Book 2 – Page 22

[Flyer]

Parson just doesn't fit.

I would only disagree by adding the caveat that Charlie has something up his so-far invisible but highly productive sleeve. Perhaps an Archon enhanced teleport trail right to GK with enough Archon support to neutralize its (currently) somewhat meagre defences. Turnamancer turns on the juice, Parson has an erf-changing experience - aaaand...... i have no idea.... wait - i got it - >>>>PLOT<<<<

I presume posts that poked the possibility of Parson...

As for what Jilian is up to... echoes of book one and the dragons over the lake... how will Wanda break this time? BSOD last time, leading to a major lashing out... but now? A twice scorned Wanda (a great deal more than) hellishly furious?
What would Stanley do? Will Wanda follow his orders? Lash out again, against who?
Will Ansom follow >Wanda's< orders and withdraw with the ground forces?
Will Stanley countermand? Will there be enough forces left to withdraw?

Most of all - where and what is the 4th ArkenMcguffin?

[ftl]

Sure, they're insanely powerful. And while some people complain about that, if a ruler is willing to risk his casters, then s/he gets the rewards of sucess, OR the costs of failure.

Everyone -can-. Most won't, for a variety of reasons.

'course, I agree. I wasn't complaining. I was just pointing out what we think we know about what trilinks can do.

[WarFAN]

I think i see the plot:

- Ansom, turned by Vanna.

-Slately, captured by Wanda.

- Tramennis becomes barbarian.

The Jetstones as you´ve never seen them before!!

[robak]

One question: Can Jillian just leave the city and fly out towards Ansom without crossing the airspace? Or does she have to run into Wanda?

[Ditto]

GK's troops are 'parked' in the airspace above Spacerock. They cannot engage unless provoked, since their turn has ended.

Though... now that I think about it, why wouldn't this have applied back at the battle of the Dwagon Donut? It's RCC's turn when Ansom arrives in the middle. When he comes out the strong hex, shouldn't the dwagons just have been chilling out the same way the damaged dwagons over the lake were? If they could only attack when provoked, escape doesn't seem too difficult.

[JustDoug]

GK's troops are 'parked' in the airspace above Spacerock. They cannot engage unless provoked, since their turn has ended.

Though... now that I think about it, why wouldn't this have applied back at the battle of the Dwagon Donut? It's RCC's turn when Ansom arrives in the middle. When he comes out the strong hex, shouldn't the dwagons just have been chilling out the same way the damaged dwagons over the lake were? If they could only attack when provoked, escape doesn't seem too difficult.

GK forces could, from previous examples, engage RCC troops in defensive action so long as they share a hex. Think back to the Expopsitory Bridge engagement.

I think the reason that they aren't fighting is... Well, you're in the woods hunting squirrel with a light .22 rifle. You Rule, and the squirrels have no chance to make your time. However, that bush wth the squirrel you were after turns out to have a huge grizzly bear behind it- an angry one.

If you're a Ninja Chuck Norris Terminator, you might be able to take on the bear and win. All it would take is being able to perhaps blind the beast with your puny .22 and then wound it in some easily reached major arteries and avoid its charges until it bleeds out. That's not likely though, so your best bet- as you can't run in this case- is not to annoy the bear with your popgun unless you're forced to and wait to see what it does.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

One question: Can Jillian just leave the city and fly out towards Ansom without crossing the airspace? Or does she have to run into Wanda?

I was wondering that to. I thought they might even be why Jillian strapped on that helmet, she'll go through the GK dwagons one way or another.

I'm posting this comment because I think it's a topic that has been widely over-looked in light of such groundbreaking progressions in the battle... Wanda's feelings. Rereading the comic, I can't help but feel horribly sorry for Wanda. She asked Jillian to prove her love/loyalty to Wanda. Instead, she betrayed her again.

To be fair Jillian also asked Wanda to come back and Wanda said no, Fate compels and all that - essentially saying as much as she'd like to she can't, she has to stay working with the guy who Jillian hates so much. Granted Jillian used the relationship against her (accepting Wanda wouldn't kill her) after Wanda said "ok, just let me croak your allies and then we'll talk about turning", but both of them are fairly stubborn.

Of course Jillian also told Slately to hold back on the "kill Wanda" orders...

After observing Wanda's past romantic dilemmas I can't help but worry about her mental and emotional state. How many more utter rejections can Wanda take before she crumbles like a cookie?

Hard to say. Wanda should be starting to think Fate doesn't want her to be happy in her quest to unite the tools.

I probably would have said screw cruel old Fate, but then I don't really believe in it like Wanda does.

Perhaps she can Decrypt her pride/broken heart.

Uncroak my heart... heh.

We don't actually know if an Arkentool weilder can be croaked or not. Or if croaked would stay that way.

Hmmmm, I don't think we've gotten any evidence that attunement leads to immortality. I guess Toolists like Wanda and Stanley might believe the Titans/Fate want them alive and so they will always manage to survive, although Stanley's reactions at times in book one seem to show someone who thought he could and would die, and did everything to avoid that (like fleeing to perceived safety).

[the_tick_rules]

I still wanna know who Jillian thinks is her target now? There's no other high value targets in the battle space. Parson maybe? Tool? She gonna kill him to bust up wanda's whole fate idea?

