Erfworld 64, Page 58

[jindra34]

Unless Parson has another rule-abuse in mind or Ansom hilariously miscalculated something, the comic could well end in short order. Ansom doesn't have to do all that much; if he manages to beat down enough of the dragons, he's essentially crippling Stanley/Parson's very last remainig forces. Even without any siege, he can waltz to GK and chip away the walls if the defenders have insufficient means to combat them.

thus why ansom will fail... we have about thirty comics to go in part 1... at least...

[Pholiant]

I'm not positive what Ansom hopes to accomplish.

Vinnie states that to get there, the units will be low on move. So even though he expects wounded dwagons, he still needs to take them all out. Or the large majority. That means all the ones in the ring, as well as the wounded he thinks are in the middle. They won't have the move to pull back (even though they would always be in reach of the dwagons), though maybe they can reorganize to defend better.

Seeing as those remaining dwagons will heal at dawn, Ansoms troops will still be in direct contact with the remaining ones, while wounded themselves. And he's said this is the majority of the forest capable forces. This seems like a big risk to take.

Eh. I'm probably missing something.

Parsons attack on the collumn was brilliant because his warlords could stop the dwagons from fighting once the set goals were met. And he can keep doing this as long as the warlords survive. So Ansom knows he does not need to kill (all) the dwagons, he just needs to kill the warlords, beacuse without a warlord, a stack of dwagons will have to keep attacking untill the battle is won, which would eventually mean taking on the whole army. To much, even for our beloved dwagons.
Furthermore, I think Ansom and the other flyers have enough move left to make it back to the collumn. So the risk to him must seem low: at most, he leaves some low level forest units as dwagonfodder.
Don't forget Ansom does not know about Stanley's brand new import military genius, he probably thinks Stanley promoted his most decorative warrior as usual. He wont expect to be outsmarted untill it is to late.

[WebMonk]

The road most definitely does not run straight to the city - check out several different pictures, page 3 for instance.

The dragons could come down on either side of the road, but the requirement of heavy forest hexes all together seems to be the important factor in deciding where to set up the dwagon ring. The other deciding factor is the movement of the dwagons, so given two properly treed locations, Parson is going to pick the closest one to home. The dwagons are on the side of the road closest to home. Besides, the way that road zig-zags, it would be pretty tricky getting the B dwagons to the "bottom" side of the column without crossing the column and thus having to fight.

Next, it's pretty clear from looking at the map, Vinny's bats didn't scout any beyond what he minimally needed to scout the dwagon circle. He apparently had to scout around a bit before he ran across the dragons, but once he did find the dragons, he didn't scout further.

Parson has two general strategies possible - kill the leader (Ansom) or destroy the siege capabilities. He couldn't know that Ansom was going to personally lead the charge, so let's take that off the possibility list for what Parson is attempting right now. If Ansom is stupid enough to leave himself vulnerable, things may change, but for now Parson is out to destroy the siege capabilities, with possible side plans of causing some collateral losses.

The dwagon ring is ultimately aimed at destroying the siege capabilities with minimal losses. I'll ignore the possibility of some tricks like the dwagons in the middle being able to retreat from the fight, or warlords being able to "hide" dwagons from the scouts. Possible, but we've seen no indications that they're true yet.

If you count the dwagon dots on the map, there are 27 of them - the same number of B dwagons listed by Parson. Parson's plan is to have few losses, so he can't be planning on losing 19 dwagons, so the wounded dwagons aren't in the middle. Where are they? The wounded dwagons are hiding in the area Vinny didn't scout.

The switchback road is mostly going "sideways" to the mountain top, so as long as Parson reserves a couple extra movement points, maybe doing 1 or 2 fewer attacks, he could move his A dwagons back away from where Vinny is likely to scout because he'll stop scouting as soon as he finds the dwagon ring which is set up closer to the column. The ring is a trap/distraction.

Ansom expends most of his woods units' movement walking around to the back of the circle and punching through. He then doesn't have enough to get back to the convoy line OR search further for the wounded dwagons. Ansom's turn will have to end with the wounded dwagons undiscovered because he went chasing off after the decoy. He'll have croaked three dwagons, and that's IT.

