Erfworld 81, page 75

[SteveMB]

So, does a Wet Willy qualify as aggression, or not?

It qualifies as sufficiently cool to be treated as a free bit of business that doesn't actually affect combat.

[Jasdoif]

The Man says, in Klog #6: Flying stacks with a commander can selectively engage non-fliers on their own turn. (emphasis added)

Thus both of you are wrong; Ansom could not selectively target the warlords. This is supported by the canon in Erfworld 69: Jillian needs the Archons to punch through other stacks so she can reach the warlords.

I don't see the klog saying that fliers can't selectively target other fliers, probably because Parson's plan didn't involve it.

Also, I'm pretty sure Jillian's selectively targeting Jenkins here, seeing as he's a target she selected. The "let me at the warlord" looks to be a different implication then selective targeting, possibly a situation where the individual units are on a two-dimensional layout and some dwagons needed to be "moved" for Jillian to have a clear path to Jenkins.


And since I was saying Ansom could selectively target the numerous wounded dwagons as well as the warlords, I'm not quite as concerned about the implications of needing to break through dwagons to get to the warlords. A bunch of those dwagons are also main targets.



Huh, that gets me to thinking...Is the 8-unit stack a hard limit? If leadership grants a bonus to all units in your stack, it would make the most sense to combine all units into a single stack with them, to maximize the bonus use. Come to think of it, it'd also make more sense to pile as many units into a stack as possible commander-or-not, since a stack of 16 that loses one still has the same bonus, while one of two stacks of 8 that loses one gets a reduction.

[SteveMB]

Huh, that gets me to thinking...Is the 8-unit stack a hard limit? If leadership grants a bonus to all units in your stack, it would make the most sense to combine all units into a single stack with them, to maximize the bonus use. Come to think of it, it'd also make more sense to pile as many units into a stack as possible commander-or-not, since a stack of 16 that loses one still has the same bonus, while one of two stacks of 8 that loses one gets a reduction.

I suspect not; if it were a hard limit it would have been simpler for Parson to write that a stack can have up to 8 units.

The group Ansom sends to follow Jillian has nine units (2 bears, Dora, sourmander, unicorn, elephant, Webinar, cat, giraffe), though it's possible that it consists of two stacks.

[Maelore]

I am finding myself agreeing with the Surfing Halforc that Parson made a truly massive mistake that is characteristic of people new to hex grid, turn based wargames. And it is completely inexplicable given his overview of enemy deployments and movement rates. The mistake was he left his A stack within the remaining movement range of the units he was trying to ambush.

I have played a lot of turn based wargames over the years and one thing you learn real fast is to account for all possible movement remaining to the enemy. Far too many systems allow for 'Reaction' moves by non engaged enemy forces into nearby battles to discount the possibility. This combined with Jillian just happening to move into the hex with the dwagons strains credibility.

[Wender]

I am finding myself agreeing with the Surfing Halforc that Parson made a truly massive mistake that is characteristic of people new to hex grid, turn based wargames. And it is completely inexplicable given his overview of enemy deployments and movement rates. The mistake was he left his A stack within the remaining movement range of the units he was trying to ambush.

I have played a lot of turn based wargames over the years and one thing you learn real fast is to account for all possible movement remaining to the enemy. Far too many systems allow for 'Reaction' moves by non engaged enemy forces into nearby battles to discount the possibility. This combined with Jillian just happening to move into the hex with the dwagons strains credibility.

Jillian (mounted) and her elite gwiffons have 52 move.

Nobody knows what the Archons are capable of, but it's obviously at least that good.

How do you simultaneously take out as much of the seige as possible and account for a powerful aerial force that's capable of covering the entire battlefield?

The seriousness of GK's predicament doesn't seem to have really sunk in. There are no good options. The only chances for victory (which means a break of the seige, not necessarily a full military defeat of the Alliance) lie in overlooked details, exploitable mechanics, Hail Marys, that sort of thing. GK doesn't have supremacy in any category except (until just now) battlefield intel, which as Parson put it lets them know the exact size and speed of the rhino that's charging them. [It reminds me of the joke about the convicted engineer who asks to be put in the guillotine face up so that he can figure out why the blade hasn't been dropping.]

