Erfworld 75, page 69

[ag30476]

And the warlord she mentioned in this comic could be Ansom.

ORLY??????

[Gaiwecoor]

:...makes me wonder if they wouldn't have been a better investment than Parson, who hasn't done anything too awesome recently.

By "recently," do you mean during the opponent's turn? I thought his hit-and-run tactics on the column worked out fairly well the last time he had a chance to act.

[DCR]

Hmm.

Well done, Jamie!

Start thinking, Parson. You need a satori in an awful hurry.

PLACE YOUR BETS! Wanda - executed quickly or slowly?

[Dwagon]

How about betting that Jillian will croak the archons just to even out the odds... ?

Even if this doesn't happen, I'm not sure team Ansom's gains that much of an edge. They still got 60% of their siege wiped out (if I recall correctly). And Parson still has some aces up his sleeves (no stats, out of the box thinking, new knowledge of spells, quite a lot of spell casters to toy with, traps in tunnels and maybe more?)

I'm sure we're bound to see more twists and plots before we can say one side is screwed over the other.

[Miklus]

Game over man, game over!

Stanley is gonna hit the roof...

Spoiler

Show

Well...Gobwin Knob can survive the loss of the dwagons as long as Ansoms seige gets taken out. Which will be very hard if the warlords get croaked (again). But if one or two of the three uncroaked warlords survive, he can pick up the "B" dwagons and (maybe) complete Parsons plan to remove the seige.

[Vondre]

Holy boop! Their boop is booped!

But dang. That's some awesome artword, Jaime.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

Well, looks like it's time for Parson to shift to plan "B."

The primary long range dwagons are now in HUGE trouble, so he is going to have to rewrite his plan with just the "B" dwagons, and promote Bogroll and a few others to "Warlord" status.

Meh... OotS wasn't over the first time Roy and Co. took out Xykon, Erfworld isn't over yet, either.

[DDL]

Bogroll? The "move zero" garrison unit?

Why would he have to promote a 'named character' necessarily? Why does he have to promote anyone at all, come to that? Why not use the remaining warlords he already has?

[PePe QuiCoSE]

ok, 3 less dragons and the archons are powerful enough to take them down in 1 shot (and it seems it didn't matter they were wounded). Let's how much more damage they do before something happens...

[Lefty the Drunken Lush]

If you can get close enough to wet willy Manpower, why do they need to open the door to the warlords? Just start the attack while right next to them if you have free reign to move between them. Tactical error, or something else still up?

Even all in the same hex, there are apparently still stacks of dwagons.

That is all.

Edit: how rude of me. Excellent art. Seat edge storyline.

[Eldritch_Ent]

Frankly, this is the sorta stuff I live for, so I applaud it.

[Rhuna_Coppermane]

This one gets another "Ohhhh boop!" from me. I'm rooting for Parson, I'm hoping he finds a way to pull something good out of this, and I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happens.

[SteveMB]

Recriminations next strip? Things could be getting even uglier in the situation room.

I think I'm going to have some new art options for the "Recriminations" demotivator.

The question is, when Jillian said “after I croak some dwagons”, did she really mean “some”, or did she mean “all of the ones in this hex”? And she and the Archons are going to take some hits before the end of the turn, or that 61% wouldn't mean anything.

Actually, her best strategy might be to blow through, taking out what dwagons and warlords she can on the way, swing in through the gap in the ring to pick up the Ansom, Vinny, and Tarfu, and return to finish the job. (We know they have the move to do so; both the column and the wounded dwagons are three hexes from Ansom's position, and Jillian's earlier plan shows that the former is within range.) Or (if he knows where they are) Ansom and Vinny might be on the way already (Vinny had a plan for them to run for the column, so they also must have at least three move left).

In either case, the extra warlord bonuses and extra attackers ought to bump up that 61% quite a bit....

[Surfing HalfOrc]

Bogroll? The "move zero" garrison unit?

Why would he have to promote a 'named character' necessarily? Why does he have to promote anyone at all, come to that? Why not use the remaining warlords he already has?

