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Who Needs Harmony?: An MLP Empire Quest

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FictionPack said:
I mean, I made this?

[ ] Plan Hit It Till It Dies: Order the main forces to pull back, employ mages using fire and Flame Projectors to keep the Ursa Major at bay and direct it's movements if possible. Send in the Black Watch, the Grandmasters and the Inner Circle Knights to slay the beast. Focus all artillery on the Ursa to fire when they have a clean shot so as not to hit our own. Have the remaining Knights focus on protecting the artillery. See if the Canterburians can use their magic to restrain or impair the Ursa in any way they can, even if only momentarily to create openings for others.
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I thought someone said that the bear is hard to harm with magic. How exactly will mages then be enough to buy time for the evacuation?
 
Somebodynobody10 said:
I thought someone said that the bear is hard to harm with magic. How exactly will mages then be enough to buy time for the evacuation?
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Well, the magic isn't for harming.
The fire is explicitly for the instinctive fear all animals have towards fire. Magic bear or not it will not want to approach an intense flame.
And the Canterburians aren't attempting to harm but impair.
 
FictionPack said:
Well, the magic isn't for harming.
The fire is explicitly for the instinctive fear all animals have towards fire. Magic bear or not it will not want to approach an intense flame.
And the Canterburians aren't attempting to harm but impair.
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Instincts are mostly borne if you need them. If the bear happens to be fire resistant their kind might've never learned the instinct to be overmuch wary of fire.
 
[ ] Plan Kneecap the bear
Have the diamond dogs dig a pit trap while the magic users and fliers try and distract the bear pull main force back and ready a charge. Try blinking the bear with shoots to the eyes and if it falls into the pit trap set explosives to wound it letting cannons, ballista, and flamers weaken or kill the bear.
 
This is the Ursa Minor, using the background houses as a reference we can judge its around 2 stories at the shoulder.

Ursa Minor

Using some rough eyeballing of the perceivable right shoulder and leg of the minor and measuring it along the leg and back of the sitting Major I'm going to lowball it and say the Major is 10-12 times the height of the Minor when standing bipedally. Lowballing again means we're looking at 20 story, 66 meter, 216 feet tall beast. At the absolute low end. Our opponent is probably not going to be one that low rolled all his stats though so we're probably looking at something bigger.

Ursa Major

That said I can only say the one viable strategy we have is making it eat something explosive, willingly or unwillingly. Our black swords are simply too small to do meaningful damage to this beast unless we go for the eyes or the throat. I wouldn't rate Konrads chances at trying to slit the throat of an enraged bear the size of a skyscraper. We would literally be asking him to fly into the jaws of death. It's an unreasonable strategy.

Alternatively we can focus fire all our canons and magic at one of its knees in the hopes of crippling it at the start.

Or, assuming we have enough rope/chain, we can send in our crack teams of aerial aces to go tangle up some legs ala the Battle of Hoth.
 
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Walliseatscheese said:
@Questor would you be able to give us some details about Merlin's Illusion capabilities?

What he can do immediately, what he can do with 10 minutes of preparation, what he needs hour+ long Rituals for, etc.

Would he be able to create a moving image of the army going one direction while we all retreat a different way?

Of the illusion army suddenly catching fire and fleeing, while the fire builds and builds until it rages towards the Major, while we retreat?

@Player Base, our win condition here is Minimum Losses.

The Ursa Major broke out of a Mountain.

Its size is comparable to Mountains.

Unless we send a dedicated kill team to fly into its ear and burrow into its brain, we aren't actually going to be able to do much of anything to it from the outside, and only suffer many many deaths.

If I'm incorrect about the size then I ask @Questor to correct me.

Our goal should either be to retreat altogether or to swiftly create an Adventuring Party to plant some Explosives into its ear canal to kill it/significantly wound it, while everyone else runs away.

