After a VERY short discussion of how to proceed Arthas charges into their flank ready to cast divine shield once they start attacking him while all the ranged forces get close enough to attack and prepare to unleash hell upon the undead before them. The footmen and Captains Falric and Marwyn begining to charge in after Arthas once he reaches the halfway mark between the ranged troops and the enemy.
The necromancers leading the undead group notice Arthas just a bit after the footmen start charging and they try to rally their forces to deal with this new threat. However with the focus on the enemies ahead of them and the mortar rounds raining down on their forces as well as the dispel magics going off on the skeleton warriors they fail to get much of a response until Arthas is nearly upon them. Once the undead respond a bit less than ninety percent of their forces move to engage Arthas and the approaching footmen though because so many of them responded they get fairly entangled and bunch up a lot more than they were before.
Next Jaina and all the ranged troops and casters with her start to unload everything they can into the ranks of the undead throwing empowered blizzards, dispel magics, arcane missiles, and plenty of bullets by the dozens at them. Arthas also uses divine shield to keep himself safe from this bombardment. This combined with the mortar rounds bullets and dispel magics from the regions defense forces kills off dozens of undead, wiping out all the skeleton warriors killing all but a handful (8) of the ghouls butchering half of the necromancers and even downing two of the Abominations.
Then the footmen with the two captains leading them crash into the scattered undead, sadly they focus their attack on the abominations which prove more than resilient enough to absorb it though they still deal a fair bit of damage to them cutting off some of the corpses that make them up and the two captains even take a limb off of the abominations they attack.
These attacks devastate the undeads moral however and the necromancers upon realizing how many of the undead were just re-killed and how half of them were dead immediately flee and the ghouls while they hold for a few moments swiftly follow the necromancers, However the abominations manage to hold their ground despite everything that happened. While they flee though Jaina calls for the troops under her command to finish them off though only Captain David, and 4 of the sorcerers actually respond and attack the fleeing undead with her. However this proves more than enough as with an empowered blizzard she is able to wipe out the remaining ghouls and even kill a couple of the necromancer while the captain snipes another one and the four sorcerers are able to pick off two more finishing off the fleeing undead completely.
"We have reinforcements men charge in to aid them!" the sergeant in charge of the regional defence force orders. With the order given the footmen from the defense force then charge in and hit the remaining abominations in the back while they are focused on their current attackers. Thanks to that they are able to wound two more abominations fairly heavily. The abominations counterattack and while they fail to outright kill anyone they do severely wound nearly a dozen of their attackers with sweeping chops of their giant cleavers either cutting deeply into their armor or simply denting it and bruising or breaking bones from the sheer weight and force of their attacks.
Finally the remaining sorcerers and the riflemen on from both armies start to pick off the abominations finishing off all of the six wounded ones. The abominations finally realizing how screwed they were attempt to flee once and for all however The footmen, captains and Arthas stay on their heels and quickly fell two more of the abominations as their backs are turned with Arthas smashing his hammer into the second ones back breaking its spine and then on the backswing he smashes its head turning it to pulp and splattering it everywhere as it is forced between the unyielding ground and the unstoppable force of Lights Vengeance.
As the rest of the abominations continue to flee Jaina summons a level two water elemental into their path to stop them as the sorcerers unleash a barrage of fireballs, frostbolts and other magical attacks to supplement the rifleman's bullets ending the life of yet another abomination under their combined barrage. The Water elemental Jaina summoned blocks the final abomination from fleeing, grasping it with its watery limbs and preventing it from moving allowing the two mortar teams to land a pair of direct hits first blowing off its left arm and then the 2nd round caused its head, neck and part of its torso to splatter everywhere. As the water elemental releases its broken corpse it falls to the ground with a final thud signaling to everyone that the battle is ended and the survivors of the regional defence force are saved.
Small Timeskip
After Jaina and all the troops join the defence force and Arthas on the ground and they finish burning all the corpses to ash. Our heroes Arthas and Jaina begin to sort out what happened to the region with the remaining officers of the defence force.
"Thank you for saving us Prince Arthas, but why are you here?" "It was nothing, I was not about to allow so many of my people to die in such a brutal way. As for why I am here, I am escorting and aiding Lady Jaina Proudmoore on her mission for the Kirin Tor. She was told to investigate the plague in the region." "Well m'lord then your in luck, we are all that are left from the several villages in the area. The plague turns anyone infected into undead we saved the few that we could, met up with these dwarves and priests and then tried to get away together. However as you can see we were caught and had to hold up here so we could have a chance of fighting them off. If not for you my lord we would likely have been slaughtered."
"I see so the plague truly is magical in origin and is designed to turn people into undead.... but why? That is all that is missing here who caused this and why are they doing this. We will have to continue forward to find out." Jaina states as Arthas and the officers finish talking. "Given how dangerous the region is now, would you all like to come with us? We will likely find safety in numbers." "Indeed my lady, however if you wish to look further into who is behind this 'plague of undeath' then we came from the next village ahead and there was a powerful necromancer there according to our priests. Perhaps he is some kind of leader of the others?" "Hmm, either way it is likely our best lead. Well then, since you are coming with us get the villagers and troops with you ready to move understood?" "Yes Mage Proudmoore, however many of the villagers and a few of my troops have different levels of injury and our priests are low on mana. This is on top of the sheer exhaustion we all feel which I am sure more than a few of your own troops share. It may be best if we rest up here for a little bit just to get rid of the worst of the exhaustion and treat the worst wounds before moving on. Though this does risk the enemy realizing something is wrong and preparing for us."
Vote time!!!
[] Wait and rest up. Troops are all at full mana and HP for next battle will not have negative roll modifiers from exhaustion (this only applies to ambushes and things before the main stages of combat start.) However enemies will be more prepared for your coming, likely with several traps and more enemies to deal with possibly even resulting in the leader leaving the area for safety.
[] Go to fight the enemy right away. Footmen will have only 3/4 of their HP and spellcasters including Jaina and Arthas will have half mana (rounding up) your troops will also have a small negative modifier to all rolls before the main stages of combat start. However the enemy will be unprepared for you and likely think everything is fine in the area making ambush easier and lowering their defenses greatly.
Turn ends here
welp there you guys go the 6th turn of this chapter. Not much to vote on sadly but the vote is fairly straightforward with no real 'bad' options. Also only 1 more battle and a couple more turns before you guys get a base
so yay for that.