Darkness Rising v2.0 - 'Tenebris Unleashed' Campaign

[MarbitChow]

That was prior to Nnelg's suggestion that ballista & catapult get limber/unlimber actions to transition between move & fire. Now, a catapult / ballista would need to move into range (I'm assuming 24 squares plus 6 squares per elevation, and giving Fire attacks 18 squares plus 4 squares/elevation), and limber, then load, then fire. That gives defensive catapults / ballista 1 or 2 shots to kill operators. It also gives an advantage to fliers who can shoot at grounded archers from out of range.

Also, reviewing Dollamancy, constructs lost the ability to do siege damage somewhere, making Big Bag o' Rocks pretty useless, so we'll be adding the following:

[Requires Construct, Heavy] Wallbanger (1 AP) - Grants Siege(1)
[Requires Wallbanger ] Wallbreaker (1 AP) - Upgrades unit to Siege(3)

Craft Golem would be able to make Wallbanger golems, and Craft Greater Golem & Craft Golem Mount could be Wallbreakers.

And I do appreciate everyone's patience in all of this. You're all in the midst of helping to create a game essentially from scratch, in which playtesting actively impacts the fate of your characters. I promise we'll get to the action soon; I want to make sure that said action is neither so easy as to be boring, nor so difficult as to kill you all.

[Nnelg]

{I know, it feels strange to be using towers against a level 1.)

I guarantee you, it's not a lvl 1 anymore.

It still feels strange to use them against a level 2.

IMO they should be used mostly for level 4/5, maybe level 3 if you want to be thorough.

Why would we create towers when we can just knock down their gate with ballista/catapults?

Because even if we could, that would take more time than Assault Towers. Assault towers breach the walls the instant they make contact.

[Nnelg]

That was prior to Nnelg's suggestion that ballista & catapult get limber/unlimber actions to transition between move & fire. Now, a catapult / ballista would need to move into range (I'm assuming 24 squares plus 6 squares per elevation, and giving Fire attacks 18 squares plus 4 squares/elevation), and limber, then load, then fire.

Not to be pedantic, but they'd be unlimbering.

Limbering is when they're packing up to move.

[ETheBoyce]

Because even if we could, that would take more time than Assault Towers. Assault towers breach the walls the instant they make contact.

Why spend all that time getting moving up to a wall with 4 units on a Tower when you can just knock the Gate down and have all the units you want get inside the walls?

[CroverusRaven]

Hey guys... Why not do both at once... You know, like in actual warfare.

[Swodaems]

Right then, since Marbit isn't rebalancing the siege, the only thing that's really going to be useful is Assault Towers.

Nemo will take Baffle, and keep any enemy ranged siege smoked. We roll up the towers, and storm the walls.


And that's pretty much it. (I know, it feels strange to be using towers against a level 1.)

That is a good battle tactic. However, it does make me want to ask MarbitChow what the "detects that something is amiss" phrase means when it come to a baffle. Would they see thru it and be able to shoot units that the baffle was mean to protect? And the rules still don't define exactly when and how often a warlord or caster gets a spot check or what information the other units on their side get upon success.

Unfortunately, at his current level, any spot check made against Nemo has good odds of success. A level 1 succeeds with a roll of 8 or higher (15/36 chance). A level 2 succeeds with a roll of 5+ (30/36). Anything higher has to critically fail to not succeed.


Nnelg, I disagree with your idea of using assault towers at Logan run for practical reasons. We can shelve the baffle/siege tactic for use on a later city.

The problem with assault towers (or any of the other siege structures) is their slow overland hex movement speed. They can only move 4 hexes per turn. At that rate, it would take 9 turns of travel time for an assault tower to reach Logan run. At a cost of 8 up, we could pop one during turns 10 and 11. If it left immediately on turn 11, it would arrive on turn 19. Given that we've already done some RP for turn 12 in Dis city, we're likely not leaving until turn 13 at the earliest. That makes the arrival turn for Logan Run turn 21. In contrast, the infantry could make it there on turn 17 if they left on turn 13.

