Strategies for the battle

[PMDM]

This isn't about the characters of Erfworld. This isn't about predictions. This is about the situation, and how you would run the battle, on both sides.

Tool has:
At least 5 dwagon. Proven to beat Gwiffons, but on a 5 to 1 odds. Huge air units.
At least 2 Gobwin infintry divisions. Foot soldiers
5 warlord commanders. Stupid commanders can be a problem, though.
At least one division of spidews (Check my spelling), although the spiders have mainly been seen getting killed... They're obviously calvery.
A bunch of undead infintry, although not as much as Ansom.
2 casters. A Croakamancy, and a Dirtmancer.
3 suspected Finadmancers, we assume.
And, the Arkentool.
Ansom has:
At least a few more Gwiffons left.
A team of stuffed animals. Strong calvery.
"ORLY" birds, as light air units.
A bunch of marbits. Good melee units.
Elves. Sneaky and archery. Also, healing. That'll be important.
Bats. More light air units.
The Arkenpliers althought in a duel with Tool, I believe Tool would win.

If I was Parson, I would lean heavily on the Dwagons. Take down the Gwiffons, and you can rain havoc from above. Speaking of raining havoc from above, if Ansom has any siege weapons, those whould be taken out by Dwagons as quickly as possible.

Likewise, I think Ansom should take down the Dwagons as quickly as possible. Without the Dwagons, all that's standing in the way are undead creatures. Maybe some Spidews. Also, if Tool has any archers, those should be killed first. But it dosn't seem as if he has any.

The battle will probably come down to magic. If Wanda or Sizemore can cast a helpful spell at the right time, anything can happen.

[Unguided]

I'd go with the Divide & Conquer strategy. Ansom's closer allies like Vinnie or Jillian would be unlikely, but many of the elves could be persuaded.
Altruist Elves: Most likely to go neutral and perform their services for both groups.

Superfluous Elves: Might change sides if offered something better than their nature, same for Luckless and Schlemiel

Tardy Elves: Could possibly be the Calvary that Parson was hoping for if they were offended by Ansom's dissolution of the alliance (assuming they even arrive before the battle ends).

Shady Elves: Their name makes them sound like a group that would easily change sides.

[Demented]

Dwagons:
Obviously, whoever can seize the air wins. However, the dwagons are vastly outnumbered and it's not clear if the dwagons can adequately match up against gwiffons, doombats and orlies. Nonetheless, that isn't a concern. Stanley will doubtlessly be the one handling his dwagons, and he can probably handle that well enough.

As for infantry, don't forget the twolls!
We likely also have something else, though they've yet to be fully introduced: Crap golems, courtesy of Sizemore. Mwahaha.

[Scientivore]

Some of the cloth golems appear to be heavy infantry, not cavalry. On page 25, there's one rider on a tchotchke and another on a sourmander, so those are apparently heavy cavalry. The four-legged cloth golems could be heavy cavalry too. But, when Ansom assigned Sir Webinar to put that group together (on page 09), he initially just called for "heavies", and the two-legged cloth golems have throwing boulders instead of room for riders.

I think that the spidews in that engagement were heavy cavalry, too, if only because they were as big as Ansom's heavy cavalry and naturally armored. It's true that the five spidews went down cheaply; Sir Webinar just lost one heavy infantry, as far as I could tell. And, it's clear from Ansom's orders and the last panel of page 10 that it was just seven heavies plus Sir Webinar and Dora (his squire?). However, Sir Webinar seemed to figure prominently in the battle, giving orders -- keeping the high ground and making the spidews charge uphill -- and getting a closeup with a catchphrase, so he might be a hero unit. If so, then that would be part of the reason why they took so few casualties, plus the terrain advantage and outnumbering the spidews by almost two-to-one.

Finally, I think that Stanley's three chained mancers are Lookamancers, not Findamancers. Remote viewing seems like more of an Eyemancy thing than a Hocus Pocus thing.

[Om]

I'd sit tight. The defences of Goblin's Knob look pretty good and venturing outside the walls is not a recipe for success. Though I believe it was mentioned that there was only one road for the army to approach via - might be worth a look.

