Book 2 – Parson’s Klog 003

[CelebrenIthil]

So the hobgobwins are croaking their dwagons, presumably with the intent to harvest.

...I am at a loss as to how, exactly, this wins Parson the battle, though.

No, only the non-Heavy units need to kill their own mounts; the Hobbos are now Heavy units and thus the Dwagons they are riding cannot maintain themselves in the air with them on their backs, so those, they are just going to fall down. We can pretty much guess all the mounts handily killed by the harvest procedure will be quickly Decrypted once they are on the ground.
This forced fall bypasses the zone barrier that they can't currently cross.

The immediate goal here seems to move all GK's forces to the ground in the Atrium so they can wipe whatever is left to defend it and gain control of the zone, allowing them to move and attack another zone next.
Won't win the battle by itself, but you can see how it's one of the steps.

[Welf von Ehrwald]

poor dwagons

The more I think about it, the crueller I seems. Slaughtering your own troops is really the lowest thing I can imagine. If they were ordered to land they had at least a chance.

[Foolamancer]

So the hobgobwins are croaking their dwagons, presumably with the intent to harvest.

...I am at a loss as to how, exactly, this wins Parson the battle, though.

No, only the non-Heavy units need to kill their own mounts; the Hobbos are now Heavy units and thus the Dwagons they are riding cannot maintain themselves in the air with them on their backs, so those, they are just going to fall down.

Ah, I thought that the illustration showed hobgobwins killing dwagons as well. A second check confirms that you are correct.

The immediate goal here seems to move all GK's forces to the ground in the Atrium so they can wipe whatever is left to defend it and gain control of the zone, allowing them to move and attack another zone next.
Won't win the battle by itself, but you can see how it's one of the steps.

Yep. It would seem that that's the plan. But then why the text about harvesting units for rations?

[ftl]

Is this an out-of-context page, or was the previous page in another update a while back? I don't recall.

It's out of context in the sense that the half-sentence that starts it isn't a continuation of a trailing sentence of any other previous klogs. It's a snippet of his diary which is relevant to the current battle.

So the hobgobwins are croaking their dwagons, presumably with the intent to harvest.

...I am at a loss as to how, exactly, this wins Parson the battle, though.

I presume that that makes the dead dwagons and their riders fall to the ground, to cross zones.

In all our speculation, we'd always assumed that the dwagons could be just ordered to land/fall. But maybe that's not possible - they can't intentionally cross zones. So there need to be exploits to force them to cross zones. Promoting their riders to heavy was one of them. The second exploit is croaking with intent to harvest - that gives the riders a quick 1-shot kill (saves time and keeps the falling synchronized, even if damage-per-hit is uneven between warlords and units), the dwagons and riders fall to where they can be decrypted or where they can stand up and keep fighting if they get lucky with the fall damage.

So that makes the falling exploit even more unpredictable - you can't directly *order* units to fall, you have to work around the rules with exploits to make them fall.

[danidas]

From the picture it looks like the decrypted are the ones killing their mounts and the hobgobwins are just enjoying the ride down on their over burdened dwagons.

[BCCroaker]

poor dwagons

The more I think about it, the crueller I seems. Slaughtering your own troops is really the lowest thing I can imagine. If they were ordered to land they had at least a chance.

Think of them as mounts. Plenty of armies have had to eat their own horses.

[Ace]

But then why the text about harvesting units for rations?

The implication seems to be that this is the best/only way to land the Dwagons, which is confusing. Why don't they just land the Dwagons and take the fall penalty? And if it's safer to fall on a croaked mount (they take the damage or something), why not just croak them in a way that won't (assumedly) turn them into rations next turn? Seems silly, but maybe we'll get some clarification soon.

[CelebrenIthil]

The immediate goal here seems to move all GK's forces to the ground in the Atrium so they can wipe whatever is left to defend it and gain control of the zone, allowing them to move and attack another zone next.
Won't win the battle by itself, but you can see how it's one of the steps.