We have quite a few reasons to want to take that city on turn 17 instead of turn 19 or 21. Our funding situation provides us with ample justification to move fast when grabbing sources of income. Additionally, we don't want to give the enemy time to reorganize his forces. Finally, Bill's current batch of skele archers was created on turn 9, so they should suffer extended decay on turns 12, 15, and 18. Turn 18 is when their Def hits 0, (the new rules don't say it, but uncraked decay away when a stat hits 0). That is 9 units we lose if we wait until the assault tower can arrive.

Those reasons are why I want to create mining picks to give to our assault capable infantry. They have higher def and hits than gobwin sappers, so they can survive longer under fire. (In fact, we may want Nemo to glamour them into sappers so that they draw fire from enemies thinking they are weak.) We set out on turn 13 after popping zed archers on turns 10-12 and making picks on turn 13. We take the majority of the infantry, a select few of the PCs, 2 or 3 swarms of brickbats, and, maybe a few corpses for Bill to pall raiser into more Skele archers before the battle. (Or he can wait for us to drop some archers on the walls and pall raiser those. That worked against Wandereus and Junetta.)

In battle, we focus on using our archers and T. Coil to eliminate enemy ranged units off the wall. This is where the battle will be decided. The mining picks are just there so that we have a way to breach the door or wall when the time comes and don't have to just turn around after clearing the wall. The fact that the elven archers are defending and elevated does give them an advantage, but one that I believe can be overcome with brickbats, cloaks, a superior bonus, a few good tactics, and superior numbers.


Also, the rules don't state if units can move between levels on an assault towers midbattle. (Can they? And what is the movement cost for doing so?)

[Nnelg]

I suppose you're right, for Logan's Run at least. The Gate is 30 or 40 SP, and we can use picks/Coil to break it down.

Still, pop those two Ballistae in Dis City as planned for Turns 10-11. (Or is it 11-12?) Turns 12-13 we can pop 8 Gobwin Sappers, take their picks, and assign them to crew the Ballistae. Tenebris should pop two Towers and 8 more Gobwin Sappers on Turn 12 as well (in addition to whatever Creeperum pops for a "Breeding Population"). This siege should be sent immediately to Dis City, were it should arrive on Turn 20. That way, we'll actually have something available for when we need it.

(Marbit, could we transport Siege equipment with Balrugs? Maybe not Towers, but possibly Ballistae?)

Why spend all that time getting moving up to a wall with 4 units on a Tower when you can just knock the Gate down and have all the units you want get inside the walls?

Two words:

Natural Chokepoint.

[MarbitChow]

Would they see thru it and be able to shoot units that the baffle was mean to protect? And the rules still don't define exactly when and how often a warlord or caster gets a spot check or what information the other units on their side get upon success.

Baffle actually changes the battlefield terrain. Spot checks would have no effect on it; all units immediately see it, and know that it's foolamancy, but can't really do anything about it.

A side gets a spot check for each leadership / caster on the battlefield the moment the side is exposed to a veil (it enters RLOS of any unit). All rolls occur simultaneously. The unit(s) that succeed in the roll can react based on that information on the same phase. All other units on the side can react on the next phase. A side gets 1 additional roll if they determine that something is amiss (like Rolf veiled as a sapper, but not dropping after a solid hit).

(Can they? And what is the movement cost for doing so?)

I'm assuming Assault Towers have ladders on the section away from the wall. Changing elevation upwards requires 2 squares. Odds are that there will be units on the wall adjacent to the towers, so normal enemy adjacency rules would prevent movement to the walls directly until enough space is cleared.

(Marbit, could we transport Siege equipment with Balrugs? Maybe not Towers, but possibly Ballistae?)

No. Transport only carries units, not structures.

PLEASE keep in mind that anything I do to make it easier to take cities, Breatheairia also gets to do, and they currently have significantly more resources. Do you really want assault towers rolling on Dis city from Rainbow Springs faster than than 11 turns?

[Exate]

Queen Maude Dibs, may I formally present to you my Chief Diplomat, Yuri. As our side is unconventional, so too is our Negotiator. Know that he has my full support, and speaks as the voice of our side.

A pleasure to meet you, Yuri. Your King speaks highly of you. Be at ease, for I already see common ground between our sides. My people are a practical lot, and I dislike the foolery of the typical courts. Speak your mind freely, and plainly, and I will never take offense.

