Something for later then, with Interrogation, Diplomacy and Economics as the foundation
Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest
- Thread starter King crimson
- Start date
- Superhero
I presume the scene between her and Leonard took place prior to Superman taking out the Intergang forces in Suicide Slums
Which reminds me, @King crimson do you have to go through Hobbs Gate to get to St Martins island?
If we crack their code without them realising we could easily lead them into an ambush by pretending to be one of them and telling them that Kate is somewhere she isn't
Hell this is arguably something that Nygma would be great at, finding a way to use their own codes and communication systems to cause as much chaos and confusion amongst their ranks as possible
- Location
- Singapore
We let Felicity try to crack the code but if it's too troublesome, just have her spam their Comms with the worst spanish songs she can find/buy/pirate.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The problem is they've got a bunch of different codes for their different groups, and they're not so much algorithmic as "we all agreed beforehand that Despacito means attack the park".
I'm in support of broadcasting random Spanish songs to the cat's group, but I don't think we're going to manage better than random before the battle finishes. We've got two turns at most.
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
Rose (from what I can tell) was ordered to go after the hostages if it was reasonable. The only hostage whose physical position was being tracked was Lois and it said that she was moving quickly towards St. Martin's Island (the place with the greatest amount of Intergang forces present. There was no recon units scouting Hobb's gate and the whole place was burning. The decision not to chase Intergang units, with a relatively small force, towards the largest concentration of Intergang forces, in an area that is damaged and you have no information on who else is in the area was deemed to risky.
There was an addendum attached of "if reasonable" and the situation was not deemed realistically safe for Rose to make it because of how time sensitive it was combined with dozens of unknowns and it being incredibly easy to unintentionally overextend on.
This is meant to be the end of part 3 of this events information unless I missed something. What I meant by "update" when speaking about Thursday was potentially getting up part 4 of this event.
You do not have to but it is the easiest way to do so. Going through Queensland is also possible and once we start getting into aquatic transport the possibilities really open up.
I actually hinted really obliquely at one song that ties to a specific tactic for the cat-man's group. Granted it's probably not the tactic you want them to do and it's not exactly something you can figure out in-character but I do think it's a neat little Easter egg.
So if I've done my maths right this should be what's left on the field, @King crimson i wasn't sure if the 300 Ground Troops coming to the tower are counted among the 500 that are being deployed or if the Aerial Troops that died at the Harbour are taken into account for the number we were given
Intergang
1,395 Thugs, 350 in Centennial Park
250 Power Armour, 50 in Centennial Park
21 ATV's, 2 in Centennial Park
2 Mech's, one currently in Queensland and both making their way to St Martins Island
Lexcorp
312 Serial Peacemaking
273 Automated Combat Aircraft
1,756 Security Forces
1,063 Spy Drones
Military
500 Ground Troops, 300 coming to Lexcorp(?)
100 Amoured Vehicles
300 (273?) Aerial Troops
15 Warships
Superman
1 Superman
Intergang
1,395 Thugs, 350 in Centennial Park
250 Power Armour, 50 in Centennial Park
21 ATV's, 2 in Centennial Park
2 Mech's, one currently in Queensland and both making their way to St Martins Island
Lexcorp
312 Serial Peacemaking
273 Automated Combat Aircraft
1,756 Security Forces
1,063 Spy Drones
Military
500 Ground Troops, 300 coming to Lexcorp(?)
100 Amoured Vehicles
300 (273?) Aerial Troops
15 Warships
Superman
1 Superman
Hey, we have Nygma cracking codes is his schtick
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
This is probably a good idea.
You know what? It totally, totally could. I'll include a supervillain speech with the line: "Ms. Kane? Continue our counteroffensive. Break them."
Yeah, and I don't want that.
I already suggested the first half of this plan. The second half is a good idea too.
Then the park is surely secure. It's the mid-90s. Despacito isn't scheduled to be released for twenty years. But we should keep our eyes peeled around Turn 100.
Speaking as the guy who wrote that line into the plan, I fully endorse this choice and am very glad Rose (or whoever) made the call the way they did.
Superman might risk his life to save Lois. It is not reasonable for us to risk hundreds of soldiers to save her when we might fail or be drawn into a disadvantageous position that causes us to lose all those soldiers with minimal benefit to our own survival.
