Editing Announcements - 2009/01 - Shifting Tactics (section)

== Rollout Article ==
{{Turbine 2008
| Link = http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=432-january-2009-rollout-article&catid=75-2009&Itemid=68
| Title = January 2009 Rollout Article
| Text = War had come to the stronghold of the Radiant Blood.


On a rugged plain crisscrossed with hills and ridges, an army of invading creatures surged through trenches between great stone towers enchanted with powerful defenses.  The towers had stood against numberless waves of attacking creatures.  The first waves had been mere fodder, little more than beasts of the field, driven into the teeth of the towers' defenses to probe the fortifications and expend the resources of the defenders.  They had perished quickly, perforated with murderous rains of arrows and devastated by fireball blasts.


The next wave of creatures, more powerful than the last, stepped over the corpses of their forgotten predecessors and grimly continued the attack, as relentless and remorseless in their way as the defenders of the towers were.  More powerful enemies required more advanced tactics, and the defenders began to deploy new and more powerful weapons: traps to surprise and wound the creatures as they slogged through the mud and muck of the blood-soaked, fire-blasted battlefield, and massive ring spells of magical destruction to devastate clusters of the creatures who stumbled too close.


The toll of dead attackers rose higher and higher while their replacements kept streaming in.  The warlord in control of the defense had lost track of the amount of time he'd spent here, juggling the limited resources at his command with the demands of the fight.  He was faced with a growing dilemma: his resources were shrinking while the invader seemed to get stronger and stronger.  From time to time the invaders sent out champions to rally their forces, drawing extra fire from the tower and occupying the attention of the defenders.  The enemy was marshalling its most powerful shock troops for a final devastating charge, one that would shake the battlefield to its foundations and break the already-straining resources of the defenders.


There was a brief pause in the action, and the warlord looked up.  It looked like the enemy was playing for keeps now.  A phalanx of elite Shadow soldiers had expired in a maelstrom of concentrated fireballs.  The smoke cleared from the site of that conflagration, and a black shadow stepped forth, a more foul and dangerous presence than the warlord had seen before.  It towered over its own allies.  It was a bat-winged demon, with a great horned head and ancient eyes filled with wrath.  Bael'Zharon, the Hopeslayer, the long-remembered fiend who had threatened the lives of Isparian and Empyrean alike.  The warlord looked out across the field as this new terror strode onto the field of battle, and sucked in his breath.


“Bael'zharon himself!  Unbelievable!”  He shook away his shock and began to consider how to deploy the last few resources he had left to combat the demon lord.  He was not confident.  He had planned poorly.


The entire battleground shook, and a shockwave seemed to sweep the creatures that still stood, knocking them to the ground.  Even the great Bael'Zharon was felled by this wave.  The towers themselves went dark and inert, their defenders suddenly vacated.  Darkness settled over the battlefield.


The warlord surveyed the devastation and sighed.  It was inevitable…


A voice spoke behind him, the Tactical Officer of the Radiant Blood.  “Time's up!  Someone else gets a shot now.  Did you enjoy the game?”
}}