Erf 109, Parson's Klog 11

[dr pepper]

If nothing else, uncroaked should be good for soaking up initial attacks, which would be useful if you can fool the enemy into thinking you've got troops of higher quality so they lead with their best. In a turn based game with no takebacks that could be a fatal error.

Speaking of levelling up and gaining powers, isn't it about time for the rest of Parson's sword to arrive? My guess is that he'll gain a leadership bonus, but only if he personally leads. Otherwise, he'd be getting a swagger stick, not a sword.

As for the klogs, i like them, they add both flavor and information. They kind of remind me of back in the mid 70's when i was playing D&D at a game store run by true old time wargamers. Before desktop publishing, or even simple wordprocessing, they were already enhancing their campains with newsletters in game documents. One time, when they were doing the England under Cromwell, the Commonwealth side made an expedition into Ireland to put down a catholic rebellion. This was accompanied by a carefully crafted poster on the wall by the sand table with a proclamation from the anglican archbishop of Dublin, declaring that all inhabitants would be required to pay their back tithes. It was of course, not actually part of the game.

That's my favorite way of viewing a wargame: from the inside.

[Suicide Junkie]

There is no evidence ground units can "fight" back agianst air units unless the air unit actually lands. This is shown by how Parson surgically killed off multiple siege units even though there were thousands of ground pounders present. There was no reason air corps is able to do the same thing and surgically remove key units such as golems or knights or worse caster and warlords.

When Parson was attacking the siege. The "Nom Nom Nom" panel used in the motivators thread.
When attacking the ground units, the dragons did have to descend, and at least the one unit in the stack they were attacking got a chance to fight back. The battle bears didn't do so well, but neither did the marbits. Parson is smart enough to have his dwagons not descend into counterattack range unless it is absolutely necessary to do so during the attack.

If you're attacking ground units they get to fight back. If you're not attacking ground units, but still in the hex, only archers and air units get to fight you.

Otherwise it would be trivial to wipe out most of the column just by carpet bombing the ground units with dwagons, and avoiding the few hexes with significant air defense.

[Chewy]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0056.html

which i already said "if they don't land" That unit had its feet down. From the other panels those dragons are in low altitude, but still out reach. In the panel just before nom nom nom you can see the red dragon do a dive and swipe off a battle bears head. Thats dam close to the ground yet he does the dive w/o any noticeable retaliation.

[Suicide Junkie]

Edited in below:
Parson is smart enough to have his dwagons not descend into counterattack range unless it is absolutely necessary to do so during the attack.

[rosebud]

Secondaries win the game not main characters. Heros just make winning the game easier.

Counterpoint. One. Number Two. And, yes, I know you'll complain about those, too.

But air defenses are not deus ex machina. They are assaulting a fixed fortification with an extensive amount of time to plan and no reason to hold back. And as Wanda confirmed, she used up most of the defenses. Keep in mind -- had Stanley not bolted, Ansom and some or all of Vinny, Jillian, and the Archons might have become past tense and the pliers captured. Compared to that outcome, losing one Archon and the bulk of the Allied longer-range secondary fliers is a much less harmful outcome. And -- don't forget -- the fliers are about to be reinforced by Charlescomm.

Parson complains he has no air power. He whips out ultra mega super death beam from nowhere which wipes out a huge amount of the enemies air power which effectively secures a major hole in his defense in less then one turn. I'd call that pretty damn convenient.

Useful, yes. But keep in mind he has not seen the air defenses in action before. And he still has no air power. Air defense is not he same as air power. Perhaps he has one uncroacked archon that can fly, but it is presumably not of the level what the dwagons can do.

You have very good points, but please consider that a one massive shot air defense was not unreasonable nor enough to seal a stalemate or victory. Parson has already stated that the Alliance could crush them if they poured all their forces in rather than holding back. Gobwin Knob is still fighting an outnumbered battle for its survival.

[ishnar]

The air spell was pretty dues ex machina. One spell or multiple dun matter was wide area of effect and deals large amounts of damage which effectively wipes out one of thier biggest threat or at least weakening it severely even with heavy leadership bonus from 2 high ranking commanders and 3 supporting archon. Since there is no real AAR yet for the damage dealt im taking klog 11 as the remainder of the air forces.

