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In Progress Let's Play: The Last Days - Orcs do not simply walk out of Mordor

flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
Some music to keep you busy: http://www.wimp.com/howdance/ Although it really doesn't set the mood right, unless you like orc-funka-delic

Part H-gahk (8) in which Skullgrinder learns the value of a dollar, eats some cotton candy, and has his first taste of royal flesh.


Bonus: Loading screen art

We resupply in Minas Morgul and the orc-held part of Osgiliath. Osgiliath is clearly overrun and orcs run all over both banks of the river. The humans hold a staunch castle and the siege equipment is all focused elsewhere: Skullgrinder is no general, yet, and has little control over the motions of war.


We encounter a patrol.

"Sharpen doze axez, boyz!"


Orc bros can't hold back their joy, we significantly outnumber the enemy. The only drawback is that we are on the west side of the river, technically this is unfriendly territory.


This map features a small stream and a nice little bridge, too bad it is of piddling tactical value.


The tactical overlay shows our thinly distributed line. I would have liked to perform a pincer maneuver but M&B doesn't support that with only infantry. We will instead do something similar and use our archers to flank the enemy, a tactic that can be used to great effect against Gondor's impregnable shields. Shields can't be used against arrows if the human's flabby torso is in the way.


Despite slashing at a horse's legs at near breakneck speed, the horse keeps on truckin'. These are powerful humie war horses: Not like the drays and draft horses used by caravan guards. Unless we gain some serious strength, it doesn't look like we will be able to 1-shot war horses.


CRAP CRAP CRAP! Skullgrinder has to fall back into the welcome arms of his brethren after brutally pressing the enemy. The archers are ordered to charge as soon as Skullgrinder is in a safe position.


These are not humie caravan guards, but soldiers trained and some are bred for war. There is little comparison between this Gondor patrol and the Gondor caravans.


Skullgrinder rendevous with the archers, who make their way across the bridge.


Despite numerical superiority and archer support, this was a costly battle.

Battle recap: Our standard melee/archer split into a flanking maneuver worked, but the hardy humie soldiers were difficult to down.


We turn in a quest to train some veterans, and receive some much needed praise. 'bout time!


We are able to pick up some uruk chainmail in Minas Morgul.



We meet up with Orc General Gothmog in Minas Morgul.

We have a new dialgoue option with bozz orc! :bounce:


But he says we need some ridiculously high rank :(


Taking note of our actions, Gothmog requests our presence in his stack, but we have 20 days to complete this quest, so we wander off to eat cotton candy and wear women's clothes kill some more humans.


"I will drink from your skull!"


We advance in a ragged line, and the humans are upon us before we know it. There is little chance for our archers to press our missile advantage.

A wave of humans rushes into Skullgrinder. Look at all the arrows sticking out of the human's shield on the right... and one sticking into his guts :)

"Idiot..."


The orcs make short work of the caravan, but not without losses of their own.


After the battle, Bozz Gothmog finally sieges the enemy. We will spend our time puttering around until the siege begins.


Another caravan battle: We split into our standard archer/melee flanking formation, and pray that the enemy does not charge our squishy archer orc bros.


The orc melee stack turns the enemy around even further -- this means that more arrows will strike the back and sides of the enemy.


A constant barrage of arrows wreck the enemy, downing many Rohan horses. This is an especially grievous wound to Rohan, which depends in large part upon their cavalary. While the Rohan line is engaged with the Mordor Wrecking Crew, they are pounded with arrows from a score of orc archer bros. Unfortunately for head badass Skullgrinder, it looks like the remaining cavalry are coming his way. Up goes the shield.

Note that Skullgrinder has a spare shield that can be worn on the back and absorbs stray arrows that would have otherwise buried themselves in his precious lungs.


The flanking maneuver was a huge success, Rohan is a lot squishier than Gondor though.


The warg captain achieves max level and trains his warg to become even fiercer.


A large party of Khan raiders seem to be forming up around a 'Prince' party.


"Royal humie flesh! Letz get 'im, boyz!"


"Hoooowaaaahhhhh!"


200 vs 300 + 100 (Mordor Wrecking Crew). 2 to 1, I like dem odds!


Skullgrinder orders the evil humies to form up around him, but Skullgrinder has no rank in their society and they ignore him, after all, Mordor Wrecking Crew represents only 1/4th of the evil forces.


Although you can't see very well in this picture, the charging cavalry made up a MASSIVE column that descended upon the clump of enemy like a swarm of locusts.


What luck! Orc bros accompany the Khan footmen right into the line of archers. This will be a glorious slaughter!


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


Enemy reinforcements show up before we can do serious damage to the archers. Where are my allies?!?


Massive enemy incoming! And friendlies nowhere to be seen, we have to reform, FALL BACK!


Damn damn damn damn! Friendly column incoming... need... to... hold... out...


Uruks can't ride wargs, otherwise Skullgrinder would have hopped on this mount and it have been a much more interesting battle.


Skullgrinder charges in with the friendly reinforcements! DEATH OR GLORY!


Skullgrinder tries to rally the orc bros into a meat-wall to stop the constant cavalry charges.



"Uhhh, broz. Were joo go?"


"Whew, close call!"


The battle tide finally puts an end to Skullgrinder.


The cheers of the enemy turn into the gurgling of sea foam as blood fills Skullgrinder's ears.

The End? ...

Your companions drag you away from the fighting.

