Book 2 – Text Updates 020

[Lamech]

A bunch of archers standing on the tower aren't going to be much of a threat. Wanda's dwagons could munch them up pretty fast after taking only a few hits. I'm guessing now that Wanda's biggest worry is that Jillian will return.

Or open the tower to attacks and get the garrison wrecked.

[yay]

would an archon flashmob work? it might keep them safe until a few volleys found the mark in the flashers. also, do archers have to enter airspace to shoot into it? thats the main question in my mind. wanda's tactic seems to think so, leaving only a minimal force (K.C. +blues+pinks) to deal with any airspace intrusions, but leaving most of her top units in a defensive position. the only strategy i can think of involves using all of jacks juice and the archons foolamancy to hopefully avoid being directly targeted till Jetstone runs out of arrows. not that original, nor does it fit with this story's style. more likely Charlie will cut some kind of deal to get wanda out of trouble and onto his and/or jillians side

Once again, my predictamancy failed Oh well.

As for strategy, well we've got an illusionist and a necromancer. Can we squeeze some duomancy out of that? I say yes:

1. Make ground troops see their comrades suddenly become zombies all around them.

2. Invoke each opponent's personal nightmares.

3. It's hard to shoot a bow while your flesh is crawling.

this is a rambling speculation, sorry in advance if you decide to read

croakamancy=motion+matter with emphasis on fate
foolamancy=life+motion with emphasis on numbers

the dirt+croak=volcano worked b/c sizemore allowed wanda to channel the "motion" into the inamite hex in a fashion similar to uncroaking

now, what would croak+fool=? also, since they don't have a thinkamancer they need to combine it manually.

croakamancy/decryption works by basically repopping a unit, in croakamancy's case without memories and a limited shelf life. its only application has been to croaked units, with no spells that have been shown to be uniquely croakamancy affecting anything else

foolamancy works on the basis of the Wizards First Rule (good book) "People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true..." Jack said in an update that foolamancy is about looking at what others would see and what is actually there. also, foolamancy seems to work such as holograms, where even if you don't believe what you see the illusion doesn't fade.

maybe croakamancy has some spells that affect life detrimentally, or foolamancy something that can affect the mind directly. but since there disciplines do not share a common medium, it's doubtful that they can easily mix spells. if either of there spells can directly affect a living unit, they could mix them for some interestin results. maybe wandas headache spell from the begining of book 1 + some sort of hallucination from jack = unit's thinking they have croaked and gone to heaven/hell.
also, all of this speculation is usesless if they can't cast on the archers in the tower due to the airspace boundary

[gazes_also]

I will preface by saying that I believe Wanda and her force are outside the city hex and that there was mention of field archery units that Wanda had to avoid going to the city, so these could be called to the Wanda's hex to attack them directly.

Wanda's objective is Escape. That means surviving until they can move again and then getting the helloutofthere. There are 3 possible things to do to outlast the attacking side:

1.Attenuate
2.misdirect
3.deceive

1. use low value bulky units (dwagons) to absorb as much of the incoming attacks as in practical.

2. Use localized counter attacks to draw fire away from the leadership and redirect it for defense
as I posted before this also allows Wanda get some ground forces if they wipe out a stack.

3. This is an interesting one. Remember old submarine movies? Almost always feature a scene where the sub has to convince a surface ship that it has been sunk by putting out debris, oil and usually a couple of bodies and then lying silent.

So if Jack hides the leaders the challenge is: how do they convince the attackers they're dead?
The problem is if they try to use decrypts they dissolve when they die. Maybe an Archon can look like Sylvia and with maybe a hobgoblin to look like Ossomer, but for Wanda they need a convincing body. An Archon could look like her falling from the sky and going splat, then hope no-one looks too closely to check they really croaked her.

The factor that Wanda isn't considering is that she also has to get through Charlie's turn tomorrow and could be blindsided completely just when she thinks she's home free.

[BCCroaker]

Doesn't Wanda also have to consider the effect of Jetstones air defence on her force?

[Ehbobo]

I don't imagine that Spacerock has air defenses like GK did. If so, they would have gone off when Wanda passed over the first time.

