[impy]

Travel update.
level: 55. Unused runes: 723. Still going with Linguistics 1, Distorsion 1, Scouting 1.

So far the toughest challenge of all my humble contributions since the beginning. My core army still constists of runemages, royal griffins, inquisitors, paladins,royal snakes. Occassionally horsemen are called in when initiative is an issue. Neat trick : horsemen + mask of hate + portrait of dragon guarantees you get the first turn against any enemy (the only exception being combination of black dragons and archdemons in enemy army). Gourguanas come into play when huge enemy stack needs lightning ball + mark of blood. I have not used any boosting wanderer scrolls so far apart from those few ANcient Knowledge scrolls I found. 1st round of the battle these days goes like days : Royal Griffins need to go amongst the first (mask of hate if neccessary) and cast cheer. point is to make sure runemages with mediocre initiative (5) get their turn and summon thus creating meat shield. Reason to go first is also to unleash usually 2 x lightning ball straight away. Inquisitors shoot, royal snakes wait, paladins cast second turn on griffins. Griffins fly a tiny bit forward and summon.
I did not take this challenge lightly and have been saving scrolls which will be needed during ktahu & baal bosses - all phantom scrolls, calm rage scrolls, time back..and also dispel scrolls for fighting dragons etc.
All major battles in the game are done apart from a few forgotten wandering stacks and Scrounger, Arena battles, ktahu, Baal and wizard tower level 5 and beyond. The nastiest fight so far has been Samman, who loves to cast mass magic shackles in round 1 ruining all summoning etc, has 366 mana to play with and once he gets weaker casts armaggedon which ruins your resurrections and gives strong burning. Generally when you go no loss with paladin resurrections at the end of the battle strategy is as follows : leave the last few enemy ranged units standing and providing enemy hero spent all his mana, start happily phantoming paladins and resurrecting. When there are no ranged units in enemy army there are other more sophisticated methods
- from the start of the battle pick one level 1-3 stack (since you normally play with level 4-5 army) do not kill it and at the end of the battle cast fear. You can also carry some fear scrolls in backpack if mana is a problem.
- not killing that 1-3 level enemy stack also means do not let it come close to you if it is weak because you may kill it accidentally by retaliation. So start paying attention to this stack before battle is nearing its end. For example fighting dragon cave in Monero no loss is easy if there are some dragonflies. When dragonflies get closer (round 2) keep casting fear on them until the battle is done and then resurrect.
- if there are no ranged units, no 1-3level enemy stacks or mind immune stacks are present, you're up for an interesting battle. Then you have to pick one unit again to keep alive while you resurrect at the end of the battle. It should be a melee unit, since their manouvering is limited, slower the better.
a) Now keep slowing it (slow spell or lighning ball shock), trapping it, wear winter set etc, do anything neccessary to make it stay far away from where your resurrection party is taking place
b) sometimes everything mentioned above does not work to your liking, usually because it forces you to spend valuable mana and hero turn on repeatedly casting some silly spell on some unit left behind which does not take a decisive role in battle. Then, check the strengths of your summons - coming from royal griffins, runemages, dryads etc. Angelic guards are the best because of high phys. resist and mobility. Now evaluate and pick the enemy stack which is roughly the strength of one of your summons. The idea is that if these two equal stack get involved in skirmish, then their fight tend to last a while before it is resolved, unlike strong unit-weak unit skirmish. When ready cast slow on chosen enemy stack to make sure it stays behind enemy units rushing towards you. Now get to this unit with your summon. Since the enemy chosen unit speed has been lowered it will attack your summon, not getting closer to your main ranks. You just defend with your summon or even lure it further from your army. While they battle it out, it is your time to do your resurrections.
c) Things may get complicated when there is enemy hero present, so it is not just a wandering stack. That's why my fight with Samman got so messy. I ended up killing his archdemons quickly plus only roughly half of his army, so he does not start to cast armaggedon yet. Point was to make him feel secure and spend all his mana on other spells. Problem was while I waited turns and turns for him to spend all his mana, he did too much damage for resurrections to me, i only have limited mana and distorsion 1. So i ended up sticking royal snakes in the middle of his army for him to concentrate on. I kept casting mana balls and time back every second turn on snakes. Eventually it worked..So far, i can truly recommend this challenge to kbap veterans