How can Hinjo plan an assault on the city? [Archive]

slayerx

2007-08-30, 09:15 PM

Well, one thing we should recall is that Hinjo had told the poeple before that if a messenger didn't tell them they when it was ok to retunr, that they should return in a few days, as he believed that if Xykon won he would move on. He should still be going with a similar plans, with the gate Destroyed, Xykon won't stay in Azure city for very long before he moves on to find the next gate. Considering Hinjo's limited forces, waiting for Xykon to leave is the best option. The questions that remain are, how long with he stay in Azure City, and how many hobgoblins he will leave behind when he leaves.

How long he stays is Critical in that the Azure City citizens are going to need to survive until they can return; not to mention those fighting will need to be healthy enough to fight. Surviving may not be too much of a problem... being a port city, a number of those ships are very likely fishing boats, and as such they can make a temporary settlement on the shore and rely on the fishing boats to bring in food; though their gonna need to fish around the clock... fresh water will still be needed, so they will need to find a fresh water river or lake... it will be tough, but they can make it...

As for how many hobgoblins will be left, that's rather up in the air... on one hand, Since Xykon is out to take over the world, he really doesn't have need of holding the city; he may rather have his army with them than leave them behind. On the other hand, we know that he will be going to Girand's gate next, and considering he would need ships, he may be forced to leave most of his army behind due to a lack of ships. Not to mention that Redcloak would want to hold the city out of revenge. So it looks like many hobgoblins probably will stay behind.

However, with Xykon and Redcloak gone, the chances for Azure city do rise. Afterall, the hobgoblins would not have Redcloack's stradegies, nore his high level magic... and even if Xykon didn't fight right away, he would finish off any remaining forces, including the OoTS after they fought through the rest of the enemy... Azure city has the paladins who are away, along with the soldiers of the nobles (if Hinjo can manage to get them to fight for him)... if they are all mid level and they have the high level'd OoTS with them, their smaller numbers might give them a chance against the high numbered low level hobgoblins... though the hobgoblins still hold a serious advantage, so stradegy will be needed to help make up the difference...

their chances are better if some of those ships have long range weapons that they can attack the hobgoblins from the sea, out of reach of the hobgoblin bows; it would do good to soften them up and drive them away from the shoreline to help them start the invasion... if they can they can even attack from two sides... have the ships attack from the sea coming closer and make them think that's where the main attack is coming from... they fall back towards the wall, while preparing to recieve invaders from the sea, but than have the a force (probably the OoTS and many paladins) sneak in from the opposite side using the breach in the wall as their entrance, attacking them from behind. The Boats pull up from the shore and release the remain forces...

grant it, it might be best to make sure the hobgoblins have an escape route... getting the hobgoblins to retreat and abandon the city, instead of completly wiping them out will help lessen casualties of the Azurites.

blackspeeker

2007-08-30, 09:34 PM

Hinjo doesn't have to assalut the city. The bad guys want gates not land (okay they want land to, but they want to use the gate to get land). It seems likely that the army will soon move off towards another gate, leaving the city alone.

But he does have to, he just said, now we gotta plan an assault on the city.

Yoritomo Himeko

2007-08-30, 10:04 PM

You guys really don't have a high opinion of Hinjo, do you? :smalltongue:

Well, after his stunt in 481 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0481.html), I don't have much faith in his judgment.

While he's very likable as a character and a person, he's proven over and over again, that he is not the man to run Azure City.

Gundato

2007-08-31, 06:17 AM

Well, after his stunt in 481 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0481.html), I don't have much faith in his judgment.

While he's very likable as a character and a person, he's proven over and over again, that he is not the man to run Azure City.

You don't have faith in his judgment because he tried to kill the leader of the force attacking him? Especially since one would have expected Redcloak to be pretty low on spells at that point (and one would think that Disintegrate would have been used during the assault on the throne room).

People, Hinjo has had a REALLY bad term of office, but it was not because he is a bad leader. He got the office on the eve of Xykon's assault. His initial plan to defend the gate WAS a pretty damned good one. But, when the OOTS split up, that put a serious chink in Azure City's armor. Combine that with the fact that they were so heavily outnumbered to begin with, and that (for various reasons) Redcloak saved the push for relatively late in the battle, it is no wonder he lost.

So please, oh bashers of Hinjo, tell me this: How would YOU have defended Azure City? And please keep in mind that hindsight is 20/20, so try to avoid using recent events in your plan.

Kreistor

2007-08-31, 07:57 AM

It is a very serious question. Hinjo no longer has an army. The household forces number maybe a few hundred, and may not fight for him anyway, and the Sapphire Guard were wiped out almost in its entirety (no, there aren't major numbers scattered about the world.. no idea where that idea comes from).

Hinjo needs money for this. If he recruits AC refugees, he needs to buy them equipment. If he hires mercenaries, he needs money. We don't see any evidence of him having ordered money out of AC, so he probably doesn't have that.

His best bet is to find his neighbours, point out the hobgoblin army on their borders, and get them to do the dirty work. Unfortunately for Hinjo, that probably mmeans they'll split his land up between them and leave him a subordinate in AC, but at least his city will be restored.

Alfryd

2007-08-31, 09:05 AM

Insurgency. You don't have to win, you just have to make it too expensive for the invading/ruling forces. The enemy will leave on their own accord.
Here, you're assuming the enemy won't just resort to genocide. Heck, in ancient times, plenty of conquerors preferred to get it over with first whenever they took a city and avoid the fuss and bother later. They'd leave the women and children, of course, for entertainment value.

All the civillians are dead and the invaders are a different species. A simple insurgency isn't going to do it.
There's no likely way you'd fit half a million civvies on a fleet of, at most, a few hundred boats. A substantial number had to be left behind. What I'd be worried about is that Redcloak might use the civilian population as hostages in case Hinjo attempts an invasion- any form of military engagement would result in reprisals on innocents within the city walls. I'm not sure how Hinjo would react to that.

So please, oh bashers of Hinjo, tell me this: How would YOU have defended Azure City? And please keep in mind that hindsight is 20/20, so try to avoid using recent events in your plan.
For starters, I would would have those half-million civvies armed with pitchforks, kitchen knives, leather aprons and whatever else they can scavenge divvied up into groups of 4 under a militia command structure, ready to ambush hogbogblins as they divide and scatter through the winding streets of the city proper. 30,000 hobgoblins troops with 1 or 2 hit dice, even with good training and equipment, can't stand up up to 150,000 commoners dealing d4 damage once those hobgoblins break formation- which, you may recall, is exactly what they had to do in order to secure the city.
Anybody who couldn't evacuate the city should have been drafted for the defence.

Secondly, I would have rounded up every one of those nobles during the council session and politely informed them that failure to hand over control of their entire standing forces would be an immediate and terminal error on their part. Treason will not be tolerated, certainly not under these circumstances.
Then, if at all possible, I'd execute them anyway.

Thirdly, I would immediately resurrect my high-level wizard (recently digested) and consult with him most thoroughly on the appropriate means for preparing magical defences during a siege, as certain options were pretty clearly overlooked. The topic has been covered very throughly elsewhere, but I will just say that Cloudkill alone would have been of great utility.

Fourthly, I would have offered to Parley with Xykon, which would, if nothing else, have stalled for time. If he's foolish enough to send someone important, a Wizard with invisibility, teleport and several instant-kill spells ready would not go amiss.

Fifthly, I would not allow plucky Bards with single-digit IQs and at best a tenuous grasp on the principles of self-preservation to attempt rousing oration before the troops on the eve of a critical battle. I would also enquire most closely as to what a certain Fighter was doing heading for a Gate on another continent on the eve a malignant Lich sorceror was doing his damndest to claim the throne, even should said Fighter have seemingly good intentions.

Sixthly, I would seriously consider placing my veteran Paladins on the walls or nearby, where they can actually make a significant contribution to the battle, rather than aiming to prevent Xykon from claiming a Gate that he obviously needs to secure the city in order to access properly anyway.

Seventhly, I would adopt a scorched-earth policy of destroying any supplies, valuables or fortifications within the city in the event that it needs to be abandoned, thus forcing my enemy to scavenge for food in the surrounding country or rely on distant supply lines that can be severed with relative ease.

As for the question of how to get the city back... yeah, hit & run tactics seem the only reasonably viable solution. Not that this is likely to happen.

T.Titan

2007-08-31, 09:43 AM

If the Nobles didn't have enough troops to retake the city then why would they think killing Hinjo would help them in any way? Taking the place of a leader of refugees just leaves you with a lot of hungry people to feed.

There's no likely way you'd fit half a million civvies on a fleet of, at most, a few hundred boats. A substantial number had to be left behind.

Then why did the city looked empty for the last few dozen strips? You'd think a few thousand hobgoblins in the streets would send everyone running for the hills.

Secondly, I would have rounded up every one of those nobles during the council session and politely informed them that failure to hand over control of their entire standing forces would be an immediate and terminal error on their part. Treason will not be tolerated, certainly not under these circumstances.
Then, if at all possible, I'd execute them anyway.

Brilliant, start a civil war the day before an invading army reaches you.

Ecalsneerg

2007-08-31, 10:48 AM

Wall o' text

If you ever get your hands on an army, I'm outta here :P

Porthos

2007-08-31, 11:13 AM

Brilliant, start a civil war the day before an invading army reaches you.

Exactly. 100% in agreement. There was a reason why Shojo didn't put the Arrest Them All Option on the table during his rule after all.

If Hinjo had arrested/executed all of the intransigent nobles, it would have thrown the city into Civil War. And if that had happened Xykon and Redcloak would have just waltzed right in and taken over the city, with hardly any casulties.

Sorry, but I don't think this was a proper time for the SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH solution. :smallbiggrin:

Gundato

2007-08-31, 11:37 AM

Indeed. Ignoring how bad most of that would be for morale, it is NOT Paladin-like. The Sapphire Guard are the defenders of Azure City, not tyrants who will use the populace as meat shields.

Second, you wouldn't let a Bard try to rally your troops? Let me guess, you would also send the MPs in to confiscate all pornography and alcohol the night before, just to further kill morale.

Third, how do you know what Xykon has planned? He didn't know how much effort it would take to harness the power of the gate. For all Hinjo (or anyone who isn't Xykon, Redcloak, or a reader of SoD) knows, Xykon just has to touch it to unleash the power.

Try Again

slayerx

2007-08-31, 11:38 AM

For starters, I would would have those half-million civvies armed with pitchforks, kitchen knives, leather aprons and whatever else they can scavenge divvied up into groups of 4 under a militia command structure, ready to ambush hogbogblins as they divide and scatter through the winding streets of the city proper....
Citizens are not trained as soldiers and can not be trusted as them... in the face of a marching army of hobgoblins, armed with swords, shields and armor, they would mostly run and hide... their forces would scatter, panic would kick in, and their would be nothing but chaos... overall, if would be a massacre... furtharmore, forcing poeple to fight is not very lawful good i believe

Secondly, I would have rounded up every one of those nobles during the council session and politely informed them that failure to hand over control of their entire standing forces would be an immediate and terminal error on their part. Treason will not be tolerated, certainly not under these circumstances.
Thats a very good way of getting the nobles to turn on you and have you openly killed... sure they were already sending ninjas at you, but using such tactics would give them an opening to have you openly killed under the belief that you were becoming a dictator. Afterall, you are leading them to a war that they believe could be avoided(though you know better), but instead of listening to reason(as they precieve it), you are thetening them and forcing them to fight.

not to mention i would like to know how you would enforce the whole treason thing without strating a civil war... You try to stop them from leaving using your soldiers and they will probably fight you as they retreat to your ships... Your soliders will be even weaker off now, and you also just killed any forces you might have been able to use to reclaim the city in the event of loss... Also, seeing how you just killed the nobles, you will cause a serious stir in the citizens and the soldiers, making them seriously question your character, since killing off them off makes you the undisputed ruler, which in turn makes you look like a dictator... Can you say uprising?

Thirdly, I would immediately resurrect my high-level wizard (recently digested)
Hinjo, nor you, would have known about the dead high level wizard

Fourthly, I would have offered to Parley with Xykon, which would, if nothing else, have stalled for time.
Xykon would have sent your messager back without a head... or a zombie... yeah zombie is more his style

Fifthly, I would not allow plucky Bards with single-digit IQs and at best a tenuous grasp on the principles of self-preservation to attempt rousing oration before the troops on the eve of a critical battle. I would also enquire most closely as to what a certain Fighter was doing heading for a Gate on another continent on the eve a malignant Lich sorceror was doing his damndest to claim the throne, even should said Fighter have seemingly good intentions.
Bard's are a great source of charisma and as such, great for raising morale... if you hadn't noticed, Elan speech was doing GREAT until he got into the "what ifs"... the mistake Hinjo made was not allowing Elan to give a speech, but not reviewing it beforehand.

and i don't know what your refering to with the second part... What fighter was going to a gate on another continent before the attack? Are you talking about Roy planning on heading to Giirand's gate? cause if that's what your talking about, then i must remind you that Roy was planning to go to Girand's gate BEFORE he knew Xykon was marching towards Azure City, before he knew their was going to be an attack.

Sixthly, I would seriously consider placing my veteran Paladins on the walls or nearby, where they can actually make a significant contribution to the battle, rather than aiming to prevent Xykon from claiming a Gate that he obviously needs to secure the city in order to access properly anyway.

Hinjo did not know Xykon needed to capture the city to do what he needed with the gate. All he knew is that Xykon needed th gate intact, he did not know that the ritual he wanted to do required a great deal of time to perform. For all Hinjo knew, Xykon could have been able to access the ultimate power he wanted in an instant of greating to the gate... meaning he might have been able to gain ultimate power without first secureing the city... Not to mention, that by not guarding the gate, the paladins would never get the chance to destory it as Xykon would never allow them near it; which was the back up plan if they relized they could not stop Xykon

Seventhly, I would adopt a scorched-earth policy of destroying any supplies, valuables or fortifications within the city in the event that it needs to be abandoned, thus forcing my enemy to scavenge for food in the surrounding country or rely on distant supply lines that can be severed with relative ease.
Good job, that just makes it so your poeple can't return to the city for a great deal of time since THEY will not have any food... Hinjo was expecting Xykon to leave the city in a matter of days, meanign the scorched earth would be vitually meaningless since the army would be moving on... it's true Xykon might leave behind hobgoblins and the Scorched Earth would effect them, however even when you retake the city, the scorched Earth will effect your people... Scorch Earth works under the premise that you yourself don't plan on needing the land anytime soon.

David Argall

2007-08-31, 01:55 PM

You don't have faith in his judgment because he tried to kill the leader of the force attacking him?

Right. He is barely able to defend the ship, and so he decides to attack superior forces instead of getting that ship out of there like he should have a long time earlier. His hope of killing Redcloak was faint even if we assume he had zero spells and 1 hp. The goblin simply retreats and lets his minions, of which he has thousands available, chop up the paladin, who is far more vital to his side than Redcloak is to his.
Hinjo is brave, Hollywood brave. Being only an NPC, he doesn't have the good fortune of the script making such folly work.

[QUOTE=Gundato;3123524]So please, oh bashers of Hinjo, tell me this: How would YOU have defended Azure City?
in a rush, but just look at all those troops standing behind the wall, and not going to the breech. The comics mention re-inforcements arriving in 10 minutes, but they should have been there 10 minutes before that statement was made.
Elemental strategy, but Hinjo didn't do it.

Hinjo's a great guy in a lot of ways, but he's a lousy commander.

chibibar

2007-08-31, 03:09 PM

The problem is that we are all looking 20/20 hindsight..... but lets try to look at this situation BEFORE the war start.

1. Shojo was just killed by Miko, probably one of the most paladin in their order.... so they just lost a good fighter for the front line (she would be perfect for that)

2. The Lords DID NOT know about the gate. Shojo didn't tell them because he knows that the lords will try to figure out way to control the gate and thus control the city. Hinjo knows this too and thus could not tell them about the gate. The lords figure that by leaving the invading army would just leave eventually and they can take it back. (that was in the comic)

3. There WAS a system to warn the city and give intel of incoming invasion BUT Xykon destroy all that.... no warning was given. No intel, Hinjo has NO idea what the army is capable of. We know that it is VERY hard to fight a battle with next to nothing intel (especially fresh one) The OoTS only knew about Xykon and Redcloak. They didn't expect a HUGE army of hobgoblin.

4. From what we learn on the Online Comic (not the books) Azure city are "ruled" by a main figurehead (in this case it was Shojo) with different high level Lords control different part of the city but in unity. It is VERY similar to Medival times where the King has his personal forces and such but each LORDs had their serfs, knights, and troops under their command. You control the Lord, you control their troops BUT this is not a dictatorship. The ruling (shown by Shojo) is a VERY delicate line. Shojo having 14 levels of aristocrat allows him to manipulate each lord to his bidding all these years. Hinjo has no such training or luxury being a Paladin (again.. stricter moral code and honor)

4a. The lords in the past have NOT been tried for "attempted murder of Shojo" because of my reason above (4) Azure city is ruled by a collective lords and a leader (Shojo) and thus Shojo cannot openly accuse the lords which could cause a civil war and break down of the system. Shojo has maintain such a balance with his skill. When the lords left, most of the army went with them (again read above regarding how the troops loyalty are)

5. Sapphire guard MAIN job is to protect the gate. No if, and, or buts about it. Hinjo doesn't know much detail about the gate other than the gate = bad thing. He may know the history, but I doubt Hinjo (or Shojo) knows any other mystical means to unleash its power, control its power or anything of that level. They know it must NOT fall into the wrong hand. Hinjo did right to send all the guards in the throne room. (due to later we discover it is actually reinforcement) that was a good move. Xykon WOULD have made it and control the throne room if no paladin was present to "slow him down"

6. Magic - Sun Tze was a GREAT Military Tactic master. Even to this day, we quote his proverbs and many still follow it because it is still true today. BUT in a world of magic.... most of those rules can't really quite apply. Magic has an ability single handily turn the tide of battle. (as we have seen) I mean if you have a city of 20,000 level 2 troops with level 5 leaders (pretty good for NPC city) a single level 20 Magic user can totally win the battle. Via summoning, epic level magic and total mass destruction. Hinjo was not prepare (and doesn't have much defenses other than V and Durkon) for magic. The elementals totally did a number on the wall, if the wall remain intact, I'm sure the battle would have been a lot smoother or at least last much longer. Breach in the wall = pretty much doomed.

Gundato

2007-08-31, 05:09 PM

Right. He is barely able to defend the ship, and so he decides to attack superior forces instead of getting that ship out of there like he should have a long time earlier. His hope of killing Redcloak was faint even if we assume he had zero spells and 1 hp. The goblin simply retreats and lets his minions, of which he has thousands available, chop up the paladin, who is far more vital to his side than Redcloak is to his.

So basically, killing an incredibly powerful caster who is second in command of the enemy forces is a bad idea? And why would his hope of killing Redcloak be "faint"? Miko did fairly well against Redcloak, and that was with his spells and at full strength. So, pray tell, why does Hinjo not have the tactical advantage? And, if we are going with the metagaming knowledge, Redcloak probably wouldn't back down from the current leader of the order that killed his family.
And let's say Redcloak DID flee. Hinjo has just flanked the enemy, and will probably take over the hobbo in charge of the force attacking the ship.
As for not leaving: Ignoring the fact that Hinjo is a Paladin and had things under control (sort of), tell me this: Is it tactically wise to abandon three of your strongest units, and possibly break your best alliance?

in a rush, but just look at all those troops standing behind the wall, and not going to the breech. The comics mention re-inforcements arriving in 10 minutes, but they should have been there 10 minutes before that statement was made.
Elemental strategy, but Hinjo didn't do it.

Hinjo's a great guy in a lot of ways, but he's a lousy commander.

Query: Why? How was Hinjo supposed to know to send all his reinforcements there? Ignoring the concept of the time it takes for an order to be understood and relayed (and executed), they had things under control until maybe a few minutes prior to that strip (one round is six seconds, someone else had a good timeline).

Yet again, another plan that relies upon hindsight, metagaming knowledge, and

Kreistor

2007-08-31, 06:19 PM

For starters, I would would have those half-million civvies armed with pitchforks, kitchen knives, leather aprons and whatever else they can scavenge divvied up into groups of 4 under a militia command structure, ready to ambush hogbogblins as they divide and scatter through the winding streets of the city proper.

You have a couple hours to enact your defense, not days. Untrained and unwilling combatants flee. This strategy is a waste of time and a distraction to the real soldiers that might defend your city.

30,000 hobgoblins troops with 1 or 2 hit dice, even with good training and equipment, can't stand up up to 150,000 commoners dealing d4 damage once those hobgoblins break formation- which, you may recall, is exactly what they had to do in order to secure the city.

You can't concentrate your commoners, since this is street fighting. If you had an open field, you might have some hope, but in the streets, it's 10 on 10, with people behind waiting to get involved. In a 10 on 10, the hobgoblins annihilate the commoners, due to better weaponry, armour, and tactics.

Secondly, I would have rounded up every one of those nobles during the council session and politely informed them that failure to hand over control of their entire standing forces would be an immediate and terminal error on their part.

You were just deposed. Have a nice day in jail. This was a limitation the Giant imposed on Hinjo, so it is alaos imposed on you.

Thirdly, I would immediately resurrect my high-level wizard (recently digested) and consult with him most thoroughly on the appropriate means for preparing magical defences during a siege, as certain options were pretty clearly overlooked. The topic has been covered very throughly elsewhere, but I will just say that Cloudkill alone would have been of great utility.

The Sapphire Guard's casters were devoted to divination, not evocation, and were so used. I see no evidence that your theory had any possiblity of success.

Fourthly, I would have offered to Parley with Xykon, which would, if nothing else, have stalled for time. If he's foolish enough to send someone important, a Wizard with invisibility, teleport and several instant-kill spells ready would not go amiss.

Xykon didn't seem interested in anything except a big battle. He loves fighting. Surrender wouldn't have interested him.

Fifthly, I would not allow plucky Bards with single-digit IQs and at best a tenuous grasp on the principles of self-preservation to attempt rousing oration before the troops on the eve of a critical battle.

Humour trumps story. Elan's efforts in the early speech may have been enough to improve the situation, despite later failure. It is possible that by removing Elan from the equation, you just made the battle worse for the AC side.

I would also enquire most closely as to what a certain Fighter was doing heading for a Gate on another continent on the eve a malignant Lich sorceror was doing his damndest to claim the throne, even should said Fighter have seemingly good intentions.

The OotS just became your enemy. You now have two choices: assign resources to hunt them down, reducing your effective defense, or let them go and not have their assitance during the battle. You don't piss off people that you think will help you.

Sixthly, I would seriously consider placing my veteran Paladins on the walls or nearby, where they can actually make a significant contribution to the battle, rather than aiming to prevent Xykon from claiming a Gate that he obviously needs to secure the city in order to access properly anyway.

This is metagaming. Hinjo did not know that Xykon needs time in the throne room to achieve his goal. You must assume that if Xykon takes the room that the Snarl will annihilate your forces moments later. As the DM, if you made this choice, I would ret con my background, which you didn't know about, and that Snarl would appear, because you just gave the bad guy his goal.

Seventhly, I would adopt a scorched-earth policy of destroying any supplies, valuables or fortifications within the city in the event that it needs to be abandoned, thus forcing my enemy to scavenge for food in the surrounding country or rely on distant supply lines that can be severed with relative ease.

As stated elsewhere, AC had no warning to enact this policy, and given the rate of attack, there is no chance of any short term gain from this policy.

Further, Scorched Earth relies on having somewhere for the displaced people to go (unless you're happy with their mass deaths on your callous head), since their farms and food are destroyed. You just annihilated the peasantry of the area, and have no food in the city prepared to feed them with (due to the short warning), shortening the time you can survive the siege considerably. Expecting a long seige (as a 3:1 ratio should suggest), you need to reduce the mouths in the city as much as possible.

Scorched Earth worked in Portugal vs. the French because the English moved every bit of food that they could to the protected area before destroying what food they couldn't move. They then shipped in food to feed the besieged portion of the nation, having to hold out only a few weeks before the hungry French had to leave. But, the English had months to plan this strategy. Such efforts don't take an evening to enact. IN the end, part of the problem is that the people themselves don't want to do it, and they will hoard and hide food, just in case. This food is what winds up feeding the invaders.

The Russians moved everyone (and the food) they could out of Moscow before leaving it to the French. Elsewhere, they let the peasantry fend for themselves, letting both them and the French die. That, of course, would harm innocent life and lose Hinjo his paladinhood.

Scorched earth is cruel to your own people. It only works given certain circumstances, and I don't believe these are in place for Xykon's invasion. You lack time and control to ensure scorched earth is fully enacted: failure to fully enact it will only kill your own citizenry as the invaders kill them to reduce the mouths they need to feed, and increase the level of retribution they will take on your city. Such a casual implementation of scorched earth can only serve to fuel the calls against your own right to rule once you've lost.

boomwolf

2007-08-31, 06:25 PM

he can summon lord hamster :P

chibibar

2007-08-31, 06:46 PM

As many thread before this have said before, time was the essence. There was literally a day at most to prepare for anything. Xykon had some time to prepare the mobilization of his troops. Redcloak is no dummy. I'm sure Redcloak anticipate a long seige and brought food with them. Azure City is in a shamble mess and it is outgun, out manuvered, out class, and pretty much screwed.

Unless Soon happen to come back to life (and in full power) the whole thing may have come out differently. I'm sure the Lords wouldn't have fled knowing that Soon could probably muster their help. (being Epic and Legendary help) of course with Thor's help, the tide could have been turned BUT the eastern gods shoo them out of their realm.....

There are no divine intervention left :( almost all your resources are gone (fled) and you are left with little to work with. Hinjo did what he could and failed. but not dead :) so there is a good chance to make a come back.

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-01, 12:01 AM

So basically, killing an incredibly powerful caster who is second in command of the enemy forces is a bad idea?
Leader of Azurite forces (First in command) against an albeit valuable but still replaceable Goblin (Hinjo did not know the whole "supreme leader" thing)? Does not strike me as a terribly smart idea. Even IF Redcloak's death was possible.

And why would his hope of killing Redcloak be "faint"? Miko did fairly well against Redcloak, and that was with his spells and at full strength. So, pray tell, why does Hinjo not have the tactical advantage?
Redcloak fought alone (Xylon was with him, but he just watched until Redcloak was down). Now, Redcloak is helped by thousands of hobgoblins who will gladly die for him.
When Miko fought Redcloak, it still took her over 4 rounds to beat him. She was a lot stronger than Hinjo: even after she became fallen and received a strong beating from Roy, she still had easily kicked Hinjo's behind, only Roy's timely intervention saved him.
Redcloak was fully healed (plenty of hobgoblin priests around who, once again, value Redcloak above all else). Redcloak would get healed during the combat and he could retreat at will. Hinjo, on the other hand, will be hacked by 7 hobgoblins simultaneously (surrounded) and would have no hope of reinforcements breaking through dosens of hobgoblins. Whatever hobgoblins killed will be instantly replaced.

In short, Hinjo's getting within sword distance from Redcloak would mean his certain death with NO chance of defeating Redcloak.

And, if we are going with the metagaming knowledge, Redcloak probably wouldn't back down from the current leader of the order that killed his family.
And let's say Redcloak DID flee. Hinjo has just flanked the enemy, and will probably take over the hobbo in charge of the force attacking the ship.
Getting flanked would not even in the slightest be a problem for hobgoblins. There are thousands of them and they can send more soldiers to the new "front". Intensity of their assault on the ship was limited by access to that ship. Having to divert forces from that attack would not weaken the attack itself. If anything, larger area of battle (resulting from Hinjo's new front) would favor numericaly superior force. Good guys lost a battle in their fortifications against 3-1 odds. Given that current losses are about 99% for the good guys and 33% for the bad guys, we have 200-1 ratio here! Without V's powerful magic (that got hundreds of hobos killed at the breach), Durkon's healing, fortifications, etc. the battle would be a suicide.

As French have said about the Charge of the Light Brigade, "this is magnificent, but this is not war..."

ALso, note that Hinjo's charge at Redcloak was not a coordinated attack. He did not call upon his men. He did not even inform them about it! He just charged at the Redcloak's insult (comment about the city). Hinjo is a good warrior. Decent, but not perfect soldier (attacked because of the insult). A great person. But a terrible commander.

Alfryd

2007-09-01, 09:11 AM

Then why did the city looked empty for the last few dozen strips? You'd think a few thousand hobgoblins in the streets would send everyone running for the hills.
The city is also shown packed from side to side by a mere 30,000 hobgoblins, which is clearly impossible for a city intended to comfortably house half a million people. In reality, the hobgoblins would need to scatter themselves quite thinly in order to secure the city.

You can't concentrate your commoners, since this is street fighting. If you had an open field, you might have some hope, but in the streets, it's 10 on 10, with people behind waiting to get involved.
On the contrary, an open field would result in victory for the hobgoblins, since they can use missile weapons and maintain formation to ensure no more than a few commoners can engage at a time. In street fighting, you can wait until small parties of hobgoblins go down alleyways, then take them from the sides and above using the buildings as defensive terrain. It's the perfect setup for an untrained militia to inflict real damage- if you can make some attempt at organising things. If the walls are breached, deliberately draw the enemy into the city proper and use it to bleed them dry.

Citizens are not trained as soldiers and can not be trusted as them... in the face of a marching army of hobgoblins, armed with swords, shields and armor, they would mostly run and hide... their forces would scatter, panic would kick in, and their would be nothing but chaos... overall, if would be a massacre...

You have a couple hours to enact your defense, not days. Untrained and unwilling combatants flee. This strategy is a waste of time and a distraction to the real soldiers that might defend your city.
Explain to me again how this is any different from what eventually happened? Better to have at least a slight chance of the citizenry making themselves useful than none at all.
Besides, a militia function might actually improve morale. It gives citizens something constructive to do rather than sitting idle waiting for a few thousand troops only marginally better prepared than themselves to decide the outcome of battle. And the knowledge that there is nowhere to run can lend a courage based on desperation.

As stated elsewhere, AC had no warning to enact this policy, and given the rate of attack, there is no chance of any short term gain from this policy.
Actually, Hinjo clearly had enough time to confer with his generals and draw up an overall battle plan using existing forces, as Miko gave him about a day's advance notice.

Good job, that just makes it so your poeple can't return to the city for a great deal of time since THEY will not have any food...

Further, Scorched Earth relies on having somewhere for the displaced people to go...
That's why the boats are there (and exactly what they were used for!) Load any food and water you can along with non-combat-worthy civilians (which is precisely what happened,) while the militia keeps as much food as they'll need for the next few days, everything else you destroy. There may be some hardship in the aftermath of a victory, but the supplies on the boats will keep you going for long enough to requisition aid from elsewhere. You have to prepare for the possibility of defeat as well as the chance of victory. There are no easy choices in war. I see nothing to suggest I have anything much to lose from drafting a militia force and preparing a scorched-earth policy.

Brilliant, start a civil war the day before an invading army reaches you.
Hence the proviso 'if at all possible.' There will also be civil war if one of the nobles kills me.
And how are they going to start a civil war when they're all dead? There might be heirs apparent and so forth, but it'll take time for them to organise. My first and foremost concern is surviving the next 48 hours. I need those troops, and I need them NOW.
Still... it might be wiser to imprison the heads of various houses as hostages in case their families try anything fancy. After the battle, I can execute them and their families for treason retroactively. If this leads to bloody revolution, so be it. The results can't be any worse than a political system where the city's leader has to fake senility in order to maintain power. If the aristocracy are destroyed, perhaps this will compel the masses to establish a democratic parliament once I'm dead.

This was a limitation the Giant imposed on Hinjo, so it is also imposed on you.
Hinjo refused to strongarm the nobles because of his own sense of honour, not because it was in his or the city's interests.

While we're on the subject, I would be very careful NOT to give away that I know what Xykon's principle objective in invasion might be. I would also give distinct consideration to destroying the Gate well ahead of Xykon's likely arrival, rather than leaving affairs to a last-minute showdown in the throne room.

Hinjo, nor you, would have known about the dead high level wizard...
I find it difficult to believe Hinjo would be so grossly ignorant of the composition of his own forces. For that matter, why was the high priest of the Twelve Gods sitting uselessly in the courtyard, and where was Lord Shojo's personal wizard during all these events?

The Sapphire Guard's casters were devoted to divination, not evocation, and were so used. I see no evidence that your theory had any possiblity of success.
We know the sapphire guard had specialised diviners, but there is no evidence that all the guard's casters were ignorant of magic unsuited to mass battle. In fact it's spectacularly unlikely. (Cloudkill is conjuration, by the way.)

Xykon would have sent your messager back without a head... or a zombie... yeah zombie is more his style...
Xykon didn't seem interested in anything except a big battle. He loves fighting. Surrender wouldn't have interested him.
Again, this is impossible to determine unless you try. (I never said I'd be sending anyone important myself.)

Bard's are a great source of charisma and as such, great for raising morale...
Single-digit IQ! Hello! You may also note that his own leader was against the idea!

Humour trumps story.
What the hell has either to do with tactics?

...i must remind you that Roy was planning to go to Girand's gate BEFORE he knew Xykon was marching towards Azure City, before he knew their was going to be an attack.
Yes, but Hinjo didn't know that, I don't that, and I would be distinctly remiss in not demanding a detailed and pursuasive explanation on this point.

The OotS just became your enemy.
The Order became my enemy because I asked for a clear explanation for what they were doing beforehand? That's not very reasonable of them at all- sounds like they planned to betray me anyway. Best to find out now, rather than in mid-battle.

Hinjo did not know that Xykon needs time in the throne room to achieve his goal.

Hinjo did not know Xykon needed to capture the city to do what he needed with the gate.
Then why bother bringing an army at all? Hinjo knows that Xykon is high-level enough to flatten almost any opposition he can muster, he is certainly high-level enough to take the throne room for a few minutes if that's all he needs, while only Soon will have a hope in hell of stopping him. Depending on how much Hinjo knew about the gate, my inclination would be to empty the throne room, baiting Xykon to enter it, then destroy the throne sapphire to take out Xykon in one fell swoop, if Soon can't do the job himself.

factotum

2007-09-01, 10:26 AM

When Miko fought Redcloak, it still took her over 4 rounds to beat him. She was a lot stronger than Hinjo: even after she became fallen and received a strong beating from Roy, she still had easily kicked Hinjo's behind, only Roy's timely intervention saved him.

Why is this point even under debate? As far as we know, Hinjo doesn't know about that! The first thing Miko did when she arrived back from the tower was to rush to warn Lord Shojo of the approaching army, so unless her and Hinjo were having a little chat about the events in the tower on the way, he doesn't know how hard a time she had defeating Redcloak. (Chances are she only told him the Bearer of the Crimson Mantle was there, if that much). Once they reached the throne room, well, we all know what happened there...

Elfanatic

2007-09-01, 11:19 AM

I doubt that Hinjo has any plans of recapturing his city at the moment. Probably he will try to convene a council of war, with all the prominent leaders of Azure City that escaped, and all other forces in the country of which most (if not all) we don't know about. They wouldn't need a great ring of watchtowers for a multitude of farms and one city, no matter the size. Besides, we allready know that there is a castle somewhere in the country (Blueriver Fort), altough we don't know if Xykon destroyed it or not. What these forces are we can do little but speculate:
- other nobles and their retinues
- Sapphire Guard who were not in the city at the time
- armies deployed in other towns or forts
- orders of monks, wizards, clerics, paladins and/or druids
- mercenaries, foreign allies, friendly high-level adventurers

And I could go on and on.

I doubt that Hinjo will only have his current forces to assault Azure City. So lets just wait until we know who, what and where these forces are.

kirbsys

2007-09-01, 01:50 PM

Obviously you guys have never played Dynasty Warriors, one group of people with swords can EASILY kill 20000 Hobbos.

The Hop Goblin

2007-09-01, 02:40 PM

Arming civillians w/ various 'small arms' cutlery and asking them to defend the city streets? Heres the main issue with this.

Civillian mobs are inherantly panicky. There is no way this would not turn into an all-out stampede to run away, killing more civillians than hobbos. The reason to this is that non-militarily-trained people will run rather than fight 9 times out of 10. The only time you fight is when there is no other choice or you think you can win. Civillians facing very well armed Hobgoblins (to which I'm sure not a one of them have seen a hob before, so these were things Straight out of children's nightmares) are going to know they are not going to win. Having the fleet in the harbor gives the civillians an avenue of escape - ergo, they would all run to the harbor anyway - even to swim in a panicked frenzy just to get away from the walking wall of orange death. The only way around that would be to burn all the ships and force the civillians to fight - which will only cause major civil unrest should anyone live.

Why is everyone thinking "Cloister" is a spell? I think he was demanding his army to 'gather around' and pay attention to his announcement.

Solo

2007-09-01, 03:00 PM

Hinjo's a great guy in a lot of ways, but he's a lousy commander.

Please name the commander that could have defended Azure city from a the hobgoblin army and two nearly epic/epic characters.[

Or should I not hold my breath?

Gundato

2007-09-01, 03:14 PM

If you could fix your quoting, that would be great.

Solo

2007-09-01, 03:19 PM

Never mind my post.

Yoritomo Himeko

2007-09-01, 04:13 PM

Please name the commander that could have defended Azure city from a the hobgoblin army and two nearly epic/epic characters.[

Or should I not hold my breath?

Soon Kim. I don't know if he qualifies, but he did stop Redcloak and Xykon from getting the gate.

Chronos

2007-09-01, 04:52 PM

Why is everyone thinking "Cloister" is a spell? I think he was demanding his army to 'gather around' and pay attention to his announcement.Because a, it encompassed the city in a magical aura, b, "cloister" makes no sense at all for a means of communicating to an army (most cloisters being silent), c, the announcement he made wouldn't have made any sense if Cloister didn't somehow separate the city from the rest of the world, and d, there's no other reason Xykon would have been wearing Dorukan's unstylish headband instead of his badass crown.

