Darkness Rising

[Werebiscuit]

OOC I'm thinking the answer might be provided by Marbit since to my mind the idea of Beefy skeletons is gaming it a little but then that might be in his choice of Beefy to describe the extra hits. Sturdy would make more sense for skeltons...or big boned and theres no real reason why they can't be built to take extra damage.... is there ? /OOC

[Werebiscuit]

Another issue is sending Will in the hex. Will cannot attack the healer (unless she's on the walls, for some reason) but might chip at an archer. Before we send Will in though, let's send in the infantry/siege clump and see what the Archers do. Same turn, we'll send the flier and Leader stack, bone archers and maybe Will as well.
/OOC

OOC BLAND, sending Will in is solely your decision, only you can make the call on it.
In my mind he's low target priority sitting just above the skeletons and far behind the fliers and Cupid who are behind the 8 rammers and their guards, so somewhere about 34th on list. In fact he's probably behind Tod on the target list.

I'm currently wondering if we can get 2-for-1 protection from the swarms because of the "adjacent" in their rules description.

Brickabat Swarm [ 0 Combat / 1 Defense / 8 Hits. No attack. Special: Screen - Brickabat Swarm can negate a single Fire attack against any adjacent target, at the cost of 1 Hit. Cannot be targeted by Fire, Strike, or non-AoE Spells.]

Say we send in formations of :
...Y S ........... F F F
W B T .. and .. C B F
...R S ........... F F F

Where Y = Yuri, S = Skeleton, F = Flier, W= Will, B = brickabat swarm, T= Tod, C= Cupid and R= Rolf.

Would the Swarms function as ablative fire-action armour for all in the formation ?

[The Colonel]

BEEFY AND MIGHTY BLOWING ARCHERS. DO I ENTER THE HEX OR STAY OUT?

[BLANDCorporatio]

OOC:

Holy shit, Brian Blessed is on our side! We cannot lose! Fly my beauties

/OOC

OOC: now seriously, we will send the Bone Archers in. I'll leave it as anyone else's guess whether Mighty Blow or Beefy. But we will not send the Croakamancer in yet. And we won't send fliers nor archers before the infantry siege clump gets in the line of fire.
/OOC

[Werebiscuit]

BEEFY AND MIGHTY BLOWING ARCHERS. DO I ENTER THE HEX OR STAY OUT?

OOC I'd say stay out till we have some bodies to raise unless it's ruled that you need to be in hex to control the skeleton archers. If that's the case you'd have one of the 2 vacant positions in the skeleton/ leader formation. /OOC

[Werebiscuit]

OOC: now seriously, we will send the Bone Archers in. I'll leave it as anyone else's guess whether Mighty Blow or Beefy. But we will not send the Croakamancer in yet. And we won't send fliers nor archers before the infantry siege clump gets in the line of fire.
/OOC

OOC We're giving them a free round of fire actions on the infantry ? Now I'm the one not seeing the sense in keeping the archers in reserve. /OOC

[BLANDCorporatio]

OOC:

OOC We're giving them a free round of fire actions on the infantry ? Now I'm the one not seeing the sense in keeping the archers in reserve. /OOC

It's a combat ordering thing. Their Archers have a higher combat, ie they shoot before, our fliers. So here's what may happen.

We send in siege clump and fliers. If their Archers target the infantry clump, it's as if we had sent it first, and fliers second. Just like my plan.

If their Archers decide to fire on our Fliers, it would put a serious spanner in our offensive works. I'd rather not give them that option. Hence, yeah, send infantry clump first.
/OOC

[Werebiscuit]

OOC:

OOC We're giving them a free round of fire actions on the infantry ? Now I'm the one not seeing the sense in keeping the archers in reserve. /OOC

It's a combat ordering thing. Their Archers have a higher combat, ie they shoot before, our fliers. So here's what may happen.

We send in siege clump and fliers. If their Archers target the infantry clump, it's as if we had sent it first, and fliers second. Just like my plan.

If their Archers decide to fire on our Fliers, it would put a serious spanner in our offensive works. I'd rather not give them that option. Hence, yeah, send infantry clump first.
/OOC

OOC You realize this depends on them being Stupid. No one can reach them first turn...they can delay firing till they see what choice of targets they have.