Hrm, you seem to be missing a few things here. It wasn't deus ex machina because 1. We knew about it before hand. There is no "Surprise, we have air defenses!" 2. Parson had the ability to use it and chose not to. Main Characters have no control over deus ex machina events. 3. It was NOT their biggest threat. You don't conserve firepower for the biggest threat and allow yourself to get buzzed. In fact, it was not a threat at all since Jillian didn't plan on fighting. But Parson didn't know that. But he could still look at Jillian's forces and judge that they were "not the main attack." Which means there is another air capable force out there that is even stronger than Jillian's.

[SteveMB]

But he could still look at Jillian's forces and judge that they were "not the main attack." Which means there is another air capable force out there that is even stronger than Jillian's.

Not necessarily -- my read is that Parson concluded that Ansom's air forces were going to harass GK, but the "main attack" would be mostly ground-based (ergo, an air incursion that wasn't accompanied by a movement of ground forces was not the "main attack").

[Slayn82]

(Note:English is not my primary language, sorry about any mistakes)

Well, i've been thinking;

we know Sizemore can dig the ground easily, like a mole; but can the marbits and the coalision forces do it as well? Even with picks, the marbits must dig slower than a caster who is able to move the ground. So, if tunnel collapses are used to slow and delay that part of the attack, then technically part of the attacking force is out of picture, while taking cirurgical attacks.

Its like the Maze spell in D&D. Its not exactly killing the target, but putting it out of picture, in the bench, while you deal with something more significant.

Now, about the walls, if wounded units can be put on the walls, adding attack power while tacking no damage themselves, so the rotation of attackers can be devastating to the poor Webinar forces. Because teorically, the entire city could be put to strike his side of the battle, while reacting to the coalision attacks in their turn. Add that Sizemore could theorically separate parts of Webinar forces, allowing then to advance until the Rock Gollens, just to be smashed. Ouch.

And about the constant argument of fighting outnumbered, it remenbers me the Game Boy Advance game Yggdra Union. 4 Units kicking 20 in battle. Heh.

The bad ting in Ansons side seens to be the lack of notheworthy casters. This and the fact that Stanley's side to me seems to behave in the higher power/upkeep side overall.

[Arkenputtyknife]

we know Sizemore can dig the ground easily, like a mole; but can the marbits and the coalision forces do it as well? Even with picks, the marbits must dig slower than a caster who is able to move the ground.

There are many many many marbits, but only one Sizemore. He may be able to dig faster than any one group of marbits, but while he's dealing with them, the other groups will be advancing rapidly. If there are enough digging groups (and there are certainly enough marbits), their overall progress would exceed Sizemore's ability to counter them.

[maus]

{Scrubbed}

[SteveMB]

Now, about the walls, if wounded units can be put on the walls, adding attack power while tacking no damage themselves

Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly, but are you saying that wounded units wouldn't take (further) damage in combat? Why not?

[Suicide Junkie]

The idea is that the defense strength of the walls is proportional to the number of units on the walls. They would not be attacking, just boosting the wall's hitpoints, or maybe doing damage control where the siege engines strike.

If there is no combat, just siege action, then it doesn't matter how wounded the wall units are.

[Wender]

The klog is interesting, but I'm still digesting the implications of the illustration above it.

Jillian is, of course, crushed. She has to face up to the fact that she was wrong about the entire nature of her relationship with Wanda, and about Wanda herself. She has to face up to the fact that she learned this by spectacularly blowing the mission that Ansom stuck his neck out to give her, and likely endangering his business relationship with Charlescomm (or at least forcing him to pay the mother of all security deposits for the expected reinforcements, possibly severing the relationship if the price is too high for Ansom—or for the people around and above him). Jillian may also have to come clean about her relationship with Wanda to Vinny.