Gundato

2007-09-01, 04:56 PM

Soon Kim. I don't know if he qualifies, but he did stop Redcloak and Xykon from getting the gate.

So? Any powerful character could have done that. And Soon kind of needed an entire army of undead Paladins to stop two NPCs.

T.Titan

2007-09-01, 07:37 PM

Another thing that's being overlooked is that while the hobbos did breach the wall the main reason why Azure City fell was the gate going BOOM, killing one hell of a lot of troops on both sides, which worked in :xykon: advantage as he had more numbers to lose.

As for wasting time with :xykon: in the throne room or :redcloak: at the harbor, killing an invading army's leaders is a good idea 90% of the time because of the huge impact on morale (I think it was Alexander that prouded himself on the fact that his army was trained to keep fighting even if he was killed on the battle field, might have just been in a movie though). And do try to remember that Hinjo had no real way of knowing :redcloak:'s level.

kirbsys

2007-09-01, 08:12 PM

I agree there's no way he could have done anything. Especially considering that Redcloak is such a good commander. The titanium golems were a stroke of pure genius, and after that it wouldn't have mattered much. Unless you outnumber them once the walls are breached the only advantage they have is the choke point of the breach (which the Spartans have proved can work well). Also, he had a day maybe two to prepare so he couldn't call in more troops, there was nothing he could have done.

RAGE KING!

2007-09-01, 08:34 PM

Yes, I seriously doubt that the paladins who were away, and a ninja/samurai army could take back the city with the right planning.

There are about 20000 hobgoblins, and if we ignore redcloak and xykon, I'm sure they could manage it with the right planning.

Also, the guy on kubota's ship might be able to help, thus evening it out with redcloak.

Yoritomo Himeko

2007-09-02, 11:51 PM

So? Any powerful character could have done that. And Soon kind of needed an entire army of undead Paladins to stop two NPCs.

Well, my point was that Soon Kim was a commander who could have defeated both Xykon and Redcloak. Someone asked for a commander who could have done that, and he was the only one who could.

Kish

2007-09-03, 09:30 AM

Well, my point was that Soon Kim was a commander who could have defeated both Xykon and Redcloak. Someone asked for a commander who could have done that, and he was the only one who could.
Soon did not defend the city. The city was already a wreck by the time Redcloak reached him. He defended the gate, but that wasn't the question.

Cloister=/=Cluster.

twerk_face

2007-09-03, 10:53 AM

Elven Army to the Rescue!

Seriously tho, hasnt the Giant always said he will introduce v's orgins at some point? why not now? could have a good amount of LotR jokes potential.

Gundato

2007-09-03, 10:59 AM

Well, my point was that Soon Kim was a commander who could have defeated both Xykon and Redcloak. Someone asked for a commander who could have done that, and he was the only one who could.

If Hinjo really tried, he probably could have taken out Redcloak in a one on one. But that wasn't the point of the battle (at that time). Soon was trying to protect the gate, and he failed. End of story.

Roy bought some time (and saved Vaarsuvius) by attacking Xykon. Did he win?

slayerx

2007-09-03, 04:01 PM

Hence the proviso 'if at all possible.' There will also be civil war if one of the nobles kills me.
And how are they going to start a civil war when they're all dead? There might be heirs apparent and so forth, but it'll take time for them to organise. My first and foremost concern is surviving the next 48 hours. I need those troops, and I need them NOW.
Still... it might be wiser to imprison the heads of various houses as hostages in case their families try anything fancy. After the battle, I can execute them and their families for treason retroactively. If this leads to bloody revolution, so be it. The results can't be any worse than a political system where the city's leader has to fake senility in order to maintain power. If the aristocracy are destroyed, perhaps this will compel the masses to establish a democratic parliament once I'm dead.

Hinjo refused to strongarm the nobles because of his own sense of honour, not because it was in his or the city's interests.

While we're on the subject, I would be very careful NOT to give away that I know what Xykon's principle objective in invasion might be. I would also give distinct consideration to destroying the Gate well ahead of Xykon's likely arrival, rather than leaving affairs to a last-minute showdown in the throne room.
The soldiers that work for the nobles are paid for and owned by the nobles. they are loyal to the noble first and azure city second. if you kill their lord they will NOT fight for you. if you attempt to kill/arrest the lord and/or his family, they will defend them to the death, that is what they are paid for. The nobles will either try to over throw you right there and then, or they will use their soldiers to help the retreat so that they can overthrow you after your forces are exhausted (or obliterated) by Xykon's forces.

And frankly, because of how you got rid of the nobles, the citizens will turn on you. getting rid of the only other ruling power in a nation is the actions of a tyrant; you are making yourself look like an evil dictator, and the poeple will turn on you. And by extension, soldiers of your own army will turn on you since they fought for a lawful good kingdom, not a lawful evil one.

Futharmore, you have no PROOF of which lords have been trying to kill you, you can make some damn good guesses, but without proof you can not kill them on the grounds of attempted assasination. for all you actually knew (as in could prove), some of the nobles had genuine concrons about fight this battle, thinking it could be avoided and didn't have selfish desires, like Kabuto (who you also can't PROVE he did anythign wrong)...

So lets sum up, you have successfully made all of the nobles AND their soliders either dead or your enemies, making sure that you not only not have their soldiers but you also do not have them to use as reserve forces to retake the city in the event of loss...Your own soldiers are badly injured from battling with the nobles forces, and many of those who remain have probably deserted you, no long will to die to save a city ruled by a dicator. and finally the citizens aswell are wishing for your death and may try to kill you to put someone else in charge before the big battle... congragulations

Really, i think i must remind you that since you are taking Hinjo's place, you are a LAWFUL GOOD PALADIN, and as such their are things you can and can not do... frankly, if you took that course of action, not only would you be in a terrible mess already, but you might even fall from paladinhood; especially if one of the nobles you killed WERE as i said, had geniune concern for fighting this battle.

you are also bound to your oath to protect the gate. The only way you can justify destorying the gate is if you first tried EVERYTHING you could to protect it. The gate's desruction can lead to the end of the world(especially this would make it the 3rd or 5 gates) and as such is seen as being more important than the lives of the citizens of one city. The snarl being controlled is the only thing considered possibly worse than the destruction of the gate. If you Destoryed the agte without first trying to protect it, then you would most likely become a fallen paladin for breaking your oath.

On the contrary, an open field would result in victory for the hobgoblins, since they can use missile weapons and maintain formation to ensure no more than a few commoners can engage at a time. In street fighting, you can wait until small parties of hobgoblins go down alleyways, then take them from the sides and above using the buildings as defensive terrain. It's the perfect setup for an untrained militia to inflict real damage- if you can make some attempt at organising things. If the walls are breached, deliberately draw the enemy into the city proper and use it to bleed them dry.
They didn't move in small parties but in the form of a large flood... the hobgoblins can still launch volley's of arrows onto the roof tops, as well as brunign the houses down... Between that and facing terror like they've never seen before, the militia would end up fleeing and dying; they'd be to afraid to attack since they could not hide at the same time ... they wouldn't stand a chance against such a force.

One day is not enough time to prepare much... not when you have to organize a meeting with your generals, come up with a battle plan, mobilize thousnads of troops, and also evacuate thousnads of citizens. that leaves very little time to prapre citizens for putting up any kind of fight.

That's why the boats are there (and exactly what they were used for!) Load any food and water you can along with non-combat-worthy civilians (which is precisely what happened,) while the militia keeps as much food as they'll need for the next few days, everything else you destroy. There may be some hardship in the aftermath of a victory, but the supplies on the boats will keep you going for long enough to requisition aid from elsewhere. You have to prepare for the possibility of defeat as well as the chance of victory. There are no easy choices in war. I see nothing to suggest I have anything much to lose from drafting a militia force and preparing a scorched-earth policy.
The boats were only able to carry the very minimal amount of supplies for those on the boat... Hinjo was hoping that in the event of loss, Xykon would move on soon so that the citizens can return to Azure city and start getting back on their feet. Also, the food that you left for the militia, in the event of loss, would become food for the hobgoblins, allowing them to last longer than those on the boats (as their were many more militia than hobgoblins); this in turn kind of deafeats the purpose of scorched earth... it might make the hobgoblins move sooner, but they were probably gonna leave soon anyway since Xykon only wanted the agte, not the city. Your use of scorched eath would probably end up causing you more harm than the hobgoblins sinc ethey weren't planning on staying

I find it difficult to believe Hinjo would be so grossly ignorant of the composition of his own forces. For that matter, why was the high priest of the Twelve Gods sitting uselessly in the courtyard, and where was Lord Shojo's personal wizard during all these events?

We know the sapphire guard had specialised diviners, but there is no evidence that all the guard's casters were ignorant of magic unsuited to mass battle. In fact it's spectacularly unlikely. (Cloudkill is conjuration, by the way.)

Shojo had a number secrets that Hinjo did not know about... a prime example would be his Junk and captain Axe. the dead wizard could have been one of Shojo's private employees and as such, Hinjo would not know about him. It seems as though Hinjo had the priests and wizards stationed in the castle as the second line of defence... should the walls and front line bee breached, the hogoblins would have to still break into the castle (which has less wide walls) while be hailed on by magic; unfortunatly, they were killed by Tsukiko...

one thing you must remember is that most of Azure cities forces are low leveled and as such have few good spells per day(many were probably just lucky to have fireball); spells of which are very quickly exhausted when fighting thousnads. The higher level casters were probably placed there in order to give the reserve defences the extra power they needed to hold the castle; not to mention, being a rather peacful city, the high priest is not much of the combative type like Durkan or redcloak (he's more use to healing)... grant it, summoning a few celestrials would have been better than dueling redcloak...

Yes, but Hinjo didn't know that, I don't that, and I would be distinctly remiss in not demanding a detailed and pursuasive explanation on this point.
The Order found out about the army at the EXACT SAME TIME that hinjo found out about it. it's very clear that they did not know which means that their travel plans we're made before such knowledge... furtharmore, just because we don't see something happen doesn't mean it didn't; the order very likely told Hinjo the whole story after dealing with Fallen Miko; really, not surprising Rich would skip such an explaintion since it would just be a page of exposition for something we already knew... not to mention had the whole "you just saved my life" trust in Roy... glad to know you wouldn't trust someone who saved your life from a crazed fallen paladin.

Then why bother bringing an army at all? Hinjo knows that Xykon is high-level enough to flatten almost any opposition he can muster, he is certainly high-level enough to take the throne room for a few minutes if that's all he needs, while only Soon will have a hope in hell of stopping him. Depending on how much Hinjo knew about the gate, my inclination would be to empty the throne room, baiting Xykon to enter it, then destroy the throne sapphire to take out Xykon in one fell swoop, if Soon can't do the job himself.
No Hinjo doesn't know how powerful Xykon is. Hinjo only knows what the OotS knows and even they never got an accurate measure for Xykon's strength; in their first encounter with Xykon, the lich barely did anything, espeically nothing like casting high level spells... The order could not measure Xykon's power; in fact the order highly doubted that Xykon was capable of strongarming his way to the gate, as the amry and paladins would have been too overwelming... Hell Hinjo doesn't even know what happen to Dorukan; due to the lack of communication, Dorukan could have died from old age for all they knew (he was atleast an 85 year old human)... So no, Hinjo and you did not know Xykon was able to strong arm his way in, and as such were better to assume that the hobgoblin army was their to deal with Azure city forces and paladins.

Well, my point was that Soon Kim was a commander who could have defeated both Xykon and Redcloak. Someone asked for a commander who could have done that, and he was the only one who could.

I think when they asked "who could have done a better job the Hinjo" i thinkthat we're talking more from a tactical stand point. As in who could have lead Azure cities forces to victory. So far, unless the other leader could have found a way to stop that titan elemental from destorying the breach, i don't think anyone could have brought azure city victory (maybe a slightly better defeat)... Really, the breach in the wall was really what brought the hobgoblins victory... if there was a leader who could have forseen such an attack and was able to stop, then azure city might have stood a chance.

twerk_face

2007-09-03, 04:31 PM

The soldiers that work for the nobles are paid for and owned by the nobles. they are loyal to the noble first and azure city second. if you kill their lord they will NOT fight for you. if you attempt to kill/arrest the lord and/or his family, they will defend them to the death, that is what they are paid for. The nobles will either try to over throw you right there and then, or they will use their soldiers to help the retreat so that they can overthrow you after your forces are exhausted (or obliterated) by Xykon's forces.

And frankly, because of how you got rid of the nobles, the citizens will turn on you. getting rid of the only other ruling power in a nation is the actions of a tyrant; you are making yourself look like an evil dictator, and the poeple will turn on you. And by extension, soldiers of your own army will turn on you since they fought for a lawful good kingdom, not a lawful evil one.

Futharmore, you have no PROOF of which lords have been trying to kill you, you can make some damn good guesses, but without proof you can not kill them on the grounds of attempted assasination. for all you actually knew (as in could prove), some of the nobles had genuine concrons about fight this battle, thinking it could be avoided and didn't have selfish desires, like Kabuto (who you also can't PROVE he did anythign wrong)...

So lets sum up, you have successfully made all of the nobles AND their soliders either dead or your enemies, making sure that you not only not have their soldiers but you also do not have them to use as reserve forces to retake the city in the event of loss...Your own soldiers are badly injured from battling with the nobles forces, and many of those who remain have probably deserted you, no long will to die to save a city ruled by a dicator. and finally the citizens aswell are wishing for your death and may try to kill you to put someone else in charge before the big battle... congragulations

Really, i think i must remind you that since you are taking Hinjo's place, you are a LAWFUL GOOD PALADIN, and as such their are things you can and can not do... frankly, if you took that course of action, not only would you be in a terrible mess already, but you might even fall from paladinhood; especially if one of the nobles you killed WERE as i said, had geniune concern for fighting this battle.

you are also bound to your oath to protect the gate. The only way you can justify destorying the gate is if you first tried EVERYTHING you could to protect it. The gate's desruction can lead to the end of the world(especially this would make it the 3rd or 5 gates) and as such is seen as being more important than the lives of the citizens of one city. The snarl being controlled is the only thing considered possibly worse than the destruction of the gate. If you Destoryed the agte without first trying to protect it, then you would most likely become a fallen paladin for breaking your oath.

They didn't move in small parties but in the form of a large flood... the hobgoblins can still launch volley's of arrows onto the roof tops, as well as brunign the houses down... Between that and facing terror like they've never seen before, the militia would end up fleeing and dying; they'd be to afraid to attack since they could not hide at the same time ... they wouldn't stand a chance against such a force.

One day is not enough time to prepare much... not when you have to organize a meeting with your generals, come up with a battle plan, mobilize thousnads of troops, and also evacuate thousnads of citizens. that leaves very little time to prapre citizens for putting up any kind of fight.

The boats were only able to carry the very minimal amount of supplies for those on the boat... Hinjo was hoping that in the event of loss, Xykon would move on soon so that the citizens can return to Azure city and start getting back on their feet. Also, the food that you left for the militia, in the event of loss, would become food for the hobgoblins, allowing them to last longer than those on the boats (as their were many more militia than hobgoblins); this in turn kind of deafeats the purpose of scorched earth... it might make the hobgoblins move sooner, but they were probably gonna leave soon anyway since Xykon only wanted the agte, not the city. Your use of scorched eath would probably end up causing you more harm than the hobgoblins sinc ethey weren't planning on staying

Shojo had a number secrets that Hinjo did not know about... a prime example would be his Junk and captain Axe. the dead wizard could have been one of Shojo's private employees and as such, Hinjo would not know about him. It seems as though Hinjo had the priests and wizards stationed in the castle as the second line of defence... should the walls and front line bee breached, the hogoblins would have to still break into the castle (which has less wide walls) while be hailed on by magic; unfortunatly, they were killed by Tsukiko...

one thing you must remember is that most of Azure cities forces are low leveled and as such have few good spells per day(many were probably just lucky to have fireball); spells of which are very quickly exhausted when fighting thousnads. The higher level casters were probably placed there in order to give the reserve defences the extra power they needed to hold the castle; not to mention, being a rather peacful city, the high priest is not much of the combative type like Durkan or redcloak (he's more use to healing)... grant it, summoning a few celestrials would have been better than dueling redcloak...

The Order found out about the army at the EXACT SAME TIME that hinjo found out about it. it's very clear that they did not know which means that their travel plans we're made before such knowledge... furtharmore, just because we don't see something happen doesn't mean it didn't; the order very likely told Hinjo the whole story after dealing with Fallen Miko; really, not surprising Rich would skip such an explaintion since it would just be a page of exposition for something we already knew... not to mention had the whole "you just saved my life" trust in Roy... glad to know you wouldn't trust someone who saved your life from a crazed fallen paladin.

No Hinjo doesn't know how powerful Xykon is. Hinjo only knows what the OotS knows and even they never got an accurate measure for Xykon's strength; in their first encounter with Xykon, the lich barely did anything, espeically nothing like casting high level spells... The order could not measure Xykon's power; in fact the order highly doubted that Xykon was capable of strongarming his way to the gate, as the amry and paladins would have been too overwelming... Hell Hinjo doesn't even know what happen to Dorukan; due to the lack of communication, Dorukan could have died from old age for all they knew (he was atleast an 85 year old human)... So no, Hinjo and you did not know Xykon was able to strong arm his way in, and as such were better to assume that the hobgoblin army was their to deal with Azure city forces and paladins.

I think when they asked "who could have done a better job the Hinjo" i thinkthat we're talking more from a tactical stand point. As in who could have lead Azure cities forces to victory. So far, unless the other leader could have found a way to stop that titan elemental from destorying the breach, i don't think anyone could have brought azure city victory (maybe a slightly better defeat)... Really, the breach in the wall was really what brought the hobgoblins victory... if there was a leader who could have forseen such an attack and was able to stop, then azure city might have stood a chance.

Bro, I think you think a LITTLE bit too much about this comic.

Lamech

2007-09-03, 05:13 PM

One problem with forcing commoners to fight that no one has pointed out yet is if they were massacared they would become zombies. Would have been a very bad move on Hinjo's part to send give Redcloak and Xykon all the corpses they would ever need.

chibibar

2007-09-03, 06:16 PM

well.. consider the comic center around OoTS, we have to make assumption on something in their surrounding (unless the OoTS ask for it directly) We notice that Hinjo have to ask the nobles for support. This could mean that Nobles own their troops. Also, when the nobles left, Hinjo states that their forces is considerably smaller. This mean that the noble's troops are loyal to the noble. If they were loyal to the city, they would have stayed to help defend for a cause.

Consider if it was any of us playing this game, I don't think any of us could plan better in the short time that was given.

Kreistor

2007-09-03, 09:49 PM

The city is also shown packed from side to side by a mere 30,000 hobgoblins, which is clearly impossible for a city intended to comfortably house half a million people. In reality, the hobgoblins would need to scatter themselves quite thinly in order to secure the city.

Funny how the Giant only shows the interesting portions of AC when they are interesting, as if we might not be interested in the uninteresting, empty sections.

On the contrary, an open field would result in victory for the hobgoblins, since they can use missile weapons and maintain formation to ensure no more than a few commoners can engage at a time. In street fighting, you can wait until small parties of hobgoblins go down alleyways, then take them from the sides and above using the buildings as defensive terrain. It's the perfect setup for an untrained militia to inflict real damage- if you can make some attempt at organising things. If the walls are breached, deliberately draw the enemy into the city proper and use it to bleed them dry.

By DnD rules, the hobgoblins are allowed to attack with bows in the streets. Forces in the way only provide a +4 cover bonus. Remember, teh Giant sticks fairly close to DnD rules most of the time, so if the rules allow it, it can happen.

But I think you're mistaken on the possiblities of commoners. They will for the most part be AC 10. Dex 10 or 11. No armour. No shields. No magic. Most will lack the simple weapons they might be skilled with, and so obey improvised weapon rules, meaning -4 to hit, BAB 0, and Str 10 or 11. They will have a single feat, typically applied to their work, so Skill Focus will be typical.

The hobgoblins are all Warriors. They have at least leather armour (AC2), a Dex bonus (+1AC), and Heavy Wooden Shields (+2AC) for AC 15. They have BAB 1, and their weapons will be typically longswords at 1D8/19. Additionally, hobgoblin warriors typically have 7HP, due to their Con bonus, so a commoner will put a Hobgoblin down in a single blow only 12.5% of the time they hit. So, a hobgoblin will be put out of the fight first round only 1.25% of the time, and will be injured only 10% of the time, and most of the time he'll be abel to continue the fight with a scratch.

So, the commoners are rolling 1D20-4 vs AC 15, hitting only on a 19, and dealing 1D8 damage (standard for a polearm, which improvised farm tools simulate according to imp weapons rules). The Hobgoblins will be rolling 1D20+1 vs AC 10, hitting on a 9. They will be dealing 1D8 damage to commoners that have 3HP average, putting a commoner down 62.5% of the time they hit. So, a commoner will go down 34% of the time.

1.25% vs 34%. I'm thinking the odds do not favour overwhelming numbers of commoners.

Explain to me again how this is any different from what eventually happened? Better to have at least a slight chance of the citizenry making themselves useful than none at all.

Unless the hobgoblins are not genocidal. If the hobgoblins are just slavers, or take the place of the nobility, then the commoners are better off waiting for the rescue attempt.

Besides, a militia function might actually improve morale. It gives citizens something constructive to do rather than sitting idle waiting for a few thousand troops only marginally better prepared than themselves to decide the outcome of battle. And the knowledge that there is nowhere to run can lend a courage based on desperation.

The militia is already on the wall. You're talking about arming potters and carpet installers. That's not a militia.

Actually, Hinjo clearly had enough time to confer with his generals and draw up an overall battle plan using existing forces, as Miko gave him about a day's advance notice.

We don't know exactly how long Hinjo had, nor the time of day he learned of the coming attack. but first and foremost, armies don't form and move in a day. The commoners you are talking about have already put in a hard day's work, so you're talking about forming them at night. That breaks out the Fatigue rules. You're trying to push your people to work overnight, and that causes fatigue. Fatigue causes them to become worse fighters, and if continued, breaks into exhaustion, which makes them entirely incapable. You're murdering your people trying to stop a threat that you are not certain is genocidal.

That's why the boats are there (and exactly what they were used for!) Load any food and water you can along with non-combat-worthy civilians (which is precisely what happened,) while the militia keeps as much food as they'll need for the next few days, everything else you destroy. There may be some hardship in the aftermath of a victory, but the supplies on the boats will keep you going for long enough to requisition aid from elsewhere. You have to prepare for the possibility of defeat as well as the chance of victory. There are no easy choices in war. I see nothing to suggest I have anything much to lose from drafting a militia force and preparing a scorched-earth policy.

Supplies on the boats? Boats carry supplies for their small complement of sailors. That's an insignificant amount compared to the needs of an army of 10000. With only 25 men per boat at a week's of supplies, you'd need 57 boats to feed the army for one day. Most of those boats in the harbour look like they carry 5 crew, not 25.

Still... it might be wiser to imprison the heads of various houses as hostages in case their families try anything fancy.

Putting their heirs in charge? Handing power to the jealous second-stringers? yeah, that's going to be a real big threat to the house. You hold the children of the heads of the household hostage, not the heads themselves. Of course, you just lost your paladinhood due to the harming innocents clause...

Hinjo refused to strongarm the nobles because of his own sense of honour, not because it was in his or the city's interests.

And you're being a tyrant, who seems to think any action you take lacks repercussions. Hinjo's thinking long term. You're losing the city, and ensuring no one wants to follow you on the recovery of your city. At least Hinjo can inspire folks to follow him a second time.

I find it difficult to believe Hinjo would be so grossly ignorant of the composition of his own forces. For that matter, why was the high priest of the Twelve Gods sitting uselessly in the courtyard, and where was Lord Shojo's personal wizard during all these events?

Because yoour do not tell a religious man what to do as a secular leader. Order the church around, and suddenly you lose their support for your position. The church is inviolate.

We know the sapphire guard had specialised diviners, but there is no evidence that all the guard's casters were ignorant of magic unsuited to mass battle. In fact it's spectacularly unlikely. (Cloudkill is conjuration, by the way.)

You're assuming facts not in evidence. We know of the existence of diviners. We do not know what's in their spellbooks, beyond reasonable divination spells.

Again, this is impossible to determine unless you try. (I never said I'd be sending anyone important myself.)

Irrelevant. It would not have worked, try or no try. Hinjo did, in the end, interpret Xykon's intentions correctly and saved the life of his messenger. Hinjo 1 You 0.

Single-digit IQ! Hello! You may also note that his own leader was against the idea!

Inspiration is a Charisma effect. Intelligence is irrelevant.

What the hell has either to do with tactics?

Language!

You were interpreting the comic such that Elan harmed the state of morale in the city. I merely pointed out that there is no evidence that it was harmful or helpful. It looked harmful because that was a humorous ending to the comic, but that is not necessarily how the speech affected battle. The bardic ability he used has no chance of failure, and can only be positive, so even though it had the appearance of harm, according to the RAW, Elan could only help. Intelligence notwithstanding.

Yes, but Hinjo didn't know that, I don't that, and I would be distinctly remiss i not demanding a detailed and pursuasive explanation on this point.

The Order became my enemy because I asked for a clear explanation for what they were doing beforehand? That's not very reasonable of them at all- sounds like they planned to betray me anyway. Best to find out now, rather than in mid-battle.

I guess you ignore everything Shojo said when he was unaware you were listening to his conversation? You ignore that Shojo was trying to protect the other gates by hiring Roy? That Roy was working for your predecessor and uncle? That Roy saved your life, despite you ordering him to stay out of your conflict with Miko, when your death at her hands would have ensured Xykon's victory the next day? That even Belkar stayed to block your uncle's murderer, despite being unable to defend himself?

Your paranoia is ensuring your appearance as an uncompromising tyrant that no one is interested in following.

Then why bother bringing an army at all? Hinjo knows that Xykon is high-level enough to flatten almost any opposition he can muster, he is certainly high-level enough to take the throne room for a few minutes if that's all he needs, while only Soon will have a hope in hell of stopping him. Depending on how much Hinjo knew about the gate, my inclination would be to empty the throne room, baiting Xykon to enter it, then destroy the throne sapphire to take out Xykon in one fell swoop, if Soon can't do the job himself.

Hinjo knows nothing about Xykon's power levels. He does not seem any more aware of the details of a Lich's capacity to resurrect himself via his phylactery than Miko, Durkon, or other religious experts. Only Eugene knew that detail. We have no evidence that anyone except Shojo knew abot Xykon at any time, until after the trial. And given the occurance of the trial, no one knew how powerful Xykon was. If anyone did know Xykon's true power, that person would have disabused Roy of the belief that he could kill Xykon during the battle, or at least have congratulated him on destroying Xykon at Dorukan's Gate. To the OotS and everyone else, Xykon is a fragile undead magic user that can resurrect himself, not a L18-20 Sorcerer Lich.

Basically, the Giant has not let the OotS metagame Xykon. Some other things, yes. But not Xykon.

In comic #411, Hinjo is shown examining the Sapphire Gate for damage. If he is aware that the destruction of the gate would cause such massive damage, then he would have no need to check the gem for damage: he would knwo it was undamaged because it had not exploded. You cannot use the hindsight of the explosive nature of the gate to create a trap, since no one knew it would happen before it happened.

mockingbyrd7

2007-09-03, 10:40 PM

Bro, I think you think a LITTLE bit too much about this comic.

Well said.

Wait, is it illegal for someone not to have a page-and-a-half per post in this thread? :smallamused:

Kreistor

2007-09-03, 11:13 PM

Bah, again I delete something I should have said.

David Argall

2007-09-04, 01:04 AM

So basically, killing an incredibly powerful caster who is second in command of the enemy forces is a bad idea?
It's a bad idea when your chance of killing that caster is almost zero, and when you risk your #1 guy for their #2 [which for all you actually know may be #3, 4, or 5].

And why would his hope of killing Redcloak be "faint"?
The essential problem is that Hinjo beating Redcloak requires that Redcloak be alone and meets him in honorable one-vs-one combat. But anybody competent at command knows better tactics, especially for a cleric. Redcloak has essentially an infinite number of minions to put in Hinjo's path to him. We can do some calculations where we generously assume Hinjo hits and kills an enemy with each swing. We let him swing 3 times a round. But the hobs swing 8 times a round. And they replace the losses every round. Even if we say they only hit on 20 for 5 a time, Hinjo's about 100 hp vanish in 50 rounds. Hinjo carves up 150 enemy, but there are 20,000 enemy. There are still loads of hobs between Hinjo and Redcloak. And this is being way generous to Hinjo. He might not even kill 50. Hinjo just can't get close to Redcloak, unless Redcloak allows it, which will be because Redcloak has every reason to think he will win the fight.

And let's say Redcloak DID flee. Hinjo has just flanked the enemy, and will probably take over the hobbo in charge of the force attacking the ship.
Hinjo could not provide a flank, just another target for all those troops that are standing in line for a chance to attack something

Is it tactically wise to abandon three of your strongest units, and possibly break your best alliance?
When you risk 1, your vital unit, Hinjo, 2, your strongest unit, V according to various OOTS statements, 3. 400 innocents you are pledged to defend, 4-your only ship you have firm control of, etc; and your three missing units are quite possibly already destroyed, and with no visible way to reach the ship if they are not, definitely. We can note here that our experts on the scene deem it a trivial task to get hold of the missing units later, assuming they are still available.

How was Hinjo supposed to know to send all his reinforcements there?
We are talking kindergarden tactics here. There, we have a 10' wall. There, there, and there, we have a 50' wall. Guess where the enemy is coming? This is not rocket science. Everybody involved identified the gap as the weak point where the battle would be won or lost.
So Hinjo should have been shifting troops to the breech from the moment it formed. Instead he seems to have shifted no troops at all, until too late and the enemy army just charged into that breech where the defenders were too battle fatigued to hold out.

Please name the commander that could have defended Azure city from a the hobgoblin army and two nearly epic/epic characters.

Not at issue here. The city was doomed to fall due to plot, and so no commander could save it. But the question before us is how good a job Hinjo did, and the answer is "lousy".
Hinjo is a brave fellow, a very good fighter, and a great guy, but he is incompetent as a commander.

Another thing that's being overlooked is that while the hobbos did breach the wall the main reason why Azure City fell was the gate going BOOM,
The city had already fallen by that point. Hobgoblin troops were everywhere and mopping up the last of the resistance. A casual count suggests the explosion killed many more hobgoblins than humans, including Redcloak's chief assistant. Militarily, the explosion might have been more costly to the enemy than to the city forces.

the_tick_rules

2007-09-04, 01:54 AM

i'm sure it's been mentioned but most of AZ's forces abandoned the city or were out of the city when the army struck. the city itself only had it's garrison and any force like 1 day away, they've got a lot more elsewhere. plus with it already breached the hobs will have a bane of a time holding it cause there is already breaches in it. but we;re asssuming they'll be there. xykon wants to leave ASAP for the next gate.

Gundato

2007-09-04, 06:16 AM

It's a bad idea when your chance of killing that caster is almost zero, and when you risk your #1 guy for their #2 [which for all you actually know may be #3, 4, or 5].
Again with the metagaming. If I were a powerful Paladin, and I see an enemy Cleric who is leaving a battlefield, I would assume he is low on spells (plus, Hinjo might have heard him say he was). I am using a 1d10 katana (probably two-handed) and most likely have at least one smite evil left. We don't know Hinjo's level, but let's assume he has 2 or 3 attacks already. I think his odds are pretty decent, assuming Redcloak had no major spells left and wasn't of too much higher a level.

The essential problem is that Hinjo beating Redcloak requires that Redcloak be alone and meets him in honorable one-vs-one combat. But anybody competent at command knows better tactics, especially for a cleric. Redcloak has essentially an infinite number of minions to put in Hinjo's path to him. We can do some calculations where we generously assume Hinjo hits and kills an enemy with each swing. We let him swing 3 times a round. But the hobs swing 8 times a round. And they replace the losses every round. Even if we say they only hit on 20 for 5 a time, Hinjo's about 100 hp vanish in 50 rounds. Hinjo carves up 150 enemy, but there are 20,000 enemy. There are still loads of hobs between Hinjo and Redcloak. And this is being way generous to Hinjo. He might not even kill 50. Hinjo just can't get close to Redcloak, unless Redcloak allows it, which will be because Redcloak has every reason to think he will win the fight.
Ignoring the concept of "It is a freaking fantasy battle, the champions always duel", you assume that everyone acts instantly and that nobody waits for Redcloak's orders.

Hinjo could not provide a flank, just another target for all those troops that are standing in line for a chance to attack something
Maybe, maybe not. But he would at the very least distract those directly attacking the ship, possibly allowing for a small counter-attack (at least gain some ground).

When you risk 1, your vital unit, Hinjo, 2, your strongest unit, V according to various OOTS statements, 3. 400 innocents you are pledged to defend, 4-your only ship you have firm control of, etc; and your three missing units are quite possibly already destroyed, and with no visible way to reach the ship if they are not, definitely. We can note here that our experts on the scene deem it a trivial task to get hold of the missing units later, assuming they are still available.
Yes, but the experts on the scene are also assuming that Haley notices the boat is missing before carving a path to where it should be. Or that they are able to hide. Getting in contact is easy as hell. Surviving the night, maybe not. And either way, getting abandoned is really bad for the team dynamic, which can screw over Azure City in the future.

We are talking kindergarden tactics here. There, we have a 10' wall. There, there, and there, we have a 50' wall. Guess where the enemy is coming? This is not rocket science. Everybody involved identified the gap as the weak point where the battle would be won or lost.
So Hinjo should have been shifting troops to the breech from the moment it formed. Instead he seems to have shifted no troops at all, until too late and the enemy army just charged into that breech where the defenders were too battle fatigued to hold out.
We are also talking about a world where a breach can be made by any caster with an appropriate spell, lept over by anything with an appropriate spell, or just ignored by anything that can fly. Plus, it is not like the hobbos only entered through the breach.
It maybe is kindergarten tactics. But this isn't a massive problem, it is more along the lines of maybe an officer falling. A concern, but not an immediate one (especially when a powerful caster has already gone to reinforce said breach). For all Hinjo knew, the breach was a distraction (and, DING DING DING, it was).

Not at issue here. The city was doomed to fall due to plot, and so no commander could save it. But the question before us is how good a job Hinjo did, and the answer is "lousy".
Hinjo is a brave fellow, a very good fighter, and a great guy, but he is incompetent as a commander.
And, yet again, how could he have done a better job? All I have seen either hinges on him being chaotic evil, Soon coming back from the grave (and leaving the throne room), or so much metagaming knowledge that the GM would kick you in the crotch.

The city had already fallen by that point. Hobgoblin troops were everywhere and mopping up the last of the resistance. A casual count suggests the explosion killed many more hobgoblins than humans, including Redcloak's chief assistant. Militarily, the explosion might have been more costly to the enemy than to the city forces.
Note how many more hobbos there were. Yeah...
Plus, there is a little something called morale. It tends to go bye bye when the thing you have fought tooth and nail for explodes.

Roderick_BR

2007-09-04, 06:25 AM

He might be planning on forming alliances with other city-states. At least, that seems the sort of plan which would appeal to a lawful type. He doesn't appear to have many bargaining chips at the moment for such an alliance, but he might have favors to call in, or friends and family in positions of power elsewhere. Plus, if he plays his cards right, he can cast Xykon and the hobgoblins as a menace to everyone (which, of course, they are), and the current situation as an opportunity to deal with that menace.
And add to it the fact that many paladins were out of the town, they may be enough to make small task forces when coupled with others groups, maybe even hired mercenaries, to make various tactical attacks.

Of, course, they don't know about the cloister effect yet.

chibibar

2007-09-04, 10:27 AM

Also for those who have military training, it is VERY hard to quickly mobilize troops from one section of the wall to another. I don't think AC is that small. The field is covered with hobos and they are using ladders. Shifting your troops to protect the breach would have been a bad idea. This just leave hobos to scale the wall instead and get flanked.

David Argall

2007-09-05, 03:05 PM

If I were a powerful Paladin,
You would be prone to the same errors that Hinjo makes, and which he did make.

I think his odds are pretty decent, assuming Redcloak had no major spells left and wasn't of too much higher a level.
Given the giant/huge fiendish octopus, Hinjo knows Redcloak to be of higher level than himself. He has decent chances if there is a 1-1 melee duel, but that is precisely what he has no valid grounds to expect.

Ignoring the concept of "It is a freaking fantasy battle, the champions always duel",
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html
Gives us Redcloak's view on the subject. He would only accept such a duel when he was a heavy favorite to win. He only accepts at all in 456 because he is at an exceptional moment. At any other time, he would have declined the duel, and thus we have to assume so would most other opponents the paladin might meet.

you assume that everyone acts instantly and that nobody waits for Redcloak's orders.
Trivial. Being insanely generous as the DM, Hinjo is able to charge Redcloak and do non-fatal damage to him. Redcloak then free actions a command to engage Hinjo, and then withdraws. A couple dozen grunts then move to surround Hinjo several layers deep. Paladin kills a lot of them, but dies without being able to reach Redcloak again.

he would at the very least distract those directly attacking the ship,
No, he would be "distracting" the re-inforcements to the re-inforcements. His position would be on the shore and he would have to go thru an entire dock of hobgoblins before he reached the ship again.

the experts on the scene are also assuming that Haley notices the boat is missing before carving a path to where it should be.
Which she does. That's about a DC5 or less. Empty dock and lots of orange all over the dock. Now seeing the ship way at sea might take a serious spot, but seeing the lack of a ship, not to mention an army present, she doesn't need to roll.

Or that they are able to hide.
"That's my best skill." She has got to be +20 or better. Even if they take 20, the hobs are only +2, and probably they are just taking 10. There is a whole city to search, if they bother searching at all.

getting abandoned is really bad for the team dynamic, which can screw over Azure City in the future.
But assures there is a future.

