Long time lurker here, who decided to join, because he is worried about where the vote is heading.
Tehcron may be a obnoxious about how he presents his points, but his reasoning is solid. The Druuchi infantry will only be in a window where our artillery can hit them for a short period of time. They are elves, they move fast. If we focus on the enemy arty they will be able to reach our walls and begin attacking the gates or scaling the walls unmolested (baring a good roll by the flagellants, they could utterly botch things with a low roll and become a speedbump).
In melee the Druuchi infantry will rip our tired troops into pieces. We need them bloodied before they ever reach us. And rare is the Witch elf that can dodge grapeshot. Those murder blenders definitely need to be shot prior to entering melee.
The more ranged assets we have focused on them, the better.
[X] Like Cordwood, Stack Terror
The question is, though, whether their melee troops will do more damage to our important units than their artillery. In my opinion people underestimate just how dangerous those Reaper Bolt Throwers can be right now: not to our walls but to our units! While their bolt throwers probably are weaker against walls than our artillery, in many other aspects they probably outclass our own. They are very accurate, their fire-rate is insane for artillery, and they are strong against both infantry and heavy units, such as Ogres or Gryphons(!).
If we do not attack their artillery, there are at least three ways in which they can damage us tremendously:
1) They focus on our charging Flagellants, mowing most of them down before losing many of their melee units. To make things worse, they might be able to use their accuracy to
focus on those Flagellants carrying explosives to do even more damage. In other words, this will probably lead to our Flagellants doing little damage to their melee untis. Remember, Flagellants are weak to ranged attacks and need to engage in melee to do any damage.
2) They focus their fire on the whitewings and Oskana, which are our only air units. This, together with with their own still large airforce, has a good chance of destroying our air force, which could lead to them achieving air supremacy. Even if we have killed 2 of their dragons, remember the damage that final dragon was able to do, when facing off against our Ogre Archers! If they achieve air supremacy, even if we might not be doomed, we will still incur tremendous losses! This also has a good chance of Natasha and Roland being killed!
3) They use their very high speed and accuracy to focus down our own, weakened artillery, who, while focusing on the DE infantry, cannot respond in time quickly enough. Even if our artillery has the high ground, I don't think that is worth much against the
accuracy of Reaper Bolt Throwers, whose crew probably also has
years of experience. In other words, this might lead to us losing most of our own artillery as well as them achieving
artillery supremacy. Which allows them to completely focus on doing 1) and 2).
Even if our artillery damages their melee units to some degree, I think our losses would still be much higher than their, because, due to the abovementioned reasons. We would be challenging DE artillery on their strengths, not ours.
I also think the amount of damage the Druchii would take, would be far from enough to make them retreat. Remember, one of their leaders is Tullaris Dreadbringer, especially if he
is the Khainite assassin (and therefore tasked by Khaine) to kill Frederick. He probably will not retreat until Frederick is dead, or almost the complete DE force is destroyed. As others have mentioned, this is not a DE raiding run.
Therefore, TLDR: I think it is much better that our artillery will focus theirs down first, which will give our flagellants the chance to survive longer and do much more damage to their melee units; make it more probable for our air units to survive and prevent the DE from achieving air supremacy; and give our own artillery a higher chance to survive.
Therefore I Vote:
[X] Unleash the Martyrs, and Stand at the Gates!
Even if I would rather have Frederick stand on the walls, I find the alternative of Like Cordwood, Stack Terror, and gambling on DE backstabbing and Morale, to be much more dangerous and risky. Remember, during this invasion, going for the risky options would so far probably have led to much worse results. We would have lost much more units to the charge of Black Arks, and without Kerillian, Frederick might have lost to Caledor's Bane.
So, to any of you who have voted for Like Cordwood, Stack Terror, please, change your votes to Unleash the Martyrs, and Stand at the Gates!