Vinnie is pissed, but not at Jillian. He's never considered her trustworthy to begin with, so this is just more bad judgment on her part. No, he's pissed at Ansom for putting love above duty and putting her in charge of a crucial mission in spite of her poor record and her known impulsiveness. The relationship with an enemy caster will not help, but again his anger will be directed at Ansom. All of Vinnie's worst suspicions about Ansom's motives are being confirmed, rapidly and graphically.

The Archons have lost all their moxie. They may get better and turn into ruthless killing machines or they may just be demoralized to the point where they're not as effective. If not, the sight of their undead comrade might just break them. Hard to say. They're not in fighting form now.

Kudos to Rob and Jamie for setting it up so that for this devastating panel the party is wearing their lighthearted "dance fighting" outfits. That just twists the knife, beautifully.

[Calmness]

Hmm I never really saw the Klogs as lazy, i think it's a great way to get a look into Parson's mind; better than a crapload of thought bubbles, at least. Nobody is forcing you to read though so fell free to drop out maus, some of us like the comic still.

On topic: seems like Jillian doesn't hate Wanda just yet, maybe they can make up someday. That is assuming Wanda isn't completely evil though...

[ideasmith]

Hmm I never really saw the Klogs as lazy, i think it's a great way to get a look into Parson's mind; better than a crapload of thought bubbles, at least. Nobody is forcing you to read though so fell free to drop out maus, some of us like the comic still.

On topic: seems like Jillian doesn't hate Wanda just yet, maybe they can make up someday. That is assuming Wanda isn't completely evil though...

...or that Jillian might be willing to make up with a completely evil Wanda. This seems unlikely but hasn't (to my knowledge) been ruled out.

[charles]

I'm sure this has been said a thousand times but I can't be bothered reading every comment before I post sorry.

NOTES IN THIS KLOG:
1. Units within the city have unlimited move during their turn
2. Only light units can enter the tunnels (exceptions are probably golems)
3. Outer Walls must be breached by seige to attack the garrison
4. Greater numbers of units make it harder to breach the Outer Walls
5. Ansome has moved his light units into the tunnels (with a weak leader)
6. Parson looses if all units in the Garrison area, are captured or killed.

PARSON'S PLAN (suspect):
1. Parson moves all units into the tunnels
2. Parson destroys all the hostile units in the tunnels
3. Parson moves all units back to the Outer walls to defend them.

CON: what if a small force is left in the tunnels and moves to the near-empty Garrison?

The other thing I'm wondering is that All units heal and recharge at the start of their turn. They fired off all the air defences in Jillian's turn but does that mean all those defences just recharged in time for Ansome's turn?

[dr pepper]

Ok, just realized something. In the "mourning" image, Jillian doesn't seem to be riding anymore. She appears to be standing in the air like the others. Except that she has no flying power. Am i missing something?

[ishnar]

Ok, just realized something. In the "mourning" image, Jillian doesn't seem to be riding anymore. She appears to be standing in the air like the others. Except that she has no flying power. Am i missing something?

the head sticking up just a bit to the left.

[SteveMB]

Vinnie is pissed, but not at Jillian. He's never considered her trustworthy to begin with, so this is just more bad judgment on her part. No, he's pissed at Ansom for putting love above duty and putting her in charge of a crucial mission in spite of her poor record and her known impulsiveness. The relationship with an enemy caster will not help, but again his anger will be directed at Ansom. All of Vinnie's worst suspicions about Ansom's motives are being confirmed, rapidly and graphically.

The question of just what Vinny thinks of Jillian is interesting. Mostly, we've seen him probing Ansom on the subject of what he thinks of her, in much the same way he drew out some implicit admissions of Ansom's real motivations for leading the war against Stanley.

I think "reliable" might be a more accurate term for "trustworthy" for describing his reservations -- he doesn't seem to suspect her of being an outright turncoat the way Webinar does, but certainly has a more realistic view than Ansom about her judgment.

[Wender]

The question of just what Vinny thinks of Jillian is interesting. Mostly, we've seen him probing Ansom on the subject of what he thinks of her, in much the same way he drew out some implicit admissions of Ansom's real motivations for leading the war against Stanley.