[Neko]

So if Jack hides the leaders the challenge is: how do they convince the attackers they're dead?
The problem is if they try to use decrypts they dissolve when they die. Maybe an Archon can look like Sylvia and with maybe a hobgoblin to look like Ossomer, but for Wanda they need a convincing body. An Archon could look like her falling from the sky and going splat, then hope no-one looks too closely to check they really croaked her.

The difficult part of pulling a "Wanda is dead" scam is not disguising the body...it's finding a way to convince enemy leadership that can physically see unit stats that Wanda's bonus has been removed from her side's units, as they would upon her actual croaking. I'm not sure it can be done under this sort of mechanical constraint. The "mirror image" gambit to create multiple Wandas could be an effective use of Foolamancy, but I can't help but feel there's a more clever solution...it just eludes me.

[Lamech]

So if Jack hides the leaders the challenge is: how do they convince the attackers they're dead?
The problem is if they try to use decrypts they dissolve when they die. Maybe an Archon can look like Sylvia and with maybe a hobgoblin to look like Ossomer, but for Wanda they need a convincing body. An Archon could look like her falling from the sky and going splat, then hope no-one looks too closely to check they really croaked her.

The difficult part of pulling a "Wanda is dead" scam is not disguising the body...it's finding a way to convince enemy leadership that can physically see unit stats that Wanda's bonus has been removed from her side's units, as they would upon her actual croaking. I'm not sure it can be done under this sort of mechanical constraint. The "mirror image" gambit to create multiple Wandas could be an effective use of Foolamancy, but I can't help but feel there's a more clever solution...it just eludes me.

They can't see enemy unit stats; they might be able to, and others have, determine from fighting effectiveness if a bonus is lost though. Wanda (and leadership in the other stacks) could de-stack though which would cause a bonus loss and Jetstone might not be able to determine how big of a bonus was lost or even know how big it should have been.

[yay]

I don't imagine that Spacerock has air defenses like GK did. If so, they would have gone off when Wanda passed over the first time.

perhaps not, they may have been waiting to see the outcome of wanda and jillian's parley or didn't want to nuke the FAQ forces, saving the fireworks till after they had failed. now they are holding off so that they can get there forces lined up to curbstomp them all in one fell swoop. they probably have some type of spell defense IMHO

So if Jack hides the leaders the challenge is: how do they convince the attackers they're dead?
The problem is if they try to use decrypts they dissolve when they die. Maybe an Archon can look like Sylvia and with maybe a hobgoblin to look like Ossomer, but for Wanda they need a convincing body. An Archon could look like her falling from the sky and going splat, then hope no-one looks too closely to check they really croaked her.

The difficult part of pulling a "Wanda is dead" scam is not disguising the body...it's finding a way to convince enemy leadership that can physically see unit stats that Wanda's bonus has been removed from her side's units, as they would upon her actual croaking. I'm not sure it can be done under this sort of mechanical constraint. The "mirror image" gambit to create multiple Wandas could be an effective use of Foolamancy, but I can't help but feel there's a more clever solution...it just eludes me.

can enemey warlords see a units stats? i thought only those on your side could see that.
also, i too feel that there is some crafty solution that Rob has up his sleeve.
-or-
some diplomatic solution will present itself, such as wanda turning or charlie... charlieing

[Neko]

Dwagon breath weapon abilities could be very important. http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/Dwagon Colors I can definitely pick out from the comic panels are:

Red - Fire - 9 confirmed in comic text
Blue - Lightning - 7/8+
Purple - Unknown (possibly sonic, definitely siege related stated in comic) - 6 confirmed in comic text
Yellow - Acidic Battlecrap - 8+
Pink - Immobilizing Blowpops - 10/11+
Green - Gas Cloud - 16+
Brown - Smoke - 1 confirmed in comic, other qtys hazy

If more Browns are present at this battle they might could create a Smoke Screen to reduce the likelihood of accurate hits. (Like an octopus' ink cloud.)

[warriortribble]

So if Jack hides the leaders the challenge is: how do they convince the attackers they're dead?
The problem is if they try to use decrypts they dissolve when they die. Maybe an Archon can look like Sylvia and with maybe a hobgoblin to look like Ossomer, but for Wanda they need a convincing body. An Archon could look like her falling from the sky and going splat, then hope no-one looks too closely to check they really croaked her.