We are also talking about a world where a breach can be made by any caster with an appropriate spell, lept over by anything with an appropriate spell, or just ignored by anything that can fly.
These are tactics that can be used in some fantasy worlds, but the behavior of all involved here say this does not negate the advantage of a wall in the OOTS world. We are told that 10,000 troops plus a wall equals 30,000 troops. So the breech in that wall is glaringly obvious as the place to attack, and to defend heavily.

Plus, it is not like the hobbos only entered through the breach.
No, that is the only place they entered the city from. They were [generously] allowed to get to the top of the walls, but died there.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0451.html
Redcloak, our praised as genius commander, tells us he did not expect any of those attacking the walls to even survive, much less break thru. They were just a diversion to lure the humans away from the breech.

It maybe is kindergarten tactics. But this isn't a massive problem, it is more along the lines of maybe an officer falling.
That officer being Hinjo.

A concern, but not an immediate one (especially when a powerful caster has already gone to reinforce said breach). For all Hinjo knew, the breach was a distraction (and, DING DING DING, it was).
It was a distraction only in the sense that the entire army was a distraction. But even in that sense, it was not a distraction. Hinjo had a clear danger, which was where the enemy did eventually enter, but instead of sending more troops to it, he kept them idle behind the intact walls.

And, yet again, how could he have done a better job?
Didn't I just answer that?? Send another thousand troops to the breech instead of having them stand around behind a wall that was intact. You really want to claim that would not improve the situation if there had been enough troops at the breech?

most of AZ's forces abandoned the city or were out of the city when the army struck.
Some of the army and paladins were elsewhere. We have no definite word on the size, which could be minor. We can posit that the majority of the city army was well away from the city, but we simply have no evidence of that. And to some extent, we have a lack of evidence that rejects the idea there were substantial forces outside the city. The city is not described as an empire, which sharply limits the distance any such forces can be from the city. [The paladins recognize no such limit on their jurisdiction, so they can be scattered all over the world, but the army has to be within a few days of the city, maximum. And that in turn puts most of them in or near the city, the important area.]

Also for those who have military training, it is VERY hard to quickly mobilize troops from one section of the wall to another.
In terms of the conditions here, it is dead easy. The breech happened before the first hob even came close to the walls, so there is loads of time to shift troops to the breech. Instead they are still standing behind the intact wall until the castle explodes.

I don't think AC is that small.
We are given a figure of 3 miles and we seem to have a section of wall only about 1 mile from end to end. So it's an easy walk. We can note too that once the attack on the wall ended, it was announced that more forces would come to the breech in 10 minutes. [Sadly, the enemy arrived in 5.]

The field is covered with hobos and they are using ladders. Shifting your troops to protect the breach would have been a bad idea. This just leave hobos to scale the wall instead and get flanked.
Again, we have Redcloak's opinion that the army attacking the wall would fail to do that. Instead, it would get slaughtered.

chibibar

2007-09-05, 03:30 PM

David Argall

2007-09-05, 04:05 PM

but if we move the troops FROM the wall to the breech, wouldn't we just open the wall to ladder attacks?
The only reason (at least this is a guess) that the troops DIDN'T get flanked in the comic because the guards on the wall was holding them back. (from scaling the wall)

Look at the large pictures of the battle. The space behind the walls is filled with troops, troops that took no role in defending the wall. They were just re-inforcements for a defense that didn't need the extra defense, at least not nearly as much as the breech did.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0450.html
Gives us one of the better pictures. See that open space near the breech? And the soldier behind the wall and next to the castle? You just shift them to the open area, ready to help at the breech.

yoshi927

2007-09-05, 04:54 PM

but if we move the troops FROM the wall to the breech, wouldn't we just open the wall to ladder attacks? sure we stop the main surge from the breech but you get flanked from the troops pouring from the wall (and lots of ladder CAN make a difference if no one is manning them)

The only reason (at least this is a guess) that the troops DIDN'T get flanked in the comic because the guards on the wall was holding them back. (from scaling the wall)I remember hearing a story about somebody who held off fifty men at the end of a bridge. If they use ladders, it's just a matter of pushing the ladders over or setting fire to them. You don't need as many people manning it if they can engage the enemies one-by-one.

chibibar

2007-09-05, 05:35 PM

I remember hearing a story about somebody who held off fifty men at the end of a bridge. If they use ladders, it's just a matter of pushing the ladders over or setting fire to them. You don't need as many people manning it if they can engage the enemies one-by-one.

Yea.. but that was a single bridge to enter a city.. it is possible one on one (since others can't get pass and I assume range weapon (arrow storm) would have been ineffective)

but this is a castle.

We are looking at hindsight in terms of breach. What if Hinjo DID move the troops and reinforcement and another breach occurs on the other side of the wall? then they have less troops on that side (I would have personally done that so I can pour in the breach) We can't use metagaming/4th wall. We have to think at the moment in time and Hinjo is learning VERY fast on what the enemy can do.... only a couple of elementals did a number on the wall, what if there are more?

This is my reasoning why the other troops did not "shift" to the breach.

slayerx

2007-09-05, 08:25 PM

I can see the reasoning... the attack on a city can go on for a long time, hours or even days. you want to keep as many troops as you can in reserve so that they will be fresh when you really need them... send them into battle when they don't seem to be needed will tire them out when it really counts. When dealing with the breach, Hinjo and general tried to use as few soldiers as possible so that the rest can remain fresh; which i imgaine is an important tactic to use when your enemy heabily out numbers you; if you can get the job done with 10 troops, only use ten and save the other 40 for when the 10 are tired... possibly switch out old troops for new ones later.... and the forces that we're there did manage to hold the breach for many waves of hobgoblins... just not when the main force came in...

Another thing we have to consider is that a commander can't know everything that is going on during a battle unless he has poeple reporting to him; especially if he himself is fighting in the battle. What i think is very important to remember is that it was General who was leading the troops new thre breach. While Hinjo himself kept the southern wall secure, he relied on the general to hold the breach. One thing Hinjo probably did not know however was that the general was killed by the death knight. If someone doesn't report his death, than Hinjo does not realize that the forces by the nothern breach have no commander, and as such, does not know that there is no one to order reinforcments to move in on...

It's only when the hobgoblins start charging, does he realize the breach is about to recieve a heavy hit, and looks over and realize that his general did not order for the reinforcments to move to the breach and that there isn't enough troops over there to stop such a force... Hinjo expected the general to order more troops when they were needed...

David Argall

2007-09-05, 08:33 PM

Yea.. but that was a single bridge to enter a city.. it is possible one on one (since others can't get pass and I assume range weapon (arrow storm) would have been ineffective)

but this is a castle.
Pretty much same difference. The hobgoblins put up 50 ladders, and they can have 300 soldiers on them, but they are effectively outnumbered by the 100 soldiers on the top of the walls.

We are looking at hindsight in terms of breach.
Only in terms of "there was an auto accident. Why? The driver was drunk."
In both cases, the driver/Hinjo did something stupid, driving drunk/neglecting the breech. It is possible the accident/capture of the city would have happened anyway. It is even possible the accident/capture could be prevented somehow by drinking/ignoring the breech. But these are simply not the ways to bet.

What if Hinjo DID move the troops and reinforcement and another breach occurs on the other side of the wall? then they have less troops on that side
This is just speculation. Hinjo has about 9000 troops. He seems to have put about 1000 per wall section. Casually, about half of those were reserves. So Hinjo can move 1000 or so of the reserve to the breech and still have a substantial reserve to deal with this speculatively possible additional breech.
And it is unlikely to happen. As can be seen by the actual result, these golems are no match for the OOTS. If you attack all at once with them, you can hope to make a major breech before they destroy all 5, but if you attack with them at random, you risk the OOTS concentrating on them and disposing of them before they can do notable damage.
Recall here that the hobgoblin army is entirely visible to the defenders. If a 2nd breech is planned, that army either has to tip off the defenders by getting in position in advance, or must give the defenders adequate time to move troops to the new breech.

We can't use metagaming/4th wall. We have to think at the moment in time
Now, first, you are talking about hindsight here, not metagaming. 2nd, we have to use hindsight any time we say somebody did something wrong.

Now true, we have to be careful with hindsight. It is easy to assume the clown should have known what we learned after the fact. But we only have to be careful. We still can, and must, decide if the individual was acting correctly.
In the case at hand, we know that Hinjo knew the breech was the weak point in the defenses, and thus the most likely point for the enemy to hit, as they did, but he seems to have made no effort to send more forces to that defense until the attack on the wall ended. This is the sort of action one expects of a captain trying to make the decisions of a colonel. He sees only his local picture and has trouble understanding the larger picture. He will do his duty at saving the wall, and expects those at the breech to do their duty, not understanding how much more difficult their task has become, nor his own duty to help them with that task.

chibibar

2007-09-05, 10:27 PM

I have to agree that Hinjo was not properly inform what is going on. The generals are suppose to keep Hinjo updated. This is why the Commander usually DON'T go into battle to make sure the flow of information is fresh and keep the battle going. BUT since Hinjo is not a diviner, he did not know about the breach until it is too late (IMO)

He could have reinforce it, but it was probably too late :( (that I agree)

I think we expect a lot from Hinjo even when the deck is stacked against him. I personally think we are too hard on him. I try to think from his perspective and what is going on so I can relate my post a little better.

slayerx

2007-09-06, 12:07 AM

I have to agree that Hinjo was not properly inform what is going on. The generals are suppose to keep Hinjo updated. This is why the Commander usually DON'T go into battle to make sure the flow of information is fresh and keep the battle going. BUT since Hinjo is not a diviner, he did not know about the breach until it is too late (IMO)

Well, no i imagine that Hinjo did know about the breach itself, i mean it's rather hard to miss; he more than likely took not of how much stucture damage those golems did... What i think Hinjo might not have known was that th general watching the breach was dead and as such, did not know that their was no one ordering for reinforcments... until it was too late

Since the general was charge with guarding the north end, Hinjo was expecting the general (a man with likely more combat/war experience) to do what he could to hold the breach

David Argall

2007-09-06, 12:39 AM

the attack on a city can go on for a long time, hours or even days. you want to keep as many troops as you can in reserve so that they will be fresh when you really need them... send them into battle when they don't seem to be needed will tire them out when it really counts.
This is rather dubious reasoning. Ideally, you don't want to have any reserves at all. Reserves are simply not being used, so even a minor utility in battle is a profit.
The problem is that one can not predict precisely where troops will be needed, which means you have to keep some in reserve until you can determine where they will go the most good. You don't want to do this, but you have to.
Now on the point of exhaustion, that is rarely what reserves are for. You use all your forces so you have 2-1 odds, and you win, even if your troops are exhausted. You keep half the troops back as reserves and you could lose.

if you can get the job done with 10 troops, only use ten and save the other 40 for when the 10 are tired... possibly switch out old troops for new ones later.... and the forces that we're there did manage to hold the breach for many waves of hobgoblins... just not when the main force came in...
Assuming you have a way to use the extra 40 troops, using them all at once will kill far more of the enemy. Using a casual model, you fight 10 vs 10, you and the enemy lose 5 each before they retreat. But they come back and eventually you lose 50 and they lose 50. Use the 50 right away, and the 1st 10 enemy die, and only kill 2 of you. Another 10 try and die, again killed just 2 of you... Losses and exhaustion will lower the percentage, but you still kill hundreds of them.

Another thing we have to consider is that a commander can't know everything that is going on during a battle unless he has poeple reporting to him; especially if he himself is fighting in the battle. What i think is very important to remember is that it was General who was leading the troops new thre breach. While Hinjo himself kept the southern wall secure, he relied on the general to hold the breach. One thing Hinjo probably did not know however was that the general was killed by the death knight. If someone doesn't report his death, than Hinjo does not realize that the forces by the nothern breach have no commander, and as such, does not know that there is no one to order reinforcments to move in on...

Which merely changes Hinjo's mistake, not the fact he made one.

Bravely charging to the front, Hinjo made it impossible for him to know the very facts he is supposed to know as commander. and/or..
He assumed that no news was good news, despite being able to see that the breech was a vital point and under heavy assault. He should have known that he needed to be updated constantly about conditions there. Silence meant it was time to investigate.

Hinjo expected the general to order more troops when they were needed...
And that is a mistake by Hinjo. He is the commander, the one who gives the orders. He does not wait for others to order him. The idea of waiting for the general to do something is shirking his duty. It is acting like a captain instead of like a general.

Kreistor

2007-09-06, 12:40 AM

Pretty much same difference. The hobgoblins put up 50 ladders, and they can have 300 soldiers on them, but they are effectively outnumbered by the 100 soldiers on the top of the walls.

But that's the difference between theory and reality. In reality, ladders were the standard tactic for taking forts, because they worked. Your theory suggests that they should never have worked.

Why?

Because the ladder creates a choke point. There may be 10 men up there, but only two are in position to attack the person on the ladder, and they can't do that until after the guy jumps over the wall. If they attempt to attack those on the ladder itself, they must expose themselves to concentrated ranged fire.

The truth is that the first three men over the wall do not immediately die. In DnD terms, they go down, but in RL, a lethal blow is not always an instantaneous killing blow. The man may die a few moments or minutes later, and that gives him the opportunity for a return blow which may not kill, but it ties up that defender, letting the next one up onto the wall unhindered. WHo buys time for the next, and so now you have a stream of men arriving on the top. Sometimes the defenders kill faster and return back to the ladder, and sometimes the attackers establish that foothold, but the fact is both outcomes could occur. If they couldn't, then ladders would't have been used historically.

Your theory must match historical evidence. Ladders worked as assault tools. If your theory denies them working, then you must be wrong.

This is just speculation. Hinjo has about 9000 troops. He seems to have put about 1000 per wall section. Casually, about half of those were reserves. So Hinjo can move 1000 or so of the reserve to the breech and still have a substantial reserve to deal with this speculatively possible additional breech.

Move? How? Such a command has enormous logstical problems.

1) You want every commander to somehow pick 1/10th of his forces and send them away.
2) These forces are from different units, and not used to working together.
3) The commanders will not want to send their officers, and you didn't ask for any. So this force will have bad commanders.
4) When they get on site, there is no pre-established command structure, this being composed of elements from different units. The chain of command does not exist. Consequently, their first task, figuring out who is in charge, will result in distracting and morale destroying arguments.
5) By the time you figure out that you've now turned 1/10th of your army into a mewling rabble, it's too late.

Far too many of your ideas lack the substance of true reality. Lots of wonderful theories of what to do, but they are game theory that cannot be applied to real world situations.

Recall here that the hobgoblin army is entirely visible to the defenders. If a 2nd breech is planned, that army either has to tip off the defenders by getting in position in advance, or must give the defenders adequate time to move troops to the new breech.

Actually, that's not how breaches worked. Breaches were formed by using siege engines against a spot on the wall until it came down. This usually took days, but could take hours with the largest trebuchets and later cannon. The attack on that breach would happen the next day. The defenders had lots of time to mine it and plant defenders. It usually didn't matter. A breached wall meant the city would fall: you couldn't kill the attackers faster than they advanced through the hole.

What you have to worry about is the attackers concentrating on the breach at the same time as performing a broad ffront assault, in this case. That forces you to defend everywhere at once, and any weak point will become a foothold. The Giant smashed an army through the breach, which wouldn't really work, but that's the Giant's perogative. Launch 10% of the army at the walls, aross a broad front to probe for undefended spots. Fire a spearhead of your most elite units (about 1000) at the breach, and hold the rest back as reserves to expoit whereever a breakthrough happens. There's nothing that would stop this from working. After all, this worked historically.

In the case at hand, we know that Hinjo knew the breech was the weak point in the defenses, and thus the most likely point for the enemy to hit, as they did, but he seems to have made no effort to send more forces to that defense until the attack on the wall ended. This is the sort of action one expects of a captain trying to make the decisions of a colonel. He sees only his local picture and has trouble understanding the larger picture. He will do his duty at saving the wall, and expects those at the breech to do their duty, not understanding how much more difficult their task has become, nor his own duty to help them with that task.

No, you don't understand the limitations of medieval communications and the capacity for orders to be delivered quickly and accurately. Your order to send 1/10th of the men on one wall to the breach can become "send every man to the breach" all too easily. That theoretically powerful order can hand the goblins a breach.

Further, the movement of men away from a wall, no matter how organized, inspires others to decide that they want to leave, too. Desertion happens. In the chaos of your troop movement, you may wind up wiht entire wall sections fleeing from battle.

The real solution to the breach was to have a certain amount of the troops off the wall in the first place, where it could be ordered to wherever it was needed -- a foothold on the wall or the unexpected breach. You've commited everyone to the wall, ensuring maximum chaos when your orders go out to deal with the breach. Redcloak should have had the same thing, in order to exploit the foothold when it happened.

All this shows is that the Giant is no military expert. Redcloak, too, made horrendous military mistakes. An army of 30000 charging at a breach? Absurd! It would hit the breach, the front ranks slow because of the rubble they need to climb over, but the rear ranks can't see this, so they trample the front ranks, and are trampled in turn by those behind them. The army would have slammed against the wall, not broken through. But the Giant had them break through. Why? Because the Giant isn't a military man.

You can't expect Hinjo to fit your view as a military genius when the Giant can't fit that view. In order to write a character as a military genius, the author needs to make himself one. The Giant, clearly, did not do this.

I really think you need to step back and re-examine this, David. You're trying to suggest Hinjo was a bad commander. Well, first you need to prove that the Giant could be a good commander himself. That would require proving that someone in the OotS has been, consistently, a good commander. And I'm sorry, but you're not going to succeed at this.

You need to take your cues from the NPC's. If the NPC's in the comic thought Hinjo was a bad commander, they would have said so. One might have suggested that no one would follow him back to AC, and that he should let a real commander take over. They haven't done that yet, which suggests that in OotS terms, no one thinks Hinjo made the mistakes you accuse him of. So, I'm sorry, you can argue theory until your nose bleeds, but it will never make Hinjo a bad commander in the comic strip.

slayerx

2007-09-06, 01:44 AM

This is rather dubious reasoning. Ideally, you don't want to have any reserves at all. Reserves are simply not being used, so even a minor utility in battle is a profit.
The problem is that one can not predict precisely where troops will be needed, which means you have to keep some in reserve until you can determine where they will go the most good. You don't want to do this, but you have to.
Now on the point of exhaustion, that is rarely what reserves are for. You use all your forces so you have 2-1 odds, and you win, even if your troops are exhausted. You keep half the troops back as reserves and you could lose.

i don't know... i mean, i can see it working in a short term battle but not in the long term. In the long term, i think the exhaustion caused by troops fighting for long periods of time would end up causing more damage to the troops than the damage inflicted by the enemy... with the enemy having many more troops in back, they can send in bigger waves in the late in the battle when your troops are more exhausted and have much fewer frech troops... the more troops you hold back, the more you'll have to fight with for when the enemy sends in larger waves of fresh troops
meh, though i'm really just talking out of my *ss at this point so i think i may just need to concede and let someone else come up with a better reason to hold back troops

Which merely changes Hinjo's mistake, not the fact he made one.

Bravely charging to the front, Hinjo made it impossible for him to know the very facts he is supposed to know as commander...

And this is where real world and DnD collide. In the real world, a commander won't make any difference on the front line since he is only as strong as his men... in a massive battle like this, one man won't make a difference and as such, the commander's best place is off the battlefield. However, in DnD, the decision is not so easy. Hinjo is a relatively high level character and agaisnt an army of low level hobgoblins he can make a HUGE difference on the front line... While his soliders might go one for one with the hobgoblins, he and Argent can kill hundreds... to the hobgoblins, he's like a monster on the battlefield. He himself is one of Azure cities best weapons during a war.

If he sat on the sidelines he would be in a better position to lead the troops, but at the same time the southernwall might have become overrun by hobgoblins and he would be looking at a second breech in the wall.

And that is a mistake by Hinjo. He is the commander, the one who gives the orders. He does not wait for others to order him. The idea of waiting for the general to do something is shirking his duty. It is acting like a captain instead of like a general.
He's not waiting for orders, he's waiting for reports... since he's not in a position to be watching the entire battle, or leave his position without a sure reason he has little choice but to rely on his officers to give him reports on the status of the battle.... really, the only way he could give all the orders out is if he was on the sidelines, but he is too powerful a soldier to sit back

Grant it, saying that it seems like their is one person who might have been a better at leading the troops than Hinjo... Shojo... Shojo is no use on the frontlines and as such can sit on the side and be a commander... unfotunatly he's dead... not to mention, shojo would have deal with serious charisma issues stemming from either being considered too senial to lead during war, or from revealing he was lying about being senial so he could lead; not to mention commiting crimes that could get him arrested by Hinjo...

Gundato

2007-09-06, 05:58 AM

Oh boy, we are now at the "Word by word" nitpick.

Look, did Hobbos make it onto the walls? Yes. So obviously the walls were a concern. Did it look like they had it under control? Sort of. They were taking losses, but they were also able to hold them off. Wouldn't that be the kind of situation where you, I don't know, REINFORCE the troops?

The breach was under control, much more so than the rest of the city (Vaarsuvius's super-soldiers). That was under control.

The breach only fell when the Hobbo strategy changed drastically, and that was a morale issue. Do you concede that the defenders were drastically outnumbered (blame it on Hinjo if it makes you feel better)? Now then, their only hope of survival was to fight on their own terms. But, when the entire damn army is charging, morale goes bye bye. And don't argue the whole chokepoint argument. Of the troops that remained, they were pretty well covered, they just were lacking reinforcements. That few lines of defenders fell almost instantly. So yeah, that didn't work out too well. Do you really think committing all the reserves there (meaning that you can either lose now due to being overwhelmed, and have far fewer troops in the future, or you can lose in a few hours when your entire army is exhausted) would have made a difference?

As for the whole "Lead from the front" argument. Are you saying Alexander was a fool? What about Rommel? Ignoring the MASSIVE boost to morale, it is if anything a better choice tactically, he is closer to the frontlines and thus requires less information in each relay of information.

So then, the only thing that can be remotely considered a bad move on Hinjo's part is attacking Redcloak. And, like I mentioned before, that is a staple of the fantasy battle genre. Wasn't Hinjo's fault that he wasn't privy to Redcloak's internal monologues and the like.

warmachine

2007-09-06, 07:54 AM

There isn't going to be a city to assault. Redcloak and Xykon are interested in controlling one of the gates and need their army to establish control. They need a warchest, not a campaign base. Redcloak hates Azurites and Xykon thinks destruction is amusing. Standard medieval response? Massacre, loot and burn. The city treasury will be emptied whilst the rank-and-file get the rest and they'll love it. Only the R word will be omitted out of sensitivity. The place gets razed whilst Recloak laughs manically and Xykon tortures O'Chul some more. Then the army marches on feeling invincible.

chibibar

2007-09-06, 09:19 AM

The problem is that we can't compare Hinjo to some of the our greatest commanders in history (like Alexanders) why? It is all about troop training and chain of command.

I do not think Hinjo had much field experience in commanding a large troops. He may give orders to the Sapphire Guards but not the regular troops (speculation) Chain of command and training is very important. It keeps the troops together and work together when something broke down. (like commanders get killed or something)

The problem with standard tactics (that we learn in history) doesn't usually work as well in a fantasy setting. Why? magic. Magic can change the tide of war very easily.....

As we can see, Magic can create a breach within minutes. Magic can bring in supply (Gate spell, create food+water) Magic can heal troops and bring them back to full form. Magic can provide defenses (V's example) these are some of the things we can't truly imagine in the real world since such things is well beyond our capabilities.

David Argall

2007-09-06, 02:53 PM

But that's the difference between theory and reality. In reality, ladders were the standard tactic for taking forts, because they worked. Your theory suggests that they should never have worked.
Of course ladders worked. But a ladder simply works a lot less well than a breech in the wall. Sometimes you have to use ladders. You don't have the seige equipment, or maybe you are under a deadline and do not have the time to make a breech, or... But when you have a choice, you go for the breech.

Your theory must match historical evidence. Ladders worked as assault tools. If your theory denies them working, then you must be wrong.
And my theory matches the historical evidence. The attackers used ladders, when they could not make a breech. When they could, the ladder was used merely as a diversion to weaken defense of the breech.

Move? How? Such a command has enormous logstical problems.
You are wanting to excuse a kindergarden mistake with grade school problems. Recall here that the comic tells us support was going to arrive in 10 minutes. In other words, all these logistical problems would take just minutes to solve. And Hinjo had hours to do the solving, or to tell lesser officers to do so.

Actually, that's not how breaches worked.
Irrelevant to the point at issue [What if the enemy made a 2nd breech?], and your explanation simply supports my position that Hinjo did not need to worry about a 2nd breech if he moved troops to cover the existing one. By the time the 2nd breech became an actual danger, he could easily move troops back.

A breached wall meant the city would fall: you couldn't kill the attackers faster than they advanced through the hole...
There's nothing that would stop this from working. After all, this worked historically.
Historically it probably failed more often than it succeeded. At least if you count individual assaults. A breech did make the problems of defense way worse, but it was not an automatic death sentence. [Granted, the defenders had better make sure their wills were up to date...]

Your order to send 1/10th of the men on one wall to the breach can become "send every man to the breach" all too easily.
That is true of any battleground order anytime, anywhere. It simply is not an acceptable excuse for not issuing orders. In the particular circumstance, the danger can be limited by making the order "Send Sir Generic [and his unit] to the breech."

Further, the movement of men away from a wall, no matter how organized, inspires others to decide that they want to leave, too.
Again with quibbles that Hinjo quite obviously never considered [and would have rejected if he had]. But we are not sending men away from the wall. We send them from behind wall section 8 to behind wall section 9.

The real solution to the breach was to have a certain amount of the troops off the wall in the first place, where it could be ordered to wherever it was needed
And that is what is pictured, and what is suggested here. The comic shows up great masses of troops behind the wall, not on it. These troops do nothing the entire battle until Redcloak breaks thru and flanks them. So why are they being held in reserve when there is a known weak point where they are needed?

You can't expect Hinjo to fit your view as a military genius when the Giant can't fit that view. In order to write a character as a military genius, the author needs to make himself one.
Any author must write a number of characters who have far greater skills at this or that than the author does. [The obvious case here is spellcasters.] It is simply part of the job. It of course helps to know something about the skill so it is not obvious that the writer is winging it, but it is not a necessity.

In the current case, we are told Redcloak is a military genius because his tactics work [whether they really should or not]. By the same standard, Hinjo's ideas don't work. Therefore he is a poor commander.

You need to take your cues from the NPC's. If the NPC's in the comic thought Hinjo was a bad commander, they would have said so.
Actually that is pretty much what Captain Axe says in 481 and 482. [He deems him very, in fact overly, brave and might willingly follow him in a suicide charge because of that, but he hardly thinks Hinjo is bright.]

One might have suggested that no one would follow him back to AC, and that he should let a real commander take over. They haven't done that yet, which suggests that in OotS terms, no one thinks Hinjo made the mistakes you accuse him of.
Does not follow. Hinjo is lord by heritage, not by fitness for office. Note that Shojo was assumed by all to be crackers for 15 years, and yet he stayed in office. Lord Hinjo is the Lord, and [depending on local rules] can only be replaced at his death or other quite limited conditions, which do not include his being a meathead with more balls than brains. This is a lawful city and that means the lord must be obeyed, no matter how stupid he is.

i can see it working in a short term battle but not in the long term.
If you don't win the short term in the castle situation, there is no long term.

Hinjo is a relatively high level character and agaisnt an army of low level hobgoblins he can make a HUGE difference on the front line... He himself is one of Azure cities best weapons during a war.

If he sat on the sidelines he would be in a better position to lead the troops, but at the same time the southernwall might have become overrun by hobgoblins and he would be looking at a second breech in the wall.
An arguable point at least, but most of the details are against Hinjo here. He is clearly matched, indeed overmatched, by the OOTS people on the wall, making his necessity to wall defense at least suspect. And he is merely the highest level paladin on the field. There is given a higher level cleric he put back in the castle, and other people of at least Hinjo's level are wandering around as well. So the idea he is a vital part of the defense is a weak defense.
And even if we assume he is, Hinjo has a duty to put somebody in position to make the decisions he can't, somebody who is not on the front lines where he can get killed by being overly brave. We have no sign Hinjo did anything of the sort. So we are merely changing the type of Hinjo error.

He's not waiting for orders, he's waiting for reports...
Why is he doing that? The proper general is screaming "Where is the report from Colonel Breech? It's not here? Well, go and get it!" Hinjo should not be passively waiting for information. He should be actively seeking it.

since he's not in a position to be watching the entire battle,
Since he is not where he should be...

Look, did Hobbos make it onto the walls? Yes. So obviously the walls were a concern. Did it look like they had it under control? Sort of. They were taking losses, but they were also able to hold them off. Wouldn't that be the kind of situation where you, I don't know, REINFORCE the troops?
Notice the great mass of troops standing behind those walls, who did not get called into action. So are you saying that Hinjo was making a mistake not using them on the walls? Arguable, but the basic point is that Hinjo didn't use them at all, which again works out to saying Hinjo blundered.

The breach was under control, much more so than the rest of the city (Vaarsuvius's super-soldiers). That was under control.
See 446. That control was definitely marginal. Moreover, we have several defenses of Hinjo claiming he didn't know what was going on at the breech, and since that was obviously the point of greatest danger, such ignorance is the opposite of bliss.

Do you really think committing all the reserves there (meaning that you can either lose now due to being overwhelmed, and have far fewer troops in the future, or you can lose in a few hours when your entire army is exhausted) would have made a difference?
Due to plot, probably not. But yes, a-losing in a few hours is routinely viewed as superior to losing right now. b-in a situation where the result could have been changed, having a dozen or so rows of backers for the front line might have held the breech. Charges into breeches failed quite often. Note here the line from Shakespeare is "ONCE MORE into the breech..."

As for the whole "Lead from the front" argument. Are you saying Alexander was a fool? What about Rommel?
By vote of the overwhelming percentage of generals, yes they were being fools in getting so close to the enemy. They were lucky fools, but history tells us of a great many less lucky generals who lost battles by getting themselves killed this way. Alexander in particular had to be rescued from his folly more than once and was risking his entire war for a little personal fun.

it is if anything a better choice tactically,
Hinjo is the general, not some little captain. He is not supposed to think tactically. He must think strategically.

So then, the only thing that can be remotely considered a bad move on Hinjo's part is attacking Redcloak.
No, that is simply typical of Hinjo. At every chance he shows personal bravery, great personal bravery, and shows no consideration of the larger picture. He was on the wall where he could fight, and ignores the main enemy threat. He finds himself completely defeated, and wants to keep fighting rather than retreat. He finds his ship ready to retreat, and stays, even when faced with a clearly superior force that makes the chance of the rest of the OOTS rejoining him quite unlikely. Finding the enemy is too tough for him, he tries to hold out, and to even launch an attack. And when he finds the ship has fled, he has to be talked out of going back.
As Captain Axe says, you want to get Hinjo away from situations where he can die heroically. The man is really brave, a fine virtue in a lower ranked officer, but it is a flaw in the commanding officer.

Gundato

2007-09-06, 06:12 PM

Why is he doing that? The proper general is screaming "Where is the report from Colonel Breech? It's not here? Well, go and get it!" Hinjo should not be passively waiting for information. He should be actively seeking it.
By abandoning his post? Again, look at the comic, he was making a difference there. Also, wouldn't you say it would be pretty bad strategically to wander around a battlefield (meaning nobody can find you to relay information)? At least his runners knew where to find him when he was on the wall.

Notice the great mass of troops standing behind those walls, who did not get called into action. So are you saying that Hinjo was making a mistake not using them on the walls? Arguable, but the basic point is that Hinjo didn't use them at all, which again works out to saying Hinjo blundered.
Or they were being held in reserve for the second wave of defense. Too many people on the wall or in the breech will just result in a mess. That mass of troops might very well have been told to hold their position until the defenders on the wall/breach fell back.

See 446. That control was definitely marginal. Moreover, we have several defenses of Hinjo claiming he didn't know what was going on at the breech, and since that was obviously the point of greatest danger, such ignorance is the opposite of bliss.
Okay, if the runners weren't able to inform Hinjo, would they be able to inform Shojo or Soon or whatever leader you want?

By vote of the overwhelming percentage of generals, yes they were being fools in getting so close to the enemy. They were lucky fools, but history tells us of a great many less lucky generals who lost battles by getting themselves killed this way. Alexander in particular had to be rescued from his folly more than once and was risking his entire war for a little personal fun.
Aye, but morale was pretty gosh darned good.

Hinjo is the general, not some little captain. He is not supposed to think tactically. He must think strategically.
At the time, he was fighting as a captain. And again, I call forward the standard fantasy battle system of "the duel"

Kreistor

2007-09-06, 09:54 PM

Historically it probably failed more often than it succeeded. At least if you count individual assaults. A breech did make the problems of defense way worse, but it was not an automatic death sentence. [Granted, the defenders had better make sure their wills were up to date...]

Evidence please? I can bring out the record of one Lord Wellington, who never failed to take a city once he had a breach in the walls. Never... failed... ever.

He almost failed once, during the early invasion of Spain, but the troops at the breach rallied and forged ahead, creating the foothold and the fort fell.

In fact, I am unaware of a single case of a breached wall that held.

That is true of any battleground order anytime, anywhere. It simply is not an acceptable excuse for not issuing orders.

Incorrect. Sending an order is a commitment of troops, usually on a permanent basis, unless those troops and commanders have years of training. There is no "order them out". Once engaged, they are engaged for good, and it is up to the local commanders to determine when to pull out.

Once reinforcements are commited, they are gone, unless they eliminate that enemy. There are many cases where attempts at disengagement by superior forces became a rout at the hands of inferior forces, because the superior forces thought that something terrible had gone wrong to cause them to need to get out of there. (They were being flanked, the enemy was breaking through elsewhere, etc.) You do not casually order troops around, ever. You commit them, and then forget about them, and sometimes, in a gross emergency where you are completely dead otherwise, you try a risky order.

Even in the 20th century, this holds true. Eisenhower, on D-Day, said something to the effect of, "I am now just an observer: an observer with a front row seat, but an observer nontheless. A private on Omaha, a sergeant on Juno -- these men have the power now."

A commander, once battle has engaged, has few if any options. Most things must be enacted as part of a rpevious plan, with local commanders ad-libbing as necessary.

Again with quibbles that Hinjo quite obviously never considered [and would have rejected if he had]. But we are not sending men away from the wall. We send them from behind wall section 8 to behind wall section 9.

And those on wall section 7, who have not received their orders yet, see mass desertion and flee. You just handed Red a foothold.

And that is what is pictured, and what is suggested here. The comic shows up great masses of troops behind the wall, not on it. These troops do nothing the entire battle until Redcloak breaks thru and flanks them. So why are they being held in reserve when there is a known weak point where they are needed?

Because a breakthrough can happen anywhere. Commiting all of your reserves to the breach abandons any hope of holding. A breakthrough can happen anywhere, requiring nearby reinforcements to suppress it. Hinjo cannot know that Red has abandoned any other foothold attempt, and so must retain defenders everywhere. (He's not a mind reader.)

Further, evidence in 452 is that the troops lack the morale to stand, no matter how many you send. Reinforce that breach all you want: the only result is that more run. Why? because the Giant decided they run. You don't get to say, "They won't run." They did. They will. Yours will. Because it is a plot point.

In the current case, we are told Redcloak is a military genius because his tactics work [whether they really should or not]. By the same standard, Hinjo's ideas don't work. Therefore he is a poor commander.

Hinjo's ideas don't work because he is outnumbered, surprised, and given little time to prepare. That doesn't make him a bad commander: it is handing him a battle he has no chance to win, and then calling him bad because he doesn't win. No one in the strip has come to the conclusion that HInjo is bad yet, so it is inappropriate to use a line of analysis which shows Redcloak a poor commander too, to determine Hinjo is a poor commander.

Actually that is pretty much what Captain Axe says in 481 and 482. [He deems him very, in fact overly, brave and might willingly follow him in a suicide charge because of that, but he hardly thinks Hinjo is bright.]

Captain Axe comments on Hinjo's current self-sacrificial mindset, not on his capacity to command. It is entirely common for officers to become suicidal after failure, good or bad. Grant's drunkenness, Jackson's depression both occur both before and after events that demonstrate they were excellent commanders. Being self-destructive is a part of the brutal nature of war, and has nothing to do with the capacity to command.

Hinjo is a paladin, and they are often known to be somewhat suicidal in their campaigns against evils. It is entirely reasonable for him to revert to that nature when faced with his loss of AC.

No, that is simply typical of Hinjo. At every chance he shows personal bravery, great personal bravery, and shows no consideration of the larger picture. He was on the wall where he could fight, and ignores the main enemy threat.

Medieval commanders fought. Their troops expected it of them. Kings died on the battlefield leading their troops, often from the front.

Failing to place himself in the heat of battle would have caused additional morale issues, and may have prevented a valid defense.

David Argall

2007-09-07, 02:44 AM

At least his runners knew where to find him when he was on the wall.
Now that does bring up a point. Where are his runners? Possibly they are just background people who are not drawn, but it seems possible that he doesn't have any. That is entirely consistent with his apparent attitude that he was merely commanding the section of wall he could yell to. We might also note that if he did have runners, they have to dodge a lot of hobgoblins on the way to and from him.
Our typical general stands well back from the battle, and has messages coming to and from him almost constantly. He simply can't do his function in the midst of battle.

Or they were being held in reserve for the second wave of defense.
All of them? It's not possible to send, say 1/2 or 1/3 of them to the breech?

That mass of troops might very well have been told to hold their position until the defenders on the wall/breach fell back.
So why can't they do that behind the breech, where there is a desperate need for support?

if the runners weren't able to inform Hinjo, would they be able to inform Shojo or Soon or whatever leader you want?
Very likely. As already noted, such a general would be in a better position to receive and send runners, and he would have runners.