Those are exactly what I was thinking of. Finally, Ansom's motivations are the only ones that matter. Jillian's motivations are the reason she lobbied for this mission and the reason she blew it, but Ansom is finally responsible as the leader who gave her the mission and delegated her the authority in the first place. Vinny has to be wondering if the less than pure motivations that he wrote off as tics are actually, and fatally, clouding Ansom's judgment.

I think "reliable" might be a more accurate term for "trustworthy" for describing his reservations

I agree, that's exactly what I was trying to get at. Thanks.

Although, now that you mention Webinar, there was a kernel of truth to what he suspected. Jillian had always assumed that she and Wanda were a "side" of sorts, that Wanda's rejection of her entreaties to run off together were just a function of the dom/sub relationship in the prison. Perhaps at one time it was even true. Now? Not so much.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

rant

The top of the comic reads:
"Updates Tuesdays and Saturdays before midnight (Eastern Standard Time). Usually."

Plus, if you participate on the forum, you can see a sticky with Update Schedule Statement which states in the first line, in bold "Random, Unannounced, and As We Can"

Again, it's interesting to do a "search all post by this user".

I think this is getting stale and i should we wiser and do what other more active forum members do: just ignore it.

OnTopic: i don't remember who responded to me, but isn't it still Ansom's turn? Wanda fired the defenses as an engagement with Ansom´s forces, and i guess she can uncroack while it's still the enemy's turn (at least inside the city).
Wow, if that's the case, a fully functional Wanda is freaking scary. A war of attrition in which each casualty turns into an enemy soldier next turn. Plus the caster bonus for undead. Wonder how many units she can uncroak in one turn (might be only 1 special unit, and probably several infantry or non-special units... or not, who knows. It's still to see what properties the undead-Archon has).

[DigoDragon]

I'd say "break", no - but as in any game, you find some rules that tend to be more or less open to "favorable" interpretation.

Thank you, that feels better worded then my original question. I do feel that being able to use the rules creatively is Parson's secret advantage. He managed to knock out 40% of Ansom's seige with hit-n-run dragons.

[SteveMB]

When Parson was attacking the siege. The "Nom Nom Nom" panel used in the motivators thread.
When attacking the ground units, the dragons did have to descend, and at least the one unit in the stack they were attacking got a chance to fight back. The battle bears didn't do so well, but neither did the marbits. Parson is smart enough to have his dwagons not descend into counterattack range unless it is absolutely necessary to do so during the attack.

If you're attacking ground units they get to fight back. If you're not attacking ground units, but still in the hex, only archers and air units get to fight you.

Otherwise it would be trivial to wipe out most of the column just by carpet bombing the ground units with dwagons, and avoiding the few hexes with significant air defense.

Parson refers to the enemy air units being free to "buzz the city at will" (except for GK's small contingent of archers). That suggests that he's worried that Ansom might turn his tactic of selectively taking out high-value targets against him.

In fact, the Coalition air units (at least the faster ones) are going after Stanley, but Parson has no way of knowing that -- indeed, he has no way of knowing that anybody on the Coalition side suspects that Stanley has bugged out. At this point, he can't do much about enemy air power except hold what's left of his air defenses in reserve.

[JazzManJim]

NOTES IN THIS KLOG:
1. Units within the city have unlimited move during their turn

This seems to me easily the most important bit of information. This just potentially doubled (or maybe tripled) Parson's forces.

So long as Ansom brings his attacks in discreet waves, which it seems to me he's preparing to do, Parson doesn't have to split his forces more than the terrain dictates he must. So, air units can help defend the walls. Wall units can back up the tunnel defenders. Tunnel defenders can help defend the walls. And all of them can defend the garrison, too.

In addition, since Parson has set up the tunnels with switchbacks and dead-ends (so far as I can see), Ansom's units will have to expend a lot of move to get where Parson wants them while his will not (since his are considered "in-city" and Ansom's aren't). This means that Ansom's forces won't be able to maneuver on their defensive phase.

Parson can also attack from each zone as well, which seems to me a pretty big thing.

[innovan]

Vinnie seems very unvampire and just ordinary human now.