Yep. It would seem that that's the plan. But then why the text about harvesting units for rations?

Well, because that's the mechanic Parson is exploiting there.
I'm not sure you can order an unit to spontaneously die (disband maybe, but disbanding makes you vanish, NOT what we want), and I'm not sure either that the units riding the dwagons can easily kill them in normal "attacking". In any case, if Parson ordered Wanda and co to brain their own mounts, it sure wouldn't have happened quickly, and the casters would probably need to expand juice to be able to slay theirs, so maybe it would leave time for Jetstone units to notice what's happening and react.
Now, by exploiting the Harvesting mechanic that allows you to kill non-speaking mounts and heavies for food by about just poking them, he ensures all the mounts will drop at the same time, without prior warning signs.
Easy, clean, quick.

Bam. Insta paratrooper squadron. ...except without the parachute part, and more freefall.

[Vorteks]

the Hobbos are now Heavy units and thus the Dwagons they are riding cannot maintain themselves in the air with them on their backs, so those, they are just going to fall down.

Good catch! I hadn't realized that.

The more I think about it, the crueller I seems. Slaughtering your own troops is really the lowest thing I can imagine. If they were ordered to land they had at least a chance.

Don't forget - Jetstone was also harvesting their sourmanders for rations. I guess it's just a normal thing in Erfworld.

[Foolamancer]

So the hobgobwins are croaking their dwagons, presumably with the intent to harvest.

...I am at a loss as to how, exactly, this wins Parson the battle, though.

I presume that that makes the dead dwagons and their riders fall to the ground, to cross zones.

In all our speculation, we'd always assumed that the dwagons could be just ordered to land/fall. But maybe that's not possible - they can't intentionally cross zones. So there need to be exploits to force them to cross zones. Promoting their riders to heavy was one of them. The second exploit is croaking with intent to harvest - that gives the riders a quick 1-shot kill (saves time and keeps the falling synchronized, even if damage-per-hit is uneven between warlords and units), the dwagons and riders fall to where they can be decrypted or where they can stand up and keep fighting if they get lucky with the fall damage.

So that makes the falling exploit even more unpredictable - you can't directly *order* units to fall, you have to work around the rules with exploits to make them fall.

Okay. That makes sense, and it explains why Wanda hasn't simply dropped for the ground - and why both she and Jack are holding weapons. It allows them to croak their dwagons for harvesting.

It may also be true that allied units can't intentionally harm one another, except in the case of harvesting. So that's the only way to get the non-heavies groundside.

[TheMutant]

At first I was sure that Jack and Wanda's scrolls were definitely Healomancy, but maybe that isn't the case. Maybe they can be used to reduce damage or somehow shield themselves- remember, if Wanda croaks, the plan falls on its face, and it doesn't seem like Parson to rely on chance to determine that she won't die instantly from the fall (though I'm sure Wanda's pretty confident about that. Fate and so forth.)

[Joe Falco]

I smiled when I saw that one green dwagon in the top left part of the page, looking afraid and uncertain of what was going to happen next.

I figure Ossomer will be the only one left in the airspace after this sudden move by Parson with demands from Trammenis to explain what is going on. Trammenis is going to see first hand what lateral-thinking can accomplish. And hey, if he somehow makes it out of this, I'm sure he'll be very much inspired to apply such strategy in the future.

[gameboy1234]

OK, so they are going to harvest their own mounts. In order to descent. I would have thought that they'd absorb some spells and arrows first, but I guess something about the self-kill makes it preferable? I can't think of what though. Unless Parson plans on killing and decrypting so much that he needs the rations. But can Wanda decrypt a harvested dwagon? Remains to be seen I think.

P.S. Ossomer and the Archons will be left flying. Prediction: Lots of schmuckers for Jetstone when the croak the Archons, and they capture Ossomer too.

