal it just gets me moving I think we can do that 32 spell points I can definitely do this fight gentlemen gentlemen gentlemen just ugh yay with where we're at I am going to take the estates by the way I talk in my tier list video about how much I love estates in this horn of the abyss game estates has doubled the effect of estates has doubled so I'm sorry but I yeah starting on zero resources oh give me give me give me it's just so good and get a bit more knowledge that worked out so well they all spread so beautifully for us I only wish I could fight that fight again heroes 3 every now and then coughs up these nice little scenarios you know what would be the icing on the cake here is if demon is stupid enough, greedy enough to come up here put his army here changes mine and try to run back and then I smash him and then I give the army to sepchan and she goes and finds merest teaches her a lesson too the crystal you wanted so what are we doing for next week I don't want streaker so we're waiting till day one could we invest though could we invest in these zombies we could have like 50 zombies which are going to be pretty relevant I think it's more probably citadel to citadel I've done citadel right yeah I've done citadel we could go mausoleum though start getting the liches online they're amazing do you grant to get that started yeah let's get some liches going these are the two best units that vampire and the lich are the best in my opinion the best units black knight is really good too though it's the whites and wraiths you really want to avoid spending any of your hard-earned money on okay so we're alright let's see what demon does here things need to go right for us here he goes the wrong way maybe he saw us do I want to chase him because I could instead go up here get this let bygones be bygones disguise is interesting I think he saw us I think that's what happened so maybe he's got scouting demon I think he must have he must have because I was way back so on an extra large map it probably doesn't make sense to go chasing after people all right marist is probably long gone she's like I didn't even know we were fighting what well at least my team have actually won something it feels like we just won something it would be stupid of me not to get this while I'm here I need another hero that's what I need someone to run around and help me out with things I don't want him battle mage with offense that's a weird combo she actually has some wisdom which is a refreshing change what could her army do it could do this and jump in a boat that might be alright actually let's see by the time I've done that that's a 3500 gold investment to get someone out on the water with an okay starting army she could land here and see what's here how much do these cost I mean this is going to be expensive do I want to buy this big army I think I just want to wait for day one hire whoever the hero is and gallop forth with it and it's going to feature zombies I'm now pretty convinced that I'm going to want to do this okay so we're going to make that upgrade it's only 300 bucks but I'll wait until the time is right I do want these things it's gone to a horde of nymphs the thing about them is they are going to hurt my halflings so let's clear the dwarfs and then I do want to continue galloping on down to chase that guy away or to at least reveal enough to know what's going on then come back and get this can't do it all that's the problem with this game you can't have it all I think Meris is too far she's not a threat to me now by the time she threatens the macropolis I'll have massive forces ready to defend so if I come with you we'll both hang out down here we'll do stuff it's going to be great I don't have any spell points left though 23 clear these dwarfs out the way on your way through so we need to be a bit careful they're very resistant to magic stone skin bloodlust my own guy seems okay so of course they make for the halflings that's okay we don't mind that how many did he kill? oh one it's like whoa I'm going to try to lure them in that direction send the big stack south yeah I never changed the config I should have and these idiots are heading in the wrong directions that's good stand here stand here actually stand here I'm risking morale off this guy I don't know what spell to cast should I try bloodlust? why try bloodlust? you can wait as well everyone can wait because dwarfs are very slow so morale on this guy would be bad come on down no morale so this stack is still too small to do anything yet right I kill one or two so I'll just continue to use you as a kite I should have gone one more alright so the halflings shoot there's no way to buff them is there? alright just kill as many as you can alright let's bloodlust savage absolutely savage 4 can come and hit my big stack do I care? if I stand here these guys get to hit me and they will deal about 30 but I got defense 9 against the taxis I could lose a vampire if I stay if I stay here so I don't like that I could stand here and you let the battle dwarfs attack the vampires that's probably the best thing to do all that it's just hilarious my wounds will be made whole but the skelly is going to kill you anyway I might like to alpha hit these though if you go 1,2,3 I get to go 1,2,3,4 um let's wait hit the next most important stack just stay there mate just wait just wait just relax you guys are dead well alright I lost 5 to that that's... morale is the worst morale sucks it does happen though, morale flashes happen what HP are you on? 14 I guess I'll just wait I know I can kill you my wounds are whole I mean not bad could 7 times 3 attacks be enough just come here do this fine now you can attack them very nice I don't even need to lose this guy I don't think the jig is up after all reposition ourselves a little bit I think this is going okay oh another one that's only cause of morale it would have been like 3 wisdom for someone with basic intelligence I feel like wisdom is a good investment even though necromancy is the thing