Parson will have lost 3 dwagons, but will have drawn off some of the protective forces from the column AND will be in a prime position to sweep up the column with both the A and B dwagons, destroying the rest of Ansom's siege equipment. Parson's got a NICE thing set up!

[BarGamer]

Sheesh, if they've got THAT many Elves (20 or so + however many is in that last panel) commited to the punch-through... That kinda boops up the siege-plans two ways: Because then they can't attack GK. If this is so, then Parson definitely has his priorities straight. First the siege-engines, now the troops. No wonder it's the Quantum Probability Donut of Doom. First it eats you, then you bite it, then it eats you AGAIN. XO

The next turn, I want Parson to get movie popcorn with his Stupid Meal. Good show, Parson, good show!

[jindra34]

The road most definitely does not run straight to the city - check out several different pictures, page 3 for instance.

The dragons could come down on either side of the road, but the requirement of heavy forest hexes all together seems to be the important factor in deciding where to set up the dwagon ring. The other deciding factor is the movement of the dwagons, so given two properly treed locations, Parson is going to pick the closest one to home. The dwagons are on the side of the road closest to home. Besides, the way that road zig-zags, it would be pretty tricky getting the B dwagons to the "bottom" side of the column without crossing the column and thus having to fight.

Next, it's pretty clear from looking at the map, Vinny's bats didn't scout any beyond what he minimally needed to scout the dwagon circle. He apparently had to scout around a bit before he ran across the dragons, but once he did find the dragons, he didn't scout further.

Parson has two general strategies possible - kill the leader (Ansom) or destroy the siege capabilities. He couldn't know that Ansom was going to personally lead the charge, so let's take that off the possibility list for what Parson is attempting right now. If Ansom is stupid enough to leave himself vulnerable, things may change, but for now Parson is out to destroy the siege capabilities, with possible side plans of causing some collateral losses.

The dwagon ring is ultimately aimed at destroying the siege capabilities with minimal losses. I'll ignore the possibility of some tricks like the dwagons in the middle being able to retreat from the fight, or warlords being able to "hide" dwagons from the scouts. Possible, but we've seen no indications that they're true yet.

If you count the dwagon dots on the map, there are 27 of them - the same number of B dwagons listed by Parson. Parson's plan is to have few losses, so he can't be planning on losing 19 dwagons, so the wounded dwagons aren't in the middle. Where are they? The wounded dwagons are hiding in the area Vinny didn't scout.

The switchback road is mostly going "sideways" to the mountain top, so as long as Parson reserves a couple extra movement points, maybe doing 1 or 2 fewer attacks, he could move his A dwagons back away from where Vinny is likely to scout because he'll stop scouting as soon as he finds the dwagon ring which is set up closer to the column. The ring is a trap/distraction.

Ansom expends most of his woods units' movement walking around to the back of the circle and punching through. He then doesn't have enough to get back to the convoy line OR search further for the wounded dwagons. Ansom's turn will have to end with the wounded dwagons undiscovered because he went chasing off after the decoy. He'll have croaked three dwagons, and that's IT.

Parson will have lost 3 dwagons, but will have drawn off some of the protective forces from the column AND will be in a prime position to sweep up the column with both the A and B dwagons, destroying the rest of Ansom's siege equipment. Parson's got a NICE thing set up!

I have a funny feeling they are farther away from the capital than you think...

[Pholiant]

Parson will have lost 3 dwagons, but will have drawn off some of the protective forces from the column AND will be in a prime position to sweep up the column with both the A and B dwagons, destroying the rest of Ansom's siege equipment. Parson's got a NICE thing set up!

Loosing 3 out of 27 B-dwagons is not a small loss. It is more than 10% of those kind of dwagons before the siege even started. Stanley will hate it. And why sacrifice 3 dwagons to set a trap in the middle hex if you can set the trap in the 'weak' hex?

[teratorn]

First the siege-engines, now the troops.

At 50 stacks (or even 100) per turn, it won't make a big difference in Ansom's army. Ansom has many thousands of stacks.

