Darkness Rising

[0beron]

OH, well then screw that haha, put him stacked with the ground archers, the Garrison Archers are way better.

[Werebiscuit]

We have a garrison warrior ( with leadership, no less !) that I did not know about so he can lead the archer stack and the 1st level commander can now lead a further melee stack giving us
Tod's Stack... Tod, Will, Rolf, Cupid, T Coil (mounted), Brick, Vinny, Royal guard

Yuri's stack... Yuri & the 7 Garrison archers

Wandreus Stack... Wandreus & 7 zed archers

Bills Horde... Bill ( mounted) 9 Skeleton archers, 5 Uncroaked Marbits and skeleton ( marbits & Skeleton start in c11, g11 k11 o11 s11 & w11 on the field)

Archer stack... Garrison warrior 5 remaining zed archers & Junetta & Comet (flier)

Melee stack 1... 1st lvl commander (mounted) 5 heavies & 2 bodyguards
Melee stack 2... 1st lvl commander (mounted) 5 warriors,& remaining bodyguard
Melee stack 3... 1st lvl commander (mounted) heck pups & royal bodyguard
This leaves the spearmen unled... oh and we still have a mount to distribute

[Lord of Monies]

For the purposes of ensuring our chief warlord bonus stays alive as long as possible and without lots of attention needed to keep him alive, I suggest the last mount go to him. They'll be targetting leadership just like we will be, so best make sure our best form of leadership has a nice mount to protect him.

[ETheBoyce]

I think we should have Junetta in Tod's stack dropping Brick, who should be out of LOS for any enemy but the fliers, as Junettta will be blasting those fliers out of the skies and she has a low combat score. I think the last mount should actually go to Vinny or Junetta as they will be potential flier targets, Tod should probably be out of LOS until we open the gates or the enemy breaks a wall/tower/the gate

[Swodaems]

I have a few thoughts & suggestions about placement and stacks:

I think it would be easier to place everyone if we kicked everyone off the towers but the 2 ballista captains, the 4 casters I include in the faerie fight plan (that means no T. Coil on the towertop*), the 7 garrison archers I include in that plan, and a few brickbats and bodyguards. (*Unlike the comic, the only bonus a caster gets in this game from being on the towertop is increased protection from fliers and access to the tower's spells and energy to use against fliers. We're planning on using delayed actions to down most of the fliers before they can fire, so the protection bit shouldn't matter much. T. Coil is likely going to be ground force blasting, which has to be done from his own juice, so he doesn't need access to the energy either. If he is mounted, we could save a lot of space by moving him to the wall instead. His mounted casted/dodging idea will work better with the increased space on the wall and he'll have the exact same defensive bonuses as before against ground troops.)

Of the 32 spaces on the towertop, only 16 aren't in the front 2 rows. The 2 ballista captains have to be in the front 2 rows, so those 16 spots are going to the rest of the units we can put there. With 4 casters (sans mounts) and 7 garrison archers, we've filled 11 of those 16 spots. 2,3,or 4 spots go to brickbats. (Yes, they could be flying a square off of the tower, but that would limit the number of people they can protect. As part of the formation on the tower they'll have more units adjacent to them.) The remaining spots can go to bodyguards. (Note, we may be able to arrange for the casters to run up the tower after the enemy archers can fire, but before the faeries enter.)

On the wall, we'll have T. Coil (mounted and starting out of RLOS), Bill's Skele archers (right up on the edge of the wall), Will, Cupid, Comet and the zeds (May be able to start out of RLOS or right behind the Skele archers).

The rest of the force is melee. I'm still favoring keeping the melee inside at the start as opposed to keeping them outside, but I would like a few more questions answered before setting down positions for them.
(MarbitChow, what squares will an enemy on the outside be able to see thru an open or partially open door? (Can I just do the "draw a straight line, center to center" test to figure it out myself?) If they haven't seen a unit type, will they act as if it doesn't exist? With the new partial door opening rules, how long does it take to get from 3/4s open to fully open?)

As far as stacks for the first round go: I'm thinking that I stack with Will, Rolf, Cupid, Vinny, T. Coil, Junetta, and Triage.
Yuri gets Brick and 6 of the Zed archers.
Wandereus get the Garrison archers. (They have dance-fighting and so does he after being turned. Yuri and Wandereus will both give +3 to these 7, but Wandereus also gives an additional +1 for filling in the 8th slot in the dance troupe.)
Bill will be with his hoard.
If the melee is outside, the Garrison warlord leads the remaining 6 zeds and comet. The level 2 warlords fill their stacks with the dancing linemen.
If the melee in inside, one of the lvl 2 warlords leads Comet and the remaining zeds. The other warlords won't matter much, because they won't be part of the first round. (We do have to make sure that any of the units the enemy can target thru the potentially opening door are well bonused.)