No, it doesn't HAVE to be Bogroll, I just like him... But the question who else? Random gobwin #84? The one from the T-Shirts?

But now he's down to two Warlords, and I think 26 "B" dwagons. I don't think the "A" dwagons and the three warlords are gonna hear the horn blow at the end of the day. Plus, he will have to move the 26 back without passing through a Coalition hex, or he will have to auto-attack, and deal with the damages.

If this was chess, I'd say he just lost his queen.

But Parson is still a good tactician. The "B" dwagons, a heavily fortified position, enough mooks to make things expensive for Ansom? The killer "Bs" can cut and run, and whittle down Ansom's siege ability, forcing Ansom into the tunnel battle. And that battle makes me think of the third Terran Mission in Starcraft: Funnel the Zergs into a three bunker cross-fire, and chew them up. Not real "Heroic," but it's an efficient way to victory.

[EntilZha]

LOL, they're corporate!!

"Leverage, Synergy, Paradigm"

Scott Adams would be proud.

[Vox]

On reading this, I see a whole lot of people who seem a little....obsessed...with the idea that Jillian hasn't really turned on Wanda, that she isn't really going to kill the dwagons, that she's really going to rescue Ansom (a rationalized plan developed before the Archons started pressuring her, and presumable abandoned at this point), and other such speculations. Perhaps I'm simply fooled by the obvious...but since it is obvious let me state it clearly. Jillian Zamussels has just been freed from whatever spell Wanda placed on her, and is fulfilling her role as a warlord of the army of Prince Ansom of Jetstone by slaughtering the wounded dwagons to the last undead (pardon me, uncroaked) warlord. Period. Whatever relationship she has with Wanda (and however much she enjoys being physically, mentally and otherwise dominated by the Croakamancer), it is not affecting her hatred for Stanley the Tool, and it does not equal her love for Ansom. Blame the Archons, if you must, or blame Wanda for overconfidence in her magic, or blame Rich and Jamie for writing a pretty amazing webcomic....but I for one am simply delighted that Jillian's magically induced indecision is ended, and she is kicking butt once more (with the Archon's assistance, of course.)
As for Parson....he'll think of something. He's got turn-based strategic ability coming out his ears, and Wanda's no slouch either. Moreover, Parson "losing" this campaign may cause him to realize just how evil/childish Stanley really is. Ultimately, if this comic remains the story of a sarcastic human helping a deranged infant kill a bunch of semi-good coalition members, it will be rather unsatisfying. I personally would like to see a "third force" of Parson (freed from obedience to Stanley), Wanda and Jillian taking on the Tool and Ansom. Three way wars are always more interesting. But maybe that's just me....
Also: Archons rule.
'Nuff said.

[Ravenlord]

Parson deserves to be sacked/smacked for this. He left the A dragons in the open, only relying on blind luck to save them from enemy aerial cover. Pretty stupid idea, especially if one considers this is practically their last asset to get the siege units. Unless if they prepare a last-ditch attack, and sacrifice all their remaining B dragons in drawn-out battles against siege hexes... That said, I'd be equally happy to see Wanda's head roll. Afterall, technically, this is her screwup. Either way, there better be huge changes at Team Stanley after this.

Seems to me someone was not playing enough Panzer General with hidden units. Tsk, tsk, tsk...

[shakes019]

Wow. That. was. awesome.

I still like Parson and Wanda more than I like Ansom and Vinny, so I was hoping that Jillian would pick the bad guys over the good guys. However, I think that this is exactly what it looks like, and that Jillian has attacked the wounded dwagons and will destroy all of them, then press on to meet up with Ansom.

Next turn, Parson has to face the loss of one half of his dwagon force, and all of the warlords attached to the dwagon stacks. He can't attack the siege engines without warlords to selectively disengage, so he'll probably have to pull them all back to prevent the full team of warlords pressing their attack.

I think the next strip will show Wanda distraught at the loss of her plaything, and probably preparing to enact a substantial vengeance.

