Lamech wrote:The thing he shouldn't have is the knowledge of Parson being a summon, and his trip through the MK.
I have already pointed out that Parson has already been inside the MK, and been defended by the Conspiracy. I would expect the knowledge of a Warlord that can enter the MK to have spread like wildfire. There was a lot of talking while Parson was unconscious, and more than 100 Turns worth from Book 1 to now that are all off-panel. There are dozens of people who are *NOT* Charlie and *ARE* in the MK that are fully aware of the Summon that can inform Jojo. And it's not like Jojo lacks the capacity to trick people into telling him things, since Carnymancers are known conmen.
More to the point why is he bothering with a scroll?
A ruse: he wasn't going to cast the scroll when Parson dropped his staff, and was only pretending that he had a scroll that would do something: he was going to cast a SPELL. (Which is why he tossed the scroll away... it didn't do anything at all useful in the first place). What are the chances Parson would believe a lone caster would be able to send him home?
Or a spell that required more than one day's juice. Or a couple other things that would require speculation about the magic system. But it's easy enough to explain.
Lamech wrote:Seems likely that they want the time table moved up. And they may be trying to fill Parson in on whatever. Although if I wanted to stage an attack on Charlie I would deck out a bunch of yellow dwagons with Staff of Suckage type items, and bomb him into nothingness. Charlie has a ton of golems and traps and a crap ton of mini casters? Couldn't think of a better way to pull it off.
http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F121.jpgPanel 9. Staff protects carrier, not mount, so dwagon dies and carrier falls to death. Further, assumes Staff of Suckage can be obtained in quantity, cheaply, and does not deplete. Further, there are 600 Archons Charlie can call upon to defend Charlescomm, so we're not talking about a small amount of casting -- if each can cast shockmancy 3 times on average, that's 1800 dead attackers.
Further, remember that the Toolists are convinced that Charlie will eventually join them. They want the third attuned Arkentool on Side, not destroyed, whatever the GMTTA wants. So total annihilation of Charlescomm is simply not in GK's interest, no matter how much they hate his actions and no matter how much the GMTTA begs for him to be killed.
What can be done? Remember, as Parson stated: THERE IS NO PERFECT PLAN! You try things: sometimes they even work. There are always holes, and ways to improve the plan, but every change costs something else, even if it's giving Charlie time to prepare. I am doing this to demonstrate the vast array of weapons and techniques Parson has at his fingertips, or could try to obtain.
First, Parson and GK now know the world is much larger than they thought. Charlie knows that. Hit Charlie in the pocketbook: Bounty on Archons. Additional bonus if the bodies can be moved to GK. (For Decryption, though you don't tell anyone that.) GK is rich, so can afford that strategy.
Second, find a Side with gobwins: Gk wasn't the only Natural Ally. Charlie is theoretically behind their disappearance from GK, but even he couldn't take them all from Sides currently using them. You want them for their tunneling, BTW. Charlie has, with no infantry, no defense against tunneling units until they're fighting inside the City itself. Gobwins, as a Natural Ally, won't disband when a Side falls, and this should give GK its Gobwins back.
Third, capture a city that can pop mountain capable units. This will provide ground capable infantry.
Fourth, bats or other small, cheap flying units. So nab Transylvito. The Transylvito way is far more powerful in GK's hands. Not just stacked Leadership bonuses, Pop, cap, then decrypt bats. Now they get Wanda's bonus and the Artifact bonus.
Fifth, try to find a city that pops light or tunneling units (like GK's Spidews). We need more tunnel attackers.
So, lay siege to Charlescomm. I'm not talking "assault the walls" siege, like tBfGK, but move into the City Hex and create a defensive position near the main gate with Mountain and Flier units. This is to protect Sizemore and the gobwins in case Charlie figures out a way to get at them. Sizemore tunnels from the nearest non-mountain hex, through mountains, and under city.
While tunnels are being constructed, Charlie has to either sit back and wait for the attack, or send out Archons to try and stop it. If he sits and waits, Sizemore can undermine the city walls, and create breaches in the walls for ground assault. Every turn Charlie waits, Sizemore undermines more city. Now we can go head to head. Warlord, dwagon, 6 bats for each stack of 8. Bats screen for warlord and dwagon until dwagon gets into breath range. Wanda gets dwagon and 6 Archons, with another 8 Archons to top up her own stack as they die screening for her. And Parson? Parson has a jet pack! What, you think Parson isn't going to go bat-sh*t crazy when he finds out that Ace can make him accessories? (That jet pack is destined for one person, and one person only.)
The advantage of attack is that you get to choose which of your units attack which of his. The advantage of defense is that you can build structures to protect your troops. Charlescomm has limited choices of troops to attack with. Unless some of those golems are mountain capable, he has only Archons to attack GK with, unless that areas outside the wall to the hex-side is ground unit capable.