Battle report:
Mordor Wrecking Crew losses: 1 Skullgrinder (wounded), Ufthak the orc tracker (wounded), 1 score orc archers, 2 score heavy orcs,
Ally losses: 160, mostly cavalry
Enemy losses: 125. Unit type indeterminate (Could not properly assess the battle)

Overall, acceptable losses for the crew. Acceptable losses in any mission is total unit count - 1. In this case, however, it's a long drawn out battle and we simply needed to keep the fighting ratio at or above 2:1, so we don't lose ground. We succeeded and will reenter the battle after a short breather...


A fresh stack of Corsairs joins the battle! Nearly 4:1 odds now


This is nothing compared to the cavalry column from the last battle, but it will have to do until we can make it to the front line. Despite his grevious wounds, Skullgrinder is rearing for some revenge!


The enemy sports many horses, our side will need to bunch up to foil their charges. "Stay togethur, joo meatsakz!" That's the end of the battle. Evil outnumbered good by 4 to 1! It was like stomping newbies. We spanked them. Hard. As the crows descended and the sky blackened, the orcs lit their cooking fires. The backdraft caused by Sauron's smoke-and-ash clouds drew the smell of burning flesh deep into the heart of Mordor. Toiling orcs lifted their heads and smelled a familiar scent on the breeze: Spit-roasted humans!


The Khan leader is grateful and offers Skullgrinder his daughter's anus in payment.


The crew re-gears and re-supplies at Minas Morgul, then heads to the siege location for some much needed war-camp action. Siege spots turn into quest hubs, as every Mordor stack shows up to the party (Brotato Mouthy is NOT mobile and will always be at Morrannon).


*waves* "I'll just stay over here and watch the gate"


We get a mission to kill caravans (Nooooooooooo!)
And a courier quest to a location we already had a courier quest to go to

Up next: We chill at the war camp and drink booze.
 
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Eyeball

Arcane
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
2,541
Fun fact: you can actually eat even captured lords. Not sure if this is effective in removing them from the board entirely, but it's funny as fuck all the same.

In fact, the cannibalism function of Last Days is awesomely abuseable.

Pirate quartermaster: "Oh, noble orc ally, we starve! Please get us six food items in 2 weeks!"
Orc PC: "No problem, dude! *Slaughters 6 captured Gondorians, gives carcasses to pirates*
Pirate quartermaster: "Thank you, truly you are noble and heroic!"
 

flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
Yeah that's right, I'm alive. I have re-installed Windows and also found TLD version 3.23 (I was playing 3.1) from March 2013. The update was actually abso-fucking-lutely buried in the release thread on the TLD forums :( The creator said that he'd do a 'real' release after the last round of bugs are finished, but this adds a lot of new content including:

Fixed the 'no sieges' bug by reducing siege requirements as time goes by
Added various orc victory sounds and animations
Fixed Mordor resources translating to their allies properly
Fixed siege battles so they suck less

Since my saved games didn't carry over, I went ahead and played right up to the point where we left off: Cair Andros is under siege, we have a stack of about 100 troops. I will only provide a few quick updates as to what happened during the spool up

Part HH (ten) in which we learn there is more to the world than just orcs and men (uh-oh)

First let's set the mood. Orcs are hardcore. Take a deep breath, turn down your speakers/headphones quite a bit, then watch this link for no less than 30 seconds: http://orcsarehardcore.ytmnd.com/ (Yes, you have to click it)


A fun little battle while levelling back up in which our troops adopt a crescent formation


We advance to Sentry, that means we are a pillar of stability in the legions of Mordor. We have achieved this rank by waylaying caravans and growing our Mordor Wrecking Crew


Skullgrinder runs into a massive battle of Gondor troops vs Mordor troops, time to help!


The ranks form. Mordor wrecking crew assumes a flanking position, but gets a little too close to the enemy


Faramir sees his chance, and attacks us since we have split forces. Hopefully the main body of orcs can charge in and wreak some havoc


Nope, Mordor legions are a bunch of rank-holding douchebags. Our archers get the worst of it


Massive skull-grinding by Skullgrinder


Almost dead, Skullgrinder picks up the banner of a fallen uruk and carries the battle onward




This is what it looks like after a battle. Dozens of Mordor scout parties dash every which way. Apparently as the game grows longer the large number of scout parties on the map creates issues for the engine. Oops.


We drive a caravan into the Cair Andros siege forces.


Initial attempts to start the siege meet with mixed success: http://epicorc.ytmnd.com/ (Yes, you have to click that)


The Cair Andros siege: 2 ladders, and we are knocking down the main gate

http://orcgoodtime.ytmnd.com/ (Yes, you have to click that)

The gate is finally down. Time for some skull grinding action action action




Every other orc at the gate is fled or dead


Orcs bunch up around the enemy arrows ladder

Cair Andros cannot stand to our might. Eventually, we overwhelm it


Let's take a look at our new digs. Situated on an island between the east and west banks of Osgiliath river is a stout stone fortress, made of white stone.



Can you guess which way Mordor is?


That's right, black smoke = home sweet home


A supply caravan dares speak to Skullgrinder. They seem useful enough

The time has come, let us away to Isengard

Isengard is the left-most yellow blip in the distance, past Rohan territory



Isengard, at last




saruman1zps068d83e9.jpg

"We will turn the world of men to ash"















Wow, Saruman is a real brotato. We just saunter up to him wearing our Sauron shield and he gives us an important (and fuN!) quest! Saruman may have just found his new right-hand man. We will attempt to help both Mordor and Isengard from now on.


The fires of industry burn in Isengard



An uruk war camp provides the Isengard forces a convenient place to re-arm and resupply.


