Erfworld 139 The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 126

[K2]

Heh, thats two down. Parson will win this

[ShinyBrowncoat]

I'm surprised no one mentioned this picture:

http://studentorganizations.missouri...helangelo1.jpg

Only if you ignore the post about 185 posts ago.

[Yellowchopstick]

Heh, thats two down. Parson will win this

Well, the question is, two down and how many left? From RCC list, I'm regarding the girl in blue as Unaroyal for counting purposes. I'm not gonna count (for now) Charlescomm cause they're in the air right now, Marbits cause I'm considering them nerfed in the tunnels, Transylvito and Jillian cause they're far away, Luckless and Schlemiel Elves cause they're probably fodder, Lofty and Altruist Elves cause they're healers, and Superflurous Elves cause they have no real purpose. Probably no more minor warlords from Jetstone like Webinar and Dora, otherwise they'd have been sent in the tunnels, and who knows how many minor warlords from the other factions, let's say none out of optimism.

So at best, leadership wise, there's only Ansom, his artifact, Foxmud, Hobbittm, and the 3 remaining elf types: Tarfu, Gothy Elf Chick, and Red Link Elf (that's Woodsy, Shady and Eager ). I think it's still pretty formidable out there.

[Lamech]

Ahh... the sides that lost there warlords no longer get chief warlord hex-wide bonus. Thats the problem, ALL the units of a side get weakened.

[DevilDan]

Ahh... the sides that lost there warlords no longer get chief warlord hex-wide bonus. Thats the problem, ALL the units of a side get weakened.

We don't know that any of the other warlords are the chief warlords of their side. I always assumed that Ansom counted as chief warlord for the entire RCC.

[Kender Wizard]

I agree that Parson and Wanda will be combat leaders soon. But would it really be best to have two separate stacks?

Hmmm. I don't think we have enough evidence to know whether a superstack is possible. I personally don't believe so. Most observations have come from character remarks and the images, so can't be certain.

Main points - We have seen only three situations before now where superstack usage would be mostly beneficial to the side using it (and it was never considered as far as I can tell). The first case would have been Stanley and his dwagons vs. Transylvito. Near as I could tell, Stanleys' screen of 3 knights and dwagons was engaged, leaving him without meatshields vs. Caesar (not counting the foolamancer, as he was incapacitated at the start of the fight). The 30-plus extra dwagon meatshields that would have given him plus the bonuses to those meatshields would have made that a great strategy were it possible (very broken!). This is backed up by Stanley saying he could only take the top 3 knights. That may have been a reference to his ability to include that many knights and dwagons in his personal stack. I really can't think of any other reason not to have taken as many valuable units as possible from a city you expect to lose very shortly.

Secondly,
One of Ansoms' possible responses to the donut of doom would have been to use all remaining move to destroy each individual enemy stack in each hex making up the donut of doom and then calling Jillian. This was probably not done for fear of unacceptable losses. Now! In every case (except those where the defending stack has archers), the attacking stacks gets in the first hits. Considering this, if Ansom formed a superstack, every hit would likely result in a kill due to his artifact bonus and chief warlord in-stack direct bonus. The attacks would also be very likely to hit in the first place. So, he stood a very good chance of wiping out the entire donut one hex at a time by using overwhemingly buffed and accurate attacks to acieve victory with few to no losses.

So, a more likely scenario is this... Ansom has several stacks inside his hex. His personal stack has his full chief warlord bonus, perhaps his artifact bonus, and up to 8 man stack bonus. The other stacks in his hex would have only their own leaders bonuses (tarfu, that one elf yelling 'volley, set'), the chief warlord in-hex partial bonus, and the up-to 8 units stack bonus. That might be enough to 1-shot a weaker dwagon type but maybe not enough for an A-dwagon (which the other stacks in the donut of doom seemed to have a lot of). Hence, the dwagon would live to kill some of the attackers, quickly leaving Ansoms' force much reduced, unable to complete their task of removing the donut, and that much more vulnerable to the wounded dwagons when next turn rolls around. Hence, this being a terrible strategy instead of a fight winner.

So, personally, I doubt superstacks are possible. Oh, and DevilDan? I would assume a garrison unit doesn't get a terrain bonus. Given that Bogroll had zero move and that garrison units in general are considered to hit very hard, it is likely that garrison units are just that: heavy or very heavy units restricted to garrison defense with few other special properties (offhand, regen is probably more due to Bogrolls being a twoll than to him being a garrison unit)

G'night everyone.

[OnDroid]

If this (panel 7 ) is not a super-stack(s) then what is?

