Battle Brothers: The Siege of Wiesendorf

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

By the time the company reaches Wiesendorf, it is already under siege by zombies. Fortunately Sir Donatus Donbert and his men are already there thinning the herd. After the easy fight, Donatus bids the Spears good luck as he has orders to protect another town further East. The Spears and the local militia hunker down to build defenses.

I suppose it's a little like the opening intro for Neverwinter Online.

It's not long till the next wave arrives, skeleton warriors who - while fortunately don't reanimate when slain - are much better fighters than the zombies. Gander's trauma from the earlier vampire encounter flares up here, and due to him fleeing Gillian suffers a broken elbow and a diseased wound while R4W3C is shield bashed off his high ground, right into a skeleton swarm who hack him to pieces.

There is not much of a rest after breaking that wave when the next arrives, even more skeletons who are better equipped. The local militia die in droves as the Spears scramble with armor and shield breaking axes. Kruglov is impaled by an ancient spear man through the heart.

Defeating them only leads to the final wave of undead with even more skeleton warriors and pikemen. With all the militia dead (and re-killed thanks to zombification) the Spears throw everything they have with Sunbro earning his keep in kills. In the battle, Tolik is cut down, Majorn sacrifices himself (bleeds out) to slay the final spearman, and Faltran is disemboweled.

Battle Brothers: The Western Wildlands

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Hearing about their planned expedition to the wildlands, the hedge knight Redbeard Reborn joins the Spears just before they head out. Their first stop isn't even on the border though, it is at the newly built tomb of Sir Magnus, which was already crawling with zombies and geists!

The living will never outnumber the dead.

The banshees terrify Kruglov and Emile who abandon their position like cowards, leaving Bes to be surrounded and torn apart by the zombie hoard before the others can clear them out. Despite the loss, the company continues Westward and find themselves in green skin lands - careful to avoid combat this far out.

On their travels they find a great goblin city, a massive orc war camp, and beyond... a black monolith which Sid, Sahkarov and a few others claim to be the "Wish Granter". Curiosity gets the better of them and they approach, only to find it defended by an army of ancient skeletons led by vampires!

There are simply too many so the Spears retreat despite Majorn's blood lust to destroy them. "Another time," assures Big Mike as the disheartened company makes their way back to civilized lands - their objective of finding 8 new locations complete. With low morale, a question about the Sun from Emile leads Sahkarov and new cultist R4W3C into a brawl based on beliefs. Big Mike is too tired to stop them.

Battle Brothers: Relative Peace

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

The days after the war are peaceful, with the roads patrolled by various House soldiers once more. The Spears help clean up the wandering brigand and orc groups, getting paid per head as well as hunting more direwolf packs.

In their down time, Mole helps a boy get a ball out of a tree, Raven's juggling entertains the troops, Big Mike plays more dice with Pioyer and Emile, Faltran manages to break his nose while training and Fanatic converts R4W3C to the cult of Davkul. Majorn also keeps busy burning random witches he finds in villages.

Sir Donatus Donbert of House Folsach then invites them to go on a nachzerer hunt with his legion and showcases how overwhelming numbers can handle even a swarm of over 20 of the ghouls. Big Mike is impressed.

I love the large scale battles!

Afterwards the company holds a meeting about what they should do next, and Emile comes up with the idea of exploring the Western wild lands, since some maps he's been stealing this whole time are not sufficient for cartography purposes. As maps might be valuable to the right person, Big Mike agrees and the Spears begin purchasing supplies for their adventure.

Battle Brothers: The Hungry Mountains (Part II)

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

While resting at town, most of the men are amused to watch Lapp help a boy get his cat out of a tree with his pet rat. He-Alve is not one of them, and Big Mike notices him getting the shakes thanks to his spartan diet (he eats very little). Mike forces He-Alve to eat a full meal which makes him physically better, but less happy with Mike's leadership.

Big Mike needn't have worried though, as during the next direwolf hunt in the mountains, Sid's cowardice left He-Alve, fattened as he was, to be wolf food. He is replaced by Tartarus the flagellant pilgrim, just in time to attack Red Eagles Den of bandits.

Aguila Roja (Red Eagle) is actually a Spanish show.
Has anyone watched it?

These ones are definitely better armed than the previous rabble the Spears have faced and put up a difficult fight as they hold the superior high ground. Lapp catches a throwing axe to the carotid artery (a fatal wound) while DogHow is gutted in battle. King, the dog, is also slain as he tries to run down the enemy archers.

Despite the losses, the battle is a victory, which inspired Pioyer the vagabond and R4W3C the farmer to join the Spears. For all his years of command, Big Mike isn't sure he'll ever get used to losing people.

Station Lockdown

My journal through Stalker Online! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Turns out R4wEC, my new ecuadorian friend, had a lot of quests to complete in the Lubech station area so I decided to help him out - killing dogs and brownies mainly while keeping an eye out for spare parts wherever we travelled. He also advised me to steer clear of the Last_Light clan as they were "looters", an interesting assessment. It was slow going - back and forth in the mist but it was good to have someone watching my back and vice versa. Made a little money selling mutant parts at the Police Station but my funds were drying up pretty quick due to the price of ammo. Really need to find more "arts" soon.

They fetch a lot of money!

We were also both given a task to courier some documents to "the second post" wherever that was, but more alarmingly the gate guards today did NOT want us to exit this area due to the horrible mutants outside. Interesting indeed as I didn't think the gate would be "one way". Not a big deal however as we just took the tunnels underneath the wall, a quick trip since I had previously explored the whole of this underground area.

Once top side we decided to try again for "the city", blasting the mutts that got in the way and carefully avoiding wind and fire anomalies on the road. An encounter with a lone stalker of the First_Light faction startled R4wEC a little until I pointed out they were probably different clans. Got lucky on our approach as none of the other stalkers at the village us till we were in the protection of the guard zone. I say lucky because some of them were packing some scoped high-powered rifles, and we would have been easy pickings coming down the open road during the day like we did. In any case we made it and R4wEC went to get some shut eye while I headed to the chef for some chow.

Crisscross Scouting

My journal through Stalker Online! You can follow the rest of the story here!

The next day I decided to try finish a few more quests at the Station so I made my way back towards the apartment complex via a different route, encountering Revenants! These zombie guys were a little scary but alone were still no match against automatic rifles. I eventually came across a "gate guard" manning a large metal fence to a walled off zone. He let me through back into the misty dusk of the Station area where I then proceeded to sweep through the various sectors in the grid, killing a lot more brownies in my house to house searches.

Someone should have put this sign up. :P

A fenced-off section in the North East was home to large numbers of mutants too, dangerous due to the numbers they came in be they rats, brownies or spiders in the playground.

Eventually I found the Palace of Culture which I had somehow missed earlier) which had the entrance to the underground beside it. Followed the stairs down into the Labyrinth to
find it wasn't at all as mazey as I had first hought. It was big, but easily navigatable. Once outside I explored to the edges of the train track to the South finding only more large packs of wild dogs roaming the streets.

After spending the night with the next gate guards I awoke to the sound of gunfire - another stalker named R4wEC was shooting down the mischevious canines so I went to help him. We partied up and decided to try head for "the city" but on the way there encountered a pair of other stalkers heading the opposite way, giving us a warning that a duo of well-armed bandits waited up ahead. Just as well as my new companion had tasks to complete in the Station area anyway, so we hoofed it to the nearest gate and returned to the fog.