that I really am gonna get the most benefit out of early when will I next be offered wisdom will I ever be offered it again I'm a long way from my mage guild I want wisdom right but I'm almost certain to be offered it again later so I'm gonna gamble it's not that I prefer necromancy but I just don't think wisdom matters yet with where we're at is it right to go chasing after someone who's ahead of me on the map to try to trap and kill him or am I better off ignoring and consolidate my power in here come up here with sep gender we both learn this stuff come back out again come here first anyway we're doing that let's just get these things he didn't get to them cause I scared him off so these are mine be proud of that never found out what that is oh haste would have been good I'm gonna teach it to you anyway next time we the next time we sit down for a a debrief next time we book a meeting room this underground just keeps going and going and you could be chasing him for gone yeah you could be chasing him so far that you just pull yourself completely out of position it's just not good it's not where you want to be jeez it's not all of darkness or castle time yet is it what do these troops cost now seven grand for what's sitting here okay so I'll have 15k on day 1 and that will be enough to just about buy everything here I don't think I want to do skeleton warriors because my other skeletons are far too far away I could also think about the vampire lords how many am I getting next how many am I getting 6 so I could have 10 vampire lords isn't really enough 7 liches to take away if I invest in the castle I need that for the capital eventually anyway so I could do that I don't think I'm ready for all of darkness nothing requires the tomb of soul so that's changed I think in the vanilla game you do need to build this thing I won't let you up into this region until you've done it but now it seems that you can you don't even need it for the dragon vault you can just leave it completely if you don't want it it's definitely the weakest thing in the whole town so that's good or it's good for the necro I'm not sure if I agree completely that it should be out of the chain entirely I think if we have a look at the map I think day one hire whoever the hero is go annihilate these if it might not be easier said than done lots of higher elementals now I'm gonna have zombies and 7 liches you just gotta do it though you just gotta go for it and I might have 10 vampire lords which would really make a difference so I'm probably gonna do that get a hero get vampire lords go do this with that hero and I'm gonna leave these two to continue this development with what they've got think about it with that so with that in mind if I am upgrading the estate I just do that on the day and I'm not gonna worry about anything else until day one like I'm not spending the two oh there he is I just saw him demer I think demer is yep I'm gonna go for it stay 7 so the mill demer you are dead yes let's get him come on horde of oak chieftains I've tagged him now I need to proceed with a bit of caution here I don't have the most incredible army known to man but I am a death ripper from way back to add insult to injury I'm gonna curve my run so that I can get that after oh I could even do this first why? hang on if I go here I push the alt key I'll have 132 movement points remaining is that enough? I think it is oh thank god let's do it ok it's looking good ok you've got the fastest unit 4 spell points will not be enough bad morale what a shame I just think 4 times 7 is what I want to do cop that you buzzard all the halflings I didn't think of them well I'm disappointed but at the same time that's what you're there for is to die in agony at the hands of your undead overlords that is quite bad I don't know what I would change if I thought of it would I change my mind maybe I would have hasted these does he know haste to see the one he learned haste well they're not having a great day are they the 60 haven't moved yet and that would have been a much better thing to do is to put the 60 there so if I wait you could come here and then we'll pack them in here you can't get to them anyway though so I might stay here ok come here let's do that the halflings are dead so it's time to say goodbye but that's ok too hard for them just hang out that's cool well ok I'll just do it again I think I do right I think it's in the flavour I don't know haste let's do it again it's just so evil isn't it let's wait it stinks well 5 came back 5 of the halflings came back for me in a different form all right demer's dead I feel like I don't know about losing the halflings because they were doing quite a good job technically for me anyway we want to get up here and do this now I'll only be here I could stand here though and wait for you weak of the rat seems good to me I'll just stand and then so those of you who don't know horn of the abyss very well awesome quality of life thing going on here the red arrow so negash is out of moves and normally we're used to using the horsey to show us where we can get next turn we're used to mousing over watching the two become a three well guess what now it just tells you with a different colour telling you that that's what you can start doing on the day after tomorrow so septiana knows exactly where to stand it's going to be somewhere around here um he actually so he can get to there so septiana knows to stand either on one of these two squares probably it's this one here nice feature so weak of the rat let's see who we've got so that's a pretty good looking army and drumroll zai ji big army stone skin necromancer okay my only complaint is that she has learning which isn't a very good skill for the long run but I suppose it's okay at the beginning it's going to help her level up faster okay zai zai is one of but a handful of females deemed worthy to make the transformation into full lich well that's a bit sexist isn't it zai was selected because she possessed a unique ability to resist physical