Let's Play Spellcross! Update #8

sign me up as Forlorn Hope... for glory and death... not necessarily in that order

Seems like some attack incoming. Also, when unit is wounded, it's needed to buy new recruits, there are 3 types. The most expensive 'heals' unit without any xp loss, buying cheapest will cause units to lose xp, sometimes even levels. It takes 2 turns to reinforce a unit.


Welcome our new commander. He will be a very good scout and bait, good luck, Gondolin!



Time to take another area.


Our new reinforcement in action.




Rather large attack, but enemy units were too scattered to inflict much damage.


Time to move out! Also, our soldier shot down few gargoyles flying around.


Our forces ended up in this forest. Caution was needed because orcs and wolves can easily eat unprepared soldiers.


Gondolin drove around trees, luring some wolves.


Then scouting this thing. Stats are telling us that this isn't anything good.


Time to retreat and hold positions


More orcs. There were about 8 total.


And there it comes! It has rather long range, but not that large sight. Being in cover is extremely important when fighting this because it can easily like 3 shot any of our unit (not fortified).


Another one, luckily, cover saved this one. One thing to note is that power almost doesn't matter when attacking fortified unit, so this thing is as good as almost dead orc when breaking it.


Last orcs trying to attack us from behind.



The arrow throwers are quite annoying because they cause heavy damage and they have heavy armor.


We will!


I've bought a mortar squad and with light infantry healing, i took elite forces to secure this sector.


Well, this is very small map and there are attacking orcs. I fortified on the hill and tried to lure some of them.


That didn't work well because it lured too many.


Here you can see how strong are these Ka-Orcs.


It was important to finish wounded enemies because, as i mentioned earlier, they took defenses down in same speed as those who are healthy.


I repositioned and some more orcs and wolves appeared.


Compared to those Ka-Orcs, this was rather easy.



Another area is ours!


And we are finally having some nice income.


Everyone was healing so they took our sector. Nevermind, time to take it back.


It's same map as before (even the blood remained), so I used same tactic as before.


Gondolin has balls


Defenses are set!


Eat those mortar shells, bitches. Quite effective.



This wasn't hard, mortars are worth the price, doing good damage even with level 1.

Sign Me IN! FOR Motherland!!!

I request command of LightInf for Greater GLORY and Death!

Welcome our new commander. He will be a very good scout and bait, good luck, Gondolin!

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Leading the way for Earth, mankind and chzr!

Gondolin has balls

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I'm staring down a whole army. Man, I'm a tough sonofabitch.

I always wanted to ask; what is it with morale dropping when a unit does nothing for several turns? A bug or a feature?

Wait for the Harpies, they will really drive you mad.

For some reason i still have a mood for another update after JA so here it is.

sidenote: since i have some delay between playing and updating LP, current and future volunteers that are not yet in game will most likely appear in next update.


I'll show only interesting researches for now. This one is a new infantry armor. Upgrading works like healing. You pay price and wait x turns to get the upgrade.


If you are curious, there are turns in the lower right corner, i won't go to details in strategy part because most of the time i'm healing/upgrading/buying stuff.



As you can notice in previous updates, i'm using 'fortify as much as i can' tactics, because it's absolutely vital to survive. Our current units are extremely fragile, and infantry can fortify up to 6 'dots' (vehicles can reach only 2). This time, enemy came before i started scouting/luring.


Not this time, filthy beasts!


Gondolin brings moar!


They tried to take out our mortar team, but guys survived.



Killing those gargoyles, it was time to advance.


OH HAI



We successfully hold the ground, however, here i accidentally those commandos so they took some damage.


But survived and killed moar orcs.



I can't imagine how it's possible to win these early battles without digging in every position. I'm curious if it's meant to play like this or if it's more like abusing. Anyway, it's the only way not to get massacred my brave warriors <3


Now the swords mean that it's last area in this 'map'. That means, we are moving to another after this one. I was curious how the game solves income from remaining sectors and if matters if i wait to get all resources so i made a 'rough' win there. It seems like it converts remaining resources to money (thus no research happens). Also, it resets turns so there is probably no consequence like more powerful enemies or so. Considering this, i just researched remaining techs, mined out all money and finally attacked it.


Also, looks like we can use these officers to command squads. It seems like all they do is increase morale so if anyone knows more, feel free to share (as you'll see, there will be a number for units under their command that's kinda annoying me because it covers part of AP/HP bar :< )


Even if I had enough money, i bought the armor only for 'hero' units because others are expendable (well, volunteers are too, but i care about them/you).


