@Imperial Fister some weird stuff I found looking at the character sheet skill list. Mostly not exactly errors but, like, non-standard terminology:
The Skill List post lists Slash as replacing Cut, but the skill is still titled Cut on our sheet.
Wordplay and Chop have their Infusion costs in a different format than the other skills we've infused (Composure, Defend, and Silver-Tongue), listing Odr needed to next level while the other three list it on a separate line as Odr to next Infusion...the latter version (as used by the three skills), seems better and harder to miss.
I did also find one error: We did this on Summer 7 Turn 1, but the Infusion is not reflected on our sheet:
We should put Odr into our skills and see what comes out of it. Wordplay/Composure were pretty good results. It would take a bit over 20 Odr to infuse every uninfused skill with Odr to see what happens to them, less if we only look at the 'promising' ones.
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I was hunting through the updates, and I found that Blackhand had 27 children. But most are dead. It was also Steinarr who brought Flekkr a she-dog home.
"Yep! I even sheared the sheep, too." You smile, Flekkr looking up and wagging his tail as he hears you. While he's, technically, your dog, it's like he and Steinarr simply get each other on a level you don't quite understand.
We should put Odr into our skills and see what comes out of it. Wordplay/Composure were pretty good results. It would take a bit over 20 Odr to infuse every uninfused skill with Odr to see what happens to them, less if we only look at the 'promising' ones.
Planning for this or something like it is basically why I discovered the issues above, though it's a ways down the line (we should aim for Hamr Infusion 6 first...shapeshifting slots are really good).
When his Death comes, do we want to use Loyal Hound Boneash for anything? Perhaps for a weapon that always returns to your side? Or a dog headed arm band for our best friend?
Does your Wizard Owl scribe runes faster, better or as the same compared to if you had scribed them youself?
What about Tricks and Seidr, does your owl execute them any differently from you?
With the extensive use of mercenaries... Early strikes looting the enemy are great for reducing the enemies ability to hire mercenaries if we succeed at taking a big part of the enemys money, aren't they?
Does your Wizard Owl scribe runes faster, better or as the same compared to if you had scribed them youself?
What about Tricks and Seidr, does your owl execute them any differently from you?
Looks good to me in terms of mechanical stuff. Two or three bits of weirdness, all with Relations and Reputation:
Solrun is still listed with only a 6/10 Reputation with us in the 'Others' tab, same as before Horra's death. You seemed to agree that was wrong earlier.
Halfdan is listed twice. Once with 10/10 rep among 'Friends' (which has been there a while), once with 8/10 among 'Others' (which is new).
It's odd that Hallotta has a listed rep number with us and our own children don't, given they are the same age.
Almost done with the update, which features mostly dwarf combat tactics and more dwarf lore. I just need to write out the details for combat and we're good to go.
Eldjarn Stensson: (N/A) Even as young as Eldjarn is, anyone with an ounce of spiritual sense can tell that he's got potential. He's bursting at the seams with it!
[X] Team Basalt in the crossroads (Orange Sash)
[X] Plan Overwhelming Firepower
-[X] Assign 2 Forgefire Levels to Damage
-[X] Assign 1 Emberwind Level to Damage
-[X] Assign 2 Standstill Levels to Instances
-[X] Assign 1 Campfire Level to Instances
-[X] Assign 3 Ignition Levels to Damage
0~0~0
Team Basalt is made up of seventeen dwarves and, of course, you. Toki is in charge of the team, as is his right as part of the organizing clutch, and he skillfully leads you through the spy tunnels-cum-breach points that the assault will launch from.
As you follow the broad-shouldered dwarves, you find yourself noticing their rather odd gait. It's a steady rhythm, but it's an unfamiliar one. Where the average human walk is a smooth, falling-forward motion, dwarves only lift their back foot when their front foot is firmly braced against the ground.
Their walk, when combined with their short stature, means that it is a very real struggle to not overtake them with your long stride and head-bumping height. However, you suspect that catching them unsteady is a lot harder than it would be with a human contemporary — though a dwarf's low center of gravity probably also wouldn't help with that...
With little else to do other than continue shuffle-walking forwards, you allow a bit of frenzy to slip free of its binds. After all, since you're going to be fighting dwarves, you might as well get an idea of what sort of tactics might be in play.
What's immediately made apparent is the fact that, though they're smaller, their strength far outclasses that of the average human. But while their strength is considerable, their sheer endurance is what makes them a threat. A dwarf can spend six days of the week doing literally nothing other but mine and cart around ore. They eat and sleep on the seventh day, which is all they need to be ready for another six days of what would be unthinkably hard labor to a human.
No matter the tactics you employ, letting it become a battle of attrition means that you lose, eventually. Their armor and natural robustness makes such tactics worthless, as they will simply out-stubborn you and weather your attacks.
