From Skaven to God of War

Chapter 269: The Alliance of Rat Warlords

The situation is not good for the Youyan people. Two of the fourteen land provinces have already been taken over by the Eastern Expeditionary Force.

At the same time, there was another place that was crumbling under the attack of the ratmen.

There are four provinces in this area, and the environments and situations in three of them are particularly similar.

Those rat warlords who were thrown out by the Rat War were not idle. After a crazy round of slave hunting, they finally raised enough capital.

The reason why the rat warlords can be called rat warlords instead of being classified together with those rat mercenaries is because of their different status.

No matter how powerful the leader of a Ratman mercenary team is, he can only prostrate himself when facing those senior Ratman priests, but the Ratman warlord is different.

In this deformed country, a widely recognized person is an extremely unusual thing.

After the capital is gathered, a huge army will be raised naturally.

The running ratmen that came here in an endless stream became an excellent source of troops for them, a free and large source of troops.

It was very simple. Huge armies were raised, and naturally, these guys were no longer willing to run around in the mountains and forests every day, searching for those scattered heretics day and night.

Power is the backbone of greed.

One after another, many rat warlords launched attacks on human territories on their own.

Most of the attacks were carried out on the last of the three producing provinces in this area, Lianyan Province.

This is the most unworthy of the three grain-producing provinces.

Even though it has a large amount of excellent arable land, most of this arable land is surrounded by mountains, or in other words, embedded in three continuous veins.

The province is made up of basins embedded in mountain ranges.

Basins of all sizes are scattered all over the place, rich but independent.

The rat warlords invaded this place in waves, not for any other reason, but simply because it was closest to their slave-catching site.

This province is ruled by a great noble, or rather, by a powerful family, the Lianyan family. The name is enough to explain it.

However, due to environmental constraints, the Lianyan family has never been able to completely control this province.

As the rulers of this area, wars have been going on for a long time. They have been fighting with the foreign races in this province, other small nobles, some sub-humans who have lived in the mountains for generations, and other strange guys.

The scope of control has not been effectively expanded, and the only province is close to the largest basin in the rear of the human empire.

The guys living in this place are extremely martial.

Even the brazen invasion by the rat-men warlords did not cause much of a stir at first.

A large number of ratmen were running around on the strange mountains. They were attacked by various races, including fierce human militia, and most of them were defeated.

Perhaps because of the long civil war, the Ghost Eye people here are really quite fierce, and their magical powers are not small, but there is a big difference between the Ghost Eye mages here and those military mages.

The role they assumed was more like that of a priest than a wizard, with colorful patterns painted on their faces, and they danced to the strange music, and the spells they called out were even more powerful than those of the average military wizard.

There were earthquakes, thunder, and even animated trees.

These messy things made the ratmen warlords a little confused.

Even an aggressive ratman warlord was killed in the war, crushed by a huge rock rolling down from the top of the mountain.

It became a pool of rat mud embedded in the rocky mountains. Well, that's how it should be described.

These rat warlords have a lot of troops at their disposal, which are enough to submerge the human settlements in the basins.

In fact, they did so. The rat-man warlord who had just defeated an exiled race led his army and triumphantly launched an attack on a discovered human settlement.

This human settlement is not big, with a population of only tens of thousands, but the number of ratmen that came here has reached 100,000.

After going through the difficult years at the beginning and accumulating a certain amount of strength, expanding the size of the army is not a problem at all for qualified guys like the rat warlords.

They only need to invest a little blood mushrooms, or no blood mushrooms at all. In short, as long as they are willing, the size of their army can continue to expand, and there will be basically no restrictions.

Not long ago, this ratman warlord relied on his terrifying replenishment speed and a nearly tragic exchange to wipe out a troll settlement deep in the mountains.

The huge army of ratmen held on to the settlement of fifteen forest trolls with great determination. For twenty days, they launched endless attacks, and used spears to wear down the trolls, who had amazing vitality, to the point that they no longer had the strength to heal themselves.

Countless ratmen were waving their spears excitedly. The huge troll was tied up and fell to the ground. He was exhausted and could not make any movements except gasping for breath.

These trolls were sold for a good price, which brought in more weapons, recruited more troops, and made the ratman warlord even more powerful.

At the beginning, everything went smoothly.

The roaring ratmen collided with the low wall built by the Dark-Eyed mountain people outside the gathering place. Torches were lit, and as the flames waved, the ratmen's sharp and piercing excited whispers sounded along with their panicked shouts.

These ratmen warriors are fanatical about war.

Because as long as they capture this settlement, a considerable portion of the things they have looted will fall into their hands.

After the initial stage of forced conscription, these rat warlords soon encountered those old problems.

The ratmen warriors under your command will run away, and they have little combat effectiveness.

These guys, these humble guys, humble rat people, they can naturally kneel down to power, and can also easily accept the fact that they are conscripted.

But at the same time, when they encountered powerful enemies, they ran without hesitation.

As long as there is a chance, they will run. Especially the group of conscripted rat mercenaries, they are the best at it. Not to mention encountering powerful enemies, even if they don't encounter powerful enemies, these guys will run without hesitation.

It is not surprising that many of the ratmen among the ratmen mercenaries are free ratmen who have escaped from slavery. Obviously, they do not accept the fate of being cannon fodder.

This caused great distress to these rat warlords.

After all, they are not rats. Even if they learn to form a supervision team, it is usually okay. When the advantage is obvious, these wild supervision teams can still be more decent. But the problem is that once the situation changes, these guys will run without hesitation.

