Warning long post ahead.
I've got a calculation of the amount of exp we should recieve from this battle if there is nothing but the archers in that city when we attack it.
2 Stacks (16 units) of Zed Garrison Archers=16*2=32 (MarbitChow said garrison units are worth as much as their regular counterparts and 2 UP is the cost of a zed archer.)
4 units of Garrison Archers (Well-Armed, Skilled)=4*4=16 (4 regular units)
3 units of Level 2 Garrison Heavy Archers=3*6=18 (In previous battles, Exp value went up by 2 at level 2.)
1 unit of Level 2 Garrison Leadership Archer=1*6=6 (see above)
32+16+18+6=72 exp. If we want to use this battle to level Wandereus, he should get 9 exp. (Wandereus has 26 exp currently. Tod leveled to 4 at 35.5 and Triage didn't at 33.6. Assuming the amount of exp required was a whole number, that leaves 34 and 35.) That means no more than 8 exp-using units should be in the hex while the archers are croaking. Wandereus also has to be in the hex for that part of the battle. (
MarbitChow, Wandereus does have to be in the hex for the entire battle right?)
Given how the last battle went, I think we should assume that the ranged battle will likely have had time to decide itself by the time any melee reaches the wall/door, even if it only takes a couple rounds. Then it will take some more to get thru said door/wall.
We need to think in terms of protecting crucial units from archery fire while returning fire ourselves. Here's a couple things in the rules we really need to consider.
MarbitChow wrote:
Note: Fire attacks cannot target individual members of a Squad unless that member is not adjacent to any other member of the squad; the actual squad member hit is determined by the GM. Also, Squads and enemy units that are adjacent to an allied unit cannot be targeted by a Fire attack at all.
MarbitChow wrote:
Combat Squads
Command Unit: Any unit with Leadership, Paragon or Caster.
Stack: A unit can only belong to 1 stack at a time. A stack is limited to 8 units. Units in a Stack cannot also be in a Horde.
[Requires Uncroaked or Thrilleror Bone Warlord] Horde: A unit can only belong to 1 horde at a time. A horde is limited to 24 units. Units in a Horde cannot also be in a Stack.
All Stacks and Hordes are Squads. Each Squad has a Squad Leader. Any unit can be a Squad Leader. If a Squad Leader drops from a stack (due to a Regroup action or being croaked), the former Squad Leader can designate a Command Unit in the Squad to become the Squad Leader as part of the Regroup action. If no other Command Units are in the Squad, all members of the Stack are dropped as well, and each will need to spend a Regroup action to join a new Squad. Squad Leadership is not visible to other Sides.
If the Squad Leader is a Command Unit, the Squad Leader can freely change a Squad's Order at the start of each round for their Squad. Units with Leadership can also issue a Squad Order for any Squad. If a Squad receives conflicting orders, order of resolution is: Squad's Leader, then Chief Warlord, then Highest Leadership, then Closest Leader.
In large-scale encounters, units that aren't in a Squad will only act to preserve themselves - the events of the battlefield are too complex for them to try to decide what the best course of action is. Command Units and Units with Free Will (Player Characters) are always able to determine their own actions.
All Squads have an Order which is made up of one Tactic, and one Attack [Target]. The default Order is Hold, Target (Any). Orders are set at the start of Combat, and can only be changed at the start of each round.
Attack [Target] - Target must be a unique identifier, and is applied to the entire squad. Examples: Target (Unit Name, ex. 'Tod'), Target (Unit Type, ex. 'Faeries'), Target (Unit Proximity, ex. 'Closest Units'), Target (Units with Abilities or Specials, ex. 'Leadership'), Target (None), Target (Any: same as Closest)
Protection considerations:
The archers are defending so they can shoot us as soon as we enter the hex with delayed actions. That is a guaranteed 24 shots we have to deal with right away.
Since Creperum called away one of the Brickbats, we can only use the 3 we have to soak up a maximum of 21 shots, provided we aren't willing to lose 1.
If Bill is leading a decent sized horde, he is easily the safest unit in the hex. Without the ability to target him directly, any archer trying to hit him may only have a chance as low as 1/24 of doing so. If we stick him next to a brickbat with order to only screen for Bill, he'll be fine for quite a while. (
MarbitChow, do we need to squad the Brickbats now to give them orders? And how complex could those orders be?) Any other units can only get up 1/8 protection if they're stacked with 7 other units. Additionally, given the circumstances, those other 7 are likely to be valuable to us, where as Bill's skeles are disposable. There is a possibility the enemy could choose to simply ignore the opportunity to fire on Bill's horde and concentrate fire on any secondary squad in the hex if it is more valuable. Therefore finding ways to protect the secondary squad is key.
Vinny's fire cloaks will be useful to have on the more valuable units in the hex. However, they should go to units not already on a mount. They were made to be used.
