Book 2 – Page 5

[gameboy1234]

Nice comic, but wow, talk about a splintered chain of command. I wonder what Wanda's planning?

-H

I think she's going to move across the river, and croak anything in her way. Just not directly, she'll move into several adjoining hexes, with Archons looking for veils, as she moves. I wonder if she's just controlling her own stack or if she's going to order Ansom to scout the same way.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

The little guy(s) at the foot of the bridge there, is that a/are those decrypted Jetstone troop(s)? I want to think that's Webinar, but is that even possible?

He looks the same as all the guys on the dwagons, so I'd say just another decrypted warlord/knight -whether he was a former Jetstoner though I can't tell.

[the_tick_rules]

She's probably gonna decrypt the first jetstone casualty she can find and make em spill any potential beans.

[gameboy1234]

She's probably gonna decrypt the first jetstone casualty she can find and make em spill any potential beans.

Oh, good one. I bet you are right.

[Roszlishan]

Hmmm.

Interesting that Wanda is taking Lord Hamster's advice, and expanding on it.

Between Ansom and Parson, she's ... gotta be loving her strategic situation.

Rosz

[Lamech]

I assume she will have the archons pop across and open fire, then either pop across for long enough to toss a decrypt or have the archons or dwagons grap the body. I mean its not like they planned on large numbers of fliers in the field. Quite a few archers are probably still in city.

[GobwinPie]

i wonder what she means by a more direct way than scouting?

Oh, yeah. That's got me nervous. This could be really bad unless she's got something more clever up her sleeve than actually taking on the hex on the other side of the bridge. I can't imagine even a small tactical strike letting her come away with a decryptable unit without making some heavy sacrifices.

[DevilDan]

I guess Wanda isn't completely slavish to Parson's analyses. Something very interesting might be happening very soon.

[OmeZecha]

unless someone beats me to it or I am blind, has no one else noticed the fire flower?

*returns to the lurking shadows*

[Nebulious]

unless someone beats me to it or I am blind, has no one else noticed the fire flower?

*returns to the lurking shadows*

Nah, it's been chilling there since page 1.

[fjolnir]

it was mentioned back when the new situation room in GK was revealed (page 1 or 2 I think...)

[yay]

two bucks says the tool blames parson if this goes wrong, even though it wasn't his idea

also trying to imagine what could go wrong with wanda air raiding for a corpse in the fortress hex across the river... or what info she could get... i'm going to have trouble sleeping

[Lord Kasavin]

You know what's interesting?

How small Parson looks on Wanda's thinkagram. Thought is probably the artist trying to avoid overlapping and thus obstructing the reader's view of the art.

[OmeZecha]

I was blind then I guess, ah well

[Slowness]

She actually has a few options:

1. Who knows how much the Archons know about Charlie that Wanda now knows, and Charlie is the master of intelligence gathering... Maybe she'll trick him, or I find even more likely, one of his Archon subordinates that don't know about the conversion that happened to his other Archons... Charlie's secretive nature just might work against him.

There is a movie joke about 3-way telephone calls where girl-1 calls girl-2 while girl-3 is on the line without girl-2's knowledge. Usually it's a device used by girl-1 to destroy a friendship between girl-2 and girl-3. (Characters in the movie usually truncate the term to just "3-way" for comedy's sake so characters and viewers initially misinterpret the meaning. Ahh Hollywood!). And Wanda just ended a 2-way thinkagram that was truncated as 2-way, so I'm thinking Wanda is may try gathering some free intelligence by either tricking Charlie or an Archon Charlie controls into divulging some information "free of charge". I mean, she has a foolamancer right there! Just veil one of the Archons into one of the Archons Charlie still controls, and have a 3-way thinkagram with Wanda on the line listening in as a veiled Archon tricks some Archons into thinking Charlie just gave them a scouting assignment, or simply trick Charlie into thinking he's talking to one of his favourites.

or

2. That seems waaaaay to elaborate for Wanda's thinking to me, so, much more simply: Find an enemy scouting unit that already scouted this turn, croak em, decrypt them, and the position of everything they scouted that turn they now know... Not sure if they would know the position of the other scouting units or what they've scouted so far, but it should be worth a shot, simple yet effective...

EDIT: Gaa, I took forever to write this and someone already pre-empted me on the #2 possibility... Ahh well, what-cha gonna do? Here is my post in all it's redundant glory!

EDIT2: Also, I seem to have forgotten to add my long term prediction. I see an "attack of the pod people" type plot developing eventually with the archenpliers. Some of Wanda's "allies" may have some... Conflicting interests... She just may kill one, decrypt them, but avoid telling anyone she has done so...

Hell, she may just as well find a lone scout, decrypt them, but make sure he doesn't break alliance with jetstone! True to an "attack of the pod-people" type plot, the pod people act as they normally would, you don't know who the pod-people are... But provided the pod people can 1. Get someone killed and 2. Transport their corpse to Wanda... As usual, the pod people will make more pod people... The best pod-people style movie is of course John Carpenter's The Thing. Made in 1982.

[splintermute]

How slowly are those princes moving?

According to Stanley they're running back to their ranks, but in the last panel it looks like they're still near the middle of the bridge.

If Wanda wants to capture one, she probably has a very short time window in which to respond.

[warriortribble]

That's... a Supox on panel 5. Didn't expect to see that. I suppose it fits, in a certain fashion.

[Ansan Gotti]

Man, I hope she captures, croaks and decrypts Tramennis.

[Chemical]

I wonder what exactly she means by "more direct than scouting"?
1. Send a small but powerful force (dwagons mounted by archons). It will be powerful enough to threaten the enemy to the point that they would have to reveal at least some of their defenses, and it should be able to see through any magical traps/tricks.

2.Attack a small part of the army or attack and withdraw. Kill a few units and then decrypt them to know more about the enemy's intelligence. I believe that this is what Wanda intends, since there is no way for the enemy to lie to her after decryption. But the biggest problem is just how many people know about the actual plan? Overlord? Chief Warlord? Warlords? And even the Chief Warlord might not know about every little "surprise".

I am also coming to believe that this set-up looks like a trap.
1. Why defend right outside the capital, when the capital would provide enormous defense bonuses, not to mention some special abilities (Chief Warlord Bonus to everyone)? And even the natural choke point that is the bridge is not worth it because you can create choke points through masterful usage of walls, buildings or tunnels. Leave a section of the wall with weaker defenses to ensure that the enemy will break down the wall at that particular point and prepare some defenses in advance.

2. Tents. Somebody mentioned that before but why are there tents? We know that veils can only function on an object that is similar in shape to what it tries to hide. Plus, forming tents so close to the capital seems like a bad idea.

3. Taunting. I doubt that Ansom's brothers would be so stupid as to casually reveal their ENTIRE BATTLE PLAN to Ansom simply because they feel so confident. Unless, they want Ansom to think that his trick worked and they have prepared for this contingency.

4. Unaroyal. Thanks to the Unaroyal's sacrifice Jetstone should know exactly how to fight decrypted: keep your forces together and fight all or nothing battles. Yet, here they are splitting their forces, leaving their capital vulnerable just asking for Ansom to divide and conquer.

[OneHugeTuck]

Why didn't the Wanda's veil drop like everyone elses?