Book 2 – Page 103

[bladestorm]

Technically speaking, isn't the Achievement just wrong? Parson kicked a double, not the actual king. Although I suppose for all other intents and purposes the double has been functioning as the king...

He counts enough for 'King" that he was able to switch the capitol while sitting upon the throne.

[Denar]

Technically speaking, isn't the Achievement just wrong? Parson kicked a double, not the actual king. Although I suppose for all other intents and purposes the double has been functioning as the king...

I think you've answered your own question there...

[Allsardane]

But he accidentally asks a very good other question-

The double isn't a king but believed himself to be a king and is able to move the Capital and can see all units in the empire as if he were king (otherwise he would have known immediately that he was a double).

So the question Parson will hopefully be asking is "can I exploit this"? Does it only work because the king was doubled or can some form of linked foolamancer/dollmancer plus whatever gave the golems from the written aspect of this story "life" be enough to "create" a king either as a back-up or a puppet?

[cheeseaholic]

Is there anything a king can do to another unit that the king can't do to himself?

Disbanding, making heir, and giving orders are all that I can think of that might fit the bill. Promoting to another unit type seems possible (Parson with the promoting from garrison unit to field), though we can't be sure. Trading a unit to another side? Might fall under orders.

I don't see anything exploitable there. Yet.

Edit: Maybe I'm looking too high. I could see multiple Chief Warlord's being devistating. I assume there's a juice/spell limit on casters. Could extra mounts be used in combat and then for rations? That would be useful even if it's not game breaking like multiple Chief Warlord bonuses would be.

[mortissimus]

He doesn't know what he is doing with a sword, and said as much in Book 1. "Pointy end away from user" is the extent of his knowledge. I was a bit surprised he didn't take SOME combat training in the summer updates from, well, any warlord available, but ideally Ansom.

Until he became CW again, I think Parson tried a detachment approach to dealing with the guilt of killing. Not taking combat training fits such an approach. Probably rationalised it as something he could do tomoorow.

[(name here)]

Technically, I think the Slately double actually is the king. Otherwise his heir would have immediately noticed being promoted. That leads to the question of what would happen if a king and his double were both alive at the same time. I think they'd both get control like in a Starcraft 1 team game, except that since they're identical there would be fewer hilarious screwups or fighting each other for control of a unit.

Alternately, Parson could have gotten the achievement because doubles work like Dead Ringer spies in TF and give achievements as appropriate to keep up the illusion.

[bladestorm]

He doesn't know what he is doing with a sword, and said as much in Book 1. "Pointy end away from user" is the extent of his knowledge. I was a bit surprised he didn't take SOME combat training in the summer updates from, well, any warlord available, but ideally Ansom.

Until he became CW again, I think Parson tried a detachment approach to dealing with the guilt of killing. Not taking combat training fits such an approach. Probably rationalised it as something he could do tomoorow.

Becoming CWL wasn't even in his plan to begin with. Had things progressed as he wanted, he would still be back in GK, and someone who was already at the battle site and who knows how to use a weapon would have been promoted to CWL. In the Summer Updates, he was not in a position to order troops, and he wasn't looking to get that promotion again. He wasn't leading battles, battles weren't coming to him, physical combat wasn't part of his role, and the closest he was going to get to the battles was to run some calculations and offer up some strategies. There was no need for him to study combat. He was the side's strategist. If combat training was something that was eminently important, the Tool could have ordered him to train. Stanley was no stranger to physical combat, yet what were the lessons he was teaching Parson -- leadership, dealing with subordinates, maintaining the city, resource management, and anger management (at least by providing examples of what not to do).

[Squishalot]

I don't believe this theory has been stated thus far in the thread, but I believe that Ace hasn't raised the Holly Shortcake golem, but rather, has posessed it.

That would explain:

- Why it's now dressed in camos
- Why Slately looks at the doll and sees Ace
- Why Slately tells Ace to close his mouth when he (i.e. the doll) fights, because he doesn't want Ace's talking out of the doll to destroy his memories of Holly.

