Book 2 – Page 54

[effataigus]

guys guys guys

Wanda is about to collapse the tower with Parson inside.

Methinks tower and dungeons are separate for the purposes of a collapsing tower... we saw team GK regroup in the dungeons of GK back in book 1 even after Sizemore brought the tower down.

But who knows what would happen if Tram punched a city wall "with intent to raze?"

[BLANDCorporatio]

guys guys guys

Wanda is about to collapse the tower with Parson inside.

Hey, welcome back? Didn't see ya here in a while!

And to reply, mebbe, mebbe not ... since she's going to the prtal room herself, I suspect she'd then be collapsing the tower on her own person. Which would be unwise.

[Sylvan]

Remember the archons trapped in the sky above Haggar units?

Yeah. Now that you mention them, they turned out to be easily dispatchable. Sorry, just had to point that out.

They only took out three of the six archons above them and "momentarily" captured the leader. Also the archons couldn't fire back or use thinkamancy to confuse them.

Okay, so, just wanted to point out a few things here. Those archons weren't simply trying to hide in the hexes with the column, at least two of them were taking very risky positions directly over the main command stack.

Also, it is heavily implied that Haggar only took one Archon down, and the rest flew down to surrender. Make what you will of this.

Following the well-trodden road, they sailed up to Haggar's column undetected. Silently, they passed along its seven-hex length, using veils to blend with the roadside trees.

After relaying full intelligence on the dispensation of Prince Sammy's units to Charlescomm, they settled into positions. Lindsay and Paris ended turn at the head of the column, Miley and Brittany at the rear. Hilary and her partner Avril took up a risky blind, directly over the heads of Prince Sammy's leadership stack. They kept the rising sun at their backs, relative to the warlords, and spent most of their juice to shine out their shadows. It was tricky, but worth it. Nearly everything the Haggar warlords said was relayed through Hilary to the capital.

...

"What's Charlie giving for the release of a captured Archon lately?" he snarled. "What're you worth, huh?"

Hilary's left leg was broken below the knee. This and her other injuries left her in a heap on the ground. She had not been wounded in the fight. When the arrows began to fly and Avril fell, Hilary had unveiled, descended, and surrendered. But that was not good enough for the Prince of Haggar.

She lifted her head and looked at him with her good eye. "Over nine thousand," she said.

"So I've spent twenty-seven so far," he said. He slapped his fist into his palm, then shook it at her. "You think I won't make it thirty-six? Start talking!"

Oh, and I'm pretty sure they could have fought back. You can't take off or land in a hex you don't control, but moving or attacking from air to ground is normally okay. It is just that in cities you don't control it takes one move to go from the airspace to the garrison to the outer walls to the tunnels (as in, 1 move each and every time you move in between any of these zones). If you have to expend move to cross it, it becomes a hex boundary, and you there are just a tiny few exceptions to what you can do to things in another hex off turn. Still, six archons against a seven hex column stacked up for maximum spotting and archery doesn't sound like good odds to me, especially when they are trapped two to a hex.

Archon/Haggar text update.

[atalex]

At this point, I don't see how Slately gets to the portal room.

Why would Slately go to the portal room? If he tries to use the portal it would kill him.

I was responding to another poster who thought he might be planning portal-suicide like Queen Bea.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Also, it is heavily implied that Haggar only took one Archon down, and the rest flew down to surrender. Make what you will of this.

Ahem. Emphasis mine:

"What's Charlie giving for the release of a captured Archon lately?" he snarled. "What're you worth, huh?"

{snip}

She lifted her head and looked at him with her good eye. "Over nine thousand," she said.

"So I've spent twenty-seven so far," he said.

So they killed three archons. At least, lets try to get facts straight here, since speculations on woulda-coulda-shot-or-not will not get anywhere. Which is a pity, as the discussion has its amusing moments. Like now, when trying to find differences between the risk of Hillary etc and the 19 decry-archons stuck above a city pumped with archers and casters. Why do you troll me?

EDIT, PS: so as not to reopen a dreary circle, let me just say that Slately better be taken out by the fastest safest route; can't dally in the tower, not with siege units threatening to collapse it. So there's that, safest best way is ground, and we're all happy. Once we agree to that, we might agree that, as an afterthought, Jetstone might consider denying GK some valuable versatile air units.

[gameboy1234]

Like I said in my first post on the topic, this is a nit pick, and does not distract form the rest of the awesome update and art.

No worries, and I was just curious. I think you may be off in your perception though. I'm just continuing the conversation a bit here, no big deal either way. Maybe I'm the one that's off lol.

compare that to the other side of the roof through which you can see the sky. It just looks odd is all I am saying. Either the crashing dwagon completely demolished (including superstructure) the part of the atrium that would be closest to us or Xin forgot to add in some holes in the ceiling.

This I think is where you went most wrong. The camera (or the viewer's perspective) is floating in the middle of the hole in the Atrium. You are actually looking across and slightly up at the roof of the Atrium. You're floating slightly above the level of the roof, or where the roof used to be, because the sides of the roof are lower than the middle, which is why you can see the outside as well as the inside of the roof. The superstructure that you seem to think was demolished is behind the POV in that panel (or possibly slightly beneath it). It's not gone, it's just out of view. As others pointed out, I think a lot of the smaller individual holes have now been merged into one large central hole. That's just Erfworld's war-game physics.

In the panel five we can see the outside of the roof of the atrium, on the right side of the panel, that appears to be all gray (as in no breaks in the roof and no transparency to see the tower's middle section).

