The Battle for Gobwin Bump: Book Two

[The Black Hand]

I don't get it.

Perhaps this will help: IMDB entry for the film The Guns of Navarrone.

(Yeah, I like old films XD)

Well that makes it less a pun and more an homage or reference to an older movies.

The original was a reference.

My calling them "the famous Guns of Navarrone" was the joke >.>

Way to kill it, dude.

[kriss]

Any joke that has to be explained to the audiance is already dead. Explaining it is just beating the thing to make it move.

[Ehbobo]

Well, most of the audience got it.

[kriss]

Anyway on to a bit of strategy. I noticed a couple people have been posting thier ideas for how thier side will contribute. My plan is to have solid core troops whos numbers can support smaller units of eliets and whos strength can bolster larg units of weaker specialized troops. Thus the rather cost effective options given for my units. This makes it easier to pop out a good chunk of units for a low price. They aren't going to win the war, but they will help hold the line. The only downside is that I have no MOVE greater than 2, so speedier units will leave me in the dust. Still, it may take us a while to get there, but when we do we'll get the job done. And I'm sure that once our other natural allies, the Tardy Elves, take care of that minor delay they'll be ready to march to victory beside us.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Depending on how you count, there's at least 2 actual puns in my Steam Gentlemen post. I'm pretty proud of one of them actually (even though now on research, google reveals ~14500 hits, most of them indicating that it's used as an actual phrase- huh).

Anyways, on to more topical things-

Azgrut:

I think there's an error with unit costs. The Hawk should be 28points and the Knight (nice unit btw!) would be 49.

Sihoiba:

The Huwwicane is an awesome unit. I don't, however, see any in the original composition. This looks strange imo, because the Huwwicane is a slow large expensive unit, it will be difficult to reinforce (bring to the front), so therefore it will need to start early on its march towards GB (while other troops make sure the Huwwicanes do not get croaked on route).

But you probably have an idea up your sleeve, and we'll be discussing strategy soon enough.

Kriss (and this point is valid for Crovius and to Ehbobo):

We have transports. Two of them, actually- fast, large units designed specifically to sacrifice offensive power for the ability to quickly move some troops to the front. We'd need even more maybe in the future (that's why offensive is scrapped, so that the units are not prohibitively expensive to pop).

Between the Twain, the Steam Fly, and with some help from The Black Hand's Copperheads, we can get some troop logistic going on.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Now, strategy!!!

Fast-ish units, a-la Golmon Knights and Scorpions, are nice to have because they allow you to quickly rethink plans, and also are easier to reinforce (because it takes them less to get from pop to front). They are however expensive and worse than that, inefficient in Attack/Cost ratio (or Defense/Cost ratio, or any metric of raw power divided by Cost that you wish to use).

This means that what we want is to pop lots of slow, but Attack/Cost efficient, units, be they Ranged or not. HOWEVER, slow units will die now and again, and the more they have to travel ... you get the idea.

So I propose a three-phase plan for pop point allocation.

1) Fliers, Raiders, fast units in general and Scouts: establish territory control over the area between the bridge where we pop units and the mountain choke (preferrably, the mountains should also be defended by our fliers). This phase would favour* The Black Hand and Azgrut.

*: they would receive somewhat more pop points than you'd expect a fair share to be. Open to discussion since we haven't even started yet, we're just brainstorming strategies.

(May also include Sihoiba popping Huwwicanes to bring them over the mountain choke in time for phase 3).

2) Transports. This can be a very short phase of two turns or such, favouring me. The idea is to pop as many fast Transport-type units as possible.

(May also include Sihoiba popping Huwwicanes to bring them over the mountain choke in time for phase 3).

3) Infantry push: slow, but efficient, units should be brought over the mountain choke and begin their march on GB. This phase would favour everybody else not mentioned so far.

The idea is that, hopefully, after many Dwagon battles and such in Phase 1, the enemy will be cornered enough to switch to efficient unit themselves. This means that they'll be less able to mount quick attacks on us, but also that our expensive fast units would no longer be a good counter. However, we need to counter GB's advantage of fighting on their turf, thus the Transports.

[kriss]

Sounds like a solid strategy. Can I ask for 20 points on the first turn so I can pop two more 13 point spearmen, using the 6 I saved from last time? I probably won't need too manny more points. However, I am considering a new unit type to act as siege, but I have nothing definate yet.

[The Black Hand]

Sounds like a good plan to me, Bland.

I'm thinking of popping a second commander either in phase 2 or phase 3, to lead the Militants (and/or Rocketmen) during the infantry push.

[Sihoiba]

I think you're discounting what my units can bring a little. Still here are my two options for starting units:

1) Duke Kettwey, 1 Huwwicane, 66 points saved, meaning 19 points on the first turn means a 2nd Huwwicane. If you want I would then happily hang back until I've popped 7 total hurricanes before moving them upwards in a fairly unstoppable force.

7 Hurricanes, one ridden by Duke Kettwey (so as a flier he can stack with the huwwicanes).
Hits: 216
Av. Defence: 4.375
Attack 319
Move 1
Ranged
Total Cost 644. (or 444 additional points given to the WeatherToffs).

2) Duke Kettwey, 6 Showers, 2 Bweezes, 5 Mists, 1 point saved.