The only way to plan for Jillian was to imperil Ansom. Jillian would then drop everything and rush to his aid, as he was told she would. Had it not been for Jaclyn taking the initiative and breaking one of Charlie's rules, she would have done that exact thing and GK would be spending this turn wiping out the rest of the Alliance's siege capacity while its leadership huddled in a forest clearing like a bunch of idiots. He rolled the dice and got snake eyes. It happens.

[SteveMB]

Jillian (mounted) and her elite gwiffons have 52 move.

Nobody knows what the Archons are capable of, but it's obviously at least that good.

How do you simultaneously take out as much of the seige as possible and account for a powerful aerial force that's capable of covering the entire battlefield?

There were several options, each with its own advantages and risks. The fact that they're still being hashed back and forth by their advocates is proof in and of itself that Parson's plan was consistent with his stated gaming skill level. Perhaps he made mistakes, but they weren't blatant n00b goofups -- if they were, the debate would already be over.

The only way to plan for Jillian was to imperil Ansom. Jillian would then drop everything and rush to his aid, as he was told she would. Had it not been for Jaclyn taking the initiative and breaking one of Charlie's rules, she would have done that exact thing and GK would be spending this turn wiping out the rest of the Alliance's siege capacity while its leadership huddled in a forest clearing like a bunch of idiots. He rolled the dice and got snake eyes. It happens.

I don't think he was counting on the spell -- he says he distrusts it because he doesn't understand it. (Interestingly, this parallels Wanda's own need for control, except that Parson doesn't take it to a pathological extreme.) My read is that he figured that Jillian would either head directly for a rendezvous with Ansom (insert joke here) or run a search pattern, and figured that the lake was out of the straight-line path for the former and was as good as he could hope for for avoiding the latter. Then he got blindsided when she shifted from a search pattern to a direct run for the donut hole and Ansom, putting her right on course for the lake.

Edit: Re-reading the page where Parson states misgivings about the suggestion spell, he begins with "But it feels like I'm counting on that a little too much at this point." Perhaps he did count on it while setting up his plan, and now is having belated second thoughts?

[Maelore]

Jillian (mounted) and her elite gwiffons have 52 move.

Nobody knows what the Archons are capable of, but it's obviously at least that good.

How do you simultaneously take out as much of the seige as possible and account for a powerful aerial force that's capable of covering the entire battlefield?

Thats just the problem though. Parson knew exactly where Jillian was starting from and how much movement her max movement units had. With this information he should have been able to still maximize his attacks on the column and place his damaged dwagons outside her pathing to the trapped forces. This combined with leaving that stack inside the movement radius of Ansom himself is mind boggling. Considering that looking at the larger map a one hex shift would have kept them over the lake and outside Ansom's move while keeping them well inside their own striking range.

I accept that the plot says it had to happen this way, but when the information provided presents Parson as a master strategist, this type of sudden incompetence damages the story in my opinion.

[SteveMB]

This combined with leaving that stack inside the movement radius of Ansom himself is mind boggling. Considering that looking at the larger map a one hex shift would have kept them over the lake and outside Ansom's move while keeping them well inside their own striking range.

The problem is that we don't know how many siege-unit stacks he would have had to forego hitting to preserve that one extra move for all the A dwagons.

[Bongos]

That would'nt really be a problem, he could have hit all the rest of the seige next turn, which is why Ansom was so keen to get those dwagons in the first place, which led to the trap and where we are now.

Parson knew some of the air force might be able reach but it did not know the location of the A dwagons, he also knew Jilian was under the spell.

Jilian finding the dwagons and then breaking the spell, thats a lot of plot to swallow. Sure she knew the dwagons were close to Ansom, it's still a lot of plot.

Ansom coming to the rescue in a knick of time, knowing the dwagons location then getting there so fast, now that's also a lot of plot to swallow...

[Lamech]

Jilian finding the dwagons and then breaking the spell, thats a lot of plot to swallow. Sure she knew the dwagons were close to Ansom, it's still a lot of plot.

Ansom coming to the rescue in a knick of time, knowing the dwagons location then getting there so fast, now that's also a lot of plot to swallow...