These guys are not inferior to these young rat warlords. Even though the furious rat warlords repeatedly said that if they caught the escaped guys, they would be executed on the spot, but the situation is different now.

In the past, there were only a few rat cities, and the area of ​​their activities was limited. After escaping, they would either wander outside, or be caught by the rat warlords if they returned. Moreover, the rat priests at that time were very concerned about capturing deserters and making them slave rats.

Now, they are better equipped. Even ordinary beasts can't do anything to these lone ratmen holding iron spears and wearing leather armor. As long as they can run far away and get back to the city, all the troubles will be written off.

The rat priests had long since fallen out with the rat warlords, and no one would be idle enough to help the rat warlords catch deserters.

As for the Supervisory Team, it can only be said that not every ratman can get the recognition of those stupid guys. It can even be said that only Rat War got the recognition of those stupid guys, or, Rat War recognized those stupid ratmen.

It's okay if you recruit one or two, but if you recruit on a large scale, let's not talk about whether you can afford the same price as the Rat War, just your behavior makes it clear what you are trying to do. Soon, an aggressive guy may come to your door.

If the team cannot be formed to a sufficient size, then it will be just an empty shell and will have no deterrent effect at all.

As a result, more and more rat warlords had to negotiate interests with their rat warriors and make promises.

The army is difficult to lead, the rat warlords sighed.

Without adopting the Rat War merit system, most of the Rat Warlords are poor and can't even put together a team of light cavalry. Don't expect them to be able to support the merit system.

It is a simpler one. Two-thirds of the captured spoils will be taken away and belong to the rat warlords.

It can only be said that these guys were lamenting nothing else but that after they truly became a rat warlord, the slave rat brigade was no longer useful.

They even had to give up one-third of their profits to their ratmen warriors.

The one-third investment provides a certain morale foundation for the rat warriors under the command of these rat warlords. At least they will not collapse at the first blow. Even when things go well, it will make these guys more excited and fanatical.

Just like this time.

It was obvious that the rats who came roaring in felt that this small village would not cause any waves, and they were extremely excited. The rat warlord thought so too.

After all, not long ago, the trolls who could easily push down trees and lift huge rocks were stabbed to death by their spears, which were no different from toothpicks to the forest trolls.

What’s more, these humans are not strong enough.

Soon, before the mountain warriors in the settlement could react, the rats captured the low wall. On the simple watchtower, several mountain warriors were still throwing arrows.

Haha, what a joke!
What kind of killing power can such a weak little short bow have!

Even if the arrows hit the ratmen, most of them could only penetrate a short distance and had no particularly great killing power.

Then, the rat man who was shot by the arrow and thought like this fell down with foam at the mouth and convulsions.

Because of the harsh environment in which they grew up, ratmen seem to have a good resistance to pollution and plague, but this resistance does not seem to include toxins.

And these mountain people seem to be particularly good at using poisons.

Torch-wielding mountain warriors gathered from all over the settlement, most of them were strong men from each family.

Many of them are excellent hunters.

The two sides collided, and the sturdy mountain warrior could almost fight one against three, but unfortunately, the number of ratmen that appeared in front of them this time was more than three times their number.

And the equipment is even better.

With the development of industry, the equipment of the ratmen began to become better and better. Even these vampire-like rat warlords, most of the warriors under their command had leather armor and an iron spear.

This is not because these rat warlords are kind-hearted, but when you are qualified to formally negotiate these goods with those rat priests, you will suddenly find that these weapons are the cheapest.

Recently, even the Great Claw Priests have been preparing to start forging chain mail on a large scale to replace the leather armor supplied to ordinary ratmen warriors. This represents a situation where iron is becoming less and less valuable in the Ratman Empire, and is even cheaper than the leather that can be stripped from heretics.

The collision between the two sides was in full swing, and soon, the support of the mountain warriors became difficult. Excellent hunting skills, good archery, and even strong physique were not as effective as one thing in this chaotic battlefield at this time, that is, a set of leather armor.

Most of the mountain warriors are still unarmored, so killing them is just as easy. Just shoot a spear at their body, that's it, a very simple thing.

It seemed that capturing this camp would not be a difficult task.

Until a guy with brightly painted patterns on his body came onto the battlefield.

During the strange dance, the rat warlord sensed something was wrong and began to shout loudly. The rat warriors were unable to break through the defenses of the mountain warriors.

Two problems arise.

The morale of the ratmen army was rapidly declining as time passed.

The rat warlord only gave one-third of the incentive, and it is obvious that the enthusiasm of these guys will not exceed one-third. It is okay to fight when the wind is favorable, but once the situation changes, although they will not run away, they will obviously not be so brave.

Also, the weird guy's dance is almost over.

Until his death, this ratman warlord did not offer more incentives to his ratmen. He was very stingy, or perhaps he thought he would not die.

After all, a mountain suddenly shook, and a huge rock came roaring towards him. It was really hard for him to imagine such a scene.

He is a ratman warlord, not one of those superstitious ratman priests. How could he detect this situation and the fluctuation of the elements in advance and respond to it?

When the whistling sound reached my ears, it was already too late.

He was turned into a rat cake.

The ratman army under his command also made an extremely reasonable decision at the moment of their commander's sudden death: they fled. This ratman army, which had the upper hand, fled in all directions in a very short time and disappeared without a trace.

This kind of thing happened to many rat warlords who broke into this province. These guys were all in trouble, but no unlucky one lost his life.

The rat warlords began to gather, and it was obvious that faced with such a situation, they were not ready to give up so quickly.

It’s just that the experience of breaking in alone is not that pleasant.

Then it became a natural thing to unite.

(End of this chapter)