I'd disagree with Parson in that asymmetrical warfare is not a viable option (what's the point in a strategy game) and that a superweapon would solve everything (it didn't in WWII and it won't here)

[Cobra_Ikari]

Dwagons are the superior air force. It's not 5 to 1 for a gwiffon, it's 2 to 1 for a gwiffon with hero rider, with 1 casualty. Orlies didn't stand a chance, and we've yet to see how doombats shape up in battle...

[lord_khaine]

i honestly think Tool has pissed the alliance off to much to get them to join his side.
not counting that atm Tool is outnumbered 1 to 25 as i recall.

[TigerHunter]

Dwagons are the superior air force. It's not 5 to 1 for a gwiffon, it's 2 to 1 for a gwiffon with hero rider, with 1 casualty. Orlies didn't stand a chance, and we've yet to see how doombats shape up in battle...

"His bats have 22 move and are crap in combat."

[tsuyoshikentsu]

Well, I'd go the Six-Day War (read: air superiority) route with the dwagons, but I'd see if it was possible to mount archers on them -- and if so, how many. Mobile range platforms are scary.

I think the dwagons could also take out a good number of cloth golems, too: if there was another way of handling the griffins and orlies -- I wouldn't worry about the bats -- you could look at dwagons as more of a heavy bomber type.

[Glome]

I don't think air superiority alone is enough to win the war for Parson, but it is an important step. If Parson can take out what little intelligence they have from Vinnie's Doombats, then insurgency becomes a real effective option, especially when you consider the Ansom has no lookamancers . Of course this would mean abandoning one of the best defensive positions possible, so siege might still be a better short term solution with preparations made to become an insurgency.

The insurgency doesn't even have to last too long, the main goal would be take out Ansom himself and retrieve the Arkenpliers, giving Stanley or whoever is attuned a new powerful weapon while demoralizing the opposition. After this happens, it should be possible to sue for peace (Stanley will have gotten what he wanted), or at least divide and conquer against intruders that aren't getting anywhere against an insurgency it can not find without the leadership that was holding them together.

Ansom for his part, made a fairly effective plan already, but he has to change it somwhat on the basis that his plans are compromised to the enemy by Jillian, as she has been captured and knows exactly what their plans are. Maybe Ansom could concentrate their attacks more on one particular area now, change when the marbits attack underground or make the underground attack more then a feint, stuff like that which would wreck counterplans based off intelligence gleaned from Jillian.

Ansom maybe in the midst of making a mistake now in his attempt to rescue Jillian. If he sends out a good portion of his airforce without ground cover to recover Jillian, he's just setting himself up to lose his aircover and setup a possible win for Gobwin Knob. Whatever happens, Ansom needs to protect his airforce and render all threats to flyers ineffective as soon as possible.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

I don't think Stanley could sue for peace. Ansom wants him out of the picture totally, and him having both Arkentools would probably just aggravate that.

Insurgency doesn't really work well with the dwagons, which are basically Stanley's real tactical advantage here. Although what you could do is send each dwagon immediately to a separate area of the kingdom, forcing Ansom to either focus on one as the others sow destruction (unlikely for one so focused on image) or to waste heroes on an attempt to kill them all, leaving himself open for a strike. Sort of an insurgency/fool's mate.

[Glome]

I don't think Stanley could sue for peace. Ansom wants him out of the picture totally, and him having both Arkentools would probably just aggravate that.

If Stanley has both Arkentools, it will mean that Ansom is probably either dead or captured since he apparenlty carries the tool with him, which is what I was implying would happen in my previous post. In which case, two of the biggest obstacles to ending the war (Ansom's desire to see Stanley personally destroyed and Stanley's desire to get another Arkentool) will have been dealt with and either suing for peace or fracturing the alliance might be possible.

Ansom's own personality even works against him here, as he appears to be a leader who leads from the front, and even now may be attempting to personally lead a rescue attempt for Jillian. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it becomes clear that taking out Ansom and grabbing the Arkenpliers will become critical to changing the tide of battle.

[KillerCardinal]

Ansom for his part, made a fairly effective plan already, but he has to change it somwhat on the basis that his plans are compromised to the enemy by Jillian, as she has been captured and knows exactly what their plans are.

Not necessarily. IIRC, Ansom told the plan after she was captured(he didn't know that at the time, and even included her in the plan, but she wasn't there). However, he might have shared it with her before, so you could still be right. I doubt it though. Thus, a lot of info may have been disseminated, but not the exact plans.