[SteveMB]

If this is so, then Parson definitely has his priorities straight. First the siege-engines, now the troops.

He's only gotten about 40% of the siege units so far. If the plan works, then he gets a good shot at the rest (yes, the archers will still get their hitsies since the column isn't in heavy forest, but Parson can pull dwagons away as they reach dangerous levels of damage) next turn.

That could force Ansom to make his main attack through the tunnels, where his intel drops from "limited" to "virtually nonexistent" (or perhaps even "worse than nothing" if he relies on Jillian to provide a report of her "escape" through the tunnels).

[Pholiant]

That could force Ansom to make his main attack through the tunnels, where his intel drops from "limited" to "virtually nonexistent" (or perhaps even "worse than nothing" if he relies on Jillian to provide a report of her "escape" through the tunnels).

You said it. That has been one of Parson's main strategies from the outset.

Love your sig by the way.

[Scientivore]

I also think there will be a surprise in the hex chosen, like a lake of some sorts. But not necessarily with the A dwagons there. I would keep them outside of the fliers range. The lake would work to make sure Ansom can not leave the forest by punching through one of the strong hexes. He may try to minimize losses by attacking one of the 4 dwagon stacks but that's all (if they are going to die better take a few more dwagons).

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I'm really liking the idea of a lake in the center hex. I now believe that the 19 A dwagons and three warlords really are there. The idea of an empty center has bothered me from the start because that would be leaving too much to chance. Ansom was right, they do need a safe hiding place...and with a lake beneath them, that center hex would really be one.

According to Ansom, only Jillian, the top five gwiffons and Charlie's three Archons have the move to reach the center hex. Even with Ansom, Vinny, Tarfu, Webinar and Dora (the last three on gwiffons), I don't really see the 14 of them taking on 19 dwagons (albeit wounded) and three warlords (albeit uncroaked) without the support of that horde of elves and gumps. If they did, that would be leaving too much to chance, too.

[Airshark]

At 50 stacks (or even 100) per turn, it won't make a big difference in Ansom's army. Ansom has many thousands of stacks.

Whut? That makes no sense at all. First of all, we know that fifty siege units, not stacks, represents more than 40% of Ansom's siege. Second, Ansom says early on that Stanley The Plaid will be ended in four or five turns. That means they're not THAT far from Gobwin Knob.

Ansom cannot have many thousands of stacks. If he did, he wouldn't care about the dwagon raid - it'd be a flea biting an elephant.

[Psychonaut]

I have a funny feeling they are farther away from the capital than you think...

Way back on page 21 Ansom stated that, accounting for the slow move of "seige" engines and other units, "our caravan formation will take as many as five more turns to reach the city"; on page 46 he mentioned that "in two turns we will rendezvous at the foot of Gobwin Knob"; and Parson's original plan had the dwagons all safely back at Gobwin Knob by the end of his next turn after the turn in which they made their initial attack on the column.

So it seems like they're pretty near GK at this point - at least close enough for WebMonk's prediction to be plausible. (The lowest unit move that we know of, I believe, is that Vinny's bats with their 22 move; dwagons, on the other hand, appear to have much higher move, since Parson's original plan divides them into those with >56 and <56 move.)

{Edit for clarification.}

[teratorn]

Ansom cannot have many thousands of stacks. If he did, he wouldn't care about the dwagon raid - it'd be a flea biting an elephant.

Ansom cares about siege because that's what would take is army over the city walls. Without them how is he supposed to break in the city? And he has thousands of stacks. Stanley's parade has shown a reasonably large force. Ansom has 25 times that.

Look also at the number of elves in this "limited" force. He may easily have 100 8-unit stacks just in this attack. Dwagons are important in a qualitative way. After finishing the siege they are not the tool to end the war. They can't kill enough of Ansom's troops. Parson needs something else.

EDIT. I just checked Stanley's parade. There are many thousands of units there. Thus Ansom's army numbers may easily reach something like 100,000 units. No way the dwagons can finish a significant fraction of that in two or three turns.

[ReccaSquirrel]

I'm convinced the only thing in that center hex is schroeder's cat.

