Book 2 – Text Updates 021

[balder]

New One is up.

[Welf von Ehrwald]

I guess they have a plan now.

I can't help but dislike the part where Jack talks about the "we are croaked" as in "I will die". Even if it's temporary.

[Steve-D]

Wanda can save decrypyed units from croaking (or re-croaking?). How, exactly? They turn to dust; nothing to save.

Can she heal decrypyed units?

[Dr Pepper]

first page! top 10 even!

Ahem. How bloodlessly Jack lays it out. Perhaps he should be Chief Warlord.

Looks as if we will soon discover if decrypt casters can still cast.

[cloudbreaker]

Wanda can save decrypyed units from croaking (or re-croaking?). How, exactly? They turn to dust; nothing to save.

Can she heal decrypyed units?

She can heal everything that hasn't already been decrypted. Hence why the archons weren't mentioned.

[Ninjaguineapig]

I think he meant that the veiled Wanda was to decrypt the living units (Jack, the dwagons, and whatever other live units that are mounted) as fast as they are croaked, so that they'd have to be croaked again, something Jetstone doesn't have enough resources to do.

[The Black Hand]

Okay, Jack's plan sounds suspiciously familiar.

Did someone on these forums propose something similar?

[doran]

Sort of, someone did suggest letting the dead bodies fall through the barrier and uncroaking them while they are on the ground.

[HailGreen28]

Great idea. Jetstone will have to spend twice the amount of firepower to croak the living units.

Other tactics might also minimize the damage. How about going to highest possible altitude to penalize Jetstone's shooters? Moving directly over the archers in the field to maybe impose a penalty on the tower defenses, and shoot back at the archers directly below them? Flashing the shooters so they can't target Wanda initially?

Wonder what the best solution will be?

[turbler]

I for one REALLY hope Jack doesn't get decrypted. Like he himself said, the focus of a decrypted is to please Wanda, everything else is secondary, and I would hate to see that happen to Jack. Otherwise though, it IS a good plan.

[The Game]

Distance would not save them. The tower could strike any unit in the city's airspace.

Nah, if I interpret this correctly then no movement within the hex would make any difference for Jetstone being able to nail them with archery.

And yes, this seems to be an oddly familiar scenario. Yay for forum speculation and logic!

[Zeal]

So. Is the order that Wanda isn't allowed to decrypt Jack still standing?

[ShinyBrownCoat]

So we will get to see decrypted dwagons after all! Awesome!

[Trotsky]

One problem with Jack dying and then becoming decrypted, doesn't that undue his magic? So that any spells, such as veiling Wanda, might cease. This would make Jack a priority to protect right up there with Wanda.

[Rosa Vernal]

Okay, Jack's plan sounds suspiciously familiar.

Did someone on these forums propose something similar?

Why, yes!

Why not decrypt them as they fall, then?

That way one doesn't have to worry about city zones.

'Cause then they'd be flying. Fliers can't attack units on the ground, remember? You want units on the ground to destroy Jetstones archers and other ranged attacking units. Jetstone is mostly stabber and slicers and pokers, that's what Ossomer was popping according to the summer update. They don't have that many ranged units, I think.

Assuming one CAN decrypt across zones, that is. And that there's not ground support ready and waiting to immediately start trying to destroy the corpse. And that there is absolutely zero chance of getting any attacks to the ground. I'm not saying it's a bad plan, it's just resting on a LOT of variables that we have no idea about. Yet.

Decrypting them in midair, though, that'll result in a double-strength meat shield. If you have to kill just about every unit twice in order to actually get shots to Wanda's stack, I suspect that they'll run out of attack long before they kill everything. Twice.

[Spot]

He leaned forward and tapped the Arkenpliers with his cane, affronting the Decrypted and annoying Wanda. "...must be spent again. Provided you are alive. And quick enough to catch us as we fall."

Soundtrack for the next battle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNQUhqFZ3h8

[Oberon]

Wanda can save decrypyed units from croaking (or re-croaking?). How, exactly? They turn to dust; nothing to save.

Can she heal decrypyed units?

I am often amused by the way different people interpret what appears to me to be something completely different. Jack seemed to spell his advice to Wanda out very clearly:

"Consider. All of these dwagons are alive, as are most of the riders, as am I. We can take a great deal of damage before we are croaked. Defenses will be used, arrows will be used, juice will be spent on us. And then..."

He leaned forward and tapped the Arkenpliers with his cane, affronting the Decrypted and annoying Wanda. "...must be spent again.

My bolds for emphasis. He is saying that the living members of Wanda's force can be effectively doubled by being Decrypted once they are killed. Forcing the attackers to expend twice the resources needed to kill them in the first place. And although Jack didn't mention it, perhaps more than twice the resources, assuming that Decrypted may receive a combat bonus while led by a Masterclass Croakamancer, similar to the bonus uncroaked get when similarly led. Even if the Decrypted ability to take damage is not augmented, if they gain a combat bonus they will inflict more damage and this will kill attackers at a faster rate than they did while alive, thus reducing the amount of damage the attackers can inflict.

I'm disturbed by Jack's suggestion that he veil Wanda. This is a direct contradiction of one of the rules of magic, as explained to the readers in Book 1 Pg 64 When Parson lists all of the reasons they can not veil their troops in the field, "we can't cast on the enemy's turn" is one of them, and it is the only limitation he listed which is still in force, since Jack is in the hex and since Jack is no longer a member of the Eyemancer link. With both Wanda and Sizemore present it would be ridiculous for this not to be corrected were it not the actual case. Especially Sizemore, who had just been teaching Parson about how magic works, should have spoken up to correct him if Parson had made such an elementary misstatement about the rules of magic.

This case can't even be hand waved away by citing the "casting defensively is allowed off-turn", since first a bat and then Ansom's entire stack had entered the central hex of the doughnut. This would have allowed a defensive veil to be cast, except for the fact that casting on the enemy's turn can not be done. Except now it can.

[Spot]

This case can't even be hand waved away by citing the "casting defensively is allowed off-turn", since first a bat and then Ansom's entire stack had entered the central hex of the doughnut. This would have allowed a defensive veil to be cast, except for the fact that casting on the enemy's turn can not be done. Except now it can.

If one cannot cast on the enemy's turn, then how is it that Vanna ever got the chance to cast her spell to force-end the enemy's turn?

Either Vanna never did cast the force-turn-end spell, and it's therefore still Gobwin Knob's turn, or you are mistaken.

[Neko]

It is strongly implied in the text that arrows are a limited resource for archery units. I am glad to know this.

[Aris Katsaris]

This case can't even be hand waved away by citing the "casting defensively is allowed off-turn", since first a bat and then Ansom's entire stack had entered the central hex of the doughnut. This would have allowed a defensive veil to be cast, except for the fact that casting on the enemy's turn can not be done. Except now it can.

That central hex was empty. What Parson was considering back then was casting a veil long-distance to cloak the wounded dragons that were actually in a different (currently unattacked) hex *before* enemy forces entered it.

We've been constantly seeing casters casting while actually defending their hexes during the opponent's turn.