We end up in the Grey Woods, supposedly haunted by lost souls. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess they're not the badass kind from Doom. Arvith surmises that the woods are in fact haunted by creatures far more fearsome: elves. 'The Chase' indeed.

Immediately he's proven right as some dick named Nil-Galion tells Arvith and friends that he is in fact gullible enough to believe evil beasties' tales, and also GIT OFF MAH LAND.

Arvith and his lieutenant Tarek note that the horsemen will have to stick to the paths, while the spears and bows fight the elves in their own territory: the trees. They're either brave or foolhardy, and I'll have to be both to reach the other side of the map in 28 turns.

I start recalling all my troops from the first mission that have XP points, but not before sending Arvith out to destroy an elvish mounted scout unit blocking the bridge just to the north. Other scouts are quickly moving to secure their villages, so I immediately send my own horsemen out.

My advance horsemen is shot to death by two elvish scouts before the rest of the army can reach him - I'm going to need more of those. Morning breaks, and a village on my flank is occupied by an elf scout as well as the one on my frontline. Fucking elves are already pissing me the FUCK off. Arvith destroys the flanking scout, and I order the rest of the men to charge forward & occupy yet more villages.

I use 5 units to destroy one elf scout in a forest as my army approaches an empty castle. One elvish fighter is approaching said castle from the north - my advance coming from the south - but I have a horseman stationed in a nearby village.

<mumi> How goes the battle, Trar?
<Trar> mumi: i am advancing on all fronts, which is to say just the one front, because it's the only front on the map

I didn't notice that elf scout moving to attack the village while the fighter attacks my other leading horseman. Those fuckers can shoot arrows like nobody's business. Needless to say, even if I've only taken one loss so far, I'm recruiting more units every turn. The fighter is destroyed, but the scout manages to not only survive, but put a sizable dent on the horseman I send to support the village...at least until next turn when I occupy the old castle.

Up ahead is the river and another castle, this one in use by the elf commander, Nil-Goddamfuck. Plenty of juicy villages on the road to the river, and I'm still looking strong. It's worth noting that I pretty much have my own commander holed up in my fort just to hire more units, kind of like what the elf commander is attempting to do. I don't think having the space to summon one elf scout beats my already sizable army, though. I laugh as the lone scout attempts to flank and hit one of my bowmen, but can't land a single hit before I destroy him.

Turn 9 and I'm already at the river. Will anything stop this train? Morning dawns, and the elf commander himself rides out to meet my front. And he's standing in a forest tile. This will be great.

I surround almost all his flanks, pummel him to half health and watch him retreat into the river. Now's my chance for another "glorious" "victory".

As Nil (as in nil guts) falls into the river he exclaims that he signed a contract with the zombies to become a zombie lord, and that we won't catch the undead we're looking for. Undaunted, I order the troops forward to seize the rest of the villages and look for any sign of the zombies that took our bro, bro.

To my alarm I see that a new portion of the map is revealed, and I make sure the troops are ready for anything while my horsemen seize more villages.

At dusk I have a horseman advance to the northmost village, where he exclaims that he sees the kidnappers. We caught them just in time, too, before their reinforcements could arrive. Unfortunately, we have to destroy them before said reinforcements show up, because Wesnoth is serious about its tactical pressure. Nope, couldn't type that with a straight face. One dark adept and two skeletons shouldn't prove any tougher than all those elves we ate, because dark adepts are losers if you didn't know already.

Unfortunately it takes the bulk of my army a few turns to reach them. Fortunately, I should be ready to attack just after morning, which means they can't use the chaos emeralds to chaos control or whatever the hell it is they do on a Saturday night. Certainly not playing fucking Wesnoth.

The enemy moves in to press the advantage while they still have it, and my advance horseman is almost blasted to death by dork magic. I have him retreat while everyone else does a Braveheart charge. As it turns out, skeleton axes hurt. One of my other horsemen bites it, but as morning breaks I'm ready to aim for the squishy one.

"Muff Toras" (what is this, Star Wars?) informs us that our bro is located further north still (well, more like northeast) soon to be locked up in his Dungeon Master's Presumably Evil Dungeon. Arvith, a practicing telepath, threatens him with death from all the way across the map. Brena shows up, a knight-errant presuming to help us fight zombies. Hopefully we can actually send him out to fight instead of staying in the fort recruiting half the local population for our crusade. One of the men claims that he'll just slow us down, but I say we can always use more knights in heavy armor.

Finishing that little race 12 turns early nets us more than 100 bonus gold to start the next mission with! Of course, I have the feeling I'm just keeping up by now.


A glimpse into what seems to be Mordak's brother's journal tells us that they simply wanted our bro to pay a warlord's ransom, and also they're being hunted by orcs. With our luck, of course, we're going to be fighting both in a 'Guarded Castle'. Fuck these bland mission names.