An uruk hunting camp. Uruk-hai eat a lot of meat.


Okay, so some elves. And there are only 40 of them. No big deal right? WRONG! Elves pack some serious firepower... why are they following us? RUN AWAY!!!


By some astronomical stroke of luck, Skullgrinder manages to run into some friendly goblin war parties. Maybe we're not screwed after all.


The elf transgenders shoot down the wargs, riders and all, before they can reach them


Their arrows HURT, so do their swords. But they fall about as easily as the men of Gondor.


Trolls help, if they can make it to the elves. Say, weren't we on a mission to capture a troll? I guess these aren't wild enough.


Snog, an impeccable orcish name.


Let's do the goblins a solid and pay homage. Maybe they can hook us up with a troll.


Dead dwarves litter the entrance hallway. Dwarf meat is too tough for my tastes


One mis-step could be the end of Skullgrinder


Our first sign of life is this crude guard tower


The vaulted halls of Moria is where the core of the goblin 'culture' makes camp







We find a shaman orc, who apparently has healing skills, but he takes 50 rank points. We should probably make this our priority... but trolls are too cool! Let's get a trolololol soon, please.


They must have fixed the troll quest. Now going to the troll caves will net you a troll. Best bugfix ever

:bravo:


Wow, that's one angry penis. Orcs are tall, and the camera height is fixed


Troll battle art


GIVEMEYOUR2zps6fa682.jpg

"Pfeh, he doesn't look so big"


Trolltato proceeds to knock down half a dozen orcs and uruks with a single swing. All those floored enemies are alive, and were knocked down with 1 swing. Skullgrinder does his thing and grinds the troll's skull for a while, eventually knocking it unconscious



We head back to Isengard to turn in our quests





We turn in one quest, and Saruman gives us another? Wtf is this, an actual RPG?!?
sarumancrazyzps69e2f.jpeg



We find a nice rider sitting next to Saruman in the tower of Orthanc, but need 50 rank points (Not a whole lot)


We find a battle going on between the Dunlanders and the King of Rohan. No rank points with Isengard for this one, but a fight is a fight is a fight!

(NSFW) Yes you have to click it: http://racistorcs.ytmnd.com/

In the next bro-tastic episode: King Theoden of Rohan is forced to suck Saruman's dong
 
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MorteTorment

Novice
Joined
May 26, 2013
Messages
20
Wow...well this is easily the most surprising LP i've seen on this site so far.

It's a about a game which largely consists of these huge War battles, which generally don't interest me, but you've not only kept me on the edge of my seat, where you seem to be pulling off pretty much everything that I'd want and more from an LP, but you also make me want to give Mount and Blade another shot with this mod, so thanks Flabby!
 

MorteTorment

Novice
Joined
May 26, 2013
Messages
20
OK, I officially passed the little newbie moderation test, so I figured that I'd ask for a bit of claification on a few things:

1. You haven't taken out any entire faction/country etc yet, but right now you're planning to take out Theoden, which will in turn pretty much decimate Rohan, right?

2. Also, the 6 counties/factions in for this are Mordor, Isengard(which you currently are allied with), Rohan, Gondor, Lothlorien, and...whatever the dwarves country/faction happens to be called, right?
 

flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
Typing this from an old laptop, due to an infestation of house-ghosts. In related news, the next update may be a bit delayed, again.

MorteTorment
1. Morte is right, with a few clarifications. By assisting a side you eliminate the opposing factions force # strength, which is proportionate to the number of troops they have afield and in cities. Less force strength = more likely to get sieged. When a side loses their final city (The capital), the faction is defeated. Theoden is the leader of, and at this point the main army stack, for Rohan (He's the leader, so he replenishes fast).

I'm pretty sure Skullgrinder has helped stomp Theoden's party before, but Theoden is annoying and doesn't know when to quit. After a battle enemy lords have a chance to escape (usually), get captured, or get killed -- if killed they spawn a nice little burial mound/shrine.

2. There are 19 factions total. Even though only a few of them are joinable from the start, you can rise through the ranks of any faction on your side of the Light vs Dark struggle. Faction list

From the manual

The Good:

Woodmen were thoseNorthmen who dwelt in the forests of Middle-earth, and especially Mirkwood in theThird and Fourth ages.

Beornings were a people of the upper Vales of Anduin, between Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains. It is possible that the Beornings became known as a people through being descendants of Beorn. During the War of the Ring, Grimbeorn the Old, son of Beorn, was the leader of the Beornings.
These northmen only fight on foot and their infantry is decent, if not very well equipped. Various scout troops provide ranged support and the rest are mostly lightly armoured axemen.

Dale is a city rebuilt by northmen who share the ancestry with the Rohirrim joined by the survivors from the lake city of Esgaroth. (after it was burnt down by Smaug).
Men of Dale provide tough infantry focused on polearm, famous archer troops topped by the legendary Barding bowmen and a merchant guard line acting as reasonably good cavalry.

Dwarves are short and tough, very strong and very well equipped. They come from the Lonely Mountain and the Iron Hills.
Their army consists of an infantry line, a scout/archer line and an Iron Hills line (the heaviest hard hitting infantry).

Elves of LothlĂłrien are a powerful group of Nandor and Sindar living in the LĂłrien woods, led by lord Celeborn and lady Galadriel.
Their forces consist of an infantry line and a scout line. All their troops are very skilled, well equipped and overall deadly. A rain of arrows from under the forests cover, followed by a devastating infantry attack, is their main tactic.