Our ranged units should have orders to prioritize fire on either unguarded archery, unguarded seige, or unguarded leadership. The enemy has 16 bodyguard units, but they'll have to protect 16 walking archers, 8 gumptons, 4 walking warlords, and 1 mounted archer warlord. There will be unguarded targets to hit. With my stacks, (and excluding the faerie fight garrison archers), in the first round we'll have 9 shots from 16 (with bonuses) com skele archers, 6 shots from 15 com zeds stacked with Yuri, 6 shots from 13 or 14 com zeds stacked with either a level 1 warlord or a level 2, 2 shots each from Will (41 effective com with bonuses) and Cupid (27 com), and a single 7 or 8 com shot from Comet. In the second round, We can add 3 16 com shots and 4 19 com shots to that list. (We may also have them in the first round if the faeries hold off on entering the hex until the second round, in which case the garrison archers have orders to burn their delayed actions by firing on the ground force at Com=2 on round 1. Better to use then to lose and the casters should still be able to take 8 or 9 faeries out with delayed actions before they can fire if the faeries see this as an invite to come in on Com =1.)

(Note: I've thought of another way to protect the towers from seige. We could try and make a deal with Armolad. Something along the lines of, "Hey Armolad, this used to be a dinky level 2 city of your side. Now it is a valuable level 3 that pops unit types your side doesn't have access to. How about you agree not to try and knock the towers down, and I agree to try and take you alive?" Provides both carrot and stick as incentives to not let the gumptons wail on the towers.)

[The Colonel]

Give it a shot. Then proceed to kill her?

We still cannot afford her bonus on the field. If we fell her, Do I uncroak her? I can add her to the horde?

[MarbitChow]

(MarbitChow, what squares will an enemy on the outside be able to see thru an open or partially open door? (Can I just do the "draw a straight line, center to center" test to figure it out myself?)

Straight-line test will work, yes. Fliers can only see the 1st 2 rows inside, even if the door is fully open.

If they haven't seen a unit type, will they act as if it doesn't exist?

The elves will not intentionally use tactics that would be more effective against units that they're not aware of yet. Right now, that's just the Heck Pups, I believe. They won't take special precautions against those (such as having archers hold actions specifically for that unit type).

With the new partial door opening rules, how long does it take to get from 3/4s open to fully open?)

1/4 of a round, which is determined my the max combat value. In this case, that's Will's by a large margin, I believe. Since no one else comes close, I'm okay with treating his combat as if it were on Phase 20 instead of 34, since the next highest is 18. So, 5 phases to fully open from 3/4s open.

[0beron]

Okay I don't have the time or patience to read Swod's massive text wall at this point, but I'll assume it's some other different tactic that will once again delay our progress to actually saying we are ready. Until I have the time to read it and pick it apart, I do just wanna suggest that we give that last mount to Junetta. She will be on the ground, but in line of fire at some points if she tries to Flower-Power the enemy siege.

[Werebiscuit]

I'm in relative agreement with Swodaems especially with the switching of Yuri's & Wandreus's Stacks (I had forgotten Wandreus had dance fighting ).
I would like to point out however if we're targeting unguarded units that their guarding units WILL BE UNGUARDED and their def will be low due to guarding actions.

[MarbitChow]

Just a reminder: don't worry about prioritizing orders too much except for "fire as they cross the hex boundary" type orders. We're going to be breaking the turns down into multiple updates, so you can actually change your priorities mid-round based on what has gone on, including switching your held action to fire on units that have entered on the previous phase. We may even break this down one phase at a time, if needed.

[WaterMonkey314]

Just a reminder: don't worry about prioritizing orders too much except for "fire as they cross the hex boundary" type orders. We're going to be breaking the turns down into multiple updates, so you can actually change your priorities mid-round based on what has gone on, including switching your held action to fire on units that have entered on the previous phase. We may even break this down one phase at a time, if needed.

Maybe single phase is the way to go here. I know my head has already sort of exploded from trying to assess all possible battle outcomes.

[Swodaems]

Give it a shot. Then proceed to kill her?

No making me a liar yet. The enemy thinkamancer will probably be watching in. I suspect we'll only be able to pull off 1 lie during the entire campaign and this one isn't big or absurd enough.

(MarbitChow, what squares will an enemy on the outside be able to see thru an open or partially open door? (Can I just do the "draw a straight line, center to center" test to figure it out myself?)

Straight-line test will work, yes. Fliers can only see the 1st 2 rows inside, even if the door is fully open.

Okay, then units in the squares M20, N20, X20, and Y20 should be invisible to the enemy if we hollow out those squares and 2 more squares between them and the door. This is where I want the heck pups. I want the presence of multiple high move units with a def ignoring special hidden from the enemy until they decide to bring the gumptons within range.