Dwarves, obviously, are aware of this. While their preferred method of defense seems to be to simply absorb the blows, their preferred method of attack is to unleash a ton of damage all at once. The shimmers show you losing limb after limb to their scything blades, if you dare to let them get hits in.
Though strong and tough, their weaknesses are also readily apparent. Dwarves simply don't have the vast array of options that you and humans in general have. While their minds are capable of processing extraordinarily complex calculations on the fly, which grants them the power to come up with new strategies and tactics on the spot, they don't always have the arsenal of tricks and abilities to take proper advantage of those new ideas.
Dwarves seem to share a sort of instinctual ability to seamlessly work together. A preternatural awareness that links them to their siblings, allowing them to pick up the slack wherever it may be and to quickly get up to speed on projects. While one dwarf may not be able to accomplish a tactic, two or three or even four dwarves working together might. Fighting a group of dwarves is less fighting a bunch of individuals and more fighting one individual that's spread out across the the group.
Get a dwarf on their own and you'll be able to outclass them quickly, which means that the trick to defeating a group of dwarves is to separate them...
Huh... That's sort of what the overall plan is, isn't it? Instead of dealing with the dwarves on an individual level and thinking about matters of single combat, like a human would do it, the dwarves are thinking on the larger scale of group-on-group.
With how much work went into information gathering, it wouldn't surprise you at all to learn that the teams were carefully built to counter the flaws in wherever they were heading.
All in all, dwarves make for formidable opponents.
Breathing in and out, you adjust your grip on Sagaseeker as that familiar tension washes over you, the pressure of violence looming on the horizon.
0~0~0 (Hugr (Tactics): 6x3, 5x2, 4x4, 3x1, 2x2)13+5(Frenzy)=18 Successes
The Lurkalings don't know what hits them as you and seventeen dwarves fall from the ceilings, burst up from the floors, and break through the walls.
Toki hooks his pickaxe through a swallow-cheeked Lurkaling's eye socket and flings him to the floor. His armor-plated boot slams over and over again and swiftly reduces the surprised dwarf's head to a chunky red paste.
Similar acts of violence occur all across the crossroads-turned-charnel house. A dwarf bursts from the ground, grabs a Lurkaling by the beard, and wrenches open his mouth. Another orange-sashed dwarf comes up behind him and grabs him by the upper mouth. Together, the dwarves pull with all their strength from opposite directions.
You wince as the blood splatter lands on your shoe.
The battlefield is dominated by the Ducklings, to that there's no doubt. Taken by surprise and lacking any sort of formation, roughly twenty-five Lurkalings are swiftly slaughtered in the ensuing chaos.
However, that's only a little over half. There are still twenty-two Lurkalings standing in the crossroads logistics hub and they are swiftly organizing into a sort of rounded, bow-shaped battle formation with their backs to the wall. The wings are seven dwarves wide but only a single dwarf deep. The center, on the other hand, is four dwarves across and two thick.
It's a relatively weak defensive formation with only a scant few fail-safes, if the brief lesson in tactics the dwarves gave you is anything to go off of. If holes appear in the wings, then the center backline moves to reinforce. If multiple holes appear, then the center backline splits to fill them as best as possible.
The Ducklings, after reforming from the slaughter — which, unfortunately, went by a bit too quickly for you to take part in — are forming into a pair of staggered, zig-zag lines that merge into a wedge. The purpose here is to let the frontline batter around the enemy and disrupt their formation while the backline surges forward to capitalize.
You, as a non-dwarf, don't have any natural spot to fill in the formation. Which leaves you free to pursue your own plan.
Endurance: (11/11) | Frenzy: (5/5) (+5 to all Combat Rolls) | Armor Health: (17/17) (+4 to Defense)
Orthstirr: (470/510) | Odr: (18)
( ) Frami: 170 | ( ) Virthing: 170 | ( ) Saemd: 170
Sagaseeker has 35 orthstirr in its reservoir.
Your Armor has 13 orthstirr in its reservoir.
Shapeshifting is granting you (+1 Damage and +1 Attack-Speed)
Your combat pool is 70d6.
What do you do?
[ ] (Plan Name)
-[ ] (Dice) Attack
-[ ] (Dice) Defense
-[ ] (Dice) Intercept
-[ ] (Dice) (Trick) (Orthstirr)
-[ ] Tactics Write in
0~0~0
AN: And here we are, in the middle of a dwarven battle. How shall you make sense of this situation.
No moratorium, fairly strong chance for a second update depending on things.
There's enough room for us to bypass their frontline thanks to EWC, right?
