The battle officially began.
Upon entering the map, Wayne found his main town located in the lower-right quadrant, slightly toward the middle—roughly at the 4 o'clock position if the map were a clock face.
Since random maps usually distribute starting factions evenly, Wayne deduced that a hostile faction likely occupied the 5 o'clock position, very close to him. However, given it was an "Extra Large" map, they wouldn't cross paths immediately.
Although he had experienced the breathtaking scenes of the Castle faction in the previous two rounds, he was still taken aback when he entered the desolate Necropolis to start his construction.
The ground was cracked, and the air was filled with the stench of decay. As he approached the city from the outskirts, the sky looked stained by the aura of death; the closer he got to the walls, the grayer and gloomier it became.
Inside the town, the vast, empty stretches of land were dotted with scattered gravestones and soulless skeletons wandering aimlessly.
Aside from the glowing Town Hall and the towering Fort, the town consisted only of graveyards with excavated coffins, the Cursed Temple where skeletons rose from the earth under the guidance of wicked priests, and the Necromancy Tavern, which shimmered with a dim purple and white light through its stained-glass windows.
Wayne pulled up the system menu and lowered the olfactory sensitivity, bringing the smell of rot down to a level he could barely tolerate.
Following his standard opening, he upgraded the Hall to a Town Hall to secure a daily income of 1,000 gold. Behind any war—even in a strategy game—lies an economic battle of attrition. Thus, rushing the Capitol remained his unwavering opening strategy.
He considered the possibility that the nearby enemies might gather their forces for an early sneak attack. Although he knew the novices lacked strong scouting skills, they shared vision as a team of seven. With their starting towns distributed around the edges, they could easily deduce that the "fog of war" in the corner belonged to Wayne.
However, his starting hero was Galthran, arguably one of the best heroes in the entire game.
In Wayne's previous world, during the peak years of Heroes III, there was a saying: "Drive a Camry to work, use Galthran after work." It highlighted how countless players chose him as the primary starting hero for Necropolis.
While Skeletons (5 Attack, 4 Defense, 4 Speed) or the upgraded Skeleton Warriors (6 Attack, 6 Defense, 5 Speed) were only mid-tier among Tier 1 units—weaker in raw stats than Castle's Halberdiers or Rampart's Centaurs—every Necropolis hero possessed a skill no other faction had: Necromancy. With Necromancy, Skeletons were no longer ordinary units.
Necromancy was a household name for Heroes III players, but Wayne mused that this "strange skill" in a "strange game" would likely be very familiar to the people of Azeroth—especially the nations of the Alliance on this continent...
It allowed a hero to transform a percentage of fallen enemies into Skeletons after every victory. In other words, during the process of clearing the map without losses, the Necropolis army would only grow larger. With proper management, this would eventually form a "Skeleton Sea."
Galthran's specialty was enhancing Skeletons and Skeleton Warriors. In addition to a fixed stat increase, his units gained a speed bonus. At Level 1, his unupgraded Skeletons went from 5 Attack, 4 Defense, 4 Speed to 6 Attack, 5 Defense, 5 Speed. Aside from having only 6 Health compared to a Halberdier's 10, their other stats were already on par with the Castle's elite Tier 1 unit.
The difference, however, was that while the number of Halberdiers you could buy per week was fixed, Skeletons could be generated endlessly from neutral mobs in the wild.
By the time Galthran reached Level 10, his basic Skeletons would have 8 Attack, 6 Defense, and 5 Speed, while Skeleton Warriors would boast 9 Attack, 8 Defense, and 6 Speed—stats superior to some Tier 3 units of weaker factions.
Furthermore, as a Skeleton specialist, Galthran started with three stacks of Skeletons, each ranging between 20 to 30 units. Wayne's starting numbers were 26, 25, and 28. Combined with the 12 recruited from the Cursed Temple, he had a small army of 91 Skeletons ready to go.
But he wasn't done. He hurried from the Temple to the Tavern to hire a secondary hero.
