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A while back, Mark and I went back to Necromancer to try the conversion scenario. Some options don’t play very well with it (the miasma needs to be and stay in the middle), but we used the miasma demon, and each took two picks of optional units. Mark had the ‘conversion’ side, with 400 CP (and three conversion attempts a turn) and a 20-unit army, and gave his necromancer a magic bow and ring of flight. I had the side with the large, 80-unit, army and took a dragon as my two picks. Technically, Mark had plenty of CP to scare it off, but that would mean less for actually converting units, and in the meantime, it wasn’t hampered by me being at the top of the conversion chart (my zombies are worth 3 at the start; that’s what I’m used to seeing wraiths at).

My first turn was spent starting to close with Mark, and… doing so illegally, as I had forgotten that wraiths use all their movement to climb across a cliff hexside. Mark shifted forward slightly and converted two stacks of skeletons on the lower edge who then wiped out two stacks of zombies by forcing them to retreat when there was nowhere to go (even with displacement, they could only go onto slopes). The second turn was more of the same with Mark converting two central stacks of wraiths, and a set of zombies adjacent to the dragon. The former knocked out another stack of wraiths, while the zombies tried the dragon (and the two zombies it was escorting), but only got an AR on a 1:1.

I got wraiths into the miasma for my turn 3, though an opportunity attack got two of them. I had a couple attacks that did nothing, and one stack of searching wraiths got converted. Mark converted two more stacks of wraiths, including some of my only units left in the bottom, while combat knocked me out of the center, and forced the dragon and one remaining zombie to retreat into a pocket. And one of his searching stacks converted to me.

At this point our forces were nearly equal (I had an advantage in zombies), but Mark had barely touched his CP pool. I lost the dragon and zombie to an opportunity attack as they had nowhere to go on a DR, and I’d been trying to get them out of the trap. I wiped out two stacks of wraiths, and Mark started coming down off the mesa he started on. I got one wraith in an opportunity attack, but Mark converted two stacks of zombies (which gave him the heavy unit advantage, but dropped him to a ‘mere’ 148 CPs) and a stack of wraiths, while combat took out another stack of wraiths.

The fight continued in the center, with me taking out one wraith in a DR-1, and I finally searched a hex with nothing there, but lost two stacks of wraiths to Mark. He moved his new zombies back towards my main (necromancer-protected) force, and converted a stack with one of each type, who lost the wraith and retreated in combat, while he eliminated another four wraiths. Miasma conversion gave me two stacks of wraiths back, after March successfully searched another empty hex.

Other than those two stacks, and one last set of wraiths who’d been slowly working up on Mark’s rear, I was out of anything not adjacent to the necromancer, who was slowly working his way forward to the center area. I managed to eliminate a stack of wraiths and two zombies (DR-2), while Mark started putting together a real strike force near the top, and the bottom forces came up overlooking my small army. Mark converted one of the center wraith stacks, and then eliminated the other and a stack of zombies. He searched two more hexes, turning up nothing.

I pressed ahead, and an opportunity attack knocked out a stack of skeletons. In turn, I took out a stack of zombies with a boulder attack, and forced some skeletons back. Mark moved in, and I got a DR-1 to drive back some skeletons before Mark converted the only units I had away from the necromancer (and he still had 53 CPs). A boulder attack forced a skeleton out of the necromancer’s hex, and then a DR-1 against a zombie stack put the survivors into the skeleton’s hex, but another stack of wraiths in the miasma converted.

Final stand…

My turn didn’t do much, and Mark had three failed 1x conversion attempts against the wraiths, and then lost some of his wraiths in a 1-3 soak-off against my zombies on the center rise without a valid retreat. A similar attack was an AE against my zombie/skeleton stack, and my necromancer (+2xS) survived a 1:1 with a NE.

I reinforced my engaged necromancer with a zombie, and positioned my stack on the rise to boulder attack on the skeletons with Mark’s necromancer and the forward zombies. I did nothing to the skeletons, but killed a zombie and forced the others back. The necromancer could then attack downslope to make the defenders retreat. Mark came back in, and got a 2:1 vs the necromancer who was forced to retreat with nowhere to go…

Afterword

This was a disaster for me right from the start. Mark reduced my army to nearly nothing with a combination of conversions and retreats in congested terrain, often with enemy units in the way to boot. Things got better towards the end when the usual tough end-game took over, and Mark had to find ways to concentrate on the necromancer; but there wasn’t much left to give him cover, so even that wasn’t so bad.

Miasma conversion continued being much higher for both of us than the 1-6 it should be. Four of the seven hexes got searched, but no jewels ever turned up. Neither did the miasma demon, of course.

I’m not sure how the non-conversion player should go about this scenario. One thought is to spread the army out as much as possible (a blob covering half the map…) so that only one or two undead can be converted at a time. Losses should still be high, but it buys time, and the landing in the lower part of the conversion table might be a bit softer.