OK so when I meet my deadline I can start plandrafting.
Duly noted.
Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
Is that song Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash?
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
That is what they played as everything burned down in Hobb's gate and the Suicide Slums. Congrats on getting it right!
- Location
- Singapore
Eh? I thought the Official Spanish name for that song was Fuego D'Amor?
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
If they successfully retreat, do their comms have the range where we could still broadcast it to them?
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
I've heard it called Aro de Fuego (which is in the lyrics) and Anillo de Fuego. I've never heard the song referred to as Fuego D'Amor. Regardless the Easter egg/hint is still intact I believe.
Depends on how they retreat.
Furthermore specifically broadcasting that song isn't an option because in universe there is no way of having gained the information to conclude that the song played was the orders to engage in the tactics committed in Hobb's Gate and the Suicide Slums
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Remember. It's Intergang. It's entirely possible that their retreat plan is "teleport back to the staging base on Jupiter" or something.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's also possible that their radios can reach Jupiter.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
...A fair point. On the other hand, our radios can't reach... wait a minute, we captured some of their radios!
@_@
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Hm. Well, if we wanted to pinch off some more Intergang troops we could just send the existing force back. However, a Fabian strategy might not be our best bet here since we may be on a time limit to keep Intergang from publicly killing Lois Lane.
Oof. Pity we lost some Peacemakers. Still, good to have that force get beat up.
See previous, only without the pity.
Hm. Sounds about like I'd hoped. The bad news is, that's nine enemy ATVs rallying to St. Martin's Island. I'd hoped to do more damage with the drone strikes, but at least the exchange rate was totally acceptable.
@King crimson
So, this sounds like a naval bombardment accompanied by Navy and Marine carrier jets and attack helicopters, probably flying out of Norfolk. Lot of planes shot down; the Navy isn't gonna be happy.
OK... we did some damage but not a lot, and the mecha is still free to retreat to what looks increasingly like Intergang's extraction point. We need to head these guys off as much as possible, and hope that we can draw Superman in that direction too.
Huh. I thought I was ordering exactly the kind of multi-directional sustained fire that we now know Mannheim's mecha is vulnerable to, having deduced that the portal weapon would be less effective that way. What went wrong, @King crimson ? Did we just roll badly?
The bad news is, Bruno may have figured out that he's not likely to grab us successfully, and that Katherine Kane is a hard target surrounded by like 100 elite mooks in power armor, while wearing identical power armor herself. He may be willing to settle for one out of three. The fact that all the Intergang guys are converging on St. Martin's Island tends to support this.
Good, good. @King crimson , how can we deploy the kryptonite bombs? How big are they? Can aerial drones deploy them by dropping them on the enemy? Could Roxy pick one up and throw it from her rocket? Could a power armor trooper physically pick one up and carry it and drop it by hand?
Hm. That means we can probably worry less about securing New Troy and more about fighting Intergang.
Hm. The scorpo-chicken walker is basically Superman bait at this point. Bruno's mecha is our highest priority target. If we can intercept and neutralize that giant robot before it reaches St. Martin's Island, it screws up the entire Intergang plan of retreat, because the Navy is already blockading the city if they were hoping to escape on ships.
OK, no surprise there.
See above, if we can dogpile Bruno Mannheim, we probably trap the rest of Intergang.
Hm. That's pretty good. They're going to run into problems against the force in Centennial Park, but it'll keep things busy. Sadly, it looks like we're going to have to launch any direct assaults on St. Martin's Island or Bruno Mannheim's giant robot ourselves.
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
I mean they likely weren't happy when Intergang showed up. This is just kind of rubbing salt in the wound at this point.
Bad rolls. Bruno had a malus of -15 initially attached to his rolls and he still edged you out by at least 3 (oftentimes by much more) on every roll. Because he edged you out in every roll, he knocked off some forces each round, decreasing his malus and making it easier for him to keep winning as time went on.
Bruno is also in the strongest mecha by a decent margin. Most of the other mechas are in around the mid-thirties in terms of martial while Bruno's mech is in the low forties.
Write out in your plan where you want to use them.
About the size of a college regulation American football with a slightly larger circumference.