It could also explain why a spell/action was 'cast' - maybe it's a passive action?

[Dancing Cthulhu]

But he accidentally asks a very good other question-

The double isn't a king but believed himself to be a king and is able to move the Capital and can see all units in the empire as if he were king (otherwise he would have known immediately that he was a double).

Well, he absolutely knows he isn't the original and was created for the remainder of the turn by a dittomancer spell. But from the way it looks the spell really does create a perfect copy, putting aside the limited duration. This Slately was able to designate Trem heir, stop the side ending when the original Slately died without an heir, move the capital, give King level orders... so if original Slately was still alive the side would have had two kings for the remainder of the turn.

But since they were identical it presumably wouldn't cause an issue since there wouldn't be differences of opinions and the like. Possibly the original king would still be the dominant one in turns of orders having to be followed, but for all intents and purposes there would be two kings for one side for a limited amount of time ( Slately 1 could have jetted of with Trem while Slately 2 could stay and switch the capitals kind of thing)

So the question Parson will hopefully be asking is "can I exploit this"? Does it only work because the king was doubled or can some form of linked foolamancer/dollmancer plus whatever gave the golems from the written aspect of this story "life" be enough to "create" a king either as a back-up or a puppet?

The thinkamancer did the life adding part, and it apparently involved splicing his own life into the golems. I'm guessing it wouldn't be sufficient without a dittomancer. The dittomancer has a starting point with an actual ruler to duplicate, the foolmancer/dollmancer and thinkmancer don't. They can't say "we're going to make a copy king of that side over there, or our side" and have it actually be a perfect copy, since it isn't - the thinkamancer wouldn't have access to the entirety of the rulers being (mind wise) to put into their doll, and the fool/doll don't really have anything to trick the rules into thinking it is a king. Now if a dittomancer was in the link up... now on the other hand maybe they'd be able to create a warlord that could be designated heir or something.

Plus - Parson doesn't know this Slately isn't the original yet. He thinks it is the original King of Jetstone. It is possible he will figure it out when this Slately vanishes in a puff of magic.

[cheeseaholic]

More likely he'll think the king outplayed him when he disappears in a puff of magic.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

More likely he'll think the king outplayed him when he disappears in a puff of magic.

Indeed. I admit if I was in that position, with the kind of knowledge of what is going on that Parson has my first thought would be "damn, some sort of foolamancy or a copy (dittomancy or dollmancy) to distract me while the real Slately snuck away after switching the capitals!" not "hmmmm, so you can make a perfect copy of a ruler who can switch capitals and do all the things only a ruler can? Interesting".

I am wondering if Parson is acting (as usual) under flawed information. He clearly believes that killing the King means winning the battle, but that is no longer the case. Killing Slately means Trem becomes king, the side lives on, and, I assume, the remaining JS forces are NOT paralyzed, which is normal upon the death of the ruler. Thus, Parson MUST kill every JS force in the city, including Ace and his bear.

Correct, Parson thinks it is the original Slately and that the heir died/was decrypted with Oss (or with Ansom). Which means killing just the king Slately he is fighting isn't sufficient to insta-capture the city since it no longer means the side will end. I guess it is possible to capture the other units there, but if not then they need to be killed as well (much like an incapacitated Cubbins was enough to stop GK capturing the garrison).

But it is hard to see that happening before the whole inferno thing occurs, it has been burning for a while now and Parson really doesn't have many guys for fire fighting even if he wins this fight quickly.

Technically speaking, isn't the Achievement just wrong? Parson kicked a double, not the actual king. Although I suppose for all other intents and purposes the double has been functioning as the king...

I don't think so. The duplication effect appears to have created a perfect copy of Slately, which by the laws of Erfworld means it is King Slately temporarily. If it looks like a king, sounds like a king and can do everything a king can do even if it knows it is the duplicate it is a king.