damage a trick that has saved her more than once and that maps over to her stone skin ability um I didn't know there was as much misogyny in daeja among the elite as there appear to have been so it's great to hear zai what am I going to call her zai let's say it's great to see her getting up smashing through that glass ceiling and doing it for the ladies out there who want to become a hideous undead thing from beyond the realm of sanity now this army would cost yeah I can buy it all just barely 40 bucks left over and I won't have enough to upgrade these if I do that just buy it all right now zai rides out zai rides out with no first aid tent goes and smacks these guys up but they've become a horde today a horde so that's like 50 at least 50 maybe 60 a horde is hard we've all been able to summon boats from the beginning and no one's ever done it how many times can I try to summon a boat if I wanted to? twice? right about this and welcome back it's the next day in real life it's obviously the same day in our screen life here overnight I had a bit of a revelation it occurred to me that one line we could take instead of buying everything that's in the dark eternal that we've built the dwellings for I don't regret building the dwellings because of the accumulation that we're getting of creatures but instead of buying them all for about 12 grand it occurred to me that because demer is dead or gone and meristers run off we may have a little bit of a development window opportunity here where we could build the castle and a couple of days build the capital and sort of take that hit the economic momentum in order to print ourselves massive value the week after we'd certainly be able to hire all of the soldiers on day one well most of the soldiers on day one of next week the reason why it might work is I think that she's starting an army I'm going to call her Xi okay maybe it's Xi this woman I'll switch between Xi and Xi but yeah there's not going to be time for you guys to vote on which pronunciation is correct in the comments because this video will be you'll be watching in the future after I've already hopefully completed the campaign but who knows maybe died my point being Xi's army is decent we can turn the walking dead into zombies by her a few more skeletons and she can do things like she could jump in a boat here we could do this go exploring with her the alternative is she could come down here and hire whatever comes out of the hovel which I think are peasants but I'm not convinced that that leads to a whole lot more stuff for her to do so I'd be minded to try to go for the boat plan um I think I've stared at it long enough my rationale is yeah we kill the genies but then we've got to get past a horde of fire elementals the vampire lords don't get to regenerate when they're attacking and fighting for us and everything else is like seven liches is okay but 12 is much better that kind of thing so I think I'm going to go for this line I think I've talked myself into it we do not want movement three creatures in our army so that's an absolutely essential upgrade if we're thinking about capital we know we're going to spend a grand on a boat I don't want to sit there casting summon boat with no expertise I just don't think that's a good use of her spell points we have the wood to just get the boat get in it quickly this army should be big enough to cope with you know lots of nymphs level one she's going to be a decent spellcaster right out of the bat with magic arrow doing 30 points of damage my right mouse button isn't working as well as I would like but I think I do want to invest a little bit more in her and I'd be willing to how much money do I want to spend how much money do I want to spend get a few more skeletons together how much will I pay for a zombie few it needs to be big enough to be sort of meaningful but this if I have an $11,000 bankroll it will allow me to build castle and capital in the next two days let's have a quick look and see if Ceptioners or Nagashi are going to help us financially up here they're not going to help us with money and yeah it's not clear when I'm actually getting any bonus cash we want to get this torso and I'm interested in the mighty gorgons using a big ball of skeletons on mighty gorgons feels good but I want to come back to the town to get them so I don't want G stealing a lot of the skeletons out of here noting that skeletons do are going to matter at least a bit I don't think I can afford any more money yep that you're going to have to make do with this army G go here for me on your way to getting in the boat I guess that is fantastic and come up here and kill the lots of nymphs you're going to need to magic arrow here I'm afraid well interesting and I've set this up quite poorly I always forget that these can move 19 zombies here pretty useful pretty pretty useful okay just defend yourselves everybody we're complete okay here they come the 30 are going to take a hit now yeah see they do massive damage it's so impressive it's a lot right let the zombies hit them next maybe two stacks of zombies would have been the way to go here again not very good 10 skeletons is quite bad 3 come back under the watchful necromancy I'm wondering whether two stacks of zombies would have been good for that fight so right go ahead can I get in it today one hex off that's a whole turn that she's missing now notice as well that the sprite for the boat is different in Horn of the Abyss than in the original game I don't I don't hate it but it doesn't look quite like it sits on the water quite as well as the original sprite does I don't know if I love the sprite but there are certain changes graphically that if you're really used to the shadow of death or the vanilla game eventually you stop noticing you know but that's one of the things that's changed in the Horn of the Abyss is the graphics for that right so let's do this plan castle and we get this lovely little thing added on top additional arrow tower from which we can shoot out at our