I'm not saying they're not stupid however if they are smart and delay then our fliers can pick them off if they're in the field thus reducing the number of fire actions they have on us. So it's pretty much a paper-scissors-stone situation. That's why I'm advocating protecting the fliers with a brickabat swarm. It should save eight of our forces. I'd rather not just assume their stupidity.

Wait, if we split the fliers into 2 groups each protected by a brickabat swarm then they can't hope to wipe out the 2 groups having to waste 8 shots on the first group just to get damage. /OOC

[MarbitChow]

Regarding Skeletons: They can get the Ability "Beefy", although when applied to them it is called "Calcium-Enriched".

Regarding Brickabats: One brickabat can be used to screen an entire 3x3 square, protecting up to 8 units:

Code: Select all

Unit Unit Unit
Unit BBat Unit
Unit Unit Unit


The Brickabat can be ordered to protect all targets in this formation, or to select one or more higher-priority targets and let the rest get hit.

Regarding sending only melee in first: If the elven archers have orders to hold their action until the fliers or casters enter, and the casters do not enter, the elven archers would not fire at all this round. The only way they could determine that the fliers / casters are not entering this round is if the round ends, at which point it is too late for them to do anything else.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Regarding Skeletons: They can get the Ability "Beefy", although when applied to them it is called "Calcium-Enriched".

Regarding Brickabats: One brickabat can be used to screen an entire 3x3 square, protecting up to 8 units:

Fucking brick-bats. That's the third time that ability needed explaining, and the third time it makes necessary to redraw plans.

Will do so, later.

Regarding sending only melee in first: If the elven archers have orders to hold their action until the fliers or casters enter, and the casters do not enter, the elven archers would not fire at all this round. The only way they could determine that the fliers / casters are not entering this round is if the round ends, at which point it is too late for them to do anything else.

Wait, really?

Omg. That's awesome. If we send the inf clump, and they don't fire, we can just ... end turn! Free movement toward the wall!

[BLANDCorporatio]

Ok, back to bat usage. It should be possible then to have the bat protecting more units than Marbit mentioned. We could have our 8 fliers around a Bats (sic), Cupid directly above the Bats, and the Leader AND Will below the Bats. Yay!

Still leaving two bats for ram guard duty. And we have two rams.

[Werebiscuit]

Fucking brick-bats. That's the third time that ability needed explaining, and the third time it makes necessary to redraw plans.

Will do so, later.

OOC Note my proposed formations, I thought you were misunderstanding the Brickabats BLAND but didn't want to call you on it as I couldn't be sure I was reading it right.

The real question for the first turn is what priority do we think their archers have ? /OOC

[BLANDCorporatio]

And because as Marbit knows, I'm very argumentative, I won't let this stand unchallenged-

You realize {the enemy Archers firing on the infantry siege clump} depends on them being Stupid. No one can reach them first turn...they can delay firing till they see what choice of targets they have.

Yes, they can delay firing. My plan doesn't rely on them being stupid though. It relies on the fact that it's a tight fight for the Archers to stop the siege in four turns, and they'd better be at it from turn 1. Meaning, from turn 1, the siege and its guards are important targets. Important enough that attacking them is not stupid.

Granted, it's not the only choice. Maybe the Archers were instructed to wait for fliers. Ok. In that case, my original plan was functionally equivalent to sending in all at once. IF however, and it's not a big if, the Archers were instructed to target the siege OR fliers, whichever was available (and this is not a stupid instruction, see above), then sending in infantry first keeps our fliers safe and gives them one free attack.

So, even before Marbit's massive info dump in our favour, my plan is better than the alternative because it performs at least as good in all eventualities, and better in some.

[Werebiscuit]

Ok, back to bat usage. It should be possible then to have the bat protecting more units than Marbit mentioned. We could have our 8 fliers around a Bats (sic), Cupid directly above the Bats, and the Leader AND Will below the Bats. Yay!

Still leaving two bats for ram guard duty. And we have two rams.

OOC The only trouble with this is once they have used up 8 shots to take care of the bats then they still have 6 to target the fliers. /OOC

[BLANDCorporatio]

The real question for the first turn is what priority do we think their archers have ? /OOC

This is not an issue.

Send in the infantry siege clump.

If they fire on it, we'll know.

If they don't fire on it, we'll know. And end turn then.