- what exactly happened to the sizable pile of infantry that used to be in the dungeon? When Wanda took it, there were tens, if not hundreds down there. Did Sylvia call them back up? They'd be handy right now.

I think most of them were sent back to the atrium in anticipation of a Jetstone attack or were taken with Archer when he was searching for survivors - we see what would have to be most of the decrypted infantry Wanda created fighting Slately's attack force prior to the explosion.

- I loved this update. Both the art and the dialogue were top-notch.

Agreed.

- Did you see how heavies stomped the infantry with Tramennis? There's no way holding up Ace fully occupies that battle bear. That would be silly.

Also agreed.

- Whoever pointed it out was right, the Staff of Suckage was broken in book 1 when Wanda fell. Where the heck did Parson get a new one?

The casters made a new one - while Wanda was out conquering Unaroyal and marching on Spacerock Maggie, Jack and Sizemore had a lot of time to be creating magic items if they could. Or they went to the MK and bought a new one - GK isn't short of money. Or recovered it from one of the cities they conquered. It isn't a super special item (in the sense that in most settings an item that has a utilitarian single use like that isn't).

-this is really off topic, and I love this comic, and setting up an internally consistent and complex game system while writing a comic novel is a near-impossible task, so I love Rob's work, but I have been waiting to complain about this for a long time - there's no way this whole book 2 plan makes sense from a numbers point of view. When Wanda raided the garrison, how many dwagons did they have? 50? 100? can't be too much more - 26 griffons and 6 megalogs was a 'signficant force' that was going to hurt them bad. So take 20% of that and make them yellows (it's not like yellows were important to the plan). Maybe 30%, be generous! How many infantry could Gobwin Knob kill with crap? (they started evacing right away)... Jetstone had its entire capital fight force - literally thousands of units - against 50-70 dragons and... a few hundred infantry? Yes, dragons are tough, but... there's no way you kill hundreds or thousands of infantry with 10-15 dragons bombing for a few rounds. Gobwin knob should have been massively, Book-1 style outnumbered.

Yeah, they didn't kill thousands of infantry by bombing the atrium. Combining friendly fire from the archery, yellows bombing and some of the GK fighters killing some I'm guessing a couple of hundred at most

And they were outnumbered, very much so. Trem said as much. Trem's original plan was to get Slately and the casters out of the city to safety and then decide whether it was worth the cost to counterattack the atrium (Trem wasn't willing to risk giving Wanda another huge army). Caesar said they could do it but it required flooding the atrium with everything they had. The danger was Wanda - she and the pliers give the decrypted bonuses, and she'd be able to be raising things as fast as they fell. The dwagons might be overwhelmed eventually but before they were they would have been able to take out a lot of guys - those combo breath attacks are deadly - meaning Jetstone would be loosing troops steadily which would be being decrypted and returning to the fight.

Note how despite Ansom and the RCC outnumbering GK and having a lot more troops in the courtyard Wanda and a bunch of uncraoked were able to stall them thanks to the way bonuses worked and Wanda leading a dance fight - until Ansom started leading a dance himself.

I'm not even going to get started on the 800 archers running out of arrows before managing to kill Wanda on a near-empty field, even with four casters in the immediate vicinity - why would you blanket an entire area with arrows from 1000 feet up instead of sending down a party to nab her.. you know, waiting until she decrypts everything before you start shooting?

I don't think there were 800 archers on the tower, and they didn't, more than a few still had arrows (hence why the archers Cubbins let go were able to still be shooting).

Plus Jetstone doesn't have a thinkamancer, so there is a reduction in the time they can get their orders to who needs them. Trem was able to give orders immediately to the archers behind him, it would take longer to send word to the forces below to send a party in to nab her, about the same time to lead a party down himself. It didn't take long for Wanda or the other warlords/knights/heavies to get back on their feet, and decrypting doesn't take long.

