Erfworld 139 The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 126

[Goshen]

I just loved looking up all the acronyms.

Someone on this thread pointed out that the coalition appears to have no casters, and it's killing me that I can't find the post again so I can quote it.

My guess is that most warlords keep their casters under lock and key, not willing to risk them in battle in the field. Parson has no choice, which is why he nearly lost Sizemore in the tunnel battle--he was down to his last 1/2 golem before Sizemore finally croaked Dora and Webinar. Wanda nearly croaked. Sizemore is still making himself a target which his hit-and-run attacks. Probably the allied coalition leaders were willing to lend troops, but not valuable casters.

Finally, it is still odd that Ansom didn't bring any jetstone casters. We can chalk it up to his overly militaristic mind. Part of Ansom's problem may be that he is commanding too large a force. It could be said that Napoleon got sloppy when he attacked Russia, when he was finally commanding a giant army and had too many years of people telling him how great he was.

The really chilling thing is that I have actually made some of the mistakes that Ansom is making, in other wargames. I even wrote a wargame that my friends like to play, but one of them consistently beat me at it. My own game! Well, I'm an inventor and he's a lawyer. Different kinds of minds....

[Dystopianman]

We know this for a fact.


IIRC, it's been said that casters are too rare and too valuable to needlessly risk. The RCC was expecting an easy victory through overwhelming numbers, so why send such valuable resources along to potentially be lost? GK, by contrast, is defending their home turf.

Hmm, good point, when the RCC started the campaign after Manpower got croaked, they (or at least Ansom) assumed that Stanley had no one left to lead his forces, so I guess it would make sense to assume that victory would be almost assured at that point.

Makes me wonder though, what would the range on Lookamancy spells be? Parson was able to use Stanley's linked caster setup to direct battles very far from GK (dragons having 50+ move and all). Wouldn't talented Lookamancers be able to provide recon from the safety of nearby allied cities or strongpoints? Unless being linked to other casters provides some ungodly tremendous bonus to range among other things. If thats the case then, I wonder what the standard range for these kinds of spells would be.

[rosebud]

Panel 6 bothers me. They're warlords, for cripe's sake. And they don't have their weapons with them? During the Coalition's turn? While laying siege to a city?

Richard the Lion-hearted was killed from afar while laying siege to a city. It happens. They were away from the combat and were not expecting crap to hit them.

Anyhow, I love how Ansom's costume can make him look either cool or pathetic, depending on his expression.

[Yuki Akuma]

I would tend to agree that Sizemore is no lowly caster. From the way he was able to almost single-handedly take out Webinar and Dora (with some backup from the spider cav Parson sent), I would say that he's a high level caster. I suspect that it was Saline IV and not Stanley that originally popped Sizemore

Oh! I forgot, Sizemore was around when Saline IV was croaked. Yeah, that makes much more sense.

I still like my idea of "Overlord decides to pop Caster, but not which flavour", though.

[T-O-E]

Shockmancy rocks!

[ReccaSquirrel]

4Chan Huh? I read on wiki that this is a hacker group? What do they have to do with anything?

I think I'm revealing my age with this post.

4chan is a webpage that I advise any sane person avoid. It is basically a group of channels that each favor some sort of subject or another. I mention this only because you might see a /b/ or perhaps a /r/ reference later. Those are 4chan channels.

In anycase, to give you just a remote idea as to how dark of a pit 4chan can be, /b/ claims to have at least caused two confirmed suicides. On the other hand, they once had someone post about how they were going to kill a bunch of people at their school the next day and contacted local authorities. Turns out the guy's claim was true.

What is seen on /b/ on 4chan can not be unseen.

[Hatu]

I'm still not seeing why this attack by Ansom is a mistake:seems to me that Sizemore could pull his NSFW attacks on his turn at least as effectively.

Lots of fun details, though.

-H

[kukn]

I have to say this strip was spectacularly awesome! A real diamond :)

All of your strips lately are brilliant, but I don't think you cn top this one easily, gj Rob and Jamie!

[OverdrivePrime]

Bwaaaahahahahaaha! Sizemore set them up the bomb! Wow. This comic rules with an obscene hand. Love it. I'm going to be chuckling about this for hours.

[kreszantas]

Overall some of the best action yet! Now on to the webculture comments. Some of these definitions are not so shocking if we look back at http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0014.html panel 8... I have stated this before in previous threads, but look up some of those bookmarks on your own NSFW guidelines. 4chan bah bunch of wannabes... they could do not something as successful as take out the AOL's whole westcoast (interLATA) if they wanted to and this was done back in the 90's they only really pranksters and ones with Alistiar Crowley fascinations anymore. The 3 chants yes... boy I would love control of the W3C long enough to remove that from the web and give myself a bucket of brain bleach... and the icky feeling wont go away ayeeeee!

[HandofShadows]

Well we know more of what kind of crap Sizemore can pull (pun intended). It's not Ansom that was stupid this time. It was those warlords. Being on a battlefield without a weapon? Especialy a battelfield where you know that there are flying enemies around not having a weapon at hand is dumb. Or at least highly arrogant.

