Erfworld 130 The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 117

[Requiem_Jeer]

Very interesting turn of events.

I had a feeling that tubby dude was the sofa king representative.

[Knight13]

Looks like Ansom is going to do something stupid and heroic again.

[Lamech]

Yeah for stuipid heroics, does Ansom get stomped now? Well this will be fun! I wonder what death magic does Wanda have? Can Maggie, break Ansom's Mind? Will Ansom be able to overwhelm all those uncroaked? And umm... doesn't GK have archers and a little air defense left?

[Malanthyus]

Congrats on first post. ^_^

Anyway, taking Bets on Ansom's survival to the next turn? :D

[memnarch]

Ah, is this where Hamster thought that he would end up with the Archenpliers, because Ansom would come up personally to fight? Or am I just making things up?

[brob]

Duke Nozzle: hilarious. Gratuitous bum-view of ansom's keister: sofa-booping hilarious.

[Zeku]

Liked the redhead. Ansom's butt, not so much.

Id like to believe Parson knew Ansom would be unable to think clearly when taunted in this fashion, but it could be total luck. Ansom may actually do some serious damage here as well. Wanda hasn't been seen, the probability she is waiting to tear him a new one seems high, especially given Parson's declarations to Charlie.

[randomnondescri]

Guess we will soon find out what those Arkenpliers can do...

And whether Ansom is crazy like a fox... or just plain crazy.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Well the alliance is starting to crumble. Sofa-King is out. I'm willing to be whoever is with red head there (unaroyal?) will be cutting her losses as well. How many more will if Ansom is captured/croaked.

[zaitcev]

Regarding the "I'm sofa-king out" remark... It's humorous, but how does a person popped in Erfword knows to make it? The pun only makes sense to an import like Parson, and perhaps especially to someone trying to work around the boop block.

[memnarch]

Oh jeez, I just got the Sofa King comment too. (if you haven't yet, say it really fast)

[Malanthyus]

Personally I think this is both the worst, and the best possible decision Ansom could make under the circumstances. Thanks to the bonus it gives against Uncroaked, it's -possible- for him to open a breach for long enough to get the rest of his troops through. At the same time he marshalls the waning morale of his allies and remaining troops, something that will fall apart completely if this siege lasts much longer. Also, he realizes on some level that the true purpose of Parson's gambit is to simply buy time; which if he gets the breach now, Ansom ruins completely.

So in the final analysis, Ansom is simply maintaining the style of leadership he's shown before, a willingness to make unwise gambles for huge possible gains when he is given no "good" options. Crazy? Oh yes, but he isn't stupid.

[Narses]

In case you haven't noticed, most of the jokes only work when viewed by an outsider.
Kinda makes if the Titans have some relation to Earth...

[rgrekejin]

I dunno... we all seem to think that Parson is, strategy-wise, head and shoulders above anyone in this world, and that's probably true. However, for almost every major hit Parson has scored, Ansom has been able to counterpunch more or less effectively. Ansom at times appears to be the Grant to Parson's Lee... slowly beating him to death with superior numbers, despite inferior tactics. Which is still an option, even with the alliance starting to fall apart. However, some of Ansom's responses to Parson's gambits have been highly successful (killing the dragons over the lake springs immediately to mind) and let's face it: Ansom has a larger margin for error.

Despite all that, I still can't wait to see how Parson responds.

[zillion ninjas]

Liked the redhead. Ansom's butt, not so much.

I'm assuming this is some kind of balance for all those nice shots of Wanda early on. *shrug*

Also, which caster's hands are those in panel 2? Anyone we know?

Edit: never mind - that's an archon. I thought the hat and hair were actually part of a sleeve, or something.

[memnarch]

I'm assuming this is some kind of balance for all those nice shots of Wanda early on. *shrug*

Also, which caster's hands are those in panel 2? Anyone we know?

Random Archon I think.

[Angband]

"Duke Nozzle" is brilliant. Did Jamie and Rob have that name lined up before that Sarah Silverman video?

(That was the first place I heard the term used like that, at least)

[Yogi]

Ah, is this where Hamster thought that he would end up with the Archenpliers, because Ansom would come up personally to fight? Or am I just making things up?

The previous comic pretty much says that Hamster was hoping that Ansom wouldn't attack against these odds, and so the troops will buy them some time.

So, of course, Ansom is attacking in force the next tern.