The only reason she wasn't decrypting straight away was because Parson sent the order to keep her head down till the shooting had stopped and everything in there was as dead as it was going to get. Rush the entire army in and it might be better, but Trem isn't a rush in without planning kind of warlord. Trem instead chose to go with volleys, which proved unsuccessful - the position the archers had to fire from means it wouldn't have been hard to get to a safe position in the atrium, so it isn't surprising Wanda and co survived (in fact in one of the last sections you see even a few Jetstone troops managed to avoid it and were still alive in the atrium after the shooting stopped - the dwagons are chasing them).

[the_tick_rules]

I just noticed something. Did Parson's staff explode?

[eras10]

I don't think there were 800 archers on the tower, and they didn't, more than a few still had arrows (hence why the archers Cubbins let go were able to still be shooting).

Plus Jetstone doesn't have a thinkamancer, so there is a reduction in the time they can get their orders to who needs them. Trem was able to give orders immediately to the archers behind him, it would take longer to send word to the forces below to send a party in to nab her, about the same time to lead a party down himself. It didn't take long for Wanda or the other warlords/knights/heavies to get back on their feet, and decrypting doesn't take long.

The only reason she wasn't decrypting straight away was because Parson sent the order to keep her head down till the shooting had stopped and everything in there was as dead as it was going to get. Rush the entire army in and it might be better, but Trem isn't a rush in without planning kind of warlord. Trem instead chose to go with volleys, which proved unsuccessful - the position the archers had to fire from means it wouldn't have been hard to get to a safe position in the atrium, so it isn't surprising Wanda and co survived (in fact in one of the last sections you see even a few Jetstone troops managed to avoid it and were still alive in the atrium after the shooting stopped - the dwagons are chasing them).

If you think that even after the fall and initial Decryption Gobwin Knob was outnumbered about 10-to-1 - that sounds about right to me, Jetstone had forces to wipe out 1000 GK ground units and was planning a massive capital defense battle - then the only conclusion is that Jetstone screwed up pretty hardcore letting this get that close, and Parson's plan wasn't all that good, and he got lucky.

Tramennis understood the point of what was happening quickly - saving the barrage of arrows for after the mass decrypt would have been a lot smarter, but he burnt them going after wanda in the most wasteful way possible

There were 600 archers in the battle, say half that in the tower. If, even with foolamancy, 300 archers volleying from tower was an ineffective tactic for wiping out Wanda and the handful before the mass decrypt, then Trammenis never should have tried it. He doesn't seem stupid. Why would he waste such a powerful force like that? The archers were basically spent by the time the siege started, or they would have wiped out the beseigers.

The bottom line is Jetsone had enough before the battle to wipe out all the dragons with just spells and archers, and then suddenly once they landed Jetstone didn't have enough even to take out the purples - and it appeared to be because they blew 90% of their arrow ammo uselessly before the decrypt. Either they blew it on something very unlikely to work at killing Wanda for no reason when alternatives, like having the archers descend into the atrium, were available, or else it should have worked.

Frankly, considering Wanda had to reveal her location to decrypt *anything*, including the dragon they hid under and Jetstone had no trouble targeting specific units before the big scrum, there's no way she should have lived through to her mass decrypt. And once she went off to the dungeon, the tactical cascade was off the table in the courtyard. At that point, the banzai charge Jetstone was just getting around to a few strips ago was on the table. The amount of time it took them to "get organized" was story useful, but silly. Duty should have compelled every Jetstone warlord in the city to lead every unit against Sylvia from the moment the first purple breathed, and, frankly, Jetstone should have been able to stomp them flat with Wanda off in the dungeon, bonuses or not. Bonuses should not be that powerful, 3000 vs. 300.

