"Holy shit it worked"
-[5th]Krebster
|
| Gunnar's Saga, Part I | | | Author: | | | IP: | resnet18XXXX | | Date: | 03/01/00 03:03 | | Game Type: | Warcraft 2 | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 9, Min: 9
Lifetime Rating for MRHD: 8.5455 |  | Gunnar’s Saga, Part I
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: Introduction
Premise: During the middle ages, stories that followed lineages of various families through important and significant events of the time, and were chronicled in one collection, were known as sagas. The one that inspired me the most out of these works was Njal’s Saga, a tale following an actual family feud in medieval Iceland for fifty years, and many of the names used here I borrow from there. Anyways, on to the report!
As the stress of another mid-term put behind me faded, I thought there would be no better way to officially end the studying marathon that I had been running than going on to bnet and finding someone to rip to shreds in an honorable fight to the death. Fearing that the only games available would be those horrid homespun Big Game Hunters maps, I am delighted to see that the very first game on the list is “1v1 FOC”. Although I am usually not big on sea maps, as Fierce Ocean Combat obviously is, I decide to join anyways, the prospect of a 1v1 on a non-lame map too good to be true. Wasting no time to look at my other options on the list, I immediately join the game.
Upon entering I see that the name of my opponent is King_David. I will make his name red from now on because he is the bad guy and red is evil. Or at least that was the plan, but the html isn't cooperating with me for some reason, so just pretend that the lime green font is red. (Unless the red actually does show up of course.) Before we start, he decides to exchange ceremonial words of good faiths, asking where I am from, my name, etc. Not one to be rude, I answer his questions, and also ask them in turn. I learn that he is from Israel, and make a very corny joke about how even though he is from Israel that he isn’t nearly old enough to be the actual King David. Maybe this scared him, because at that he started the game, and we exchanged the usual “gl hf”.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2: The Game Begins
In the years after the second war with the Orcs, King Terenas of Lordaeron had two sons; the elder was called Glum the Strong, for few could match his power and abilities in battle. The younger was called Gunnar Blood-Axe; his great axe named “Blood-Lion”, embroidered with images of lions on the handle, made of the strongest metal, and so heavy that few could even lift it, was greatly feared by all those who met him in combat. Even his brother Glum would not be able to stand up to the fierceness that Gunnar displayed when he was under the spell of combat, axe in hand. Both were fierce warriors who aided in purging the Orcs when they came once again through the portal from Draenor.
But despite the fact that both had great prowess in combat, that is where the comparison between them ends. For while Gunnar was a noble man, kind of heart, and good in spirit, Glum was quite the opposite. He was ruthless, striking terror into the common folk, and holding anyone of lower rank than him in contempt; he was a very unpleasant fellow to be around. King Terenas, wise man that he was, realized the evil heart that his son Glum had, and thus favored Gunnar in many things. Glum knew this, and it made him wrathful, for being the eldest he felt entitled to the most respect.
Now at this time scattered, tattered bands of Orcs sill roamed the land, leftovers from the last exodus from the portal, but their numbers were diminishing. King Terenas was determined to be rid of all the Orcs, and when he learned that a large Orcish group was setting up base on the island of Crestfall to the south, he summoned his son Gunnar to take care of the infestation.
”Gunnar, my son” said the King “I have summoned you hear to tell you ill news. The island of Crestfall and those around it have been invaded by an Orcish clan. You, my son, are a great warrior, which is why I want you to lead a fleet to Crestfall to take care of this nuisance and protect the people on those islands.”
“Then I shall do as you command.” Replied Gunnar, bowing in reverence. “Although I am lacking in experience when it comes to sea combat, I will defend the honor of my liege unto death.”
Terenas smiled. “I expect no less of you, noble Gunnar. I have summoned our most worthy sea captains, they shall navigate the ships to Crestfall. Go now, and make the abominations of the Horde feel the strength of Lordaeron.”
At this Gunnar left, and no sooner than he did, that Glum, who overheard the entire thing, burst in to the throne room. “Father!” he exclaimed. “Why do you choose Gunnar over me, when I am just as capable?”
Terenas grimaced. “Because you my son, would use the chaotic situation of the islands to your advantage, looting the poor citizens of what little they have, and you would do it in my name. Do not lie, for I know of your past practices.”
Glum was filled with great rage. The old man may favor Gunnar now. But once he dies, I will in turn make the life of Gunnar the stuff of nightmares. This I vow on my royal blood. These were the thoughts of Glum; the evil in his heart was great, more than his father imagined, as the world would all too soon realize.