Diplomacy Time
The Queen's first line addressed to the concerns Coil had expressed so well that Yuri briefly wondered how she'd known, but that thought faded quickly enough- she had decided to be friendly, was the important thing, and there were practical matters to discuss. "Is honor meeting Queen, on day of good news. Elf breathers just strike new city of Tenebris- and croak, but warlord who flees like scared wabbit." He dons a smile, heedless of its vaguely unsettling appearance. "Green king is ruling many cities, but is still hurting much to be losing army. And Tenebris has numbers for striking back fast." The grin gets wider and takes on an openly sinister air as he comes to the point of that information. "So how is talkings with elfs going?"

I promise we'll get to the action soon

I bet it would help you keep that promise if I was able to get through these conversations faster. Sorry for the delay, all.

Finally, Bill's current batch of skele archers was created on turn 9, so they should suffer extended decay on turns 12, 15, and 18. Turn 18 is when their Def hits 0, (the new rules don't say it, but uncraked decay away when a stat hits 0). That is 9 units we lose if we wait until the assault tower can arrive.

Speaking of this, how exactly are we deploying Bill's attention here? We have dozens of corpses from the battle, and bill has 60 juice- enough that if I read the rules correctly he could make 20 Minor Uncroaked per turn if he's aggressive about it, or maintain twice that many on Extended Decay; halve those numbers for skeletons. The logistics of bringing them all into battle aren't exactly friendly, but the corpses are only going to rot if we don't use them so we might as well. Where is the balance between spamming units and keeping them from dusting on their own?

Side note, I've been doing a little mathamancy, and if we assume that Gumps are equal to Naughty Kitties in popping difficulty we're looking at having wiped out 352 UP of units during the most recent assault on Dis City. That discounts the additional value of having 1.5 of their stacks be level 2. That's quite a blow- but at the same time, we're looking at 34 UP per turn for the Breatheairians that we know about and there are four cities unaccounted for- probably another 16 or so UP there, so call them 50 UP/turn for their entire side. Which means, basically, that our victory at Dis City set their entire side's production back by seven turns. That's damned impressive, but at the same time it means that they will have collectively made up all the troops from our victory by the earliest turn we could reasonably attack them; those troops will be wildly out of position, but they'll be there. I haven't done the math on our own losses as those are somewhat more difficult to track down, but we need to keep this kind of logistics in mind when planning our strategies, I think.

[MarbitChow]

Re: Bill's Attention, please note the stealth update to the Equipment section that occurred a few days ago:

Equipment
Bone Cart: (Requires 2 Mounts to pull) Cart can carry 8 bodies. Bodies in the cart will not depop.

[MarbitChow]

"So how is talkings with elfs going?"

Queen Dibs responds, "We've already agreed to a cease-fire while we discuss a longer-term peace. I don't believe for a moment that they'll keep the peace any longer than it takes to crush you and redistribute their forces, but we need the breathing room as well. We've lost a number of cities in the past few dozen turns, and if we can get them to surrender even one of them without a fight, we'll be in much better shape.

I've taken the liberty of dispatching a diplomatic envoy to your area. We've got a rough idea where the Elven rearguard cities are, but we've never sent units very far into the region. Can you send us coordinates for a rendez-vous, and, if possible, spare an escort to help see them safely to one of your cities?"

[BLANDCorporatio]

Side note, I've been doing a little mathamancy, and if we assume that Gumps are equal to Naughty Kitties in popping difficulty we're looking at having wiped out 352 UP of units during the most recent assault on Dis City.

Indeed, such is useful Mathmancy, good work. I don't have the time to check the figures so I'll assume they are correct. With that in mind, some conclusions-

1) It's very hard to raise an army, if it takes Breatharia 7 turns to come up with a not-decent siege force.

2) It's very easy to lose an army- especially during a siege.

3) Seeing that Breatharia got set back 7 turns of their supposed production by defeat at Dis City, and that their army was quite small, I'd say that we can't afford a similar experience.

4) We're looking at a stalemate here, unless Breatharia overwhelms us with numbers OR we make quick use of the supposed scattering of their army.

