998YK Summer: Eyre, Dravago

Eyre

Hammerhead Clan: Banner 5 scouts a city at the edge of Sulatar territory — a nice find, but awkward to defend. Banner 2 starts taking control of surrounding villages. Banner 3 scouts a barren tile. And banners 1 & 6 move to attack Threnal; without the city walls (due to the Quake), the orcs decide to retreat, but they fail their roll to escape without a fight. See the separate post for the battle report — the orcs are defeated and lose about ⅓ of their army.

Sulatar: Banner 1 is petrified by the Portents of Terror. That leaves the Sulatar in an awkward spot — their only free defensive army is too small to want to fight an open battle with the human armies approaching. So banner 2 retreats to the capital. Banner 3 scouts an independent village.

Storm Lords: Banner 5 moves towards the orcs to assist them. Banner 3 scouts a village. Banner 4 moves towards the one remaining independent village near Stormreach. And banners 1 & 2 advance into Sulatar territory.

White Fang Tribe: Banners 1 & 2 regroup into a single banner, and move to the village west of Threnal — where they still threaten to move north around the duergar. Banners 3 and 4 move towards the action. With orc banners 1 & 4 and human banner 5 all close to Threnal, the orcs and humans could attack on roughly equal terms next month — if the duergar do not act first.

Eyre

Dravago

Hammerhead Clan: Banners 2, 4 & 5 scout villages. The main army, at Threnal, decides that it would be unwise to stay put: there are three enemy armies within striking distance of the city, and the earthquake damage means that it has no defensive advantage. The army strikes west, and White Fang banner 1 decides to retreat before it (being greatly outnumbered). This plan also allows Duergar banner 3, which was covering the west approach to the Black Anvil Mountains in case the orcs got past the main army, to move up — it scouts another city.

Sulatar: Banner 2 is able to move this turn (it rolled a 5 so not affected by the spell this turn), so banners 1 and 2 chase Storm Lord army 1 out of the tile next to the capital. Banner 3 scouts and finds a fortress in the mountain tile next to the Hammerhead city in the north-east.

Storm Lords: Storm Lord banner 5, which was sent out without any baggage, suffers greatly in crossing the barren tile to reach the orcs — nearly half of the army dies or deserts due to lack of food (250 points, a very bad roll, nearly max casualties). 

In the main theatre of war against the Sulatar, the Storm Lords are outnumbered and do not want a battle. So their main army, banner 1, heads east to try to steal into the Sulatar's territory. Banner 3 falls back to protect their own capital in case the Sulatar decide to try crossing the river. Banner 4 attacks the independent village near Stormreach — see the next post for the battle report.

White Fang Tribe: They use this turn to move them all their banners into one tile, occupying the direct route for the invading Hammerhead army to the capital. With their forces gathered here, they outnumber the invaders, and may have a chance to strike back next turn.

Dravago