[kynalvarus]

I dunno... we all seem to think that Parson is, strategy-wise, head and shoulders above anyone in this world, and that's probably true. However, for almost every major hit Parson has scored, Ansom has been able to counterpunch more or less effectively. Ansom at times appears to be the Grant to Parson's Lee... slowly beating him to death with superior numbers, despite inferior tactics. Which is still an option, even with the alliance starting to fall apart. However, some of Ansom's responses to Parson's gambits have been highly successful (killing the dragons over the lake springs immediately to mind) and let's face it: Ansom has a larger margin for error.

Despite all that, I still can't wait to see how Parson responds.

Ansom may be stupidly noble, but he's not suicidal. Those are mostly ultra-low-quality uncroaked, "the weakest kind" as Wanda told Parson. A warlord like Ansom, high level, flying, with the Arkenpliers should go through them like a lightsaber through Brie, even if Wanda is personally leading them. I doubt she will be up on the walls, so her bonus is probably diluted, just as Cesare's bonus was more potent on his personal stack than on the overall Transylvito stack in the canyon ambush.

Parson was clearly expecting something like this, so he's got to have something a lot more potent than uncroaked fodder ready to counterpunch and slam Ansom down before his siege and troops can get onto the wall to help him. Possibilities include, alone or in combination:

• Wanda and her elite uncroaked Archon and Pegataurs
• Bogroll
• The remaining KISS knights, perhaps with spidews
• Maggie, presuming Thinkamancy has any combat applications
• Parson himself, with his Sword of "Ruthlessness, Combat, and Leadership"

I think we're unlikely to see Sizemore or the Golems on the walls, as they got pretty well beaten up on GK's turn and are likely out of juice and very low on HP. We don't know how much combat the spidew cavalry saw, or what sort of shape they're in after the rout and mop-up of Webinar's Jetstones and marbits.

I don't think we'll see the end of Ansom, even though I expect Parson will find a way to defeat him. If I were Parson, I'd calculate that Ansom is worth far more alive than dead. If you want GK to survive and the RCC disbanded, I can't think of a better way than demanding Jetstone declare peace and leave the Coalition in exchange for Ansom's release.

[kreszantas]

Making a breach before actually creating one goes against, the plan that does not have a plan theory. Ansom is actually doing something instinctive instead of his usual get his ducks all in arow mentality. He seen how that has been turned against him and he is rightfully the one that has to fix it.

The others well that remains to be seen, can Ansom actually ORDER them to attack as part of the alliance being under his banner, or can they choose not to?

That is the one piece of info I feel is lacking with this latest update! And thanks Rob, Jami for a great story transition to Ansom.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

Par for the course for Ansom. We've seen it before. You could have almost seen it coming.

It's heroic and probably unwise especially since the brawn and the brains are away. But that is what makes Parson's trap work and why he promised Charlie the he would have the Arkenpliers.

I wonder if the Mathemancy watch takes intangibles -- like Vinnie's wisdom and Jillian's invincibility -- into account.

It would be pointless to argue what would have happened it Ansom had not listened to Jillian though I'm sure some thread will get around to it.



PS I think the outcome of Ansom's action is foregone but I can't wait to see how it turns out. Ansom's approach reminds me of the following quote

"Some times the only way out of a trap is to go into it."
-- Ethilrist from "A History of my Black Horse Troop" (Gregg Stafford)

Ethilrist said to this Keener Than as both were pulled relentless into Hungry Jack despite their best efforts to run away. Sir Ethilrist turned around and allowed himself to be pulled in. He killed the the giant army devouring pumpkin by himself. Ethilrist became an ageless Hero that day and much later traveled to the Underworld to gain demon horses for his cavalry. Keener Than went his own way because he concluded that the great Hero had become a pompous ass.

[Angband]

Ansom may be stupidly noble, but he's not suicidal. Those are mostly ultra-low-quality uncroaked, "the weakest kind" as Wanda told Parson. A warlord like Ansom, high level, flying, with the Arkenpliers should go through them like a lightsaber through Brie, even if Wanda is personally leading them.

Yes, Ansom can crush these uncroaked effortlessly. But there's over a thousand of them, and at the moment he's totally alone. Ansom can only kill some each turn before they get to counterattack.

Overwheming numbers of weenies trying to swarm elite troops is a pretty standard wargame asymmetry.

