Darkness Rising

[MarbitChow]

Can units move freely through friendlies, or do they have to go around?

Friendlies can pass through friendly squares without penalty.

Guys, the back row of elven archers all used mighty blow and had combat scores indicating they were all operating without leadership.

This is a false assumption. Please note that the Leadership score bonus has never been shown in the Unit stats section, only as a modifier in the Results section. The only thing you can deduce right now is that no A-* archers had leadership.

How much XP is required to get to lvl 3?

I'll let you know when you get there.

OOC :One question. Are the bat swarms in the field considered to have used up ALL their move or do they have some move left ?

All units that have moved cannot move again during this round. Each unit gets a single move 'action' than can be use to travel up to their maximum distance each turn.

Assumption: it's possible for the Leader to form a stack in the field, that is, with units that are already there.

Due to the complex nature of this combat, I let declaring the Leadership Stack slide, and will allow you to do it now, but in the future the Leadership Stack must be declared before the start of each round, just like any Attack Modifiers. But yes, you could apply leadership to units already in the field this round if you want.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Assumption: it's possible for the Leader to form a stack in the field, that is, with units that are already there.

Due to the complex nature of this combat, I let declaring the Leadership Stack slide, and will allow you to do it now, but in the future the Leadership Stack must be declared before the start of each round, just like any Attack Modifiers. But yes, you could apply leadership to units already in the field this round if you want.

We did declare the Leadership stack. It will include the Leader, of course, Cupid, Will, and that leaves room for 5 fliers.

The reason I asked about forming the led stack with units already in the field is because, once more, I plan a piece-wise introduction of units. It's not that important right now, actually, but imo it would be slightly safer to send in Bat Swarm+Fliers, followed by characters, to avoid them concentrating fire on our beloved PCs.

That would mean the fliers would already be in the field when Leader steps in.

Guys, the back row of elven archers all used mighty blow and had combat scores indicating they were all operating without leadership.

This is a false assumption. Please note that the Leadership score bonus has never been shown in the Unit stats section, only as a modifier in the Results section. The only thing you can deduce right now is that no A-* archers had leadership.

Swodaems is correct in saying that the A-* Archers have used Mighty Blow. We can see the roll, we can see the Combat score - simple arithmetic tells us that.

And that's all we want to know. It shows that at present A-* archers have 1Def, and no +1Def from Leadership bonus. Which means that a Flier would do 5-15 damage, average 10, meaning two Fliers stand a good chance to finish an Archer off.

That said-

I say take the healer out , now !

There's a consensus forming in that direction, and I'll subscribe to it. Even if the Wards will stay in effect with the Healer unconscious, it's just too nifty an idea to not try it out.

[Swodaems]

OOC I know that targeting 5 archers is appealing right now but consider the possibility that the healer may move inside especially if we start creating undead on the walls. We may lose the opportunity to take her out. It would be a bad move for the archers to move inside so we can be confident they will be on the walls to target next turn. I say take the healer out , now ! /OOC

I'm of the opinion that we should focus on taking out the units which can do the most damage to us. While taking out / capturing the healer is our end goal, we shouldn't focus on it so much that it ruins the rest of the battle plan. She's actually less useful on the field than you might think. She can only heal/ward/space out 1 unit a round due to her build. In fact, her best use on the battlefield may actually be as a ranged unit since units with fire attacks gain a second attack at level 4.

We should also be aware that actually incapacitating the healer in a single round may be beyond our capabilities.
The problem is that the healer probably has + 3 a leadership from her lover, boosting her def to 10. That means she will only take [0,0,0,0,0,1,2,3,4,5,6]x[1/36,2/36,3/36,4/36,5/36,6/36,5/36,4/36,3/36,2/36,1/36] or (0+0+0+0+0+6+10+12+12+10+6)/36 or 1.555.. from unlead fliers. While I can boost that number to 3.555... with leadership for 7 of those fliers, the fliers are likely to only do an average of 28 total damage with all of them attacking her. (Remember th at she is out of RLOS of ranged units on the ground.) While it looks like we only need to do 24 to her, we should remember that she may be able to heal herself in the middle of our attempt on her due to the nature of the battle. If she survives the phase, she'll be able to flee down the ladder without harm on the second phase since she has a higher combat score than our fliers.