Also, welcome in team, Azira!


Finally, here comes the attack.



Positioning and scouting and...


INCOMING!!!111111111111ONEELEVEN





I decided to add 'slideshows' for larger battles like this, so you can watch how you own them



Moving out...


Luring...


And killing...



Nothing special except those arrow thrower. however, thanks to my superior positioning inside orc base it didn't outrange me.


moar luring...



Insert orc a ka-orc squad between.



Those were single enemy units so they didn't have any chance.


Gondolin doing his job.



Notice that one infantry unit and rangers have 4 attacks per turn and increased attack rating (that can be seen earlier). That's thanks to their high level so it really makes a difference. Infantry also levels extremely fast.



last units, also kudos to AI that it actually lands with the gargoyle and attacks in the end, so we don't have to search for it (and trying to shoot it down when it's as fast as hummer)




So this map is ours. Prepare for another!

Korgan said:

I always wanted to ask; what is it with morale dropping when a unit does nothing for several turns? A bug or a feature?

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Happened to me too, seems like a feature so you don't camp all time (luckily, units always tend to flee after enemy wave ^^)

Zdzisiu said:

Wait for the Harpies, they will really drive you mad.

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Will be in next update. They are fast like hummer but they aren't that strong. not stronger than ka-orcs.

Well, i made some progress, almost finishing second map (last area remaining). However i have some troubles uploading screenshots now so i'll probably do a huge update tomorrow. ^^

I was refering to the special attack of Harpies. It was quite suprising for me the first time I experienced it.

Btw, the camping and fortifing strategy is the least spectacular, but the most usefull. I must admit that I abused it too.

yesterday after reading this LP finaly got this workin in my dosbox .... awesome game :D

and FYI in first mission You can rescue ALL 3 LightInf

Sign me up for the light artillery

As i promised yesterday, here's the update. Depending on the lenght battle sectors (that's how is the whole map called ingame so i'll use that) i might do updates with whole 'battle sectors' if they'll be quick enough.
Also, unlike the JA LP, single areas will be covered more briefly for two reasons.
First are larger screens (800x600), but the main reason is that most battles have little important moments that 'must be seen'. Even with that, updates will be still quite large, but to compensate it anyway, i'll try to commentate moar.

tl;dr- let's play.


This is where we operate now, starting with 2 sectors and few units that we have only for this 'battle sector' (screw it, i'll just write 'BS' and yes, read it as bullshit if you want to.).

Also, the number mean turns remaining to capture that area. If we don't do it in time, there should be more enemies or stuff like that.

And here are our new leaders:




There was no need to wait (units are healed when entering new BS) so i took everything and attacked that timed area.


Battle in progress...


Now at this time (actually, after finishing second BS, so not in time of that screenshot but w/e), i'm starting to understand enemy AI. It scouts with gargoyles and when it spots me, it sends one 'squad' of units (one squad are all units seen in this screenshot). With remaining 'squads', it finds some place and fortifies there. Those squads usually stay there and camp (but it's not always true, sometimes they attack). So what i do is lure those groups with hummer (they must spot me, hummer has longer sight then current enemy units). But you could already saw that in previous missions.



The AI can't actually attack together with units well, so it ends up with balistas and arrow throwers attacking last.


Last squad. As i just mentioned, because enemy can't coordinate the attack, it sent single units so that was absolutely no problem.




With new BS, there are some new units to buy. It's similar with research, each BS adds new research options.

About the units, we have here 3 different transporters, with Piranha being best of 3 and quite good overall (not as good than our leveled infantry though). However, at the moment there is no reason to buy a new unit, less so a vehicle.
There is also an anti-air with decent range but air units are no threat now and it's ground attack is weak.



with units healed, i attacked another sector (also without 'borrowed' units, because why level them if they will leave later.)


Wait a second, undead?


After i while, it looked this way. If you look at APs. yes, it's right. With all units firing, i was able to kill one enemy. It's worth noting that there was tons of xp from even from hitting him.


That moment, i realized another great thing that 'spawn camping' offers, retreating without casualties. Actually, if you read the table, it probably wasn't meant to be won (considering the game throws at you all undead, at once).

After that, new research - Undeads was available.


We were attacked 2 times, but i'll skip that because those fights are totally uninteresting. After researching undead, flamethrowers research was available, granting eponymous unit to buy. Of course, i bought one (though expecting short range unit, it had almost as good range as mortars and very good damage.)