At the time, he was fighting as a captain. And again, I call forward the standard fantasy battle system of "the duel"
And again, he should not have been trying to be a captain. He was a general.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Argall
Historically it probably failed more often than it succeeded. At least if you count individual assaults. A breech did make the problems of defense way worse, but it was not an automatic death sentence. [Granted, the defenders had better make sure their wills were up to date...]

Evidence please? I can bring out the record of one Lord Wellington, who never failed to take a city once he had a breach in the walls.
A-Lord Wellington was deemed one of the best generals of the day, and backed up by some of the best troops. You expect him, or somebody like him, to have such a record. But we are concerned with General Average and how often he takes the city.
Now your statement here seems a boast by Wellington or one of his admirers, and you don't boast about the easily done and commonplace. You boast of what no others have managed. So the implied statement here is that the typical general did fail to take a city once he had a breech. He may well have succeeded more often than not, but he did not have a clean record.

B-We are talking here of Breech = next attack succeeds. The boast of Lord Wellington is Breech = eventually an attack succeeds. In other words, he may have failed to carry the breech many times, possibly for each success.

In fact, I am unaware of a single case of a breached wall that held.
Given the number of walls, this is probably a confession of ignorance rather than a statement of how often they fell.

Quote:
That is true of any battleground order anytime, anywhere. It simply is not an acceptable excuse for not issuing orders.

Incorrect. Sending an order is a commitment of troops, usually on a permanent basis, unless those troops and commanders have years of training. There is no "order them out". Once engaged, they are engaged for good, and it is up to the local commanders to determine when to pull out.
Again irrelevant to the point at hand, which was that the order might be misunderstood.

Quote:
Again with quibbles that Hinjo quite obviously never considered [and would have rejected if he had]. But we are not sending men away from the wall. We send them from behind wall section 8 to behind wall section 9.

And those on wall section 7, who have not received their orders yet, see mass desertion and flee. You just handed Red a foothold.
You are taking the [barely] possible and asserting it as solid fact. Note here that the troops on section 8 did see mass desertion at the breech, and did not flee. The idea these troops would see troop movement and misunderstand it as desertion is clearly suspect on comic evident, and on common sense. [Deserting troops for example drop weapons that would slow them down, and their officers are not urging them to hurry up.]

Quote:
And that is what is pictured, and what is suggested here. The comic shows up great masses of troops behind the wall, not on it. These troops do nothing the entire battle until Redcloak breaks thru and flanks them. So why are they being held in reserve when there is a known weak point where they are needed?

Because a breakthrough can happen anywhere. Commiting all of your reserves to the breach abandons any hope of holding.
So who wants to commit all of them? The point is that Hinjo commited none of them.

A breakthrough can happen anywhere, requiring nearby reinforcements to suppress it. Hinjo cannot know that Red has abandoned any other foothold attempt, and so must retain defenders everywhere.
He can, and does, know where the greatest danger is, at the breech, and he fails to send any troops there.

Further, evidence in 452 is that the troops lack the morale to stand, no matter how many you send.
The troops there lacked the morale. The reserve, not being exhausted, did stand and fight in the following comics. So the presumption is that if they had been moved there, they would have fought.

Reinforce that breach all you want: the only result is that more run. Why? because the Giant decided they run. You don't get to say, "They won't run." They did. They will. Yours will. Because it is a plot point.
And on the available evidence, it is a plot point that Hinjo is brave, but not very bright as a commander.

Quote:
In the current case, we are told Redcloak is a military genius because his tactics work [whether they really should or not]. By the same standard, Hinjo's ideas don't work. Therefore he is a poor commander.

Hinjo's ideas don't work because he is outnumbered, surprised, and given little time to prepare. That doesn't make him a bad commander: it is handing him a battle he has no chance to win, and then calling him bad because he doesn't win.
The estimate given us before the battle is the odds were 50-50. So by our expert analysis, this was by no means a battle Hinjo had no chance to win.

No one in the strip has come to the conclusion that HInjo is bad
It is more correct to say nobody has said he was any good as commander. Note that the OOTS comments can hardly be deemed anything but critical, and Captain Axe is not talking well of Hinjo either.

Quote:
Actually that is pretty much what Captain Axe says in 481 and 482. [He deems him very, in fact overly, brave and might willingly follow him in a suicide charge because of that, but he hardly thinks Hinjo is bright.]

Captain Axe comments on Hinjo's current self-sacrificial mindset, not on his capacity to command.
Same thing. He is saying Hinjo is not fit for command. And there seems no reason to talk about his self-sacrificial mindset as merely "current". It has been his behavior all the time.

Hinjo is a paladin, and they are often known to be somewhat suicidal in their campaigns against evils. It is entirely reasonable for him to revert to that nature when faced with his loss of AC.
Where do we see evidence he is "reverting"? On the available evidence, this is his normal behavior.

Quote:
No, that is simply typical of Hinjo. At every chance he shows personal bravery, great personal bravery, and shows no consideration of the larger picture. He was on the wall where he could fight, and ignores the main enemy threat.

Medieval commanders fought.
Some of them did. Some didn't. [For example, some were rather old men.] By percentages, most did not, as can be seen by the praise given those who did.

Failing to place himself in the heat of battle would have caused additional morale issues, and may have prevented a valid defense.
Maybe, but not likely.

Gundato

2007-09-07, 06:04 AM

Now that does bring up a point. Where are his runners? Possibly they are just background people who are not drawn, but it seems possible that he doesn't have any. That is entirely consistent with his apparent attitude that he was merely commanding the section of wall he could yell to. We might also note that if he did have runners, they have to dodge a lot of hobgoblins on the way to and from him.
Our typical general stands well back from the battle, and has messages coming to and from him almost constantly. He simply can't do his function in the midst of battle.
Now you are just grasping at straws. We assume he had no system to give orders or recieve information because it wasn't drawn? I have only seen the OOTS go to the bathroom once, does that mean they only have to go once in their entire lives?
As for the dodging hobbo argument: Uhm.. Even if they had to run a MUCH longer distance, they are still going past hobbos when they talk to the officers in charge. So it is a case of "Longer distance, marginally less tumble rolls" versus "Shorter distance, a few more tumble rolls"

All of them? It's not possible to send, say 1/2 or 1/3 of them to the breech?
Actually, I am pretty sure they DID, judging by the number of people IN said breach. And should Hinjo be held accountable for Vaarsuvius's plan, which suggested that fewer troops were needed?

So why can't they do that behind the breech, where there is a desperate need for support?
I don't really get what you are saying. First you argue that they are standing behind everyone, now you argue that they aren't standing behind the breach?

Very likely. As already noted, such a general would be in a better position to receive and send runners, and he would have runners.
Again, runners probably just weren't drawn. As I said earlier, in the throne room or on the wall, the important thing is to hold position.

And again, he should not have been trying to be a captain. He was a general.
He was the ranking officer, and they were under attack. I would rather a somewhat high level NPC be helpful than sit back and twiddle his thumbs.

Kreistor

2007-09-07, 09:15 AM

A-Lord Wellington was deemed one of the best generals of the day, and backed up by some of the best troops. You expect him, or somebody like him, to have such a record. But we are concerned with General Average and how often he takes the city.
Now your statement here seems a boast by Wellington or one of his admirers, and you don't boast about the easily done and commonplace. You boast of what no others have managed. So the implied statement here is that the typical general did fail to take a city once he had a breech. He may well have succeeded more often than not, but he did not have a clean record.

No, the difference is that I at least provided some evidence to back up my claim that breaches mean a captured city. You still have nothing suggesting that your broad claim that most breaches don't result in a captured city.

So, unless you'd like to provide some cold,hard fact like I myself had, then you're still just theorizing without a basis in reality.

B-We are talking here of Breech = next attack succeeds. The boast of Lord Wellington is Breech = eventually an attack succeeds. In other words, he may have failed to carry the breech many times, possibly for each success.

"May have."? You have the opportunity to study and present your case. Crack open some books, like I have, and prove this, instead of speculating. I think you'll find that Wellington, even in his previous campaign in India, took the braches on the first try.

In fact, I am unaware of a single case of a breached wall that held.

Given the number of walls, this is probably a confession of ignorance rather than a statement of how often they fell.

And yet, you can't quote me a single piece of historical evidence to back up your claims, while I happen to know about Wellington's history. Hmmm... which one of us has studied this? Come on, if you're such a great military mind, then you must have studied this, right? You should have evidence just rolling off the top of your head. But, it seems, you do not. I'll leave the conclusions on the value of analysis by the uninformed to the readers.

That is true of any battleground order anytime, anywhere. It simply is not an acceptable excuse for not issuing orders.

Yes, it is. Sending an order that has a high probability of confusion is not better than sending no order at all.

Again irrelevant to the point at hand, which was that the order might be misunderstood.

But that an order might be confusing is a reason to not send it. That's why I said that it is a self-defeating idea to treat the sending of orders casually. The order you send now commits your troops and makes them unavailable for later command. That's why orders were simple: the more complex, the more likely they could not be implemented. It wasn't until the deelopment of permanent, professional armies that trained in formation fighting (the Swiss pikemen started it all) that the capacity of soldiers to take complex orders increased beyond "Attack" or "Retreat".

Again with quibbles that Hinjo quite obviously never considered [and would have rejected if he had]. But we are not sending men away from the wall. We send them from behind wall section 8 to behind wall section 9.

You've presented so many different ideas, I've lost track of the specifics here. Is this part of the 1/10th withdrawl from the wall, or a redeployment of wall troops, or what? Don't forget that the "quoting" process here destroys context. You need to reinsert context by times for your statements to make any sense.

You are taking the [barely] possible and asserting it as solid fact. Note here that the troops on section 8 did see mass desertion at the breech, and did not flee. The idea these troops would see troop movement and misunderstand it as desertion is clearly suspect on comic evident, and on common sense. [Deserting troops for example drop weapons that would slow them down, and their officers are not urging them to hurry up.]

Where's section 8 relative to the breach? I see troops deserting from the breach, taking many reinforcements with them.

And that is what is pictured, and what is suggested here. The comic shows up great masses of troops behind the wall, not on it. These troops do nothing the entire battle until Redcloak breaks thru and flanks them. So why are they being held in reserve when there is a known weak point where they are needed?

1) You must defend everywhere, or you automatically lose the city.
2) Orders take time. You can't send any orders at all until Redcloak has committed, which means not until he is actually charging the breach. You now get to send out runners with orders (which takes time) and wait for the troops to work their way through the streets (not a direct route like Redcloak is taking), Redcloak gets there first.
3) Space limitations. Only 1 man per 5' square. You could fill that area with men, but any except those in front matter. That's why small numbers have an advantage in confined spaces, especially when they are highly trained vs. weak troops. Confined spaces force both sides to fight a 1-1 battle.
4) You're massing your troops in a known, predictable location. This makes them vulnerable to enemy blind fire -- arrows or siege engines. You've committed everyone to a small area that will be under heavy enemy fire, and that increases the efficiency of the enemy weaponry. It's suicide.

So who wants to commit all of them? The point is that Hinjo commited none of them.

452. Reinforcements were already commited. "10 minutes away". We aren't shown Hinjo giving that order, but that was an order he was responsible for giving. It might have been a lesser officer, which only goes to tell us that AC's middle management was smart and up to the task, even without Hinjo.

He can, and does, know where the greatest danger is, at the breech, and he fails to send any troops there.

Again, 452. Reinforcements are in fact on the way. You are making an assumption that Hinjo didn't give that order.

The troops there lacked the morale. The reserve, not being exhausted, did stand and fight in the following comics. So the presumption is that if they had been moved there, they would have fought.

No, we have evidence of low morale in a place where they had just held off an undead attack. Victory increases morale, not lowers it. This section of the wall should have had the highest morale in the city.

And on the available evidence, it is a plot point that Hinjo is brave, but not very bright as a commander.

Brave, yes. Show me the point in the story where anyone says Hinjo is a bad commander, specifically, not interpretationally. You are trying to prove he is a bad commander.

In the current case, we are told Redcloak is a military genius because his tactics work [whether they really should or not]. By the same standard, Hinjo's ideas don't work. Therefore he is a poor commander.

The estimate given us before the battle is the odds were 50-50. So by our expert analysis, this was by no means a battle Hinjo had no chance to win.

That estimate assumed standard tactics. Redcloak's "genius" was his paraelementals, for which AC had no response. Redcloak created a breach in the first minutes of the fight. That changed the odds significantly.

It is more correct to say nobody has said he was any good as commander. Note that the OOTS comments can hardly be deemed anything but critical, and Captain Axe is not talking well of Hinjo either.

Which means the jury is still out. Captain Axe, however, is clearly very devoted to Hinjo. A standard response for those that thought poorly of a commander was an arrow in the back, or in this case, letting Hinjo get himself killed. Axe ensures Hinjo survives, because he feels Hinjo is vital to AC's future. His devotion is unwavering, despite the loss of AC. That suggests that he is not unimpressed with his defense of the city.

Actually that is pretty much what Captain Axe says in 481 and 482. [He deems him very, in fact overly, brave and might willingly follow him in a suicide charge because of that, but he hardly thinks Hinjo is bright.]

Quote a sentence for me, please. I see nowhere there where he says Hinjo is stupid, dumb, or not bright. You are trying to put words in his mouth.

It is true that Hinjo momentarily forgets that he has responsibilities to those on the ship, not just those he sent to rescue Roy. But, as my examples of Grant and Sherman show, even good generals have bad reactions by times when faced with insurmountable problems. That doesn't make them bad commanders.

Even Lee pulled stupid stunts. If you judged Lee solely on the evidence of one Picket, you'd judge him a horrible commander. Look up Picket's Charge at Gettysburg.

Same thing. He is saying Hinjo is not fit for command. And there seems no reason to talk about his self-sacrificial mindset as merely "current". It has been his behavior all the time.

No, he is NOT saying that. He is saying that Hinjo has his priorities messed up. That's very common in the theatre of war. Hinjo was still fighting the old battle, and hadn't want to admit he had to move on to the new one. Axe could see this because he was not personally involved in this: he had nothing to lose by giving up on the OotS. Hinjo did, so he held on longer than he should have.

Where do we see evidence he is "reverting"? On the available evidence, this is his normal behavior.

Even you haven't suggested that he used his troops suicidally at the wall. Even if that is his personal method of combat, it's not how he uses others. (You, on the other hand, seem perfectly happy with massive death tolls to gain victory.)

No, that is simply typical of Hinjo. At every chance he shows personal bravery, great personal bravery, and shows no consideration of the larger picture. He was on the wall where he could fight, and ignores the main enemy threat.

And when he faced Miko, he tried to talk her down before fighting her. Very suicidal, and not aware of the larger picture at all. Sorry, that's sarcasm if you haven't gotten it.

Some of them did. Some didn't. [For example, some were rather old men.] By percentages, most did not, as can be seen by the praise given those who did.

You have percentages? Cool, link them for me, please?

Maybe, but not likely.

Brand new leader of the city. He has no support from the nobility. Known to be grieving.

Yeah, choosing to fight on the wall in that state would have zero effect on the morale of his men. Again, sarcasm, BTW.

David Argall

2007-09-07, 11:24 PM

Now you are just grasping at straws. We assume he had no system to give orders or recieve information because it wasn't drawn?
It is certainly a possibility. We do not see them, and we see him moving around so much that they would have trouble reaching him. Nor do we see him doing anything that requires him to know what he could not personally observe.

Even if they had to run a MUCH longer distance, they are still going past hobbos when they talk to the officers in charge. So it is a case of "Longer distance, marginally less tumble rolls" versus "Shorter distance, a few more tumble rolls"
Tumble rolls are double distance, and our picture of the wall shows them to be present frequently, so the longer distance is in fact shorter. And if we put the command center in the castle, there is no need for a tumble check at all. The runner simply does not encounter the enemy.

I don't really get what you are saying. First you argue that they are standing behind everyone, now you argue that they aren't standing behind the breach?
OK, let's do the general review.
422-there is a solid mass of troops behind each section of the wall.
423-5 - attackers make breech in North wall. Hinjo acknowledges the weakness.
426-attackers send about half of their attackers at the breech
446-Aerial view shows a great amount of open ground around breech.
450-We again see the breech and reserve situation. There are now large open spaces where reserves for the breech were. The other reserves, the great majority, are holding their places.
452-we are told that reinforcements will be coming now that the attack on the rest of the wall has stopped.
453-shows Hinjo rushing to the breech, after the main attack on it has already been launched.
454-the hobgoblins roll up the flank of the reserves.

So we have the situation where the defenses of the breech are weakening, but Hinjo makes no more to help the defenders until the attack on his position is finished. So all those reserves are wasted.

As I said earlier, in the throne room or on the wall, the important thing is to hold position.
Well, no. This seems to be the 1st time you have said "hold position". In any case, holding your position is what the forces under attack want to do. It is not a duty of the reserve, who are there to leave that position and go where they are needed.
Of course, we can note that Hinjo had left his proper position, back where he could be informed of what is going on, in order to be right on the front.

He was the ranking officer, and they were under attack. I would rather a somewhat high level NPC be helpful than sit back and twiddle his thumbs.
Standing back and issuing needed orders is not twiddling thumbs. We might note here that Redcloak did sit back and stay out of the fight until after both city and castle wall were breeched.

No, the difference is that I at least provided some evidence to back up my claim that breaches mean a captured city.
You have provided some evidence. It just doesn't mean what you want it to mean.

Consider a comment from the sports page "Tiger Woods has won every tournament in which he entered the final round in the lead." Does this mean that the 3rd round leader wins all golf tournaments? Not at all. A casual estimate is that he wins only about 50% of the time. That is a lot better than the guy[s] in 2nd [maybe 10% each], but it's quite common for the leader to have a bad round, or one of those close behind to have a hot one, with the result that the 3rd round leader is often not the final winner.
So now we take the same style of sentence "Lord Wellington, who never failed to take a city once he had a breach in the walls". As with Tiger Woods, the statement says Lord Wellington was a great general, not that taking a city was automatic once a breech was made.

You still have nothing suggesting that your broad claim that most breaches don't result in a captured city.
No such claim has been made. A breech is a major wound to the city's defenses, and often fatal. But it is not automatically fatal, and even when it is fatal, it is quite common for some attacks to fail despite the breech.

So, unless you'd like to provide some cold,hard fact like I myself had, then you're still just theorizing without a basis in reality.
Well, our "reality" here features a successful defense of the breech, unfortunately only on the 1st attack, and the attacker did a whole lot better on the second. None the less, the 1st attack on the breech failed.

Quote:
B-We are talking here of Breech = next attack succeeds. The boast of Lord Wellington is Breech = eventually an attack succeeds. In other words, he may have failed to carry the breech many times, possibly for each success.

"May have."? You have the opportunity to study and present your case. Crack open some books, like I have, and prove this, instead of speculating. I think you'll find that Wellington, even in his previous campaign in India, took the braches on the first try.
Well, no. "Badajoz ...There were accusations afterwards that Wellington had made the siege too soon, putting too many lives at risk, and indeed the army didn't break through at either of the breaches, but through one of the escalades."
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~awoodley/regency/badajoz.html

So we have two cases in one siege where Wellington failed to take the breeches at the first try. The breeches in question may well have been very useful, probably taking attention off the other attack, but for our purposes, the breeches were not always taken at the first try.

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That is true of any battleground order anytime, anywhere. It simply is not an acceptable excuse for not issuing orders.

Yes, it is. Sending an order that has a high probability of confusion is not better than sending no order at all.
But we have no evidence that there is anything close to a high probability of confusion here. Quite the contrary. We see in 452 that just such an order has [too late] been issued without confusion. So it seems that issuing such an order does not have a serious chance of confusion.

But that an order might be confusing is a reason to not send it.
No, that is a reason to make sure it is not confusing.

It wasn't until the deelopment of permanent, professional armies that trained in formation fighting (the Swiss pikemen started it all)
The Roman legion and the Greek phalanx were considerably earlier examples, and were not the original sources.

You've presented so many different ideas, I've lost track of the specifics here.
OK, the defending army starts out with a great mass of troops behind the wall, and behind each and every party of it. These troops are the reserve, and can be switched to the threat as it develops. As we follow the scene, the reserve behind the breech vanishes, presumably being thrown into battle and killed.
But there are still lots of reserves behind all the other wall sections, and these can be moved to the breech. But they were not.

Where's section 8 relative to the breach?
We are assuming the breech was in section 9, making 8 right next to it.

I see troops deserting from the breach, taking many reinforcements with them.
What reinforcements? The reinforcements were due to arrive in a few minutes. They did not arrive before the hobs did.

1) You must defend everywhere, or you automatically lose the city.
Obviously wrong. You need only defend where attacked. And even where attacked, you do not need to over-defend, which is what Hinjo did. The wall held without the reserve, and by the testimony of Redcloak, this was an expectable result.

2) Orders take time. You can't send any orders at all until Redcloak has committed, which means not until he is actually charging the breach.
Clearly only true part of the time, and the smaller part as well. Hinjo was [correctly] issuing orders before he saw the first hobgoblin.
Getting closer to conflict, there is always a guessing game. If you wait for the other guy to move, you may not have time to respond. But if you move first, you risk his attacking elsewhere. Either way can be wrong, or right.
Now in the case at hand, Hinjo has a strong reason to move first. The breech is the obvious place for Redcloak to attack, and indeed where he does attack. He may not want to commit all his reserve to the breech, but moving some of it there could be vital. [The troops at the breech fled because they were emotionally exhausted. Replacing them with the reserve would potentially have stopped the attack, and prevented the flight.] If the attack actually does come elsewhere, the other locations are not as fragile, and can be expected to hold until forces are rushed there.

4) You're massing your troops in a known, predictable location. This makes them vulnerable to enemy blind fire -- arrows or siege engines. You've committed everyone to a small area that will be under heavy enemy fire, and that increases the efficiency of the enemy weaponry. It's suicide.
The very name "blind fire" tells us it is far from suicide. The enemy can only hope it hits something, and there are a variety of ways to shelter the troops. Indeed, it may be dangerous to the attackers. The attackers have to get within range of defensive weapons, and must move quite a distance when they are still too far away to cause any damage, but are able to be hit. [The titanium elementals gave the attackers the edge, but Redcloak stopped tossing them. The apparent reason would be that he ran out of titanium, and thus now must depend on normal rock, which means his catapults will have the shorter range.]

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So who wants to commit all of them? The point is that Hinjo commited none of them.

452. Reinforcements were already commited. "10 minutes away". We aren't shown Hinjo giving that order, but that was an order he was responsible for giving. It might have been a lesser officer, which only goes to tell us that AC's middle management was smart and up to the task, even without Hinjo.
Now once again, notice here that the worries about confusion or panic are rejected by 452. The orders are given and the troops move. No serious problem.

And the problem is that the order should have been given 20 minutes earlier. Indeed probably far earlier than that, but the order is given only after the enemy breaks off the attack on the South wall.
Quote:
He can, and does, know where the greatest danger is, at the breech, and he fails to send any troops there.

Again, 452. Reinforcements are in fact on the way. You are making an assumption that Hinjo didn't give that order.
No, I am saying he gave that order way too late. The breech was the clear weakness and he only helped it when the less threat was dealt with.

we have evidence of low morale in a place where they had just held off an undead attack. Victory increases morale, not lowers it. This section of the wall should have had the highest morale in the city.
They did have, until they saw this huge army coming. Having some help would have made it possible for them to keep that morale.

Show me the point in the story where anyone says Hinjo is a bad commander, specifically, not interpretationally. You are trying to prove he is a bad commander.
Show me the point where anybody in the story says he is not a bad commander.
But we keep on seeing him defeated, or advocating tactics that are insane. Why should we think him a competent commander?

The estimate given us before the battle is the odds were 50-50. So by our expert analysis, this was by no means a battle Hinjo had no chance to win.

That estimate assumed standard tactics. Redcloak's "genius" was his paraelementals, for which AC had no response.
The OOTS disposed of them in a few rounds.

Redcloak created a breach in the first minutes of the fight. That changed the odds significantly.
"Significantly" has a variety of possible meanings here, which include a mere 5-10% swing. But it is not strong enough language to cover from 50% to zero %. It is pushing it to say it covers a 25% swing. Going from 50-50 to 3-1 would be called something like "huge".

Which means the jury is still out.
When the jury is out, you have already been arrested, charged, and tried, and if the jury does let you go, there will be plenty who [often correctly] assume you were guilty, but just beat the system. So if the jury is still out on Hinjo, we should be assuming his guilt of incompetence.

Captain Axe, however, is clearly very devoted to Hinjo. A standard response for those that thought poorly of a commander was an arrow in the back, or in this case, letting Hinjo get himself killed. Axe ensures Hinjo survives, because he feels Hinjo is vital to AC's future. His devotion is unwavering, despite the loss of AC. That suggests that he is not unimpressed with his defense of the city.
Nothing of the sort.
As Gundato reminds us, the absurdly brave commander gets a lot of admiration and men willing to follow him to disaster. I'm told they feel he would not send them anywhere he would not go. Personally I consider that his fault. He is willing to charge suicidally.
Now Axe may well feel Hinjo is vital to AC's future, or he may just feel Hinjo is vital to his staying on as captain of this ship. [Kubota probably has a favorite who would get the job.] But either way, he does not have to feel Hinjo is in the least competent. Looking at real cases here, we find child and woman rulers who were assumed by all to be incompetent, but they were still vital to the cause.

Quote a sentence for me, please. I see nowhere there where he says Hinjo is stupid, dumb, or not bright.
"Your orders were likely to result in your death."
"It's my job to protect everybody on this ship, especially Hinjo, and that means getting him away from situations where he can die heroically."

Now I suppose you can say Axe deems him crazy rather than stupid, but either way, Hinjo is incompetent.
It is true that Hinjo momentarily forgets that...

What mementarily? He acts like this all the time. Really, where doesn't he bravely attack?

But, as my examples of Grant and Sherman show, even good generals have bad reactions by times when faced with insurmountable problems.
You did not mention Sherman before. You mentioned Jackson. As to Grant, he drank all the time, both after victory and defeat. So he does not give any support to the idea that Hinjo is merely temporarily upset.

Even Lee pulled stupid stunts. If you judged Lee solely on the evidence of one Picket, you'd judge him a horrible commander. Look up Picket's Charge at Gettysburg.
Pickett's charge was a gamble that didn't work out. Lee had to have a victory over the Union. The South was losing, and more obviously with each passing day. So he had to do something, and attacks on the wings had failed. So an attack on the center was an obvious attempt. Unfortunately, it was also obvious to the Union army too.

Lee could have refused to attack, but that simply meant the South would lose the war. Even if the odds were very bad, it was better to attack.

Quote:
Same thing. He is saying Hinjo is not fit for command. And there seems no reason to talk about his self-sacrificial mindset as merely "current". It has been his behavior all the time.

No, he is NOT saying that. He is saying that Hinjo has his priorities messed up.
which translates to Hinjo is incompetent and Axe will ignore his orders.

he held on longer than he should have.
Well, at least we get a little acknowledgement that he has made mistakes.

Quote:
Where do we see evidence he is "reverting"? On the available evidence, this is his normal behavior.

Even you haven't suggested that he used his troops suicidally at the wall. Even if that is his personal method of combat, it's not how he uses others.
He demonstrates the same flaws at the wall. He bravely focuses on his personal combat and ignores the larger picture.

(You, on the other hand, seem perfectly happy with massive death tolls to gain victory.)
Hinjo's goal of defending the Gate requires massive death tolls. There is little way around it that is at all acceptable to Hinjo, and probably to any moral person. I suppose you could surrender and let the lich rule the world, with his hobby of killing people. Or blow up the gate and risk the Snarl getting loose... But these are pretty obviously desperate alternatives, only to be considered when nothing else is left.

Quote:
No, that is simply typical of Hinjo. At every chance he shows personal bravery, great personal bravery, and shows no consideration of the larger picture. He was on the wall where he could fight, and ignores the main enemy threat.

And when he faced Miko, he tried to talk her down before fighting her. Very suicidal, and not aware of the larger picture at all. Sorry, that's sarcasm if you haven't gotten it.
As with sarcasm in general, it has the danger of the speaker telling the truth with his "lie".
That his behavior was brave, even suicidal, seems distinctly obvious. He knew Miko was the better fighter and would beat him up. So jumping in front of her, and stay there, was quite brave.
We also note his order for Roy to stay out of it. We can find other justifications, but the idea of personal courage seems the most likely.
That he talks before fighting? So? It's what you do when you are in a non-emergency situation. Even Miko talked a little before attacking the OOTS.

Kreistor

2007-09-08, 12:36 AM

Well, no. "Badajoz ...There were accusations afterwards that Wellington had made the siege too soon, putting too many lives at risk, and indeed the army didn't break through at either of the breaches, but through one of the escalades."
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~awoodle...y/badajoz.html

So we have two cases in one siege where Wellington failed to take the breeches at the first try. The breeches in question may well have been very useful, probably taking attention off the other attack, but for our purposes, the breeches were not always taken at the first try.

Finally! You did some homework! Congratulations. I only had to give you a half dozen hints and grind your nose into it for you to finally get around to it. But you couldn't even go and find an example from something I didn't lead you to. Can you actually find one from some Commander that I didn't mention? If you're such a good study, shouldn't you have someone else available?

Heh, I know you can find one. Yes, there are breaches that failed, though they are not numerous: breaches were only used with great numerical superiority (5-1 at Badajoz), or a superiority of technology (Wellington in India, IIRC). Breaches were horrendous things, and the attackers took horrific losses in most cases. They called the first division into the breach the "Forlorn Hope" in 1812. You died (typical) or became a hero worthy of immediate advancement. The problem is, you said, "Historically it probably failed more often than it succeeded." Yay, you now have one, count 'em, one example of a breach that failed, but it was one where they defended the breach so heavily, the French had denuded another area, which allowed that area to be taken. (Bernard Cornwell describes this action in Sharpe's Company, mentioning that he kept that part of the action accurate, with a name change, and correcting the changes he did make for historical accuracy.) So, no, the British didn't take the breach until after the wall was taken, but it was your solution to the breach that resulted in the castle being captured; specifically, they had to underman the castle in order to suppress the more dangerous breach. Lt. Col. Ridge (real officer) noticed the lack of gunfire after being repulsed from the breach himself, headed over with a ladder and men, and took the castle. Anyway, you have one example. Good luck at proving "failed more often than succeeded." You've got a lot more work ahead of you. Take a look at India, BTW. Wellesley had a whole lot of cities to take there, and yeah, breaches were the typical method of entry. Earlier periods are a lot harder to study, though. Medieval records are virtually non-existent, or are poetic and nearly useless. But the trebuchet existed, and it has been proven fully capable of taking down a wall. (Cannon were just faster.) The breach is older than the cannon.

But, ya know, you undercut your own theory by finding Badajoz. Congrats. That event proves that you need to retain reinforcements around the entire city, not just concentrate on the breach. The French failed to hold reinforcements in position to cover the castle, and so it was taken. If you over-reinforce the breach, they come over the walls, and you have no reinforcements to throw back the foothold. And that would have happened at AC. They were attacking everywhere after the breach had been made (for the duration of the undead attack on the breach), and it wasn't until the undead failed that Redcloak pulled them back. Until that moment, pulling everything to the breach results in walls taken. Until Redcloak commits to the breach, you don't know where he's going, and pulling back to try the same attack again was a typical occurance, so there's no event yet that suggests the breach will be charged. Ordering all reinforcements to the breach at that point is a huge risk: it's easy to take a big riks when you benefit from hindsight. Once Redcloak has commited, then you can send out orders, but by then it's too late. Redcloak will hit the breach faster than your reinforcements can get there. (Redcloak has open field, you've got restrictive streets, and medieval streets were very narrow, often only one wagon cart wide.) So, sorry, but either your order to move all the reinforcements to the breach is too early, too late, or benefiting from hindsight.

BTW, Wikipedia says in the George Pickett entry, To his dying day, Pickett mourned the great loss of his men. After the war, it is said that he met once with General Lee in a meeting described as "icy." John Singleton Mosby seems to be the only witness to support this claim of coldness between Lee and Pickett. Others were present and are on record denying such an exchange. Mosby related that afterward Pickett said bitterly, "That man destroyed my division." If the only evidence a person had was Moseby's account of this event between Lee and Picket, then Lee would have been judged a bad commander by that person. You're trying to suggest that if even one person in OotS calls Hinjo a bad commander, he must be a bad commander. Hinjo just lost AC: huge numbers of people probably think he's a bad commander, but those are people without facts or are not qualified to make that judgement, not knowing how to command themselves. It takes someone trained in Command, and aware of the specifics of the situation the judgement is being made about, to make an accurate judgement of Hinjo's capacity to command. Axe is just a ship commander: he wasn't at the wall, and he wasn't made aware of enemy dispositions the day before. If you base your judgement of Hinjo on one comment by one man, then you're judging Lee a bad commander. (Oh, and as an aside, frankly, I'd never trust a navy man to accurately judge an army man's capacity to battle.) And back to the Picket example: Pickett was not qualified to judge Lee due to personal losses. Pickett was no longer objective, since he'd been directly hurt by Lee's command.

Anyway, the only thing I'm interested in anymore is that "percentages" link -- you know, you kinda said, "Some of them did. Some didn't. [For example, some were rather old men.] By percentages, most did not, as can be seen by the praise given those who did." I've neer seen such a number, and I'm always looking for new facts. So, where is it? I'm seriously interested.

chibibar

2007-09-08, 02:50 AM

that was a good historical read, but it doesn't take much logic to figure out that if you over reinforce the breach, you can lose the wall. Azure City is already outnumber what? 6 to 1? (I can't remember and too lazy to read back) so it is easy for the wall scaling troops to continue trying to use ladders to scale the wall while other group attack the breach.

Like I keep saying before, if there are NO magic involve (aka a real world) the wall would have taken a long time to breach (if possible) by that time the defenders would have been more organize and repel them. Also having reserve would be a good thing since it is a long siege and need to rotate your men without causing fatigue.

Generally having a breach is a good thing for the attackers... granted you would have high casualties but you can pour in larger number into an area than scaling walls.

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-08, 01:34 PM

The ratio was 3-1 which is not too bad for defenders.

Hobgoblins were carrying severe losses at the southern wall at little gain (when Redcloak was still OK with hobos sent to death). Hobgoblins lost about a thousand against V's enlarged pikemen and then his magic. They lost about 150 or more when Belkar went medieval on them. A very large number was killed by Haley and, most likely, a large number by Elan. Durkon must have killed a lot too.

As we can see, soldiers at the breach managed to repell the first attack, causing severe losses to the attacker. However, they were not promptly reinforced. In fact, it looks like only soldiers in nearby sections came as reinforcements.

Desertion that occured when hobo attack was noticed was likely due to large difference in numbers. Soldiers noticed the lack of reinforcements and ran away from the breach.

Also, it should be noted that all officers were killed at the breach. Having no leadreship (at the most critical section of the wall!) sank their morale. There was no officer who opposed the first deserters and that resulted in a snowball effect. Prompt reinforcement would have provided officers and would have most likely nipped desertion in the bud.

So, as we can see, Hinjo, being a hero on the wall and killing countless hobos, allowed his army to become uncontrolled mass. Even when hobos were already in the castle, Hinjo kept fighting on the walls, allowing himself to be completely isolated from the remainder of his army (further sinking their will and ability to fight).

The way the battle was going up to the second assault on the breach indicates much higher hobo/soldier death ratio. By the time the gate was destroyed, hobos were already all over the castle, so the explosion took more of them than AC soldiers. This means, that to have the 1-1 ratio that was reported, hobos must have slaughtered AC defenders very efficiently once they were within the walls. Such things happen when army becomes an uncontrolled mass, mixed with people trying to run away and those still trying to fight, who push against each other, curse each other, allowing the enemy to encircle and slaughter them like a cattle.

And when all this happened, their commander, hinjo, was up there on the wall being a hero and then arguing with Haley about the need of retreat...

David Argall

2007-09-08, 09:32 PM

you undercut your own theory by finding Badajoz. That event proves that you need to retain reinforcements around the entire city, not just concentrate on the breach.
Since I am not arguing for throwing the entire reserve into the breech, this undercutting is not serious.

Until that moment, pulling everything to the breach results in walls taken.
It could, if they attacked the walls again, and had better luck. But they did not have such an intention, and the available evidence suggests they would not have any better luck.
And of course, the choices are not limited to all or none. Hinjo was entirely able to send half or some other fraction of the reserve to the breech.

Until Redcloak commits to the breach, you don't know where he's going, and pulling back to try the same attack again was a typical occurance, so there's no event yet that suggests the breach will be charged.
The very existance of the breech suggests it will be charged. It is the obvious target.

Ordering all reinforcements to the breach at that point is a huge risk:
Again, we don't have to order all reserves to the breech. Indeed, the pictures provided suggest we may not even have room for that many.

Once Redcloak has commited, then you can send out orders, but by then it's too late. Redcloak will hit the breach faster than your reinforcements can get there. (Redcloak has open field, you've got restrictive streets, and medieval streets were very narrow, often only one wagon cart wide.)
One can claim artistic flaw, but our pictures show open courtyard, entirely suitable for quick movement of troops.

But if you have restrictive conditions, why are you posting the troops there? They are essentially useless.

If the only evidence a person had was Moseby's account of this event between Lee and Picket, then Lee would have been judged a bad commander by that person. You're trying to suggest that if even one person in OotS calls Hinjo a bad commander, he must be a bad commander.
Not at all. So far we have no evidence that anybody in the comic thinks him other than a bad commander. We also have the direct evidence of the comic, which has consistently shown Hinjo as having more balls than brains.

