- Location
- Space between realms
- Pronouns
- He
[X] Folkmarr
NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)
- Thread starter I.F. Ister
- Start date
- Original Fantasy Action
-
- Tags
- norse mythology (mythology) original xianxia cultivation western cultivation ask sirihand did your mother tell you anything? discussion pleases yggdrasil farming gloating gets people killed granary management hubris is a coward's word you will die norsemen do not die when they are killed the qm has a bad memory the qm is bad at math viking courtroom drama (legal drama) vikings open voting
We will have definitely gained Orthstirr, but we wil not be stronger than we were at the start. Steinarr just gave us a lecture on the very real dangers of combat exhaustion. Their veterans will be fresh.
Whilst an even contest might be more glorious if we were fighting abroad, this is also not a simple contest for glory: our families are here. This is war for survival, where we stand to lose everything if we lose and I think we should take every tactical advantage.
Yeah this is perfect.
[X] AeonIlluminate
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Dorri
-[X] Have Folkmarr and Frammar lead scouting groups to follow the 2 smaller grouos, while Dorri and Logi take large groups to crush the larger enemy groups. Then swing round and wipe out the 2 smaller groups with aid from the scouts in finding them.
I'm a little burned out from other stuff today to contribute much, but this seems good to me.
-[X] Have Folkmarr and Frammar lead scouting groups to follow the 2 smaller grouos, while Dorri and Logi take large groups to crush the larger enemy groups. Then swing round and wipe out the 2 smaller groups with aid from the scouts in finding them.
I'm a little burned out from other stuff today to contribute much, but this seems good to me.
- Location
- In the oldest city on the oldest land
[X] AeonIlluminate
- Location
- Many Places
[x] AeonIlluminate
- Location
- some computer lab
Their veterans will have to hoof it all the way from their ships, they are presently undersupplied, and Steinarr's advice was for during large scale combats, not between them.
Concentrating our forces leaves half their foragers free to ransack our farms. Also there is likely less Orthstirr to be gained from killing a smaller force, so we would probably overall be weaker if we have to fight their veterans.
AeonIlluminate
The power of friendship and aggressive landscaping
- Pronouns
- They/Them
While we will take more immidiate supply damage, we should be in an overall better place. If we hit each group with a large numbers disparity, we will take less casualties and they will take more, which is a major boon before you consider that 2/3rds of our guys can get back up before their second fight, as we are there to rez them. The enemy won't be able to rez their dudes as they will not be able to get to their corpses. Then, the 2 smaller groups will be getting absolutely swarmed and the odds are high that most of them will die, as a 2-1 numbers disparity will be brutal to deal with, even if they are a higher quality of raider.
With regards to Orth gain, yes there is less for winning a easier battle, but there is more for using good tactics as good tactics are a glorious thing, and therefore grant Orth. It probably doesn't make up for the Orth loss, but less overall damage to our forces is worth that, particuarly as the enemy will take much larger casualties.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/His/etc
In ransoming corpses a cultural practice? If we kill a bunch of them could we negotiate returning the bodies (to be returned to life) in return for the rest fucking off?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It should be noted that we should be doing almost entirely Perfected Tricks and Basic Attacks offensively vs. weaker foes if trying to keep our orthficiency good.
This is very doable, though (Sharpened Firebomb Strike kills most people it hits for 1 Orthstirr, Kindle Spinner is a solid AoE that will sometimes do the same for 0 Orthstirr). Similarly, we can use Semi-Halting Vortex as a guard defensively vs. basic attacks very cheaply indeed (6 Orthstirr establishes it as 9d6+6, and if we have it only against Basics it just rolls and should last a good long while), and then use Halting Vortex against Tricks and either actual shields or something like Contested Movement against Puncture uses or fleinns.
We should also not use our Slowing Slog against lesser foes, saving it for champions...it's too expensive to waste. Our rune effects are all good to go, though.
Shapescrafters can grow them a new body, so this is basically just saving them some money. Which is probably part of some ransom negotiations, yeah, but it's not better than other equal monetary offers...the equivalent of offering the return of prisoners gear is a better equivalent than ransom, I think.
This is very doable, though (Sharpened Firebomb Strike kills most people it hits for 1 Orthstirr, Kindle Spinner is a solid AoE that will sometimes do the same for 0 Orthstirr). Similarly, we can use Semi-Halting Vortex as a guard defensively vs. basic attacks very cheaply indeed (6 Orthstirr establishes it as 9d6+6, and if we have it only against Basics it just rolls and should last a good long while), and then use Halting Vortex against Tricks and either actual shields or something like Contested Movement against Puncture uses or fleinns.