The Woodelves are Sindar living in Mirkwood, led by king Thranduil.
They too have an infantry and a scout line, but focused more on the archers than the elves of LĂłrien. Their infantry specializes on spears.

Elves of Imladris (Rivendell) are Sindar and Noldor led by lord Elrond and his two sons. Much of the West of old remains in their household, powerful elven lords and ancient artifacts. Under their banner the DĂşnedain of the North march as well - tall dark haired rangers and nobles of mixed DĂşnedain blood clad in ancient maille.
Very well equipped and highly skilled infantry, archers and also cavalry.
The Bad:

Men of Rhûn are tribal easterlings from around the sea of Rhûn.
The bulk of their army is cavalry - horse archers and lancers, both very lightly equipped, the top tier cavalry is much heavier or larger mounts. Their infantrymen are also quite lightly armoured and wield large axes and swords.

Dol Guldur is an old fortress of Sauron in Mirkwood - orcs now launch attacks at the forest elves from there.
The Dol Guldur troops are just orcs, quite similar to the Mordor types. Overall typical orc infantry, archers and also the warg riders.

Gundabad used to be a dwarven holy place, later it became a massive orc city in the mountain. It was abandoned for a while, but now the orcs returned in large numbers.
The Gundabad orcs are very similar to all other orcs, but their nature is more savage. Their equipment is primitive and their fighting style barbaric.

Orcs of Moria occupy the halls of Khazad DĂşm.
Orcs like all others, but their equipment is better, because they use metal scraps and bits of looted dwarven armour.
In the South

The Good:

Gondor, the “land of stone”, is inhabited by descendants of the ancient Númenoreans. Proud men standing as the last line of defence against the darkness of the Enemy, ruled over by steward Denethor.
Gondor’s military is composed of forces coming from all the different fiefdoms. You get the standard army with solid and well armoured troops overall (infantry, archers and cavalry), Dol Amroth famous for their heavy cavalry, green archers and spearmen from Pinnath Gelin, bowmen from the Blackroot Vale, axemen of Lossarnach, heavy marines from Pelargir or hardened clansmen of Lamedon.

Rohirrim are the horse lords of the Mark of Rohan led by king Théoden.
Rohirrim have very good cavalry - from heavy lancers to agile horse archers. They have an infantry line as well, branching into shieldwall forming troops and heavy swordsmen bearing longswords.
The Bad:

Mordor represents Sauron’s own forces bred in the darkness of the Black Land.
Armies of Mordor consist of orcs, uruks and evil men (Black Númenoreans). Uruks of Mordor are the better equipped and stronger breed of orcs, but have no archery line. Most regular orcs are infantry, skirmishers or archers, but there are also orc warg-riders. Black Númenoreans are a rare, but very dangerous infantry and cavalry. Sauron has also bread some fierce battle trolls, but they’re extremely rare.

Isengard is ruled by Saruman, the betrayer wizard. He created his own version of orcs: the uruk-hai.
The forces of Isengard are quite well (if crudely) equipped. The orcs are comparable to any other orcs, but the uruk-hai are truly deadly killing machines - wielding pikes, halberds, heavy axes and nasty cleavers. They also have largest bows among any orcs.

Dunlanders are wild men, enemies of the Rohirrim who drove them from their homeland.
They’re very poorly equipped, almost no real armour and sharpened wooden pikes and antler axes. Their chieftains wear old maille, crudel helmets and rare swords. They also have a cavalry line, but it’s also quite weak.

Variags of Khand are fierce easterling raiders wearing terrifying battlemasks.
They rely on fast light infantry (skirmishers and blademasters) and heavy axemen, while their cavalry line contains both lightly armoured agile skirmishers and heavy cataphracts.

Haradrim come from the deserts and rain forests of the far South - dark skinned with an affection for gold.
Haradrim have average infantry (skirmishers/archers and spearmen/swordsmen) from Great Harad, a cavalry line (both heavy cavalry and horse archers) from Harondor and a Far Harad line of tribal warriors.

Corsairs of Umbar are southern enemies of Gondor, descendants of the Black NĂşmenoreans.
Corsairs employ both lightly armoured skirmishers and heavier swordmasters as well as iron longbowmen.

If you have been counting, and I KNOW you have been, the last faction(s) are deserters and bandits.
 

MorteTorment

Novice
Joined
May 26, 2013
Messages
20
You had kind of a confusing way of phrasing that response Flabby, as if you were replying to me and someone else at the same time. It was kinda hard to tell at first that you weren't just replying to anything anyone has said here other than me.

Anyways....

1. Replenishes quickly as in even if you win a battle against him, he'll be wounded several times before you actually get to kill him, and he'll more than likely replace those that you kill quite quickly? Because if so, yeah, that can be a pain. And while yeah I assumed that taking a leader out wouldn't completely destroy the faction. it will at least cripple them so badly that you can easily take out most of the rest of their main forces, especially if you have an allied faction helping you do so, right?

2. Ah, so you can switch factions in this game? Nice! IIRC, you can't really do that in vanilla With Fire and Sword.

And yeah, would it be fair to assume that the Elves of LothlĂłrien are kinda considered the most overpowered faction? Also, would it be fair to assume that if you can keep your trolls alive and leveled up pretty well, you're going to end up having a MUCH easier time. since they're hard to find, but are insanely powerful??

Finally...19 fucking factions?!!! Seriously?!!! I kinda get the idea that most of them are mainly there for lore purposes, and can easily be taken out as well though. Is that correct?

Oh, and as I was about to hit Post Reply, this came to mind:

There's no hobbits in this alternate universe version of LOTR?