And for the Dancefighting style ( as I mentioned on another thread ) ... Has anyone thought of Parson doing the Hamster-dance?
I think only uncroaked could join him 'cause other units would lose their sanity in this act of "natural-shockamancy" ( not as potent as spells go though) .

[ishnar]

For the pun of it.

That's the wrong wiener dog.

[DevilDan]

Oh, and DevilDan? I would assume a garrison unit doesn't get a terrain bonus. Given that Bogroll had zero move and that garrison units in general are considered to hit very hard, it is likely that garrison units are just that: heavy or very heavy units restricted to garrison defense with few other special properties (offhand, regen is probably more due to Bogrolls being a twoll than to him being a garrison unit)

Wait, you're positing the existence of a yet-to-be-mentioned and -identified "garrison unit?"

My take on that conversation was this: the preponderance of tough units would naturally be kept in the garrison. this would be the case in general for reasons of caution. And in this case, Ansom and Webinar had to be fooled into thinking that Parson had completely surrendered the tunnels. The scouts were hit with an overkill attack so that the the leaders would think that they had stumbled already onto the main group of troops, which would of course include heavies, that would be defending the dungeon portion of the garrison.

In fantasy fiction and RGPs, trolls often have regeneration.

[ishnar]

I don't know why, I don't have a good impression about Duke Nozzle (maybe it's the sofa on his side's name). His lady friend looks reasonably competent but I think they may be more leaders than fighters. The redhead seems more of a weapon oriented person. She'd finish a golem or two even if taken by surprise.

You made me remember Rome: Total War. Not all of the Leaders were competent warlords, even if they could lead troops, the administrative types would be shuffled off somewhere else, unless I was forced to use them in combat, I wouldn't.

[Gedrean]

Go Bogroll. Crap Golems it is.

Nice play to 4ch there.

[chaoschristian]

Wait, you're positing the existence of a yet-to-be-mentioned and -identified "garrison unit?"

IIRC, Bogroll is identified as a 'garrison' unit the first time Parsons looks at him through his newly aquired 3-D glasses. IIRC.

But what defines a garrison unit has yet to be detailed as of yet.

It could just mean the unit is super cheap (having no move) and intended to stay put in cities to free other more expensive units that have mobility from garrison duty.

[shamelessmerc]

If this (panel 7 ) is not a super-stack(s) then what is?

Uh... what???

That's just the remaining infantry, and two panels before that Parson states he wants the remaining warlords leading the two(!) stacks.

[shamelessmerc]

If this (panel 7 ) is not a super-stack(s) then what is?

....Caesar Borgita's "Warlord+Chief Warlord+Personal leadership bonus stack"

I am supposing by "superstack" people mean a single giant stack with every remaining unit in it, getting the benefit of every warlord/caster's bonus?

I have seen nothing to suggest it is impossible, just that there may be reasons why it it would not be the most efficient way of getting the most out of your bonuses.

There is certainly no upper limit that we have seen on the number of units it is possible to have in a stack, just a limit on what is conventional.

[Turbidus]

Speculation alert!

I don't think we have enough evidence to know whether a superstack is possible.

I agree. But I would like to point out that Parson's Klog described stack bonus as maxing out at eight, not eight being the maximum stack size. If eight was the maximum size, it would to me feel like cheating the reader by not mentioning it at the same time.

If superstacks were possible, they would have to have downsides to explain why they aren't used all the time. In wargames I've played, such downsides to all eggs in one basket tactics include

1) getting flanked or surrounded
2) attacks that target everything in a stack
3) limited number of separate actions (objectives held, terrain scouted)
4) increasing penalties beyond a certain size

On page 1, the extra squad of axemen "breached the right flank". Could this be describing a real gamelike mechanism of Erfworld - a flank attack can expose a Warlord? Such a mechanism would be an incentive not to have fewer stacks than the enemy.

On page 113, Stanley's Van de Graaff seems to hit Caesar as well as all his bats (I'm assuming all the bats next to Caesar are his). If Caesar could and would have had more bats, would it only have resulted in even more bats getting fried?

Single bats and other scouts have been used to gain intelligence before committing major forces on several occasions.

I have nothing to offer as a possible example of increasing penalties along with stack size.

This is backed up by Stanley saying he could only take the top 3 knights. That may have been a reference to his ability to include that many knights and dwagons in his personal stack. I really can't think of any other reason not to have taken as many valuable units as possible from a city you expect to lose very shortly.

So he'd take what he perceives as best (all the Dwagons) and as many of the second-best units (Knights) as he could? This is a good point and I am afraid that the alternative reasons I can think of are wildly speculative.

Wild speculation #1: If Stanley wants KISS-style dance-fighting bonuses, he needs exactly three other band members/knights, one for each role in KISS the real world band.