[Airshark]

Ansom cares about siege because that's what would take is army over the city walls. Without them how is he supposed to break in the city? And he has thousands of stacks. Stanley's parade has shown a reasonably large force. Ansom has 25 times that.

Look also at the number of elves in this "limited" force. He may easily have 100 8-unit stacks just in this attack. Dwagons are important in a qualitative way. After finishing the siege they are not the tool to end the war. They can't kill enough of Ansom's troops. Parson needs something else.

If he has many thousands of stacks, why would he care about sending seven lousy units to rescue Jillian? Why does one warlord and five gwiffons constitute a force that he'd even notice? How tough do Charlie's Archons have to be to matter against that kind of force? Why would Vinny care about losing five or six whole stacks to take out the dwagon raid? These and many other examples tell me that if Ansom loses 50-100 stacks a turn, he's in deep boop.

That "25-1" comment is probably just a literary device for talking about how badly they're outnumbered. I doubt it literally means there are 25 times the number of troops in Ansom's force as in Stanley's.

EDIT: And by "five gwiffons", I mean, "why is this even significant air cover for the column"? Shouldn't he have hundreds (or thousands) of Orlies and gwiffons to cover the column?

[Freederick]

Burning the forest is not a likely tactic. Influencing the terrain is an aspect that has not even been brought up in passing, and indirect damage (normal trees do not have stats, and are not units, a fire is not a creature) would be a complete deviation from what we've already been shown of Erfworld.

O RLY? See Erfworld 03, panel 2. That's a burned-out building. I still maintain the guess I made one strip back:

Here's my take on the contents of the Schrödinger hex. It's a new one!

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The central hex contains Ensign Toast, with a cask of oil and a torch.
When Ansom's forces enter, using up the last of their move, he starts a forest fire. Then he is toast . So is everyone else in that hex. Perhaps Jillian can airlift four units to safety (she has five gwiffons with sufficient move).

The obvious vulnerability of the gumps only strengthens my point. And, BTW, we don't have to worry about the dwagons in the surrounding hexes getting fried as well: dwagons are flyers, and can move out of the harm's way by flying high above the blaze. This is vertical movement, and can be made off-turn as long as they stay in their hex; see Erfworld 31 for an example.

[Pyrian]

Not me.

Mea culpa. I really should know better than to ever use the phrase "all of us" on the internet.

[jindra34]

Way back on page 21 Ansom stated that, accounting for the slow move of "seige" engines and other units, "our caravan formation will take as many as five more turns to reach the city"; on page 46 he mentioned that "in two turns we will rendezvous at the foot of Gobwin Knob"; and Parson's original plan had the dwagons all safely back at Gobwin Knob by the end of his next turn after the turn in which they made their initial attack on the column.

So it seems like they're pretty near GK at this point - at least close enough for WebMonk's prediction to be plausible. (The lowest unit move that we know of, I believe, is that Vinny's bats with their 22 move; dwagons, on the other hand, appear to have much higher move, since Parson's original plan divides them into those with >56 and <56 move.)

{Edit for clarification.}

its been one turn and the switch backs start at the foot of Gobwin Knob. also do you seen any forests up there?

[teratorn]

If he has many thousands of stacks, why would he care about sending seven lousy units to rescue Jillian?

Why would he send more? They were stronger than any force they expected to encounter. He cares about Jillian not Webinar and the rest, he only sent reinforcements because of her.

Stanley alone has something like 4,000 units in his parade, and that's only what we can see. Each of those rectangles given the scale of Parson and what we've seen in the other panels will have about 1,000 gobwins and skellies.

And by "five gwiffons", I mean, "why is this even significant air cover for the column"? Shouldn't he have hundreds (or thousands) of Orlies and gwiffons to cover the column?

Five fast gwiffons. They have a few more gwiffons, orlys and unipegataurs.

EDIT: in fact if we look at scene when the dwagon lands on the parade, it's obvious each of those groups has much more than 1000 units. Stanley alone may exceed 10,000 units. The numbers in this battle are really huge. The snapshots when Ansom presents us the alliance do suggest staggering numbers.