The automated combat aircraft cannot pick them up and the spy drones Sam is controlling are two small to use them effectively. Roxy could probably lob them and powered armor troops can definitely physically pick one up and drop it.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Mari and Roxy team up to hunt the remaining mechs one at a time?
Just to be sure, does this mean that if we send both of them to fix it the action succeeds without a roll and we're just gambling on there not being an invisible assassin waiting to kill them?
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
Yes that's pretty much correct
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
Man, you know what woulda been great right now? Wards. Powerful, hard to break wards. Imagine. Too bad we never got a chance to work on those.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Considering they've already lost a fair bit of their firepower AND the Army's arriving, plus Blue?
Yeah, they're currently running for the evac point. Question is, did Bruno arrange one for just him, or for the rest as well?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I mean. They're mad that someone fucking invaded Metropolis.
They're really unhappy when said someones, armed only with infantry and a handful of light vehicles, manage to shoot down at least two entire squadrons of attack helicopters or fighter jets that cost, like... between 20 and 100 million dollars apiece.
[grunts]
Okay, go figure. I say we dogpile it with the best available assets we have and try to get military fire support to fuck it up. If we take down Mannheim's giant robot, Intergang probably can't retreat; they'll have no big teleporter and if they try to leave by sea the Navy will shoot them full of torpedoes. And because their command structure is a series of cells that have mutually unintelligible communications protocols, with the guy at the top out of the picture they're likely to lose coordination.
Good to know. @King crimson , about how big a 'kaboom' are we expecting from these bombs, by the way? Presumably they go 'boom' harder than an equal volume of chemical explosives or we wouldn't be bothering, but if the things are built to the same scale as a football, and made out of metal or rocks, I'm eyeballing them as weighing, oh... 15-25 kilograms, which is consistent with what you say can and cannot carry them.
Should we be expecting explosions more like "a person's weight in chemical explosives," "a ton of chemical explosives," or "tons and tons?" We should probably warn our troops what to expect before passing the things out.
Yeah, plus whatever support assets we have that can plausibly make a dent. I specifically want to dogpile Bruno Mannheim's mecha. As I mentioned earlier, the scorpio-chicken walker is basically just Superman bait at this point; it's taken some damage and is headed for the extraction point, without having any special abilities.
Sounds about right. We need a plan for dealing with the invisible assassin.
You're either forgetful or indulging in willful shit-stirring when you know better.
I'd like to think 'forgetful.'
We did get a chance to work on wards. We did work on wards. We upgraded our wards literally this turn. We did not specifically upgrade our wards' durability. Almost no one voted to upgrade the wards' durability, so while we now have wards that can stop possession attacks, and some people wanted anti-scrying wards and didn't get them, literally the only person who voted for something that would have helped our tower wards resist getting bludgeoned down by a giant robot was...
@Inbetweenaction
Now, props to @Inbetweenaction , they're a fricking visionary who foresaw the exact problem we now face and picked the correct response.
But the rest of us just weren't as insightful as him. I didn't vote for more durable wards. You didn't vote for anything, except Paul Westfield, and while Paul Westfield is cool I'm pretty sure we couldn't have reinforced our wards by tying him to the outside of the building or anything. The vast majority of us voted for other things that, while no doubt useful, didn't help us when an Intergang giant robot walked up to our building and punched it in the shields repeatedly until they fell down.
So right now, about the only person who has a right to gloat is @Inbetweenaction , who made a successful prediction that you and I did not. And OK, maybe @Gumiho and @wildwill , whose ideas might have helped us reboot the wards more quickly ("lower energy wards" and "greater area wards," I think).
By the way, if any of the people who I just tagged have any suggestions I'm all ears; y'all have a track record of having made a good decision recently that might have saved us from a serious problem if only we'd listened to you about what to do with our wards research.
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Well in that case we're probably best off just doing the same again with the inclusion of Roxy and maybe some of the military's Aerial Troops
Though I'm not sure what we'll do about the speedy mech
We should probably avoid using Kryptonite bombs on Bruno's mech, even if they can do a lot of damage it isn't worth the risk of him redirecting them and doing a ton of damage with one of our own bombs
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
I believe it would be about a person's weight in high explosives. It's strong enough to leave craters in asphalt, and blow holes through metal. I'm not quite sure how much that is but that should give you an estimate. They are meant to be powerful though.