[BLANDCorporatio]

OOC The only trouble with this is once they have used up 8 shots to take care of the bats then they still have 6 to target the fliers. /OOC

I am trying, really, to be patient.

Really trying, here. But at some point, I wish we had a dictatorship in place that would quit this faffing about and GET SHIT DONE. Even if it's not MY version of the shit, but some version.

Because I'm getting a bit annoyed at explaining why I want to maneuver our fliers behind our inf siege clump to avoid precisely the "issue" in the quoted text.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Ok, outline of plan, take umpteen. With spoilers included to present justification for the various steps.

1. Form the infantry siege clump: Each ram carrier bodyguarded by a spearman, and guarded by a warrior. Bat swarms above each ram protecting whoever they can. Send this, hereafter referred to as the inf siege clump, in the field as far as it will go (5 subhexes). Bat Swarms optional, really.

Spoiler: show

Their Archers shoot at it. Fine. This gives our Fliers and Archer a chance to go in and do some damage. If extensive enough, we may even bring in the Croakamancer under the cover of the same bat swarm. We may return the other two Bat swarms to this Flier/Archer/Caster stack of ours, for more protection, since the bats may fly a total of 12 subhexes, and the first move used up only 5.

Their Archers don't shoot at it. Finer. We end turn here. In that case, the next turn begins with all our units unscathed, but our siege one turn closer to the door. And a much worthier target. If they shoot at it, fine, as above. If not, move in closer. It will, eventually, be silly of them to ignore the siege. That's when we send our ranged attackers in.

EDIT:

2. (Assuming turn 1, Archers shot at inf siege clump)

Send in our ranged units. And a Bat Swarm for protection. It appears to be an excellent idea (which I stress is not my own; being harshly critical but giving credit where it's due) to target the Healer for incapacitation. Thereafter, kill as many of their Archers as can be managed. If we get three of them, sending the Croakamancer in to do some bone pupeteering seems mighty fine.

Spoiler: show

We'll work something out, juice wise, with the GM. I'm very curious as to how our negotiation ploy may work, but it's a solid thing to try.

[Swodaems]

Regarding Skeletons: They can get the Ability "Beefy", although when applied to them it is called "Calcium-Enriched".

Regarding Brickabats: One brickabat can be used to screen an entire 3x3 square, protecting up to 8 units:

Code: Select all

Unit Unit Unit
Unit BBat Unit
Unit Unit Unit


The Brickabat can be ordered to protect all targets in this formation, or to select one or more higher-priority targets and let the rest get hit.

Okay, but how does that work in a 3D space? (We seem to have a ground level, a wall level, and a flier's only level. Way I see it, a brickbat in the middle level has a cluster of 27 cubic volumes he could be described as adjacent to.)

Regarding sending only melee in first: If the elven archers have orders to hold their action until the fliers or casters enter, and the casters do not enter, the elven archers would not fire at all this round. The only way they could determine that the fliers / casters are not entering this round is if the round ends, at which point it is too late for them to do anything else.

Is that what will happen if we give orders with conflicting conditionals? (IE. 'Archers, wait to fire until the fliers enter.' 'Fliers, wait to enter until the Archers have fired.')

[BLANDCorporatio]

Okay, but how does that work in a 3D space? (We seem to have a ground level, a wall level, and a flier's only level. Way I see it, a brickbat in the middle level has a cluster of 27 cubic volumes he could be described as adjacent to.)

Indeed. I'm thinking we can use this to protect all our ranged units with one Bat Swarm.

Is that what will happen if we give orders with conflicting conditionals? (IE. 'Archers, wait to fire until the fliers enter.' 'Fliers, wait to enter until the Archers have fired.')

I guess an "out" is provided by our more flexible leadership If their Archers will hold fire until the fliers show up, this means they won't fire on our inf siege clump as it moves as far as it will go. And my suggested course of action in this eventuality is, ending turn. Paradox resolved.

[Werebiscuit]

OOC We're "faffing" about trying to find out the ramifications of our tactics. Which means we've had to re-draw plans twice. Without that "faffing" we wouldn't be a close to a good plan as we are now. I seriously think we'll come up with the same plan eventually tweaked by each other's insights.. think of it as iterations getting closer to the optimal.

The only thing we've forgot to factor in so far is the movement of the gumps-- What move do they have Marbit ? It determines how close we can get the rams before we HAVE to move other units in /OOC