Few turns later with flamethrowers ready, it was time to attack next area. The missing infantry died during defense against enemy attack (but since it wasn't ours, nobody cares). In the meantime, i bought another mortars.



First encounter


Gondolin chilin' before he takes more enemies...


Here they are.


Changing positions. That's needed when enemies are too far from comfortable luring. In this case, there's even better position against enemy artillery (balistas).


Interrupts work here kinda weird. Sometimes they trigger, sometimes not. It seems that enemy can't see me, but in same time, i must not see enemy coming. This means, if hummer sees enemy before any unit can shoot, i won't get any interrupt.


That said, ironically, these palisades help make encounters much easier than an open battle. Especially since artillery doesn't outrange me. Anyway, rest of enemies were killed with same pattern thus we had another sector. And about those flamethrowers, they aren't bad now, we'll see when they gain some levels. Also, they actually look more like rocket launchers (firing missile that makes something between fire and explosion).





Another timed sector, but before that, I attacked the 'undead' village once more. Now with flamers.


Actually, it wasn't as bad as it looks like. Point is, those undeads have a unique ability to 'scare', decreasing morale of our units. So of course, when all 4 (this time they were fortified and ready to be lured, not all attacking like before) rushed and started howling half of the army started fleeing. I must say that flamers are very effective against it. Commandos were dealing decent damage too.



Few more times the same process...


And that was that. I must say that like every unit got at least one, likely more levels from those undeads (heavy and light infantry leveling like crazy here), granting some units 4 attacks/turn so even light infantries are now excellent unit.



Without wasting time, i attacked next area. For this mission (only), we acquired these 2 m106s. These look like that m113 transporter but it's actually a mortar with 9 range, so 1 more than infantry mortars.


Here we can see new enemy units, harpies. They can't attack ground but they have another 'howling' ability, this one, if succeeds, drains AP's of nearby units for next turn. So far, it sounds more dangerous than it is, because unless we were surrounded by many orcs, our infantry can take these down easily.


And after a while, another unknown enemy units appearing. Now these are rather dangerous. They are similar to our infantry - fragile with good firepower. If not killed by mortars soon enough, they can do nasty damage, mostly because they are in groups and while half of orcish squad is killed before coming close, dark elves shoot right when they spot me.





Luring last, rather larger army, the objective was actually to destroy 2 caves. But since everything was killed, i just took commandos (highest dmg against objects) and took it out.


After this mission, the m106 artillery was available to buy. Because it has the longest range so far, i bought one to see how it will perform.



Some sectors actually need to be captured twice, but atm, i'm attacking a north-east sector, hidden behind that window.







If you look at a close look at our units, notice guys with 5 attacks (not mentioning their attack rating), leveling up makes wonders in this game.
Anyway this is a default 'medium map, little trees' scenario. ie: 'lure them all'.


For some reason, now they are undeads in the same area. Let's take them out... and have awesome xp from them.






Yes, you're right. I did exact same 'tactic' as in previous battle. Don't fix what isn't broken.



And this 'cave' area again. Well, guess what i did.




Right! i DID nothing.

Anyway, i have to say that orcs and mostly even ka-orcs are easy enough now. Also, leveled flamers became very powerful, usually heavily wounding ka-orcs only with 2 shots out of 4 per turn.



And eventually moving forward, killing last enemies.





Finally, last battle in this BS. I think this one will be little more interesting because it was actually about attacking. (And you, unlike me don't have to wait 15 turns to fortify after moving into new position ^^). Also, it was the probably the hardest one so far, partially because quite unfair 'ending'. But after few restarts and many loads (FYI, on this difficulty, there are total 6 saves available for each mission and it's hard to 'plan' saves in larger maps), i learned the terrain and did it.


Few orcs and balistas/throwers from the start. I noticed that i could 'read' what is AI doing from duration of enemy turns (if it moves an army, if it scouts with gargoyles or if it doesn't do anything.)


The objective is only to kill the orc boss, not all enemies. I had to drive around that forest with that m106 and hummer (road was guarded by dark elves which would lead to casualties so a took down those gargoyles so they won't spot me).


Another tricky part. On the left is hill with dark elves and balista, in the lower forest are some orcs and dark elves. After few tries i finally made a good layout and lured them with humvee spot + m106 long range fire combo.


Every try before, the elves from the hill attacked too. Not this time though, so i lured them the same way.


Even when those mortars panicked (from being fortified in one place for too long), i was able to take out elves without any problems.


Moving deeper in enemy base, there was another tricky part. These corridors were good for interrupts, but i had to make a good positioning.



