Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
- Location
- Limbo
Now I'm going to go start poking the Army Specials.
Crystalwatcher's Magical Girl Quest!
- Thread starter Crystalwatcher
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Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
- Location
- Limbo
Like the Army Actions, please speak up if you see a problem.
Army Specials
What you can do, I can do Better...
The Legions of Light
What you can do, I can do Better...
The Legions of Light
- The Counter Force (The Supremacy of Man) - The Counter Force is capable of launching strikes against opposing forces across the entire battlefield without needing to directly engage. When High Morale is in effect, they will continuously bombard the entire battlefield with artillery fire until the next Surge.
- The Imperial Legion (Molten Phalanx) - Elf Battlegroups have double their normal Damage and Resilience when they outnumber the opposing force. When High Morale is in effect, Elf Legionnaires willingly amass into larger groups to rush enemy lines during a Surge.
- The War Magi (The Inheritance of Light) - Fairy Battlegroups move in smaller formations. Instead of closing with an enemy, they will instead Leap-Frog atop spell barrages. When High Morale is in effect, Fairy Battlegroups will trigger Rituals that will launch an effect the following Surge.
- Angelic Host (The Legion of Angels) - Angelic Battlegroups engage from the Air. When High Morale is in effect, War Angels' Presence of Light triples in power.
The Legions of Darkness
- Infernal Horde (Hell's Hammer) - Demon Battlegroups move faster when not engaged with an enemy force. When they initiate combat, they cause 50% extra damage. When High Morale is in effect, Demons Berserk.
- The Black Magi (The Rulers of The Dark) - Dark Star Battlegroups can launch spells across the Battlefield. When High Morale is in effect, they trigger the "Oncoming Nightmare" ritual. If not stopped, it will summon a random number of Greater Nightmares.
- The Children of Nightmare (The Ultimate Evil) - Lesser Nightmare Battlegroups are immune to Morale changes, and only five Greater Nightmares may be active at the start of the battle. More Greater Nightmares may only be deployed by the Dark Star Oncoming Nightmare Ritual.
Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
- Location
- Limbo
At the moment, it's something of a council. You got Snickerdoodle, Michael, the Empire's Grand General, and the High Mage of the Fae. Though they tend to concede mostly to Michael's experience the four of them try to work together.
The Unified Light's militaries tend to work as independent entities though they put a lot of effort into cooperation.
Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
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Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
Healing all allies/harming all enemies for 1500 health per angel per turn, dang. Luckily for the UD, there aren't that many angels.
Unluckily for the UD, there are a lot of elves. But the elves do really need both the numbers and this special, because individual elves are fairly unimpressive.
I don't really understand the elf morale boost, though. If amassing into larger groups helps the elves, what's stopping them from doing so normally? Elf politics?
Well, yes, it's easier to run when people aren't shooting or stabbing you. Berserk is also probably terrifying, but I bet some clever UL commanders have taken advantage of it. Does "initiate" mean that demons don't get the 50% boost when they are the ones who are getting attacked? That would be kind of cool, since I like the idea that bravery gives a bonus when fighting demons.
With how important morale seems to be in this game, and also real life, this is really important. Since you have to kill basically every Nightmare while having to worry about your own casualties and morale, any fight with roughly even power levels will go to the Nightmares. Plus it would be really demoralizing to fight fearless enemies.
I'm sorry if this has already been answered, but I'm a bit curious for the reason behind this in-universe. Since Nightmares are creatures of fear, would having more of them make each Greater Nightmare less individually terrifying and special? Or something like that, since Nightmares seem far more influenced by perception than most magic is.
So last time I discussed how we could do this with Starshine. Now I'll do it with Celestial Severance. CS extends Nepgear's swing out to fifty meters. Now I'm going to assume she's going for 180 degree swings for the sake of simplicity. A fifty meter semicircle has an area of 3,927m^2. If we assume the demons are traveling fairly loosely at 1 per square meter that means each swing of Celestial Severance can kill 3,927 demons.
Nepgear can cast Celestial Severance a maximum of four times per turn and each turn lasts 10 seconds. For maximum effectiveness she'd want to advance fifty meters forwards between each casting. Fortunately Nepgear has a top flight speed of 190mph or more usefully 84.9376 meters per second which is easily enough to cover the required distance between castings.
The question still remains what sort of demons is Nepgear mowing through? Well given that Soul Reavers are basically extinct now that only leaves Hell's Foot Soldiers are generic demonic mooks. If treated as an army 3,927 Hell's Foot Soldiers have the following stats:
Health: 2,945,250
Base Damage: 785,400
Base Resilience: 196,350
Magic Modifier: 39,270
If we simulate the combat between such a force and Celestial Severance we get:Base Damage: 785,400
Base Resilience: 196,350
Magic Modifier: 39,270
Celestial Severance: 819,200, +200 Dice, +500 Hostile Divinity = 819,900 Total Damage
Celestial Severance: 819,200, +200 Dice, +500 Hostile Divinity = 819,900 Total Damage
1,639,800 Total Damage
3,927 Hell's Foot Soldiers: Resilience Negated, Dice Negated, -39,270 Weak to Purification, -1,963,500 Hostile Divinity Effect = 2,002,770 Extra Damage
Hell's Foot Soldiers take: 3,642,570 Total End Damage
The Insurmountable Gap Triggers!