Edit: I forgot to add this as well: Oh, and by all means, take all the time that you need to put out what you consider the best LP that you're capable of doing alongside whatever else you need to do in your life, just please don't give up on this project if you can help it.
 

flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
Approaching bandwidth limit. New Photobucket account, here I come!

If you read my prior post carefully, you will find a Hobbit Movie Part 2 minor spoiler :)

MorteTorment
1 Yeah, leader seems to respawn quite quickly. But smashing any of their stack does give your side a distinct advantage, that's why I swooped over to Isengard -- to help them put nails into Rohan's coffin

2 Yup :) Any faction aside from bandits/deserters seems to be joinable. There are different recruitable NPCs and quest rewards for each faction, although Saruman seems to be the only evil race leader that gives out uniquely scripted quests. Many factions have only a single location on the map, though. I'd really say there are 5-6 main factions; Mordor, Isengard, Gondor, Elves of Lothlorien gaytown, and Rohan, although those Rivendell elves sure are powerful too.

The game map doesn't include the Shire, and doesn't really touch much on the ring bearer -- the PC is busy fighting the War of the Ring, not chasing down Gandalf

Part 11
In which the our orcish bro-horde makes short work of Theoden's riders and infantry, an orc gets raped, then we chop some trees


A temporal distortion occurs (Forgot to save). Theoden escapes the dunlanders and chases Skullgrinder, who leads them to the siege at West Emmet.


Theoden's elite cavalry cuts through the uruk lines before Skullgrinder can make a battle assessment. The orcs form up into ranks to fend off further charges. The enemy cavalry splashes ineffectively against the orc line.
Friendly casualties: 11
Enemy casualties: 40

Moral of the story is don't charge a line of uruk-hai pikemen with riders of Rohan, unless you have Gandalf backing you up

At this point, enemy infantry is outnumbered 2 to 1. Rohan infantry isn't too terribly strong, and the large uruk-hai make short work of them.



Now for our Get to Know an Uruk-Hai segment
urukhai.jpg


Isengard uruks (uruk-hai) are a specially bred form of uruk, and typically eshew defensive shields in favor of large 2-handed weapons. After all the point of battle is not to survive, but to slaughter the enemy!

Fun fact: In TLD, good units will form up with their shield bearers in front. Evil units will form up with their strongest units in front *evil grin*

Orcs were birthed from the tortured bodies of elves by Melkor. Uruks (IE - Second and third age 'Morannon orcs') developed by Sauron, and uruk-hai (An improved orc) developed by Sauron and improved further by Saruman, there are reports of Black Uruks (Uruk-hai) that are Sauron's personal tower guard

Melkor (Morgoth) had created them before the First Age by breeding Elves he had captured and corrupted, by means of torture and mutilation.
;)


Fun fact: The eye of Sauron is not a manifestation of Sauron, it is simply an artifact he created that he controls from within the tower


We delve into the forest of Fanghorn to scout for the reason Saruman's men keep disappearing. A campfire should help.


The trees have eyes.


Suddenly a tree vine starts raping a poor orcling. The Mordor Wrecking Crew watches amusingly until the orcling bleeds out, then attacks the tree.


Holy skah! That's a big walking tree. It also seems stronger than a troll and can knock back almost a dozen enemies with a single attack, it also seems more resistant to damage.


After a great deal of skull-grinding, the walking tree falls to the ground -- it has nearly been split in twain. A second walker shows up to help, but its weak and felled quite easily. Almost a hundred orc casualties. This better be worth it to Saruman!


Skullgrinder obtained ent water. We will drink it later, and it will make us large and filled with wood.

Some bandits have decided to ambush us RIGHT OUTSIDE ISENGARD (!!) due to our weakened force strength.

Our forces: 50 total orcs/uruks. About 20 reasonably well armed and armoured orcs, a couple uruks, and 30 snagas (loincloths, clubs, and crude spears). Very few shields.


Enemy forces: 20 puny humans. Threat assessment: Low.

The Mordor Wrecking Crew makes short work of the enemy. Our strongest troops take the front-line the enemy doesn't cause any casualties. Pathetic. Skullgrinder instructs the orcs not to eat the flesh of the slain, lest it make them weak.

The crew heads back to Isengard to report progress on the Fangorn quest, and collect much needed potato

Tastefully, Skullgrinder omits the rape from his eloquent report.

(30 rank points!) Saruman develops a crush on Skullgrinder.

Saruman gives us access to his rape-van the depths of Isengard.


Lava forges are the envy of any dwarf fortress


A narrow cave beyond a causeway through the main pit leads to... something

The cave seems to lead to the main orc living area and slave pens. Isengard uses a large number of orcs for manual labor.


Suddenly, Gothmog summons us back to Mordor.

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"All hail the great eye! Death to Gondor!"

I'll try to have better battle reports, as some really fun stuff happened in these battles but no screenshots = I can't remember the narrative. Also, its hard for me to treat a 500 vs 100 battle as an epic engagement
 
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flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
The current month is almost over, and the bucket will re-fill itself... also part 11 and onwards have an entirely new bucket, and can be viewed at this time.

Lessons learned: Use lots of photobucket accnts. Also, be less popular
 

flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
OK, the magic bucket has re-filled and we may continue our journey. I'll bet you thought I was dead. Lol no. This one has a good battle scene.

Edit: We hit the 10 GB max from Photobucket after 1 day, new record! Part 1 has been transferred to a new server for newbies, but its a painful process.