In other news, I am getting tempted to take on a Dark Archon PC (isn't everyone?). So when do those nasty, dangerous, suicide mercenary missions start?

(Zed-too quivers in a corner).

[MarbitChow]

In other news, I am getting tempted to take on a Dark Archon PC (isn't everyone?).

Dark Archons, as well as Bad Asses, Lesser Bone Dagrons, Naughty Kitties, Heck Pups, Imps, and Balrugs, are not available as PC characters. Nor are gobwins available as PC characters. They are simply special units that can be popped by the side. You're limited to the options under "Character Creation" in the rule set.

[Nnelg]

1) It's very hard to raise an army, if it takes Breatharia 7 turns to come up with a not-decent siege force.

2) It's very easy to lose an army- especially during a siege.

Natural truths of warfare.

In other news, I am getting tempted to take on a Dark Archon PC (isn't everyone?). So when do those nasty, dangerous, suicide mercenary missions start?

Actually, Nemo was going to request that we pop a Dark Archon. But the reason I said "Nemo requests" is because he needs a lieutenant for a future intelligence network... Getting the Imps organized, stuff like that.

In fact, perhaps Nemo should be put in charge of all our reconnaissance units. The first order of business (after we take Logan's Run) would probably be to determine the extent of our enemy's recon elements, and systematically eliminate them. A Dark Archon would be very useful for this, and it would be best to pop her soon so that she could take place in (and gain Exp from) the assault on Logan's Run.

[BLANDCorporatio]

1) It's very hard to raise an army, if it takes Breatharia 7 turns to come up with a not-decent siege force.

2) It's very easy to lose an army- especially during a siege.

Natural truths of warfare.

Perhaps I should explain.

In "real warfare", it wasn't unheard of for sieges to last years. A lot of warfare was mostly about raiding villages and skirmishes. I simplify and exaggerate of course, but the thing is, the massive, land-grabbing, city-conquering campaigns that are typical fare of RP campaigns and fantasy games like Heroes, AoW etc were somewhat rare.

So you know. Expectation adjustment. For example, it's much much easier to raise an army in Heroes than it is here, and the difference isn't merely academic (easier to raise an army just means easier to increase defense anyway). With more troops produced by a town per week, you have more options for resource sniping, for example.

[Nnelg]

In "real warfare", it wasn't unheard of for sieges to last years. A lot of warfare was mostly about raiding villages and skirmishes. I simplify and exaggerate of course, but the thing is, the massive, land-grabbing, city-conquering campaigns that are typical fare of RP campaigns and fantasy games like Heroes, AoW etc were somewhat rare.

You'd be surprised.

[BLANDCorporatio]

In "real warfare", it wasn't unheard of for sieges to last years. A lot of warfare was mostly about raiding villages and skirmishes. I simplify and exaggerate of course, but the thing is, the massive, land-grabbing, city-conquering campaigns that are typical fare of RP campaigns and fantasy games like Heroes, AoW etc were somewhat rare.

You'd be surprised.

No I wouldn't

Spoiler: show

Persian Empire, the rise of the Qin Dynasty, Alexander the Great, Roman Empire, Arab Empire, Ghenghis Khan and later Timur Leng, and certain campaigns in WW2 for starters

A lot of war though is not quite so epic-scaled. But that's not the point here. Erf-war is not necessarily Stupid-war.

[Nnelg]

A side gets a spot check for each leadership / caster on the battlefield the moment the side is exposed to a veil (it enters RLOS of any unit). All rolls occur simultaneously. The unit(s) that succeed in the roll can react based on that information on the same phase. All other units on the side can react on the next phase. A side gets 1 additional roll if they determine that something is amiss (like Rolf veiled as a sapper, but not dropping after a solid hit).

That feels a little severe. I would be happier if the odds of succeeding with the Spot Check were higher, but the entire Side didn't automatically get it as soon as they saw it. Instead, say that all Command Units get a Spot Check whenever something "odd" happens (like the rolf-as-sapper thing you said) to a Veiled unit within 18 Squares. If they succeed, they realize that what they see is Foolamancy, but not what the true nature behind the veil is.