It occurs to me that the best response here would be to attack their reserve, stretch them taut so that they have no slack against the Duckling offensive, and let them shave it down to nothing. Because if their reserve is busy trying to keep Halla from going on a rampage in their backline, they're not able to fill in gaps in the frontline. Attack their slack, and they become brittle, and brittle things shatter when under pressure.
Huh. Interesting. Given their resilience being highlighted, I think Overwhelming Firepower and thus +3 damage on Ignition was the correct choice here. Good, I'm always happy when the choice picked works out well.
For tactics...I think Kindle Spinners should probably feature prominently. It's an AoE that, at the moment, does 7 damage for only 2 Orthstirr after all. Given the situation, that seems a step up from most of our other options. Defensively, we should make sure to layer things at least a bit...getting hit is apparently a bad scene, after all.
And I too would like to know how high the ceiling is.
There's enough room for us to bypass their frontline thanks to EWC, right?
It occurs to me that the best response here would be to attack their reserve, stretch them taut so that they have no slack against the Duckling offensive, and let them shave it down to nothing. Because if their reserve is busy trying to keep Halla from going on a rampage in their backline, they're not able to fill in gaps in the frontline. Attack their slack, and they become brittle, and brittle things shatter when under pressure.
EWC into the air if possible, launch KS at the center of the formation to see if their damage reduction is weak enough?
We could also use our multiple Standstill instances to screw with the enemy formation.
4 vs 2 followed by 4 vs 2 is much nicer for the 4 than 4 vs 4.
Huh. Interesting. Given their resilience being highlighted, I think Overwhelming Firepower and thus +3 damage on Ignition was the correct choice here. Good, I'm always happy when the choice picked works out well.
For tactics...I think Kindle Spinners should probably feature prominently. It's an AoE that, at the moment, does 7 damage for only 2 Orthstirr after all. Given the situation, that seems a step up from most of our other options. Defensively, we should make sure to layer things at least a bit...getting hit is apparently a bad scene, after all.
And I too would like to know how high the ceiling is.
I mean, honestly, it'd be best to target individuals and nuke them down first.
If we can effectively rocket jump into their reserve, then pop Mire Ward, we can effectively lock their reserve in place while we nuke them down one by one. Firebomb Strikes would be best to maximize our damage output on single targets, but we can't forget about other armor-piercing options. Flashfire Cleave in particular would be a great opener.
Hop up, Flashfire Cleave down with the damage boosters in place, Mire Ward once down, and try to take them down one at a time while serving as a giant rock in the middle of their formation that devours their reserve while making it difficult to recover without becoming subject to it.
If we can effectively rocket jump into their reserve, then pop Mire Ward, we can effectively lock their reserve in place while we nuke them down one by one. Firebomb Strikes would be best to maximize our damage output on single targets, but we can't forget about other armor-piercing options. Flashfire Cleave in particular would be a great opener.
Hop up, Flashfire Cleave down with the damage boosters in place, Mire Ward once down, and try to take them down one at a time while serving as a giant rock in the middle of their formation that devours their reserve while making it difficult to recover without becoming subject to it.
I mean, honestly, it'd be best to target individuals and nuke them down first.
If we can effectively rocket jump into their reserve, then pop Mire Ward, we can effectively lock their reserve in place while we nuke them down one by one. Firebomb Strikes would be best to maximize our damage output on single targets, but we can't forget about other armor-piercing options. Flashfire Cleave in particular would be a great opener.
Hop up, Flashfire Cleave down with the damage boosters in place, Mire Ward once down, and try to take them down one at a time while serving as a giant rock in the middle of their formation that devours their reserve while making it difficult to recover without becoming subject to it.
Flashfire Cleave is great as an opener, yeah, and I'm down with that. But the damage up of Firebomb-Strike over Kindle Spinner is literally a single point (or, more accurately, 0-2). That's not worth giving up the AoE hitting three different targets. Like, 7-9 damage to one target is not better than 7 damage to 2 or 3 targets in this situation. Even if doing the Mire Ward plan, the flamethrower version of Kindle Spinner is gonna be better vs. a group like this than Firebomb Strike is.
Mire Ward denies us our Skyfire bonus and requires us to be in among a lot of enemies who are pretty explicitly strong enough to really mess us up if they hit us. I think flying above them and raining fire down upon them is also a valid tactical option, and at least as distracting. If we do go the Mire Ward route, we definitely also want to use Heat Haze and make the area around us a real death zone.
We have Slipstream now too, might be worthwhile mixing up our strategy?
The read I got on the Dwarves is that they're great at battlefield tactics, but don't necessarily have the ability to adequately respond, and with Frenzy in place, we can likely change strategy faster than they can--and since we're a high mobility high damage unit, we can effectively contribute to the overall battlespace by forcing them to constantly have to react to us.
Either way, keeping the Reserve tied up seems like our ideal strategy here.