Hell's Foot Soldiers take: 7,285,140 Final End Damage
3,927 Hell's Foot Soldiers: 2,945,250 - 7,285,140 = -4,339,890 Health Remaining
Celestial Severance: 819,200, +200 Dice, +500 Hostile Divinity = 819,900 Total Damage
1,639,800 Total Damage
3,927 Hell's Foot Soldiers: Resilience Negated, Dice Negated, -39,270 Weak to Purification, -1,963,500 Hostile Divinity Effect = 2,002,770 Extra Damage
Hell's Foot Soldiers take: 3,642,570 Total End Damage
The Insurmountable Gap Triggers!
Hell's Foot Soldiers take: 7,285,140 Final End Damage
3,927 Hell's Foot Soldiers: 2,945,250 - 7,285,140 = -4,339,890 Health Remaining
So all told Nepgear could eliminate a group of 3,927 Hell's Foot Soldiers per swing and make four swings per turn for a total of 15,708 Hell's Foot Soldiers per turn.
So basically Regiments and Divisions going at each other. Makes sense for the battlefield to be divided into groups of Divisions/Regiments since much above that and it starts becoming impossible to organize things in the chaos of the battlefield.
No problems here, this all makes perfect sense. Well I suppose apart from the Elf Commander's move. I guess it depends upon the exact situation but it would make sense for the Elves to conduct a slow retreat to maximize the effect of their bowmen. Trying for an encirclement, ala the Battle of Cannae, would make sense but I'd presume that even the demons have learned that charging recklessly just leads to getting encircled and slaughtered.
Makes sense. Numbers do get very weird when you start throwing millions and billions of troops at each-other. Besides few attacks can really effect the battlefield at those scales and those that can rely more on their narrative power then raw numbers. Like how Oblivion Awaits would clear an entire battlefield of soldiers narratively with a single casting but mathematically speaking it can only take out ~13.4k of Hell's Foot Soldiers per shot.
Makes sense. Good morale is important since it decreases your chances of breaking and means soldiers will do whatever risky thing the general orders. It's also very risky since it leads to things like the aforementioned Battle of Cannae where the Roman legions walked into Hannibal's trap because they were confidant they could crush him with force of numbers.
I wonder how much of a problem this is for the Counter Force? Modern day soldiers go through a lot of training designed to combat this sort of thing. Even without that you need only look at things like the Battle of Gallipoli, where wave after wave of ANZACs charged across no man's land only to be mowed down by the Turkish machineguns, to see that humans can take a ton of crap before breaking.
While I don't have any real complains about this section it feel uncompleted. There isn't any detail as to how Magical Girls interact with armies, just fluff. It really feels like the post got cut off at this point.
Wait. Why does the Counter Force only deploy artillery when they've got High Morale? It's not like the artillery soldiers are going to be effected by morale given they are generally so far away the horizon blocks their vision of the front lines.
...actually does that say the entire battlefield? As in including the parts with allied forces!?
Makes sense. The High Morale effect is quite reasonable since amassing into larger groups is risky since it exposes the surrounding areas and is putting more eggs into one basket.
War Magi being the spec-ops makes sense. That said I'm not sure why their Ritual only get triggered on High Morale. Are they powered by morale or something?
Everything here is fine. Presence of Light trebling in power fits perfectly with High Morale.
...isn't superior movement speed the Counter Force's thing? Other then that no problems. Demons going Berserk when they are confident of success is exactly what you'd expect.
Why is the ritual only triggered on High Morale? If it's a question of magic then wouldn't it make more sense if it triggered on Low Morale, or better yet the enemy having Low Morale, rather then High Morale? That would fit the ritual's summoning of Nightmares.
No real issues here.
LostDeviljho
Flame Dragon Princess
- Location
- The glorious Pacific Northwest
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- Any
You're confusing lesser and greater nightmares.
Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
- Location
- Limbo
It's because of something @Gore17 brought up:
Anti-Army Spells.
Large groups of soldiers are susceptible to getting hit by a number of large spells such as the METEOR spell and similar. So LDC armies tend to have their forces broken up into smaller divisions in order to keep the potential casualties from these spells to a minimum. This also decreased the raw damage Human artillery could do as well unintentionally.
If the Demon Battlegroup gets ambushed then they don't get the bonus. But if they see you coming, they do.
Lesser Nightmares are powered by Fear. Greater Nightmares are totally different.
Counter Force soldiers are more resistant to Morale decrease than other armies. But not by much.
My muse kind of jumped out the window just as I started trying to think up direct influences.
So right now I'll simply leave it up to the individual Magical Girl and her abilities in how they interact with Army combat.
The Counter Force tends to be conservative with their artillery so they don't accidently get rushed when all their guns are reloading. When High Morale is going, they're a lot less conservative and just let the Artillery Crews let loose.