The ability of mounts to protect units when the bats have been used up is debateable.
Bill certainly shouldn't be mounted on a kitty since it couldn't join his horde or any stack. His mount would be uncontrollable and, according to the rule about unsquaded units, would "only act to preserve itself". (Best case: It stands around doing nothing. Worst case: It drags Bill out of the hex or away from the protection of his horde into enemy fire.) Bill's mount would also be able to be targeted as an individual, allowing for it to be easily eliminated by any archer wishing to drop Bill to the ground.
(Neat little squad trick: As written, the rules would allow 8 stacked command units to go to each corner of the battlefield as pairs and still not allow individuals to be targeted with a >1/8 chance because they're all adjacent to another member of the squad. Could be useful under right circumstances. A leader and a paragon could order 6 non-command units forward and stay back themselves.)
Fire Assault considerations:
According to the rules, eliminating squad leaders without a backup command unit gives us an odd bonus, in that the others members of the squad are dropped from it and must use an action to restack. This would allow us to then target individuals of the survivors unless they all spent an action restacking.The Archer with leadership will probably be stacked with the other 7 non zed units. He is likely to be that squad's leader, that may not be the case. (If I were in his shoes, another unit would be squadleader. That way the enemy has to eliminate both me and him before the squad disbands.) The 16 zeds may or may not be stacked as 2 groups of 8 with 2 random ones as squad leaders.
Since we can no longer give Skeles well-armed, they will be regaining their fire actions at the same time as the garrison zeds.
Anything that has more than 8 com can fire faster than the garrison zeds.
The targeting options for Bill's horde have some odd new restrictions under these rules. The entire horde is restricted to all of them either firing at random targets, firing at a single squad, or firing at an individual. If we want to use members of the horde to boost Bill's shots, or the shots of any other character with 2 fire actions, that character has to follow the same firing pattern as the whole horde.
Taking these things into mind, I've come up with a rather minimalistic plan to take Logan's Run. It uses only 6 exp-using characters, all of them PCs. (I have another idea for what to do with Wandereus.)
The PCs for the Plan:
Tod (The Skele archers and Bill will have use of his in-hex bonus.)
Bill (Bringing a horde of Skeles)(wearing both the +1 and +2 com rings to get to 8 com)(He also needs his staff for turns 15,16,&17. If Vinny comes along, He can give the staff to Bill as needed.)
Nemo (Defense for after the bats run out)
Triage or T. Coil (Additional fire power and healing if Triage.)(Triage is borrowing T. Coil's staff if he comes to get to 8 com) (Will isn't a choice here for good reason. He only has 59 exp.)
2 leeches who should level if they get 12 more exp (I'm expecting level 5 at 75 exp, so the choices are Triage or T. Coil, Yuri, Vinny, Brick, Fort, Rudy, and Donovan.)
Additional resources the team needs: (Anything that uses exp stays outside the hex until the archers are gone.)
All 3 remaining Brickbat swarms
4 naughty kitties pulling 2 bone carts worth of corpses. (One of these 16 corpses may be a level 2 warlord.
I forget if the bonus from putting an uncroaked one in Bill's horde stacks with bone warlord or not. If not, this is just a regular corpse.)
The 9 current Skele archers (Maintained by Bill through-out the trip)
6 cloaks for all PCs
potions if Triage isn't coming.
1 disposable golem (Yes, it will be destroyed. I would use another uncroaked or skele in its place, but the carts only carry so many corpses.)
a few assault capable NPCs armed with picks or a ram. (May be golems made by Vinny in route if he comes.)
Best wards Triage can manage in case we take a hit
The spearmen Tod is training might be good to have around, maybe along with a NPC warlord.
Travel:
Turn 13: Team sets out and moves 8 hexes towards Logan's Run.
Turn 14: Team moves 8 more hexes towards Logan's Run. Bill raises something. (If the Uncroaked warlord's bonus would stack with Bill's in a horde, it is uncroaked now. If it wouldn't, Bill creates a skele warrior. Either way, it will not be maintained during the trip. It will suffer 3x normal decay and 1x extended decay, but will still make it to the battle without dusting.)
Turn 15: Team moves 8 more hexes towards Logan's Run. Using his +8 juice staff, Bill raises 5 more skele archers. (Also not maintained) The 9 starting Skele archers suffer from extended decay again.
Turn 16: Team moves 8 more hexes towards Logan's Run. Using his +8 juice staff, Bill raises 5 more skele archers. (Also not maintained)
Turn 17: Using his +8 juice staff, Bill raises 5 more skele archers. (fresh for the battle) Team then assaults Logan's Run.