Part # are we still counting? (Yes, we are at 12)

Gothmog had the audacity to cancel the summons. We will spend our time killing elves instead. Let's take a look where we are at. Moria vs elves, and Isengard to the flank
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Skullgrinder has some great ideas about how to advance the war against Rohan. Mog tells him to shove himself head-first into a rat's nest.

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While travelling through Moria lands we find a battle where orcs are outnumbered 2:1... by super-strong fagelves. No thanks, run away!

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The 'Troll Caves', a perfect place to pick up trolls. Or so you'd THINK! Orcs don't get paid to think though, and there are no trolls available to recruit. Moria often has them in their war stacks, so hopefully we can see them in action. Next step, the mines!

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On the way to the mines, we find a winnable battle, let's help and earn some valuable potato.

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Us: 100 Isengard and Mordor orcs and uruk-hai, some wargs too. Isengard units have fewer shields than Mordor units, making them even more susceptible to the elves thrice-cursed arrowheads.

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Arrows hurt, bad. Elf archers make Gondor men look like babies. Thankfully, Mr.Elf doesn't finish the job because he's too busy fending off our crew.

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The orcs rejoice. Thanks to Skullgrinder's bone-headed charge, we suffered very few casualties. Also wargs seem to be used to great effect against elf archers. We make a note of that so our upgrades when fighting against the elves will be cavalry-based.

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Shit shit skah. That's a lot of elves, we will be avoiding any large number of elves unless HEAVILY outnumbered by Moria war-stacks.

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NOPE! They got themselves into that mess, they can get themselves out of it. Also on the plus side -- this ties up the stacks so we can slip by into Moria.

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We receive a quest to kill some troublesome goblins, and a wild troll joins in for the beatdown. Orcs don't share, so we keep the savage from his share of the spoils. Our wargs enjoyed the exercise.

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On the way back to Mines of Moria we see some heavy stacks of goblins. If we can help them defeat the elves this could be the turning point in the war. Actually it will only slow down the elves, but with our help Moria should be able to keep the elves at bay, so that when we come back later in the game they can help us ruthlessly slaughter the elves with wave after wave of peon arrow-fodder

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The Mordor Wrecking Crew acts as bait until we get a nibble. Elves can't stand orcs.

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2:1 odds... this might be a rough battle actually. An early warg charge should draw off enough of the archers.

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The orc line stretches beyond our field of vision, we'll push with our bros from the left flank

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Some of the goblinoids charge too early, the rest will have to rush after them or risk being picked apart piece-by-piece

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The Crew is ready for some action

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The arrows whiz past our heads before we see the enemy.

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"ADVANCE!"

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The melee is joined. Our goal is the archers on the side we are flanking. Since this is a large engagement of which the MWC is only one part, we will be keeping the rest of the Mordor Wrecking Crew with us as backup.

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Ouch, the elves manage to cut down the first wave. Things are looking very bad.

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Trolls lumber their way into battle

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They'll have to hold until the two waves of reinforcements make it. There are more friendlies behind them, probably. The elves think that if they sink enough arrows into the trolls they can down them -- it takes a LOT of arrows. Armor would turn these into battle trolls

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With some loss of life, the elves manage to down a troll but are incapable of taking on the remaining one
Trolls knock down 3-10 enemies each time they swing. It doesn't do a hell of a lot of damage, but it stuns them. Coupled with the fact that trolls have ridiculous amounts of HP (Due to their insanely high level = 255 = 0xFF in hex), this makes them hellions of destruction. They are only moderately susceptible to missile attack, somehow *shrug*

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Orcs form up before finishing this shit. The enemy has received some reinforcements at this point, so there's no sense in just running in.

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There is a mad melee. The orcs get the worst of it, then four new trolls show up. Hur hur hur.

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After many more orcish lungs become punctured, the battle ends. A troll celebrates by doing the Travolta disco-move

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4:1 losses (2:1 deaths). This was a pretty close battle.

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Despite their losses, Moria has enough clout to finish another smaller stack. Skullgrinder cannot afford to waste this opportunity for potato.

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The goblinoids set loose the wargs to draw fire away from the lightly-armored front rank. That, coupled with the tree cover, should make this an easy battle.

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Skullgrinder takes a stray arrow to the shoulder. That is all it takes to down him. The trolls march on.

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Look at the enemy, what are these, men? Half-men? These are not battle-elves, we crush them like the testicles of a bumbling slave beneath our boot-heel.

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Dol Guldur orcs way out here? We'll have to pay that place a visit.

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Dol Goldur seems much nearer to Moria than Mordor.

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Hobbit movie spoiler: Sauron's old home, Dol Guldur. Unfortunately this area has no 'Lord' NPCs, nothing to see here. Move along.

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On the way back to Moria, we have the opportunity to plunder some caravans. Even though their few main stacks are ridiculously overpowered, the caravans are quite rape-able.

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And Dol Goldur still spawns stacks of raiders to help chase them down. Small parties make fast parties. We could be rolling around with 200 orcs if we wanted, but due to morale issues we wouldn't be able to keep them for long. But because you can GIVE units to any friendly stack, it's a useful tactic for bloating the party sizes of friendly lords to make for ridiculously outnumbered battles though. However, you earn much more rank points for 'narrow' victories than you do for 'wtf p0wnage st0mp' victories, so we haven't exploited this feature much.

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Visibility is low, you can hear the arrows passing back-and-forth. Very few missiles hit their marks around us and we advance with shield and without issue (I cannot block and take screenshots at the same time because M&B is fucking retarded with hotkeys and my screenshot software doesn't work in M&B for some reason)

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Welcome to the club!