In his plan, Necropolis had several excellent heroes for support. He would be happy with Vidomina or Isra, who specialized in Necromancy (increasing the conversion rate), or Clavius and Nagash, who brought in extra gold daily. Of course, the absolute best would be Thant, the early-game god-tier hero who started with the Level 3 Earth spell "Animate Dead," allowing him to resurrect fallen undead.
To his surprise, a name that resonated with every veteran Heroes III player appeared in the tavern. The sheer "strength" of this man made Wayne gasp three times and rub his eyes to ensure he wasn't hallucinating.
Who was he? It was the Death Knight Straker!
His specialty was enhancing Walking Dead and Zombies. These Tier 2 Necropolis units were arguably the weakest units in the entire game, bar none.
While Galthran started with three stacks of 20-30 Skeletons, Straker started with three stacks of Walking Dead—but each stack only had 4 to 6 units!
Compared to a Skeleton's 5 Attack, 4 Defense, 4 Speed, the Tier 2 Walking Dead had a pathetic 5 Attack, 5 Defense, and 3 Speed. Although they had 15 Health, a Speed of 3 meant they would always be hit first by any opponent and could never even reach ranged units before being turned into piles of meat.
Wayne felt the world turn dark. The gloomy sky above Necropolis seemed to grow even heavier, and that "reduced" smell of rot assaulted his mind once more.
He glanced at the Tavern again, but the other two heroes weren't from Necropolis and were mediocre. If he had seen someone like Solmyr, he wouldn't have hesitated.
After all, a "hero" as powerful as Straker shouldn't even exist in this game.
Forget it, Wayne thought. I'll treat it as a challenge to increase the difficulty of this beginner round.
Wayne sent both heroes out of the city. Galthran went to clear mobs, while Straker followed behind to pick up items and occupy mines, saving Galthran's movement points.
A few steps north, Galthran discovered a Mercury Lab guarded by 21 Dwarves. These were Tier 2 units from the Rampart faction—decent defensive troops.
Since the other seven players were novices, the map difficulty was set to "Normal," meaning neutral mobs were relatively weak in strength and numbers.
Galthran, leading 91 Skeletons, charged in immediately.
Facing the Dwarves split into three groups of seven, Wayne split his 91 Skeletons into three stacks as well. He calculated the hexes and utilized the "Wait" function—a tactic that allows a faster unit to yield its turn, letting the enemy move first, then acting at the end of the round and acting first in the next round to achieve a double move. With this, all three stacks of Skeletons wiped out the Dwarves without taking a single hit.
At the end of the battle, the fallen Dwarves were converted into 5 Skeletons based on their health and numbers.
Wayne directed Galthran to move along while "Strong" stepped forward with a confident stride to occupy the Mercury Lab.
On the other end, the seven-person team was listening to Tess explain the opening strategy. Only then did they learn that in a large-scale map intended for a long war, one shouldn't rush to build troops. Instead, they needed to prioritize the Capitol to boost their economy, ensuring a steady flow of gold for future construction and recruitment.
They had to endure loneliness for the first two weeks. Those with strong early-game heroes, like Adela, could use their abilities to sweep the wild mobs and mines near their main town and use Diplomacy to "convince" neutral monsters to join them. Those with weaker heroes had to rely on micro-management to fight mobs without losses.
As Tess shared "Wayne's Early Game Tips" in the team channel, Dughan walked in unnoticed by everyone except Wayne.
After a few brief words, Dughan explained that his patrol shift had ended and he was stopping by the net cafe to rest and check things out.
Seeing a new game—especially one where the seven players' screens were filled with troops that looked remarkably like the Stormwind Army, and where they were commanding soldiers against skeletons, centaurs, and gargoyles—Dughan was instantly intrigued.
While squad-based games like Monster Hunter were good, seeing a commander lead an army of different units across the land appealed to his veteran instincts.
However, he couldn't for the life of him understand why these six adults—the oldest being the 38-year-old High Mage Jyssetta and the youngest being 18-year-old Amy—were all taking orders from the 12-year-old Tess...