Wild speculation #2: If Stanley figures that when Gobwin Knob falls he cannot support more than all the Dwagons and three knights, there might be no point in trying to take more. In some systems, if upkeep is not paid, random units are lost, in some, the most expensive/oldest/newest/whatever-property-Stanley-values are lost first. In such a situation, one would be wise to only take what can be kept and leave the others to make a dear final stand in a good defensive position.

Wild Speculation #3: Dwagons could suffer a movement penalty when ridden. Perhaps only four Dwagons had enough move with the penalty to reach Faq in two turns.

[...] if Ansom formed a superstack, every hit would likely result in a kill due to his artifact bonus and chief warlord in-stack direct bonus. The attacks would also be very likely to hit in the first place. So, he stood a very good chance of wiping out the entire donut one hex at a time by using overwhemingly buffed and accurate attacks to acieve victory with few to no losses.

The forest units barely had enough movement to enter the donut from the rear. Depending on where they started, this may mean they would not have had enough move for wiping out all hexes. Wild speculation based on nothing again, but I know of a game where entering an occupied territory takes up an extra movement point - if that was the case here as well, even less of the donut could be wiped out with the superstack.

[HandofShadows]

And artifact, you can't forget artifact.

The Arkenpliers arn't really that powerfull in Ansom's hands. They are bascially just a big club that can destroy uncroaked. Now if Wanda got her hands on them I have little doubt that she would rip the RCC a new one (I suspect she would be signicantly more powerfull than Stanley). But I don't think Wanda will get her hands on them yet. Ansom has a lot of faults, but getting anywhere near Wanda is something way to stupid for him to do.

[quindraco]

I have nothing to offer as a possible example of increasing penalties along with stack size.

There's always the penalties from our world.

First of all, if units cannot occupy the same space as each other, there IS a finite stack limit, which is smaller for bigger units. We've repeatedly seen evidence that Erfworld supports certain basic physical quantities such as volume and collisions.

Another possibility: for melee units especially, past a certain point adding additional units stops adding attacks and only adds durability to your stack, as the new units can no longer physically reach the front line. Imagine simple infantry with swords layered 3 or 4 deep - the guys in the back just don't have swords that long and can't move around the guys in front of them because they'd need to move into another hex to do it.

By the same token, units may get "crowded", just like on our world - you may be able to physically get soldiers to stand in rows touching each other, but it's pretty hard to fight with no room on either side. This would imply that as your soldiers get more and more crowded, each fights worse and worse, until you've got them packed in like sardines and they don't even have room to use their weapons.

[Goshen]

Assuming a super-stack is possible, there could be some situations where it's a good idea, despite an eight unit limit to the attack bonus. IF (and I say IF) damage to a stack is doled out in number of units killed, a superstack could sustain a lot of normal damage (not area of effect) before dropping below eight units. You would only want to do that if there was some hardpoint you absolutely have to crack. Or more likely, you have some point you absolutely have to defend. Not something to do everyday, but sometimes....

[BillyJimBoBob]

Brings a new meaning to the phrase "Pull my finger"...

I saw a 4chan and NSFW in special effects... very nice. 4chan's reference I felt was particularly appropriate.

Appropriate? For a crap bomb? Hilariously so. In fact "crap bomb" is just about the best description of 4chan as I have ever seen. (except I wanted to use the word beginning with s and ending with t, but apparently crap passes the filters and s**t does not.) Right up there with the two word review of Shark Sandwich.

So, Shockmancy... really is. Truth in advertising WIN!

I was wrong, I thought it was going to be electrical. But at least it is direct damage/explosive, not just psychological surprise, so I was happy with it.

Follows the magic chart nicely, doesn't it? After all, it's right next door to Dirtamancy.

NSFW? Not safe for work? What's not safe? The shockamancy?

Yes, the shockamancy. Don't look up any of those words while at work. Frankly, don't look them up while not at work either. You'll be very, very sorry.

[kunou126]

Shockamancy appears to be mostly pshycological. Based on what I saw here, I'd say its filling the heads of its victims with imagery so horrible that it traumatizes or incapacitates them. I'm rather surprised 2 Girls 1 Cup wasn't in the verbal component of that spell. Shockamancy is the Erf axis discipline of Naughtymancy, according to the kogs.

I think this might help understand why Wanda withheld her stash... having something like that in your "private" collection could potentially be embarrassing.

Naughtymancy indeed...

[Ganurath]

Methinks I see Maggie paying a visit to Redhead Redarmor's Loyalty score in the near future. Ansom's already on thin ice with her, and I doubt she'll be willing to endure the wrath of 4chan.