[Psychonaut]

its been one turn and the switch backs start at the foot of Gobwin Knob. also do you seen any forests up there?

Ah, never mind then; since you quoted WebMonk's entire post and I still had strategy on the mind from reading other posts, I thought your response was directed at the stress being placed on the importance of getting rid of the siege capabilities ASAP (as implicit in the statement that the dwagon ring's priority was to destroy the siege capabilities), not the terrain assumptions.

[BoneLord]

OOOOOHHH! Did Ansome just take the bait!?
Yes he did, yess he did! Good boy, good boy.

Well, it looks like those walking trees are indeed the Forest Gumps. I'm sure everyone else has figured that out by now too, but I just read the page. Run, forest, run (into Parson's trap)! I just can't imagine our favorite Chief Warlord not predicting this move.

[Airshark]

Why would he send more? They were stronger than any force they expected to encounter. He cares about Jillian not Webinar and the rest, he only sent reinforcements because of her.

Stanley alone has something like 4,000 units in his parade, and that's only what we can see. Each of those rectangles given the scale of Parson and what we've seen in the other panels will have about 1,000 gobwins and skellies.

Five fast gwiffons. They have a few more gwiffons, orlys and unipegataurs.

EDIT: in fact if we look at scene when the dwagon lands on the parade, it's obvious each of those groups has much more than 1000 units. Stanley alone may exceed 10,000 units. The numbers in this battle are really huge. The snapshots when Ansom presents us the alliance do suggest staggering numbers.

OK, now you're just making fun of me. You're talking about millions of troops on Ansom's side. That's just not this game, which is about individuals and small groups, not the Eastern Front in WWII.

[abb3w]

They can't pull back, its not Parson's turn and they (apparently) don't have a warlord (which means they auto-attack until they win or get killed).

Non-flying/non-forest units in a forest might not be able to auto-attack bats, but ground troops or dragons would have no such limit against woodsy elves. In general, I agree; retreat is precluded by Erfworld's Fysics. (Fysics, because it sure the boop isn't Physics.)

Because by this logic, only a moron would step into such a trap, so therefore, that's not Parson's plan.

I don't buy it. Methinks you need to review the Battle of Wits from The Princess Bride.

Haha! Brilliant!

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A mountain is unlikely but we can see a pond elsewhere on Ansom's battle map. [...] Ending turn over a water hex would effectively immunize the wounded dwagons from attack by anything but the few enemy flyers that can reach them.

Now, that I'll buy as the location for the bulk of the injured dwagons. There may be a few mixed in the front hexes to allow a few uninjured A's at the "back door" hex, and a few uninjured "B's" helping guard the main body of injured.

Where's the pea, where's the pea....

[TiamatRoar]

A single siege tower holds at least 24 soldiers, as shown during Parson's attack on page 56 (Count them. There are probably even more than that in that tower, except the dwagons obscure the view). 50 of those represent 40% of the enemy's siege, so we know Ansom had at least 110 Siege Towers.

That's 2640 troops in the siege towers alone, and there were far far FAR more troops shown on the ground during page 56.

Hundreds upon hundreds of troops are depicted as early as page 1, really. You know an author intends to depict a lot of troops when he's using friggin' BLOBS of them to portray them.



Regarding the center hex being a lake... wouldn't Parson have mentioned a mountain hex or a lake in his klog earlier when talking about the plan if there was such an obviously fantastic defensive position right there?

[ErikZ]

STOP! Just Stop. I'm tired of people coming up with wild (stupid) theories that deal with units moving when its not their turn!

What if it's a smaller unit, and you loaded it into a catapult and *fired* it into the next hex?

Eh? Ehhhhhh? Bet you didn't think of that.

[TheTurnipKing]

Parson's got a NICE thing set up!

He should need minimal support from the B Dwagons too, unless Ansom has made provisions to protect the Siege units better this turn. Last turn, just the A Dwagons were enough to take out just under half of Ansom's siege capability with no losses.

Which seems to offer a lot of collaterol damage potential, but there's still the need to save enough move to withdraw the Dwagons either to GK, or at least far enough from the column that they're in no danger of being ambushed.