Hinjo just lost AC: huge numbers of people probably think he's a bad commander, but those are people without facts or are not qualified to make that judgement, not knowing how to command themselves. It takes someone trained in Command, and aware of the specifics of the situation the judgement is being made about, to make an accurate judgement of Hinjo's capacity to command.
Untrained people judge experts every day. It's a necessity of dealing with experts. And it can be done quite well by the complete novice in many cases. You do not need to be able to distinguish between a driver and a putter to know that a 70 average golfer is much the superior of a 75.
And the common herd can be surprisingly accurate. A math test, in which many of those taking the test had no idea how to solve the problem, was passed once the takers were allowed to get feedback from the others taking the test.
Indeed, we can even say that the claim that "my critics don't know enough to have an opinion" is routinely the claim of the guilty trying to disqualify the judge and jury. Notably, when those same people are praising the expert for doing well, he rarely protests that the amateurs have no idea what they are talking about.

Axe is just a ship commander: he wasn't at the wall, and he wasn't made aware of enemy dispositions the day before.
He is aware of Hinjo's actions right in front of him, and judged, quite reasonably, that Hinjo was suicidally brave and should not be trusted in any situation where he can exercise that bravery.

EvilElitest

2007-09-09, 12:03 AM

All this shows is that the Giant is no military expert. Redcloak, too, made horrendous military mistakes. An army of 30000 charging at a breach? Absurd! It would hit the breach, the front ranks slow because of the rubble they need to climb over, but the rear ranks can't see this, so they trample the front ranks, and are trampled in turn by those behind them. The army would have slammed against the wall, not broken through. But the Giant had them break through. Why? Because the Giant isn't a military man.

You can't expect Hinjo to fit your view as a military genius when the Giant can't fit that view. In order to write a character as a military genius, the author needs to make himself one. The Giant, clearly, did not do this.

Here now, before you claim the Giant doesn't know the basics of miltary, show that you know it yourself. The trampling effect can occur, but is not absolute, a decently trained forces has could very well get through in such a manner, so i imangine a hob army could. Sure, it is quite possible that the front ranks could be trampled, but it is also quite possible that they got over the ruble in time. Oh i imagine some hobs got trambled, just not those in the front ranks, most likely those in the mid ranks who trip, or are otherwised slowed
from,
EE

Pun Pun

2007-09-09, 12:45 AM

To lead people well you need Intelligence, but more importantly Wisdom...

To Get into power Charisma and Power are really all you need.

Shojo had Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma and Power

Hinjo seems only to possess Charisma and Power

Gundato

2007-09-09, 09:46 AM

Pun Pun

2007-09-09, 12:45 PM

Really, you claim someone who wants to stay in a damned city and fight and fight to the death for relativly no purpose is wise.

How about a commander who decideds to fight on the wall with a group of Northeners instead of staying with his soldiers and directing them tactically and increasing their moral...

As psted above he has more balls then brain

T.Titan

2007-09-09, 02:38 PM

How about a commander who decideds to fight on the wall with a group of Northeners instead of staying with his soldiers and directing them tactically and increasing their moral...

Fighting with your troops is imo better for morale then staying at a safe distance. From a tactical PoV neither position is more advantageous on it's own, it depends on circumstances (even if fighting might require better trained troops to achieve max efficiency then sitting back).

And do you guys really remember what happened at the breach?! The defense was going pretty well until the Death Knight used the dead hobos as a ramp to charge into AC.

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-09, 02:48 PM

And do you guys really remember what happened at the breach?! The defense was going pretty well until the Death Knight used the dead hobos as a ramp to charge into AC.
At whichpoint there were still no reinfocrements ordered to go there. Whatever force was at the breach managed to fight off the ghoul assault, but there was no one to stop desertion when the second assault came.

Kreistor

2007-09-10, 01:45 AM

David, that "percentages" proof? You have it, right? You weren't inventing facts, or something? You've ignored my response to that twice now. Did you assume the "percentages" would be in your favour, or did you read it somewhere?

After all, if you're going to just assume you're right about everything you say, without checking sources, then how can I trust your analysis?

Oh, and EvilElitest, crack open a book. You don't even understand basic swarm mechanics. Try studying some of the more deadly bar fires, and learn what happens when a lot of people race towards an opening not designed to allow a lot of people to pass through efficiently. A breach, with a ramp leading up made of dead, squishy bodies, is not an efficient portal.

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-10, 02:29 AM

Khanderas

2007-09-10, 09:04 AM

Most intresting thread this. I read all of the first two pages and I would like to add the following before I read the rest / leave work:

Sending a guy out to parley:
Whoever you send will not even slow the army down. They will kill him without stopping. You are assuming that the evil lich, packed with undead and Hobbos (who are kill on sight for Paladins with quite alot of spilled blood between them). You know he is there for the gem in the throne, and you know generations of Paladins have guarded this, so negotiating the gem away is not an option. ever.

Scorched earth:
Even assuming you got the time for this, from your deviners you know that the leader is a lich leading an army of more undead then you got warriors. Pulling the surrounding populace into the keep -> into the boats does make sense and was most likly done. Then you turn to fortifying the defenses, not bothering to clear up things that can be used as food when the army coming would only be able to feed (on averade) 2 hours, if split among the living hobbos. It just wont count to raid and carry all the food in a few days travel radius.
But, there is no time for that anyway.

EDIT Regarding using troops in reserve instead of using them all:
Defending a siege does not really mean to do the most kills. It is to hinder a breach and do so long enough to make the attacker give up. There is no reasonable way to think that they would be able to slaugter the hobbos when outnumbered the way they were. With superior defenses however they could, and should, have a better chance of wearing the attackers down.
Having X troops on the walls and Y troops in reserve makes perfect sense. There was no reason to believe that they would not be defending for days (thick high walls, did not know about the special elementals that took down the walls, a breach could be days or weeks) and after 3-4 hours of intense defending you NEED to cycle in fresh troops.
Also, if a breach does happen somewhere, you gotta have a reserve to go there. If everyone is up on the walls and it breaks somewhere the game is over.

Kreistor

2007-09-10, 09:45 AM

And yet, an army of hobgoblins actually managed to charge through it.

Hobgoblins are soldiers. Redcloak talked about their discipline back when they were taking control over hobos. Why do you think they would charge like a swarm? Given that they did not trample each other, they charged in a swift, yet organized fashion. Most likely,a platoon would be right after another platoon, they will form a column as wide as the breach while approaching it and then charge without any pressure from the side that would result in disasters that occur during bar fires.

In any case, breach is a LOT better portal than a 10 meter high wall...

Nikk, sorry, but you've missed my earlier comments on this topic. Being a writer doesn't make one an expert on anything. The attempt worked because the Giant wanted it to work for plot purposes, not because the Giant is a military historian. It was a good idea in the Giant's pretend world, but a bad idea in ours.

chibibar

2007-09-10, 11:47 AM

It all depends on the units that is swarming the breach.

In SoD, it shows that the Hobo/Goblins are living the most destitute place and thus have an ability to survive the harshest environment and possibly trained to do a lot of things... this may help them in a swarm

Hobo are trained military race (at least we know of) there are many many many legions of them (Evilgasm) And thus I'm sure they are train to handle many different type of terrain. This may include rubbles (they do live in a place where there are rock slides and mountainous regions. So this may not be as hard for humans (Azure defenders) to rush since they live in a relatively flat area.

The reason I mention this is because some animal do posses ability to navigate difficult terrain with ease (aka mountain goat) Hobos could have been train for this. We saw that it was possible to swarm so we can't say hobos CAN'T swarm since the comic already show that they did....

Another thing to consider, The hobos are divided into Legions, this mean they have proper chain of command and Redcloak is able to send a single order out to a single person (shown in comic) and that order manager to channel to the troops VERY quickly. The line of communication is the key (with commanders) and thus Redcloak wins this round. AZ defenders lack the communication (also didn't help that what commanders they do have died already) So lack of communication, poor tactical maneuvers and low morale pretty much screw AZ of any chance of winning......... last but not least having the castle blown up with chunks landing all over the place doesn't help either.

Kreistor

2007-09-10, 12:41 PM

Hobo are trained military race (at least we know of) there are many many many legions of them (Evilgasm) And thus I'm sure they are train to handle many different type of terrain.

That is standard hobgoblin philosophy. Unlike other goblinoids, hobgoblins are typically lawful evil, instead of chaotic evil like other goblinoids, and are naturals at making military armies rather than warrior hordes.

David Argall

2007-09-10, 01:08 PM

Regarding using troops in reserve instead of using them all:

That is not the point at issue here. We have been discussing where and how to use the reserve, not whether there should be one.

Given the enemy broke thru and slaughtered the reserve, it is rather obvious the reserve was misused. The question becomes whether this was an excusable or even unavoidable error, or whether the defense should have done a better job.
Since the breech was an obvious target, and one that came under heavy attack, it is clear some of the reserve needed to be moved there. We can debate about the percentage, but more troops were needed, and didn't arrive until too late. So we have to conclude avoidable blunder.

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-10, 01:49 PM

Nikk, sorry, but you've missed my earlier comments on this topic. Being a writer doesn't make one an expert on anything. The attempt worked because the Giant wanted it to work for plot purposes, not because the Giant is a military historian. It was a good idea in the Giant's pretend world, but a bad idea in ours.
But breaches WERE charged IRL and they WERE taken.

When charging a breach, the goal is to get through as many soldiers as possible and have a steady flow of reinfocements. This needs to be balanced against swarms of soldiers crushing each other.

If charge is done in an organized fashion (platoon follows a platoon, regiment follows a regiment, etc.) the charge can be very successful. Since Hobos are a disciplined force, they could have done that. And Hinjo should have known and consider the fact that they are against an army of disciplined soldiers rather than some uncontrolled horde.

chibibar

2007-09-10, 02:06 PM

Kreistor

2007-09-10, 02:44 PM

But breaches WERE charged IRL and they WERE taken.

When charging a breach, the goal is to get through as many soldiers as possible and have a steady flow of reinfocements. This needs to be balanced against swarms of soldiers crushing each other.

If charge is done in an organized fashion (platoon follows a platoon, regiment follows a regiment, etc.) the charge can be very successful. Since Hobos are a disciplined force, they could have done that. And Hinjo should have known and consider the fact that they are against an army of disciplined soldiers rather than some uncontrolled horde.

That is not how breaches were taken. Charging an entire army at them was unfeasible in the first place.

Pleases review the assault on Badajoz we discussed earlier.

Wellington began by sending a division of 3000 (IIRC, I didn't check that today) of his 25000 at one breach. He then sent another division at another breach. The remnants of the first division (which had failed to take the breach) found a weakly defended point along the wall at a castle, away from the breach. Wellington cursed the Army for not giving him enough men to do anything the right way, and sent another division at the breach. The wall had been taken, unbeknownst to him, moments before the next division attacked. The flanking maneuver by those that took the wall forced the French away from one side of the breach, and allowed the second attack to go through.

The point? Wellington did not order all his forces at the breach. He did not charge them at the breach. His atack force was relatively small, and kept under disciplined control.

A breach doesn't look like what the Giant portrays in the comic. A breached wall is a pile of rubble. The wall collapses into stones that can create a small hill up to the wall and down to the other side; however, any breach is not a "good enough" breach. After breaching, to ensure you're not throwing soldiers at an insurmountable barrier, you send trusted officers to examine the breach and determine its worthiness to be climbed. It is a climb, after all. Those stones are square, so the little hill is more like a twisted set of stairs, built such that it wants to twist and trap your ankles. You're climbing through a ruin, not a field.

That's why the breaching force in Badajoz had ladders, despite approaching a breach (which most people wouldn't think of needing ladders). Laying ladders down on the breach could make it easier to climb. The first division at Badajoz wanted to lay those ladders on the breach, but they didn't get the one (later used to take the castle) up to the breach itself, so it was still available.

The point is this: you can't charge over the rubble of a breach, since it is made of large square stones (the Giant's wall rubble literally disappears, in order to allow him to create a ramp of dead bodies for humorous effect). You must climb a pile of rocks (even a pile of bricks like the walls at Constantinople were made of would have required care to climb, since the loose bricks would fly out under feet, breaking legs as men tripped). That slowdown piles up troops at the base of the obstruction, crushing them if your attacking force is too large to handle the slowdown (and making them excellent targets for enemy muskets and cannon, or crossbow fire in earlier eras).

BTW, under DnD terms, a pile of rubble is dificult terain, which slows you to 1/2 speed. Only half the men could pass through the breach as those that charged forward, if your attack front was the same width as the breach. 2x as many men arrive at the breach as can pass thorugh it, which results in the crush of men.

chibibar

2007-09-10, 03:19 PM

unless of course, in DnD terms, the race has a natural ability to maneuver in difficult terrain. Then it would be normal movement for them.

I am assuming that the hobos does have this ability since they just move en-mass without much trouble (either that or comical effect)

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-10, 03:42 PM

The breach was studied... by hundreds (or thousands) hobgoblins that died in the previous charge. The breach was the only vunerable spot in AC defences and, apparently, Redcloak was unable to make more breaches (out of Titanium).

While I agree that the way breach was shown is not entirely realistic, the point remains: breach was the most vunerable spot in AC defences. And Hinjo issued no orders regarding it (only commention on it). Forces at the breach were depletedin the first assault and were too few (and, most importantly, without officers remaining) to hold off the second assault. Fresh reserve troops with their officers would have made a world of difference and might have stopped the hobgoblin army charging through the difficult terrain. Instead, only a small line of AC soldiers remained and they were swept by the first hobos charging the breach.

Nightgaunt

2007-09-10, 04:06 PM

A breach doesn't look like what the Giant portrays in the comic. A breached wall is a pile of rubble. The wall collapses into stones that can create a small hill up to the wall and down to the other side; however, any breach is not a "good enough" breach. After breaching, to ensure you're not throwing soldiers at an insurmountable barrier, you send trusted officers to examine the breach and determine its worthiness to be climbed. It is a climb, after all. Those stones are square, so the little hill is more like a twisted set of stairs, built such that it wants to twist and trap your ankles. You're climbing through a ruin, not a field.

Ah, if only we had more examples in history of breach's caused by summoned elementals fired from catapults, then perhaps the giant could worry more about historical accuracy for his military writings.

chibibar

2007-09-10, 04:54 PM

Ah, if only we had more examples in history of breach's caused by summoned elementals fired from catapults, then perhaps the giant could worry more about historical accuracy for his military writings.

Heheheeh.... as I have stated before (maybe my post are invisible or not being picked on as much) that magic changes everything in the battlefield. A single powerful mage can turn the tide literally.

There are tons of spells that have AoE (Area of Effect) or can affect large area to provide defense.

Kreistor

2007-09-10, 05:11 PM

And Hinjo issued no orders regarding it (only commention on it). Forces at the breach were depletedin the first assault and were too few (and, most importantly, without officers remaining) to hold off the second assault.

Uhm, 452. Reinforcements are 10 minutes away. The orders to reinforce the breach were given by someone. You're assuming it wasn't Hinjo.

There are tons of spells that have AoE (Area of Effect) or can affect large area to provide defense.

Most kill insignificant numbers compared to an army. Others act only as temporary area denial. Only in players' minds do armies fall to PC's.

In this case, both sides had access to magic. Net zero gain for either side.

chibibar

2007-09-10, 06:54 PM

Most kill insignificant numbers compared to an army. Others act only as temporary area denial. Only in players' minds do armies fall to PC's.

In this case, both sides had access to magic. Net zero gain for either side.

depending what are we talking about. I am not talking about OoTS in general, I'm talking having mages in your army for battle. A high level Mage can cast Earthquake, Thunderstorm or large AoE spells.... heck, I can cast Virus charm, mass disease, cloud kill (that is perfect for blocking a breach) etc etc...

but generally magic tends to throw conventional field battle out of whack.

EvilElitest

2007-09-10, 07:00 PM

Oh, and EvilElitest, crack open a book. You don't even understand basic swarm mechanics. Try studying some of the more deadly bar fires, and learn what happens when a lot of people race towards an opening not designed to allow a lot of people to pass through efficiently. A breach, with a ramp leading up made of dead, squishy bodies, is not an efficient portal.

Cute, but as you seem inclined to do, you argument all bark and no bite
1. Don't tell me to read on military history, when you made no claim to mastery of the subject that i can respect. Yelling "But i know everything" doesn't make it so"
2. I have in fact read quite a bit on military history, I don't need to put up with such unfounded claims. If you disagree, you can simple say why you don't agree and back up you points. Simple saying "You wrong" is both immature and rather silly. You say i don't understand the basics of swarms, but you don't back it up. Your just being extremely insulting and frankly rather close minded if you can't even back up you points here
3. No the breach is not an efficient portal, but not an deathtrap. It is more than possible for an army to get through with out any initial losses. Look at this way. The hobs in front are the fastest, so then get through the breach with little trouble at all, barely slowed by the solders. Then the second wave follows suit, still moving quite fast, but are even more slowed down. I imagine quite a few hobs were crushed in the third wave, but we only saw the beginning of the first. Just because we didn't see it doesn't mean it did not happen.
4. By D&D terms, which by the way, is what this comic is based on, it is quite possible to get through a breach without a single guy being trampled. Silly? Unrealistic? Yes it is, but if the Giant is simple following those rules, it is not you place to call him a tactical novice.
from,
EE

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-10, 07:55 PM

Uhm, 452. Reinforcements are 10 minutes away. The orders to reinforce the breach were given by someone. You're assuming it wasn't Hinjo.

Yes, after an actual assault has been repelled, the order was sent. But hinjo commented on breach being a weakness long before that. Why didn't he send reinforcements earlier?

Kreistor

2007-09-10, 08:43 PM

Yes, after an actual assault has been repelled, the order was sent. But hinjo commented on breach being a weakness long before that. Why didn't he send reinforcements earlier?

First, we miss huge amounts of this battle. We see only snapshots, not every second of every person. He may have made that order. You can't say for certain it didn't happen off-panel. To single out one particular order to have not occured because it didn't happen on-panel is simply assumption intended to prove a particular point of view. We know someone gae that order off-panel, because we know reinforcements are coming. Either it was Hinjo, or it was a commander under Hinjo, which means Hinjo had officers he trusted to make that sort of decision. The fact is that the breach was reinforced when it could be, and it may not have been possible when they wanted to.

Given that the reinforcements are on their way immediately at battle end implies that they couldn't, not wouldn't, be sent there earlier. Since the triggering action is the cessation of the attack on the wall, then the presence of wall attackers must been the reason why they were not.

If you look, then, at Badajoz, you find that a breach is not the only danger during an assault on a city. Where in Badajoz, they attacked only the breach, and one lucky unit saw the weakness in one section of the wall, in AC we have a simultaneous attack on all walls at the same time as the breach. That means every section of the city required nearby reinforcements, in case a foothold was established. Moving any reinforcements risks the hobgoblins spotting that movement of men, and increased pressure on that section.

Basically, by moving reinforcements to the "more dangerous" breach, you make that section of the wall more dangerous. Which is a greater threat to be taken at that point? A weakened wall or a weakened breach? According to Badajoz, neither: both are risk the loss of the city.

But, in the end, I have to go with the implication that the reinforcements that were coming in ten minutes could not come earlier, not 'were not ordered' to come earlier. I assume that they were in the act of fighting to repel hobgoblins on the wall, and so could not leave that position or the city would fall to the hobgoblins immediately.

depending what are we talking about. I am not talking about OoTS in general, I'm talking having mages in your army for battle. A high level Mage can cast Earthquake, Thunderstorm or large AoE spells.... heck, I can cast Virus charm, mass disease, cloud kill (that is perfect for blocking a breach) etc etc...

but generally magic tends to throw conventional field battle out of whack.

A medieval battlefield, yeah. Modern day?

Fireball, Earthquake, etc = artillery or mortar barrage
Cloudkill = mustard gas
Disease has no short term effects, so it's not much different from Dysentery
Lightning Bolt = machine gun

The magical battlefield is just the modern battlefield. Understand that and you understand the magical battlefield.

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-10, 10:32 PM

A medieval battlefield, yeah. Modern day?

Fireball, Earthquake, etc = artillery or mortar barrage
Cloudkill = mustard gas
Disease has no short term effects, so it's not much different from Dysentery
Lightning Bolt = machine gun

The magical battlefield is just the modern battlefield. Understand that and you understand the magical battlefield.
Err... not exactly...

First of all, mustard gas has NO effect on battle. Period. It is an oly substance that causes visible damage only alfter exposure. It is a perfect atrittion weapon: the mustard gas is actually a liquid that will evaporate slowly, making the whole area contaminated and will already affect many soldiers by the time the first ones will show symptoms. It is meant to deplete enemy manpower and force the enemy to abandon a portion of a trenchline, not to block the area right there right then.

Cloudkill causes very short-term damage (affects within seconds) and is useful as a barrier. It will stay in an area instead of moving lower (heavier than air) or higher (lighter than air). Chemical weapons would not be usable for defending breach: they would most likely move onto (most heavier than air (which is a mixture of gases, but still) - anything with MW above 29 g/mol is. Nitrogen is already 28 g/mol) Poisons are either halogens (Chloring) or organic molecules (mustard gas)) the AC soldiers at the breach and choke them, leaving hobos wondering why everyone is dead.

Artillery and mortar fire are indirect fire weapons. Fireball, however, is a direct fire weapon, which, given the presence of a wall, makes a huge difference. Also, artillery fire causes crushing damage (shock wave) and piercing damage (shrapnell). Damage from heat is neghligible. Artillery is hard to move quickly around the battlefield, possible to capture, etc. Mage, however, is a different case.

And lightning bolt is definitely not a machine gun. Machine gun allows sustained fire over the area, causing piercing damage. It takes time to deploy, its fire can be bloched, etc. Lightining is more of an area weapon that fires in a single burst.

So, no. Modern battlefileld =/= magical battlefield. Modern battlefield relies on following laws of physics. Magical battlefield relies on telling laws of physics to shut up and sit down (c).

Kreistor

2007-09-11, 12:32 AM

Err... not exactly...

First of all, mustard gas has NO effect on battle.

After a failed attempt on the Eastern Front, mustard gas was first used effectively in World War I by the German army against Canadian soldiers in 1915 and later also against the French — the name Yperite comes from its usage by the German army near the city of Ypres. It took the British over a year to develop their own mustard gas weapon (their only option was the Despretz–Niemann–Guthrie process), first using it in September 1918 during the breaking of the Hindenburg Line.

the British Official History stated that at Hill 60: "90 men died from gas poisoning in the trenches; of the 207 brought to the nearest dressing stations, 46 died almost immediately and 12 after long suffering.

Those Canadians had no protection against the stuff, dispersed as an aeresol, unless they happened to be near someone that had a chemistry background that told them to pee in handkerchiefs and breath through those, which only afforded a little help, since you needed both hands to fire your rifle. Those Canadians stayed in their trenches, knowing the gas was killing them, and they held off the Germans, who were armed with gas masks prepared for this very attack.

And what that doesn't say is that most of those survivors had permanent lung damage, and few of them were capable of fighting again.

And if you doubt those unsupported claims, I'll point at my location underneath my name on the left. You may never have seen documentaries on Canadian contributions in WW1, 2, and Korea, but I most certainly have.

Cloudkill causes very short-term damage

Cloudkill is area denial. It kills like a Fireball on low HD soldiers initially, but no one wants to walk into it. So long as it persists, it holds off the attackers.

Artillery and mortar fire are indirect fire weapons. Fireball, however, is a direct fire weapon, which, given the presence of a wall, makes a huge difference.

Uhm... we weren't talking about these specifically for use in the wall attack scenario. This was a general concept of magic on any battlefield, and the added complexity to the commander's tactics and strategy when both having magic and facing magic.

So, no. Modern battlefileld =/= magical battlefield.

Only showing you entirely missed the point of our discussion in the first place. Modern commanders can deal with the complexities of area effect, linear, and gaseous weapons. That there are some differences between the two does not diminish the commander's capacity to understand weapon systems, be they magical or scientific. They are definable, understandable, and controllable.

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-11, 01:29 AM

Those Canadians had no protection against the stuff, dispersed as an aeresol, unless they happened to be near someone that had a chemistry background that told them to pee in handkerchiefs and breath through those, which only afforded a little help, since you needed both hands to fire your rifle. Those Canadians stayed in their trenches, knowing the gas was killing them, and they held off the Germans, who were armed with gas masks prepared for this very attack.

And what that doesn't say is that most of those survivors had permanent lung damage, and few of them were capable of fighting again.

And if you doubt those unsupported claims, I'll point at my location underneath my name on the left. You may never have seen documentaries on Canadian contributions in WW1, 2, and Korea, but I most certainly have.
Umm... You can keep peeing in that handkerchief all you want and it will not save you from mustard gas. Why? Because mustard gas does not need to be inhaled! Mustard gas is a blistering agent. It will get on your moist skin. It will eat out your eyes, armpits, groin... All with no need of inhalation. And it will not do so over minute.

What those Canadian soldiers experienced was not mustard gas. It was probably something like chlorine or phosgene.

I do not doubt sacrafice Canadians made for the Entente cause (If I recall correctly, they carried greater per capita loss of life than Britain herself) and I respect Canada (otherwise, I would not be striving to get Canadian PR righ now:smallbiggrin: ) but those documentaries tend to really over-simplify things.

Gas used against Russians was tear gas. Germans have made a mistake: they used it when it was still cold and vapor pressure of the tear gas was too low to actually be noticed by Russian soldiers. Chlorine gas was used at Ypres. It is yellow choking gas (In undergrad lab, we were forced to smell it:smalleek: ) which gets into trenches nicely. However, it was not effective enough. That is why Phosgene was introduced next (If I recall correctly, its inventor dies shortly after having a party celebrating invention of the gas due to poisinging with this very phosgene).

Mustard gas was invented later. It was fundamentaly different in its use from Chlorine and Phosgene. Mustard gas would hang in the area for days without being dispersed (because the name "mustard gas" is misleading. It is actually a liquid at STP) . It had only faint smell and consequences of exposure took time to show. That allowed affecting a large number of soldiers. Instead of killing just a few in a phosgene barrage, mustard gas would injure a whole platoon.

It very rarely killed people. Instead, it caused blisters on their eyes, inside their nose, mouth and lungs. With severe exposure, a person wil have burns throughout their skin. People had trace of unburnt skin beneath where they wore watches... I will stop in order not get too graphic here, but I would rather die of chlorine than live after extensive exposure to Mustard Gas.

So, Mustard gas had no effect on the battle. Chlorine and phosgene did, but mustard gas did not. It was a tool for inflictiong massive causalties on strategic scale and for instilling fear into the enemy. But not for destroying that company right here right now. Once an area was known to be contaminated, strategic withdrawal was necessary. However, in heat of the battle mustard gas would not even be noticed (and will become attacker's headache if they actually break through).

David Argall

2007-09-11, 02:11 AM

Given that the reinforcements are on their way immediately at battle end implies that they couldn't, not wouldn't, be sent there earlier.
This implication is, at most, a quite weak one. We have too many real life cases where reinforcements were not sent despite being entirely available. Commanders may not be aware of the danger, may consider a different danger more important, may be dead drunk or otherwise unable to issue orders... So while "couldn't" is possible, "wouldn't" is not at all ruled out.

Since the triggering action is the cessation of the attack on the wall, then the presence of wall attackers must been the reason why they were not.

I assume that they were in the act of fighting to repel hobgoblins on the wall, and so could not leave that position or the city would fall to the hobgoblins immediately.
But the available evidence is quite the reverse. Not only are great masses of troops shown idle behind the non-breeched wall, but we have Redcloak sure his troops will not get over the wall, and instead will die trying. Moving this reserve is entirely possible during the battle for the wall.
Now we can say the commanders feared moving their troops, but rather obviously that fear was excessive. If we say there was fear involved at all. It seems simplier to assume Hinjo more or less assigned 1000 to each of 9 wall sections, and expected each to take care of itself. Only when it was too late did it occur to him that the breech section needed more troops.

A medieval battlefield, yeah. Modern day?

The magical battlefield is just the modern battlefield. Understand that and you understand the magical battlefield.
We can quibble about details, but the modern battlefield rapidly changes with the change in technology. WW1 featured great masses of trenchworks that were nearly impossible to get thru, and expensive in any case. WW2 featured a great amount of trenchworks being bypassed or broken thru. Places like Vietnam hardly featured trenchwork at all. So our definition of modern battlefield has to be wide enough that we can include a magic battlefield.

However, in considering a D&D battlefield, we have to keep in mind that magic is very expensive. Our +1 magic greatsword is 2350 gp. Our generic is 50. You can arm 47 people instead of making one marginally better. Our properly equiped 10th level fighter may cost more than an army. If the writer was actually paying attention to the cost, Redcloak could not have afforded even 1 titanium elemental, much less several.
So our D&D battlefield can look a great deal like an ancient battlefield.

T.Titan

2007-09-11, 08:03 AM

If the writer was actually paying attention to the cost, Redcloak could not have afforded even 1 titanium elemental, much less several.

You're assuming that the bad guys would pay for something instead of just killing those that have it and taking it. Frankly that's what always annoys me about PC RPG's... i'm a col blooded murdering machine and yet for some reason i give my money to some crooked merchant that sells what he buys at 2x price instead of slitting his throat and taking all his stuff.

And as i said before, the breach was doing fine until the Death Knight went in and killed/disabled all leaders around. For all we know that also destroyed communication lines between the breach and the reinforcements. Heck, between the Death Knight and :redcloak:'s charge little time could have passed that reinforcements wouldn't have had time to get there anyway. Just look HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/images/nirpkxcCuXXwnIE2rrM.gif), there are troops in the courtyard fighting the hobgoblins, and HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/images/IozgpfP3urM7BrmBbat.gif) there's a mention of reinforcements arriving in 10 minutes... not a very long time you don't have the entire hobo army coming at you lead by a high lvl Cleric on a Mammoth. Heck, there was a good chance that even after the desertion the soldiers could have kept the breach until reinforcements arrived if not for the Cleric.

As for PC's taking on whole armies, that's not it, the fact is that having a PC on your side, especially a caster is a great tactical advantage... she could ensure breaking a defensive line at a certain point, disrupt enemy troop movement, boost morale etc.

chibibar

2007-09-11, 09:20 AM

A medieval battlefield, yeah. Modern day?

Fireball, Earthquake, etc = artillery or mortar barrage
Cloudkill = mustard gas
Disease has no short term effects, so it's not much different from Dysentery
Lightning Bolt = machine gun

The magical battlefield is just the modern battlefield. Understand that and you understand the magical battlefield.

As others have already touch on this, I still think mages are superior to modern weapon in terms of maneuverability. A mage can target an area and move about more efficient than modern artillery BUT the modern weapon does have advantages........ anyone who is train can use it. you don't need half a lifetime of study (like magic) to operate a machine gun, or a mortor or artillary (well months of training but not years) of course the experience allows the operator to pinpoint their shot a lot more accurate than a novice. ALSO modern weapon have a higher supply. A mage will eventually run out of spells for that day.

I was thinking that a mage can do a lot in a battlefield. As stated before, cloudkill doesn't move when the wind blows. It is stationary (at least via the description if IIRC)

In short term (less than a day) a mage would be great, but in long term modern weapon wins.

I say this because for those anyone reading Dragonlace series check the spoiler below.

In the War of the Mages, The most powerful was house in a tower with their magical arcane. The mages were at the height of their power (Age of Dream if I remember correctly) but there are more non-magic users than Mages and eventually they had to blow up two of their towers and hide the rest (well there is more to that story) The mages are powerful but requires rest (to recover and memorize spells)

Kreistor

2007-09-11, 09:42 AM

Umm... You can keep peeing in that handkerchief all you want and it will not save you from mustard gas. Why? Because mustard gas does not need to be inhaled! Mustard gas is a blistering agent. It will get on your moist skin. It will eat out your eyes, armpits, groin... All with no need of inhalation. And it will not do so over minute.

What those Canadian soldiers experienced was not mustard gas. It was probably something like chlorine or phosgene.

I do not doubt sacrafice Canadians made for the Entente cause (If I recall correctly, they carried greater per capita loss of life than Britain herself) and I respect Canada (otherwise, I would not be striving to get Canadian PR righ now:smallbiggrin: ) but those documentaries tend to really over-simplify things.

Gas used against Russians was tear gas. Germans have made a mistake: they used it when it was still cold and vapor pressure of the tear gas was too low to actually be noticed by Russian soldiers. Chlorine gas was used at Ypres. It is yellow choking gas (In undergrad lab, we were forced to smell it:smalleek: ) which gets into trenches nicely. However, it was not effective enough. That is why Phosgene was introduced next (If I recall correctly, its inventor dies shortly after having a party celebrating invention of the gas due to poisinging with this very phosgene).

Mustard gas was invented later. It was fundamentaly different in its use from Chlorine and Phosgene. Mustard gas would hang in the area for days without being dispersed (because the name "mustard gas" is misleading. It is actually a liquid at STP) . It had only faint smell and consequences of exposure took time to show. That allowed affecting a large number of soldiers. Instead of killing just a few in a phosgene barrage, mustard gas would injure a whole platoon.

It very rarely killed people. Instead, it caused blisters on their eyes, inside their nose, mouth and lungs. With severe exposure, a person wil have burns throughout their skin. People had trace of unburnt skin beneath where they wore watches... I will stop in order not get too graphic here, but I would rather die of chlorine than live after extensive exposure to Mustard Gas.

So, Mustard gas had no effect on the battle. Chlorine and phosgene did, but mustard gas did not. It was a tool for inflictiong massive causalties on strategic scale and for instilling fear into the enemy. But not for destroying that company right here right now. Once an area was known to be contaminated, strategic withdrawal was necessary. However, in heat of the battle mustard gas would not even be noticed (and will become attacker's headache if they actually break through).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_poison_gas_in_World_War_I

1914: tear gas

The early uses of chemicals as weapons were as a tear-inducing irritant (lachrymatory), rather than fatal or disabling poisons. During the first World War, the French were the first to employ gas, using 26-mm grenades filled with tear gas (ethyl bromoacetate) in August, 1914. Germany retaliated in October, 1914, firing fragmentation shells filled with a chemical irritant against British positions at Neuve Chapelle, though the concentration achieved was so small that it was barely noticed.[3]

[edit] 1915: large scale use and lethal gases

Germany was the first to make large scale use of gas as a weapon. On 3 January 1915, 18,000 artillery shells containing liquid xylyl bromide tear gas (known as T-Stoff) were fired on Russian positions on the Rawka River, west of Warsaw during the Battle of Bolimov. However, instead of vaporizing, the chemical froze, completely failing to have the desired effect.[3]

The first killing agent employed by the German military was chlorine. German chemical companies BASF, Hoechst and Bayer (which formed the IG Farben conglomerate in 1925) had been producing chlorine as a by-product of their dye manufacturing.[4] In cooperation with Fritz Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin, they began developing methods of discharging chlorine gas against enemy trenches.[5][6]

By 22 April 1915, the German Army had 168 tons of chlorine deployed in 5,730 cylinders opposite Langemark-Poelkapelle, north of Ypres. At 17:00, in a slight easterly breeze, the gas was released, forming a gray-green cloud that drifted across positions held by French Colonial troops who broke ranks, abandoning their trenches and creating an 8,000 yard (4.5 km) gap in the Allied line. However, the German infantry were also wary of the gas and, lacking reinforcements, failed to exploit the break before Canadian and British reinforcements arrived.[3]

In what became the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans used gas on three more occasions; on 24 April against the Canadian 1st Division, on 2 May near Mouse Trap Farm and on 5 May against the British at Hill 60. At this stage, defenses against gas were non-existent; the British Official History stated that at Hill 60:

"90 men died from gas poisoning in the trenches; of the 207 brought to the nearest dressing stations, 46 died almost immediately and 12 after long suffering."[cite this quote]

Chlorine was inefficient as a weapon, from a purely technical standpoint. It produced a visible greenish cloud and strong odor, making it easy to detect. It was water-soluble, so the simple expedient of covering the mouth and nose with a damp cloth was effective at reducing the effect of the gas. It was thought to be even more effective to use urine rather than water, as the ammonia would neutralize the chlorine, but it is now known that ammonia and chlorine can produce toxic fumes (NH3 + Cl2 —> HCl + NH2Cl). Even if the chemistry had been correct, the amount of ammonia in human urine is extremely small. However, it was known at the time that chlorine reacted readily with urea (present in large amounts in urine) to form dichlorourea.[7]

Chlorine required a concentration of 1,000 parts per million to be fatal, destroying tissue in the lungs, likely through the formation of hydrochloric (muriatic) acid when dissolved in the water in the lungs (2Cl2 + 2H2O → 4HCl + O2).[8]

Despite its limitations, however, chlorine was an effective psychological weapon – the sight of an oncoming cloud of the gas was a continual source of dread for the infantry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustard_Gas

After a failed attempt on the Eastern Front, mustard gas was first used effectively in World War I by the German army against Canadian soldiers in 1915 and later also against the French — the name Yperite comes from its usage by the German army near the city of Ypres. It took the British over a year to develop their own mustard gas weapon (their only option was the Despretz–Niemann–Guthrie process), first using it in September 1918 during the breaking of the Hindenburg Line.

I'm sorry, Nikk, but I think you need to go back and review. Some of the elements you suggest are true, but the fact is that mustard gas was used at Ypres, it did kill, and even the clouds themselves were militarily effective, even when the soldiers had protection against breathing the gas. The active agent in Mustard Gas is Chlroine, which is maybe where the confusion comes in. Though the first entry suggests chlorine was used in Ypres, it does not actually say Chlorine Gas. It was mustard gas, and it was the first use of the stuff.

It is a simple matter to turn a liquid into a gas, BTW. It's called an aerosol. Got a perfume bottle? The perfume is naturally in a liquid state, but one puff and it sprays into the air, dispersed into a gas,

And, like I said, gas is not as much a killing agent as an area denial one. Psychologically, no one wants to walk into something that can kill them. That is mentioned above in the Wiki entry, and I have previously stated that in this thread.

This implication is, at most, a quite weak one.