Battle:
Stacks: Bill is horded with either 23 skele archers or 22 skele archers and the uncroaked Warlord. The other PCs are stacked together with the disposable golem, a skele archer with 2x extended decay and either the skele warrior or another a skele archer with 2x extended decay. (These last 3 are known as the "filler".)
Round 1: The 5 freshest skele archers declare coordinate on Bill. (4 of the second freshest declare support on Triage if he is there.)
Before phase 0: Nothing enters until the Brickbats can enter at phase 0. Alot happens then.
Phase 0: Brickbats enter and form a 3 square line 2 hexes in. Then the squad with 5 PCs and the filler moves into the hex. The squad has orders to rally at a point not adjacent to the brickbats, but adjacent to each other. (I'm certain that the filler will follow the order, but I have doubts about the 5 free-willed PCs. They may instead choose to cower in fear in 5 of the 6 hexes in front of and behind the line of brickbats, leaving one of the forward corners open, (possibly with Triage in the other forward corner). I fear we have serious disipline issues.)
Presumedly, this is when the enemy opens fire on the squad. The shots should distribute themselves randomly across the PCs and the filler because all members of the stack are adjacent to another member. Shots aimed at PCs can be screened by the bats. Shots aimed at the filler can not. The filler is destroyed while the PCs survive, maybe with a couple shots left on the bats too. (Rules say that commanders don't have to follow their own orders. This trick should be fair game as it does follow the "the enemy has to be able to do it too" clause. They would need 2 units defined as commanders in a stack due to their lack of free-willed units, but they could do it.)
Bill enters with his horde and takes his place in the empty forward corner. The empty squares around him fill with the 5 skeles who declared on him. (The 4 who declared on Triage go next to the other forward corner.) The rest of the horde clusters around the PCs like a shell of bone.
Every fire capable unit we have except Nemo lets loose. (We need Nemo's delayed action. T. Coil uses a shockamancy spell if he is there.) Target is whichever enemy squad is toughest. It should get rather brutalized by this treatment.
Round 2: The 5 freshest skele archers declare coordinate on Bill. (4 of the second freshest declare support on Triage if he is there.)
Before phase 8: A few of the archers with com higher than 7 may have survived. If so,we determine if it is safe or not to take their fire. If not, Nemo baffles the PCs and the bats using his delayed action.
Phase 8: Bill (and maybe Triage) fires again, this time at target(any). Nemo puts up a baffle around the PCs and bats.
Phase 7: The skele archers and garrison zeds exchange fire.
Round 3: The 5 freshest skele archers declare coordinate on Bill. (4 of the second freshest declare support on Triage if he is there.)
Before phase 9: nothing
Phase 9: Nemo dispels his baffle as a free action.
Phase 8: Bill (and maybe Triage) fires again, this time at target(any). Nemo puts up a baffle around the PCs and bats.
Phase 7: The skele archers and garrison zeds exchange fire.
We repeat round 3 as much as needed. We bring in the units with picks when things are done and then do a sweep of the city.
This leaves us with the question of what the other PCs should be doing while we're taking Logan's Run.
The suggestion has come up that we try taking either Scarlet Hills or Rainbow Springs. I don't think that going for either is a good idea. Rainbow springs is likely an enemy mustering point. It is probably too well defended to take without growing our army a bit. We might be able to get Scarlet Hills, but I think we would pay too much to do so. Scarlett Hills is too far away. Our army is rather small at the moment, so we are screwed if we use the majority of it to take Scarlett Hills. The enemy would know the instant we took Scarlet Hills. They also have a thinkamancer who can be used to get information about the size of the force we used at each battle from enemy commanders in each city before they fall. Scouting or clever mathamancy will tell them how stretched out we are. If the majority of our army is at Scarlett Hills, the enemy may blast thru either the weakened Logan's Run or Dis City in an attempt at our capital. (Also, the position of the Ixian envoys suggest that the IX/Breatharia border may be slightly past Scarlet Hills. We may see units from that front coming from there soon.)
What I'm saying is that we need to take a break from claiming cities after Logan's Run and do some needed building up. We should find ways of making money that don't involve taking cities. (
MarbitChow, you said earlier that we could sell potions made by our casters in the Magic Kingdom for Rands. Could we use them to hire a moneymancer as a consultant? Someone who might be able to tell use a good balance of troops to forage with.)
With Charlie's mission already underway, this leaves 2 options for PCs not going to Logan's Run. The Escort mission or Random encounters. The escort mission has an obvious value to the side, but it might not be good for everyone. This is where Wandereus comes in.
I'm creating a "Wandereus' Hunting Party" mission. Random encounters by another name. A simple gathering of troops looking to both have fun and try to level as a group. Wandereus will be leading it. We'll stay in the Dis city area, in case the scouts report an attack coming.
MarbitChow, would it be acceptable for me to use him as a one time character?