Though your questions do show that it was poorly worded.
Because the given rituals are manpower-intensive to trigger. They start a ritual, then that means fewer Battlegroups are moving to engage the enemy, thus less forces at the front lines, and high possibility of the front breaking because of this.
High Morale means they're more willing to risk their lines caving in while the ritual is going.
... yes. But most of the other armies' Battlegroups tend to move slower then Demons and Human transports when traversing the field. If the Human Soldiers have to go from one position to the next on foot, they also move slower than Demons.
See the Fairies.
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ReaperofInterest
Herald of Disaster
@crystalwatcher, I have a few questions.
1: Could we get a look at other kinds of Demons than the ones we've already been shown? I'm planning on making a core team for the Nightmare Hunters, so that would be helpful.
2: Gore said earlier that the Soul Reavers that were killed by Solid Core were a significant amount of the population. Just to be clear, that does not mean the we singlehandedly drove the Soul Reavers extinct, right?
3: Are there any non-War Angel Angels that help out in the war? Or do they just work in support capacities?
1: Could we get a look at other kinds of Demons than the ones we've already been shown? I'm planning on making a core team for the Nightmare Hunters, so that would be helpful.
2: Gore said earlier that the Soul Reavers that were killed by Solid Core were a significant amount of the population. Just to be clear, that does not mean the we singlehandedly drove the Soul Reavers extinct, right?
3: Are there any non-War Angel Angels that help out in the war? Or do they just work in support capacities?
Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
- Location
- Limbo
Sure, I'll toss up some sheets for two more kinds that'll become relevant later.
No, you haven't. At least, not yet.
There were (roughly) 730,000 Soul Reavers. Then Nepgear happened.
Yes to both.
Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
- Location
- Limbo
The sheets will have to wait though, because my Muse finally got off it's fucking ass.
ReaperofInterest
Herald of Disaster
That's ok, I can wait.
Considering the manner in which they are born, does the concept of "extinction" even apply to demons in the first place (baring fuckery like permanent conceptual changes to reality that make it impossible for more to be born)?
Huh.
@Gore17 - You lied to me! You said:
but running the numbers I get a total of 1,861 Soul Reavers killed in Operation Starborn. That only accounts for 0.25% of their population. While that might sound like a lot 0.79% of the human population dies each year.
I don't think many people are likely to say that a large chunk of the global population dies three* times per year.
*0.79% is a bit more then three times larger then 0.75%
Soul Reavers are Class 4 demons though, so I wouldn't be surprised if their birth rate is far lower than that of humans, but their lifespans are "unlimited unless killed by unnatural causes (such as battle)".
If that was the case, that there's a huge stockpile of Soul Reavers but the stockpile grows very slowly, then 0.25% is fairly significant.
Well, two things:
1) As immortals, death by the hands of the enemy contributes the majority of their population loss, and it's normally
2) We're constantly revising stuff. Anything not directly stated by crystalwatcher can change at any moment without warning. The warnings are reserved for stuff from crystalwatcher being changed.
Class 3 Demons. But yes, their lifespan is unlimited.
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Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
- Location
- Limbo
Gore's ability to dodge claims of Lying is an Epic Skill 
Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
- Location
- Limbo
Anyway, I'm going to go lay down for a bit, then get back to the chapter.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
The only comment that I have is that all of these High Morale effects seem like very mixed bags. To the point where in many cases acquiring high morale should be actively avoided. Like, against a Dark Star army, you do not want your Elves to get high morale. And against a Demon army, you really do want to keep your artillery in reserve in case they start massing. Demon armies that berserk against Elf armies get chopped to pieces as their cohesion disintegrates and the elves can bring numerical advantage to bear. I can see the reasoning for this for the less-trained armies, but the human and fairy armies feel like they should be well enough trained and tested to disentangle "taking options with higher expected value even though they're afraid of the results of higher variance" from "making stupid choices because they think they can win".
The human one bugs me in particular. Maybe a "nobody left behind" type thing instead of a change in artillery doctrine?
The human one bugs me in particular. Maybe a "nobody left behind" type thing instead of a change in artillery doctrine?
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I think that is suppose to be the point. Low Morale is bad because it causes breaks, disobedience, and the like. High Morale is also bad because it causes recklessness, wasteful use of limited resources, and the like. Basically the ideal state would be Medium Morale which has the army confident enough of victory they are willing to fight/obey while also not being so confident they become overconfident.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
In that case, is the human resistance to "lowered" morale actually a resistance to "non-medium" morale? Because, if humans only resist negative changes in morale, they're necessarily going to ratchet up into high morale eventually under normal conditions, and I'd expect a trained, selective-service, chain-of-command army to be more resistant to high morale than it would be to low morale. Too many checks and balances in place, too many General Staff to say "Sir, you're sure you want to break doctrine?".
I'd like to point you towards the bit where right up to the Fall of Hope humanity was treating the war like a game. Seriously they were in it for the lolz of fighting real life demons:
Sounds like a perfect description of High Morale aka overconfidence.