opponents the critical thing that's going to do is add additional recruitment capabilities to the town so happy with that now we just need to get to 10 grand well alright what is the point of making plans he's back I mean he's really back he's not happy what are we going to do with that we're going to have to yeah so he's much closer to our town than we are so I think we still do this job and probably don't build the capital now it depends which way he runs so let's see which way he runs I'm still going to do this I think there's too much we've invested too much in this idea and we have the castle so if he comes up here to challenge us we'll sit behind the castle with everything we can afford we just have to go for it at this point and see it's a very powerful army he's brought maybe I picked a fight with the wrong guy okay a little bit of back and forth that's great take the lot may as well make these piles a bit bigger horde of nymphs are going to murder the halflings do I care maybe I should care but it doesn't look like they're going to go for them okay that's interesting that kills the halflings should I care though it's 200 180 HP in that stack so death ripple is not doing enough 60 points of damage cursing seems decent now oh these are nymphs they're just the junior ones okay so I won't be cursing magic arrow kills 15 let's just see what they do heading south to the halflings 4 that's decent the halfling actually isn't that bad he dies very easily but it's a decent unit right sorry I was looking at the ticker tape down the bottom I think I just wasted the vampire's turn so that was stupid now what should I do I'm just going to soften these up I just think the damage we're going to take from them is a bit more than I'd like to deal with sure so do you think do you want to save some spell points save some skellies if I have to fight Dima later there's a magic wishing well that we're going to go past later if I have to fight Dima sorry I forgot his name wrong there yeah so that was good okay so it is the halflings who copped it in the auto combat it didn't care about the halflings it's okay I suppose that's what they're there for okay it's just okay it's not very good I feel like I wasted I've got 5 skellies back from the from the dead alright let's get this a stone statue of a warrior holds a silver shield as you remove the shield the statue crumbles to dust but it's the buckler of the null king plus 4 very very good plus 4 to defense so we like that these resources mad at the 15th sulfur yes it's the same fight again except a little bit easier yes it's okay that we're visiting the wishing well so I'm just going to do that I'm not going to feel bad about it got this figured out now there we go there's more stuff up here Nagash we can get through here I never thought we'd be able to lots of rogues seems doable I'm not going to do a knee drag reaction I need to see where Dima is going to go we could just be dead so let's just see it's okay okay let's do G first that's right G I think I just want to hop over here and see if there's it's a green on this pack of Cyclops Kings guarding something there I don't really want to land here could land and get my butt handed to me straight away that was a bit of a mistake in the way I moved there trying to get some scouts so what's going on down here so that's a horde of pirates guarding something I don't care about really I'm going to guess that this is a neutral area that green have been to let me just check the den of thieves for a moment green doesn't have a second town and we know that they are Conflux and Conflux has a different terrain in Horn of the Abyss than it does in the original game in the original game it's the grass but in the Horn of the Abyss there's a new terrain called the Highlands which is a different font a different tileset so with all of Dima being down there that looks like all of their army so I'm going to gamble because we're in a gambling state of mind at this point frankly that this area may have some stuff in it that said green has been here so anything that's free that's lying around won't be accessible will be taken already I feel like this army isn't going to add a lot to the defense of the castle so I'm giving these heroes permission to just continue exploring up here it's okay it's fine alright the winery is where you get satyrs from that's that 7th unit you can see there Dima's 7th unit and that's a new neutral unit Ville here which is kind of cool actually I like how it's generated the the stuff now Sceptiana you are running out of spell points it's getting ridiculous and you're not going back to the wishing well after all because now you've got things to do up here let's kill some centaurs I feel like casting something again what would a magic arrow do kill about 5 6 I can kill 6 with a magic arrow doesn't seem great I can kill 6 with death ripple across the 2 stacks doesn't seem great I think I prefer to keep my spell points now let's just stay back here with the vampires that's fine that's a shame that's whites for you though man yeah I'll just make sure of it here that's this oh a bit painful isn't it does hurt certainly does hurt what are you offering intelligence yeah intelligence just feels right it's a good skill somebody's casting spells let's go check out the seeing stone looks amazing wisdom's gotta be right wisdom it's the skill I had wisdom before and I said no to it because I thought we could get it later yeah it's the skill I want it pairs with what I'm doing let's do it a horde of sorcerers I believe they're level 5 and they'll be far too strong for us that's a cove unit Nagash would like to learn intelligence himself but he doesn't need to because he's already very intelligent Nagash never came here or here the other thing Nagash could do is go back this way and go for a bit of an explore I don't really think I want both heroes just following each other around so I might do that instead we know that Dima's been up through here before I'm guessing that just connects