I used to play, have a massive Dark Elf team and lizard men, but my dark elf team is massive, a have about 150 dark elf infantry alone!

where you from andrewas?

Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Its not so much theres no competent opposition, but most of it tends to be too young for my tastes. Plus Liz has a thing with people vaping her Dark Eldar Ravagers, which takes all the fun out of it. Well actualy its funny to listen to, but model repairs get dull.

150 dark elf spearmen? I once saw a unit twice that size demiolished in one turn. First up 2 Empire Great Cannons hit it perfectly, then 40 Bretonnian Grail Knights charged on in. Yeah, we play with big units around here. Odd alliances as well. Lizards + Bretonians + Orcs versus Bretonians + Wood Elves + Dwarves, that was a good one.

Ummm...isn't that a bit off topic?

Bg2 is an excellant game, if you include the Throne of Bhaal expansion it's clearly one of the best RPG's in history. As a newbie player you shouldn't be ashamed to turn down the difficulty level inside the gameplay options, also use the space bar to pause the game often, this will help you if you get confused in a battle.

As for the story of Baldur's Gate 2, if you aren't going to play Baldur's Gate 1 and the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion pack first, then I strongly recommend you read one of the great walkthroughs or fanfictions out there on the net to familiarise yourself with the returning characters and history of BG2. I can't think of any good walkthrough links, but there's some good fanfictions on http://fanfiction.net

Hmm how about the walk through on IW? I woudl say it isa godo idea to read the character creation sections weapons spell lists and such. It is a lot more fun if you do not read the parts ofo the walk throughs that take you through the actuall game.