And if Jetstone outnumbered GK that badly - and we all agree they ought to have - why did Charlie's/Slately's counterattack look a lot less lopsided? yes, they marched a column away instead. Why? Why did that fight go so badly that the Dollamancer had to order a suicide bombing? It didn't look to be going well to me. Yes, dwagons are tough, but cmon - Artemis took out seven with one stack. Why didn't Jetstone use those forces? Why didn't Charlie force them to, more units being better to kill Parson with than less?

Like I said, a great story, lots of cliffhangers, highly enjoyable. There's no need to try to make it all hang together tactically and logically. A lot of it does hang together, but some of it doesn't. I feel compelled to explore the counterfactuals.

[mortissimus]

I just noticed something. Did Parson's staff explode?

More like dissolved when pewed, I would say.

[Oberon]

It's a play on the phrase "the ball is in your court" which originates from tennis, meaning that it's up to the person to take advantage of the situation.

Here, Ace is talking about him re-animating the Holly Shortcake doll to protect the King. So it's up to Slatey to use the doll in the upcoming fight, as I think Ace just used up the last of his juice there (not sure though).

Worse, it's a double pun. The aforementioned tennis reference, plus this is, after all, Slately's actual court. (Beaten to the punch by Hidden Sanity)

And the author isn't the only one throwing out the double puns:

Well.... His Majesty seems to have learned the value of violating parleys when his back's against the wall, albeit that was a really really short one.

Slately's back was indeed kickedn up against the wall. And yes, Slately is rather short.

Personally, rather than a convenient portal escape (which would only work for the casters and Parson) I like the prospect of the city being destroyed and Parson's stack having to make their way home through hostile territory. Possibly with prisoners that may end up being freed for an alliance of necessity.

ITYM "a convenient portal escape (which can no longer work for anyone)."

That's not the same staff, that staff was destroyed by an overdose of gravity. You can see its remains in the twelfth panel of the very page you linked to.

Yes, but twolls have good fixing skills. Note how easily Bogroll put together Parson's former magic sword, plus other twollish construction feats.

As for the sword, he'd been holding the staff, and that went away, so he wasn't quite ready with the sword. I don't see a problem with that.

The staff was in his left hand. Parson is very likely to be right handed, since he wears his watch on his left wrist. So he should have blocked the sword blow of the JS trooper on his sword, and not on the staff. A staff is not a shield, it isn't meant to be used in the off hand. Parson's sword should not have been 'not quite ready' regardless of holding the staff in his off hand.

[...] just a lil puzzling why he would attempt a difficult martial arts manuever as a go-to reflex when discombobulated. Admittedly, it definitely does obey the rule of badass... but doesn't really fit with my notion of Parson.

Agreed. To answer Spot's comment, I view blocking the sword of the JS trooper with an off hand staff as the "difficult martial arts maneuver."

[teratorn]

Eras10, there was no way Jetstone could win with Wanda alive on the ground, not with the way multipliers work. Their ground army without Ossomer's bonus was much weaker than it was before Ossomer's capture while Wanda's army probably got a boost from the fall and the joining of any Jetstone soldiers in the atrium.

Decrypted dwagons are stronger than normal dwagons as long Wanda is in the hex since they get her bonus on top of any other bonus they had before, same for any decrypted soldiers they make. If Stanley had promoted Sylvia or Ossomer to chief warlord, then any decrypted unit would be worth much more than it was worth as a Jetstone unit. The only thing that could have saved them at the time was a lucky hit on Wanda and that's what he went for. The battle was lost, archers or no archers, the only way to win was to knock out Wanda before she could engage their forces.

Tram had no way to know by then that Wanda would leave the city, Ossomer would turn and GK would not care to give its units a decent chief warlord bonus. When he acted they had lost the battle and the options were simple: get the ruler and as many units as possible away from the city.

The post-Wanda situation is another story. Without Wanda there there is no point in risking their casters and whatever leadership remains to them if Charlie is willing to wrap up the battle for them. I think differently from you, they should have left only the minimum to ensure the throne room gambit, risking Ace makes very little sense to me.

