Toggle Background Color
Update 11: Turning point
The vote turned out in favor of the Phoenix town, so let me get my sparkly dress and feathered hat.
Wait enemies? Plural? Did they betray me?! I never saw it coming!
Day 1
Such traitorous wretches are unworthy of even living in king lord Rolands dungeon! I shall strike them down with sparkly fury!
This is rather bare bones. You know, I don’t recall seeing the name Cathcart before. Such a strange name, I wonder if it means anything.
To be fair, I’m afraid of this level. It’s small, three enemies are against me and PC Snob handled it deftly and I don’t want to look that much worse than him. So we hire Carlawn and she passes her dwarfs to Ariël.
Ariel will take the sawmill next turn. She can take those skeletons.
At least the people in this castle are loyal. 
This is the sign below the castle.
A quick detour to kill a minotaur with cutscene power (cutscene not included) to claim a medal.
More speed! We hire the wizard to use her boars for a scouting advantage.
She quickly spots boots of speed guarded by the dwarfs who will join me upon sight. This should help a lot.
Now before I continue with day 2 let’s take a quick detour into alternate reality where I betrayed Roland and an anvil fell on PC Snob (
“It wasn’t me!”) allowing me to be king Archibalds favorite general.
You get a different description and different castle to choose from. Living with my decision? Easy, it’s not like he’ll call me out on it.
Oh no, I’m having second thoughts! I let my lord down. 
The fun thing about this map is that everything is indeed switched around. Staying with Roland will force you to fight one enemy with three castles, however swapping to Archibald puts you in the driver seat of those three castles. It’s a good implementation of a fun idea. While the dwarven alliance was still on the previous screen it’s no longer active and approaching dwarves will cause them to attack you. Beyond that however nothing changes, from here everything would just be Archibalds campaign and I’m incorruptible. We'll now return to our regularly scheduled program.
Day 2
Dwarves are everywhere this map.
I don’t think I can win this without losing something. I did try and estimate how many Sprites I’d need to kill a stack since the sprite stack was quite large…watch as one skeleton will inevitably survive the sparkly onslaught.
Gesundheit on the elves for extra damage. Their attacks also leave one skeleton standing.
The dwarves run a blockade.
The blockade may be lacking in size in more ways than one.
Sparkly death! One survived…as expected.
Two sprites and a dwarf down. Not bad, I don't think this was possible without losing something.
But at least I have a sawmill.
Carlawn collection agency collects the crap on my lawn.
Myra meanwhile collects the boots. She quickly grabs all the gold and heads back to give Carlawn the boots and the dwarves.
This isn’t actually what’s going to happen. Carlawn will move up collecting stuff until she can’t move anymore at which point Myra will move in to cross the rest. This should allow Myra to make more distance with the rest of her turn and use it for scouting.
I bought the mage guild, which is needed for Stone Henge, which in turn is needed for the elven upgrade. I ignored the dwarves, because thus far dwarfs don’t appear to be in short supply.
Day 3
More dwarves please.
Come on guys, I can’t keep bailing you out like this. You’re going to have to take a little bit better care of yourselves. If it's not angry inept warlocks it's dangerous caves. Next thing I know you expect me to save your entire allied faction.
The bracelet provides a +2 to spellpower.
Miria and Carlawn traded and Carlawn learned the blind spell from the shrine. Very good.
We build a pocket sized calendar back home.
Sweet dreams are made out of fenced meadows. According to PC Snob the etymology of the word "Phoenix" probably comes from a variation of "Phoenician", a merchant civilization who traded in a crimson dye that was very popular in Ancient times and believed to be the right tone of the mythological bird's feathers, but it could also easily be the other way around.
Day 4
Is that a castle already? Let’s get the spell first and the castle second.
This place has as many dwarves as dwarfbeards have beer stains. Those medusas are guarding some excellent loot. A purse of infinite gold is always welcome, as are the free dwarves and the scroll. But medusas are not to be taken lightly and I don't feel like bailing out even more dwarves.