around there so I'll do that maybe he's got no wisdom okay yeah so come back up here I can actually run past the orcs do this oh that's already been visited this week I'll think about Dima tomorrow Nagash I mean Dima what are you going to do now pal let's find out coming up okay so it's now or never people can take the town tomorrow I have 12 grand to spend on defense capabilities the defender looks like it's going to be Stig sorcery is okay it's not the greatest thing in the history of the universe but right so is this army big enough to defend against this in a siege environment I'm going to say it might be depending on whether Dima knows ballistics or has any other tricks up his sleeve certain creatures that we just know we're hiring for the defense probably these that's my money disappearing pretty quickly isn't it jeez so it's 1400 bucks on some skellies better than two and a half K on these three bricks of unit they won't have good morale but I don't care like let's say they freeze in combat like it doesn't matter they're just it's just human it's just meat that I'm buying really right I think the costs Stig will also add something to the yeah she'll have 20 magic 20 points worth of magic arrow maybe let's see maybe maybe this helps let's do this first it does there you go see never give up more leprechaun what happens he just danced around the clearing and gave me nothing I clicked the okay button before I saw what that actually did people have been digging here seriously there's a hero here there's a hero I can see someone's digging here wow so let's check the map again very aggressive digging so hang on if the maps like this what do we know about we know there's a subterranean gate in the corner there should we dig as well while we're in the area maybe let's get this ribcage is that going to help us yeah there's a reason to come up here a horde of troggs for mercury and stone maybe pack of cavaliers are too strong we'll just go past the troggs for now okay lots of rogues let's do this bump bump bump bump bump right come on over boys speed six and we'll just do our little redeploy move here 70 points now kills 7 just wait till tomorrow wait this time don't just waste your turn like last time you boys can't do anything cause you're too slow yeah the vamps go first next turn so I think I'm cool with that how many do I kill 5 to 9 the crack back is about 12 times 3 which should be enough to kill one 14 defense against 8 attack a little bit close they could gang up on the vampires right there's enough there to make me want to use some spell points on them yeah these things just suck so rogues have a really really like 8 attack in 3 defense it's a massive massive difference how much will these bad boys do about 120 something should be I'll throw one away do you think that's probably a waste do I need any of this now what he never retaliated that was my bad shocker might as well do this though that was silly I definitely didn't fight that very well now normally I snap click logistics bang however in the one of the abyss logistics has been halved in value it is literally half as good as it was in the original in the vanilla game so should you take it I think it's contextual right it's an extra large map we're doing a lot of running around I'm so conditioned to snap picking it the way you can think of it maybe is would you accept logistics if you were never allowed to get to expert imagine a world where you still want it for a long game in an extra large setting I think the answer is still yes but it's not a snap pick right it's not a snap pick but I think it's still a pick even though it's only half as good as it used to be that's still quite good you trip over what was the rib cage of a large creature but on further examination you discover it to be a piece of armor incredibly you put it on it gives you plus two to your power ok septia not bad not bad but you're not exactly setting the world on fire now a warehouse of gold sounds like something I want a pack of trolls but I'm willing to spend spell points to get in there and get that get past these guys without spending any spell points yeah trolls are gonna hurt but the prize is too good to say no to so we'll do this 111 without spending any spell points it's a single stack so we have an option here we could maybe rush them what if yeah what if we build a put the big stack here how fucking you guys walk so I could put the big stack I got three defenders don't really want the imps to hit my vampires that would be bad they're only they've got one to two damage I've forgotten how pathetic they are although have I or has that been changed in the one of the abyss I don't know is this stat line the same as the vanilla stat line it looks a bit weaker if anything I thought I remembered them being damage one to three or no was it that their attack skill was higher it just feels like they look a bit too gremlony for me that stat line I might be wrong I might be wrong what do I do here one two three four I can get to there right I think what I do is I just get out of the way we all shuffle down you go one two three four yeah we all shuffle out of the way no I've messed up okay they're getting an editing the 68 because I've screwed up I needed the 68 to stand here that was my plan and then these two boys we're gonna cover them off so that's that's terrible like that's really bad we're gonna lose so many skellies now can I afford this dear oh dear that's shocking sorry everyone I'm gonna kill half of them with magic arrow so for four eight for four spell points that seems reasonable it doesn't matter now yeah I can't defend them so just have to accept this that's only four alright I'm too hard on myself maybe they seem familiar seem weaker I might look that up after have familiar's been made worse in Horn of the Abyss according to the documentation there's nothing I could see in the documentation to suggest it had been but I don't know if I want to bother coming down here with Nagash now yeah there's a thing here but it