The judgement of how strong an implication is entirely in the realm of opinion. You are welcome to assume it is a weak one, but I am equally allowed to assume it is a strong one.

However, in considering a D&D battlefield, we have to keep in mind that magic is very expensive. Our +1 magic greatsword is 2350 gp. Our generic is 50. You can arm 47 people instead of making one marginally better. Our properly equiped 10th level fighter may cost more than an army. If the writer was actually paying attention to the cost, Redcloak could not have afforded even 1 titanium elemental, much less several.

Fireball costs a ball of bat guano. That's pretty cheap.

We don't see where the Titanium Elementals come from, but they appear to have not been summoned. They aren't golems: they can't be made to order. They had to have been brought through to the material plane from whatever plane they reside on (Earth, I'd imagine), since these ones seem permanent residents of the material (given that they are in the catapults ahead of firing, and they last there a fair duration). Obtaining permanent elementals isn't terribly hard for a Cleric. Plane Shift is a 5th level spell for them, but 7th for a Sorc/Wiz. That makes obtaining the titanium elemental extremely cheap, since Plane Shift has no material component. All you need to do is convince them to come with you: that's the hard part.

David Argall

2007-09-11, 12:48 PM

You're assuming that the bad guys would pay for something instead of just killing those that have it and taking it. i'm a col blooded murdering machine and yet for some reason i give my money to some crooked merchant that sells what he buys at 2x price instead of slitting his throat and taking all his stuff.
The saying goes "If you want eggs for breakfast, you can't have chicken for dinner." That crooked merchant is the only one who will deal with you [or he wouldn't be able to charge you double]. You kill him and there will be no goods at all in the future. You can make a short term profit by just taking what you want where you find it, but long term, and not a very distant long term either, you find you are losing. Nobody is working to produce items for you to steal. And that is assuming they have not hired a less greedy thug to off you.

Going to our case of titanium elementals, one would need a large supply of titanium to call them here. So one pays for that titanium, or you don't get any after you stiff the 1st set of merchants.

Obtaining permanent elementals isn't terribly hard for a Cleric. Plane Shift is a 5th level spell for them, but 7th for a Sorc/Wiz. That makes obtaining the titanium elemental extremely cheap, since Plane Shift has no material component. All you need to do is convince them to come with you: that's the hard part.
The very hard part. 3.5 may have never bothered with exact rules on the point, but the presumptive cost is at least as much as hiring an NPC of that many hd. And again, your ability to cheat them is distinctly limited.
And using the limited time of your top caster is not cheap either.

the breach was doing fine until the Death Knight went in and killed/disabled all leaders around. For all we know that also destroyed communication lines between the breach and the reinforcements.
This is just an assumption for starters. 440 only shows the death of the general, not of any officers he might have had. And there is still an officer of some [low?] rank in 452. So a quick message to the higher ups is easily possible, and likely for some minor officer who is paniced to find himself in command. And a lack of communication should have been enough to tell Hinjo/etc that something was wrong.

between the Death Knight and :redcloak:'s charge little time could have passed that reinforcements wouldn't have had time to get there anyway.
There was time for V to cast about 25 spells, to which we can add time to position herself, for him to use potions or scrolls, or just to stand around, which seems to be all she is doing in 452.
And Redcloak's charge had to go about 5 times as far as the reinforcements had to go. The 10 minute figure had to be based on a no rush philosophy. On the face of it, there is no reason they could not have gotten there in 5 or less. And even less reason for the reinforcements not being there before the charge even started.

Kreistor

2007-09-11, 12:57 PM

The very hard part. 3.5 may have never bothered with exact rules on the point, but the presumptive cost is at least as much as hiring an NPC of that many hd. And again, your ability to cheat them is distinctly limited.

Such things are entirely up to the DM. There is no "presumptive cost". Either it is in the rules, or it is up to the DM. You are welcome to presume a cost, but that does not make it anyone else's presumption.

There was time for V to cast about 25 spells, to which we can add time to position herself, for him to use potions or scrolls, or just to stand around, which seems to be all she is doing in 452.
And Redcloak's charge had to go about 5 times as far as the reinforcements had to go. The 10 minute figure had to be based on a no rush philosophy. On the face of it, there is no reason they could not have gotten there in 5 or less. And even less reason for the reinforcements not being there before the charge even started.

5 times? Wow, you measured it? With string, I assume? No, a laser! You were there!

You don't know the distance any more than anyone else.

This is just an assumption for starters.

Once, there was a man named Pot. He had a friend called Kettle. There was this disagreement as to the colour of the soot that covered them. Perhaps you've heard it before?

chibibar

2007-09-11, 01:42 PM

There isn't any cost with titanium elemental (at least not in the rules) so it is up to the DM. The DM could have said... "ok, now you have to convince them. These elemental don't speak common.......... they speak an ancient language that a simple translation spell won't work. They are also evil." etc etc.. there could be any scenario the DM can dream up.

Since Redcloak is the "bad guy" (those who read SOD may feel this way), The DM retro in the RP if anyone interested and Redcloak got some titanium elemental to serve him (probably promise them massive mayhem against a castle.... they might like that) and thus would cost Redcloak nothing.

EvilElitest

2007-09-11, 03:36 PM

If the writer was actually paying attention to the cost, Redcloak could not have afforded even 1 titanium elemental, much less several.

Um, what is the cost of a titanium elemental? And why couldn't Redcloack afford it? he does have an epic level master, i'm sure Xykon could have picked up a good deal of cash
from,
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Edit

And yet, an army of hobgoblins actually managed to charge through it.

Hobgoblins are soldiers. Redcloak talked about their discipline back when they were taking control over hobos. Why do you think they would charge like a swarm? Given that they did not trample each other, they charged in a swift, yet organized fashion. Most likely,a platoon would be right after another platoon, they will form a column as wide as the breach while approaching it and then charge without any pressure from the side that would result in disasters that occur during bar fires.

In any case, breach is a LOT better portal than a 10 meter high wall...

Thank you very much for you back up

Nikk, sorry, but you've missed my earlier comments on this topic. Being a writer doesn't make one an expert on anything. The attempt worked because the Giant wanted it to work for plot purposes, not because the Giant is a military historian. It was a good idea in the Giant's pretend world, but a bad idea in ours.
1. You earlier comic didn't prove anything, that is just you saying "This is so"
2. And being a random dude on a forum doesn't make one an expert on anything ether
3. I'm pretty sure many hobs, or at least the zombies were crushed, just not shown in the one screen shot simple because it was the first wave.
4. Just because we didn't see it, doesn't me it didn't occur. I think you used this argument in this very thread in fact

chibibar

2007-09-11, 04:21 PM

Top that off Redcloak is a SUPREME leader of the Hobos. I'm sure the Hobos have SOME treasure of value :) (how else would adventure get treasure)

EvilElitest

2007-09-11, 04:43 PM

Top that off Redcloak is a SUPREME leader of the Hobos. I'm sure the Hobos have SOME treasure of value :) (how else would adventure get treasure)

Yeah, i mean Redcloak would need money anyways to run such an army, so i imagine he would have enough for some elementals
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Nerdanel

2007-09-11, 04:44 PM

I don't see any problem with titanium elementals. Redcloak could have handled it (and probably did) with a few spells, either four castings of summon monster VII or two castings of summon monster VIII, possibly using scrolls he had prepared earlier.

Summon monster VIII produces as one of its options 1d3 monsters from the summon monster VII list. The VII list includes Elemental, Huge (any). However it exactly went, Redcloak ended up with four huge elementals. He chose to summon titanium elementals, which are not on the list of standard elementals, but they may exist in the OotS setting, or perhaps Redcloak succeeded on his rules lawyering skill check vs. the DM. After all, the spell allows for any huge elemental.

Without V, the elementals would have remained for the number of turns Redcloak has levels, presumably 15. Being a clever fellow, Redcloak arranged for the elementals to be catapulted in, so that they wouldn't have to waste valuable turns walking. The elementals automatically obey Redcloak as per the spell description, and I can see Redcloak having learned Terran at some point, allowing him to explain them his plan.

That's pretty much it. The elementals are True Neutral, so Redcloak wouldn't have had to cast a spell that went against his alignment. Since the elementals are summoned pre-existing creatures, there's no need to buy vast amounts of titanium of anything like that.

T.Titan

2007-09-11, 05:18 PM

The saying goes "If you want eggs for breakfast, you can't have chicken for dinner." That crooked merchant is the only one who will deal with you [or he wouldn't be able to charge you double]. You kill him and there will be no goods at all in the future. You can make a short term profit by just taking what you want where you find it, but long term, and not a very distant long term either, you find you are losing. Nobody is working to produce items for you to steal. And that is assuming they have not hired a less greedy thug to off you.

If you have eggs you also have a chicken. :P

Merchants don't necessarily make those items, they just sell them. Plus, i really doubt that they produce all those wares just for you (even if in D&D they pretty much do)...
Lets not even mention how in PC RPG's at least merchants almost never do get better items so you don't really need them once you got their best stuff.

This is just an assumption for starters. 440 only shows the death of the general, not of any officers he might have had. And there is still an officer of some [low?] rank in 452. So a quick message to the higher ups is easily possible, and likely for some minor officer who is panicked to find himself in command. And a lack of communication should have been enough to tell Hinjo/etc that something was wrong.

You know they're not using radios out there, right? Having someone run back and forth every 5 min isn't very feasible. And there was mention of reinforcements coming, so someone did get to it.

There was time for V to cast about 25 spells, to which we can add time to position herself, for him to use potions or scrolls, or just to stand around, which seems to be all she is doing in 452.
And Redcloak's charge had to go about 5 times as far as the reinforcements had to go. The 10 minute figure had to be based on a no rush philosophy. On the face of it, there is no reason they could not have gotten there in 5 or less. And even less reason for the reinforcements not being there before the charge even started.

I believe the quote is "the hobos are breaking off at the southern end of teh city, we should have reinforcements in less then 10 minutes". Seems that there was no back-up force that wasn't fighting and remember that in 452 they did win against the force at the breach, it was just that :redcloak: came at them with plenty of fresh troops...

Now if you want to say that the rest of teh Azurites should have made it to the breach before :redcloak:, you might have something there, if we don't assume they were somehow distracted (Redcloak seems capable of a feint or two imo).

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-11, 06:19 PM

I'm sorry, Nikk, but I think you need to go back and review. Some of the elements you suggest are true, but the fact is that mustard gas was used at Ypres, it did kill, and even the clouds themselves were militarily effective, even when the soldiers had protection against breathing the gas. The active agent in Mustard Gas is Chlroine, which is maybe where the confusion comes in. Though the first entry suggests chlorine was used in Ypres, it does not actually say Chlorine Gas. It was mustard gas, and it was the first use of the stuff.

It is a simple matter to turn a liquid into a gas, BTW. It's called an aerosol. Got a perfume bottle? The perfume is naturally in a liquid state, but one puff and it sprays into the air, dispersed into a gas,
"The active agent in Mustard Gas is Chlroine" Please, if you are going to talk about chemical weapons have some knowledge of chemistry...

The active agent of mustard gas is mustard gas. Cl-CH2-CH2-S-CH2-CH2-Cl. It has NO chlorine gas there. Chlorine gas is Cl-Cl. Chlorine atoms attached to the ends of the mustard gas molecule are covalently bound and will not dissociate upon exposure to air. You need laboratory or industrial setup to get halogen atoms off carbon atoms they are bound to. Delta G for dissociation is just too high to occur spontaneously.

Chlorine, however, is an active agent of the chlorine gas. Which was used at Ypres. Mustard gas is as much chlorine gas as water is sulphuric acid. Sure, you can mix the two, but all you will get will be undrinkable water and diluted acid.

Chlorine required too high concentration and caused too few casualties compared to more potent diphosgene. It required more shells and was easier to see and avoid. That is why chlorine was not used late in the war. Since overall strategy moved from winning battles (which was a failed strategy) to economic, industrial and manpower attrition (which was successful), mustard gas became a much more viable alternative. And yes, there were a lot of different gases used at Ypres. Ypres was one of the hottest parts of the front (i'd say as hot as Verdun and Somme).

And yes, mustard gas was dispersed as an aerosol (try dispersing it as something else after a shell goes off:smallwink: ) However, it settled fast and contaminated the area (rather than being dispersed like much lighter chlorine). Even as aerosol, it took time for the mustard gas to act. I suggest you go back and read that wikipedia article you've provided:

Mustard gas is a strong vesicant (blister-causing agent). Those exposed usually suffer no immediate symptoms. Within 4 to 24 hours the exposure develops into deep, itching or burning blisters wherever the mustard contacted the skin; the eyes (if exposed) become sore and the eyelids swollen, possibly leading to conjunctivitis and blindness.

Which means that if you want to kill enemy right here right now, shell them with more short-term gases: Diphosgene or, if you are cheap, phosgene. Chlorine if you cannot get hold of the former two.

Which, once again, reinforces the point: magical battlefield =/= modern battlefield. Chlorine gas is kill-right-now agent that goes down to trenches. Mustard gas provides long-term contamination and inflicts severe wounds over personnel. In both cases, the wounds themselves are not too severe. Cure light (moderate, severe) wounds would heal the symptoms while neutralise poison would remove the gas (since it IS a poison). How it was in WWI?

Here is from http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-weapons/gas.htm

One nurse described the death of one soldier who had been in the trenches during a chlorine gas attack. "He was sitting on the bed, fighting for breath, his lips plum coloured. He was a magnificent young Canadian past all hope in the asphyxia of chlorine. I shall never forget the look in his eyes as he turned to me and gasped: I can’t die! Is it possible that nothing can be done for me?" It was a horrible death, but as hard as they tried, doctors were unable to find a way of successfully treating chlorine gas poisoning.

EDIT: fixed a LOT of spelling mistakes:smallredface:

David Argall

2007-09-11, 06:44 PM

Such things are entirely up to the DM. There is no "presumptive cost". Either it is in the rules, or it is up to the DM. You are welcome to presume a cost, but that does not make it anyone else's presumption.
Things that are entirely up to the DM are not entirely up to the DM. The DM has a duty of challenging the players. The rules may not tell him how, and the method may vary widely between games, but the player wanting a pet elemental or other goodie is to be made to pay for it, whether in gold, extra encounters, XP, or whatever.
A given DM may misuse or misunderstand his duty, but we can still calculate what a given item should cost.

5 times? Wow, you measured it?
You don't know the distance any more than anyone else.
We have several strips that allow us to measure it reasonably precisely. 450 can do as a basis. Measure it yourself if you question my figure. We might note that any distortion is to lessen the large empty space between the armies. Even as it is, it is hard to get them in the same picture.
More generally, just imagine it. The city reserves are spread out behind the wall. That means the reserves for the next section of the wall are right next to the breech. They presumably had to take more than a couple of steps, but there were reserves within 1-2 rounds, not 10 minutes. The delay is at the command level, not at the physical level.

There isn't any cost with titanium elemental (at least not in the rules) so it is up to the DM. The DM could have said... "ok, now you have to convince them. These elemental don't speak common.......... they speak an ancient language that a simple translation spell won't work. They are also evil." etc etc.. there could be any scenario the DM can dream up.
True, and for our purposes false. What these difficulties amount to is the same amount of challenge as forking over the same pile of gold won by hard adventuring. In either case, the DM is supposed to make it difficult for the player, and the greater the benefit, the greater the cost.

Since Redcloak is the "bad guy"
3.5 takes the attitude that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The same rules apply to PC and NPC. [4.0 may change this.] So Redcloak being the bad guy does not free him of tanstaaff. One way or another he has to "pay" for his assistance.

Quote:
If the writer was actually paying attention to the cost, Redcloak could not have afforded even 1 titanium elemental, much less several.

Um, what is the cost of a titanium elemental? And why couldn't Redcloack afford it? he does have an epic level master, i'm sure Xykon could have picked up a good deal of cash
from,

I don't see any problem with titanium elementals. Redcloak could have handled it (and probably did) with a few spells, either four castings of summon monster VII or two castings of summon monster VIII, possibly using scrolls he had prepared earlier.
There were 5 elementals, not 4.

He chose to summon titanium elementals, which are not on the list of standard elementals, but they may exist in the OotS setting, or perhaps Redcloak succeeded on his rules lawyering skill check vs. the DM. After all, the spell allows for any huge elemental.
No, we are not allowed to allow Redcloak to cheat here. He too must follow the meaning of the rules.
A superior elemental must cost more to summons than a regular one. How much? Well an elemental can not be summoned into a hostile element. Air can only appear where there is air, water in water, earth where there is earth, and you need a large fire source to summons fire. So you need a lot of titanium to summons huge titanium elementals, about 48,000 lbs each. And titanium can be identified with mithral, which is 500 gp a lb. Do the math and we get 120,000,000 gp, plus scroll costs.

That's outside Redcloak's budget.

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-11, 07:02 PM

Kreistor

2007-09-11, 07:33 PM

Actually, titanium is very abundant on earth. It is the purification that makes it so expensive (titanium, unlike gold, is never found in pure form). So, ground might have beem good enough source of titanium.

9th most common element on earth. Nikk is quite correct. All Titanium is trapped as Titanium Oxide, and it was only in the laast 20 years that a new process brought the price way down and allows you to golf with the stuff.

"The active agent in Mustard Gas is Chlroine" Please, if you are going to talk about chemical weapons have some knowledge of chemistry...

The active agent of mustard gas is mustard gas. Cl-CH2-CH2-S-CH2-CH2-Cl. It has NO chlorine gas there. Chlorine gas is Cl-Cl. Chlorine atoms attached to the ends of the mustard gas molecule are covalently bound and will not dissociate upon exposure to air. You need laboratory or industrial setup to get halogen atoms off carbon atoms they are bound to. Delta G for dissociation is just too high to occur spontaneously.

I didn't say Chlorine gas. I said Chlorine, meaning the atom. Mustard gas was developed because pure chlorine gas had failed. Chlorine is the most reactive atom in the periodic table: they've even gotten it to bind to a noble gas, which reacts with nothing else. That molecule you describe above is simply a delivery mechanism for chlorine atoms.

Which, once again, reinforces the point: magical battlefield =/= modern battlefield. Chlorine gas is kill-right-now agent that goes down to trenches.

I am not equating Mustard Gas to Cloudkill for instantaneous kill possibility. I equate it as area denial. Gas an area and the enemy will not move through it for fear of death.

I fear you really miss the context of my argument with Chibibar. That person said, "but generally magic tends to throw conventional field battle out of whack." The question is why? Because magic exists isn't good enough.

Our modern conventional battlefield includes area effect weapons (artillery, mortars), etc. Gas is generally considered unconventional, but in WW1 they weren't, and modern conventional armies train to deal with them.

The point is that although the details of magical effects may be different from modern conventional battlefields, they can be understood and become conventional for the commanders.

I don't see how going over the differences between mustard gas and cloudkill defeats this argument. The British commanders learned how to deal with mustard gas after it was used. If they'd been hit by Cloudkill, they would have figured that out too. The details of the weapon systems are not important to the argument: what is important is that commanders learn and adapt. They can understand complex modern weapon systems, so there is no reaon to think they couldn't understand how to deal with magical weapon systems.

Things that are entirely up to the DM are not entirely up to the DM. The DM has a duty of challenging the players. The rules may not tell him how, and the method may vary widely between games, but the player wanting a pet elemental or other goodie is to be made to pay for it, whether in gold, extra encounters, XP, or whatever.

Or, as in the Sylph, which is also an elemental, saving their lives. PC's make allies, and not all of those allies require payment to be allies. Not every interaction must be a challenge, which is a lesson I learned when my players complained about the game being too stressful. Challenge = stress, and stress = bad. The game must be challenging, but it must also be the right kind of challenging or the players will not have fun: you need to match the players' own skills and talents.

How much a player is charged for an ally depends on the plot. No, one doesn't give a PC a powerful ally for free just because they want it, but when the plot requires it, they get free allies, too.

But does anyone waste their time figuring out how the bad guys get their plot elements? We're telling stories here, so no, we don't. One only has so much time to spend on design. Did Redcloak get his allies for free? we don't know: the Giant has not chosen to show us anything about how he got them. You are presumng they came for free. I am hoping that the future book that includes the attack on AC explains it. *cross fingers* It would be a fun read.

They presumably had to take more than a couple of steps, but there were reserves within 1-2 rounds, not 10 minutes.

Are those considered reinforcements, or were those already considered there for the defense? Were they referring to more reinforcements coming from another area of the city? In the end, we don't know who they were specifically talking about. Were the men you're talking about refusing to go to the breach for the same reasons the deserters ran from it? There are a whole lot more possibilities than just, "Hinjo's stupid."

NikkTheTrick

2007-09-11, 10:31 PM

I didn't say Chlorine gas. I said Chlorine, meaning the atom. Mustard gas was developed because pure chlorine gas had failed. Chlorine is the most reactive atom in the periodic table: they've even gotten it to bind to a noble gas, which reacts with nothing else. That molecule you describe above is simply a delivery mechanism for chlorine atoms.
NO! Please! As a chemist, I am physically hurt by that!

First of all, chlorine is not the most reactive atom. Besides, what is "reactive atom" Any non-noble gas atom is reactive since they cannot fill their outer layer with electrons without binding. Chlorine is a relatively reactive compound, but by far not the bost reactive. It even exists for a while in air! A lot of stuff I am working with will be destroyed by air and temperatures above 4 C in milliseconds!

Let us look at Fluorine. F-F is more reactive than Cl-Cl. However, when bound to carbon, Fluorine is not nearly as reactive. Neither is chlorine! Have you heard about chloroform? They used it in medicine to put people to sleep before surgery. It has 3 chlorine atoms bound to a carbon. People BREATHED it and they were fine after surgery. So, no. Presence of chlorine does not make a compound toxic.

Hell, we eat salt every day. Most of it (by mass) is chlorine! NaCl ! I am yet to die of it.

Also, note that the way chlorine gas and mustard gas act are entirely different. Chlorine chokes you. Mustard gas will cause burns within hours of exposure. You can put your hand in a vat of chlorine gas and it will be fine. If you pur your hand in a vat of mustard gas, in a few hours it will feel like your hand is in boiling oil.

I am not equating Mustard Gas to Cloudkill for instantaneous kill possibility. I equate it as area denial. Gas an area and the enemy will not move through it for fear of death.
Once again, mustard gas will result in denial area for enemy a few hours later for days. Cloudkill will result in denial now for minutes. It results in very different applications. So, mustard gas (or any other gas) =/= cloudkill. Period.

I fear you really miss the context of my argument with Chibibar. That person said, "but generally magic tends to throw conventional field battle out of whack." The question is why? Because magic exists isn't good enough.

Our modern conventional battlefield includes area effect weapons (artillery, mortars), etc. Gas is generally considered unconventional, but in WW1 they weren't, and modern conventional armies train to deal with them.

The point is that although the details of magical effects may be different from modern conventional battlefields, they can be understood and become conventional for the commanders.

I don't see how going over the differences between mustard gas and cloudkill defeats this argument. The British commanders learned how to deal with mustard gas after it was used. If they'd been hit by Cloudkill, they would have figured that out too. The details of the weapon systems are not important to the argument: what is important is that commanders learn and adapt. They can understand complex modern weapon systems, so there is no reaon to think they couldn't understand how to deal with magical weapon systems.
No. modern =/= magic. We have only considered those that match fairly well and still they are quite different in a large number of parameters. But what about healing? There is no way now or in near future we can have instantaneous healing. On D&D battlefield, healing plays a HUGE part!

What about summoning? Boosting spells/potions that V used to such magnificent effect? What about teleportation? Resurrection? All of those are enormous factors in D&D battlefield and they have no analogous in modern battlefield.

Kreistor

2007-09-11, 11:28 PM

Chlorine[quote]

Ultimately irrelevant. That my own knowledge of how mustard gas works does not change the important facts. Mustard gas was used in 1915 at Ypres, and it killed, maimed, and destroyed lives, making it an effective weapon of terror.

[quote]Once again, mustard gas will result in denial area for enemy a few hours later for days.

So, it has an effective battlefield application after all? I'm fine accepting that you may know more about the chemistry than I do, but you're the one that demanded it was useless, despite it being so terrible a weapon that the British strived for years to reproduce it. The Brits clearly thought it was effective, no matter how it worked.

No. modern =/= magic.

Again, we are not discussing whether a magical battlefield is equal in every detail with a modern one. The issue is whether a military commander could understand the weapon systems involved and devise tactics and strategies to deal with them.

Clearly that is a "yes". I can understand and remember everything in the DMG, as well as every weapon system in the American arsenal. In many ways, the modern weapon systems are harder to understand, due to their tradeoffs. Magic is absolute, with fixed rules and only random damage output. Detect Magic is pretty straightforward.

A passive sonar system, on the other hand, is not so absolute. A commander cannot be certain if a quiet noise is near the edge of normal detection range, or is 3x further out due to the sound wave refracting from temperature changes in the water. So, firing torpedo at that enemy submarine may result only in revealing your own location and no harm to anyone. Detect Magic is considerably more accurate and therefore easier to understand.

Fireball and artillery barrages are the same, because how you react to them is the same. If you suspect they are coming, you find cover. Cover is a lot more effective vs. Fireball (which doesn't wrap around corners in 3.5) than artillery (which can penetrate many forms of cover, or literally remove them). Is it so relevant to the soldier that someone is pointing his finger to fire one, and the other is 15 miles away? No, he's only concerned with not getting hit. And, tactically, what's the solution to eeither one? Dispersal of men, and finding or creating cover. The further apart they are, the fewer will be hit by a shell or fireball.

That's what I mean by the two being essentially the same. To the soldier and the commander, there really is no difference between all of these. They are just weapons that kill, maim, incapacitate, or destroy, which have understandable effects. The Commander faced with magical assault only needs to find solutions to reduce the loss of his men's lives while achieving his mission. Sometimes this takes longer when faced with stubbornness, as happened in WWI, and sometimes it happens so quickly that things change so fast the battlefield changes monthly, as happened in WWII when it came to tank development, especially by the Germans.

A weapon system, whether created by magic or science, has an end result that can be understood and applied. After all, we don't know magic at all, and yet we can apply these effects to an invented world. The internal art of magic is not important in the end: only the result of that magic is important, and that's what the rules tell us. Fireball is merely a weapon system, just like the M1A2 tank, Call Lightning, and the AMRAAM. They can be understood and used by men, and men can figure out how to defend themselves against them.

chibibar

2007-09-11, 11:55 PM

I must agree that some of our modern weapons could be substitute for magical effects but we are talking about high level magic here.

Lets takes the OoTS battle aside and lets talk about a high level magic users (that is what I have been talking about all this time) in any battlefield.
all my spell reference in this post came from here
http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm (of course there are always custom spells but lets stick with the basics)

We get the high level curative spells (level 8 and 9th spells)

Mass cure critical wounds
mass cure serious wounds
etc etc
these spells can effect lvl/target so a level 15 (can cast 1 or 2) can cure upto 30 people. It doesn't seem much but you can cure some officers and such.

Firestorm, earthquake, summon monsters (of various level) and such takes a standard action. How fast is that? 6 seconds? (I think that is right) no modern weapon of our time can't produce such an effect in a short period of time. (or can do some of the effect) now of course some of these spells are limited in terms of space (I do believe firestorm is 360 feet radius) so placing these spells are important and have to have most effect without killing your own.

In a "quick" battle type, these spells can cause havoc and change the tide of war. A breach? no problem create a prismatic wall (or any other kind of wall or even better a mold earth spell) to repair (again, if the magic users are around to do it) cast spells at choke point. A lot of castles are usually place in defensive position with mountain, water (ocean or river), or fire defenses... the army would have a hard time penetrating.

Also most fantasy base game, you may not have 100,000 unit battle. We might see 20,000 or 30,000 (normally) considering the population is smaller (so I assume at least in my world and people are far apart) but of course different DM have their places differently.

Modern weapons DO have their places (tinker gnomes can produce these..... love them) and of course UNLIKE magic users, it takes a bit of time to set up and deploy BUT it will last longer in terms of longer siege.

I mean a mage can cast gate and use power word kill (assuming the target has less than 101 HP) and just die.. killing off their leader/commander.

There are many things that magic can do that our modern technology can't simulate at this time.... so it would be hard in some aspect to see how it would effect in battle. We can imagine and debate on issues but can't have a solid comparison with real life stuff that we do know.

T.Titan

2007-09-12, 08:21 AM

Oh, and about the origina point of this thread; look here: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/images/RGvEYryyXmASnQhdBUE.gif

Seems that Kubota was fairly certain that he'd be able to retake teh city the next week, so there must be some troops somewhere for that.

Kreistor

2007-09-12, 09:52 AM

I must agree that some of our modern weapons could be substitute for magical effects but we are talking about high level magic here.

[snip]

There are many things that magic can do that our modern technology can't simulate at this time.... so it would be hard in some aspect to see how it would effect in battle. We can imagine and debate on issues but can't have a solid comparison with real life stuff that we do know.

And yet, you understand all of these effects and can apply them. Are you trained in magic? Understand where the energies come from and the alchemy behind it all? No, you understand only the end result and that's all you need to apply the effect to a battlefield simulation.

A military commander is no different from you, in any age. If you can understand and apply these effects understanding only their end results, then so can they. They can learn how to deal with these effects, if you can learn how to deal with them as a player.

Anything that can be written as a rule can be understood and then tactics devised to deal with the problem.

Daimbert

2007-09-12, 12:31 PM

That is not the point at issue here. We have been discussing where and how to use the reserve, not whether there should be one.

Given the enemy broke thru and slaughtered the reserve, it is rather obvious the reserve was misused. The question becomes whether this was an excusable or even unavoidable error, or whether the defense should have done a better job.
Since the breech was an obvious target, and one that came under heavy attack, it is clear some of the reserve needed to be moved there. We can debate about the percentage, but more troops were needed, and didn't arrive until too late. So we have to conclude avoidable blunder.

Um, you do recall that the breach fell because of a) the desertions of many of the troops due to a morale failure when the whole army charged them and b) when Hinjo and Durkon were prevented from arriving to reinforce it by huecuva, right?

This whole argument over reinforcing the breach is totally pointless if you actually read the whole chain of what occurred:

1) When the breach was made, it was soon made reasonably secure by V's abilities.

2) When the breach was made, one critical piece of information was not yet known: where Xykon was. When Haley suggests sending V help because of the Xykon clone who was approaching it, Roy even says that if that one isn't Xykon it would be better to leave V to handle it himself.

3) After that point, Hinjo is indeed forced to himself move AWAY from the breach to another point in the wall to repel ladders. He takes Belkar and the assassin with him. This implies that some areas of the wall were in WORSE control than the breach -- particularly, the one that he reinforces.

4) Leading from the front boosts morale, and being a Paladin Hinjo is strongly suited for doing that. Considering the odds, keeping up morale is probably more important than precise tactical planning, since most of that planning would be "stop things from getting over the wall" [grin].

5) Hinjo's position with the OotS formed a quick response team of PC-classed characters to deal with specific issues ... like the elementals, for examples. PC classed characters are MUCH more effective and so are best suited only being committed to a fight when required.

6) And again, they had no idea where Xykon was until later in the fight ... and PC-classed characters would be required to stop Xykon.

Nothing in what Hinjo did at the breach makes him a bad commander.

As for Axe:

1) Hinjo ordered him to leave when it was loaded. Axe refused because he had a duty to keep Hinjo alive.

2) When Hinjo arrives, he is upset with Axe for staying, but then holds to HIS duty to wait for Haley, Belkar and Roy. There's also a reason to do this since they are strong PC-classed characters and so would add a lot to his battle strength.

3) Axe disagrees with this in most of the cases, but it is only because his duty is to keep Hinjo alive. The civilians are clearly an afterthought because of 1), and Axe probably only mentions it to convince Hinjo that this is the right thing to do.

Thus, those comments are not evidence that Axe thinks Hinjo is a bad commander, but that he is trying to fulfill his duty to keep Hinjo alive regardless of other concerns.

chibibar

2007-09-12, 05:16 PM

And yet, you understand all of these effects and can apply them. Are you trained in magic? Understand where the energies come from and the alchemy behind it all? No, you understand only the end result and that's all you need to apply the effect to a battlefield simulation.

A military commander is no different from you, in any age. If you can understand and apply these effects understanding only their end results, then so can they. They can learn how to deal with these effects, if you can learn how to deal with them as a player.

Anything that can be written as a rule can be understood and then tactics devised to deal with the problem.

The only reason I understand this because I have been a GM for over 20 years (yea I'm old and I play from D&D Basic)

I assume that Hinjo doesn't have that kind of experience (at least that level of magic) he specialty is Paladin and Sapphire guard. Looks like he doesn't have enough field experience against large scale battle (at least it didn't show that AC was at war on any large scale (SOD show something but I still don't think it is a large scale)

One needs to account for what resources are at hand and such. Hinjo was surprise (at least to me) that elemental was being used. This is new to him. So he may be an "incompetent commander" not because he "sucks" but lack experience.

David Argall

2007-09-12, 05:30 PM

9th most common element on earth. Nikk is quite correct. All Titanium is trapped as Titanium Oxide, and it was only in the laast 20 years that a new process brought the price way down and allows you to golf with the stuff.
One of our standard principles of magic is "purity". Magic only works when the agent[s] are pure. [A principle that is very important too in science by the way, so make sure you do a good job cleaning that test tube.] So standing on a few tons of Titanium Oxide would not allow you to summons a titanium elemental. You need to extract the Titanium first.

How much a player is charged for an ally depends on the plot. No, one doesn't give a PC a powerful ally for free just because they want it, but when the plot requires it, they get free allies, too.
The allies in such cases are only "free", not free. We are merely not bringing the cost out front. We have a fight between Hal the hero and Val the villain. Now we give Hal a free magic sword/army, because we have also given Val a free magic sword/army/other advantage of the same size. The free stuff is not free. It merely balances what is happening off stage.

Are those considered reinforcements, or were those already considered there for the defense? Were they referring to more reinforcements coming from another area of the city? In the end, we don't know who they were specifically talking about.
I'm not that sure what you are talking about, but it sounds like quibbling. We have pictured forces within easy distance of the breech. They do not move to the breech. Instead they are still there when the breech is taken. What we consider them is not important.

Were the men you're talking about refusing to go to the breach for the same reasons the deserters ran from it?
Unimportant. They should have been moved to the breech before desertion became a serious option.
Also no. The soldiers near the breech had 3 choices, defend the breech, run, or die. [That last was the likely result of the other options too, but they at least offered hope. If they stand there like they did and the breech falls, they fall, as they did.

There are a whole lot more possibilities than just, "Hinjo's stupid."
Of course, but Hinjo's incompetence is the obvious choice. His behavior has been consistent, and is consistent with many losing generals in reality.

Hinjo is brave, and expects the same of others. Assigned to a post, he will defend it to the death. Indeed, as we have seen, he would even attack from an inferior position.
So it is quite consistent with his mindset that he do something like assign 1000 men to 1/10 of the wall and tell them to fight to the death, and then get so involved in his own battle to the death that he barely considers them thereafter. He just does not seem to consider the general's duty of seeing which 1000 need help and making sure they get it.

There are many things that magic can do that our modern technology can't simulate at this time....
Mostly irrelevant. The presence of magic, like the presence of a new technology, changes the tactics of war, not the principles.

Oh, and about the origina point of this thread; look here: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/image...mASnQhdBUE.gif

Seems that Kubota was fairly certain that he'd be able to retake teh city the next week, so there must be some troops somewhere for that.
Kobota's strategy is based on the hobgoblins merely being a large scale raid, an army that will move on in a week or whatever. He will return when they leave and claim to have driven them out.
If he has sufficient forces to drive them out, he had sufficient forces to keep them out in the first place, and to make himself Lord no matter what Hinjo wanted to do. Instead, he has maybe 1000 men, probably less, which will be quite sufficient to install himself as Lord now that Hinjo and Hinjo's army are gone...Hinjo's still around? Got to take care of that detail...

Um, you do recall that the breach fell because of a) the desertions of many of the troops due to a morale failure when the whole army charged them and b) when Hinjo and Durkon were prevented from arriving to reinforce it by huecuva, right?
Now it is not clear just what the exact timing is here. And the arrival of Hinjo and Durkon at the breech would have meant almost zero, unless they had a couple of hundred troops with them, troops that would not have been stopped by the huecuva even if it was stopping Hinjo.
However, the point is that the support should have been there long before the enemy charged. As fresh troops, they would have had a much better chance of making the morale save, and of boosting the save of the troops already there.

1) When the breach was made, it was soon made reasonably secure by V's abilities.
The breech, by reason of being a breech, was far from reasonably secure. It was the obvious weak point to attack.
Moreover, if we say Hinjo was aware of V devoting himself to wall defense instead of lich fighting, we are saying an excuse of later ignorance will not stand.

2) When the breach was made, one critical piece of information was not yet known: where Xykon was.
This was crucial for the OOTS, which was to find and fight the lich. For Hinjo, it was a side point.

3) After that point, Hinjo is indeed forced to himself move AWAY from the breach to another point in the wall to repel ladders. He takes Belkar and the assassin with him. This implies that some areas of the wall were in WORSE control than the breach -- particularly, the one that he reinforces.
Does not follow. Hinjo moves around on top of the wall, but not in particular away from the breech.
The picture is consistent with that of Hinjo having too narrow a vision. He deems himself more useful if he moves around to different places, but these are all within a fairly small area. He appears with each of the surviving OOTS members except for V. All consistent with the breech having more or less fallen out of his vision.

4) Leading from the front boosts morale, and being a Paladin Hinjo is strongly suited for doing that. Considering the odds, keeping up morale is probably more important than precise tactical planning, since most of that planning would be "stop things from getting over the wall" [grin].
We have no evidence that Hinjo even considered this. And even if he did, that merely changes the nature of the error he makes. If he will be unable to issue the needed orders, he needs to have someone who can.