MarbitChow, if I were to enter the hex on my lonesome right now, would I be able to get to the cover of the bats before being peppered full of arrows? When I put that formation up, I was intending to be advancing in what I thought of as the safe T position, but I can see why you thought otherwise seeing as I failed to declare my targets for leadership. Probably just as well considering that position will be strikable by both 12+3? combat treants in the next phase if none of the remaining ground units places themselves where they keep the the treants at least 3 squares away.

Guys, the back row of elven archers all used mighty blow and had combat scores indicating they were all operating without leadership.

This is a false assumption. Please note that the Leadership score bonus has never been shown in the Unit stats section, only as a modifier in the Results section. The only thing you can deduce right now is that no A-* archers had leadership.

When I said that, I actually was doing the math based on the results section (combat+roll score)-(unit screen com+mighty blow), but I have no idea why I thought the back row had fired instead of the front row.

I'm currently thinking of doing leadership for Will, Cupid, Yuri, Rolf, and 3 of the fliers including the singleton. I not going to commit to that as I debating boosting Triage instead of one of the bat formation fliers. Logic to that is that it is likely one of the 5 unboosted fliers firing the opening shots will roll either very well (9+, putting the warded 1 def archer at 6 hits) or very bad (4 or below leaves the ward still up). If boosting Triage, we can leave the archer alone in the rolled well case and in the rolled poorly case, use either the remaining unboosted flier or one of the skele archers to dent the archer's hits without probably croaking him. Triage comes in with his Ickypron scroll and uses it on the heavily wounded archer and the 2 other archers behind and adjacent to him. (Assuming the wounded archer is a2-a7, of course.) Since the archers have 3 ap between their class and mighty blow, this should give Triage the XP he needs to level when the wounded archer croaks and also prevents the archers behind the croaked one from firing next phase.

[HerbieRai]

Swodaems brings up a good point. If she can heal herself mid attack, then all our attacks will only be draining some of her juice. Of course that we'd have the same problem with the archers, only we could do more damage to them, so now I'm leaning to attack A archers instead of the healer.

The healer worries me because he can bring the Gumps back up after we drop them.

[Werebiscuit]

We should also be aware that actually incapacitating the healer in a single round may be beyond our capabilities.
The problem is that the healer probably has + 3 a leadership from her lover, boosting her def to 10. That means she will only take [0,0,0,0,0,1,2,3,4,5,6]x[1/36,2/36,3/36,4/36,5/36,6/36,5/36,4/36,3/36,2/36,1/36] or (0+0+0+0+0+6+10+12+12+10+6)/36 or 1.555.. from unlead fliers. While I can boost that number to 3.555... with leadership for 7 of those fliers, the fliers are likely to only do an average of 28 total damage with all of them attacking her. (Remember th at she is out of RLOS of ranged units on the ground.) While it looks like we only need to do 24 to her, we should remember that she may be able to heal herself in the middle of our attempt on her due to the nature of the battle. If she survives the phase, she'll be able to flee down the ladder without harm on the second phase since she has a higher combat score than our fliers.
.

OOC So if you stack with the 7 fliers then on avarage they will do enough damage to take her to -4 ?

If she survives she may well flee down the stairs, if we target the archers and create corpses she may well flee down the stairs.
Would that encourage her lover to also flee to be by her side (removing his leadership from the battle)?

However consider that in the field our archers WILL be prime targets next turn...the fliers moreso....and they WILL go second to the elf archers.

THIS PHASE MAY WELL BE OUR ONE BITE AT THE CHERRY! /OOC

[BLANDCorporatio]

The healer worries me because he can bring the Gumps back up after we drop them.

Unless there's something about Gumps I'm not getting, bringing them to -5 is sufficient to croak them and such, render them unhealable. They've got 60Hits. Having to damage 60, or 65, is much the same thing.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Swodaems, what's the reason behind leading Rolf and Yuri? So that they have the Defense bonus starting from now?

[Exate]

Yeah, I have to disagree with having Rolf and Yuri on the led list. We're not critical targets and we're not effectively dealing damage to the enemy. The bonus is better applied to someone who will be putting their Combat score to good use this round.