This gives a hit and run stack of Duke Kettwey, 6 Showers and a Bweeze with stats:
Hits 25
Attack 23
Move 5
Ranged
Total Cost 140

Then popping points would be dedicated to popping Mists, given standing orders to move to the furthest scouted empty hex from our camp. If all our units are surrounded by a 3 hex deep mist wall, the enemy has to launch four separate attacks to hit any important units, resulting in them having limited movement and dividing their forces. Heck if we flooded every hex with a mist (Aside from the lake and mountain) the enemy would be effectively pinned in (If any of you've played advance wards consider stopping high value bombers by surrounding them with infantry.

Secondly Mists can be sent in on suicide runs against ranged stacks in hexes full of multiple stacks. Once each ranged unit has been attacked once by a mist, the non ranged units are open to attack by our ranged units, basically sacrificing a 2 point cost unit to launch risk free assaults. Alternatively hit everything ranged in a stack with a mist, hit everything else with ranged high move units in non-retaliatable strikes, then hit the ranged stacks again with mists, before hitting the remaining units with our ground forces. Seeing as their non ranged units have then already fought one defensive manoeuvre, and not wiped out the enemy force as they can't hurt them all our follow up units only take 50% of the damage back they'd have taken otherwise.

Which gives option 3: Duke Kettwey, 4 Bweeze, 43 Mist, 1 point unspent.

[Twoy]

Based on feedback--

Kingdom of Nawnia

Warlord (Commander/Warlord)
Hits: 6
Attack: 9
Defence: 5
Move: 1
Special: Commander - Level ?
Cost: 30

Elephant
Hits: 30
Attack: 45
Defense: 5
Move: 1
Cost: 40

Minotaur
Hits: 15
Attack: 20
Defense: 5
Move: 1
Cost: 20

My starting Army is 2 Warlords--Peter, and Edmund, 1 Elephant and 5 Minotaurs for 200 points. Starting Position is B10.

[turbler]

I almost forgot about you guys! Sorry . Either way, here's the new Nether-Erf

Demonolith
first created to defend 1st King Kwichevskoy from assasination after he was magically weakened in war. The original failed, however this is the improved version. As it was to be a King's bodyguard, it has very low move.
Hits:30
Move:1
Attack:45
Defense:5

looks like I hafta go. I'll wrap this up later, but the 'tank' has been unveiled.

[kriss]

kingdom of Narnia? Um...can we get sued for that?

[Twoy]

kingdom of Narnia? Um...can we get sued for that?

Very unlikely.

[turbler]

sadly, however, Aslan cannot be allowed to ignore 10 of every 8 damage against him.

[kriss]

I'm also not comfortable with 5 warlords, as it seems a monumental waste of points to have so manny commanders so early in the game.

[Twoy]

sadly, however, Aslan cannot be allowed to ignore 10 of every 8 damage against him.

Thanks. I completely missed that rule. Three of my warlords have Defence higher than their hits. I will have to reqork them. If anyone else has a problem with so many warlords, let me know.

[LTDave]

In 24 hours I will declare the end of Gobwin Bump's turn, and post the unit types. They will be quite similar to the ones in the spreadsheet.

After the Ferr-durrp, it will be the beginning of the Alliance Scout Phase.

Players who want to be in the game from turn 1 need to post units between now and then.

[Sihoiba]

sadly, however, Aslan cannot be allowed to ignore 10 of every 8 damage against him.

Thanks. I completely missed that rule. Three of my warlords have Defence higher than their hits. I will have to reqork them. If anyone else has a problem with so many warlords, let me know.

Problems with your units:
You can only define five unit types, so better make all the commanders one or two types.
Defence can't be higher than 5 or hits. Edmund, Lucy, Aslan, Minatour
Commanders can't have more than 6 hits. Several of them.
Attack can't be higher than 1.5*hits. Minatour

Also shouldn't it be Nawnia?

---------

Bland Corperation what of my popping plans do you want me to use

[BLANDCorporatio]

Bland Corperation what of my popping plans do you want me to use

Bland Corperation, who's that person

But yes, an answer for that.

Mists are really efficient at their intended purpose and will be immensely annoying to Gobwin Bump (so much so that they'll cause LtDave to make judicious use of Gobwin stacks), but I overlooked just how cheap they are.

Because of cost, plan 3 is drop-able. We won't need 43 Mists from the get-go, and we can easily replenish them as needed every turn.

Next, I like Huwwicanes a lot but the counter to them (probably) will be Twolls/Spidews with some heavy damage soaker (all units slow Infantry). 7 Huwwicanes are fairly unstoppable, but also expensive and (this is key) difficult to replenish. We can pop, maybe, 2 Huwwicanes every turn, but that would mean that once the big stack suffers some attrition (and it will), we will only trickle 2 Huwwicanes per turn at the front, because there's no way to speed them up by transports.

So in short, I'm not feeling confident about putting all our eggs in the Huwwicane basket.

The first plan, the hit and run stack, fits with our stated goals so far well enough, so you can go out and fast-clear some ground. So yeah, I guess your original troop composition seems the better idea.

My thought was that you'd start with a Huwwicane or two and begin marching (with air cover provided) toward the mountain choke. The plan would not be to saturate the battlefield in Huwwicanes btw, but a mix of Archer-types (like Huwwies) and Infantry-types, some of which transportable, with transports (maybe, sometimes) doubling as meat-shields over the enemy turn.

[Sihoiba]

Ok I'll begin with Duke Kettwey and a Hurricane and 66 points saved. First turn I'll make hurricane number 2 and then I'll focus on building an air strike/scouting force we can start mass producing mists once we have a foot hold worth defending in that way.