[Ansan Gotti]

Ooh, decrypted archons can probably harvest the riderless dwagons, saving some time. AND that leaves the archons in the airspace, sitting ducks for the bounty and promotion of Tramennis to heir, charged by Slately to get back to their original capital site via unipegataur or jetpack to continue the fight.

[Wakky]

Ace wrote,

The implication seems to be that this is the best/only way to land the Dwagons, which is confusing. Why don't they just land the Dwagons and take the fall penalty? And if it's safer to fall on a croaked mount (they take the damage or something), why not just croak them in a way that won't (assumedly) turn them into rations next turn? Seems silly, but maybe we'll get some clarification soon.

They can't just land the dwagons, as there is a zone barrier which they cannot intentionally cross when it's not their turn. However, dead dwagons drop right through it, hopefully crushing troops underneath. (As has been stated before, you can drop arrows as a form of attack, it's just not likely to hit anything.) The dwagons with the heavies are affected by the fall mechanic, which allows them to cross the border and gently fall to the ground. Once there, those dwagons and heavies can kill any remaining Jetstone troops and gain control of the zone. The upshot of controlling the atrium is that it will allow the rest of the troops to land, after which Wanda decrypts everything in sight, leaving them in a far better position than before.

See? It's all perfectly simple.

[Foolamancer]

At first I was sure that Jack and Wanda's scrolls were definitely Healomancy, but maybe that isn't the case. Maybe they can be used to reduce damage or somehow shield themselves- remember, if Wanda croaks, the plan falls on its face, and it doesn't seem like Parson to rely on chance to determine that she won't die instantly from the fall (though I'm sure Wanda's pretty confident about that. Fate and so forth.)

They are Healomancy.

But that's something that I've been thinking for a while. Healomancy probably has the ability to shield units from damage as well as heal them.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

Looks like the hobgobwins and their mounts are the lucky ones here- they get a free(er?) passage to the ground. Wonder if Ossomer's being ordered to do the same, or if he gets to remain up there with Tramennis?

Ossomer is on the flying carpet that used to be Ansom's, which incidentally makes it more feasible for him to turn. Tin-foil hat theory: since Wanda may not be loyal to GK, it may be possible for a decrypted unit to turn from GK but still be beholden to Wanda.

I don't think he was told about this plan to avoid any risk of him spoiling the surprise, so he probably hasn't been ordered to jump off yet. Since his best falling outcome is injury, with the other possibilities eliminating him from action permanently (he's unlikely to be healed if he's incapacitated), he may be more valuable as a scapegoat/pincushion anyway.

[CelebrenIthil]

Hey I saw a familiar face!



...

Barry isn't very lucky.

[Krennson]

evil thought....

assume that if you 'harvest', and thus croak, a living dwagon, that Wanda can decrypt the corpse, but that the now-decrypted dwagon will still dissapear next turn when the rations show up.

We know that when a decrypted unit is killed, it dissapears in a cloud of dust, unlike croaking a normal unit, which leaves a body instead.

What happens if you harvest a decrypted unit? does it leave a body in that circumstance? and can that body be decrypted a second time?

if so, you can 'harvest' any decrypted unit in combat which is down to its last few hitpoints, then decrypt it a second time to restore it to full hitpoints. and you can run that loop forever until the next turn comes around, and the unit finally disappears into rations.

thus, if you can protect wanda, any harvestable force can be made effectively immortal for one and only one turn- and then will be utterly destroyed when the next turn comes around.

one interesting side effect of that: if you harvest-decrypt the same unit ten times in one turn, do you get one unit's worth of rations next turn, or ten times that amount?

[Vorteks]

The upshot of controlling the atrium is that it will allow the rest of the troops to land, after which Wanda decrypts everything in sight, leaving them in a far better position than before.

I think this is the big thing here. When Wanda lands, any losses incurred by falling can by offset by decrypting the Jetstone forces that were in the Atrium. Had they remained in the air, this wouldn't have been an option.