Arvith and co. approach a castle and are stopped by a ninja wearing way too much modern combat webbing to be a purely medieval fantasy creation. I'm given a list of possible passwords to use, and I fortunately pick the correct one the dork adept relayed to me because I'm a fucking badass. Arvith responds to this by actually keeping his word and setting said dork free. Honor before reason, thy name is Arvith.

We have 30 turns to storm the other castle, presumably on the other side of the map, and free our bro. In what I'm sure will not become a repetitious, predictable early-game, I send Brena out to woo some villagers while I recall my best units from before and start training new ones afterwards. The southern half of the map is already revealed to me, and it's mainly open farmland with some hills further to the north.

Brena lets us hire heavy infantry, which are strong in melee but have no ranged attack. I'm open to the possibility of hiring them, so I decide to hire two right away. They'll form my shock corps with Brena.

A couple guards arrive from the north, asking if we're the relief crew. Arvith lets them go after correctly reciting the second password. The guard then says "Irritating little formality, isn't it?" Wesnoth isn't smart enough to realize not to play for laughs what it played seriously immediately beforehand. Arvith then remarks that he should be on the frontline, not  remembering that's what he hired Brena for so he could have a heavy hitter out there without putting the entire scenario at risk.

I have a horseman advance on a village only for the fog of war to reveal the stone wall of the enemy castle and some hungry, hungry orcs within, just to the north. Two other horsemen advance on the remanining villages on my side of the map while I rush troops to meet the orcs. As it turns out, orcish greatswords hurt. Despite losing two rather experienced troops, I manage to promote a spearman to a swordsman.

Two skeleton warriors appear from inside the castle as I beat up the rest of the orcs. Hilariously, my scouting footpad (what this game calls petty criminals called up for service) has 70% evasion in the castle's gatehouse, which lets him tie up both of the skeletons.

<GenghisHan> until one of them hits them twice and he dies
<Trar> GenghisHan: Speaking of which I just has my swordsman hit the skeleton warrior only once, while the skeleton hit every attack he made in return

Night falls, and I prepare to have my men retreat to the gate and heal as they mop up the last of the sallying party. Next morning, a single dork adept dares to attack our line and is ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED by Brenna in an alternate universe where he didn't miss both of his mace swings.

This is a pretty fucking big castle - easily the other half of the map. I send some units to scout ahead, and by some I mean most of my army because this is Gotta Go Fast: The Shitty Freeware Fire Emblem. Brenna finally bonks the dork woman over the head as I advance deeper into Casa del Mucho Evil. More skeletons and a dark sorcerer are spotted. But when you've destroyed one dork soccer player, you haven't destroyed them all because that would make Wesnoth somewhat more enjoyable.

I've exhausted two folders of Doom remixes, so it's time for some Hearts of Iron music. I'll pretend these fell monsters are actually Nazis in Castle Wolfenstein.

Strangely enough, there is actually a smaller castle inside the bigger castle, presumably so the soccer lord can summon more minions and goalies. I like to think it's like one of those play castles for kids. Fortunately for fans of skeletons, this sorcerer actually summons skeletons. There were skeletons in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and they were annoying as fuck, so we're still par for the course here.

The skeletons are tough and night is approaching, but one of my footpads found some gold in a chest tucked in a side passage, so they're going to be fucking buried in a tide of steel very soon. Skeletons are weak to the impacts of heavy infantry maces, the fuckboys. I establish defensive chokepoints inside the castle as Brena conks some more skelly skulls.

As night falls, we find Baran in the west wing prison. Turns out we have to kill the sorceror to get the "key" to his magic cell. I was gonna kill him anyway because fuck soccerlords. 17 turns to go and I'm already encroaching on his inner sanctum - shouldn't be too hard.

Dawn. I get a horseman to upgrade into a knight. The time is now. Brenna leads the charge from the west, and much to my (rather naive) surprise he is attacked by the sorceror himself. That shit /hurts/. Good thing Brenna's mace hurts even more. As the dork lord (I don't even think I caught his name, because fuck him) dies he mentions some other dude named Tairach. I'm required to move Arvith to the cell his bro is being held in to free him, which is weird but since I have more than enough turns left I can deal with it. We still have a skeleton to deal with near the play castle, but hey, what's one skeleton going to do? Get bonked, that's what.

Arvith finally rescues his brother Baran and gives a nice speech about brotherly virtue while shrugging off everyone he and his soldiers killed in the process. I finished that mission /14/ turns early.


The brothers return home, but Baran is worried about this foreboding sense he's feeling. Surely things are alright now though. What could possibly happen next as we 'Return to the Village'?

Well, SOMETHING's happening. The whole area is covered in mist and people seem to be fleeing from something.