Fierce Ocean Combat is a classic map, with eight start locations, six on the edges and two in the middle. So I don’t have to explain it any further, here is the map:
King_David chose Orcs and spawned at the eleven position, while I chose the noble humans and got the three o’clock start location. The resource settings were high, and I started immediately with a lumber mill after my first farm, in an attempt to get up a shipyard and thus naval dominance as fast as I could. While making a mill with my first peasant, I used my second to make a barracks, and the third my second farm. After that I pretty much divided the labor of gathering resources amongst my workers until my seventh peasant came, which I used to make the shipyard. I started to chop wood frantically, put up two more farms, and got up a good supply of peasants, so when I started on my keep I would have enough around so as to not be wanting for one when it would not be possible to order them up.
I started on my refinery first, and then soon afterwards set up my foundry. Right as I started putting it up, I started the metamorphosis of town hall into keep. In my rush to tech fast and to dominate the sea, I had neglected ground troops, which at this time consisted of a mere three 1/1 footmen, for I had also skimped on the blacksmith up to this point. Once I was up to keep level, I put up both a blacksmith and a gnomish inventor at the same time- by this time my foundry was finished and my first battleship was out of the docks. After that I made a transport, and then sent one lone and valiant peasant to start up an expansion to the south of me. I had also made a submarine and two flying machines, the submarine just in case King_David was slacking and didn’t have any underwater detection prepared yet. Seeing that he didn’t, I felt I was in luck, and sent two submarines and the battleship over to destroy his oil platform. As I finished razing it and my spirits began to rise; what came next made them plummet.
With my pitiful ground forces at this time, it need not be said that this attack was not good. As you can see, most of my peasants were just slaughtered by these grunts, and all of the attacking units that I had when King_David’s forces arrived had also met their ends in like fashion. I was making two of my peasants frantically set up towers, and was just getting out knights from my newly formed stable. The two knights engaged the grunts, but since they were only level one while his grunts were level four, the damage done was minimal. Eventually the second set of knights, who were by that time level two, and the towers that I had erected dealt with the malevolent presence of the Horde, but I was in very bad shape. My main was in tatters, and all I had giving me gold was a naked expansion to the south. If it were lost, then all my hope of winning this game would be over, and I had nothing to really defend it with. To make matters worse, I saw a zeppelin flying around, so my opponent would indeed find it and destroy it if he were using that zeppelin well. I started making peasants again, preparing myself to defend against King_David’s minions to the last…
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3: The Rest of the Game
Four grunts rushed at Gunnar, roaring incoherent battle cries. Gunnar had “Blood-Lion” held tight in both hands, parrying it in front of himself. As the grunt in the lead came lunging towards him, Gunnar, quickly raised “Blood-Lion” up high, bringing it crashing down on the head of the grunt, splitting it open and killing him instantly. One of the other grunts at the same time approached Gunnar from his right side, but sensing its movement just as he pulled the “Blood-Lion” from the head of the first grunt, Gunnar brought the axe around his right side with such force that it cut halfway through the stomach of the grunt, quickly destroying its breath forever. Then the two other grunts both swung at Gunnar at the same time; Gunnar brought “Blood-Lion” around in time to sever the attacking arm of one of the grunts, who fell to the ground, but the other one landed its blow into Gunnar’s shoulder, and blood sprouted forth. Not one to be deterred, Gunnar brought up “Blood-Lion” again, bringing it across in an arc that severed the grunt’s head.
With the Orcish menace apparently gone from their island base for the time being, Gunnar sighed deeply and sat down on the ground, holding his wound shut with his opposite hand. Soon a field doctor noticed the wound, and came over to bandage Gunnar.
As the field doctor was wrapping the bandages around Gunnar’s shoulder, he spoke. “This is an ugly wound you have earned yourself today, Gunnar.”
”And many more of its type shall I yet earn today, before the sun sets.” He replied. The doctor realized that this was probably true, and said no more, but carried on in a somber attitude.
Once the bandaging was complete, Gunnar wasted no time in rising to his feet. “Messenger! Come here!” he called out. Soon a young man came rushing up to him; it was Gunnar’s personal messenger.
”Messenger, I wish you to go out, and have all the knights, whether the are here at base or still docked at shore, summoned for a defense immediately. There is no time to waste.”
”Yes my lord.” Said the messenger in a voice awed by being in the aura of the great warrior. Then the messenger turned away to complete his task. Fire had engulfed parts of the base. Men lay dead. The sea air was now tainted with the presence of death. But yet Gunnar still stood tall, for he would die a noble warrior if it came to that, if all of their efforts failed. He knew that his homeland would realize that he had fought as valiantly as any person could.