[Earendill]

I think the main difference is not in air - it's in intelligence. The Tool has a lot better info about his enemy's moves, be it from the Lookamancers or Jillian's interrogation. Ansom has no lookamancers and is limited to short range recon from Vinnie's bats - so he goes a bit blindly, sure recipe for failure.

Superior information has won many unbalanced battles.

[Dark]

i honestly think Tool has pissed the alliance off to much to get them to join his side.

They don't have to join him.
They just have to hate each other

[Demented]

So, imagining the best possible outcome: Ansom's alliance of forces is extremely fragile. If Tool can push off the first wave of attackers, they'll turn on eachother, each blaming the other for incompetence. Tool can then sit out the argument, or steal the arkenpliers.

Imagining the worst possible outcome: Ansom's alliance beats the stuffing out of O'Tool and takes his arkenhammer too.

[SteveMB]

Ansom for his part, made a fairly effective plan already, but he has to change it somwhat on the basis that his plans are compromised to the enemy by Jillian, as she has been captured and knows exactly what their plans are.

Not necessarily. IIRC, Ansom told the plan after she was captured (he didn't know that at the time, and even included her in the plan, but she wasn't there). However, he might have shared it with her before, so you could still be right. I doubt it though. Thus, a lot of info may have been disseminated, but not the exact plans.

Page 8 starts with a discussion between Ansom and Jillian already in progress, with Ansom beginning "So the plan remains intact...." and continuing with some of the elements of the plan. That would seem to imply that Jillian is familiar with the plan, at least in its general outline.

[PMDM]

Thanks to the new comic, we now know that the armies have upkeep, which could mean that destroying resources on either sides would be effiective. Also, there are only 4 arkentools. The other 2 may come into play.

[KillerCardinal]

Page 8 starts with a discussion between Ansom and Jillian already in progress, with Ansom beginning "So the plan remains intact...." and continuing with some of the elements of the plan. That would seem to imply that Jillian is familiar with the plan, at least in its general outline.

Ah, oops. I'd forgotten about that. I retract my previous comment then.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

Wow. This new page changes everything.

All Stanley has to do is hop on a dwagon, fly on top of a mountain, and call all the others to him. Ansom can't beat that air power.

[Poppatomus]

Interesting question, tough without knowing specifically what resources/capabilities each side has, or what the victory conditions would be. (For example, would Ansom be happy if he could seize Tool, or would he also need to take the city? Would Stanley consider a longterm seige/stalemate a victory, or does he need to break out before a certain point) It seems all but impossible to design a strategy without knowing how long the walls will hold, what kind of seigecraft/seigespells are available to either side.

I doubt the run to the top of the Mountain and fight an air battle plan would work. I have to think that upkeep costs alone would nix that plan, plus we don't know how magic might play into, say, changing the terrain, or summoning flying units to throw at the dragons til the cows come home.

Also, I wouldn't over estimate the power of air generally. Remember that there is an extensive underground tunnel network, one which may not be defensible if Ansom decides to push there with more than the currently planned feint. It may increase his casualties, but that doesn't seem to be a concern, especailly if the alternative is being picked off by Dragons. (side note: much of the success in the 6-day war owed to catching the opponents air force on the ground. It does not seems likely that will be the case here. EDIT: and while we're talking about lessons of modern Middle Eastern wars, '73 basically showed that air alone is not enough)

In a seige in which the defender can't be starved out, the attacker faces an uphill battle to say the least. The only thing Ansom has on his side is that he appears to have been careful enough to ensure that no one will be relieving the seige, so he doesn't have to worry about being pinned.

At the same time he has made the grevious error of choosing a plan where he will spread out his forces in search of a weak spot, rather than driving the majority of his force at a pre-identified weakness. He may well have the numbers to risk a violation of the principles of Mass and Economy of Force, but it's a big risk.

A detailed strategy seems premature at this point, but if I were in charge I would direct my first go at the problem to getting out of the city and taking the tactical offensive. I might be able to just attrit my enemy to death in a long seige, but clearly ansom thinks he has a force of sufficient size to last me out no matter how much damage I do to him on the way in. No reason for me not to trust his judgement. Rather then waiting, first thing I would do is see if I could draw him in to his attack, but then attack him with a force hidden/teleported/manuevered outside the city.