[slayerx]

Y'know instead of a buttshot, i would have used a nice close up view of the pliers in hands... kind like in a strip way back when Ansom emphasized that stanely's warlords were uncroaked... "they are my problem" and a shot of the pliers would tell you EXACTLY how he was gonna deal with the "problem"

And man, i was confused by the sofa-king line... but when i got it, oh man did i laugh out hard... in erfworld, one must learn of ways to get around the "boops"

[DevilDan]

"I'm getting Sofa-King out of the coalition" or "out of here" would have sounded a bit more natural. I knew that there'd be at least some backlash to the rout in the tunnel. Don't forget that Parson had a 2/3 chance of making it, and that's before his gambit in the tunnels succeeded so we can assume that his odds are now higher than that.

We'll soon find out if Parson was astute enough to guess Ansom's reaction correctly: stick to the tried-and-true plodding deployment or ignore his normal strategies and go off half-cocked. In theory the "single point of assault" benefits Parson because it doesn't allow the RCC's superior numbers to be brought to bear efficiently as they would have been when fully surrounding the wall, something that Ansom was going to take an entire turn to do before the tunnel assault went pear-shaped. (Which means that if he wasn't bluffing about getting the arkenpliers, Parson wanted or expected Ansom to go on the offensive in person.)

[Zolem]

Ansom at times appears to be the Grant to Parson's Lee... slowly beating him to death with superior numbers, despite inferior tactics...

Actualy you have that backwards. Lee had the numbers which gave the South an advantage in the early war, but he sqandered them with bad tactics which is what enabled Grant to turn the war around...so Ansom is kinda like Lee with the numbers but poor tactics and Parson is Grant who's forced into teh defensive and needs a Geteysburg to urn the war around.

[SteveMB]

Ah, is this where Hamster thought that he would end up with the Archenpliers, because Ansom would come up personally to fight? Or am I just making things up?

Id like to believe Parson knew Ansom would be unable to think clearly when taunted in this fashion, but it could be total luck.

After mopping up the tunnel assault, Parson remarked that he didn't know how the enemy would react to having large numbers of uncroaked Jetstone infantry show up on their walls. Perhaps he was hoping to goad Ansom into doing this, realized that he couldn't count on it, but decided that he had to give it a try and hope it worked out for him.

[BarGamer]

Haha, check out panel 3. The redhead is only partially seen, but she's a gamma-burst away from going The Hulk on somebody.

Ok. So from looking at the Translvito VS Stanley battle, we can see that Parson could possibly replicate the effect. There is a warlord in the hex, that's one bonus. It stacks with the Chief Warlord bonus if Parson moves from the Tower to the Courtyard, if that's even necessary. Wanda and her heavies could also lead her own uncroaked, that's another bonus. Since the Tunnel battle is won, if Sizemore reinforces them with his golems, that could be another stack of defenders. And well, there's whatever troops are left, KISS, Spidews, Twolls, etc.

So while Parson isn't HOSED, unless he hasn't already, he'd better come up with something, quick.

[Lamech]

The pliers give Ansom super-powered attack vs. uncroaked, but so what they are already weak (or at least weaker than your average dwagon), so yeah he'll toast them easily, but they can still hit with Wanda's bonus plus Parson hex wide bonus, just like Ceaser and his bats. Well, not quite the bats have luckamancy so...

[Vercingex]

Actualy you have that backwards. Lee had the numbers which gave the South an advantage in the early war, but he sqandered them with bad tactics which is what enabled Grant to turn the war around...so Ansom is kinda like Lee with the numbers but poor tactics and Parson is Grant who's forced into teh defensive and needs a Geteysburg to urn the war around.

The victories Lee won on the Peninsula, at 2nd Bull Run/Manassas, at Fredericksburg, in the Wilderness, and at Chancellorsville especially is directly attributable to his superior tactics. At Chancellorsville in particular, Lee defeated a Union force twice his size by taking a gamble, splitting his force, and attacking the Union flank. Grant at Petersburg won by extending his larger force's lines until Lee's force was stretched so thin that a break was inevitable.

[Clintodon]

Dang - looks like Parson rolled a natural 20 on his Psyops attack vs. Ansom, and some nice rolls vs. the Coalition to boot (so to speak). I'm wondering about Wanda's Uncroaked bonus too - if Ansom is basing his assault on a perception of these as really weak Uncroaked, and Wanda has enough juice to power some of 'em up, Ansom just might find himself in over his head before he gets backup. (Perhaps Wanda can pull something with her aerial squad?) And we still don't know what Maggie can do when things get tough, though that comment from one Coalition guy about Ansom being "brain-lashed" sure suggests that Thinkamancers have some interesting tricks up their sleeves.

Ah, well - as always, we'll find out in the coming panels. *Applauds the authors, and goes for popcorn.*