Now if I can procure some gold I can get my phoenixes.
Units, spells and gazebos are in the cards for Carlawn.
Day 5
Visions! Visions is a great spell as it tells you exactly what you need to know about the enemy and wandering stacks. Including if they’ll join you.
Due to my lack of thieves guild I can’t see what the castle has, but I do see some free dwarves. Let’s get them and then see if we can do a proper siege on the undead.
Interestingly, it doesn’t take the campaign bonus into account.
This is a tough choice. Both are great. Considering the amount of grass thus far I picked leadership.
Will I attack the Archers for a laboratory so I can build my phoenixes or goblins guarding an impractical helmet.
We’ll take the goblins on first.
They ran away. Next target are the archers.
Day 6
One of us!
The dead walk among us.
I like sprites. This killed the skeletons. I doubted whether they would attack the skeletons or the mutant zombies. Due to how terrible the zombies are they have about the same damage output, but I figured that I’d be able to kill the skeletons in a single blow thus saving unnecessary damage. I also blessed the elves as back up.
Time to bless the sprites as my catapult is par for the course.
Sieging. Sieging never changes.
Just die again already!
Victory!
The castle is nothing to write home about, but at least there are new spells for us.
Nope, we’re not following those archers. That would only lead to losses.
And suddenly we see the entire map.
And Thundax is here!
As is Alamar! And he has medusas. Carlawn heads up to meet the meathead head on!
Miria meanwhile decides that she should be heading home. She's a bit too close to Alamar for my liking.
Day 7
Ariel is on her way up to help out. She left the normal dwarves behind so she can get some extra speed tomorrow.
Meanwhile Carlawn attacks Thundax. She actually could choose between the castle, Thundax and Alamar who had come our way.
Thundax? More like Rundax? Amirite?
Guess what, she can actually reach the castle the same turn! 
Now I will admit that wolves are more suited for offensive roles, but waiting would’ve allowed them to do more damage.
Such weighty animations. That wolf looks like it’s about to get hurt on the head. You know what would make this even better, if the stack that was attacked had a prehit "oh no!" face.
Suddenly lightning sparkles behind them!
Yeah, not very exciting.
Miria wanted to grab the bow she was near, but it was guarded.
It could’ve been short, but since rogues also have no retaliation this took what felt like ages.
Bow get!
This is very useful for us. It ignores the wall penalty on ranged attacks.
The moment I’ve been waiting for. 
I can buy it tomorrow. This may not be an exciting map, but at least you’ll have phoenixes to look at. Why does the Hunger games Mocking Jay logo look so much like a Phoenix? Shouldn't that be a normal mockingbird? Not that I mind, the logo is pretty bitching.
Day 8
Week of the centaur? Like they needed more centaurs.
That’s a lot of goblins. He curses my top stack of dwarves and his gargoyles fly over to bother my druids.
My little ponies didn’t agree.
I blind their centaurs and shoot their giant goblin stack. I actually shoot them twice thanks to my leadership boosted morale.
Meanwhile, they have a bad morale problem.
The unicorns attack the goblins and I blind the medusas keeping them away.
And now we fight a fair everyone on a single stack battle.
Such tactics cause the AI to run away.
We visit the gazebo to mourn the loss of the dwarves that were guarding it before Alamar killed them and level up. I pick ballistics, I need better luck for my catapult.
Ariel also levels up and gains the power of a cart.
She also visits the witches hut and learns mysticism. After this Ariel will be guarding the barbarian castle from the Warlocks.
Dang it! Miria!
Day 9
They didn’t do much here considering I can simply pick up the gauntlets.
Carlawn runs into the enemy territory. They have another hero who is currently occupying himself by cowering within the walls.
Dang it, there were 4 to buy and I only had stuff for 3. So I quickly bought a market and traded my wood for a single mercury. Now I have 4 and Miria is on her way up. The Egyptian sungod Ra was often depicted as a Phoenix, considering he normally looks like a guy with a falcon head with a sun on top this isn´t that strange.
