This scene was nowhere in the outline, and full props to Phil for including the war-hardened troll general in panels 1-3. An inferior version would’ve had Penk guiding the army’s strategy, but that is neither his true role nor something he’s experienced enough to take on. Just leading five others (and not even all of them at once) is plenty for him at this point.

Plus, there’s that nice reminder that there are a whole lot of other people on the battlefield beyond even two sets of “heroes,” and many of them will be a less celebrated kind of hero today. And some, of course, will die doing that. We do never see this general again…

I’m a bit less enthused with the last two panels, which feel to me like what they are: an awkward attempt to shoehorn the Silver Centurion into the story, just to get you all going “Maybe not Ardaic??” We had a more graceful way to bring him in there in the outline, but that scene just wasn’t pulling enough of its own weight, otherwise. (And if we’d left this scene out and just put SC on the front lines and Ardaic in the infirmary, you’d probably think it was a continuity error.)