I honestly don't think they could fool anyone. In order to do that, Wanda's pliers must be on her "corpse," otherwise no one will believe it's genuine.

[teratorn]

Do bodies fall from one zone to the other? If so they just need to have their own dwagons killed above archer stacks.

[Ehbobo]

Yes they do.

[effataigus]

Wanda's body fell into the courtyard after being hit by the Archon... granted that was her side's battle-space and who knows what would have happened if an Archon had died there. Granted we don't see any floating dead archons above Gobwin Knob post volcano (despite Charlie never having an intervening turn), so my guess is tha bodies don't float regardless of who's turn it is.

The Archons couldn't cast any spells to "assist" Ansom on the ground or the walls because they weren't on turn... this suggests to me that Wanda cannot decrypt units on the ground while in the air and herself off turn.

I was of the opinion that Wanda could not decrypt while off-turn in any event based upon her waiting until dawn when she first cast the spell and her needing a turn to uncroak the RCC1 soldiers in the Gobwin Knob courtyard. However, I think she did do it at the Unaroyal parley (http://www.erfworld.com/2009/10/summer-updates-043/). After rereading the Unaroyal parley I'm fairly certain that it was on Unaroyal's turn because Bea rode out to meet them (though admittedly this could be at the edge of the city that Bea was already in, but it doesn't sound like it).

[gazes_also]

Wanda's body fell into the courtyard after being hit by the Archon... granted that was her side's battle-space and who knows what would have happened if an Archon had died there. Granted we don't see any floating dead archons above Gobwin Knob post volcano (despite Charlie never having an intervening turn), so my guess is tha bodies don't float regardless of who's turn it is.

The Archons couldn't cast any spells to "assist" Ansom on the ground or the walls because they weren't on turn... this suggests to me that Wanda cannot decrypt units on the ground while in the air and herself off turn.

I was of the opinion that Wanda could not decrypt while off-turn in any event based upon her waiting until dawn when she first cast the spell and her needing a turn to uncroak the RCC1 soldiers in the Gobwin Knob courtyard. However, I think she did do it at the Unaroyal parley (http://www.erfworld.com/2009/10/summer-updates-043/). After rereading the Unaroyal parley I'm fairly certain that it was on Unaroyal's turn because Bea rode out to meet them (though admittedly this could be at the edge of the city that Bea was already in, but it doesn't sound like it).

After Wanda fired off GKs air defences the bodies continued to float in the airspace.

[Alexei P]

After Wanda fired off GKs air defences the bodies continued to float in the airspace.

Not quite

[Welf von Ehrwald]

Do bodies fall from one zone to the other? If so they just need to have their own dwagons killed above archer stacks.

I'd say they fall down. Dead bodies are stuff, stuff falls down. For that it doesn't need move. And we have an precedent. When the vulcano croaked the archons, Parson and Wanda found them on the ground the next turn. Charlescomm didn't had a turn before GK, so the bodies must have fallen while the RCCs turn or during night, at a time where they couldn't regain move.

[Lamech]

I have an idea... throw a living unit off a dwagon, see if it can be decrypted, preferably drop it next to Slately, for a sneak attack. If it can be decrypted, croak the dwagons above the tower and drop it down around Slately's head.

[multilis]

Can an archon with limited thinkomancy link up to one or 2 casters to give boost/weaker trimancer?

[koga305]

One thing you guys might not be considering is the fact that Jack is has used much of his juice already. Some of these plans rely heavily on veiling, which seems like it might be juice-heavy.

[ftl]

One thing you guys might not be considering is the fact that Jack is has used much of his juice already. Some of these plans rely heavily on veiling, which seems like it might be juice-heavy.

Are you sure of that? I'm not convinced, based on the text. Wanda tells him to conserve his remaining juice, but at the time I read that I interpreted it as "save your juice for the big fight" rather than "you have little left."

If he didn't have much left, he'd probably not have been brought in for the capital fight - I assumed he had enough to usefully assist in the garrison attack, and therefore has enough to usefully assist in the airspace defense.