looks to me like it just connects around and Dima will have already been and done everything so I think we'll come back to here I'm gonna guess that that's just a pocket that's been cleared out as well see what's up through here so when all is said and done I've got five grand left to spend on the defense of the hometown the creatures cost five grand to buy so I can do that or I can just buy these guys and they're expensive and I've forgotten how expensive they are crikey so what do I get for my money for thirty six hundred bucks I get ten guys with thirty HP so I get three hundred HP's worth of guys or I can spend twenty five hundred on nulls of HP six I think lizard men are about fifteen serpent flies have eighty so it's a not even actually but I get a bunch of magic arrows out of stig but that's not gonna matter against all of the meaties god I've got to rely on the arrow towers to survive anyway okay maybe is this better value for money not really I don't think it's a bit of a wash I don't think it's gonna matter too much so we're going without stig I'm not gonna sell all my resources to buyer and stuff I'm just gonna hope that this this army is gonna be okay good enough right near enough is good enough I don't know if it will be let's have a look see if Demo wants to give it a try okay we don't know yet as we'll get some experience before we take on the trolls pack of trolls told you it was gonna hurt well alright I've only got one death ripple in me I think so 40 HP each yeah this is obviously what I'm supposed to do so I'll just do it looks amazing when it triggers doesn't it's just like ooh cop that you buzzards let's centralize we want the big stack walking into there I need to just I should just change the order of how they stand it's so obvious but I might move them to there actually him to there and him to there just wait until there's room stand there and prepare to die do nothing come to here big stack goes and hops into that pocket you cover us off there we go I'm actually using my brain can you believe it people good that's right I've forgotten that mechanic yeah gross love the animation how they walk look how they walk nasty nasty nasty right 50 to 80 damage okay these guys are damaged so let's say 50 to 80 is enough to kill it's nice to be rolled high you guys 13 to 22 could be a kill I don't really want these guys hitting my dudes and they're kind of expendable now the whites the stack is so small like I didn't pull it off and there's no need to waste you because this will be a kill yeah this is okay the whites are the ones who end up losing still alive well way they die I'd have to roll pretty high to kill these two that's a big stack so you have to kill them to perish okay so just kill this one yeah so pretty bad pretty bad casualties this is new this graphic of what a troll is what is he holding it's like a leg bone or something it's pretty gruesome septiana is now level 5 I will never take learning now knowledge plus one is nice one skelly comes back it's not very many it gives us more money to maybe buy that hero we talked about two grand you gave me that's very nice of you thank you firewall let's keep exploring nagash what can you do for us baby can you do that six crystal absolutely sign me up oh man oh that would have been good hey could you kill lots of centaurs the hard way lots of centaurs lots of centaurs a centaur has HP 6 so let's say there's 40 that's 240 HP too much can't do it can't do it that's an absolute gift same with the horde of trog I just can't do these he just doesn't have enough g so there's been someone digging here but it's not obvious that they've got the thing right I could come and get that yep he's run dry let's keep exploring oh wow this is their hometown there's no one home so this could be quite interesting if I could steal his town for a while that would be hilarious ok so I've got room for the three soldiers here I own his kind of cool but she has no army so he alright stig welcome what can you do for a stig can you defend this necropolis to the death the 11th daughter of Tralos king of totali a stig turned to work witchcraft when it became clear that she would never ascend the totalian throne with ten heirs in front of her so she basically said look my life is just like I'm so she's basically said look my life effectively I'm a spare and much like harry and megan she's gone and written a novel about it and I may as well give my life for the defense of a random graveyard which for some reason this minotaur wants to conquer it's noble to me this seems right to me now and I respect her decision for that you know because she might just end up winning us the game saving our bacon why not just let's make this as good as we can she has a spellbook right let's bring these centralized a bit mmm yeah that's not going to be a fun fight for him with the arrow towers but we'll see we'll see he might not even do it he might look at that maybe not go around do this instead and that would be quite a bad outcome I'd rather he actually does attack and that hopefully we hold let's see what happens let's go for it here come on people a glorious victory from the computer okay see what we can do here sprites are getting smacked by the arrow towers I see you've got no knowledge of ballistics and you've rocked up to me with only six spell points hello hello that's excellent for us right now if they can't get the walls down now this guy is immune to mind spells that's right these are very scary if they get in past the walls um these are a problem they take 100% damage to earth elementals and they're vulnerable to lightning this doesn't count as lightning so we have to think about how we're going to use our spell points here I want to replicate what the piece what the auto resolve said was possible see if we can pull this off so let me go into the tank here for a moment I'm just going to think about this what are we going to want to do here these are going to fly to here the liches probably can just shoot the the girls so let's