[Dragonath]

Awesome, this comic made my mouth drop for a second.

But, this is confusing. I must say I'm really wondering if they're actually attacking the wounded dwagons with the 3 warlords or Ansom's surrounders.

Look at page 74. In my honest opinion, those Archons are not looking happy while Jillian is sending her message to Ansom. I think they we're pissed on that page for Jillian deciding to rescue Ansom, but are happy now to be in combat again.

Since it is my first post here, I just wanted to say: Awesome comic, it is truly the best with the most beautiful style of all webcomics I've seen so far.

Nice work on the updates again too, glad you guys got back on track. I was a bit pissed due to the very slow updates lately.

[erewhon]

Game over man, game over!

Stanley is gonna hit the roof...

Spoiler

Show

Well...Gobwin Knob can survive the loss of the dwagons as long as Ansoms seige gets taken out. Which will be very hard if the warlords get croaked (again). But if one or two of the three uncroaked warlords survive, he can pick up the "B" dwagons and (maybe) complete Parsons plan to remove the seige.

Agreed. While this development is BAD, it is not catastrophic. (Of course, the Tool is gonna flip.)

Now, Parson needs to attrit Jillian's stack. If he is able to pull off the 39 percent, he's been HURT, but the plan can proceed almost unchanged: Next turn he takes the 20+ dwagon's he still has in the "Deathstar" formation, lumps them in with the survivors, and destroys the rest of the seige.

Even if he loses all the wounded dwagons and only savages Jillian's forces badly enough, he can still achieve his objective. NOTHING is more important than killing those seige engines.

As I understand it, Gobwin Knobs defenses are based upon the hordes of gobwins, not the Dwagons. Remember those massive arrays of gobwins Parson was inspecting?

If Parson is able to get the rest of the seige, even if he loses every dwagon doing it, Parson is still ahead in this scenario.

If he does so, it settles into a long, nasty seige while Stanley summons up more dwagons and Parson keeps looking for his "God Mode" solution that he klogged about.

Oh, and Archons are KEWL. Massively, awesomely cool. :)

[SteveMB]

But, this is confusing. I must say I'm really wondering if they're actually attacking the wounded dwagons with the 3 warlords or Ansom's surrounders.

There are several indications that it's the wounded dwagons. Jillian's comments only make sense in the context of attacking a wounded dwagon stack with an uncroaked warlord: "weak stack first" (there's no reason the 4-6 dwagons in each of the ring hexes would be divided into multiple stacks) and "let me at the warlord" (in a pose that indicates that she intends to come at said warlord BFS-point first). The attacked dwagons are airborne (we know the wounded ones are hovering over the lake, and it makes absolutely no sense for the ones in the heavy-tree hexes to abandon their cover). The Archons don't show a trace of their former hairy-eyeball expressions (which, in retrospect, are proably just residual suspicion based on Jillian's earlier behavior).

Really, at this point clinging to the notion that they're attacking the ring dwagons requires one to believe that "Occam's Razor" is the name of one of the tools in Wanda's interrogation kit.

Since it is my first post here, I just wanted to say: Awesome comic, it is truly the best with the most beautiful style of all webcomics I've seen so far.

Indeed.

Nice work on the updates again too, glad you guys got back on track.

I expect the wait for the next one will be a bit longer (Rob is going to be at DragonCon this weekend), but we did get fair warning on that.

[Wyrd]

The situation isn't as disastrous for GK as some of you may think.

1) Jillian is butchering the wounded dwagons => Parson use the B flight to annihilate / capture GK's most powerful ennemies namely Ansom and the others stuck with him.

2) Jillian is punching through "Dwagon Fort" to rescue Ansom => the rest of the siege units can make their prayers.

Now which one is it ? Hard to say because :

1) Without the siege engines, the attack on GK is booped or at least the casualties will be extremely heavy for the attackers so it is Jillian's utermost duty to slaughter the fast dwagons.