There may have been a levelling down of characters. And they appear turned to stone --perhaps they are paralyzed until next turn?

[Vreejack]

Vinnie seems very unvampire and just ordinary human now.

There may have been a levelling down of characters. And they appear turned to stone --perhaps they are paralyzed until next turn?

It is not clear exactly how Vinnie is a vampire in the first place, except for the bats and coffin, but consider that a coffin is not used for burying people in Erfworld and seems little more than a curious sleeping device.

I suspect the cold, stoney look is a visual allusion to their current mental state. Vinnie is is upset and uncertain about Jillian, while Jillian is sad and upset about Wanda. The Archons are sad and upset about their comrade.

Does Jillian now suspect that Wanda was simply using her all along? It must look that way, but I doubt it is so simple. Wanda also seemed to feel betrayed by Jillian, but she is recovering her determination.

[Chewy]

Well I'd like to continue arguing the other points, but one point does make me concede. Your right its not dues ex machina since Air corps was going after stanely so I'll concede under this point.

[Suicide Junkie]

Well I'd like to continue arguing the other points, but one point does make me concede. Your right its not dues ex machina since Air corps was going after stanely so I'll concede under this point.

I do agree that if the fight had mattered to Gobwin Knob, it would have been a bad thing for the story.

It didn't, so the fight changed into a hint at the kind of defenses that might be thrown at ground forces that breach into range of the garrison zone next turn. And it also opens up a lot of new plot opportunities, particularly Stanley, Charlie, Vinnie and Jillian related ones...

[Aquillion]

This seems to me easily the most important bit of information. This just potentially doubled (or maybe tripled) Parson's forces.

Nope. Only during their turn, not during Ansom's.

Regarding the air defenses, while they were visually impressive, Parson's reaction (and his initial choice not to use them) strongly implies that, even with the knowledge he has on hand, he considers the fact that they were used here to be a bad thing.

And we know it's even worse -- Ansom didn't send all his air units after Stanley, only the ones with high move. He has some he was holding back. The ones he sent after Stanley were never going to participate in the siege in the first place (and might, now.) The ones he was holding back are definitely going to participate in the siege, and Parson now has much less to defend against them with. Parson didn't know that exactly, but his natural caution with only using his (apparently one-shot) defenses when he had to would have worked to his advantage; Wanda screwed things up.

Despite the mourning, these last few pages were not a victory for Gobwin Knob; the only thing that kept them from being absolutely catastrophic was that Wanda recovered, which is probably worth more than their fixed air defenses anyway (and is probably the main reason Parson isn't more upset over it.)

[SteveMB]

I suspect the cold, stoney look is a visual allusion to their current mental state. Vinnie is is upset and uncertain about Jillian, while Jillian is sad and upset about Wanda. The Archons are sad and upset about their comrade.

That's how I see it.

Does Jillian now suspect that Wanda was simply using her all along? It must look that way, but I doubt it is so simple.

The shock of Jaclyn getting blasted right after warning her that Wanda was not bound by a loyalty spell, and perhaps the feeling that things might have turned out differently if she hadn't paused to argue the point while Wanda rattled off the cheat-code incantation, might have broken down her last bastion of rationalization ("yes, Wanda went too far, but she was bound by Stanley's control, so it's really his fault, not hers"). That, and the implications if so, remains to be seen.

Wanda also seemed to feel betrayed by Jillian, but she is recovering her determination.

Looking back at what happened to Wanda, there seem to be two distinct elements: the mechanics of spell backlash and crushing emotional despair. The former produced a speech impediment. (Note that she was only able to muster two monosyllabic protests to the "Croak, not capture" order. That's unusual for her, and suggests that the spell backlash effect hit as soon as Jillian broke through her unrationalizable dilemma. The latter drove her into total withdrawal, as the utter fiasco (Jillian slipped loose from her control and turned against her, the battle lost and with it the last apparent hope for stopping the attack, Stanley dismissing her) hit home.

Whatever snapped Wanda out of her withdrawal (somehow becoming aware that Jillian was coming to talk?), she seems to believe that Parson might just pull a miracle out of somewhere.