If he's up 25 to one, but I have the more mobile forces, the superior heavy cavalry and he's spread out all to hell, I might be able to skimp on the defense while leaving just enough to hold, and then consentrate my force as a hammer to smash components of his force against my defenses.

That's where I would look first. If that's impossible, or just too risky, then its a matter of figuring out how to maximize the duration of the seige until the alliance breaks apart or the attackers are simply exausted and go home. (ask the Germans on the Eastern Front at the end of World War 2 how well that worked out. They were dug in and defeating Russian forces that had an excess of an 8-1 advantage, but in the end it didn't matter. The Russians were willing to suffer the casualties and so German defeat became little more than a matter of time.)

[Ave]

Prince Handsome will be Prince Ransom?
Haha.

[PMDM]

Interesting question, tough without knowing specifically what resources/capabilities each side has, or what the victory conditions would be. (For example, would Ansom be happy if he could seize Tool, or would he also need to take the city? Would Stanley consider a longterm seige/stalemate a victory, or does he need to break out before a certain point) It seems all but impossible to design a strategy without knowing how long the walls will hold, what kind of seigecraft/seigespells are available to either side.

I doubt the run to the top of the Mountain and fight an air battle plan would work. I have to think that upkeep costs alone would nix that plan, plus we don't know how magic might play into, say, changing the terrain, or summoning flying units to throw at the dragons til the cows come home.

Also, I wouldn't over estimate the power of air generally. Remember that there is an extensive underground tunnel network, one which may not be defensible if Ansom decides to push there with more than the currently planned feint. It may increase his casualties, but that doesn't seem to be a concern, especailly if the alternative is being picked off by Dragons. (side note: much of the success in the 6-day war owed to catching the opponents air force on the ground. It does not seems likely that will be the case here. EDIT: and while we're talking about lessons of modern Middle Eastern wars, '73 basically showed that air alone is not enough)

In a seige in which the defender can't be starved out, the attacker faces an uphill battle to say the least. The only thing Ansom has on his side is that he appears to have been careful enough to ensure that no one will be relieving the seige, so he doesn't have to worry about being pinned.

At the same time he has made the grevious error of choosing a plan where he will spread out his forces in search of a weak spot, rather than driving the majority of his force at a pre-identified weakness. He may well have the numbers to risk a violation of the principles of Mass and Economy of Force, but it's a big risk.

A detailed strategy seems premature at this point, but if I were in charge I would direct my first go at the problem to getting out of the city and taking the tactical offensive. I might be able to just attrit my enemy to death in a long seige, but clearly ansom thinks he has a force of sufficient size to last me out no matter how much damage I do to him on the way in. No reason for me not to trust his judgement. Rather then waiting, first thing I would do is see if I could draw him in to his attack, but then attack him with a force hidden/teleported/manuevered outside the city.

If he's up 25 to one, but I have the more mobile forces, the superior heavy cavalry and he's spread out all to hell, I might be able to skimp on the defense while leaving just enough to hold, and then consentrate my force as a hammer to smash components of his force against my defenses.

That's where I would look first. If that's impossible, or just too risky, then its a matter of figuring out how to maximize the duration of the seige until the alliance breaks apart or the attackers are simply exausted and go home. (ask the Germans on the Eastern Front at the end of World War 2 how well that worked out. They were dug in and defeating Russian forces that had an excess of an 8-1 advantage, but in the end it didn't matter. The Russians were willing to suffer the casualties and so German defeat became little more than a matter of time.)

You bring up a very good points. Underground battles have been mentioned, and they probably will matter a lot. But I don't think the Gobwins stand a chance against the Marbits. If Ansom can send his forces though an underground pipeline behind enemy lines, then the battle is won for Ansom.

[Shapechanger]

Seems that Stanley's got a lot more Dwagons than five - http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0031.html


Personally, I think air superiority ought to come easily via Dwagons, and then it seems that they have a really nice chokepoint, as seen here - http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0003.html (the single path up to the castle). Here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0022.html) Ansom says he has four times the number of units he needs to take the city, though we don't know if that means he literally has four times as many units as Stanley or otherwise. It is likely he's taken the defenses into account, and therefore has more than four times as many units as Stanley.