[But you know what? It will all fail. Because I just figured out where all those Gobwins are. The decrypted Archons told us that Charlie has no infantry or natural allies... by choice. What other race would be a natural ally to a mountain city, but gobwins? Charlie has all those missing gobwins doing to his hex what Sizemore did to GK: they are tunneling under the city so it can be collapsed on demand and defend it from Sizemore. After all, if you're going to deny GK its Natural Allies, what's better than to use them yourself? We may well see Charlescomm popping Warlords and other units now, too. Not many. Charlie has only one city, and his only identifiable income is his mercenary business, so anything non-Archon that pops doesn't generate revenue to produce more units, and just costs upkeep. But if he is thinking "defense", he has to give up that monotonic unit selection. Predictable is vulnerable. Aaanyway, back to our show...]
Charlie tries a couple failed attacks on the GK siege or doesn't try at all. If he attacks in force, he risks losing far too much to the full attacking force. His best bet for survbival is an all out attack with all of his Archons, but that's throwing everything into one risky plan that Parson could foresee and prepare for. Besides, the story is only interesting if GK attacks Charlescomm. Begin by making some breaches in the walls from tunneling and undermining. While this is happening, dwagons lay siege to outer walls in other spots to create more breaches. (Don't want them in airspace, or they'll take air defense. Mountain units hit breaches from outside, and mounted spidews from inside trap defenders on the walls. If Archons move up to defend by air, send in the bats... one at a time (may need a small stack to force shockmancy, but no leadership... they're knight class after all, so shouldn't be shoddy meleers). The goal now becomes to burn out the Archons and leave Charlie with no significant defense.
Now the assault begins in earnest. This puts us in Courtyard. Now we really bring out the bats, full stacks, flying leadership if possible, and we hit Airspace... HARD. Force them to burn Air defenses on cheap units, or lose Tower to bat swarms. May cost us some Transylvito warlords, if we caught or popped any.
Now we use those dwagons... but not to attack. Dwagons use move to ferry ground forces from the nearest non-mountain hex. With 55 move (1 used to get into Charlescomm start of Turn, dwagon doesn't enter Courtyard ideally) and a suitable hex 2 away, that's 4 move per unit, for 13 units per dwagon (some dwagons have less move, some more). It also may cost 6, since they may be forced to land in Courtyard, and not outside Outer Walls. That can bring in our most elite troops, and compared to the 600 Archons, it's not an insignificant or useless force. Further, if they're archers, they can hit Archons in Airspace, if necessary.
Considering Parson's success with heavy hobgobwins, I would be tempted to make them all hobgobwins and turn them heavy once they're inside Courtyard, but they can't ever get out of Charlescomm so they'd be useless in the future... unless you killed them and decrypted them after moving their corpses. Messy business that, though, since you'd have to chop off dead flesh until dwagons could carry the weight.
So, if you've created the tunnels, you're ready to begin the final assault. I know you could begin assault on tower with dwagons, but you don't want to run the risk that Charlie is a caster and can flee into MK. You want to trap him in Tower. Foolamancy to keep dwagon stacks around the Tower from being easy targets to Archons. Hit Tunnels to dungeon and Garrison walls simultaneously. Force Charlie to split up his forces and fight on as many fronts at once. This is costly to both sides, but it costs Charlie's limited forces more than it costs us. We;re trying to do two things: 1) Cut off the portal, and 2) Cut off Tower access to the Tunnels. Either works for us. Once Charlie is cut off, it's all over but the crying.
If Charlie has indeed prepared tunnels recently, we're not going to have the forces to win there. Even if Sizemore alone can hook us up to the tunnels, we'd be trying to take it on just whatever Spidews and bobgobwin riders were available to us, so the gobwins would have numbers on us, probably. Our advantage there is that Archons can't enter tunnels (Light or Tunnel units only), but they can defend Dungeon. Charlie would be best letting half our force enter dungeon, then attack from Tunnels with gobwins, trapping our assault between two forces.
Oh, but here's a surprise for you. Archons mounted on Spidews can enter Tunnels. That would be a major help. Spidews can ferry a major force into dungeon the way dwagons did into Courtyard. Archons and Hobgowins are both knight-class units, so I don't see any obvious reason why this wouldn't work.
After that, it's just a war of attrition against Charlie's Archons and traps until there's nothing left to defend Charlie. Then we need to capture and Turn him. If he tries to jump, we've got dwagons in Airspace to prevent his Bea-like fall.
Anyway, there's some creativity for you. There are thousands of ways of doing this, depending on your goal and available forces.
)
What is happening with Slately, Trem, the Jetstone casters, Warlord Greybrows, Oss - too much suspense!