Jillian got a little lucky on finding the dwagons. Now breaking the spell we knew from when it was first introduced that it was subtle control, Wanda was being over confident.

On Ansom coming in the nick of time, I don't know why tool counted that as a loss. He got the Arkenpliers which was what he really wanted. Not only that he got three new powerful warlords. So lets see here trading about half of his Arkenhammers power (probably temporarly) for the Arkenpliers and and inproved command corp. Sound like a good deal to me.

Also Stanley could have taken his most valuable assests (Sizemore, Parson, Wanda, trimancer, warlords,and his now THREE artifacts) with him and ran. Stanley just flipped out, Parson probably wasn't expecting Stanley to get mad over this.

[teratorn]

I accept that the plot says it had to happen this way, but when the information provided presents Parson as a master strategist, this type of sudden incompetence damages the story in my opinion.

Not really, that was the only chance he had. He had to make the most of it. Even if I knew that I had a 50% chance of Ansom finding the thing I would have risked it. It was Ansom that took a gamble and went for the riskiest action available to him. Vinny, for example, suggested a different course of action.

About being a failure, note that this means that GK's units on the walls will face roughly only half the siege they had to face before. Of course Parson set the goal too high (getting all siege), he should have said something like "I risk half of my dwagons to get half of their siege". Parson didn't really fail. His units on the walls have better chances now. Stanley is mad because Wanda failed him bigtime (all the loses can be attribute to Wanda) and he could almost taste the Arkenpliers.

Ansom coming to the rescue in a knick of time, knowing the dwagons location then getting there so fast, now that's also a lot of plot to swallow...

I still think the thinkagrams come with info regarding the sender and his position.

[Bongos]

All the things said above may be true, I guess my chagrin boils down to this..

Parson comes up with a great plan to achieve a specific objective and Ansom is able to overcome it through several strokes of luck.

Luck that Jilian found the dwagons, lucky that she broke the spell, it's even lucky the Archons were there, which is due to another failed plan which Vinnie luckily advised Ansom on.

Parson is playing the game well, and should be ahead, instead he seems to be a step behind because his opponent keeps geting lucky on the dice!

I guess that's the way some games go.

....and I'm sad the dwagons got cwoaked, their my favorites.

[Justyn]

All the things said above may be true, I guess my chagrin boils down to this..

Parson comes up with a great plan to achieve a limited objective and Ansom is able to overcome it through several strokes of luck.

Luck that Jilian found the dwagons, lucky that she broke the spell, it's even lucky the Archons were there, which is due to another failed plan which Vinnie luckily advised Ansom on.

Parson is playing the game well, and should be ahead, instead he seems to be a step behind because his opponent keeps geting lucky on the dice!

I guess that's the way some games go.

....and I'm sad the dwagons got cwoaked, their my favorites.

On top of that, Ansom and Vinny had just enough remaining move to attack the A dwagons. I would call that fairly lucky.

The Jetstone (or the coalition at the very least) have no Lookamancers, but, do they have any Luckmancers?

[Jasdoif]

....which is due to another failed plan which Vinnie luckily advised Ansom on.

Whoa now...Ansom having someone competent on his side is "luck"? Maybe you're getting a little carried away, here.

[Lamech]

lucky that she broke the spell, it's even lucky the Archons were there, which is due to another failed plan which Vinnie luckily advised Ansom on.,

We knew from page 41 that Jillian couldn't be ordered to betray Ansom and the spell was subtle control, Wanda was overconfident and pushed the spell too far.
The only reason the Archons were there was because Stanley didn't hire them. Even if they weren't hired to protect Jillian they seemed to be able to get to the battlefield fast enough so Ansom could have hired them to kill the dwagons. Again not luck.

On Vinny Jasdoif says it quite well

Whoa now...Ansom having someone competent on his side is "luck"? Maybe you're getting a little carried away, here.

[fendrin]

random related thoughts:
*When Jillian reports killing the twoll and skellies, she knows her coordinates.
*Stanley tells Wanda he will 'book her the coordinates' of the magic items Jillian dropped
*The archons are told to travel to a vertain set of coordinates to meet up with Jillian and Webinar

It seems that every unit must have built-in GPS, or we would see more maps (non-tactical ones, more specifically), or people would be given directions or landmarks instead of coordinates.