just wait okay you didn't even kill one so that's actually quite good that's a good outcome yeah again I'm just going to save my spell points you guys walk to here I could start working you over I can even kill one which is amazing oh by the way now's a good time to talk about an important feature the horn of the abyss introduces if I wanted to um cast this death cloud in a way that was going to hit the satyrs and the sprites for example in the vanilla game I couldn't do that I could only go for the satyrs in which it would hit the catapult as well or I could go for the sprites now watch this I'm going to push the G key and I can now target any hex on the field and I get maximum utility out of my death cloud attack so this is a fantastic quality of life change to the game in addition to that by the way I'll push G again to switch that off uh oh what do I push to switch it off I don't want to make a mistake here so I just right click there to get out of it there's also I don't think you can see behind my camera I can also click the melee button and I think it's the alt key uh which changes the liches into a melee unit so you see now that that's a cancel because I can't melee but if there was a unit in here that I could melee I'd be walking up to melee and I just push the alt key again to switch that off and I'm back to archery mode so huge utility for the liches here's a little question I have for anyone out there who knows the answer I don't know if the AI gets it and if the AI can leverage this new functionality I'd like to know if that's the case because it's a slight concern for someone who plays a lot of single player that I now have this amazing tool that the AI doesn't have so I'd be keen to know if the AI is smart enough to use it in the modification I'm not sure of hacking the AI as something that developers have been able to to do in great depth or not anyway enough about me I think I do though want to just go for this short range kill right now right here and not worry too much about the fact that these girls are coming over they're not going to have a good target on turn 2 anyway let's get maximum damage from our shots while we can I could wait and they might be stupid enough to give me a death cloud opportunity so I think I'm going to wait actually he casts mirth on the girls that's actually really good they're going to wait around to defend the liches with the zombies so I'm going to defend myself what are elementals think about it did anyone spot that that they took a bit longer to think about things which is quite interesting you've got protection from Earth okay I missed that Dima actually casts protection from Earth on the psychic elementals which won't help him in the slightest yeah so now this is my concern right about this new amazing functionality what have you got you've got slow how has this happened how do I have all of these things happen to me so there's a magma elementals cast protection from Earth on these guys Dima casts slow on the vampires which is fine so let's just play the game and get a good night's sleep and not worry about it what and I'm instantly owned by the fact that the peripheral death cloud does not work only the central death cloud works on anything that isn't alive and that's a feature I've forgotten so it's not going to matter is it if the person controlling the they've changed the graphic there as well which is kind of nice reflects the fact that it's only one hex and there's just not much reason for us to do much here we could curse the elementals now might be okay with that let's do that I think we wow I think between the first aid tent and the cursing that actually did something so now to demonstrate what I mean the reason that didn't work is that the peripheral part of the death cloud doesn't work unless the targets are alive but this will work at least in the vanilla game it does it says it'll kill one and indeed it does okay so that's good so we really are just leaning on our uh leaning on our arrow towers here I can't see a reason to do much different these boys have a shot may as well interesting defensive animation there I think that first aid tent mattering not good enough okay no need no need to curse anything these uh mirth casting guys are kind of annoying except for the fact that none of these units can benefit from that mirth handy little unit I imagine that if I had four satyrs in my army well it would be useless for me as well because I'm undead anyway just more of the same please sir still couldn't kill one and I just get to do this nasty okay what was that that was you doing protection from earth again such a useful unit the magma elemental not might start working over some of these other stacks although these I hate these I really want them to die attacks all the jason enemies without retaliation I know the magic one magic elementals do that I couldn't really remember if it was no retaliation on the psychics it is and you just want these dead right we just want them dead I'm gonna just keep cursing the stormies when the chance comes up it's only it only matters if they can actually kill one I'm back to full health from the first aid tent who said first aid stinks lots of people by the way in the tier list video I did on the various skills lots and lots of people upon that first aid is rubbish well maybe it is rubbish though because she doesn't have first aid it's just doing its thing on its own so um maybe that doesn't prove anything the fact that I'm enjoying it here should I curse again now yeah even though there's only 18 left I'm still gonna do it I think it's okay keep shooting this is why ballistics is great I reckon I love ballistics as a skill I think it's awesome hopeless woeful it occurred to me I can start doing some mean things with the vampire the problem is the stormies well again the AI won't be smart enough to walk up and attack me but I share the same speed speed seven I beat you now I share speed with these which isn't ideal so I'm not gonna do anything keep trying to kill them