By this time my main concern was to get as many knights as I could in a short time, and upgrade as fast a possible. I had planned to have upgraded to a castle by now, but circumstances made it so that I now could not afford to spend money on anything but enhancing my ground forces, since King_David would almost certainly attack again soon. Getting ready for the fight of my life, I put up another barracks, and would have gone on my knees to pray that he didn’t find my expansion if it weren’t for the fact that doing so would seriously detract from my ability to be able to command my army with keyboard and mouse.
My new barracks was not even halfway done when the next cargo load from King_David came barging into my base, this time a group of level six Ogre-Magi. By now I had five level three knights, and they just were not going to be enough to stop this force by themselves. Luckily, as they engaged the Ogres, the guard towers I had previously made started to pierce them with their arrows, and that along with the next batch of knights being now ready for action, I barely managed to destroy the Ogre threat.
Now I decided to scout all of the gold mine areas. To my surprise and delight, Kind_David did not have an up and running expansion yet, which not only meant that I was now surpassing him in gold, but also I could contain him, because I was starting to mass a fair number of knights right now, yet still pumping out battleships. Just as my flying machine passed the island that was directly south of King_David, I saw a group of peons land and start to happily construct a new base.
Wasting no time, I immediately packed a transport full of various knights and footmen, and for distraction purposes, also sent three battleships to assault the eastern side of his base, which managed to destroy his ogre mound before they were destroyed by a vast amount of death and decay. But as his death knights were fiddling around with my battleships, I landed my troops at his expansion, and began to tear down what he needed to so badly bring up.
My troops destroyed one tower there and the great hall the moment before a juggernaught came and fired its merciless cannon at them, still leaving enough of them alive though to move inland and take care of the final tower that was there. Now it was time to move in for the kill.
Making two more transports, I returned with the one used to assault his expansion attempt and loaded all three up with level eight paladins. I landed them at the eastern side of his base, where the battleships had been earlier, and the moment my troops came out they were rained down upon by catapult fire. My paladins that didn’t die immediately rushed in towards the catapults, and as they were hacking away at them, death and decay began to surround them, taking more lives. Then King_David brought his grunts and ogres down on them; I realized that I would need more troops, so I sent one transport south to load up my earlier attacking force. When they landed on the shore, they were just enough to destroy the last of King_David’s ground force. Realizing all was lost, we exchanged the standard “gg”, and then King_David left the game.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4: Conclusion
As Gunnar and the men who fought in battle with him made their way back to the castle of Lordaeron, to deliver the official report of the battle that had just been fought and won, throngs of people came to the roadside to watch their procession, in hopes to capture a glimpse of the growing legend that was Gunnar Blood-Axe. At the sight of his bandaged shoulder wound, wild tales of how he had gotten it spread; some even said that he had fought a dragon, and that the dragon was a lot worse for wear now than Gunnar was. Even if the rumors were far-fetched, the fact was undeniable that Gunnar was the hero of the people, the royal warrior prince who truly cared about the subjects of Lordaeron.
When they reached the castle, King Terenas was already standing outside on the stairs leading in from the outside wall of the castle, awaiting their arrival. There was a broad smile on his face.
”Greetings, Gunnar my son!” he called out with great enthusiasm. “You have indeed brought honor on yourself and this kingdom, for vanquishing most of what remained of the Orcish Hordes! You have proven yourself the greatest warrior this kingdom has seen in three generations, since the great general Kari Hawk-Eye commanded our brave armies. To you Gunnar goes the blessings of this kingdom, as well as my own.”
That night there was a splendid royal feast in Gunnar’s honor in the main hall. Toasts were made, and the most prominent of the nobility and the army commanders all broke bread together. Had the attention not being so deeply focused on Gunnar, one might have noticed that Glum was not present at the feast. But all of the people at the meal were too fascinated by the tales of Gunnar and others who had been on the field that day to take note of this fact, and even if one had, they probably did not think much of it.
In a storeroom located in the castle’s basement, Glum sat around a single candle, conferring with a single man. This man was known as Hrut the Unclean, for it was well known that he was a low-life and a thief, a horrid man. Glum talked in a low, savage voice. “Now, this is how you are to kill the king….”
And as the night grew long the two of them talked in great length, and, as they ended their meeting that night, both of them went away with savage grins emblazoned on their faces.
To Be Continued…
|
|
|
|
Home
Forum
Starcraft Tournaments