[factotum]

Thats just the problem though. Parson knew exactly where Jillian was starting from and how much movement her max movement units had. With this information he should have been able to still maximize his attacks on the column and place his damaged dwagons outside her pathing to the trapped forces.

As has been said before, if "maximise" means anything less than "100% destruction" then the plan is a failure before it even starts. Even with just 10% of his siege left Ansom could presumably engineer a breach in Gobwin Knob's walls, and with a 25 to 1 numerical advantage he then just steamrollers everybody inside. The simple fact is, we don't know if placing those dwagons even 1 extra hex from the column would have thrown off the whole plan and allowed some siege to survive.

As for saying he could destroy the siege the turn after, one assumes that he has a very small window of opportunity while most of Ansom's fliers are out of position to pull this off. We know Ansom has a reasonably large force of fliers (he called them all to the front of the column in an earlier strip), so once they're in position to protect the remaining siege, it's game over for Gobwin Knob.

Fundamentally, Parson took a calculated risk with a massive potential reward if he pulled it off, and it wasn't his fault that some of the information he used to calculate that risk (e.g. Jillian going straight for Ansom, regardless of orders) turned out to be incorrect.

[Sky_Schemer]

Thats just the problem though. Parson knew exactly where Jillian was starting from and how much movement her max movement units had. With this information he should have been able to still maximize his attacks on the column and place his damaged dwagons outside her pathing to the trapped forces.

So many people keep making this argument. There's an assumption built into it that placing the dwagons somewhere both outside of Jillian's reach and inaccessible to the ground units was physically possible. Remember that he needed very specific terrain for the tactic and, later, for the trap: seven units of heavy forest plus a hex over water (to eliminate all ground units as a threat) and all of that had to be within range of the A dwagons and they had to be close enough to GK to allow the B dwagons to attack the column and reach home the following turn.

Parson took a calculated risk and Ansom got lucky. Luck like this happens, even in the "real" world, and it's not so hard to swallow. Making arguments like "Jilian should never have found them" and "he could have placed them elsewhere" are specious: all we've seen are tiny snapshots of maps. How people can make such sweeping claims about what was and was not possible based on so little information is really puzzling.

[Vreejack]

This goes agains my normal policy of not picking a post apart one by one.

Talking as a free action. I've seen plenty of jokes on this issue: characters trying to fillibuster their way out of a bad situation. Min/Max did it in Goblins, but I can't think of any others off the top of my head. You can only talk so long before it becomes an issue. Then you have to deal with the fact that it takes several minutes to talk, or give a speech, or whatever, and you need to allow for the passage of time.

I'll allow "Hey! Look behind you!" to be a part of a six second round. I won't allow "Four score and seven years ago..." or "I have a dream..." A warning can be short and reasonable, but girls chatting? It takes time. Relaying tactical information takes time. Moving two hexes takes time.



Also against my normal nature: Agreed. If I agree, I don't usually post that I agree. But each of the other "safer" methods would have reduced the total number lost. Parson put ALL of his most important eggs into one basket, then stood back and watched as Jillian, the Archons, Ansom, Vinny and the gwiffins stomped seven kins of Hell out of them. If Parson saw the risk (which he certianly should have!), he would have done something different.



Sure, but with the "You can only move so far" rule, Ansom would not be able to take out Manpower in hex 1, Leroy Jenkins in hex 3, AND Lady Phat Singh in hex 5, if that is where Parson had split them up. OR Put Manpower in with the 19 A's, and put LPS and LJ in hexes 3 and 5. Even if you lose one hex, you still keep the other two Warlords.

If you're going to put all your eggs in one basket, put ALL YOUR FREAKIN' EGGS IN ONE BASKET! I bet there would not have been any damn PWNZ0Ring if Ansom had jumped into the middle of 19 wounded A's and 24 full health B's!

I've been arguing this point for a while, and I've been slowly gaining support. I'd really like to find out I'm wrong, and that this wasn't a forced plot point, but I'm just not seeing it from anyone.

Parson KNEW the 19 A's would be weak, and would NOT have left them out with their collective assess hanging out in the wind! They, AND THE WARLORDS RIDING THEM, were simply too valuable to risk on a "gamble." Especially since he clearly didn't trust the spell Wanda put on Jillian!