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A nice action shot of a pink skin falling to his knees, then a nearby warg rider slashes his throat.

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Finally, a battle that doesn't end with an arrow through Skullgrinder's neck

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Westfold was razed at some point, this is what the ruins look like. It's too bad we couldn't make that siege, but the Isengard general Mog just kept on cancelling campaigns in the middle of his siege.

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Snotgor, you are on your own!

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Skah. The fast elf stacks manage to draw us into a conflict and devastate our forces

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"Get back up, you sacks of shit! If your hearts still pumping you better be swinging those swords!"


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Not good. The battle would have surely been lost if not for Skullgrinder. That brotato can really grind on skulls. Helmets are a must if you want to face him in battle. We manage to pull off a victory with a whopping 6 or so orcs alive. Hoowah!

After surviving the battle, they head back to Moria for some much needed R&R: Rape and ranch dipping sauce. Minor engagements took place on the way;

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A few wild goblins sees an easy mark.


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They were wrong. Although few in number, the remaining crew all have intense battle skills.

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I wish these guys would get to the point, already.

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I wonder what things look like from his point of view... he's probably crapping himself.

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Clusterfuck around Moria. Let's check stats

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Here's what our inventory looks like. We really need some top-tier armor at this point. Mordor's got it. Note that I have food hacked to be 50000 units because buying food is annoying.

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Osgiliath is finally being crushed. About damn time. We have had that place surrounded for months.

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We don't have much rank, but tons of resources in Mordor. This will buy us that top-tier armor, when it spawns on a merchant.

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We pick up the Moria shaman, then head back to Isengard...

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Mordor Wrecking Crew heads back towards Isengard, and its numbers bloat at each resupply point. A succesful crusade into elf-lands, HOOWAH! The Isengard region is what an orc nation winning a war looks like. What is a criminal to the orcs is a boss instead. What you'd call a rapist, they'd call 'orc wit speshul skillz'

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Brotato Saruman upon his throne of swords
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"Sup"

Here's what Bro would have to say if we had rejected the troll quest
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Instead, we turn in the a troll quest and find ourselves with a troll warrior at our disposal.

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(Edit: Due to a bug, troll upkeep is crazy high. I will try to fix with hax, but the troll essentially disappeared from the roster)

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Now is a good time to drink this strange wood-creature essence we have left over from Saruman's quest

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*BLAARRRGGGGGHHHH* (every good orc story needs vomit)
Then, much later...
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Let's review the troops!

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Ugh. It was not even worth reviewing. These orcs need to skill-up. Warg riders will be less useful for Isengard/Mordor battles than Moria ones.

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We are on our way back into Mordor to scroach on a siege, hopefully the dead humans haven't started to decompose yet.

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Random event: Skullgrinder is now an infantry commander. No shit.

Subsection: The Battle for West Osgiliath

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The center column marches right out of East Osgiliath.

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The orcs have had a run of the entire area for months. The humans had siege equipment to launch rubble at the other side of the river, but the orcs were able to keep it destroyed. The humans have been caught like rats in a trap. A hasty bridge has been thrown up across the river.

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Landing parties on each side of the bridge.

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The left flank clogs up a breach in the outer wall.

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While the right flank and center are peppered with missile fire. We have so many orcs that they soak the damage right up.

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The orcs quickly overwhelm the opposite. What did you expect? A grand and glorious battle? Mordor has been patrolling the area en force for months, unopposed.

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For some reason, after the battle a group of *scoff* 30 human deserters charges my mob of nearly 100 orcs.

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Looks like corsairs. Last time we faced them they were pathetic.

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Too... strong.... Turns out these weren't regular jerkoff corsairs, but 'blademasters'. These are top-tier corsair units, and Skullgrinder just ran like a madman into their whirling blades.

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Despite being outnumbered 3:1, the deserters did some damage and managed to bring down Skullgrinder.

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Shaman has the audacity to preach treason against The Eye. We make a note to stomp the crap out of his testicles.

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And Lossarnach is next on the list of places to siege.

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"INSPEC-SHUN!"

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130 orcs and uruks. It's a host of hardened battle orcs out of Mordor. The few fresh recruits will be skilled up quickly, first they'll get decent weapons and shields then start adding on helmets and layers of armor. We have a few wargs sprinkled in to distract the enemy formation, but that won't work against Gondor. The red-eyed orcs have excellent nightvision, and their shields let them go toe-to-toe with the Gondor infantry lines without getting slaughtered.

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The Lossarnach siege progresses ahead of schedule as a major engagement takes place in the vicinity. The Mordor faction musters a paltry 500 units (TBH this is not a bad amount for a regular engagement), Skullgrinder will have to go on some recruitment drives for his boss later.

Subsection: The Battle of Lossarnach River
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Battle assessment:
The enemy holds a strong position on a plateau overlooking a river. Our main body of orcs will march face a hard march up a steep incline, fighting tooth and nail all the way. Skullgrinder will lead his contingent up the slope to the left and try to flank. The enemy has several waves of reinforcements in their rear, so we will need to hack our way through the enemy lines to rejoin the main force.
Enemy: 2 groups of ~100 men. Approximately 30-40 medium horsemen, 60 archers, and 110 heavy infantry (Gondor always has heavy infantry). Overall they have heavy armor and heavy shields, the orcs will be hard-pressed to do much damage if they can't gain a tactical advantage. The enemy will deploy in a standard 2-rank setup: Archers behind infantry. The slight hill in front of the river gives them a great vantage, especially against us under-armored orcs.
Friendlies: 500 orcs under the command of Gothmog the Mordorian General (And his leiutenants). 130 orcs under Sentry Skullgrinder. Approximately 450 light/medium infantry and 150 light/light-medium archers.
Threat assessment: Medium-low. This will be a tough battle for the front-line orc troopers, but the humans are tired, hungry, and have low morale from their constant losses in the area.
Strategic assessment: High value battle. This is probably Gondor's largest stack right now, and would have been able to wipe out large groups of Mordor raiding parties, corsairs, and other friendlies in the area. Minimizing losses on the Mordor side will further widen the gap in the war.