2) She just claimed her love to Ansom which I doubt, considering her character, will make her immediately abandon him to B Flight. "Saving the most important warlords" is somewhat tactically justifiable...

Now personnaly my first idea was that she was finishing off the wounded dwagons but seeing so many posts stating that she may be in fact rescuing Ansom made me doubt ;)

[Lombard]

Nice strip, ooh teh drama!

I'm betting that spell doesn't let Jillian pull through, some kind of sleep button or arms-go-limp sort of thing.

[Lamech]

If Ansom and Vinny come running to help Jillian Parson just has to croak 3 or 4 gwiffons to trap Ansom in that hex. Then Ansom wouldn't be able to fly back to the elves and Parson could croak him with 24 dwagons. I see that as a win for team Stanley.

Second point Jetstone might not have paid for all the best combat abilities from the archons. Jetstone could have just purchased ones that are very close to the best, or ones that are very good and cool looking, but are significantly weaker that the best abilities. If the archons aren't using their best attacks, Parson cool new toy might have made an error.

Another source of error could be the archons having some pre-set point where they will retreat if their health falls too low. If their not always doing the best that they can to fight, I would assume they have someway of escaping if they're losing simply because whoever hired them didn't pay enough for the archons services.

Even if Stanley suffers a total loss at GK and has to take the dwagons and run he can still take his most valuable resources with him. The Arkenhammer obviously. Wanda and Parson, although Wanda's advice will be valued a lot less probably. Parson won't get disbanded at the very least he should be able to provide new magic toys if Tool ever gets a new city. Also depending on how much Parson learned in college possibly "high tech futuristic weaponry". Sizemore who built most of GK defenses. The eyemancers, and possibly their table, plus the eyebooks. Stanley should just be able to set up camp else where.

[DCR]

The situation isn't as disastrous for GK as some of you may think.

1) Jillian is butchering the wounded dwagons => Parson use the B flight to annihilate / capture GK's most powerful ennemies namely Ansom and the others stuck with him.

Don't think the ring of slower dwagons is enough to take down Ansom, Vin, Stilts-boy, Gumps and woodsys in case of the lake dwagons are eradicated... Think the danger was if all the dwagons ganged up on that crew. 'sides, Vinny said that his and Ansom's part was pretty much done in page 68 somewhere.

[zeropsm]

The green dragon seemed pretty healthy (before being GUINSU'ed)!

[sihnfahl]

Vinny said that his and Ansom's part was pretty much done in page 68 somewhere.

It was just a feeling, not a true assessment. It's kind of like someone leaning back and going "It's in God's Hands now..." while events important to them happen elsewhere - where they have no influence.

He and Ansom can't do a thing to influence Jillian's actions or the outcome of the battle now; they can't join the fight. Their entire future, he apparently believes, hinges on whether or not Jillian succeeds or fails - and that's influenced by the Will of the Titans...

[Krellen]

I fail to see what's interesting about the people with overwhelming odds in their favour winning. Sure, that's expected, but there's a lot of folks saying this is more "interesting", and I just don't see that.

Simply put, we were set up to expect Ansom to win, so why is it "interesting" to see him win?

[Xenon]

omg HAX! :o

if they target and kill 3 undead warlords and make a beeline for ansom after, that would work. anything else and their odds get a bit worse.

[Etheric]

Not going to speculate about what is going on. Too many things seem to be moving at the speed of plot for me right now, so another Deux et machina is my prediction.

It is interesting how people seem to be blaming Wanda for this one. I guess "off camera" she could have given more assurances about Jillian, but the whole thing was Parson's idea from start to finish. The fact that she was sure of Jillian when it was too late to do anything about it is rather beside the point. Maybe because of Wanda's assurances he neglected the only flying units that could reach, but that is a huge risk when those flying units were as powerful as that chance of wiping out the stack.

For parsons origional plan to be a good one, it needs to be countered by something a bit cleverer than, hey we have these powerful units in reserve that happen to stumble into the dragon stack.

I hope there is more going on than meets the eye, but I doubt it, which is a shame.