We should also not use our Slowing Slog against lesser foes, saving it for champions...it's too expensive to waste. Our rune effects are all good to go, though.
Shapescrafters can grow them a new body, so this is basically just saving them some money. Which is probably part of some ransom negotiations, yeah, but it's not better than other equal monetary offers...the equivalent of offering the return of prisoners gear is a better equivalent than ransom, I think.
If it comes to it, the scouts can also harass the raiders without committing to battle - which will take a lot of courage and incur pretty high casualties amongst the scouts, as elite ligh infantry tend to do - but also massively hamper any foraging efforts by the raiders as they're forced to look over their shoulders and unable to spread out for fear of getting a spear in the back. Of course, if the scout commander is hotblooded or undisciplined, then they can fuck their whole command away in five minutes by letting themselves get drawn into a stand-up fight.
This makes me a bit worried about Folkmarr, honestly - I wish we could get say, Heima Smiles to do it. But political considerations mean it's basically a nonstarter to pass him over for command, I think.
The silver lining is that even if the scouts get pinned down and killed to a man, so long as they tie up the raiders for a while and prevent them linking up, they won't have entirely failed.
Their supply situation is why they're sending out foraging parties, but there's nothing to suggest their veterans will not present a potent threat. Steinarr was speaking about war in general, and combat fatigue is a very real thing. The Orthstirr gain from a single engagement whether large or small is not going to make a meaningful tactical difference and is a bit of a red herring.
The reality that with evenly matched forces the defender cannot hope to effectively defend everything is unfortunate, but is also a recognised fact of war stretching back to antiquity.
This makes me a bit worried about Folkmarr, honestly - I wish we could get say, Heima Smiles to do it. But political considerations mean it's basically a nonstarter to pass him over for command, I think.
The silver lining is that even if the scouts get pinned down and killed to a man, so long as they tie up the raiders for a while and prevent them linking up, they won't have entirely failed.
Their supply situation is why they're sending out foraging parties, but there's nothing to suggest their veterans will not present a potent threat. Steinarr was speaking about war in general, and combat fatigue is a very real thing. The Orthstirr gain from a single engagement whether large or small is not going to make a meaningful tactical difference and is a bit of a red herring.
The reality that with evenly matched forces the defender cannot hope to effectively defend everything is unfortunate, but is also a recognised fact of war stretching back to antiquity.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Note that the foraging parties are not, strictly speaking, the enemy's elites...they're leaving those to guard the ships. The smaller foraging parties may or may not be more elite, but they're not the true high end people. Harassing them is also slightly limited by Norse honor which prophibits true ambushes or sneak attacks...but the scouting force should at least prevent them splitting up too much, as they could descend upon any sub-element and take them out.
Last edited:
Yeah, the thing we mist want to prevent is to stop the smaller foraging parties from joining forces or joining up with their reserve at the boats; at least before Logi and Dorri can link up. Probably some version of this may happen, because war is chaos and friction and things that can go wrong, will do. But if we can at least mitigate it and buy time for Dorri and Logi to link up after each has destroyed their target, we've got a fighting chance.
I'm not entirely sure what the precise rules of the the "no ambushes" thing are - I know it's drawing from the Sagas, and there are bits in the Sagas where the protagonist leads his men undaunted against a superior force of ambushers, showing his greater courage (Egil) and where the hero is being hunted and hides in the bushes like a bear, leaps out and stabs two guys, and steals their boat (also Egil). But yeah, even if the scouts just shadow the smaller foraging parties without giving battle, it means they can't detach groups of 3-5 guys to raid individual farms for fear they'll get snapped up.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Per IF's post on it, the key element that isn't allowed is attacking people who don't know you're there. You can sneak up on people, but you have to jump out and confront them before stabbing them...no backstabbing. Which is a bit limiting for picking off soldiers from a superior force, though it works fine in a lot of other contexts (waiting until an enemy is alone and then jumping out with your six friends surrounding them is fine, for instance).
Last edited:
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Among other things, if you heavily outnumber the enemy, your force probably isn't going to have to expend nearly as much orthstirr to overcome them. Orthstirr isn't a conserved quantity; the total amount that the warriors going into a battle have "in the tank" is effectively always going to be greater than what the survivors have after the battle. The transfer of orthstirr from the dead to the living is very lossy.