5) Hinjo's position with the OotS formed a quick response team of PC-classed characters to deal with specific issues ... like the elementals, for examples. PC classed characters are MUCH more effective and so are best suited only being committed to a fight when required.
Since the issue is the placement of large numbers of grunts, this is not to the point.

Nothing in what Hinjo did at the breach makes him a bad commander.
A large number of troops could have easily been moved to the breech. Doing so would have obviously increased the chance of the breech holding. No such order was carried out and the breech fell. We have a default case for his doing badly.
Hinjo is a great guy, but a lousy commander.

As for Axe:

1) Hinjo ordered him to leave when it was loaded. Axe refused because he had a duty to keep Hinjo alive.

2) When Hinjo arrives, he is upset with Axe for staying, but then holds to HIS duty to wait for Haley, Belkar and Roy. There's also a reason to do this since they are strong PC-classed characters and so would add a lot to his battle strength.
There are several differences here. The big one is that whereas the OOTS is useful, Hinjo is vital. He dies, the war is lost. Hobgoblins or Kubota, the city ends up under the control of the wrong sort. Without him, there is little the OOTS can do, except repair and head to the next gate. Waiting for him is far more sensible than waiting for the OOTS.
On the other end of the math, the danger of staying was constantly increasing. Waiting for Hinjo only risked small bands that could be beaten off. Waiting for the missing OOTS people risked overwhelming force.
Do the math. Axe was about 100 times as sensible in staying as Hinjo was.

Thus, those comments are not evidence that Axe thinks Hinjo is a bad commander, but that he is trying to fulfill his duty to keep Hinjo alive regardless of other concerns.
And one of those concerns is that Hinjo is a bad commander. His attitude here is much the same as if Hinjo was a child-commander of 5 or so. The commander must be saved, and the competence of the commander does not enter into that.

Kreistor

2007-09-12, 06:16 PM

One of our standard principles of magic is "purity". Magic only works when the agent[s] are pure. [A principle that is very important too in science by the way, so make sure you do a good job cleaning that test tube.] So standing on a few tons of Titanium Oxide would not allow you to summons a titanium elemental. You need to extract the Titanium first.

Summon spells bring things from other Planes: it doesn't create them. Those spells have no material components, if you didn't notice. Were Redcloak to summon one, he doesn't need a pile of titanium in the first place.

If a DM allows the creation of elementals, it is a houserule, and consequently the cost is also a houserule. It is up to the DM then whether the materials used for construction need to be pure or not.

The allies in such cases are only "free", not free. We are merely not bringing the cost out front. We have a fight between Hal the hero and Val the villain. Now we give Hal a free magic sword/army, because we have also given Val a free magic sword/army/other advantage of the same size. The free stuff is not free. It merely balances what is happening off stage.

To the players, they are free. I don't tell them why they get these allies. They are story elements that drive the plot. Both sides get them, so the lack of cost is irrelevant.

You presume Redcloak paid nothing for those elementals. Me? I'm betting there's an interesting story there. It's certainly a candidate for expansion for the next book. I don't own any of the books, but I am told that there's a story about a silver dragon that appeared in one book that never hit this site. The Giant has explained adventures Team Evil had behind the scenes before.

I'm not that sure what you are talking about, but it sounds like quibbling. We have pictured forces within easy distance of the breech. They do not move to the breech. Instead they are still there when the breech is taken. What we consider them is not important.

You assume they didn't go because of a lack of orders. I presume they didn't go because they had been engaged and were still recovering. Neither of us will ever know the truth, unless the Giant chooses to clarify.

And...

427 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0427.html)

You'll note that it's the commanding officer on the scene that commands local reinforcements. It was his choice, not Hinjo's. It was his death in 440 that caused the failure of reinforcements to arrive. With his death, the command structure has broken down.

A general can be in only one place at a time. We can see in 453 Hinjo is aware of the problem at the breach and is racing for it. Can a messenger outrun his mount? No. Any order issued would fall behind him, not precede him. He is acting as his own messenger, and moving to take personal command of the place where command has broken down. If Hinjo can't break through to get the orders to the reinforcements, who can? He's faster, stronger, has more HP, and more AC than any messenger.

So, the order didn't go out earlier because the man responsible for it had died. Somehow the chain of command had not replaced the decision making at that spot, as can be seen in 452 where a nameless front-liner is trying to get people to hold the breach. And Hinjo knew about the problem, and was racing there as fast as he could to take over command.

Somehow, you want Hinjo's orders to arrive instantaneously at the ears of the people they are intended for. With his Diviner (who might have been with Hinjo to provide exactly that function) dead (429), that simply wasn't possible at the time.

Unimportant. They should have been moved to the breech before desertion became a serious option.
Also no. The soldiers near the breech had 3 choices, defend the breech, run, or die. [That last was the likely result of the other options too, but they at least offered hope. If they stand there like they did and the breech falls, they fall, as they did.

Soldiers flee. That is an immutable law of the battlefield. Hinjo is not a bad commander because soldiers fled from a spot he was not present at. All commanders have suffered from desertion. Happened to Wellington the day before Waterloo (Dutch troops, IIRC), but we don't call him a bad commander, do we? He wasn't where they were stationed, and their commanders were not British, nor trained by him. Wellington's pretty close to the best that ever lived, but if we apply your standards to the calculation, Wellington was a bad commander.

Desertion is a fact of life on the battlefield. Logic is irrelevant in the face of the survival instinct.

Anyone that's played paintball and knows how to charge a bunker knows what I'm talking about. People fear pain. They don't realize that if they stand [edit: and fight... not stand up... cover is a good thing], they have a better chance of hitting the enemy than vice versa... they only see their own chance of death. And that is what happened here. That a man on the breach could kill two enemies before dying doesn't matter, when your chance of death is seemingly 100%.

Of course, but Hinjo's incompetence is the obvious choice. His behavior has been consistent, and is consistent with many losing generals in reality.

That's your opinion. It is up to each of us to decide what is obvious, and what is self-serving rhetoric. That you say it is obvious does not make it obvious at all: you might be lying merely to try to save your point. My opinion is that you need to reach so deep into assumption and implication in your arguments here that nothing you suggest is obvious. I'll leave it to the readers to decide what is obvious to them. I figure they're smart enough to figure that out on their own.

T.Titan

2007-09-13, 08:35 AM

Kobota's strategy is based on the hobgoblins merely being a large scale raid, an army that will move on in a week or whatever. He will return when they leave and claim to have driven them out.

What, you read his journal or something?! Occam's Razor says we should first assume that he had teh power to retake the city from teh hobgoblins the following week, not just return to an empty city.

If he has sufficient forces to drive them out, he had sufficient forces to keep them out in the first place, and to make himself Lord no matter what Hinjo wanted to do. Instead, he has maybe 1000 men, probably less, which will be quite sufficient to install himself as Lord now that Hinjo and Hinjo's army are gone...Hinjo's still around? Got to take care of that detail...

You forget that Hinjo still had 10k troops before the battle, and that it's unlikely the other Lords would support Kubota in an armed bid for power against the rightful ruler. So leaving the city to preserve his and the other lords troops and trying to have Hinjo killed during the battle is a smart move.
He's probably just in the best political position to be elected ruler if the current dynasty dies out, so in the event of Hinjo's death he'd have everyone elses troops at his disposal too.
You have to remember that there are a lot of cases in RL where the nobles had more troops overall then their King even if he had more troops then any individual lord. that acted as a balance of power between the royalty and the nobility, making the King attacking the nobility as a whole very hard, the same being true for one Lord and his close allies trying to take the throne by force of arms.
There we're also cases where the King's forces we're pretty weak to begin with but a Lord trying to take over would find other Lords taking the Kings side for various reasons.

Tridon Wolf

2007-09-13, 09:23 AM

Xylon did cast cloister to seal the city off from the rest of the world this could mean two different things 1 it could be Xylons new base to launch an attack on the reamining two gates (alas the Azure city one was destroyed thanks to Miko the Fallen) or Xylon could move on if he does stay shinjo will probally be resistance to aid OOTS as you have seen each member of the group can easily over power many hobgoblins... though it would be unrealistic. though if lord Xylon leaves most likely the city will be touched by Redcloaks god "the dark one" i am unsure on the rules about the paladins walking on unholy land lest living there... im guessing that the future like always lies in sai-Burlews hands

chibibar

2007-09-13, 10:43 AM

David, I am not understanding by this remark

Mostly irrelevant. The presence of magic, like the presence of a new technology, changes the tactics of war, not the principles.

We are talking about how a commander can understand/compensate the tactics use by the enemies. If a person never expose to such level of magic/technology, how do you compensate for that?

That is where I'm getting at. Hinjo is not a field commander expert. I personally don't think he has that many years of open war type battles (like this one). An experience officer/commander would know what their troops is capable of and possibly compensate for that.

I was saying that Magic tends to change a lot of rules in battle. Depending on how much magic you have on your side (and other side) it could turn the tide of battle easily.

not everyone in the world is well verse in everything. These things take time to learn and overcome the obstacles. Hinjo had less than a day of planning (we assume) and the battle last only a day (give or take... more like less) It is hard to command everything on your own when battle of this scale requires officers/generals and other leaders to coordinate troops.

Kreistor

2007-09-13, 11:12 AM

We are talking about how a commander can understand/compensate the tactics use by the enemies. If a person never expose to such level of magic/technology, how do you compensate for that?

You learn. You adapt. You think. You abandon the old ways and find new ones.

You can't point at one man and say, "That man is smart enough. He will solve this problem," or at another and say, "That man will never solve anything." Problem solving is often a matter of inspiration, and that is not quantifiable. Inspiration can come to anyone, and it is the arrogance of the intelligent that ignores those solutions that come from unexpected quarters resulting in their own demise.

I don't know if you are trying to imply that Hinjo is not aware of magic on the battlefield, but we do know he used it. He had a diviner with him at the beginning, and clerics were available to back up the troops at the breach. Magic was a part of the AC battle plan before Redcloak arrived and used surprising types.

Commanders in a fantasy world should already be aware of magic. They didn't grow up in a mundane world like our own, so it is not appropriate to give them mundane attitudes towards magic. As an obviously useful battlefield tool, magic should and would be studied as a tool of war. Just aas a modern commander does not ignore the implications of wireless technology, satellite-based positioning, and robot technology, a commander in a magical world would not ignore Summoning, teleportation, or buffing spells.

chibibar

2007-09-13, 12:50 PM

You learn. You adapt. You think. You abandon the old ways and find new ones.

You can't point at one man and say, "That man is smart enough. He will solve this problem," or at another and say, "That man will never solve anything." Problem solving is often a matter of inspiration, and that is not quantifiable. Inspiration can come to anyone, and it is the arrogance of the intelligent that ignores those solutions that come from unexpected quarters resulting in their own demise.

I don't know if you are trying to imply that Hinjo is not aware of magic on the battlefield, but we do know he used it. He had a diviner with him at the beginning, and clerics were available to back up the troops at the breach. Magic was a part of the AC battle plan before Redcloak arrived and used surprising types.

Commanders in a fantasy world should already be aware of magic. They didn't grow up in a mundane world like our own, so it is not appropriate to give them mundane attitudes towards magic. As an obviously useful battlefield tool, magic should and would be studied as a tool of war. Just aas a modern commander does not ignore the implications of wireless technology, satellite-based positioning, and robot technology, a commander in a magical world would not ignore Summoning, teleportation, or buffing spells.

Actually I was going more of the line of that people like US can't fanthom the world of magic. We can speculate all day long what it could and could not do on the battlefield. One tangent of the conversation talk about how we could compare magic = real world weapons equivalent, but then we talk about the difference of magic and real world can't compare thus =/=

BUT it is my fault that muddle the two again in my last post. The commanders that we know of are dead (at least that we know) lots of soldier are inexperience (in terms of level) and thus may not have been expose to such level of magic. any officers on the field may also be limited and thus couldn't compensate for the situation.

I think if Hinjo had a week or two (and the warning system works) Hinjo could have form a better defense rather than a hodge podge defense.

Kreistor

2007-09-13, 02:13 PM

Actually I was going more of the line of that people like US can't fanthom the world of magic.

Can you fathom the insides of your cell phone? Sure, you might understand that there's an antenna and battery and computer chips, but what does each chip do? Is it necessary to understand the details of how the process occurs that takes your voice to the ear of someone thousands of miles away to understand how to apply the technology? Do you need to understand the specfics of how the data compression technology that reduces teh bandwidth of your transmission works in order to have a conversation using your phone?

Magic is no different in DnD. I play a Favored Soul in one campaign. Do I need to understand how the non-existent person in the non-existent fantasy world gets their magic to know how to apply it? No, there's a rule for that. I understand the rule, which only provides the end result, and I then apply that end result to the battlefield. Exactly how magic does what it does is no more relevant than how your phone does what it does. You have a rule that lets you apply your phone, specfiically, press these buttons in that order to talk to your friend. You have a rule for applying a Fireball to a battlefield, namely, pick one corner and measure 20' in all directions. Roll damage and the DM will roll saving throws.

A modern commander does not know the specfiics of how many aspects of modern weapon systems work (though if he's smart, he tries to understand all that he can). That doesn't stop him from seeing the blip on the radar that tells him a missile is coming and that it's time to give the sea sparrows the green light and order the Phalanx to arm. Is that any different from saying to the Wizard, "I think a Fireball centered on that horse with the blue standard would be the most effective positioning right now." Knowing how the wizard creates that Fireball is irrelevant: the commander is only interested in the end result -- a sphere of Fire on the location that will gain him the greatest advantage in the battle to come.

chibibar

2007-09-13, 03:03 PM

the problem is that you are still refering to the rules.... what if you don't have the rules? you are thrown into this with limited infomation and resources and experience.

You refer to the DMG (Dungeon Master guide) and rules...... do you think a modern 3 star general play D&D? what if magic exist in our world? etc...

We assume that Hinjo had general magic in Paladin class. Knowing the basics might get you by, but as a commander you need to know more and be precise. It is good to know what are the maximum effect of your arsenal.

I'm sure Hinjo doesn't have the DMG handy (I'm sure Haley could have pick him up a copy) he has NO clue what the is the capability of Redcloak and Xykon... heck... even the OoTS didn't have much a clue since they didn't really fought them to their full power.

So all they know Xykon a sorcerer and Redcloak is a cleric... but that is about it. They don't know their sphere, god, combat style etc etc.. when you have limited resources to counter such magic, it is hard to cover all grounds of possibility.

OoTS was surprise to see elementals. V happen to have scrolls for other purpose but end up using against elementals instead. Of course the OoTS was surprise the amount of force that Xykon and Redcloak muster in a short time. :)

Kreistor

2007-09-13, 04:36 PM

the problem is that you are still refering to the rules.... what if you don't have the rules? you are thrown into this with limited infomation and resources and experience.

But a general in a magical world is not thrown into it like that. he grows up with magic just as we grow up with science. You're suggesting he's from a world where magic suddenly appears out of nowhere, or where nobody ever thought to harness the power of a Wizard in battle. That's just nonsensical. It is obvious to all that magic like Fireball is useful on the battlefield. Unless you declare that all wizards and sorcerers in the past lack any sense of nationality and loyalty to people, then they must have been involved in battle before. The moment it happens once, everyone turns to their wizards and demands the same. At that moment, they learn how magic can be applied to a battlefield.

You refer to the DMG (Dungeon Master guide) and rules...... do you think a modern 3 star general play D&D? what if magic exist in our world? etc...

I think he'd adapt better than anyone in history. Modern weapon systems are changing at unheard of rates now. Robot planes, missiles that detonate after penetrating walls, hails of lead to stop missiles, radar jamming, avoidance, and deflection techniques... the number and types of weapon systems are larger than any DMG.

We assume that Hinjo had general magic in Paladin class. Knowing the basics might get you by, but as a commander you need to know more and be precise. It is good to know what are the maximum effect of your arsenal.

A general doesn't need his own magical aptitude to work with a weapon system. If he doesn't understand something, he asks for explanations. Fireball is as simple as "I can destroy a 20' radius sphere with fire at a maximum range of 800 feet." That's all a general needs to know, and that's pretty understandable.

I'm sure Hinjo doesn't have the DMG handy

But he did have a Diviner, who should have Spellcraft and KNow(Arcana), and maybe even Know(Religion), given she worked with Paladins. She can explain everything he needs to know about the spells seen on the battlefield. That it uses 20 ergs of divine negative energy from the appropriate plane is not something the General needs to know. What he needs to know is that it's a field that light will not pass through preventing sight -- Darkness. 95% of magical spells can be reduced to a single sentence description of effect.

So all they know Xykon a sorcerer and Redcloak is a cleric... but that is about it. They don't know their sphere, god, combat style etc etc.. when you have limited resources to counter such magic, it is hard to cover all grounds of possibility.

I've never had a problem with it. Neither does the wizard or cleric player in my group. You prep against what you are aware of, and prep whatever is most useful against what isn't.

OoTS was surprise to see elementals. V happen to have scrolls for other purpose but end up using against elementals instead. Of course the OoTS was surprise the amount of force that Xykon and Redcloak muster in a short time. :)

Surprises in war happen. That's not unique to magical battlefields. The mines under Paschendale were a rather large surprise for the Germans one morning in WW1, since the end of the artillery barrage usually announced an infantry attack. You deal, because if you don't, you die. The Germans didn't get to deal with it, because they didn't have any choice but to take the second option. The point is: surprise on the battlefield is what everyone attempts to achieve. That the OotS did not see the Ti elementals as possible opponents is no different from the Germans failing to see the possible invention of the tank. Surprise is surprise -- be it a Ti elemental on the wall or a tank crossing a battlefield for the first time.

chibibar

2007-09-13, 05:11 PM

but thus far Hinjo didn't have access to high level mage. The only one that was in his city got eaten by a roc (and has alcoholic issue) I don't see many magical users in AC. There was a diviner but looks like they are limited access also (since Shojo was in charge)

The thing is that we tend to blend some of our knowledge and understanding into Hinjo and give speculation on how he could have won...etc etc...

The reason he did lose because he didn't utilize his resources properly (as someone have stated before) why? maybe he had an alternative motive, underestimating the enemy (as in not knowing what they are capable of) or under estimating the magic in itself (which is possible since all of the mages/cleric seems to be in the center courtyard)

David Argall

2007-09-13, 05:29 PM

If a DM allows the creation of elementals, it is a houserule, and consequently the cost is also a houserule. It is up to the DM then whether the materials used for construction need to be pure or not.
That is not an allowable defense. It simply means that we are both right and can't be proven wrong, since we each amount to the "DM". So we have to deny the DM the right to just make a decision, and require he follow the "rules" even when there are no rules.

You presume Redcloak paid nothing for those elementals.
No, I am saying he did not pay enough.

You assume they didn't go because of a lack of orders. I presume they didn't go because they had been engaged and were still recovering. Neither of us will ever know the truth, unless the Giant chooses to clarify.
And which is the reasonable assumption? They are pictured as standing there in each of the strips that gives us a view of the area. There is no picture of them leaving or entering the area, no reference to their having been engaged at all, much less that they are in need of any recovery. No evidence that ... In essence you are saying we have only an assumption that the room and everything in it still exists once we close the door and can't see inside it anymore. That may be true, but we go thru life on the assumption it is not.
We have the soldiers standing there. We need a reason why they can't be moved, not an excuse that is unsupported by any evidence.

And...

427 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0427.html)

You'll note that it's the commanding officer on the scene that commands local reinforcements. It was his choice, not Hinjo's. It was his death in 440 that caused the failure of reinforcements to arrive. With his death, the command structure has broken down.
Military command structures are designed to deal with such losses. The general is dead? Find the colonel and get his orders. He's dead too? Well find... And eventually you do find somebody to put in charge, and whose obvious response is to call for help. So the death of the general should have automatically have triggered a message to Hinjo.
And the general is only Hinjo's subordinate. Hinjo has the ultimate duty to issue those orders.

A general can be in only one place at a time. We can see in 453 Hinjo is aware of the problem at the breach and is racing for it.
But that is the problem. He should have been aware of the problem and making a response, really since 425, and aware of immediate problems since 441. But he allows his forces at the breech to continue to weaken, and he makes a response only in 453, which is too late.
And we don't need Hinjo at the breech. We need grunts, lots of grunts, at that breech.

So, the order didn't go out earlier because the man responsible for it had died.
The man responsible, by definition, is Hinjo. He is the commander, and he takes full responsibility. If he loses some underling, it is his responsibility to make sure that underling can be quickly replaced.

Somehow the chain of command had not replaced the decision making at that spot, as can be seen in 452 where a nameless front-liner is trying to get people to hold the breach.
The rank of our frontliner doesn't much matter here. It is presumably low enough that he can't order units from other wall sections to come help, but the lower we make his rank, the more he is likely to send out a call for help.
But even if we assume no message was sent, we need merely look at 450. See the open area behind the breech? See the orange in that area? This is information Hinjo should have had. He has and has had full reason to be sending reinforcements to the breech long before 452. Instead, he seems to only make plans to move troops around once things have quieted down.

Soldiers flee. That is an immutable law of the battlefield. Hinjo is not a bad commander because soldiers fled from a spot he was not present at.
True and false. Soldiers flee, but they are a lot more likely to flee after a lot of fighting and not getting any support. The presence of fresh troops might well have bucked up their morale the needed amount.

Happened to Wellington the day before Waterloo (Dutch troops, IIRC), but we don't call him a bad commander, do we?
Wellington won a lot of the time. So we say "On balance..." But what do we put in Hinjo's balance? Wanting to stand when outnumbered 20,000 to 8?
Fighting instead of retreating vs a superior foe at the ship? Trying to attack from an inferior position during that fight? Objecting to the retreat from that battle? It's not one bad day. It's every day and way.

Hinjo is a great guy, lots of fun as a friend, and way brave, but he is just not a good commander.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Argall
Kobota's strategy is based on the hobgoblins merely being a large scale raid, an army that will move on in a week or whatever. He will return when they leave and claim to have driven them out.

What, you read his journal or something?! Occam's Razor says we should first assume that he had teh power to retake the city from teh hobgoblins the following week, not just return to an empty city.
Quite the opposite. If we take the assumption he can retake the city, we have to explain where an army of 30,000 or more is, and why it has not been used.
If we assume that Kubota is lying, and just is betting the hobgoblins will leave on their own, we don't need that army at all, just explain why a man would lie, a very routine event and easily done.
Occam's Razor calls for the simplier explanation, which is the one that doesn't require an army that has behaved strangely.

You forget that Hinjo still had 10k troops before the battle, and that it's unlikely the other Lords would support Kubota in an armed bid for power against the rightful ruler.
So where he could not overwhelm 10,000 troops before, he is now able to beat 20,000?

So leaving the city to preserve his and the other lords troops and trying to have Hinjo killed during the battle is a smart move.
If he had around 1000 troops. Losing the city is very expensive for Kubota even if he is able to ship off a lot of his men and goodies. Kubota manor is likely being burned to the ground as we discuss this. If he had enough troops to defend the city, this loss is unacceptable. It is a reasonable price to pay only if the odds of holding the city were not good. Much cheaper to rely on the ninjas.
Now there have been a number of battlefield desertions, but these are battlefield desertions, where the loss to the deserter is trivial. Here, as mentioned, Kubota is suffering huge losses from the loss of the city, even if Hinjo is suffering far more.

Xylon did cast cloister to seal the city off from the rest of the world this could mean two different things

But neither of these seem to explain why he bothered to cast cloister.

Quote:
Mostly irrelevant. The presence of magic, like the presence of a new technology, changes the tactics of war, not the principles.

We are talking about how a commander can understand/compensate the tactics use by the enemies. If a person never expose to such level of magic/technology, how do you compensate for that?
But Hinjo and company have been exposed to magic all their lives and for centuries before that. It is a normal part of their lives.

I was saying that Magic tends to change a lot of rules in battle. Depending on how much magic you have on your side (and other side) it could turn the tide of battle easily.
We can as easily say that having more tanks/planes/computers turns the tide of battle easily. Nothing here says magic makes a fantastic difference to war. It is just another tool.

Actually I was going more of the line of that people like US can't fanthom the world of magic.
That is the duty of the writer to make sure we can. Whether we are talking magic, SF, romance, mystery, or whatever, the writer has a duty to make us understand what is going on, and that which he hides, as in the mystery novel, is hidden for reasons we discover to be understandable. So to say we can't understand the situation is to say the writer has failed.

The commanders that we know of are dead (at least that we know) lots of soldier are inexperience (in terms of level) and thus may not have been expose to such level of magic. any officers on the field may also be limited and thus couldn't compensate for the situation.
They certainly had been exposed to magic. It was a routine part of their lives. Now that they have having trouble dealing with the situation is common enough whether or not magic is involved.

I think if Hinjo had a week or two (and the warning system works) Hinjo could have form a better defense rather than a hodge podge defense.
Very likely, but so? Even within his inferior position, Hinjo does poorly.

chibibar

2007-09-13, 05:35 PM

we cannot deny the DM because the rules states that allows DM to make up rules as needed or alter the rules.

How can we deny the DM just that?

Kreistor

2007-09-13, 09:32 PM

That is not an allowable defense. It simply means that we are both right and can't be proven wrong, since we each amount to the "DM". So we have to deny the DM the right to just make a decision, and require he follow the "rules" even when there are no rules.

And now yo're getting it. You're applying your rules to the Giant's game.

And which is the reasonable assumption?

You say that as if there's only one. There is often more than one reasonable solution to a problem. These can be based on the same or different assumptions. Assumptions are like playing the horses. Usually that one horse with the best record is going to win, so you bet on that horse. But all you've done is place a bet on the best odds in your opinion. Someone else may have noticed your horse often does poorly on Tuesday, so they'd say you're making the wrong bet. Reason is driven by perspective: a change of perception and what is reasonable completely changes.

They are pictured as standing there in each of the strips that gives us a view of the area. There is no picture of them leaving or entering the area, no reference to their having been engaged at all, much less that they are in need of any recovery. No evidence that ... In essence you are saying we have only an assumption that the room and everything in it still exists once we close the door and can't see inside it anymore. That may be true, but we go thru life on the assumption it is not.

Or the Giant was on a tight deadline and forgot to remove them. That isn't a picture -- it's just an artist's (key word artist, not military historian) impression of a battle in his own head. What he draws is not reliable evidence. Art is based on interpretation, and here, the artist's interpretation is not necessarily driven by your own perspective/knowledge/background.

We have the soldiers standing there. We need a reason why they can't be moved, not an excuse that is unsupported by any evidence.

Military command structures are designed to deal with such losses. The general is dead? Find the colonel and get his orders. He's dead too?

And who is now in charge? Looks like a sergeant to me. Hmmm... I wonder who all those higher level soldiers that died to the Death Knight in the breach were? Maybe the officers and experienced sergeants?

They were dead, David. All of them. Sergeants don't have authority to replace officers and can't issue orders outside their units. When all the officers are dead, the unit is on its own.

He should have been aware of the problem and making a response, really since 425, and aware of immediate problems since 441.

Hindsight is 20-20. Until 451, there is a general assault on all walls. See Badajoz for the importance of reinfocements everywhere. The moment the general assault is over, reinforcements can be redeployed, and in 452, we know they are on the way.

The man responsible, by definition, is Hinjo. He is the commander, and he takes full responsibility. If he loses some underling, it is his responsibility to make sure that underling can be quickly replaced.

Yes, he takes responsibility for the overall loss. He cannot be directly responsible for every event across the battlefield. Individual commanders are responsible for their regions, because information cannot be confered instantaneously across the battlefield. An officer is only directly responsible for a decision in which he took part.

The rank of our frontliner doesn't much matter here.

It's evidence that the command structure is nonexistent, since he lacks any rank insignia.

But even if we assume no message was sent, we need merely look at 450. See the open area behind the breech? See the orange in that area? This is information Hinjo should have had. He has and has had full reason to be sending reinforcements to the breech long before 452. Instead, he seems to only make plans to move troops around once things have quieted down.

Actually, in 446, there is a unit of reinforcements clearly headed for the breach. Look right above "I think we". Lined up parallel to the wall? Nope, so not standing in formation. Aimed at the breach? Pretty close to. Matching numbers with the enemy reinforcements? 36:35, so yep. Looks like reinforcements to me, and tailor made for the situation they faced. It really looks to me like they were on the ball, without Hinjo's intervention.

True and false. Soldiers flee, but they are a lot more likely to flee after a lot of fighting and not getting any support. The presence of fresh troops might well have bucked up their morale the needed amount.

"A lot more likely"? You still owe me a "percentage" link for proving certain claims about medieval kings on battlefields. Now you owe me a link proving why soldiers flee battlefields. Your opinion is not evidence.

I've never seen a story that matches with your particulars above. If it's so common, of course you can find one, can't you? Should be simple... a couple minutes on Wiki?

Unless, of course, you're just making it up. Which occurs to me as the possible reason you never acknowledged your own claim of knowing "percentages".

Fighting instead of retreating vs a superior foe at the ship? Trying to attack from an inferior position during that fight? Objecting to the retreat from that battle? It's not one bad day. It's every day and way.

We've done this one before. Go back and re-read old arguments.

David Argall

2007-09-14, 05:27 PM

And now yo're getting it. You're applying your rules to the Giant's game.
Incorrect and irrelevant. We are assumed to be able to know the writer's "rules" and that these rules are more or less the same as the 3.5 D&D rules. We accordingly can claim that the author is not following the rules, whether the official set or his own variations.

Quote:
And which is the reasonable assumption?

You say that as if there's only one. There is often more than one reasonable solution to a problem. These can be based on the same or different assumptions. Assumptions are like playing the horses. Usually that one horse with the best record is going to win, so you bet on that horse. But all you've done is place a bet on the best odds in your opinion. Someone else may have noticed your horse often does poorly on Tuesday, so they'd say you're making the wrong bet. Reason is driven by perspective: a change of perception and what is reasonable completely changes.
As the lawyer & judge would put it "Answer the question." Which is the reasonable assumption? And why?

Or the Giant was on a tight deadline and forgot to remove them. That isn't a picture -- it's just an artist's (key word artist, not military historian) impression of a battle in his own head. What he draws is not reliable evidence.
This amounts to dismissing all the evidence before us. On the basis of this logic, one can draw whatever absurd "conclusion" one wants.
No, we can't simply reject the evidence and draw what fancy we want.

And who is now in charge? Looks like a sergeant to me. Maybe the officers and experienced sergeants?

They were dead. All of them. Sergeants don't have authority to replace officers and can't issue orders outside their units. When all the officers are dead, the unit is on its own.
Now militarily, this is simply incorrect. There is a unit? Then each & every member of that unit may end up in command under the right circumstances. There is a general with 3 colonels reporting to him. He dies. The unit remains a unit and one of the 3 colonels assumes command of people he could not legally command before. The Colonels all die? Now some captain is in charge. They all die too? Now it may be some sargeant takes charge and is fully entitled to order everbody in that unit, whether or not either party even knew they existed previously. We can work our way down to two back rank buck privates. In theory, the chain of command would still exist and one could order the other around, whether the 1st is the full general or private.
So even if we assume all the officers are dead, it does not mean subunits are on their own. One of the survivors is the new commanding officer of that entire unit.
And as mentioned, one of his first actions is to report to Hinjo, both for help, and for appointment of a more suitable commander.

Hindsight is 20-20. Until 451, there is a general assault on all walls. The moment the general assault is over, reinforcements can be redeployed, and in 452, we know they are on the way.
No, you can not wait until it is convenient to do something. There is a weakness at the breech. It must be dealt with NOW. The enemy is making that inconvenient of course. Too bad. You still got to do that now.
The tactical information is still right before us. Hinjo had lots of reserves behind those attacked walls. Men standing around doing zip. It is clearly entirely possible to shift these men to the breech where they can do some good. This risks the walls being overrun? On the available evidence, the risk is low. And we can merely move part of the reserve and so reduce it even lower. But if the breech is not held, the city is lost, and it was lost. Those troops need to be moved.

Yes, he takes responsibility for the overall loss. He cannot be directly responsible for every event across the battlefield. Individual commanders are responsible for their regions, because information cannot be confered instantaneously across the battlefield. An officer is only directly responsible for a decision in which he took part.
Direct, indirect, he is still responsible. And so far we have plenty of evidence this was his direct responsibility. He had or could easily have line of sight to the breech and could see it was both under heavy attack and was running short of reserves. As supreme commander, it was his job to correct that.

It's evidence that the command structure is nonexistent, since he lacks any rank insignia.
With the exception of the general, nobody is shown as wearing any rank insignia. Hinjo is wearing standard paladin gear, as is one nameless paladin. The rest are all in generic uniform.
So the sargeants and the captains are simply not marked in the strip. They don't play an active enough role to be worth the trouble of distinguishing for us. They are there, and we can't tell whether V is talking to a sargeant, captain, or colonel. Not that it matters. He is presumably the one in charge, and thus counts the same as the general did.

Actually, in 446, there is a unit of reinforcements clearly headed for the breach. Looks like reinforcements to me, and tailor made for the situation they faced.
Not at all. This would seem to be the last of the reserve posted behind this section of the wall. Note in particular all the open space around this, the most vital part of the battle for the wall. Note the orange on the wrong side of the wall. This calls for lots of troops there fast, not one minor unit that barely matches enemy support.

"A lot more likely"? Your opinion is not evidence.
Do you wish to claim it is not more likely?

I've never seen a story that matches with your particulars above.
The particulars are a-exactly what happened in the strip. So you are saying what happened in the strip could not happen?
And/or b-More troops were moved into a position and it held. We do not need to research this to know it has happened frequently. So you would be saying here that you have seen the story of very few battles indeed.

Or perhaps you would like to explain what particulars you have in mind?

We've done this one before. Go back and re-read old arguments.
Done and done. Now present any of that that reflects well on Hinjo's ability as a commander.
He is brave, in fact far too brave. But his decisions as a commander consistently require others to pull his irons out of the fire. He is consistently blundering, and lucky to survive.

Kreistor

2007-09-14, 06:31 PM

Done and done. Now present any of that that reflects well on Hinjo's ability as a commander.

Yes, master. Anything you ask, master. Bah, you read nothing.

I'm not interested in rehashing the same argument. Time to shelve this one and let it die.

Daimbert

2007-09-15, 06:22 AM

Now it is not clear just what the exact timing is here. And the arrival of Hinjo and Durkon at the breech would have meant almost zero, unless they had a couple of hundred troops with them, troops that would not have been stopped by the huecuva even if it was stopping Hinjo.
However, the point is that the support should have been there long before the enemy charged. As fresh troops, they would have had a much better chance of making the morale save, and of boosting the save of the troops already there.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that we aren't clear on what the exact timing is. Even if simultaneous, those two factors were why the breach fell. The precise timing doesn't matter.

If Hinjo had arrived -- even on his own, but there's no reason to think that there WEREN'T other reinforcements with him since Hinjo clearly moves much faster than his support when mounted -- then his presence would have lifted the morale and avoided the desertions, making it more likely that the area would have held. It isn't HIS fault that he was needed elsewhere before that to repel ladder attacks on the walls.

As for the "fresh troops", other than the troops on the walls (which would take time to move and leave those areas open to ladder assaults) the only other troops I see are the ones right in front of the gates to the castle ... who are CLEARLY there as a last-gasp defense of the castle in case something breaks through. The ninja attack that opens the gates circumvents that defense, but shifting troops from THERE to defend the breach would leave the castle underdefended should there be a breakthrough ANYWHERE on the walls.

The breech, by reason of being a breech, was far from reasonably secure. It was the obvious weak point to attack.

And yet, Hinjo's presence is required elsewhere to repel hobgoblins that are ACTUALLY ON THE WALLS, while V's trick with the giant soldiers seems to be working well enough that V claims he can hold the breach for the rest of the day. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0436.html

Yeah, sure it was not reasonably secure and was the obvious weak point.

Moreover, if we say Hinjo was aware of V devoting himself to wall defense instead of lich fighting, we are saying an excuse of later ignorance will not stand.

I think I need a translation here.

V's original post was with Hinjo. When he went off to fight the elementals, he stayed at the breach. Hinjo is well-aware of this because Roy and Haley STANDING BESIDE HIM are aware of this. In general, he can indeed SEE the breach (or at least know what's going on with it). And when the giant soliders fail and the whole army rushes it, Hinjo rushes to the breach. So where is the ignorance?

This was crucial for the OOTS, which was to find and fight the lich. For Hinjo, it was a side point.

No, it wasn't their role to find and fight the lich ... it was to go where they were most needed, as per the elementals: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0424.html

I will concede that there's no mention of having to shift military resources to Xykon's position, and no one mentions that. But since at that time there were three potential Xykons with armies moving towards various points on the wall, moving forces from any area on the wall would just be an invitation to leave Xykon an open march on the city, meaning that the OotS couldn't get there in time to stop him anyway.

Does not follow. Hinjo moves around on top of the wall, but not in particular away from the breech.

I think you're taking that too literally. My point is that he doesn't rush to reinforce the breach BECAUSE IT DOESN'T NEED IT at that point. He rushes to another area on the wall to prevent attacks from ladders, where hobgoblins ARE BREAKING THROUGH. And this isn't AT the breach because he and Durkon have to RETURN to the breach when the army swarms it.

The picture is consistent with that of Hinjo having too narrow a vision. He deems himself more useful if he moves around to different places, but these are all within a fairly small area. He appears with each of the surviving OOTS members except for V. All consistent with the breech having more or less fallen out of his vision.

He IS more useful if he moves around to different places, since many of those places were under heavier direct attack when he arrives there: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0433.html

He's a rallying point and an exceptionally strong fighter, thus having a potential impact on a defended position equivalent to Aragorn from the LOTR movies [grin]. We don't know how small an area that he moves around in, but it is enough that he can't return to the breach quickly, and is at least as far apart as Xykon's attacking armies. So about as small an area as required, I suppose. And the breach clearly HASN'T fallen out of his vision since he attempts to return to it later when it clearly becomes the area most at risk, which only occurs AFTER the giant soldiers are killed and the rest of the army pulls back to charge it.