must be running out of shots at this point let's have a look seven shots left not bad I don't know if that tile is in the trench or out of the trench I think it's on the ground check that in the thingies yep no but it's not even really the trench that matters it's the fact that the wall is here and that they can't they just cannot get through to me look at this delicious archery go boys tasty in my last campaign as the inferno um the reason I was able to break the game open actually came down to defenses siege defenses and um it looks like that's actually going to be the flavor of this campaign as well at least so far I've got one curse or magic arrow or something like that left in me I'm not at risk of losing one so I might just still hold on to it they must break through at some point wait wait goodbye go away gone gone girl and that means I can I think jump out with the vampires on my turn when it's their turn they've had their go already on their turn they could use the storm elementals to attack the vampires but I don't mind too much if that happens who's the next scariest stack do you reckon probably these boys yeah so there's they hope they're going to come down through here can I do this now yeah it's only the stormies I have to worry about in the turn after ooh cop that yeah so now there's a couple of different breaches right the fire elementals can get in so I think we just want to prepare to defend that area I have ADHD which is less than you so I'll stand here and I'll suffer the slings and arrows that are coming yeah and so they did go for the vamps at short range which I'm not sure that was a good trade right that's still a big stack of HP though so yeah let's come back I don't think it was a wise move try to just get the stacks down to similar sizes I'll maybe block this one off and I will centralize the zombies to about here shoot whatever I don't care come down we do need the arrow to hit those storm elementals yep so they walk onto the skull and crossbones they take damage it hurts that's good hit them ok the flies are ready to rock but we're just defending I can curse this guy do you think I should? takes a bit of damage off the other thing I can do is shield somebody we are holding people we're holding demons gonna flee and shame and ignomey let's conflict with G maybe maybe he's probably still got some creatures he can hide there to defend it against G but we'll see what should I do next what gives me the most bang I can't curse these they're gonna deal about 40 damage which isn't enough to get through we want them to take massive attrition these boys are dealing 60 something damage so it's two turns to chew through both of these piles and I think I just want to shield the zombies that's the thing I'm gonna want to do yeah wait on I might start to go for the water elementals now that seems like the next meanest stack they only killed one ok so that was that really hurt like hell so you guys might as well stay there and die fine with that you guys hang out just hang ten here maybe do this ok they wrongly thought that was the worst stack but that's ok Serpent Flies are going to stay put that's not short range but you're still they still went for them yeah they've been still such good utility out of them yeah so it's definitely these guys now only one dies Serpent Flies are so hardy they're so much better I can't believe that what happened there oh they died on the boneyard yeah so both of these units are taking massive attrition from the big pile of bones that's here I'd forgotten that that was happening and now it's the water elementals turn oh that's just disgraceful oh there's nothing like getting value out of your trenches out of your moat so good I don't need you to do anything son what should I do should I hit the storm ellies I don't need to curse them yet do I these die but I don't care shield who am I shielding I don't even need to right curse doesn't even mitigate enough damage to matter just defend son boom so I'll just defend it's fine with these guys could I could I get a hit in and be happy here don't think so right the crack back yeah I'm still waiting this is this these guys have been amazing the liches even without the death cloud all that stuff speak to me and now he flees look at our losses look at our losses seriously three serpent flies a vampire and 20 skellies for your entire army cop that you buzzard stig well done by the way to hell with being queen of the stygian crelion totalia who cares if you're 11th in line for the throne it doesn't matter look what you've achieved here welcome to the fold take the intelligence with my blessing take the air magic which goes nicely with your sorcery skill with my blessing you legend right gee dar they've got fire burnt isn't it just when you think the game is going oh yes yes come on firebirds boom right okay okay fine I'll back off that was a massive victory though man learn blind she learned blind I missed that when did she learn blind how did she learn blind she must have gone there and then stepped off it again I didn't even pay attention to what it was because I was so excited to see the conflux so look we know we know your base we can see what's in your base whenever we want and it will show us if you've got a hero visiting or whatever who's stationed there okay I'm gonna guess that that's one or two firebirds but it's still too many like I need to completely solve this with spells and I just won't have enough there's just no way a day one hero can ever challenge even one firebird so that's that's fine we can see the route that Green has taken to get to us here is the underground which chains through under here pops up under here there's a road here connecting all this underground that they've trod before so there's not much point us retreading that path I love their optimism with the who knows maybe they've got it maybe it helps explain why they've got firebirds but it's week four day six so the AI should have it's not unusual to quote Tom Jones that they would have that