Day 10
Flagging stuff is a good job.
Carlawn meanwhile gets better.
This area was very rich in teaching objects. Next to the gazebo and the standing stones there was also a tree of knowledge.
I could’ve already finished, but let’s get one thing clear. I love me some Phoenix action. I think it´s rather interesting that next to the Dragon the Phoenix is another mythological creature that can be found in a lot of cultures. Like the Slavic Fire Bird, the Japanese Ho'o, the Chinese Fenghuang and the Persian Simurgh. The Simorgh (Simurgh) is one of the new wizard (academy) units in Heroes7. I haven't seen it in action yet, I hope it's pretty.
A worthy opponent. In 2004 Mozilla presented Mozilla Phoenix, this would later be renamed to Firefox. This makes sense because foxes are well known for being on fire and the name fits well with their Thunderbird email client.
Roasted goblins. After this short intermission Miria runs up to the enemy castle. Carrying only phoenixes allows her to cross this map in a single turn even with stops in between. I wonder why they choose the Phoenix and the Champion to be the fastest creatures in the game.
When suddenly the enemy leaves the safety of its home and attacks Miria. 
However will we manage? :nyall:
Alamar is pretty strong, but this is just stupid. From what I’ve seen thus far the enemy doesn’t have any good attack spells so his spell power is wasted.
Phoenix Arizona must be the best place to live in America.
We cast bloodlust to speed up the killing of the hydras. I'll bet the movie The Birds would've been a lot less scary with Phoenixes in the main role.
I’ll bet Phoenix Durban is the best place to live in Africa.
Miria adds some luck to her pile of skills.
Day 11
The phoenix and 3 druids. Many of us have probably seen Phoenix Technologies on the startup screen of their computer, but I wonder that means the bios can't be killed or if it means that it's likely to go up in flames.
Once more with more feeling and animated glory. According to Dumbledore phoenix tears can cure any poison and they can carry many times their own weight.
I’ll bet Vacoas-Phoenix is the prettiest city in Mauritius.
Phoenix Illinois exists and it's probably a good thing.
It always bothered me that the Phoenix Foundation MacGyver works for didn’t even have a proper phoenix as a logo. It always looked like a seagull to me.
Pictured, not a majestic Phoenix. 
And what about the order of the Phoenix? Fawkes wasn’t even a member. It was barely even a logo.
Regardless of what Dumbledore claims, if your bird cries take it to the vet.
Phoenix Wright is far superior to Apollo Justice.
And that was that. This level is either really difficult or really easy, depending mostly on the dwarven alliance. But things went quite well, especially the boots of speed I found. Normally of course I would wait for PC Snob to finish his level, however I noticed that I'm 1 level behind due to the differently structured campaign. I'd like to try and catch up so let's take the call.
"My seer informs me that you have turned down an offer to betray me. Once again, it seems, I am in your debt. You may rest assured that when all this is over your service will not go unrewarded. I have received a request for aid from the sorceresses of Noraston. Their public declaration for me has made them the object of Archibald's wrath. Archibald has sent a large army to make an example of them. They must be defended if we are to maintain our diplomatic credibility. I am sending Lord Halton to assist you in your efforts to rally the Sorceresses. And once again, thank you."
Don't worry Roland, he's just jealous of their phoenixes. I'll put a stop to this.
Please put in your votes. No choice in faction this time, instead we have a choice in spells.
We can get one of the following:
Mirror image: Costing a hefty 25 spell points it duplicates one of your creature stacks. However the moment the mirror image takes damage it will dissappear.
Summon earth elementals: Costing an even heftier 30 spell points it summons 3x power in Earth Elementals.
Resurrect: Costs only 12 spell points. Regrows 50x power in hit points of killed units, but they fall apart after combat.
Please bold your votes.