For Crypsis, there should be a recheck every round the enemy unit is within 8-12 Squares or so, with success telling unit(s) roughly where the invisible guys are.

I think that would be a better system. If there's no reason to suspect anything, nobody should realize that there's a veil. But if there is, it shouldn't be too difficult to put two-and-two together.

[Exate]

Was thinking on the Trainer ability as it's relevant to our side (one trainer available, for spearmen). Which is more valuable, bringing a stack of level 1's to level 2, or bringing a stack of zeds to level 1? Both take five turns of trainer-time, so the cost to us is equal. However, popping zeds costs only a quarter the UP of popping standard spearmen, so we can pop four times as many and train them up while on the march to objectives. In Dis City right now we can pop zeds faster than we can train them but can't do the same for standard units, and should we run out of zeds to train and want to pop something else we can focus on training up the now-level-1's to level 2, so it seems worthwhile to focus on zeds.

If we could get another unit with Trainer we could do a hell of a lot more to maximize our UP's effectiveness this way, but Yuri's at least two levels away from that- more likely three, with Improved Leadership to consider.

Re: Bill's Attention, please note the stealth update to the Equipment section that occurred a few days ago

Do we have concrete rules for how these are produced? The Fabrication ability says that the unit can create equipment, but doesn't give any kind of guidelines as to limitations on how much equipment, how quickly, and so forth. Nor do any of the equipment items seem to indicate any kind of resources consumed or time required to make them. Is this just "if you have at least one unit with Fabrication, you can have as much of any of the equipment list as you want"?

Queen Dibs responds, "We've already agreed to a cease-fire while we discuss a longer-term peace. I don't believe for a moment that they'll keep the peace any longer than it takes to crush you and redistribute their forces, but we need the breathing room as well. We've lost a number of cities in the past few dozen turns, and if we can get them to surrender even one of them without a fight, we'll be in much better shape.

I've taken the liberty of dispatching a diplomatic envoy to your area. We've got a rough idea where the Elven rearguard cities are, but we've never sent units very far into the region. Can you send us coordinates for a rendez-vous, and, if possible, spare an escort to help see them safely to one of your cities?"

Yuri, Master Diplomat, Speaks Once More
The Queen's description of the Ixian stance on peace with the elves was somewhat distressing; it sounded like their position was bad enough that they might not be able to afford pushing for advantage. Still, Yuri had to make an effort. He moves to quickly get through the issue of the envoy and return to the main thrust of what he needs. "Tell direction of coming and is of course giving coordinates- perhaps also each side is showing maps for strategy? Breathairia knowing of city locations already, neither is needing hiding." With a wave of his hand, Yuri set the issue aside for a moment.

"And... losing city, army, next city soon- elfs is giving Queen roomy breathing soon, even not wanting to. When Chief Warlord speak to grass king, funny elven squeaks like angry mouse so loud it leak from thought grams." The massive warlord chuckles at his own joke. "But when fire not so ceased, Queen is little stronger, elfs little weaker, yes? And speakings of wanting gifts for offering peace is sounding better in pointy ears every turn... unless elf king is making crushing of Tenebris work. So Queen is, perhaps, needing to keep talkings going for getting of fancy Breathing presents, and is knowing that keeping from peace for lengths is best, yes? And then once Ix has enough of tiny presents and wants true prize, Tenebris and Ix will make with other crushings."

[MarbitChow]

That feels a little severe. I would be happier if the odds of succeeding with the Spot Check were higher, but the entire Side didn't automatically get it as soon as they saw it. Instead, say that all Command Units get a Spot Check whenever something "odd" happens (like the rolf-as-sapper thing you said) to a Veiled unit within 18 Squares. If they succeed, they realize that what they see is Foolamancy, but not what the true nature behind the veil is.
For Crypsis, there should be a recheck every round the enemy unit is within 8-12 Squares or so, with success telling unit(s) roughly where the invisible guys are.
I think that would be a better system. If there's no reason to suspect anything, nobody should realize that there's a veil. But if there is, it shouldn't be too difficult to put two-and-two together.

If I ever get around to coding this as a computer game, I'll keep that in mind. Until then, since I have to do this all by hand, I'll do it this way.