Parson's plan was as follows:

Turn 1: Destroy as many siege as possible while limiting Ansom's ability to counter-attack

Turn 2: Depending on Ansom's actions, either finish off the seige or Ansom himself.

That was it, and it was executed flawlessly until Stanley intervened. Sure, Ansom made a perfect staging move, getting his strongest flight-capable attackers on the right hex, a possibility that Parson had mentioned, but in my experience your enemies almost always make perfect moves in strategic games if they are not utter fools like Stanley. Parson did everything he could to prevent that given his limited information, and I can only make one minor nitpick of his having used the wrong lake hex, since that one seems to have naturally been in the direct flight path for Jillian's return. But maybe he didn't have enough move to go one over or perhaps he was avoiding something else.

[fendrin]

I can only make one minor nitpick of his having used the wrong lake hex, since that one seems to have naturally been in the direct flight path for Jillian's return. But maybe he didn't have enough move to go one over or perhaps he was avoiding something else.

Ok, SteveMB has said this many times, so lets try a visual.
This I can't figure out how to do a hex map in ascii, so these are loose representations of the real map. We also do not know where Jillian started, but Parson would have. It doesn't matter where she starts, though. All three maps below have Jillian starting in the same place.


Key:
J = Jillian
. = empty space
* = Jillian's flightpath
b = b dwagons
a = a dwagons
A = Ansom

Direct Route
J................
.*...............
..*..............
...*.............
....*............
.....*...........
......*..........
.......bbb.......
....a..bAb.......
.......bbb.......

Indirect Route
J****************
...............*.
..............*..
.............*...
............*....
...........*.....
..........*......
.......bbb.......
....a..bAb.......
.......bbb.......

Another Indirect Route (Jillian's actual route)
J................
*................
*................
*................
*................
*................
*................
*......bbb.......
****a..bAb.......
.......bbb.......




Jillian was searching for some amount of time before she went towards Ansom, so presumably she took an indirect route. but which one? Impossible to tell, as there are an incredibly huge number of options. I have shown 2. One takes her to the a dwagons, the other doesn't. Presumably parson would have been smart enough not to put the a dwagons in a direct path, in case Jillian didn't search first.

Remember, Jillian doesn't know where the a dwagons are, so she cannot deliberately choose to encounter them. She got very lucky (or unlucky if you think from the perspective of her not wanting to hurt Wanda).

The point is the only way to GUARANTEE That Jillian would not have been able to find the a dwagons would have been to put them so far away they would not have been able to take out all of the siege.

[Vreejack]

Jillian was searching for some amount of time before she went towards Ansom, so presumably she took an indirect route.

No, she wasn't searching for anything as she did not want to find any dwagons. She was also at the limit of her move and did not have that much left to play with in a long, detailed search.

Also, it was a fairly certain thing that wherever the alleged dwagons might be, they were certainly very close to where Ansom was sitting, with the highest probability for them being in the immediately proximal unsearched hexes. If I were giving Jillian directions for how to use her limited move most efficiently, I would have instructed her to select an approach path that involved crossing over those unsearched lake hexes nearby. Presumably Ansom did the same, thus she had a 50-50 chance of stumbling on the dwagons, depending on which direction she was coming from. Parson should have stuck the dwagons in the farther lake hex in order to avoid such accidental discovery, but perhaps he had other concerns.

[SteveMB]

Ok, SteveMB has said this many times, so lets try a visual.
This I can't figure out how to do a hex map in ascii, so these are loose representations of the real map. We also do not know where Jillian started, but Parson would have. It doesn't matter where she starts, though. All three maps below have Jillian starting in the same place.

[ASCII maps snipped]

Jillian was searching for some amount of time before she went towards Ansom, so presumably she took an indirect route. but which one? Impossible to tell, as there are an incredibly huge number of options. I have shown 2. One takes her to the a dwagons, the other doesn't. Presumably Parson would have been smart enough not to put the a dwagons in a direct path, in case Jillian didn't search first.

Remember, Jillian doesn't know where the a dwagons are, so she cannot deliberately choose to encounter them. She got very lucky (or unlucky if you think from the perspective of her not wanting to hurt Wanda).

