The sudden attack by the Tidal Murlocs caught Pablo completely off guard. Under normal circumstances, even if seven pirate ships could win against an attack by so many murlocs, they would definitely take some losses.
No matter how skilled pirates were at naval combat, they were still at a disadvantage against murlocs, who lived in the sea by nature and vastly outnumbered them.
But with the help of the Greywolf Army and the players, things were different. When the Tidal Murlocs came howling onto the decks, they were met with a savage slaughter by the warriors from the Dark Mountains.
To show their sincerity, Hogg had sent only Construct Guardians among the gnoll warriors supporting the halflings. And that wasn't even counting the players. The five hundred Construct Fighters under Popok's command, all wearing Shadow Wolf exoskeletons, were more than enough to easily take out several times their number in Tidal Murlocs.
After all, murlocs ranked near the bottom even among supernatural creatures.
They were perennial contenders for the last few spots on the "Monster Strength Rankings," vying with ghouls, skeleton warriors, and kobolds. They were strong favorites to defend the very bottom spot.
They had all sorts of dark magic, but their individual combat ability was so poor it was enough to make you despair. There was nothing to be done about it. Once you chose the strategy of overwhelming numbers, it was hard to have an advantage in quality as well.
Even fantastical creatures had to follow this most basic biological principle.
In short, the murlocs thought they'd stumbled upon an easy target, never realizing they'd stepped straight into the Blood Terror Clan's hunting net and fallen hard for Captain Pablo's trap.
They surged onto the decks wave after wave, only to be killed wave after wave. By