101 The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 91

[lamguin]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0079.html

That is why Parson's height doesn't matter. Why would the men who croaked 5 dwagons and two warlords in one turn care if the other warlord is twoll sized? Boop me in the boop, people. Parson being tall is irrelevant to what's going on. They might be aware of his height via the thinkagram. They might not. It doesn't matter. If anything, it would make Ansom and crew discount Parson as an intelligent foe. Twolls aren't all that smart, remember. Though they CAN count to three.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0010.html

I'm assuming that the guy in this comic is a twoll and not just some random race. Not sure how the number of eyes factors in.

[Rockphed]

A battle of wits? Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

And Parson is Italian, no? *facepalm*

[kagato23]

I'm assuming that the guy in this comic is a twoll and not just some random race. Not sure how the number of eyes factors in.

It does say in her report that she killed a twoll. Maybe Bog is unusual, and most twolls are not cycloptian. Which would indeed mean that peoples first impressions of Parson would be that he's an oddly colored, very hairy, verbose twoll.

I'd suspect they'd call Human-Twoll hybrid, except I'm not sure if the concept of hybrids exists in a world where people pop.

[jcworking]

So, there are several ways this could go. Parson is obviously trying to get Ansom to lose his cool, having him do stupid things. I am undecided as to what I think he is exactly trying to accomplish, but it seems to me there are several possibilities.

1) Cause rifts in the coalition by having Ansom spout off about how great royalty in general, and he in particular, is, compared with the peons.

2) Goad Ansom into hasty, ill-conceived attacks, allowing Parson to hammer Ansom's forces through ambushes and such during Ansom's turn. Further, cause Ansom to end his turn with his forces in bad tactical positions, allowing Parson's newly healed forces to respond with a devastating counterattack on their turn using units heavily boosted by the presence of the Sizemore and (if she recovers in time) Wanda.

3) Cause fractures among the coalition once the non-Jetstone elements, particularly the Marbits and the Elves, suffer disproportionately heavy losses as a direct result of Ansom's hasty actions. Combined with his seeming casual disregard and near-contempt towards the non-Royals, this could cause enormous friction among the these erstwhile allies.

4) Further damage Ansom's standing by convincingly demonstrating that he, Parson, a commoner, is more than Ansom's match in terms of tactics and "moral fitness" to lead.

5) Cause doubts in Ansom himself by handing him a total defeat, again at the hands of a commoner.

David

This also what I was thinking, but the main thing is to get Ansom running into those tunnels against Webinar's advice. Ansom is a Warlord, not a king, if he comes off as reckless with Jetstone forces he might get yanked from the battle. This would pretty much break the coalition by itself. Jetstone does not seem to have a stake in this fight by all accounts, but they are going after Stanley like he defiled their capital. If Webinar could be needled into giving a report to his King that Ansom is unstable and making bad decision with Jetston forces, while Ansom himself drives a wedge into the coalition just as a big defeat is weighing them down.
Suffice it to say, they may decide Goblin's knob is not worth the hassel, as they are already pretty sure Stanley is not there.

[Lamech]

There is one wildcard in this whole thing, though. The one thought that keeps going through my head is that Parson is building up to some sort of mano-a-mano champion duel between Parson and Ansom. It really seems that the entire conversation is building up not only to have Ansom blow his cool, but to force him to demonstrate his superiority over Parson. I am not sure how Parson could structure that so that he would have a decent chance to win (like a previous poster, I am reminded of the duel of wits in the Princess Bride), but he may have some ideas. Maybe he is planning to steal the idea from the Princess Bride whole cloth? Not sure. Also, if there does come a one-on-one fight, I have to think that Parson's enormous advantage in height, weight and (presumably) strength would have to play some part. I doubt he is planning single combat, but you never know.

I don't think Parson will win with out some sort of weapon earth design. Ansom is a high level warlord, so he probably has super strength of some sort (for his size). Plus he is someone who has prepared for combat so he is probably as strong a fairly strong human from our world. Plus he is probably far better at fighting than Parson, so he can probably beat Parson to death with that large, blunt metal object he carries around. So, baring getting shot or bombed, the worst thing that could happen to Ansom is he takes a couple of hits and bleeds out, or picks up some stray microorganism and dies, but he would still be able to kill Parson.

So I'm think the duel is a no go.

[javcs]

Ah, but Ansom isn't really that big - in fact, he's much shorter than Parson and armed with a pair of pliers that take up most of the length of his thigh. Assuming that the pliers are normally sized for us, this gives him a height of a few feet, tops, whereas Parson is just huge by comparison.
There was also a theory kicked around that Parson is outside of the normal combat mechanics, and treats things as though they happened in the real world; thus, the pliers wouldn't do much. Either way, in terms of size, the Arkenpliers are tiny compared to Parson - and without magic they probably won't hurt him too much.
Haven't you ever seen where the big huge, slower guy just grabs the smaller faster guy and sits on him? Parson would probably crush Ansom if he did that.

[hajo]

Ansom isn't really that big

Ansom, Jillian, Wanda and Sizemore are all about the same size, and Parson is about the size of Bogroll.
Wanda is about half Parson's size, which makes her (and the other normal-sized erfworlders) about 1.00 - 1.20m

pliers that take up most of the length of his thigh. Assuming that the pliers are normally sized for us,
this gives him a height of a few feet

Magic items can be resized, and we have seen the pliers appear much larger when used to attack Manpower.

[fendrin]

There was also a theory kicked around that Parson is outside of the normal combat mechanics, and treats things as though they happened in the real world; thus, the pliers wouldn't do much. Either way, in terms of size, the Arkenpliers are tiny compared to Parson - and without magic they probably won't hurt him too much.
Haven't you ever seen where the big huge, slower guy just grabs the smaller faster guy and sits on him? Parson would probably crush Ansom if he did that.

Do you really think Parson is going to rely on theory? Particularly when it's his boop literally on the line? In a world where magic is real, and he knows jack about it?

No way.