[snafu]

Oh dear. I found this too amusing. Perhaps I'm becoming cruel over time.

I remember those shock sites. They used to be... disturbing. Nowadays we're all jaded - nobody bats an eye anymore at goatse or tubgirl, and 4chan is a shadow of its former self, but once upon a time, it's true, we were horrified. Even if now only the worst depravities of the hellish Russian chans can shock us, we have to acknowledge the classics of the genre.

In a world where everything is cute and safe and everything is censored all to boop, someone just let off the 4chan bomb. This is going to be a Lovecraftian nightmare to those poor souls. Parson likes playing the bad guy, but this is going above and beyond.

But there's a deeper horror. What was the original specification of the spell that summoned Parson? That everything seem familiar and safe. Hence a world full of so many fun pop culture references, a world so cute and cuddly. The implication is staggering: Parson is beyond merely jaded. We veterans of the net's horrors nowadays laugh at the classic shock sites. Parson finds them safe. Comforting.

The man's a monster.

[SteveMB]

But there's a deeper horror. What was the original specification of the spell that summoned Parson? That everything seem familiar and safe. Hence a world full of so many fun pop culture references, a world so cute and cuddly. The implication is staggering: Parson is beyond merely jaded. We veterans of the net's horrors nowadays laugh at the classic shock sites. Parson finds them safe. Comforting.

Well, his bookmarks include the Stile Project and Girls Gone Feral....

[Godskook]

The Arkenpliers arn't really that powerfull in Ansom's hands. They are bascially just a big club that can destroy uncroaked. Now if Wanda got her hands on them I have little doubt that she would rip the RCC a new one (I suspect she would be signicantly more powerfull than Stanley). But I don't think Wanda will get her hands on them yet. Ansom has a lot of faults, but getting anywhere near Wanda is something way to stupid for him to do.

Don't forget though, Parson explicitly mentions that Ansom gives off an "artifact bonus" back over the lake. That has to count for something.

[BRC]

Don't forget though, Parson explicitly mentions that Ansom gives off an "artifact bonus" back over the lake. That has to count for something.

The Artifact Bonus may have only applied against the Uncroaked warlords, which were the most important units on GK's side there.

[Welf]

I think the main disadvantage of superstacks are in the lower versatility. A leader has a limited attention and can't react to every developement at every side of the battle. Multiple stacks can react individually. Probably the bonus from intelligent tactics usually outweigh the bonus from having the highest warlord lead all troops.

Another thing is that I don't think having Parson and Wanda in the same stack has any benefit. Only one of them can be the leader of a stack and give his bonus to the troops. The other bonus would be wasted. And it's explicitly stated that leading the stack is a prerequisite forgiving the bonus.

[Godskook]

Another thing is that I don't think having Parson and Wanda in the same stack has any benefit. Only one of them can be the leader of a stack and give his bonus to the troops. The other bonus would be wasted. And it's explicitly stated that leading the stack is a prerequisite forgiving the bonus.

Except that only is said about Wanda's bonus, not warlord bonuses(Personally, I don't buy that a croakamancer needs to be the commander-in-charge to grant the bonus, but surprisingly, that is tangential). We've seen Parson and Webinar both stack multiple warlords in one stack. For instance, assuming Wanda's bonus only applies if she leads, one stack possibility is:

Leader: Wanda
Parson
Archduke Ferdinand
Ensign Toast
+ X uncroaked

The stack gets all 3 warlord bonuses, plus Wanda's. Throw the uncroaked infantry to the front to absorb damage and give it and just add/cycle as needed. Personally, I think this would be the wisest setup for dealing with anything and everything that isn't Ansom.

[talkamancer]

I had a thought. Rare I know but here goes...

Does anyone believe that a loss of warlord bonus would have any physical effect on the troups suffering that loss ?

Could this effect the loyalty stat ?

[BRC]

Concerning Superstacking: we've already seen some Superstacks, Transylvito and their bats.

Parson says that "Stacking bonuses cap at eight", I think that means that units get bonuses for being in a stack, one stack of 5 units is better than 5 stacks of 1 each. However, these bonuses stop at 8, so if you want to maximize the amount of bonuses your army gets, you put your soliders in squads of 8. However sometimes it's better to put alot of troops in one stack, as with Transylvito.

[Kholdstare]

Well this seems like Parson's plan being followed perfectly. By this point it seems almost down to the letter but it being so early in the battle I can't make an reasonable predictions.

However such success in the beginning of the battle might be an obvious prediction of the tide of this battle but I have no idea of what tricks Ansom might have up his sleeve if enemy. He doesn't seem like one to have it but he has been unusually lucky in whatever encounter he is in. No smart planning but just pure luck and strength.