In that case, I'd go for a mixed Griffon/Pony/Diamond Dog squad, for transportation to the ear, identification of the best spot to plant the booms, and transportation within the ear respectively, while Merlin provides the army with a distraction for the retreat and possibly a portal exfiltration on what would otherwise be a suicide mission.

@Questor do we have the components for such a slapdash plan to be vaguely feasible?
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Merlin could, with the assistance of the numerous battlemages incorporated into your force, cast a hasty illusion on a grand scale capable of fooling the Ursa, though the difficulty of the roll would depend largely on what you are attempting to depict.

A phantom army or phantom inferno would certainly be doable. Difficult, but far from impossible. You have one of the most accomplished Unicorns in history, along with nearly two dozen battle Mages and many other unicorns who could lend the experts their power, so the actual casting shouldn't be an issue. The question is whether the beast will fall for it.

Bear in mind (pun not intended), the illusion will not be solid. If you, for example, put up an illusion of a massive wall of stone, it would be able to pass through it as if it were air, and a phantom fire would not have any real heat behind it (though you could try to combine the illusion with an actual fire spell, though that would complicate things a bit).
 
FictionPack said:
Well, the magic isn't for harming.
The fire is explicitly for the instinctive fear all animals have towards fire. Magic bear or not it will not want to approach an intense flame.
And the Canterburians aren't attempting to harm but impair.
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Hmmmm

I wonder.... We have illusionist and pyromancer troops....

And it was stated that Ursa majors and dragons are the two top predators in this world....

Could we pull off a convincing dragon?
 
Questor said:
Merlin could, with the assistance of the numerous battlemages incorporated into your force, cast a hasty illusion on a grand scale capable of fooling the Ursa, though the difficulty of the roll would depend largely on what you are attempting to depict.

A phantom army or phantom inferno would certainly be doable. Difficult, but far from impossible. You have one of the most accomplished Unicorns in history, along with nearly two dozen battle Mages and many other unicorns who could lend the experts their power, so the actual casting shouldn't be an issue. The question is whether the beast will fall for it.

Bear in mind (pun not intended), the illusion will not be solid. If you, for example, put up an illusion of a massive wall of stone, it would be able to pass through it as if it were air, and a phantom fire would not have any real heat behind it (though you could try to combine the illusion with an actual fire spell, though that would complicate things a bit).
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Is it possible to create an illusion that sticks at a set distance from the target?
How hard would such a illusion be to stick to a Ursa Major?
 
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NexysDhyArchen said:
Cannon and ballista barrage as it approaches. Impact pressure MAY pierce it's hide with enough hits. Having the Black knights observe its movement and reaction speed, and when it gets close enough swarm tactics a la wolf pack. Encircle and bait from out of reach while blacksteel weapons bleed it from behind. Magi aid as best able. Bulk mundane soldiers move on to not get caught up.

It's an angry beast. Powerful and magical, but bestial. Primary objective is to keep it from tearing up our army as best able.
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masterofmadness said:
[] "Konrad please show everyone why you and the other Knights are worth that incredibly expensive Anti-magic armor."
[] Have the battle mages and spellcasters start casting spells in support since they won't harm Anti-magic armored knight doing so.
[] Artillery repositions to strike from a distance but only tries to avoid friendly fire.
[] The rest of the army pulls back.
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I'm taking inspiration from these plans, and I'm not very good when it comes to strategy. So, is there a better plan?