[erianaiel]

Edit: I think Ace just broke a rule, according to this page:

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -01-22.png

"Incapacitation could take a number of forms. All of them meant that you could not move, could not initiate engagement or disengage, could not personally fight or cast."

I'd love to have some clarification on this. I have my own guesses but there's just too many things it could be.

Ace was immobilised (due to have broken both legs I suppose) and therefor per the Sylvia rule could not cast.
However, Ace carried by the bear is clearly not immobilised and there for equally clearly can cast. He may run out of juice or consciousness soon of course.

It is the reverse of what happened when Parson promoted the hobgobwins above the atrium to heavy unit. That combination of mount and rider suddenly could no longer fly, though soon as the hobgobwins dismounted the dragons regained their flight ability (assuming of course they were not croaked in the fall and not shot full of arrows).

[eras10]

Eras10, there was no way Jetstone could win with Wanda alive on the ground, not with the way multipliers work. Their ground army without Ossomer's bonus was much weaker than it was before Ossomer's capture while Wanda's army probably got a boost from the fall and the joining of any Jetstone soldiers in the atrium.

This is nonsense. To repeat myself: when Wanda's army was floating in the air, the forces and dwagons out there were not tough enough to survive the archers and casters. Clearly established and agreed to by all sides.
All sides also thought that those archers and casters and tower spells were enough to wipe out most to all of that force even if all the living units were decrypted by Wanda as they were killed. That was Jack's original plan, and his description still implied overwhelming losses. What actually happened was worse for GK in terms of hits left to absorb, because GK killed most of their dragons without Jetsone needing to waste juice / arrows.

The added Jetstone infantry are meaningless - all Jetstone would have had to do was kill the decrypted siege dragons, and Gobwin Knob would have had no way of entering or destroying the barricaded tower. Furthermore, just shooting down all the regular dragons would have left the jetstone infantry by themselves fairly pathetic. A combat bonus doesn't make you survive a larger number of arrows. No, Jetstone had the shooting to kill every dragon in Spacerock twice over, give or take 20% or so, whether they were on the ground, or in the air. And they wasted it, blanketing an area with area fire blindly. If that was going to be totally ineffective at killing Wanda, they should have known it would be so and done something more effective, like moved a component downstairs to shoot at Wanda directly, forcing her to decrypt things to screen her, and otherwise taking aimed shots. They spent 90% of their shooting hitting rocks.

Furthermore, your assumptions about relative strength are blind, unwarranted, and contrary to evidence. Maybe the decrypted dwagons were the strongest individual units in the city, but just because bonuses are nice doesn't mean that numbers have no meaning. Please re-read the Artemis fight, which happened while Wanda was still in the city. You will observe that a single Jetstone high-level knight was weaker than a decrypted dwagon, but four high-level Jetstone knights attacking as a team were *stronger* than a decrypted dragon. Fancy that! If 50 decrypted dragons were stronger enough to conquer the whole of Erfworld on their own, than I think Gobwin Knob wouldn't have bothered making their other 8500 units. However stacking works, when you take enough units on by yourself, some of them are going to have the chance to hit you before you kill them. Numbers matter.

The Jetstone force was a decapitation strike force meant to assassinate the ruler under surprise, with the rest of Jetstone's forces nearby and unable to assist. When that failed, they were, or should have been by the logical limitations of what they had done so far, overwhelmingly outnumbered. Getting onto the ground and adding 100 Jetstone infantry or so still leaves them massively outnumbered. Rob's created the real-time decryption to be very powerful, but it should not, and does not, mean that Wanda can charge overwhelming forces with whatever she happens to have around and win automatically. If you're killing the other guy five times faster than he's killing you, than your total combat power is decreasing faster than his even if you're gaining back the one fifth of your losses that are his losses.

