Quote Originally Posted by Zeku
The donut of doom was a complete failure, since ALL of the A dragons were annihilated, which is actually worse than just telling them to attack siege until they died. No enemy warlords have been croaked so far.
This was Stanley's fault. Had he not stopped Parson and recalled the B dwagons, they could have mobbed the very weakened warlords and archons. Heck, Vinny was expecting to die next turn.

Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
I respectfully disagree.

'Ruthlessness' does not mean 'slaughter the enemy'. Parson was ALWAYS willing to do that. So are most of the other units. Well, except our dirtamancer dude. You don't need to be ruthless for that. Everybody knows that winning against odds like this usually means a kill ratio compared to which 'slaughter' is a walk in the park.

And I don't think 'ruthlessness' means 'no compassion or mercy'.

I think ruthlessness means a willingness to do Whatever is necessary to win. Regardless of the cost.

And we don't count enemy casualties as cost.

What it means is that Parson is going to think less like a friend and more like a chess player.

If he's going to win, he's going to have to sacrifice a piece or two.

Except this isn't a game where you simply take the little plastic dude off the board and put it in a box. His 'pieces' -- his friends -- will need to be willingly, deliberately sent to their deaths.

Parson may even have to deceive them in order to do this.

To quote Michael Sharra in his book Killer Angels , 'To be a good officer, you must love the army ... but you must also be willing to order the death of the thing you love ... and that is why there are few good officers, although there are many good men'.

I think Parson isn't going to be able to look himself in a mirror ever again when this day is done. The things he will have to do ...

He knows this. But he'll still do it anyway.

Because he's ruthless.

Respectfully,

Brian P.
I'm not seeing where we disagree on this; If anything, it was poor wording on my part.