The point is the only way to GUARANTEE That Jillian would not have been able to find the a dwagons would have been to put them so far away they would not have been able to take out all of the siege.

Yes, that's pretty much what happened, as I read it. Note that Ansom did have a general idea of where to look for the dwagons (on the same side of the column as the ring trap, beyond the area searched by the bats but not too far beyond). Jillian would therefore have searched that area. The second indirect route (the one that ends up with Jillian encountering the dwagons) fits that criterion.

No, she wasn't searching for anything as she did not want to find any dwagons. She was also at the limit of her move and did not have that much left to play with in a long, detailed search.

She was conducting the search earlier in the turn -- she says so, and Webinar (who certainly isn't inclined to give her any benefit of the doubt) doesn't dispute it.

Also, it was a fairly certain thing that wherever the alleged dwagons might be, they were certainly very close to where Ansom was sitting, with the highest probability for them being in the immediately proximal unsearched hexes. If I were giving Jillian directions for how to use her limited move most efficiently, I would have instructed her to select an approach path that involved crossing over those unsearched lake hexes nearby. Presumably Ansom did the same, thus she had a 50-50 chance of stumbling on the dwagons, depending on which direction she was coming from. Parson should have stuck the dwagons in the farther lake hex in order to avoid such accidental discovery, but perhaps he had other concerns.

This I generally agree with. Note that Jillian did cross one of the other lake hexes, and thus would have found the dwagons if they'd been parked there (a 50-50 shot if Parson had decided to park the dwagons over one of the two lake hexes that were one hex further out).

[Caledonian]

Given that the dwagons had limited move remaining, can you find a better place to hide them?

Actually, I don't need to ask that question, because I already know that you know virtually nothing about the surrounding terrain.

So all of the unfounded speculation about how Parson screwed up, because obviously he could have found a better place to hide? Can it.

[Sky_Schemer]

Parson should have stuck the dwagons in the farther lake hex in order to avoid such accidental discovery, but perhaps he had other concerns.

Or perhaps they didn't have enough move to reach there.

So many people keep assuming that Parson could just place them anywhere he wanted. With limited move, and the restriction that they all had to end up in the same hex for protection, he likely had very few options.

[Maelore]

As has been said before, if "maximise" means anything less than "100% destruction" then the plan is a failure before it even starts. Even with just 10% of his siege left Ansom could presumably engineer a breach in Gobwin Knob's walls, and with a 25 to 1 numerical advantage he then just steamrollers everybody inside. The simple fact is, we don't know if placing those dwagons even 1 extra hex from the column would have thrown off the whole plan and allowed some siege to survive.

The problem with the assumption that he must destroy 100% of the siege to be successful is its false. As presented Ansom had enough siege to surround GK and engineer multiple simultaneous breaches around the perimeter. Using that assumption, reducing his siege to a level where he can only assault across one hex side would be a massive odds shift. The chance of a 100% sweep does not justify risking your only real offensive weapon(that we know of).

To address the comment above that even if placed over another lake hex Jillian would still have found them. That is true, but either of the other lake hex's would have been outside the remaining movement of Ansom's stack. It is the combination of her finding them and Ansom heroically arriving in the knick of time that is what is hard to swallow.

[Sky_Schemer]

It is the combination of her finding them and Ansom heroically arriving in the knick of time that is what is hard to swallow.

Eh....maybe. I see the latter as a nice bit of drama, even if a little cliche'. The former doesn't bother me.

I think what this scene emphasizes is how badly Wanda screwed up. When Jillian found the dwagons, it was Wanda's assurances that she would not attack that led to this disaster. Parson ordered his units not to attack, and this bought Jillian time to not only shake the spell, but send a thinkagram to Ansom and effectively telegraph her position.

Wanda also wasted precious seconds arguing the order to croak Jillian. Parson's order to have Manpower engage came only after The Tool intervened (note that the speech bubbles for those panels are happening in a different time line than the art...the art shows what happened after Parson gave Manpower his orders). Those seconds likely saved Jillian's life.

As a whole, this is a good bit of storytelling. Again, maybe a hint of cliche', but it had a very satisfying build-up.