[MarbitChow]

Okay, then units in the squares M20, N20, X20, and Y20 should be invisible to the enemy if we hollow out those squares and 2 more squares between them and the door. This is where I want the heck pups. I want the presence of multiple high move units with a def ignoring special hidden from the enemy until they decide to bring the gumptons within range.

Got it. I'll even throw in an additional bonus on the Gate: As long as the gate is at least 1/2 open, Agile units do not count towards the maximum per-phase unit limit.

[Exate]

Just a reminder: don't worry about prioritizing orders too much except for "fire as they cross the hex boundary" type orders. We're going to be breaking the turns down into multiple updates, so you can actually change your priorities mid-round based on what has gone on, including switching your held action to fire on units that have entered on the previous phase. We may even break this down one phase at a time, if needed.

Maybe single phase is the way to go here. I know my head has already sort of exploded from trying to assess all possible battle outcomes.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind giving more general orders and then processing huge amounts at once. While it's nice that Swodaems is willing to work out everything in excruciating detail, in terms of flavor the battles do proceed in apparent real-time and there's only so much that we can do to decide our actions within them. Given how long things take, a "50 words or less of orders per combat phase per player" policy could really keep things moving after the initial setup phase.

[WaterMonkey314]

Just a reminder: don't worry about prioritizing orders too much except for "fire as they cross the hex boundary" type orders. We're going to be breaking the turns down into multiple updates, so you can actually change your priorities mid-round based on what has gone on, including switching your held action to fire on units that have entered on the previous phase. We may even break this down one phase at a time, if needed.

Maybe single phase is the way to go here. I know my head has already sort of exploded from trying to assess all possible battle outcomes.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind giving more general orders and then processing huge amounts at once. While it's nice that Swodaems is willing to work out everything in excruciating detail, in terms of flavor the battles do proceed in apparent real-time and there's only so much that we can do to decide our actions within them. Given how long things take, a "50 words or less of orders per combat phase per player" policy could really keep things moving after the initial setup phase.

I'd refrain from adding any sort of limit, solely because people will start trying to get around it.

[0beron]

Yeah I officially give up on trying to advise/suggest strategy. Swod always comes up with these massive walls of text I honestly don't even care to read anymore because they're so excessively detailed, and usually contradict what everyone else was just coming to agreement on. So sure, I'll do whatever Swod wants, just so he'll shut up and let us start combat.
As far as I can tell, my previous plans for Vinny specifically still works, so unless I am wrong, Vinny still begins in H21, with a prepared action to climb the Tower and fire energy at something during Com 4, before taking his normal turn to fire again on Com 3.

[MarbitChow]

Layout Phase

For this phase, please only post corrections to starting positions, and indicate which units should or should not be mounted.

Once layout is complete, I'll post unit stats in the standard format, and you can finalize equipment distribution.

Exterior View


Interior View

[Werebiscuit]

Okay Marbit...couple of points I think need fixing. Do the Commander and Tod need to be in the first two rows for directing their stacks ? If so, then Vinny's or preferably Triage's mount should go to the Commander.

Brick Wall should be located next to T Coil to allow him to bodyguard.

Cupid and Comet (Fly-8) should be on the wall benefitting from its protection. Place them next to the archer groups (Garrison & skeleton) leaving a 2x2 space for Tesla. Tod can fill one of the gaps in the skeleton group if he needs to be in the front 2 rows.

Tod should have a brickbat group directly behind him and royal guards diagonally behind him

We would want ZA06 in the front 2 rows. The square between the tower & skeletons should do. Place the brickbats protecting that group where the zed archer next to Yuri is, placing that archer behind ZA06. Place Will at the other side of those brickats ( i.e. swap Will and the extreme zed archer in the back row)

Similarly for Rolfs group Place the brickbats on rolfs left ( your right as you look at him) and move the zed archer down to the wall. Unless of, course you're ruling that the brickbats can protect the front row from their current positions. In which case ignore bat positioning and only move ZA06.

Finally on the field I intended the uncroaked group to limit movement to one of the Towers. At the moment the group can be circumvented and currently block the gate. To block a single tower the line should at c11 and have a member every 4th space ( 3 clear spaces between them) as we want to block siege ( 2x2's)

I'l let Swodaems deal with the interior placement and either agree or correct my points here. Swod Where should the last group of brickbats go ? Commander or Tesla ?

[The Colonel]

I have a few corpses left, where do I place them?

[Werebiscuit]

I have a few corpses left, where do I place them?

How many is "a few" ?
We have 3 options
1) Extend the line..... this could afford both Towers some 'interference '. If there are less than 5 then this is possibly the option to pick
2) Reinforce the line... a few corpses animated behind the line (at least 3 spaces since gumps have a reach of 2) in the second round would further slow siege forces.
3 ) Start another line... a line animated once the siege over it has passed would threaten the archers and cuutoff their support for the siege. It may divert some of the guards and thus reduce the def of the siege.