The 68th and 69th legions have assembled on Relgan’s Ashari continent and have already left to relieve the battered anti-spider task force, who performed brilliantly.

The 68th Legion will begin in western Ashari, in the Styxer countries, and will push towards central Ashari.

The 69th Legion will begin in Ganget, a vassal of Great Tendor that exists to it’s north-west, linking the subcontinent to the rest of Ashari, and will push north.

The 37,000 veterans of the task force still in the region are ordered to split and regroup with the invading legions. They’ll provide invaluable information of the terrain and the best tactics to dispatch large groupings of spiders.

The goal is extermination, hunting every mammoth spider they can through overwhelming force. The local tundra nomads are not being annexed into the Protectorate and will be free to return to their ancestral lands once the infestation is cleared. This is a humanitarian mission, not expansionism.

The campaign is expected to last for five years, but may be extended for as long as necessary. The task force signed treaties with 46 displaced nomadic groups that confirm our pledge to leave their lands once the job is done in exchange for aid. The legalism of the text means nothing to the illiterate nomads – all they know is an oath was sworn on our honor as elves – but it ties our hands and will prevent us from sticking around indefinitely.

Resupply to the legions will be directed through the Western and southern states, who also have our word that we won’t overstay our welcome.

The legions are not all cavalry, and the mobile phase of the war is over. Their advance will be slow and methodical, and they’re ordered to torch the tundra as they pass to starve the mammoth spiders out.