The Mordor troops advance, Skullgrinder spurs his orcs on towards the slope on the left flank.

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The Gondor foolishly charge down the muddy slopes! The Mordor Wrecking Crew sees and opportunity to distract the enemy from downriver while the main force charges down the slopes.

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"MAIM KILL DESTROY! MOVE MOVE MOVE!"

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Skullgrinder spots a lone archer sighting him in, and moves in for the kill... slow, but unstoppable. Skullgrinder hacks off his arm then kicks him down the slope into the mob of orcs trudging up behind him.

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The Mordor Wrecking Crew starts to make its way onto the far side of the river while a melee rages below. Warg riders run valuable interference, preventing the few orcs popping their heads up from getting filled with arrows. Troop variety is our friend.

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A wave of enemy arrive at the battle. That's a lot of archers... the river will provide valuable cover.

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"BACK TO THE RIVER! FALL BACK!"

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"Guh... wut?"

Meanwhile, at the river
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(FYI Mark of Chaos is one of my favorite PC strategy games)

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We head back into the blood, shit, and mud. Just in time to slaughter a half-assed cavalry charge. (Few corpses are shown, due to optimization. I'll turn this back up in future battles)

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Skullgrinder knocks a human about 10 yards away from his horse

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Skullgrinder finds himself leading the remaining forces. Reinforcements are on the way and there is no way we'll be charging that shield wall until they get here. So far there have been about equal losses (By number, not ratio) on each side. This has been a favorable battle for Mordor. The flow of battle-tide has flowed around Skullgrinder's crew, and their losses reflect this.

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Once again, we are pushed back to the river. If the enemy comes down to face the orcs they'll be given HELL. Then the orc reinforcements will arrive at the river. Sounds good, but how will this really pan out?

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A large cavalry charge out of nowhere! SKAH! Thankfully, it's mostly light-medium cavalry after all (With a heavy knight or two).

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Sentry Skullgrinder helps hold a pocket of infantry at bay while the reinforcements have a grand old time in the background

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The remaining enemy routs. Sentry S.G. is careful not to catch an arrow in the neck.

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Rejoice ye of evil faith.
Battle results: Enemy losses: 146 dead, 38 wounded (slaves), about 20 escaped. Friendly losses: 75 dead, 75 wounded.

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The rest of the Mordor slavemasters appreciate us, but not enough to give us more than a few piddling rank points. (Battle faction rewards are tied to unit numbers, I think)

Time for some much needed R&R (Rope breast bondage and Rigor mortis)

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We drop off our human slaves around Morannon, to work on some pet projects of ours (Clay pits and training camps)

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The siege attack has begun! Forgot about any active quests: We've got to hurry.

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Enemy: 255
Friendly: Probably 500

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Same old shit. Ladders, gate. Go.

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Skullgrinder helps break down the gate, and is greeted by a shield wall.

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The Black Orcs of Barad Dur wail incessantly upon the frail humans and their shields. Notice that these are round shields and not the tall metal shields used by the heavy elite Gondor infantry.

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We have made it inside, and can now help clear the walls around the siege ladders. Unfortunately, the AI doesn't allow our orc bros to advance through the gates.

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We clear the ladder, and a lone bannerorc rushes into battle.

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"Hey guys, why are we at this ladder? There are no humans at the top of it. QUICK GO TO THE OTHER LADDER!"
*sigh* ... really? Stupid AI

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Meanwhile, orcs are being slaughtered wholesale at the other ladder. Orcs are unable to surround and outnumber the enemy during sieges, which can make things very difficult without PC.

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Skullgrinder is finally downed. But look at the slew of arrows the orcs have fired up. I'm well aware that arrows don't really stick out of solid stone like that, btw.

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Shaman orc doesn't like being on the receiving end of a slaughter. He's pretty replacable at this point, but I'm hoping I can train him up.

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Instead of maintaining Lossarnach as a fortified position and supply point, we burn it to the ground. Fire good! Make it big so the Eye can see it!

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Gondor's capital will be next


We ditched out on a quest from Brotato Mouthy in order to complete the siege of Lossarnch, and must endure a vigorous tongue lashing (so hot)
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"Skullgrinder, I have been waiting patiently for my slaves, yet none have returned. Have you an explanation? Were you outwitted by simple animals, or are you merely incompetent?"

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"Dem wuz too fazt, bozz! Me go now."
 

flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
For all the regular readers, there seems to be a few bugs that put the end-game campaign into permanent limbo. The devs mitigate the siege-lock issue with a patch, but it still happens to me (Crappy PC?). Might have to do with the evil factions, though.

@Excidium

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OK so I updated Parts 2-11 to cubeupload instead of stinky puke guts photobucket. Now you should finally be able to view and enjoy.

Props to Crooked Bee for fixing Part 8!

If you see a broken image and it bothers you, PM me with the Part #

*digs around his hard-drive, looking for his old save games*

Best I can do is another run on Divine Cybermancy, I think.
 
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