Not one actual participant in that comic thought that Jetstone was "lost" once Wanda was in there. At risk, yes, because now they can attack you instead of being sitting ducks, and they're inside the city with the ruler. Not lost. And GK was tougher than they ought to have been by any consistent portrayal of the capabilities implied.

The post-Wanda situation is another story. Without Wanda there there is no point in risking their casters and whatever leadership remains to them if Charlie is willing to wrap up the battle for them. I think differently from you, they should have left only the minimum to ensure the throne room gambit, risking Ace makes very little sense to me.

There's no evidence that Charley is willing to wrap up anything. If you're going to kill the enemy force inside your city, than using everything you have means more will be left over than using less than that. When the turn is over, Trammennis will be exactly one turn's move away from any dwagons left alive to see their next turn. That would have been a bad thing. There was no reason to have held anything back from that fight, and the kamikaze plan should not have been needed. The fight looked relatively even because of the inexplicably large numbers of Jetstone infantry on the wrong team, and because the number of dwagons never seemed to get smaller even when decrypted ones were dying.

[Oberon]

Eras10, there was no way Jetstone could win with Wanda alive on the ground, not with the way multipliers work. Their ground army without Ossomer's bonus was much weaker than it was before Ossomer's capture while Wanda's army probably got a boost from the fall and the joining of any Jetstone soldiers in the atrium.

This is nonsense. To repeat myself: when Wanda's army was floating in the air, the forces and dwagons out there were not tough enough to survive the archers and casters. Clearly established and agreed to by all sides.
All sides also thought that those archers and casters and tower spells were enough to wipe out most to all of that force even if all the living units were decrypted by Wanda as they were killed. That was Jack's original plan, and his description still implied overwhelming losses. What actually happened was worse for GK in terms of hits left to absorb, because GK killed most of their dragons without Jetsone needing to waste juice / arrows.

The added Jetstone infantry are meaningless - all Jetstone would have had to do was kill the decrypted siege dragons, and Gobwin Knob would have had no way of entering or destroying the barricaded tower.

I disagree on several points.

First, Jack thought that Wanda might keep the GK forces going even against the masses archery and tower defenses by "catching them as they fell" i.e. decrypting units to take another round of arrows to finally remove from combat. So it wasn't "established and agreed to by all sides" that the GK air force was completely screwed. Screwed, yes, but they had a chance with Jacks plan. It's just that Parson's plan was even better.

Second, the premise is "with Wanda alive on the ground", and with her there she can and did do something that she simply could not from the air: Kill and decrypt JS units to supplement the GK forces. This does the old double hit to the unit count, every dead JS unit becomes a decrypted GK unit. This is playing right to the strengths of the 'pliers. It also did what you've mentioned: Took the air force out of the effective JS archery and tower defense area. JS might have been able to shift forces down to fire more effectively, but it's also likely that those units would simply have done some damage to the GK forces and then have become GK forces themselves, again shifting the unit count by two instead of one for each JS unit slain. I seem to recall that Tram was going to make just such a thrust, and look where that got him.

Third, saying that "all Jetstone would have had to do was kill the decrypted siege dragons" is kinda like the mice saying "all we need to do is bell the cat and we'll know when it's coming." But who is going to bell the cat?

[teratorn]

This is nonsense. To repeat myself: when Wanda's army was floating in the air, the forces and dwagons out there were not tough enough to survive the archers and casters. Clearly established and agreed to by all sides.

Not only that is not true, as Oberon already noted, but you keep arguing about irrelevant stuff. On the ground the casters can not use the tower defenses, archers can not fire without fear of retribution. There's nothing similar between the two situations, in one we have a bunch of sitting ducks with no way to retaliate, in the other we have a group of very heavy units that can inflict major damage.

There's no evidence that Charley is willing to wrap up anything.

Come on, you're making stuff up. Charlie told the double that he's going to kill the fat man, that's why he went to the throne room. Why risk an army you still need to fight the major threat (Wanda) just to croak a bunch of dwagons that are doomed?