[SteveMB]

The problem with the assumption that he must destroy 100% of the siege to be successful is its false. As presented Ansom had enough siege to surround GK and engineer multiple simultaneous breaches around the perimeter.

Ansom's plan was "hit it from all directions and pour through the first breach we get". Where does "multiple simultaneous breaches" enter into anything?

Even a small fraction of enough siege units to execute that brute-force plan would suffice to pick one spot and force a breach there, which is just as bad for GK, given Ansom's sheer numerical superiority.

To address the comment above that even if placed over another lake hex Jillian would still have found them. That is true, but either of the other lake hex's would have been outside the remaining movement of Ansom's stack.

Parson was "kinda hoping" Ansom would charge all the way into the center, but I doubt he based his deployments on the assumption that he would in fact do so -- he recognizes that Ansom isn't stupid.

[Sky_Schemer]

If you're going to put all your eggs in one basket, put ALL YOUR FREAKIN' EGGS IN ONE BASKET! I bet there would not have been any damn PWNZ0Ring if Ansom had jumped into the middle of 19 wounded A's and 24 full health B's!

Except you don't know that. You're just guessing. Remember that Jillian and the Archons had enough move to reach the center hex of the wagon wheel and they were held in reserve, so it's hard to believe your scenario would have ended any differently.

Though Parson's original plan was to put the A dwagons inside the wagon wheel, that was only because he thought Ansom had the same intelligence capabilities as GK, and that Ansom knew where they would be. The wagon wheel was to try and protect the A dwagons from a guaranteed attack, and it was the best possible defense he could organize.

Once he learned that Ansom did not have complete battlefield awareness, he opted to hide them instead, and use deceptive tactics to try and keep Ansom's forces away from them. That was a better bet by a long shot, because it provided the option of preventing an engagement all together.

Yes, it was risky. Yes, it failed. But it was hardly dumb, and it's far from a contrived plot point.

[teratorn]

Even a small fraction of enough siege units to execute that brute-force plan would suffice to pick one spot and force a breach there, which is just as bad for GK, given Ansom's sheer numerical superiority.

Well, GK doesn't need to spread its forces so thin now. On the walls GK can now have twice the number of units waiting to confront each siege unit. Half the siege down is good. We all expected Parson to obliterate Ansom's army, but from GK's perspective Parson probably made it possible for GK not to fall in the first round.

They may be more vulnerable to air attacks but even that is not sure. Gwiffons are not good for ground fighting, their job was to protect the siege towers from dwagons during the attack. Unipegataurs may be good for ground fight but we don't know.

My guess is that Ansom loses most of the marbits in the tunnels, most of the siege taking the outer walls, and reaches the inner citadel with lets say 3:1 odds. If this were a classic story Ansom's forces would even break the inner citadel only to be defeated when going for the tower (maybe Sizemore's doing).

I also wanted to see Parson win, but in a way this is good. This means we are going to see fighting in the walls. I think that is going to be pretty cool, in particular from a gaming perspective. There will be a lot of strategic planning, given the turn based nature of the fight.

[Wender]

There were several options, each with its own advantages and risks. The fact that they're still being hashed back and forth by their advocates is proof in and of itself that Parson's plan was consistent with his stated gaming skill level. Perhaps he made mistakes, but they weren't blatant n00b goofups -- if they were, the debate would already be over.

That was the point of my question: If Parson's plan was so bad, what would have been good? It's not enough to complain that his plan didn't work. What would?

That's a very difficult question to answer, and the difficulty arises from the fact that the Alliance is a vastly more powerful force.

Edit: Re-reading the page where Parson states misgivings about the suggestion spell, he begins with "But it feels like I'm counting on that a little too much at this point." Perhaps he did count on it while setting up his plan, and now is having belated second thoughts?

Yes, and that's not surprising, really. But given Jillian's range and raw power, he had nothing else to go on.

It wasn't a bad bet, actually, given that it took some real initiative by an Archon to slap Jillian back to her senses. As overconfident as Wanda was, the gambit failed not because it was doomed to, but because they wound up getting the worst case: Jillian discovering the dwagons, and Jaclyn unilaterally deciding to provide a service that Ansom hadn't paid for.