[DoctorJest]

Parson just doesn't fit.

I would only disagree by adding the caveat that Charlie has something up his so-far invisible but highly productive sleeve. Perhaps an Archon enhanced teleport trail right to GK with enough Archon support to neutralize its (currently) somewhat meagre defences. Turnamancer turns on the juice, Parson has an erf-changing experience - aaaand...... i have no idea.... wait - i got it - >>>>PLOT<<<<

...and Jillian just thought of that right now for... no good reason?

And that still doesn't explain how a turnamancer can turn a unit half way across Erfworld and if they can, why they just don't do that all the time. Turning enemy warlords, even if it just gets them killed, has to always be a good thing to do.

No, doesn't make sense. There's no reason for Jillian to suddenly think of turning Parson and there's no reason to suppose a turnamancer could, as a standard ability, turn someone who isn't even present.

[DoctorJest]

I still wanna know who Jillian thinks is her target now? There's no other high value targets in the battle space. Parson maybe? Tool? She gonna kill him to bust up wanda's whole fate idea?

Parson and Stanley aren't in the battle space. We have no good reason to think that the turnamancer can even effect them at all.

[ftl]

Though... now that I think about it, why wouldn't this have applied back at the battle of the Dwagon Donut? It's RCC's turn when Ansom arrives in the middle. When he comes out the strong hex, shouldn't the dwagons just have been chilling out the same way the damaged dwagons over the lake were? If they could only attack when provoked, escape doesn't seem too difficult.

Only cities are divided into multiple zones. The city has an "airspace" zone which is separate from "garrison" and "tower" and "courtyard" and so on, but other hexes aren't divided like that, all units are just "in the hex."

[robak]

But the question is whether or not you can leave the city (tower) with a flying unit, without crossing airspace zone and thus becoming a target for Wandas group. Caesar attacked a city on foot once to avoid the air defences, I don't know if Megalogwiffs can walk.

[Dark Arbiter]

But the question is whether or not you can leave the city (tower) with a flying unit, without crossing airspace zone and thus becoming a target for Wandas group. Caesar attacked a city on foot once to avoid the air defences, I don't know if Megalogwiffs can walk.

I think that in order to leave the city, you would have to either go through the Courtyard or the Airspace. Since the airspace is occupied by GK's flyers, moving through there could probably allow them to attack - kind of it like provoking an Attack of Opportunity in D&D, for those of you who've played that.

To go through the Courtyard you'd have to come out the front gate, and that's where Ansom and the rest of GK's army is.

[splintermute]

To go through the Courtyard you'd have to come out the front gate, and that's where Ansom and the rest of GK's army is.

Ansom's army is nowhere near the front gate - they're somewhere on the other side of the bridge from Tramennis' forces.

[MattR]

My money is on Tramennis like alot of other people.

Motive being either:

He's a threat to Wanda, if hes pulled back to the city like Slately wants and bolsters their attack with his bonus.

or

He's a threat to Ansom, he's commanding an army just on the other side of the bridge from ansom and could easily decide to rush over there now hes the new chief warlord.

[MattR]

Or a completely leftfield guess. Jillian knows that Stanley and Wanda wont attack a wielder of the arkentools.. duty to her kingdom would compel her to secure one for herself and prevent a decrypted army arriving on her doorstep in the future. To this end maybe she has an idea where the 4th arkentool might be and plans to turn a high lvl unit who may know the location.

[Dark Arbiter]

Ansom's army is nowhere near the front gate - they're somewhere on the other side of the bridge from Tramennis' forces.

Sorry, what I meant was that, in order to leave the city, they'd have to go right through Ansom's chunk of the GK army - since he is situated at the edge of the hex in front of the city, nothing could leave the hex without hitting Ansom & Co.

[davesnothere]

I too was wondering whether Wanda is in Spacerock's airspace, and I'll venture an guess that the answer is no.

I believe Wanda pulled up just outside the hex to parlay. Notice that she never seemed to cross the city's hex wall.

Her next move would have been to enter and engage. But Vanna' end-turn spell has stuck her there for now.

If this is true, Jillian should have 5 other hexes that she can use to fly around Wanda without engaging their dwagons.
This may be modified by Wanda occupying more than one hex with her battlegroup, but Jillian should be free to manuver.

[splintermute]

Ansom's army is nowhere near the front gate - they're somewhere on the other side of the bridge from Tramennis' forces.

Sorry, what I meant was that, in order to leave the city, they'd have to go right through Ansom's chunk of the GK army - since he is situated at the edge of the hex in front of the city, nothing could leave the hex without hitting Ansom & Co.

There are no forces in the hexes adjacent to the city, or if there are, they're Tramennis' - it's not clear how many hexes away Expository Bridge is from the city. Haggar's forces are "half a turn away" suggesting they're more than 1 hex away. Ansom's forces are somewhere on the other side of the bridge from Tramennis. The whole point of the GK air force was that they could circumvent Tramennis' ground army. Since Ansom is leading the GK ground forces, he doesn't have that luxury.

If Jillian can land her forces, she can leave through the front gate with impunity.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Wow.

Ansom sure takes a long time to form a coherent interior monologue that coalesces into a new text update.