Please tell me if I'm missing something obvious here, but how can we tell the difference on the stat report between an elven archer using Mighty Blow (and thus getting Combat 10) and one not using Mighty Blow but gaining a leadership bonus (and thus getting Combat 10)?

[Werebiscuit]

The healer worries me because he can bring the Gumps back up after we drop them.

Unless there's something about Gumps I'm not getting, bringing them to -5 is sufficient to croak them and such, render them unhealable. They've got 60Hits. Having to damage 60, or 65, is much the same thing.

OOC/ because the healer can undo more of our damage potential at the one stroke ?

Consider we're debating about whether we use 7 shots to incapacitate a 10 def unit with 24 hits.. how many units will we have to commit to damage a potential 15 def unit with 60 hits ? And if we don't get it right it can be undone ? That's the worry. /OOC

[BLANDCorporatio]

Please tell me if I'm missing something obvious here, but how can we tell the difference on the stat report between an elven archer using Mighty Blow (and thus getting Combat 10) and one not using Mighty Blow but gaining a leadership bonus (and thus getting Combat 10)?

Oops. You're not missing anything obvious to me. Guess we need to shoot an Archer to find out which it was.

OOC/ because the healer can undo more of our damage potential at the one stroke ? /OOC

Fair enough, I wonder whether the Healer's combat score dictates her sequence in battle. Then we can predict how much of an issue this will be.

[MarbitChow]

We did declare the Leadership stack. It will include the Leader, of course, Cupid, Will, and that leaves room for 5 fliers.
The reason I asked about forming the led stack with units already in the field is because, once more, I plan a piece-wise introduction of units.
That would mean the fliers would already be in the field when Leader steps in.

I guess I misunderstood the question. If Leadership is declared on Cupid, Will, and 5 fliers, and the 5 fliers enter the field, they don't get the benefit of leadership until Tod enters the hex, as the previous scenario showed.
If the archers are waiting for Tod to enter the field, they will fire as he enters the first square. If the Bats are not adjacent to him at that moment, they cannot screen.

Note that there is a 3rd Bat swarm still available, however, so if you want to enter the field safely, the swarm could enter, move a square forward, and up to 3 characters enter behind it (triggering targets, if any) before each continues to its final destination, which may or may not be a location that grants Bat Screening.

MarbitChow, if I were to enter the hex on my lonesome right now, would I be able to get to the cover of the bats before being peppered full of arrows? When I put that formation up, I was intending to be advancing in what I thought of as the safe T position, but I can see why you thought otherwise seeing as I failed to declare my targets for leadership.

See above. I realize that there was some confusion on my part as to where Tod, Yuri and Rolf would end up, and so if you want to Retcon Yuri's & Rolf's position to the back of the infantry (and ending their move) or Tod's position in the middle of the infantry (also ending his move), I'll allow it. Otherwise, you can enter the battlefield now at will.

Would that encourage her lover to also flee to be by her side (removing his leadership from the battle)?

Leadership extends across the hex, and does not require RLOS. The leader can still issue orders and grant his bonus from within the walls, completely unseen.

Please tell me if I'm missing something obvious here, but how can we tell the difference on the stat report between an elven archer using Mighty Blow (and thus getting Combat 10) and one not using Mighty Blow but gaining a leadership bonus (and thus getting Combat 10)?

No, you're not missing anything. All archers (ranks A & B) declared Mighty Blow at the start of the round, but I missed putting that in the results. I'll update the results so that modifiers are clearer in the future. Archers w/ Leadership would show Combat 13 in the results.

Fair enough, I wonder whether the Healer's combat score dictates her sequence in battle. Then we can predict how much of an issue this will be.

Yes, sequence in battle is determined by everyone's base combat score.

[BLANDCorporatio]

On the usage of the Ickypron scroll.

I don't think we need to worry about leaving a wounded archer. Even if we aim to kill, at least one will survive as the laws of chance tend to go that way. Even if no Archer survives, the Ickypron can be used against anyone on the screen (including, say, the Healer) and while I get the need to level up our chars, there'll be plenty of opportunities for the casters to do so soon enough. Finally, we're not counting the chickens when they're hatched. Let's send in the next wave(s) of units, see the outcome, and think about casters later.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Ok, updated suggestion. This version doesn't attack the Healer.