This part really confused me, because the right side is clearly broken by the line of the roof. The gray above it is the tower, and the gray below the roof is just the tower (connected to the inside of the Atrium) and the inside of the Atrium itself. Again, no invisible roof is required to see down into the Atrium now, because there's a huge hole in it.

The left side you see sky because there's no tower to block your view.

[skarl]

one thing I noticed about transilvito: vinny is not in that room! I hope this doesn't mean that he is not going to appear at this comic agian

he is one of my favourite characters.

[BLANDCorporatio]

one thing I noticed about transilvito: vinny is not in that room! I hope this doesn't mean that he is not going to appear at this comic agian

he is one of my favourite characters.

He's in Faq I think. He'll be back. Along with that other character.

[fjolnir]

which one, Lobot? or Ms. Zammussels?

[ScegfOd]

as far as panel 5 goes, there was a text update about the atrium

a vaulted roof of smoked glass panels

So its really just the fact that the glass looks dark on one side but is easy to see through from the other, like the tinted windows on a limo.

The real nitpick here is that the text update has a support beam perpendicular to the one we see present that simply isn't there in the latest page. Or is that what you meant?
...no we would still see part of it and perhaps the place where the acid ate away at it's end, so you couldn't mean that...hmm

edit:
also you can clearly see that the acid (which can eat through glass, like few acids can(and at a VERY high rate, which i don't think any boring world acids can...)) has eaten through the supports like acid of it's strength should have

[BLANDCorporatio]

which one, Lobot? or Ms. Zammussels?

Yes.

[GaryThunder]

I don't see the destroyed roof as a problem. It was blown to hell by the battlecrap, which is acidic. We saw Antium getting slowly eaten away until he got thwart'd, why wouldn't the garrison roof also be dissolving?

[gameboy1234]

does anyone recognize the robot character from the lower leftmost panel? i dont think we have seen her before...?

She's not a robot, she's a doll. I think she's supposed to be a takeoff of the character of Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

To me it looks a lot like various dolls (robots) in anime, such as Battle Angel Alita or Ghost in the Shell. "Robot" works but I think it's literally a golem of some sort, maybe cloth, maybe something else.

[Housellama]

I think that everyone's misreading Wanda's actions here. She's actually doing EXACTLY what Parson told her to.

Parson told her to secure the Atrium, the dungeon and the portal room. (See here. Second to last frame). Let's refer back to Parson's now famous speech to the casters about strategy. (For reference. Second to last frame.) Now, let's rephrase Wanda's orders just a little bit. Wanda's orders are to hold the Atrium, the Dungeon and the Portal Room. Let's refer back to that frame again, and tweak those orders just a little bit more. Parson told Wanda to make the enemy unwilling or unable to TAKE the Atrium, etc.

If the purples are taking the tower apart around them, and there's a still very sizable army barricaded inside the Atrium waiting for the siege to open a hole... do you think they are going to have TIME to worry about what's going on in the portal room? Wanda took Parson's words to heart. She's following his orders. To put it slightly differently... The best defense is a good offense. If Slately dies, the point is moot. Of course, we don't know the full extent of Parson's plan so that may be counter productive, but he didn't tell them NOT to kill Slately, so...

[teratorn]

Is jack really surprised or was he simply pushed aside by Sylvia in her enthusiasm about the proposal?

Ahem. Emphasis mine:

Just means they had archers and those archons didn't have Ossomer huge bonus.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

Though I think Jack IS a bit worried at Wanda's "my order" line. Not out of loyalty to Stanley, of course, but to his own status as not-(de)-croaked. Wanda must be itching to try the Pliers on a caster ...

On the other hand, the text update about the confab "allowed" by Chief Healamancer Pierce informed us that the Chief Xamancer can give orders to the side's other casters, and Wanda is already Jack's Chief Croakamancer. Which does sound ominous.

[fjolnir]

They are also golems for defence "guard goyles"

[splintermute]

RE panel 5, I believe we are seeing the front of the Garrison where the Tower is located. The hole is farther behind that. And speaking of panel 5, is that Bat 5, I spy hanging from a belfry? Maybe that's who Slately is going to speak with.

Where do you see the bat? If you're talking about the red blob near the top of the tower, that's Ossomer on his carpet.

[kreszantas]

Jack seems to have a very surprised look in panel 7. Is it because Sylvia seemed to butt in or because Wanda agreed with his plan or because of the "You have MY orders" line?

She is the chief caster and probably the reason for the last "caster" based update was to dispel this very logic. For Sylvia to confirm this means it is a mechanism of fate that Wanda agree's with and "MY" is more directed at "ALL" the unit she controls, I do not see one unit that Jack can actual control so it HAS to come from Wanda in that fashion

[Lamech]

EDIT, PS: so as not to reopen a dreary circle, let me just say that Slately better be taken out by the fastest safest route; can't dally in the tower, not with siege units threatening to collapse it. So there's that, safest best way is ground, and we're all happy. Once we agree to that, we might agree that, as an afterthought, Jetstone might consider denying GK some valuable versatile air units.

Yup if Jetstone decides to leave they should slap down as many archons as possible. A lot of their difficulty seems to be their blastity powers. With out those they aren't much more than difficult to find flying knights. Although I do note in the Haggar situation they found 4 and downed 4. 'Cept they needed to find 6. If a third of the archons live here? Dead Slately.

I think that everyone's misreading Wanda's actions here. She's actually doing EXACTLY what Parson told her to.

She is taking all tunnel-capable units. Those dwagons have to do something (even if its sit around and get killed), she simply judged that the best option was to have them say hi to the tower.