Welcome back to Lordaeron!

First of all, the new anonymous matchmaking system is a great feature. After selecting to represent the Horde in a 1v1, and choosing not to place any restrictions on which map to play... it begins!

I start with a town hall, and four peons, who I immediately set on gold. The economics of this game are superficially similar to War2, but take some getting used to. For example, the mine seemed to saturate after setting about five peons on it, so I set my next few peons on lumber, then on building Barracks, Farms, and Lumber Mill. The graphics are great on all these builings, you zoom in as close as you like, and there are details like runes and grain in the wood. Farms have animated pigs in them. My economy was quickly about at bustling as it could be without expanding, and I built a few Grunts and Headhunters for rush defense. Finally I could afford a Hero, who cost 5 food and 500 Gold (roughly 5x the price of a Grunt, for comparison's sake). It is probably worth mentioning as an aside, that you can afford to build a Hero immediately, if you forsake a lot of early economy, and it is possible to make the risky maneuver of sneaking your hero out at night while the creeps are sleeping. Still, Level 1 Heros are not too powerful, and would be defeated by a handful of defending Grunts.

In any case, I chose a Blademaster, and got to meet Yozshura for the first time. Blademasters are a powerful offensive force but rely on their spells to stay safe in combat... they can't stand in and trade punches straight-up.

I sent Yoz around with a small force to kill low-level creeps in the area, and taught him "Critical Strike" after leveling up once. This gives him a percentage chance, which increases with skill, of leaping in the air and doing 3X damage. Here he is pictured finishing off a hapless Gnoll. Inset, a treasure chest, which generally seemed to contain mostly Healing Potions and Tomes of Knowledge.

It seems that I had a lot of free time to micro the raiding party, because the Peons don't require a lot of micromanagement. Also, you can blow TONS of money in a hurry, so if you accumulate some wealth you can always find something good to spend it on. I upgraded to Great Hall, cranked out some more troops and built a Beastary which would be used first for Raiders. About this time I started my second Hero, a Tauren named Kam Ghoststeer. This guy I was just building for the added muscle, and I never taught him anything other maxing out his Passive Aura.

Yozshura, meanwhile, continued having success; he accumulated lots of loot and learned Mirror Image, which creates one to three hallucinations who can actually deal (diminished) damage. I thought this would be a good time to probe my opponent's defences, so I sent a crew of wolfriders to find the enemy town. Check out the spray of foam at the water's edge! This might be a good time to remark, that although there is Fog of War, you start with the map revealed. This particular map has four spiral arms, and a center gold mine that you must lumber or sap to. Notice the several NPC locations, marked with little house-like figures.

The wolfriders completed their mission, catching a glimpse of an opposite Blademaster holding the gates of his town! Hoping to seize the opportunity of two heroes against one, I brought in my entire army of a full control group consisting of eight mixed Grunts and Trolls, and my two leaders. I used the transit time upgrade to Stronghold and queue up some spellcasters at my newly built Spirit Lodge.

The spellcasting system is interesting here... the same building produces both Orc Shaman and Troll Witchdoctors, and upgrades both. So sort of like Templar Archives, you have to choose which to upgrade first, and whether to concentrate production on one or the other. Also, you have three levels of training, novice, Adept (upgradeable immediately) and Master (available after Stronghold). You start with a mediocre spell - for Shaman, System Shock which dispels magic and stuns. At Adept, you learn Lightning Shield, and only after Master level can you get your best spell, Bloodlust. Interestingly you get a Mana increase at each level too.

Then my army arrived and leveled the enemy town with no resistance.

Turns out, he had practically no units other than his two heros (including a Farseer who was away scouting at the time). Since it was nighttime, he couldn't see my forces as I arranged a formation and summoned up my Mirror Images within a stone's throw of his lumber mill. Too many Lumber Peons and buildings on his part, I think.

Never fear, however! I still have a few neat things to show you all. Here my new scouts, a pair of Griffin Riders, find an NPC location guarded by a dangerous Stone Golem, and a handful of Trolls. Perfect opportunity to try out my new Kodo Beast!

Before I get to that, however, I'll say a little bit about NPC buildings. Early on, I found a Goblin Merchant, which had tons of useful things on sale. Scrolls of Mass Healing, various potions and wands. So rather than try to control two groups of units, which would additionally have raised my Upkeep cost; I had set out for battle totally stocked up with supplies. That, by the way, was why Yoz had enough mana to afford so many Mirror Images in the big battle.

After my enemy was elimated, I found a Goblin labs, with Zeppelins and Sappers; and a Merc Camp, which contains the old Troll Berserkers and Ogre Maulers. So a lot of those folks from War2 are still hanging around.

Back to the action. Yazshura and the ponderous Kodo Beast had, by this time, ambled up to the vicinity of the Stone Golem. The Kodo is quite an interesting creature... it has War Drums, which are an aura that buffs attack strength. As far as I can tell, this replaces the variable Speed Drums and Healing Drums that it was supposed to have had in the past. But, no, that is not the important feature at the moment.

The Kodo charges in and Devours the Stone Golem! Then he quickly turns tail while Yozshura and a couple Mirrors handle the rest of the goons. This is incredibly powerful (Kodo costs as much as a hero, btw) but there is some downside. It takes a really long time to digest (the Golem took a few minutes) and during that time the Kodo has to stay alive or the victim escapes. Of course in this situation, there was very little risk once the Stone Golem was put away.

Well that's about all I have for the moment. Time to get back to, um, work. *ahem*