Send in Bat Swarm screening as many fliers as possible. Archers would fire if they were ordered as such.

Send in Cupid. Same as above, send Cupid in the Bat region.

If at least four archers fire, send in bone archers, Will and The Leader. Thereafter start attacking everything that can be attacked, aiming to kill as many archers as possible (maybe, preferentially, Fliers should target the Archers that did NOT shoot). This order may be followed by sending in casters.

If at most 3 Archers fire, back to the drawing board. But it will involve the Fliers shooting to kill as much as they can.

[Werebiscuit]

OOC Sorry BLAND unless I've missed something I don't think the healer can be targeted by our ground units... She can't be a target of ickypron, unless fliers can cast a scroll /OOC

[BLANDCorporatio]

Points of controversy:

Who should the Bat protect?

Who should be led?

Preferentially attack the ones not firing yet (which means, with Leadership def bonus)?

[BLANDCorporatio]

OOC Sorry BLAND unless I've missed something I don't think the healer can be targeted by our ground units... She can't be a target of icklypron, unless fliers can cast a scroll /OOC

Is this a RLOS thing? Oh. That makes sense. Eh whatevs, we won't have finished all archers off on the wall anyways.

[Werebiscuit]

OOC I'm missing why we're holding off on the bone archers...they're by far our most expendable unit. /OOC

[BLANDCorporatio]

OOC I'm missing why we're holding off on the bone archers...they're by far our most expendable unit. /OOC

Am I saving them? Oops so I am. Yeah, send them right ahead. Heck, even before fliers.

[MarbitChow]

-- INTERLUDE --

The King In Green, overlord of the elves, sat brooding upon his wooden throne. Sunshine Dale had not been threatened in hundreds of turns, and the appearance of this new side would clearly cause no end of trouble if it was not dealt with harshly and immediately. His Thinkamancer, Areolawyn, sat attentively at his feet, and initiated a Thinkagram at his urging. A dashing, grinning elven archer appeared in the King's mind's eye.

"Armolad, Sunshine Dale is under attack. Prepare yourself, for you set out for the Dale this turn. If it falls, you and your merry men will need to reclaim it. If it still stands, you will gather additional reinforcements, send out scouts, and make haste to reclaim the capital city in the mountains, as they must have come from there, for Coil appears to be with them."

Armolad smiled broadly, and bowed to her king. "It shall be exactly as you say, M'lord. I'll gather the Seige Gumptions and whatever additional forces are available, and we shall dance a merry jig upon their corpses!"

The King ended the Thinkagram, and gazed out over the lush, green fields visible from his throne room. Overhead, the sun began to vanish behind a thick cloud. The King in Green called for some mead, to help wash away the sense of foreboding that was growing within his heart...

[Swodaems]

Yeah, I have to disagree with having Rolf and Yuri on the led list. We're not critical targets and we're not effectively dealing damage to the enemy. The bonus is better applied to someone who will be putting their Combat score to good use this round.

There's a few reasons for this: 1. I'm a natural minmaxer, Exate said Yuri and Rolf could attack scouts this turn if nothing else, and the desire to place my leadership bonus where it will give me XP is difficult to resist. (Yuri, at least, should croak 1. They're only worth 1 xp, but that one xp will level him.) 2. Depending on where Yuri and Rolf go, there is a chance of them stepping within the 2 square strike range of a treant. (Each treant has, I believe, a 6x6 area around the that they can strike.) 3. The best way I can think of to deal with the Treants is to use the fact that they have moved away from the door and wall to abuse the new adjacency rule that was introduced for this battle, 'Units that enter a square that is adjacent to an occupied enemy square must end their move, if both units are at the same elevation.' Depending on how the rule is interpreted for units starting next to enemy units, if we place units capable of surviving the treants' attack directly next to them, then we can block the Treants from moving allowing us to simply take the seige around them. Yuri and Rolf felt like the best choices given the situation.

I've had another idea. If we go with the plan of of croaking front row archers, and then raising them, there is a chances of the enemy leader moving forward to do melee with the resulting skeles. If he does this to uncroaked in the front row, he will enter RLOS of the ground, making him a suitable target for being stunned by ickypron. MarbitChow, would this stunning result in him being unable to use his leadership next phase?