I'm not positive what Ansom hopes to accomplish.

Vinnie states that to get there, the units will be low on move. So even though he expects wounded dwagons, he still needs to take them all out. Or the large majority. That means all the ones in the ring, as well as the wounded he thinks are in the middle. They won't have the move to pull back (even though they would always be in reach of the dwagons), though maybe they can reorganize to defend better.

Seeing as those remaining dwagons will heal at dawn, Ansoms troops will still be in direct contact with the remaining ones, while wounded themselves. And he's said this is the majority of the forest capable forces. This seems like a big risk to take.

Eh. I'm probably missing something.

As far as I can figure it is this. Ansom's _thinks_ that the B Dwagon platter are the A dwagons that hit his column last turn. He also believes that most of them are at least lightly wounded, and the center hex contains the most heavily wounded, to protect the ones most likely to be croaked from counter attacks.

The effectiveness of his chosen strike force against the dwagons is dubious, tho. It may be that he's chosen low attack, high defence units as the bulk of them to assist in weathering the storm of Dwagons that will occur after the uncroaked Warlords are recroaked.

[geez3r]

Okay, might as well through my theory into the hat. Warlords allow their units to selectively attack incoming targets. Therefore, they can choose whether or not to attack incoming units. Vinnie's bat saw 3 dragons in the farthest hex, and X amount of dragons in the 5 other hexes previously.

crackpot theory:

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That being said, is it possible that the warlord in the furthest hex actually had alot of dragons in that hex, but used just 3 to attack, while the rest hid in the forest? When the non-warlord hexes attacked, he had some dragons takes flight and not be seen by them. In this fashion, it could appear to be the weakest hex and instead be the strongest, effectively being a trap requiring no movement at all.

[teratorn]

crackpot theory:

Well, Vinny and Ansom know the rules, so I don't think that's possible. The way they acted is like you can't hide from view in a forest. Unless they have some tunnels there I would assume no hidden dwagons.

About the numbers, check this image:


Using Parson and the dwagon as scale, there are at least 20x80=1600 gobwins in that rectangle, and that's only one out of many (there were 4 seen in previous images, and this suggests at least one line of two more rectangles). The numbers are really huge.

OK, now you're just making fun of me. You're talking about millions of troops on Ansom's side. That's just not this game, which is about individuals and small groups, not the Eastern Front in WWII.

??? Then how many gobwins would you assume in GK's parade?

In the images, in the siege attack one can estimate thousands of marbits on those hexes. I wouldn't say a million but something on the order of 100,000.

[Airshark]

Okay, might as well through my theory into the hat. Warlords allow their units to selectively attack incoming targets. Therefore, they can choose whether or not to attack incoming units. Vinnie's bat saw 3 dragons in the farthest hex, and X amount of dragons in the 5 other hexes previously.

crackpot theory:

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That being said, is it possible that the warlord in the furthest hex actually had alot of dragons in that hex, but used just 3 to attack, while the rest hid in the forest? When the non-warlord hexes attacked, he had some dragons takes flight and not be seen by them. In this fashion, it could appear to be the weakest hex and instead be the strongest, effectively being a trap requiring no movement at all.

It doesn't make sense that units that have actually been in the hex (including Vinnie's bat) wouldn't be able to see what was in the hex. What if the first batch of Woodsy Elves had won (i.e. killed the three dwagons they thought they were facing)? Is it possible that Ansom could (theoretically) have ended his turn and had units of both sides end the turn in the same hex?

Now, I can imagine where they couldn't tell how many hits each dwagon had taken before they arrived.

You know, the problem with this is that we probably won't find out the contents of the center hex even on Saturday, and maybe not even the following Tuesday. I assume we'll see another shot of Stanley and Parson first.

[Overdark]

I can not see Lord Stanley regarding the loss of 3 of his 27 B-dwagons as a small loss.

Your lack of vision (and memory) does not equal Stanley: Mad.

Stanley was ok with Trading a Blue for Julian's capture. Trading 2 more dragons, the "weaker" ones, for the entire colum of undefended Siege and Heavy Units is a No-Brainer.