Haskett, the Millstone Reeve

The reeve who took the mill-village's grindstone. Marks where it will fall a turn ahead. He waits at the far end of every Conquest map: clear his lair and the match is won. He is one creature in one stack, with far more hit points than anything an army can hire, and he fights by two rules no other creature has: he marks where his stone will fall a turn before it falls, and the first time he drops below half health he roars and the stone’s reach grows.

Hit points at full might

480

Attack

14

Defence

12

Damage

22–32

Speed

4

Blow

×1.5

The stone: warning tiles

At the end of each of his ordinary turns (walking or striking) he raises the millstone and marks an area of the board: a 3 by 3 square of 9 tiles, centred anywhere up to 2 tiles from him. The battle draws the marked tiles on the board. He picks the area that covers the most of your hit points; with none of your stacks in reach he marks nothing and simply walks in.

His next turn is the blow. The stone falls on exactly the marked tiles and nowhere else, and every one of your stacks still standing on one takes 1.5 times his ordinary strike (bracing helps as usual). Between the mark and the blow each of your stacks gets one turn, so you can walk it off the marked tiles, brace it, or leave a stack there that can take it. A stack that stepped off is not touched. After the blow he takes an ordinary turn again, and that turn marks again: a blow comes at most every second turn.

Worked example. His ordinary strike on a full stack of 16 Shieldmen does 29–42 damage, killing 1–2; the stone multiplies each roll by 1.5, and hits every stack in the area at once.

Half health: the roar

The first time his hit points fall below 50% of what he took the field with, he roars and changes phase, once per battle. The game says: “Haskett roars and the stone glows white: from now on his blow falls on a ring 5 tiles wide, not 3.” From then on every area he marks is the wider ring: a 5 by 5 square without its four corners, 21 tiles instead of 9. An area already marked when he roars keeps its tiles, so a mark never lies about the blow it foretells. At full might that is below 240 of his 480 hit points; the wider ring means spreading your stacks out before you push him past the line.

He grows every day

He does not start at full might. On day one he stands at a share of it that each map sets, gains 3% of his full might every day, and loses 3% for every monster lair you clear, never below his day-one share and with no ceiling: a hero who waits long enough meets him past full strength. His hit points scale with his might (rounded); his attack and damage never change. His escort scales too: at full might it is 2 Drakes, 5 Knights and 3 Mages, each stack rounded down, so on the first days he stands alone.

Clearing lairs pulls him back: on The Causeway Meres on day 8 he has 168 hit points with no lair cleared, and 82 after the hero has cleared its 6 monster lairs that are not wardens.

The seal

His lair is sealed while too few of his wardens have fallen: neither Fight nor Auto-resolve can be played there, and his card on the map says how many are broken. On The Causeway Meres you must break 2 of 3. On Reedford you must break 2 of 3. The wardens sit apart: any two of them and the boss lie more than two days’ walk from each other, so he cannot be reached in the first days.

The wardens

A warden is a lair of Mages and Drakes, 2 stacks, with a strength (the gold its guards would cost) of 860 to 1060. Its card reads “a horde” and a win pays a horde’s reward (lairs). For the first 2 days a warden holds still; from day 4 it musters 13% more of its day-one guard every day, rounded down, so a hero who builds up first meets bigger wardens. Creatures you kill in a fight a warden survives stay dead.

• The Causeway Meres: guards the ore mine beside it (column 9, row 8), holds the road (column 2, row 10) and guards the chest beside it (column 8, row 14).
• Reedford: holds the road (column 1, row 11), guards the wood mine beside it (column 9, row 14) and guards the chest beside it (column 10, row 12).

More on Conquest: Lairs · The Causeway Meres · Reedford · Resources and the town · Warpath

Play Start a Conquest match and march on him.