Even though Ansom says he would prefer to fight Stanley's units on the chokepoint, I feel that the longer that chockpoint can be held, the more damage the Dwagons can do. From there, you find chokepoints in the tunnels and station the Gobwins there. If Stanley has Archers, then they ought to be stationed at the forward wall until a breach occurs, at which point they ought to be immediately pulled back to the inner walls, and the surviving ground forces should attempt to hold the breach.

The name of this strategy is to let the Dwagons to the most damage as possible. They are obviously Stanley's strongest and, possibly, his most mobile units. I say Stanley plays for time to lets the Dwagons win the battle.

[Unguided]

Based on what I said earlier: I would start by getting the Altruistic elves to go neutral, thus healing both sides. I’d then make some medium-risk attacks against isolated enemy groups near those elves in an attempt to drive a wedge between them and the opposing forces, effectively giving me healing units (without the upkeep costs).

[Runolfr]

I'm looking at those switchbacks on the way up to Gobwin Knob and thinking "someone who could heave lightning could wreak havoc on an army coming up that road".

[Machete]

Cheat. Take a few extra turns, whatever. Flood the lands outside the city walls with some kind of dirtomancy to reshape the land.

Crap golems.

[jjfoley]

Perhaps a better question is, if Parson and Stanley knew every aspect of Ansom's plan, how would he defeat it with his available forces.

- He's got to ignore the feint by the Marbits and not commit any more units than necessary to the tunnels under the city.
- He also shouldn't try to defend the one tough road into Gobwin Knob, as Ansom would rather fight out in the open. Though with so many turns to get into position, he might be able to get some attrition with some asymmetric warfare on the way in.
- He's got to use his fliers to his advantage somehow, with Jillian no longer available to command Ansom's flying force.
- He's got to find some way to repel the planned siege and the eventual breach of the walls, knowing that he can't stay holed up forever against these odds.

My take: Ansom has four times the number needed to take the city, but he's actually attacking the outer walls from all directions, thereby splitting his forces. He also believes that Stanley has no one with any serious military strategy left to command his armies. I think both are exploitable mistakes.

Parson should make it easy for Ansom's forces to find a breach in the wall defenses. Fight heavily on three sides and leave one open, perhaps.. maybe even fairly early in the siege, though don't make it look easy. It should lead to its own choke point. So those Eager Elves and friends will pour through thinking that they've broken through the defenses, only to find themselves pinched and subject to traps, spells, dwagons, burning care-bear oil, and whatever other forces Parson can muster, in an area where they are no longer easily covered by their archers or able to leverage their numerical superiority. That could potentially decimate their troops and cause some sort of morale check at their chances.

At the same time, I think Parson could use the "little twisty underground passages" under the city to his advantage, by using that as a mechanism to sneak some forces OUT of the city and take out some of the siege weapons in the back, at the same time as Ansom's forces are eagerly pouring through the supposed breach in the wall. It's likely that a lot of the catapults in the back may be more vulnerable to a focused sabotage attack once everyone is fooled into thinking the breach is real and begin their assault. This again will seriously cripple the ability of the siege to be effective.

I'm not sure if Parson has the troop strength to defend three sides, spring a trap on the fourth side, AND sabotage the troops in the back. Maybe magic will be the answer -- imagine some Foolamancy to get to the backlines, for instance. Foolamancy may also be a possibility to make it look like some walls are well defended when they actually aren't, all in an attempt to steer Ansom's troops towards the trapped breach.

How's that?

[Scientivore]

- He also shouldn't try to defend the one tough road into Gobwin Knob, as Ansom would rather fight out in the open. Though with so many turns to get into position, he might be able to get some attrition with some asymmetric warfare on the way in.

I agree with the first sentence because of the second sentence, not despite it. The numbers are so skewed that if Parson accepts the premise that it's a war of attrition and goes for favorable odds then he's already lost, IMO. I think that the war will be won or lost on Hail Mary passes.

Using the same reasoning, I think that he can discount Numbers magic in his search for a "magic bullet" spell. Even Fate magic is probably too limiting unless used very cleverly (as in their summoning of him). He needs to change the rules of the game and the closest thing that I see is Erf metamagic, a.k.a. Luckmancy. That seems particularly appropriate to me because GM's make their own luck.

How's that?

Awesome!

[PMDM]

Let's set up a guideline here: We don't know what magic can do, so we can't depend on it. We're ruling magic out, because it's so unpredictable.