Also, ganging up on enemies and just openly saying "hey, s'up, gonna kill you now" is an accepted practice in Norse warfare; you don't have to do everything one-on-one or at equal odds "to make things fair."
So yeah, we should absolutely be aiming for defeat in detail here, because we want these motherfuckers dead, or at least enough of them dead that the rest are (1) seriously reconsidering the wisdom of fighting here and (2) no longer have as much backup to try and stab us in the back while we're concentrating on fighting them.
I imagine that in a pitched battle, there's a sort of loosening of the rules in that the entire enemy army can be reasonably assumed to know that your entire army is there, and so "getting hit over the head from behind because you blindly charged into the enemy lines like a moron" is an accepted hazard of doing business. Sure, you didn't know that specific guy was there, but you damn well knew somebody was gonna be there, or you ought to have, amirite?
I might not be rite, granted.
My shaky impression is that it's totally okay to jump out of the bushes and attack someone who didn't know you were there, as long as you yell "HEY DUMBASS DUMBASSSON! HAVE A FACE FULL OF AXE, MOTHERFUCKER!" first or something, to warn them that you're about to fill their face with axe.
Or, alternatively, if you're running from overwhelming numbers, then Dumbass Dumbassson already knows you want him dead, and if you succeed in turning the tables on him and filling his face with axe, well, serves him right for pursuing a badass while suffering from a severe case of being a scrub.
Last edited:
We could ressurect the corpses ourselves, so they can't do the "regrow the body from backup hair and then ressurect".
With the "let half of the enemy force plunder a sacrificial farm so that we can 2:1 outnumber the rest (and then ~2:1 outnumber the half we had to ignore at first)" strategy we'd have Lanchesters (square) law on our side. (Well, the exact Numbers aren't given, but i think that is the idea)
And Norse Quest quirks make the outnumbering even more valuable: The ridiculous regeneration (like using an aspect to heal, or aspect regenerating) means significantly less atrition for the winning side. Especially if you have a Seeress available.
And partial attrition resets after battle.
You won? Everyone that didn't true-death die will be fully available again shortly.
Spend your Orth? Wait until your aspects are available again.
Borken bones that greatly reduced your fighting ability?
Healing!
Bodily dead? Ressurection!
[X]AeonIlluminate
Last edited:
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] AeonIlluminate
- Pronouns
- He/His/etc
My understanding is that once the battle haa started getting merced by someone you didn't see is much the same as falling for a feint in a duel and dying from a attack you didn't see coming - if you 'weren't ready' at that point its your own bloody fault and not that of the attacker.
Also remember the golden rule - "it's not dishonorable if you don't leave any witnesses".
Also remember the golden rule - "it's not dishonorable if you don't leave any witnesses".
Last edited:
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Apologies if it has already been brought up, but it just occurred to me that we may not have to defeat all of the raiders, just take out enough that the rest have to choose between cutting their losses and retreating or continuing to fight and risking not having enough survivors to crew their ships for the journey home.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think this is probably correct, yeah.
This, however, I don't think is true...the Gods are watching, after all.
That would plausibly work, though they can always cut down number of ships if the rewards of doing so are good enough. This requires quite a lot of casualties to be functional, though. Like, a lot. I think we need to basically kill everyone who's not guarding the ships to get them to this point.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah. I'm not sure just how motivated these guys are.
On the other hand, if we're hitting the raiding parties, then their most hardened badasses will be unharmed and fresh for battle, and a fair number of their scrubs will probably make it back alive from the other raiding parties. Which means they're probably going to have:
1) Plenty of guys for the return trip still,
2) Numbers sufficient to do us real damage in a straight fight of all of us against all of them,
3) Plenty of badasses who definitely don't want a reputation for backing down from a fight without trying hard,
4) This includes some badasses who brought weaker relatives along and will be hoping to recover the bodies and/or make sure they aren't taken as thralls. Think of how we'd react if we and Erik were participating in this raid and Erik was in one of the groups that got hit, or how Helma Smiles would react if his favorite nephew were.
So I'm pretty sure that just doing this won't make the raiders rethink their plans unless their internal cohesion really stinks.
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't think it works like that. You would know, the Gods would know and the Norns would know and I bet at least one of those is enough to eat Nid for being dishonourable.
I suppose it comes down to how many ships they brought, the minimum crew for each one and whether or not the enemy commander values taking risks over being cautious.