Lured them by shooting into palisade, they didn't have a chance.


This was the unfair part. Enemy had a harpy and artillery on those cliffs, having interrupt before i could spot it with humvee (there was another cliff on the right so i couldn't move around it). After some tries, I finally figured out that it's possible to lure the harpy, take it out and spot the artillery (that couldn't do anything without spotter).


i moved units behind that palisade so they were covered and harpy left it's nest.


Then i just fired some mortar shells on those machines.



Same with this 'boss'. Mission accomplished and we're heading to next BS!

Fuck you man, you make it look so easy I remember much frustration and gnashed teeth back then! I guess I should return to the game and see whether I've improved or declined since '98.

Good job, in other words

I remember playting it a lot around '98. I loved the cutscenes and all that crazy stuff.

So another update, this one took me little more time than i expected because in this BS, enemy got some nasty new units and i got little frustrated in last 4 battles. I wanted to do this update yesterday, but i wasn't able to figure a working tactic for last mission.


Apart from some promotions (allowing us to bring more units to missions), we have some support units from Alliance. Well, rangers and 2 light infantries (at level 1 or 2) won't serve for anything more than meatshields.


Finally a skilled artilleryman in our team! (i hope you don't mind being m106 instead of mortar team)


With 2 new units, tanks, available, i bought one that seemed better and a piranha. Mainly because new research options are heavily focused on upgrading vehicles. Then without wasting any time, i went straight to first mission.


I see what you did there, a desert!


And this new enemy unit, Mri or something like that. They are casters with 7 range, so they outrange most infantry units. Nasty. And, while the game tries to push me into buying armored vehicles, Mri have very good damage against them. Mortars and flamers are however a good counter against them.


And right after that Mri, we encountered another new enemy, a Golem. Now, if Mri is nasty, Golem is a pain in the ass. If you look at the stats and compared it to Mri, it's better in everything, it has same range. That alone would be strong enough. But golem is also a heavy unit, so it also, unlike Mri, outranges even these few counters we have (mainly Forlorn Hope). Mortars still work, but it takes much longer to take it out.



Insert orc rush before new enemies and add some camping dark elves in the end and that's pretty much this mission.



After healing rest of my units and one turn later than upper screen, i attcked another timed sector. Apparently this is an escort mission.


Because those new units, it usually need one restart to slightly scout the map and enemies so i can make good positioning against them. With lesser range, hills are now extremely important, because i can even the odds that way. Or i can be screwed even more fighting an enemy on a high ground.


Well the horde finally arrived...



The orcs aren't much of a problem, because units with lesser range can take them out. Mortars can take out Mri fairly well, even if they can do hit few times before that. Here can be seen how many units need to be pulled back so they don't die. Good thing is that AI is doesn't act like bitch to annoy me by targeting almost dead units but it rather retargets to healthy one. This is actually rather clever, considering that weak units almost don't do damage. Of course you can say it's stupid and AI is trying too hard to defeat me, because due to the progress of LP, it's clear that eventually, i'll simply win...



Anyway, after clearing some magotars around and finding the pilot, there wasn't anything else in the way.


Another 2 timed sectors were available to capture so i didn't wait longer than was necessary.


Traitors? sounds like humans, doesn't it?


Some enemies from the start. In some moments like this one, Mri aren't that hard to deal with, but that's not common.


Now there's quite a difference in this BS from previous ones. That is, enemy units now camp a lot and i have to move more. This should be good for the LP because it won't be 3 screens of stationary army killing everything running into it.


As i mentioned, the hills are now much more important, i'd even say vital to win without heavy loses. This way it's possible to take out most of enemy units even before they shoot.


After all, there were some renegade soldiers and piranha coming. However, the hill was such an overkill that i have ONLY screenshots like this (notice the blood around). To be honest, they can't be even compared to Dark Side units, almost one shotting infantry with mortars. I was quite wondering how the hell can i even win battles with so weak units.


Making my way through, There was quite large renegade army (with a real tank!) but hill did the stuff again.


This one wasn't that hard. Also about the new tank (TAM) and the Piranha. They still aren't level up, but Piranha is quite good, having decent attack against both heavy and light units and TAM would be good against heavy units but it has rather low range to engage them effectively.


Enemies captured our sector but i that didn;t matter that much. I went for the last timed mission.


If there is a canyon like this, things get simplified a lot.




It was easily to defend, but another new unit appeared.