[X] Plan: Scatter
-[X] Spread out the Cannons and Ballista into a triangle formation (Three points where the artillery cluster around) in a single direction towards the Ursa Major.
--[X] The Cannons and Ballista are to fire once, then move immediately after they fire, while attempting to stay in the triangle formation. If they cannot stay in it, not required to do so.
-[X] The Black Knights, all the Knights of the inner circles, Konrad Hardbeak, Colombroni Pigeonio, Adrian Dawnquill, are to observe the movements and reaction speed of the Ursa major as the artillery confront it.
--[X] The Balck Knights, all the Knights of the inner circles, Konrad Hardbeak, Colombroni Pigeonio, Adrian Dawnquill, goal is to hit the Ursa Major from behind, attempt to bleed the Ursa with speed and a thousand cuts from blacksteel weapons.
-[X] Once the people with Blacksteel are fighting the Ursa in close combat, the artillery is to retreat a distance where they can attack the Ursa from without being close enough to be attacked by the Ursa. The artillery is to not strike the Ursa while the close combat fighters are attacking the Ursa.
-[X] The Canterburian mages, Merlin Ambrosius, Sky Mage Raffale, and Earth Mage Puissant Arbre, are to join the fight against the Ursa, to use their magic to distract the Ursa.
--[X]The Canterburians should do what the Artillery were doing, only with a far more dangerous game of keep away by staying in the Ursa's line of sight. While the blacksteel carriers backstab the Ursa.
--[X] Sky Mage Raffale is to play carrier for Merlin and Arbre. Raffale is to help keep Merlin and Arbre alive through pegasus magic, or moving Merlin and Arbre out of a Ursa strike.
-[X] It may seem silly to point out, but FLY is a power griffons have, the griffons sent to the Ursa fight should use it.
-[X] The rest of the army pulls back, and keeps pulling back until they reach a point they can move around the Ursa safely.
---[X]Set up sentrys on the way back to observe the Ursa.
 
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[X] Plan Go The Buck To Sleep
-[X] Have Merlin work in tandem with mages from the Abolitionists and the Royal Guard to cast a spell to put the Ursa Major to sleep.
--[X] If this is not feasible, then a spell to pacify it for the time being.
---[X] If THAT is not feasible, then have them cast a powerful illusion spell to distract the Ursa Major long enough to pull the army out. Either way, we just need the Ursa Major occupied in some manner long enough for every to get out of dodge.
-[X] While the mages are busy crafting a spell to deal with the giant bear, the airborne Arbalists will fly around the Ursa Major while peppering it with bolts, while a select few mages not involved with the spell are using illusions to distract the bear. The goal is not to defeat the monster, just keep it occupied long enough for the spell to be completed.
-[X] In the meantime, the remaining forces are to quickly vacate the area, hopefully with the Ursa Major too distracted by the Arbalists and illusions to effectively notice or, at the very least, too preoccupied to care.
-[X] Once the spell has been casted, get out of dodge.
 
[X] Plan: Scatter

I'd rather we kill it so our enemies will not be able to use it to attack us again. That and the prestige gain would be amazing.
 
Actually here's a crazy idea.
What if we use our kitchen against it?

Somehow get it to ingest mass quantities of spice, or pepper it with pepper!


Or get it to swallow some of Kaboom's boom?
 
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Personally, I'm against killing it. It is huge and powerful and would do a sizeable damage to our army before we manage to bring it down (assuming we do). This will weaken us before we can assault House Storm. I'd rather we try to navigate the problem so we make it out mostly intact. I don't care about prestige. A notable accomplishment is worthless if we loose our military advantage we have against our enemy.
 
[X] Plan Go The Buck To Sleep
-[X] Have Merlin work in tandem with mages from the Abolitionists and the Royal Guard to cast a spell to put the Ursa Major to sleep.
--[X] If this is not feasible, then a spell to pacify it for the time being.
---[X] If THAT is not feasible, then have them cast a powerful illusion spell to distract the Ursa Major long enough to pull the army out. Either way, we just need the Ursa Major occupied in some manner long enough for every to get out of dodge.
-[X] While the mages are busy crafting a spell to deal with the giant bear, the airborne Arbalists will fly around the Ursa Major while peppering it with bolts, while a select few mages not involved with the spell are using illusions to distract the bear. The goal is not to defeat the monster, just keep it occupied long enough for the spell to be completed.
-[X] In the meantime, the remaining forces are to quickly vacate the area, hopefully with the Ursa Major too distracted by the Arbalists and illusions to effectively notice or, at the very least, too preoccupied to care.
-[X] Once the spell has been casted, get out of dodge.
 
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