Strategies for the battle

[SteveMB]

That wwould require a whole lot of planning on Ansom's part... he might be capable of it but Wanda seems to keep jillian in the dark... somewhat possible but unlikely...

Wanda's reference to the summoning spell as as "this monstrous Findamancy/Lookamancy thing" (after the spell was originally described as the creation of Finadmancers and Predictamancers) may indicate that Wanda is deliberately feeding Jillian disinformation.

Or it may just mean that she can't be bothered to keep straight the names of all those uninteresting non-Croakamancy magicks.

[Demented]

Intriguing.
Findamancy and Predictamancy are both disciplines of Hocus Pocus, but Lookamancy is a discipline of Eyemancy.

[Strengfellow]

I may have missed a post or two so forgive me if I am making a redundant comment.

Wanda is a crokamancer and this means that every single one of Ansoms troops that are croaked is a potential recruit for Stans army, now obviously this is dependant on the range of Wanda's magic and the area of effect but seeing as she has garrisoned Gobwin Knob with a legion of uncroaked I cant see any real problem.

[Scientivore]

Intriguing.
Findamancy and Predictamancy are both disciplines of Hocus Pocus, but Lookamancy is a discipline of Eyemancy.

Lookamancy is also Erf magic like Findamancy, not Fate magic like Predictamancy and Croakamancy. If Jillian understands the alignments then she would know that Wanda has an affinity for Fate magic, so a Lookamancy/Findamancy thing would seem even worse for her than a Predictamancy/Findamancy thing. Whether careless or calculated, whether playing for sympathy or planting disinformation, I think that Wanda was exaggerating.

[mirrorshades]

The spidews were "on a return path" -- i.e. instructed to return and rejoin Stanley's forces. They should have simply ignored Webinar, unless encountering him triggered combat despite the fact that it's Stanley's turn.

Stacks without a leader are forced to autoattack when in contact with units from non-allied capitals.

Looks like we got the answer to why the spidews attacked. This rule strikes me as somewhat peculiar -- if a leaderless unit were nearly destroyed and in the process of retreating, would they really attack any enemy unit they happened to come across? Maybe this is one of the bugs that Parson can exploit?

[Demented]

Or he could arrange his most powerful units around Ansom's leaderless troops and force them to annihilate themselves.

[Unguided]

The problem with auto-attacking units tears a few holes in my earlier strategy, but it would still be possible to rush a group led by a Warlord (preferably Leeroy) against the potentially neutral healers and a group of Ansom's solders if both groups had Warlords.

Although this new game mechanic bodes ill for Ansom if the Tardy Elves show up even after he dissolved the alliance.

[gnownek]

Hmmm, if the alliance was dissolved even for a brief second.... everyone outside would have to fight each other....

Tool could marry the barbarian girl, someone invoke a claim to her throne that would trigger a fight...

The statless fat guy could challenge someone to single combat using his stats to be unpredictable.

Plant trees on the entrances and stick dwagons on top of them..... perfect defense....unless they win the air battle which they can win.

[mirrorshades]

This rule strikes me as somewhat peculiar -- if a leaderless unit were nearly destroyed and in the process of retreating, would they really attack any enemy unit they happened to come across?

Hm... looks like I outsmarted myself here. A closer re-reading of the klog tells me this instead (emphasis added):

Stacks without a leader are forced to autoattack when in contact with units from non-allied capitals.

So my theory of a routed unit automatically attacking any enemy it comes across falls apart. (Good, because it wouldn't make sense.)

I suppose this would be a game balance issue; since a stack gets an attack bonus, this would discourage warlords from simply stacking all their units in groups of 8 (max bonus) and sending them off to fight without providing a leadership unit. Much more sensible of a rule.

[Demented]

What, never heard of a 1-unit stack? =P

Still, I'd imagine fights are to the death, so you wouldn't have any single wounded units running away in the first place.

[jindra34]

What, never heard of a 1-unit stack? =P

Still, I'd imagine fights are to the death, so you wouldn't have any single wounded units running away in the first place.

Th battles are to death or occasionally capture... refering to second Jillian battle... maybe a Warlorded stack could withdraw mid-fight but i doubt others could........

[Demented]

Jillian, being a hero unit, can be captured, but probably not normal units.

As for a warlorded stack withdrawing in mid-fight... Oh, how I've wanted a feature like that in turn-based games. "Eject, eject!"

[PMDM]

As far as numbers go, is the Twoll any help in a guideline in figureing out HP, ATK, or DEF?

[jindra34]

As far as numbers go, is the Twoll any help in a guideline in figureing out HP, ATK, or DEF?

nope we would need at least something from which to base those stats... seeing an uncroaked's stats might finally shed light on the issue now though.

[Ultimatum479]

On the note of stats, I don't think Parson is statless...I think we just can't see his stats. It may give him a bit of an unpredictability advantage, but it won't make him invincible. If he were statless, I don't think he would have a leadership bonus.

[PMDM]

The new page sheds some new light onto Jillian's role.

[PMDM]

I'm double posting, but how do you think the new Archons will affect the coming skirmish???

[jindra34]

I'm double posting, but how do you think the new Archons will affect the coming skirmish???

Honestly... yes otherwise they likely would have been introduced later... i suspect they might be able to kick a dwagon's ass single handedly... thus they may kill "Parson's" startegem...

[ShiningTed]

Looks like we got the answer to why the spidews attacked. This rule strikes me as somewhat peculiar -- if a leaderless unit were nearly destroyed and in the process of retreating, would they really attack any enemy unit they happened to come across? Maybe this is one of the bugs that Parson can exploit?

Does it have to be beaten units that are leaderless? Can't a stack of grunts just wander around?

But I love the idea of Parson exploiting this, because it looks like Ansom is putting all his leadership types in one place. Could be a lot of units with no bonuses and reduced choices running around out there.

[SteveMB]

Honestly... yes otherwise they likely would have been introduced later... i suspect they might be able to kick a dwagon's ass single handedly... thus they may kill "Parson's" startegem...

My guess at this point is that Ansom plans to give Stanley what he wants, but not the way he wants it -- show up for his ambush, but with an ace up his sleeve that will even the odds, thus fighting on his own preferred terms (in the open).

[PMDM]

It looks as if Stanley's in a worse position than before. My bets just shifted to Ansom because of the last comic.

[Silverlocke980]

Basically?

I'm reminded of a set-up from Total Annihilation (awesome computer game, but shameless plugs are neither here nor there). When the enemy is en route to a place you've built up, the worse thing that can happen to them is getting waylaid on the way by units they can't counter. We know that Ansom's army, while lacking in air units anywhere near as strong as Dwagons, does possess a crapload of light air units.

Light air units, as the ORLYs demonstrated, die very quickly when Dwagons attack them.

I'd harass the enemy with Dwagons the entire way- Using the few ground forces available to Stanley's army would be a waste when you can hit and run with air units- and use the newfound knowledge that only air units can fight air units in certain kinds of terrain to my advantage. Wiping out the enemy's air force by luring it away from its column on the chance it might kill "one" dwagon (surprise! Ambush!) would be a huge advantage when the siege occurs.