Mechanical tower. It would be best described as a Golem against infantry. It has similar 'pain in the ass' potential, mainly because most of our army are light units. It has also same durability and same range.



Moving out and encountering some ranged squad, but high ground won the battle again.



Not counting the final mission, i tried each of these 3 sectors first and all of them really looked really frustrating. The upper one was tricky but i already had a strategy for it.


After killing some balistast/throwers i moved on to one side of something like valley.



Watch how far can that m106 shoot.
meantime i took humvee for spotting to blow up enemy positions.



It was quite boring, move one square, scout/shoot and move back, repeat. Occasionally, retreat to the rest of the army and kill following enemies.


When enemies stopped coming and the way was clear, i moved crossed the low ground to another position.



Clearing more enemies...



The ending was little tricky because there were some throwers that were too annoying. I tried to lure them with humvee and later with mortars, but they either only moved when they could take my unit out. Because of that, i simply moved whole army and took out rest of enemy units.



I have to say that all maps are much more smaller in this BS than in the previous one, which i like because it's not that much about finding last group of enemies somewhere.



Starting enemies were no problem some Mri and wolf riders, the rest of them was fortified on high ground.


Finally finding a decent position, it was time to lure them with mortar.


Than came tougher units.



And at the strongest in the end. Unlike previous BSs where it was enough to just wait until ballistas/throwers get close enough, here it's important to move forward a little to finish those machines.



We researched a new vehicle called Elmag (using some electromagnetic stuff) so i bought one to test it out.

This was just about holding position because all enemies were attacking so enjoy the footage:







This turned out to be an easy mission.


The final one looked hard because it was very small map with large hill with enemies in the middle, the objectives were, however, to spot some stuff and kill a wizard.


The blue thing is what we had to spot. In this misson, i had to use the height in different way. There was no way i could get on high ground because there were guarding enemies so i fortified slightly under it. Mri doesn't have direct attack and some units could still outrange me, but it didn't turn into a slaughterfest like it could if i was below the hill.


Using humvee to scout for mortars units that i couldn't shoot over the top of that hill.


And then it was coming.


It looked like i'll get owned but the thing was, i only needed to kill that guy and mortars had enough range.



Killing some orcs for the lulz, the mighty wiztard was blown up quickly.

Even if it was rather annoying because all those Golems and Mri and Towers, i liked the new environment and loved the small maps. Also there's a question whether or not is worth buying new vehicles. They can be upgraded easily, on the other hand, enemies have more counters against them and there could still be tree-heavy BS in future, making vehicles ineffective and easy to ambush. We'll see.

I might also think about upgrading some units, especially light infantries into something better because they are getting seriously outdated (tbh, they were surpassed since first mission), maybe flamethrowers.

Anyway, stay tuned for the next update and looking for new recruits!

It looks interesting, I would like to be the commander of one of these paranormal ninjas or something it was mentioned earlier (as soon as they're allowed of course).

lightbane said:

It looks interesting, I would like to be the commander of one of these paranormal ninjas or something it was mentioned earlier (as soon as they're allowed of course).

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Well the good thing is that unit can be 'upgraded'/changed to unit in the same category (ie: light infantry to commandos, commandos to heavy infantry, piranhas to other transporters/tanks etc.), keeping their experience. So either way, you'll probably end up as a different and better unit than you chose.

Of course since i don't know the upcoming units, i can't tell what to choose to be X, but light infantries won't be light infantries for the whole game.

So for future recruits, please think about a general role you want to have and i'll try to upgrade you in the most suitable way.

Great update. Keep up the good work, commander!

If your light infantry wind up being able to morph into spellcasting weirdos, count me as a volounteer.

Heck, I'm game for any kind of upgrade.

Azira said:

If your light infantry wind up being able to morph into spellcasting weirdos, count me as a volounteer.

Heck, I'm game for any kind of upgrade.

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Not yet, btw ur infantry is fully leveled but yea, it's still a light infantry

for everyone who still didn't sign in, quite obviously, if you don't pick a 'role', i'll choose a random unit for you. (if you haven't figured out yet)



Also, i updated the main page with full list of recruits together with unit sheets so you can see how awesome you are, i'll keep it updated as the LP will go on (until you hit level cap and then when you'll be 'upgraded'. too bad the game doesn't have a kill counter).


edit: oh well, can't add /url into that code that i for that table, so i'll leave it w/o screens for now.

I request an infantry unit, they should specialize on scouting and sneak attacks (and I insist the unit should be these paranormal ninjas).

great job so far... looking forward to the endgame