Not only has the RCC lost two warlords (I think they might have been captured, but it's hard to say) they also lost a fair number of troops in the "blast". Did a fair portion of Ansom's support or reserve just got taken out? I don't think those warlords will be easy to replace as it seems like a lot of their staff where probably taken out as well.

And did anyone notice that the weapons used by the TCC troops look like those used by the Orcs in the LotR movie?

[Dystopianman]

Y'know I've just realized something, correct me if I'm wrong, but judging from the uniforms of the two Warlords that were croaked, and the fact that one of them was Duke Nozzle, a warlord that was obviously the leading field warlord of the Sofa King faction in this army, I would speculate that the other warlord that was croaked was the leading field warlord of another -seperate- allied faction of the RCC (Unaroyal? Foxmud?)

This means that in one fell swoop, Parson just took out the leading field warlords (in this army) of two different allied factions of the RCC. I wonder what the implications are. Sofa King -alone- was the third highest contributor of troops, 981 according to the info Parson got with his Stupid meal. If the other warlord was from Unaroyal, then that would mean that 2695 troops could potentially lose a vital bonus...subject to how the combat bonus system actually works.

[TheTurnipKing]

I read the strip quickly and stopped when I saw tubgirl. I knew the others had to be just as unsavory. This strip definitely covers the crap of the internet. Can't wait for the next one!

Also I find the fact that Ansom ordered Hamster captured interesting. I think that Charlie made that as part of the renegotiated contract. That and Hamster's wrist calculator.

Unlikely. Ansom actually states that the capturers spoils willl be forfeit if Hamster is croaked, so we can probably assume that this is a general Effworld mechanic. Though maybe not, since IIRC, Jillian's hat didn't wind up with the capturers.

Though this assumes that the hat doesn't have any special rules, or that it's not some kind of item, seperate from the unit's "special" gear.

[Deimos_]

One of the best strips yet IMO.

I think it's too late to say to the people that didn't get the references that this time, it's not very safe to google them.

[SteveD]

I'm still not seeing why this attack by Ansom is a mistake:seems to me that Sizemore could pull his NSFW attacks on his turn at least as effectively.

Lots of fun details, though.

-H

Don't forget the Archons. All the NSFW attacks did was croak (or capture) a leadership stack, it didn't croak troops of the volume Parson would need to un-croak to face the Archons; that comes next.

Also, it seems the red-warlord is still at large? And Ansom has at least some troops left after the tunnels?

[Suicide Junkie]

Well we know more of what kind of crap Sizemore can pull (pun intended). It's not Ansom that was stupid this time. It was those warlords. Being on a battlefield without a weapon? Especialy a battelfield where you know that there are flying enemies around not having a weapon at hand is dumb. Or at least highly arrogant.

All of GK's flying units were re-croaked earlier this turn.

And in any case, Charlie has the airspace saturated with death rays, so flying units are definitely a non-issue.

Only Ansom saw Sizemore pop up before to defend Wanda, and that was when the territory was still held by GK.
Popping up behind the lines with a powerful, compact burst of golems and spells to strike the coalition leaders? Plenty of surprise.
None of these particular leaders have faced Parson's plans before, other than the siege hit and run. To be fair, the leaders weren't involved in that, and was conventional enough that it was assumed to be Stanley getting a lucky idea.

[Zolem]

Oh man. That is too intense for words.

That calls for its own fan-made Flash animation, even if it doesn't happen in the comic. Loop of Anime Parson and Anime Wanda doing CaramellDansen. I hope someone's up to the challenge because I can't animate for boop.

I can totally see that! They both have body shapes that would look extremely amusing while doing the dance.

*imagines PArson dancing* ...OH GOD!@ MIND BLEACH MIND BLEACH I GOT SHOCKAMANCIED!

[Altima]

*imagines PArson dancing* ...OH GOD!@ MIND BLEACH MIND BLEACH I GOT SHOCKAMANCIED!

And then you realize the similarities between Parson and the (in)famous guy who sings the Numa Numa song on the intertubing...

[Miklus]

Do NOT google those acronymes! Not unless you want to learn about shockamancy first-hand!

[mistformsquirrl]

Shockamancy now officially terrifies me <o.o> I already knew those terms, btu when I saw them in the comic I had a sort of flashback and my brain melted. Again.

Also this may have been the single most hilarious Erfworld ever. <3 this comic >_<

[Lamech]

The warlords should have been on Ansom's carpet if they were chief warlords. Parson had total control of the space directly below them AND they couldn't predict attacks from tunnel units... if they were chief warlords I highly suspect that the coalition just lost two juicy bonuses...

Secondly, Ansom might want Parson because Parson is highly competent? But yeah Parson is almost certainly part of the deal with Charlie; Charlie is too smart to pass up a major expansion of his business. (Or miss a competent chief warlord if he has hidden motivations.)

[chaoschristian]

"Croaking him will forfeit your spoils."

On the surface I read this as an obvious reveal of at least one part of Ansom's deal with Charlies: that he has to capture Parson and turn him over to Charlie in the event that the RCC is successful in its assault against GK.

