The Lord of the Rings: Lords of Middle-earth.

"Good heavens! I can't believe that one day I'll be entrusting my life to this thing?" The Swan Knights were stunned as they stared at the simple airship in front of them. They finally decided to transport one knight at a time, which would be both safe and secure.

"I'm scared... Boss!" The lucky first one to try something new didn't seem happy at the moment. He looked at his knight commander with a mournful face, his eyes filled with grief and indignation as if he were about to go to his death.

"Stop whining! Be a brave man! You're much braver than the women in this area."

"Whoosh! The goblin airship is taking off!" Jessie Ava excitedly channeled magic into it, and instantly all the magical runes on the airship lit up. To everyone's disbelief, it soared higher and higher... higher my foot!

"It looks pretty good?" the knight commander sighed, gazing at the airship slowly drifting in the sky.

"It's a pity it flies too low and too slowly! And its carrying capacity is also limited... Otherwise, it would have been a powerful weapon of war!" The other knights also chimed in with their own opinions.

"But alchemy will advance sooner or later, won't it? Perhaps we are witnessing the future! This kind of airship will become a supplement to the Sky Knights!" The Knight Commander murmured as he watched the airship disappear into the distance.

"Who knows?" The knights remained silent. After all, Gondor was a kingdom without air superiority. The only thing they could do to deal with air raids was to fight back with bows and crossbows or magic. There wasn't a single unit in Gondor that could take to the air to fight.

……

"Tsk!" Renault frowned and tossed the intelligence report in his hand to Omske.

"Your Majesty, perhaps you should take a look! It's getting more and more chaotic!" Renault rubbed his temples, his head aching.

"What's wrong?" Omske asked, taking the intelligence report with a puzzled look.

The intelligence report clearly indicated that a small squad of elite cavalry, heavily armed to the teeth and resembling knights, was heading towards the kingdom's border. Moreover, their armor was unlike any they recognized, and most importantly, the squad did not raise any flags to identify themselves.

It was due to the Swan Knights' oversight that after successfully crossing the river, they rested for a while before heading straight for the Lulong Fortress, forgetting to raise their flags to identify themselves. As it happened, the light cavalry sent out by Lagrange discovered their movements and quickly returned to report.

"Thank God! We are so grateful that Your Highness brought out the light cavalry! Otherwise, we would have known nothing about the outside world!" Omske praised the king while thinking of a solution.

Roland originally planned to gather all his cavalry forces into a single, powerful force for battle, but Adile dissuaded him. The old man Adile told Roland that doing so would be irresponsible! No lord would allow light cavalry to charge into the enemy alongside heavy cavalry and knights! That would be murder! The greatest role of light cavalry was to serve as the eyes and ears of the main army!

Roland humbly accepted the advice and sent all the light cavalry out to scout freely, which led to the discovery just now.

"Tap, tap!" Renault gently tapped the solid city wall with his fingers, lost in thought.

"Excuse my bluntness, but it's just twenty well-equipped cavalrymen! Even twenty knights couldn't take down this fortress!" Merck Leopold said, looking at Renault and Omske who were deep in thought, puzzled.

“Those cavalry or knights? Pshaw! What are they?” Renault scoffed.

“Our concern is whether that cavalry unit is just a reconnaissance team, and whether they are followed by a large army!” Omske shook his head. “What do you mean? How about we ambush them and suppress them?” Apophis Breo made his move with a deadly strike.

"Tsk... The key is that even if our men fight in the field, they might not be able to hold them off." Renault had a headache.

“Should we ambush them together? A Tier 3 Lion Knight, a Tier 4 Paladin Commander, and a Tier 6 Light and Shadow Hero! I think the three of us can take them down without much trouble!” Apophis Breo suggested.

"..." Merck Leopold.

"..." Luke Leopold.

The two men exchanged bewildered glances. They desperately wanted to ask Apophis Breo, "Do you want to hear what you're saying? The city's three strongest fighters are all going off on their own to capture spies from the other side? How incredibly reckless do you have to be?"

“It’s feasible!” Omske stated succinctly.

“We can consider it! This is the best way right now!” Omscreno sighed. If he had a knightly order under his command, he would have led it directly to charge at these people.

“Hmm! Send the scouts to see where they plan to stay! The sun is almost setting, they shouldn't be traveling at night!” Omske added.

“Okay!” Apophis Breo nodded.

……

Putting aside the misunderstanding between the Swan Knights and the garrison of Lulong Fortress, Roland was also troubled by the problem of the Eastern Yi people.

"Holy crap! Damn it! There are so many loopholes!" Roland leaned back on the bed and started rolling around.

"Pfft!" Nyx was amused by someone's pig-like expression.

"It's alright, darling... We'll relocate the people here, and those barbarians won't be able to break into Swiftstream City!" Nyx comforted him. After all, the Eastern Yi chariot people, who were good at field battles, were complete novices when it came to sieges. They were the epitome of field battles, having maxed out all their tech trees.

“But Delwin and Tupte will definitely be completely destroyed!” Roland said with some disappointment. Delwin was the first small town in the kingdom that he personally led to build, and the possibility of its fall made him feel sad.

“What a pity, if only we had a Wall Knights!” Nyx murmured.

"The Wall Knights? Even if we had them, we couldn't afford to support them!" Roland gave a wry smile. Did the girl want to hear what he was saying? The Lagrange Empire's premier heavy knight—the Wall Knights! The pinnacle of wall-riding combat, renowned for their rock-solid defense and bulldozing sweeping power! Their terrifying destructive force in the field even made the Royal Guards temporarily retreat…

Clad in magical plate armor, the knights wielded heavy, nearly two-meter-high and one-meter-wide Sun and Moon Alloy tower shields and three-meter-long Sun and Moon Alloy lances, riding the rudimentary magical beast, the Northern Wild Steed. Only such a creature could carry a wall knight burdened with over two hundred pounds of weight. This unit's attack method was a masterful application of bulldozing tactics. Because the massive area of ​​the heavy tower shield meant that in mounted combat, it could only cover the left half of the shield-bearing knight's body. Therefore, each wall knight entrusted the right-side defense to their right-hand ally. Trust in their comrades and their high level of teamwork were the foundation of their survival! When a neatly arrayed group of wall knights charged forward, the war was essentially over in that instant…