But I think it also reveals two other things:

1. It is consistent with Ansom's character: he issues an order in the context of a threat but doesn't bother to explain why. It's just a matter or do this or face negative consequences. It's in-line with Ansom's top-down, command and control paradigm (which interestingly enough is very similar to The Tool's own style, making them more alike than Ansom would want to admit to I think.)

2. It also may reveal another condition of Charlie's contract: namely that if Parson is booped, then the price of the contract for Ansom increases. In other words, deliver Parson to me alive and pay $$$ schmuckers, but kill him and pay $$$$$$$$$ to me for saving your boop.

[HandofShadows]

It's in-line with Ansom's top-down, command and control paradigm (which interestingly enough is very similar to The Tool's own style, making them more alike than Ansom would want to admit to I think.)

I was wondering how many other people noticed that. Ansom and Stanley are in many ways very similar to each other. In other ways they are just the opposite, but are still alike in those differences.

[tribble]

Afraid so. YTMND is a bunch of looped sound clips that have pictures or text attached. There's also stuff like this, I just picked that one because, well, it's a trap.

I'm going to hug you over the internet for this.

*hug*


EDIT: I think you meant this, but the Pi song is much better.

[Sotharsyl]

This whole why didn't they have swords with them question intrigues me one possible explanation I have is this on a unit level the rules are more RPG-y as in swords add encumbrance if they're near the limit or something remember Jillian wanted to go "scouting" in full heavy armor for increased defence but Ansom made her take the hat for actual scouting if so the general numbers atack defense etc seem to be pretty low overall TBS style makes me wonder if they equip RPG style how powerfull are armor components individualy as a set etc there could be a lot of advantages for Parson in this area.
Also notice the male warlord doesn't call for a weapon but for soldiers, a retinue even could he be more of a int based warlord with great leadership bonus but poor combat stats.

[chaoschristian]

Or it could be an affect of being a Lord of any kind within the general culture of the RCC.

Carrying weapons and such around is much too important for one of such station, even in battle, until an actual charge or heroic action is needed. Think of those two as Victorian era officers, standing behind the front lines, making witty observations and gay banter about the 'goings on' of the battle, when suddenly, 'Boop!'

I think it's part of the overall character and flavour of the RCC that the creators are portraying. These folks really don't know what they're in for, or what and who they are up against.

Speculatively, Erfworld wars may have an element of 'gentlemanly' to them that is now changing because of Parson's introduction into the system.

Or it could be that just because you're a War Lord doesn't necessarily mean that you're also smart.

[MReav]

I don't see any indication that Sizemore is a lowly Caster... just that Stanley doesn't seem to have any idea what to do with a Dirtamancer. Why he popped one I'll never know, unless you can only decide to pop a generic Caster and won't know which type you'll get.

Sizemore was popped under King Saline IV, Stanley's predecessor. And Dirtamancers have very utilitarian functions, being able to dig through solid rock, which is useful for mining.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0086.html

[ShinyBrowncoat]

Also notice the male warlord doesn't call for a weapon but for soldiers, a retinue even could he be more of a int based warlord with great leadership bonus but poor combat stats.

This is what proves Ansom's incompetence. If he warned his warlords about the dirtmancer and golems, why would they be separated from their retinue and unarmed?!? The importance of multipliers is common knowledge in Erfworld (c.f. Caesar and the bats), so it should be standard practice to protect your warlords well when they are susceptible to attack, yet the warlords were unarmed and none of the coalition's strongest units (Cloth golems, sourmanders, etc.) were nearby to guard them.

[SteveMB]

This is what proves Ansom's incompetence. If he warned his warlords about the dirtmancer and golems, why would they be separated from their retinue and unarmed?!? The importance of multipliers is common knowledge in Erfworld (c.f. Caesar and the bats), so it should be standard practice to protect your warlords well when they are susceptible to attack, yet the warlords were unarmed and none of the coalition's strongest units (Cloth golems, sourmanders, etc.) were nearby to guard them.

If Ansom's allies find out that he saw Sizemore's golems use this surprise-popup tactic before but neglected to warn them to be on the lookout for it, that ought to put a few more cracks in the Coalition....

[shadowdemon_lord]

I think it was a simple matter of bad communication between RCC leaders. The strike in the tunnels was such a complete victory that little information as to Sizemores powers and retinue would have escaped. All the RCC learned from that encounter is that Parson and that he clearly has tricks up his sleeves that no one can predict. Very little intellignence was actually relayed back from the fight. The fact that that trick is a master class dirtamancer surrounded by a retinue of golems (where is the acid rock golem?) was unkown. Thus, the warlords had no reason to expect a counter attack. Of course Ansom could have told them about Sizemore, but he didn't. Also, without the stunning powers of shockmancy Sizemores attack wouldn't have been nearly as effective.

Anyway, my guess is that those warlords (along with some troops) just got croaked. They just got the boop beaten out of them by golems, and then were subjected to a bomb. Also, it'd be kind of lame to see Sizemores epic attack fail so badly.