We have no evidence that Hinjo even considered this. And even if he did, that merely changes the nature of the error he makes. If he will be unable to issue the needed orders, he needs to have someone who can.

First, that reasoning is consistent with Hinjo's role in the battle (he moved around quite a bit, as did the OotS who were originally assigned to his position) and his personality, so it isn't a stretch to claim that that is what he is doing.

Second, there is no evidence that there WASN'T someone still able to make those decisions, even if he wasn't. It is clear from the breach comics that there are experienced generals in other positions in the city. But then again, your reasoning here relies on the orders that weren't given being the ones that had to be given, but that's part of the argument that we're having, so this can't be called an error on his part or make him a bad commander.

As long as Hinjo might have had a good reason for not moving troops to the breach, it doesn't make him a bad commander for not moving them there -- even if that decision turns out to be wrong. Good commanders make mistakes, since they aren't omniscient and can't predict all outcomes. And I've listed reasons why reinforcing the breach -- at the time -- wasn't necessarily a smart decision.

Since the issue is the placement of large numbers of grunts, this is not to the point.

One of the complaints was about how Hinjo "led from the front" instead of from a more observatory role. My comment refutes that by pointing out that Hinjo was where his skills and abilities were most useful: leading a group of tough reinforcements that can quickly react to pressure points with PC-classed abilities.

A large number of troops could have easily been moved to the breech. Doing so would have obviously increased the chance of the breech holding. No such order was carried out and the breech fell. We have a default case for his doing badly.
Hinjo is a great guy, but a lousy commander.

And might very well have lost other positions on the wall, or drained troops from the defense of the castle directly in case a breakthrough happened anywhere else.

Basically, you are claiming that Hinjo was a lousy commander because YOU have tunnel vision about the breach being the absolutely most important thing to defend. But even the walls aren't as important to hold as the castle or GATE, which Hinjo knows. Your strategy would possibly have defended the breach ... but the hobgoblins would have still broken through. In one of the comics listed above, hobgoblins ARE ARRIVING ON THE WALLS. If Hinjo hadn't arrived to defend that area, they would have swarmed the city ... while V was in a comfortable enough position to insist that he could hold the breach for the entire day. Good choice, reinforcing the (currently) more secure position ...

There are several differences here. The big one is that whereas the OOTS is useful, Hinjo is vital. He dies, the war is lost. Hobgoblins or Kubota, the city ends up under the control of the wrong sort. Without him, there is little the OOTS can do, except repair and head to the next gate. Waiting for him is far more sensible than waiting for the OOTS.

I will concede one thing: Hinjo does not seem to be aware of how important HE, personally, actually is. This does not make him a bad commander, since for most of his life he's been the number 2 guy (to Shojo politically and Miko militarily). He's not used to being the most important person in the city, and so he sometimes acts like he isn't. But with time to grow into his role, he'll accept that.

Right now, though, he's still mostly doing what his skills best suit him to do.

On the other end of the math, the danger of staying was constantly increasing. Waiting for Hinjo only risked small bands that could be beaten off. Waiting for the missing OOTS people risked overwhelming force.
Do the math. Axe was about 100 times as sensible in staying as Hinjo was.

So, your argument is that we should trust Axe's opinion of his commander because Axe -- while stupid -- isn't as stupid as Hinjo is [grin]?

Besides, you have no evidence that Axe wouldn't have stayed in the same situation as Hinjo did if he had to wait for Hinjo. The evidence is that he would, since he is presented as being obsessed with his duty to wait for Hinjo.

And IN ADDITION, there is no evidence that Axe thinks that Hinjo is a bad commander ... just, perhaps, too dedicated to his ideals to preserve his own life, which is Axe's main duty.

And one of those concerns is that Hinjo is a bad commander. His attitude here is much the same as if Hinjo was a child-commander of 5 or so. The commander must be saved, and the competence of the commander does not enter into that.

And his attitude is the same as if Hinjo was the greatest general in existence, since Axe's duty is to preserve Hinjo's life at all costs -- whether or not he thinks he's intelligent or an idiot.

Look, all of your claims in this instance basically come down to criticizing Hinjo for being an AGGRESSIVE commander. But an aggressive commander is not a bad one, and Hinjo does indeed respect Axe's reasoning and doesn't order the ships to turn back once started. Should he have done it earlier? Perhaps. But that is neither here nor there ...

T.Titan

2007-09-15, 07:21 AM

Quite the opposite. If we take the assumption he can retake the city, we have to explain where an army of 30,000 or more is, and why it has not been used.
If we assume that Kubota is lying, and just is betting the hobgoblins will leave on their own, we don't need that army at all, just explain why a man would lie, a very routine event and easily done.
Occam's Razor calls for the simpler explanation, which is the one that doesn't require an army that has behaved strangely.

Lying?! Why would the Ninja (Kubota never said it on screen, you're just assuming he did) lie to someone about to be dead?

See, i'm assuming that the troops of all the lords that left are numerous enough to stand a chance against the hobgoblins and so is Kubota, while you're assuming that a 30k strong hobgoblin army that had traveled enough to switch cardinal points would be seen as nothing more then a raiding party that would just move on in less then a week and then lie about it to everyone hoping it will happen.
I'm also assuming that Hinjo wouldn't even think about starting to plan to retake the city with only 1000 troops and civilians while you think that he's such a bad commander the he would....

So where he could not overwhelm 10,000 troops before, he is now able to beat 20,000?

Did you actually read what i said?! He wouldn't stand alone against the army of 20000. And if he has just 1000 troops of his own what makes you think there aren't 20 other lords with their own troops?

If he had around 1000 troops. Losing the city is very expensive for Kubota even if he is able to ship off a lot of his men and goodies. Kubota manor is likely being burned to the ground as we discuss this. If he had enough troops to defend the city, this loss is unacceptable. It is a reasonable price to pay only if the odds of holding the city were not good. Much cheaper to rely on the ninjas.
Now there have been a number of battlefield desertions, but these are battlefield desertions, where the loss to the deserter is trivial. Here, as mentioned, Kubota is suffering huge losses from the loss of the city, even if Hinjo is suffering far more.

Then why was it such a big deal that the nobles left the city if their forces were so crappy?! Killing Hinjo with ninjas would have worked just the same with Kubota in the city and he wouldn't have risked his manor being torched. The only difference is that it's easier to assume command of a force when it's not spread out and in combat.

David Argall

2007-09-15, 08:42 PM

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that we aren't clear on what the exact timing is. Even if simultaneous, those two factors were why the breach fell. The precise timing doesn't matter.
Probably not, but I was trying to give your argument the breaks. If we take the default assumption, of 453 happening after 452, then your argument fails. Hinjo's rush to the breech was too late, and useless, and his battle with the undead is not a factor. If we say simultaneous, we reach the same conclusion. Hinjo was not going to reach the breech in time to do anything serious.
So for your argument to have any chance, 453 must have happened before 452 [or technically during the very early part of 452]. This is on the face of it suspicious, but hardly impossible. The comic does jump around in time at times.
But even then the argument fails. The undead would not have delayed the lesser supporters at all, and delayed Hinjo by no more than a minute.

If Hinjo had arrived -- even on his own, but there's no reason to think that there WEREN'T other reinforcements with him since Hinjo clearly moves much faster than his support when mounted
Support that would have arrived after Hinjo is pretty futile, given it is already doubtful Hinjo can get there before the breech falls.

-- then his presence would have lifted the morale and avoided the desertions, making it more likely that the area would have held.
Quite possibly, but there is nothing Hinjo alone can do for the breech that Hinjo and a few hundred grunts could not do, and the grunts never got there.

It isn't HIS fault that he was needed elsewhere before that to repel ladder attacks on the walls.
a-Hinjo is the commander. Everything, down to the smallest detail, is his fault. He is barely excused from what he physically can't prevent. He is definitely not excused from any judgement call of his.
b-Just what is the proof that he was needed on the walls? About all we have is Hinjo's opinion, and the quality of Hinjo's opinion is what we are discussing. It can't be used to support itself.
c-We have the evidence of Redcloak that the walls were not in any great danger of being overrun. He ignores reports of heavy losses by the hobgoblins and counters he expects such. They are not important. When he decides to change his plans, it is to abandon the attack on the walls, not even to consider if there is a way to get over the walls.
d-history and common sense tell us the breech was the place Hinjo was needed at. It's not a 100% bet of course, but once a breech is created, that is the center of the battle thereafter, and usually why the fort falls.

the only other troops I see are the ones right in front of the gates to the castle ... who are CLEARLY there as a last-gasp defense of the castle in case something breaks through.
Observe 422. Hardly the only example, but probably the clearest at showing us line after line of troops behind the wall, and not around the castle. They extend far beyond the castle in both directions, and leave vacant all but the front wall of the castle. So no, these troops are there to defend the wall. The castle is assumed to be able to take care of itself.

shifting troops from THERE to defend the breach would leave the castle underdefended should there be a breakthrough ANYWHERE on the walls.
Shifting troops from where there might be a breakthru to where there will be one sounds like a pretty clear choice.

And yet, Hinjo's presence is required elsewhere to repel hobgoblins that are ACTUALLY ON THE WALLS, while V's trick with the giant soldiers seems to be working well enough that V claims he can hold the breach for the rest of the day. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0436.html
V is a mage, not a military genius. And even by mage standards, this was a setup joke. One says something and is instantly proven wrong. V makes this bragging claim, to a skeptical general who actually makes any report to Hinjo, and the next moment, the defense falls apart.
V's magic defense was heavily using minute per level stuff. So it was not only not going to hold for the rest of the day, it wasn't even going to last close to an hour.

Yeah, sure it was not reasonably secure and was the obvious weak point.
One point, there is a 10' wall. All other points a 50' wall. Where do you think the weak point is?

I think I need a translation here.
A standard defense of Hinjo neglect of the breech is that he wasn't aware of the problems of the breech, say because the general was killed and could not report to Hinjo. While this defense is weak of itself, it is simply negated by your claim that Hinjo could see the breech and make judgements based on his direct observation.

And when the giant soliders fail and the whole army rushes it, Hinjo rushes to the breach.
You have some event mixing here. There was a major gap in time between the fall of the giant soldiers, 439, and the grand charge, 452. Even if we forgivingly assume Hinjo should not have been shifting troops to the breech from the very moment it was created, we see the need to be shifting long before the big attack.

I think you're taking that too literally. My point is that he doesn't rush to reinforce the breach BECAUSE IT DOESN'T NEED IT at that point.
What makes you think so? As noted, this evidence seems to be largely that Hinjo acted as if it didn't need it.

He rushes to another area on the wall to prevent attacks from ladders, where hobgoblins ARE BREAKING THROUGH.
This is mostly to be deemed artistic license. However, the picture of 446 tells us that the enemy is in fact breaking thru there far more than it is breaking thru at the walls.

And this isn't AT the breach because he and Durkon have to RETURN to the breach when the army swarms it.
Durkon and Hinjo were never at the breech, so they could hardly return to it.

He IS more useful if he moves around to different places, since many of those places were under heavier direct attack when he arrives there: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0433.html
Again, this is just an assertion. Riding around may or may not be more than a whimsical choice. And it can be superior, if it is, for reasons unrelated to the degree of attack. He gets to use his doggie when riding for one, and he may well have some quite useful riding feats. If you have played much 3.5 D&D, you probably have seen the absurd lengths a horseman will go to to arrange a charge or other way to make his mount useful, and you have probably seen such calvary do fantastic damage when they pull it off.

there is no evidence that there WASN'T someone still able to make those decisions, even if he wasn't.
Given that we do have Hinjo issuing orders, we have to doubt there was anybody else.

As long as Hinjo might have had a good reason for not moving troops to the breach, it doesn't make him a bad commander for not moving them there -- even if that decision turns out to be wrong.
This is the plea of the defense attorney. He might have had a good reason? I might have had a good reason for going 99 mph past a school, with a blond in one hand and a bottle in the other. You don't bother listening and just send me to the clink.
The policy failed. That he might have had a good reason is nowhere good enough. We need positive evidence that he did have a very good reason.

Good commanders make mistakes, since they aren't omniscient and can't predict all outcomes. And I've listed reasons why reinforcing the breach -- at the time -- wasn't necessarily a smart decision.
And as asked elsewhere, where has Hinjo not made mistakes?

One of the complaints was about how Hinjo "led from the front" instead of from a more observatory role. My comment refutes that by pointing out that Hinjo was where his skills and abilities were most useful: leading a group of tough reinforcements that can quickly react to pressure points with PC-classed abilities.

Even by this standard, Hinjo is misplaced. That breech was where such heroics would have been most useful.
But the basic idea is simply wrong. You do not want your commander distracted by frontline action. For one thing, you end up with what did happen. Hinjo took care of his part of the front, and let the rest take care of itself. Only when the situation was beyond recovery did he try to support the rest of the front. A reasonable position for a sub-commander, and lousy for a commander.

And might very well have
Might, might, might... The Heavens might have opened up and the gods came down to help the city too.

In one of the comics listed above, hobgoblins ARE ARRIVING ON THE WALLS.
And in 446, the hobs are way beyond the walls at the breech.

If Hinjo hadn't arrived to defend that area, they would have swarmed the city ...
This is purely a claim. All the evidence we have rejects it as anything but fancy.

while V was in a comfortable enough position to insist that he could hold the breach for the entire day.
About a round later, V was in danger of losing breech and life.

Right now, though, he's still mostly doing what his skills best suit him to do.[/QUOTE]
That would seem to say he is a lousy commander. He is using his melee skills instead of his command skills.

you have no evidence that Axe wouldn't have stayed in the same situation as Hinjo did if he had to wait for Hinjo. The evidence is that he would, since he is presented as being obsessed with his duty to wait for Hinjo.
Now, I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here, but it appears you are trying to compare apples and oranges [or perhaps top quality apples to wormy rejects]. Hinjo is just more important to the cause. So of course Axe waits for him far beyond what Hinjo should wait.

there is no evidence that Axe thinks that Hinjo is a bad commander ... just, perhaps, too dedicated to his ideals to preserve his own life,
So the only comment on record is criticism of Hinjo's decisions? We have no praise whatsoever? That says all of our evidence says Axe thinks Hinjo a bad commander.

And his attitude is the same as if Hinjo was the greatest general in existence, since Axe's duty is to preserve Hinjo's life at all costs -- whether or not he thinks he's intelligent or an idiot.
Not at all. If he thought Hinjo a genius, he would not be criticizing Hinjo. Indeed, he might insist on staying at the dock. If we say Hinjo is brilliant, we obey his orders even when they look suicidal. He "obviously" has some deep plan we dare not upset.

Look, all of your claims in this instance basically come down to criticizing Hinjo for being an AGGRESSIVE commander. But an aggressive commander is not a bad one,
Not necessarily a bad one. But aggressive generals have lost a great many wars by attacking superior forces, indeed abandoning good defensive positions to do so. And at the ship, we see Hinjo doing just that sort of thing, to be rescued by Axe's caution.

And Hinjo's flaw at the wall was not particularly being aggressive, tho that made his error easier to make. Rather he simply didn't understand he was commander in chief, not the sub-commander defending section 5. When section 1 suffered the breech, he simply let them deal with it instead of sending support.

and Hinjo does indeed respect Axe's reasoning and doesn't order the ships to turn back once started. Should he have done it earlier? Perhaps. But that is neither here nor there ...
That one should have done something earlier is very much here and there. We do not forgive the man who locks the barn door after the horse gets out.
Proof that one is not a flaming idiot is not proof that one is not an idiot. We can hope that Hinjo is learning, but whether or not he is, he acknowledges that his staying at the dock was a bad idea. On the available evidence, Hinjo is a bad commander.

Lying?! Why would the Ninja lie to someone about to be dead?
He wouldn't. He would merely repeat the lie Kubota had told him. And Kubota assumes the ninja, or his superior more likely, will survive the assassination.

i'm assuming that the troops of all the lords that left are numerous enough to stand a chance against the hobgoblins and so is Kubota, [/QUOTE]
Not at all plausible. in 414, Kubota describes this as a war the city might lose. That was with the advantage of the main city army, and the wall. Now both are gone. The idea the nobles can now charge in and take over is just not real. There just can't be even 5000 troops following the nobles.

you're assuming that a 30k strong hobgoblin army that had traveled enough to switch cardinal points would be seen as nothing more then a raiding party that would just move on in less then a week
Why not? This is all humanoids have been seen as for centuries. This may be the largest such attack in centuries, but it would fit the mold. Note too that this is also the opinion of Roy, who expresses that opinion to Kubota.

and then lie about it to everyone hoping it will happen.
Kubota is a politician. Why shouldn't he tell a lie that makes him look good?

Hinjo wouldn't even think about starting to plan to retake the city with only 1000 troops and civilians while you think that he's such a bad commander the he would....
Hinjo was talking about attacking 20,000 hobgoblins with a force of eight, count them, 8, people. Attacking a force that outnumbers him a mere 20-1? Of course he considers the idea. He likely will try to get additional forces from wherever, but he's a paladin. So he's heavily outnumbered and has been way outgeneraled, the bravery of the paladin in the cause of good will triumph.

if he has just 1000 troops of his own what makes you think there aren't 20 other lords with their own troops?
For the same basic reason. If the defenders could muster these 30,000 troops, the nobles would not have fled from the hobgoblins in the first place.

Quote:
Losing the city is very expensive for Kubota even if he is able to ship off a lot of his men and goodies. Kubota manor is likely being burned to the ground as we discuss this. If he had enough troops to defend the city, this loss is unacceptable. It is a reasonable price to pay only if the odds of holding the city were not good. Much cheaper to rely on the ninjas.
Now there have been a number of battlefield desertions, but these are battlefield desertions, where the loss to the deserter is trivial. Here, as mentioned, Kubota is suffering huge losses from the loss of the city, even if Hinjo is suffering far more.

Then why was it such a big deal that the nobles left the city if their forces were so crappy?!
Because their forces were so crappy. If they stayed in the city, they would share Hinjo's fate. If they fled, they survived no matter what happened to Hinjo. Their forces, individually at least, just were not going to be vital. Win or lose, retreating was the better choice for them.

Now you may be asking about 414 and why Hinjo was working to keep them at the defenses. But even if we assume noble forces total a thousand or two, they are a useful addition to his army. So they are worth the effort to keep them.

Killing Hinjo with ninjas would have worked just the same with Kubota in the city and he wouldn't have risked his manor being torched.
This is true if he assumes the city will survive the seige. Since he did flee, we conclude Kubota felt there was a major chance the city would fall, as he says in 414, and as it did. So we conclude that Kubota had no army that could offer much hope of swaying the battle.

Daimbert

2007-09-22, 11:16 AM

Probably not, but I was trying to give your argument the breaks. If we take the default assumption, of 453 happening after 452, then your argument fails. Hinjo's rush to the breech was too late, and useless, and his battle with the undead is not a factor. If we say simultaneous, we reach the same conclusion. Hinjo was not going to reach the breech in time to do anything serious.
So for your argument to have any chance, 453 must have happened before 452 [or technically during the very early part of 452]. This is on the face of it suspicious, but hardly impossible. The comic does jump around in time at times.
But even then the argument fails. The undead would not have delayed the lesser supporters at all, and delayed Hinjo by no more than a minute.

Assume that the desertions didn't happen, or that Hinjo got there before they did (with no other troops). Hinjo rallies the troops, personally leads the defense, and uses his significant melee skills to oppose the mostly non-PC classed army (Redcloak is the main exception, and the only one that might be a problem). His reinforcements and the other reinforcements arrive, and maybe the breach holds.

Assume that he is on his way and the desertions don't happen. They hold the wall long enough to Hinjo to arrive. See above.

Either way, even if Hinjo arrives late or without his troops, he could do something at the breach that might help hold it -- if the desertions don't happen. But they did, meaning that the breach would not hold. But even if they hadn't, it might not -- and likely would not -- have held without Hinjo arriving to buttress it.

a-Hinjo is the commander. Everything, down to the smallest detail, is his fault. He is barely excused from what he physically can't prevent. He is definitely not excused from any judgement call of his.

You miss the point. The point is that he WAS needed elsewhere. That was a reaction to Redcloak's plans. You can't fault him for having to react to Redcloak's strategy and its successes without insisting that he should have known about it ahead of time. And the fact that Hinjo was fighting off a surge of attackers ON THE WALL that was serious enough that it was being covered by Elan and Haley as well seems to suggest two things: a) that the breach wasn't the biggest problem area at the time and b) that Hinjo fighting there was, in fact, the RIGHT reaction to Redcloak's strategy.

b-Just what is the proof that he was needed on the walls? About all we have is Hinjo's opinion, and the quality of Hinjo's opinion is what we are discussing. It can't be used to support itself.

Oops, just answered that. The fact that he was indeed fighting there with Haley and Elan and Durkon and they were still hard pressed pretty much supports that. Where is your evidence that the killing he WAS doing was unnecessary? It isn't Hinjo's opinion I'm using, but his actions, which are killing a LOT of hobgoblin soldiers.

c-We have the evidence of Redcloak that the walls were not in any great danger of being overrun. He ignores reports of heavy losses by the hobgoblins and counters he expects such. They are not important. When he decides to change his plans, it is to abandon the attack on the walls, not even to consider if there is a way to get over the walls.

The "heavy losses" were EVERYWHERE in the assault, not just at the breach. And his new plan is to focus all of his forces on the weakest part of the wall, which is the breach (we agree). Unfortunately, the AC forces are forced into a reactive strategy based on Redcloak's strategy, which means that they can only react to what he does. But note that even in the "reinforcements will arrive in 10 minutes" comic, it is stated that since the hobgoblin forces have pulled back from the south wall that forces can be shifted. So they couldn't have shifted those forces until the attack was repelled, and shifted them immediately when it was. So it sounds like they are pretty much doing what you want, but only when it is safe to do so. You seem to be criticizing him for making the RIGHT choice; reinforce the breach to the extent that it doesn't cripple the defense against the other attacks.

d-history and common sense tell us the breech was the place Hinjo was needed at. It's not a 100% bet of course, but once a breech is created, that is the center of the battle thereafter, and usually why the fort falls.

Except that it wasn't the center of the battle in this instance, as Redcloak was assaulting three areas of the wall (which includes the breach) with equal forces. And you still continue to ignore that until the death knight roared up the ramp it was the most secure area on the wall ... and only that specific event made it even weak.

Observe 422. Hardly the only example, but probably the clearest at showing us line after line of troops behind the wall, and not around the castle. They extend far beyond the castle in both directions, and leave vacant all but the front wall of the castle. So no, these troops are there to defend the wall. The castle is assumed to be able to take care of itself.

See 454, where there are a number of troops lined up before the gates of the palace, which were likely there before hand (since we had a guard at the winch). See also 452, where the Captain implies that the available reinforcements are dependent on the fact that the attack on the southern end has been repelled. It is therefore safe to assume that the available troops that could have been shifted to the breach were, even if the art doesn't necessarily reflect that.

V is a mage, not a military genius. And even by mage standards, this was a setup joke. One says something and is instantly proven wrong. V makes this bragging claim, to a skeptical general who actually makes any report to Hinjo, and the next moment, the defense falls apart.
V's magic defense was heavily using minute per level stuff. So it was not only not going to hold for the rest of the day, it wasn't even going to last close to an hour.

Note that even that general thinks that so far things are indeed secure; his main concern is that there is some OTHER tactic that they could use, since he notes that if they are continuing their seemingly failing tactics it is usually for a reason. And they are, building the ramp of corpses for the death knight. But without that knowledge, things seem secure. And that is in fact what the general is skeptical about: things seem too secure for the hobgoblins to continue using the tactic they are using.

So, yes, it is indeed a set-up joke, but it illustrates my point: EVERYONE thinks that things seem quite secure. That's what worries the general. The DK attack changes that in a hurry (hence the next one being titled Battle Momentum).

A standard defense of Hinjo neglect of the breech is that he wasn't aware of the problems of the breech, say because the general was killed and could not report to Hinjo. While this defense is weak of itself, it is simply negated by your claim that Hinjo could see the breech and make judgements based on his direct observation.

Well, that's not my defense, and we know that he can because they send V out to the elementals, implying that he can at least see to at least that level. I'm not sure how much information he had, but it was enough for some basic idea.

You have some event mixing here. There was a major gap in time between the fall of the giant soldiers, 439, and the grand charge, 452. Even if we forgivingly assume Hinjo should not have been shifting troops to the breech from the very moment it was created, we see the need to be shifting long before the big attack.

And in that time frame it is made clear by the Captain that they COULDN'T ... the attacks on the other areas of the city didn't allow for it.

What makes you think so? As noted, this evidence seems to be largely that Hinjo acted as if it didn't need it.

The fact that Hinjo is fighting hobgoblins on the wall in the other area at about the same time as the Captain tells the general that things are going pretty well so far (right before the DK storms it)? I mean, I don't see how it can be any clearer.

This is mostly to be deemed artistic license. However, the picture of 446 tells us that the enemy is in fact breaking thru there far more than it is breaking thru at the walls.

Yes, but that's AFTER the giant soldiers have been killed, at which point it became vulnerable. And note that THEY STILL HELD THE BREACH until the charge later (right before the charge, they kill those troops). There's no reason to think that they could break off from the other areas in time to help, or that doing that wouldn't have simply allowed those assaults to succeed mostly unopposed.

Your main point seems to be that because the breach FELL it was the area in most need of troops, but none of the evidence of the battle indicates that at LEAST before the DK attack and maybe not until the final charge.

Durkon and Hinjo were never at the breech, so they could hardly return to it.

This is a bit of a nitpick, no? You DO know what I meant, right?

Again, this is just an assertion. Riding around may or may not be more than a whimsical choice. And it can be superior, if it is, for reasons unrelated to the degree of attack. He gets to use his doggie when riding for one, and he may well have some quite useful riding feats. If you have played much 3.5 D&D, you probably have seen the absurd lengths a horseman will go to to arrange a charge or other way to make his mount useful, and you have probably seen such calvary do fantastic damage when they pull it off.

This is completely tangential to what I was commenting on. Even without the mount, Hinjo is one of the best melee fighters in the city, and with all of the paladins in the throne room, his place is on the wall, using his mount to move between areas on the wall as demanded, and using his strong melee abilities to combat hobgoblins. Considering that AC has other, more experienced generals for Hinjo to stand back and "observe" the battle and give orders WOULD be an incompetent battle strategy. His place was where he was, doing what he was. If there was a failure of general strategy, it was a failure at another level, for which he cannot be blamed. But from all I can see, that wasn't the case.

This is the plea of the defense attorney. He might have had a good reason? I might have had a good reason for going 99 mph past a school, with a blond in one hand and a bottle in the other. You don't bother listening and just send me to the clink.
The policy failed. That he might have had a good reason is nowhere good enough. We need positive evidence that he did have a very good reason.

And I've been giving all of that, so this blanket rejection is out of place. Again, you seem to be more focusing on how it turned out to be wrong than whether or not it made sense at the time. I have seen limited reasons from you that it didn't make sense at the time other than "Breach == bad".

Even by this standard, Hinjo is misplaced. That breech was where such heroics would have been most useful.
But the basic idea is simply wrong. You do not want your commander distracted by frontline action.

And you don't want to stick your best melee fighter in the back. So what a smart commander does it pass the overall view off to an experienced subcommander and fight from the front if they are the best melee fighter available. And you make that melee commander mobile so that they can aid at more areas than at an assigned position. Gee, that's what they did.

Hinjo is, I will agree, an inexperienced and thus less skilled overall commander. He is far more useful as a melee combatant based on his skills and that fact. He did what he needed to do, and that was clearly the right decision to make at the time, as far as I can tell. He's in the right spot.

This is purely a claim. All the evidence we have rejects it as anything but fancy.

Because it isn't reasonable to think that if Belkar can sit by a ladder going "Duck, duck, duck, GOOSE!" that they were getting onto the walls faster than the troops could kill them or push the ladders down? Please.

That would seem to say he is a lousy commander. He is using his melee skills instead of his command skills.

And Hinjo is a better melee combatant than a commander. This we'll agree upon. But Hinjo is an EXCEPTIONAL melee combatant, so that doesn't make him a BAD commander; he could just as easily be merely an AVERAGE one.

Now, I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here, but it appears you are trying to compare apples and oranges [or perhaps top quality apples to wormy rejects]. Hinjo is just more important to the cause. So of course Axe waits for him far beyond what Hinjo should wait.

Since I conceded that Hinjo simply doesn't accept that he is as important as he actually is (but pointed out that it is so new to him that that isn't unexpected) this isn't relevant.

So the only comment on record is criticism of Hinjo's decisions? We have no praise whatsoever? That says all of our evidence says Axe thinks Hinjo a bad commander.

No, it says that Axe thinks that Hinjo too often gets into heroics that may kill him, and that Axe's main thought is to safe Hinjo. Basically, that Hinjo is an aggressive -- perhaps excessively aggressive -- and honourable commander (since he was waiting for Haley and Belkar at least in part because he said he would).

Hinjo, basically, seems to be no worse a commander than most paladins would be. YES, he needs some experience, especially at reconciling the two roles, but so far he was a SUFFICIENT commander. Note that one of his reasons for staying is TO kill Redcloak while he had a reasonable chance of doing so (RC low on spells and in the open). He attacks RC because he is within reach, not because of any insult RC made.

Not at all. If he thought Hinjo a genius, he would not be criticizing Hinjo. Indeed, he might insist on staying at the dock. If we say Hinjo is brilliant, we obey his orders even when they look suicidal. He "obviously" has some deep plan we dare not upset.

And he DOES stay ... until the disintegrate, at which point he thinks "His plan has clearly failed, Hinjo is out of commision for a while so he can't say otherwise, and if we don't leave now we may never leave". He also KNOWS that his plan is mostly to wait for the "Northerners" to return, which doesn't seem plausible at that point, and knows that killing RC isn't going to happen. There might have been other reasons, but Axe would still justify it on "And Hinjo's life is more important than any other military objective". He would do this whether he thought Hinjo was the greatest commander ever (which he isn't) or the worst commander in existence (which he isn't either).

David Argall

2007-09-22, 05:03 PM

Assume that the desertions didn't happen,
But we can't assume that without giving them a reason not to desert. Support arriving before they see the charge for example. Whether troops or Hinjo himself, they need to be in place, not just promised when 452 happens.

The point is that he WAS needed elsewhere.
It is your assertion he was needed. What is the actual evidence?

And the fact that Hinjo was fighting off a surge of attackers ON THE WALL that was serious enough that it was being covered by Elan and Haley as well seems to suggest two things: a) that the breach wasn't the biggest problem area at the time and b) that Hinjo fighting there was, in fact, the RIGHT reaction to Redcloak's strategy.
Does not follow. His fighting on the wall merely says there is a problem at the wall. And on the available evidence, it was the wrong reaction to Redcloak's strategy, in fact falling into a trap. Redcloak made a feint at the walls. Hinjo reacts to the feint and leaves himself vulnerable to the real attack at the breech.

The fact that he was indeed fighting there with Haley and Elan and Durkon and they were still hard pressed pretty much supports that. Where is your evidence that the killing he WAS doing was unnecessary? It isn't Hinjo's opinion I'm using, but his actions,
Hinjo's actions are based on his opinion.
That they were hard pressed seems a bit doubtful when we consider 438. Granted, paladins are the type to stop fighting to enforce some petty regulation, but it still fits poorly with "hard pressed".
And the available evidence continues to be that the breech was harder pressed. We have enemy on the walls. The breech has enemy past the walls. The walls have lines of troops behind them in each comic, doing nothing but stand there. We see empty space behind the breech. We have Redcloak saying he expected the attacks on the walls to fail and was not surprised that they are failing.
The walls may have been a problem. The breech was a PROBLEM.

the weakest part of the wall, which is the breach (we agree).
But Hinjo has not focused his troops on the weakest part of the wall, again an error in command.

Unfortunately, the AC forces are forced into a reactive strategy based on Redcloak's strategy, which means that they can only react to what he does.
You can adapt a reactive strategy, but you are not forced into it. By all our evidence, Hinjo had idle troops he could have moved in a proactive manner.

But note that even in the "reinforcements will arrive in 10 minutes" comic, it is stated that since the hobgoblin forces have pulled back from the south wall that forces can be shifted.
The most favorable reading for Hinjo is not that forces can be shifted, but that they will be.

So they couldn't have shifted those forces until the attack was repelled, and shifted them immediately when it was.
Or rather, they wouldn't shift them. This is perfectly consistent with the breech having sent for support, and the individual commanders refusing on the claim they needed all their men, and Hinjo not over-ruling this like the commander should.

You seem to be criticizing him for making the RIGHT choice; reinforce the breach to the extent that it doesn't cripple the defense against the other attacks.
Again, we have picture after picture of idle troops behind the wall. Just how is it going to cripple anything to move them to where they can be useful?

you still continue to ignore that until the death knight roared up the ramp it was the most secure area on the wall ... and only that specific event made it even weak.
The very nature of a breech meant it was always the most endangered part of the wall. That it was holding well for the moment did not change that.
Moreover, it clearly did become insecure long before the great charge.

See 454, where there are a number of troops lined up before the gates of the palace, which were likely there before hand (since we had a guard at the winch).
I see in 454 a great many troops that were not lined up before the gates of the palace as well. I see this in every other picture as well.

See also 452, where the Captain implies that the available reinforcements are dependent on the fact that the attack on the southern end has been repelled. It is therefore safe to assume that the available troops that could have been shifted to the breach were, even if the art doesn't necessarily reflect that.
So we are to ignore the evidence that does not fit, of which there is a lot, and take the word of a nameless NPC who may have been merely stating his opinion.
But it is not safe to assume anything of the sort. It is expected that soldier hold their position until ordered to move. We have no evidence that Hinjo tried to move them until too late. Entirely reasonable to think he got wrapped up in his own fighting and forgot, or didn't realize they were needed at the breech.

EVERYONE thinks that things seem quite secure. That's what worries the general.
No, the general is worried that the hobgoblins don't seem to consider it secure.

And in that time frame it is made clear by the Captain that they COULDN'T ... the attacks on the other areas of the city didn't allow for it.
Again, you are confusing can't and won't. Indeed, the idea the support is going to take 10 minutes to get there guarantees we are talking won't. Support from inside the wall quite obviously could reach the breech faster than the charging army, if it wanted to. If you wanted to form the troops up and then march them over, then it takes 10 minutes. If you tell them to get the !@#$ over there now! That takes a minute, maybe less. Quite simply, they were taking their time.

The fact that Hinjo is fighting hobgoblins on the wall in the other area at about the same time as the Captain tells the general that things are going pretty well so far (right before the DK storms it)?
Yes, but that's AFTER the giant soldiers have been killed, at which point it became vulnerable.
But we see no change in Hinjo or his orders at this time. And there is still loads to time to order troops over to the breech.

And note that THEY STILL HELD THE BREACH until the charge later (right before the charge, they kill those troops). There's no reason to think that they could break off from the other areas in time to help, or that doing that wouldn't have simply allowed those assaults to succeed mostly unopposed.
Repeating again, and again. There is a series of lines of soldiers, all along the walls, row after row of them, shown in several pictures. These soldiers see no action until the breech is lost. They are simply an idle reserve. That reserve can be easily moved without serious danger to the wall.
We have Redcloud telling us "I didn't expect the attack on the wall to get thru, and I am not surprised it didn't. I am not going to waste my time wondering how to manage such a feat." The walls simply were not that threatened.

Your main point seems to be that because the breach FELL it was the area in most need of troops, but none of the evidence of the battle indicates that at LEAST before the DK attack and maybe not until the final charge.
The breech, by the very nature of being a breech, is the weak point that needs the most troops. Go real world here. The standard strategy was to create a breech, and attach that breech, with enough complications to keep the defender guessing. Hinjo, and everybody else, knew the breech was the weak point, and the center of any attack.
The DK is at best a defense for Hinjo only during part of the fight. At best the question becomes why didn't he send troops after it attacked and broke up the defenses.
And the evidence again is that no matter how much we say the walls were pressed, the attack at the breech was much more pressing.

Considering that AC has other, more experienced generals for Hinjo to stand back and "observe" the battle and give orders WOULD be an incompetent battle strategy. His place was where he was, doing what he was. If there was a failure of general strategy, it was a failure at another level, for which he cannot be blamed.
Of course he can be blamed. He's the commander. He gets the credit, and the blame. If he put people in command whe screwed up their job, that is his failing.
And there is little sign of such a command structure. In 413 Hinjo is acting the role of commander, not the inexperienced newbie who will defer to the more experienced. The only other command figure in the battle we see is the general. We can speculate he went to the breech to get a report from the local commander and was responsible for moving troops around, but with his death, this duty goes back to Hinjo, and again, he gets the blame.

And I've been giving all of that, so this blanket rejection is out of place. Again, you seem to be more focusing on how it turned out to be wrong than whether or not it made sense at the time. I have seen limited reasons from you that it didn't make sense at the time other than "Breach == bad".
And breech does equal bad, as you have acknowledged. And we have no evidence that Hinjo did anything about that until it was too late. We have several pictures showing he could have done something, and your assertions he could not are simply in the teeth of the evidence.

you don't want to stick your best melee fighter in the back.
Quite often you do. Especially if you are reacting to Redcloak's attacks. That way you can send him to the most endangered spot.

Hinjo is, I will agree, an inexperienced and thus less skilled overall commander. He is far more useful as a melee combatant based on his skills and that fact.
But this again is saying he is a lousy commander.

Because it isn't reasonable to think that if Belkar can sit by a ladder going "Duck, duck, duck, GOOSE!" that they were getting onto the walls faster than the troops could kill them or push the ladders down?
The hobgoblins were not making any further progress, so it would seem they are being killed as fast as they arrive.

And Hinjo is a better melee combatant than a commander. This we'll agree upon. But Hinjo is an EXCEPTIONAL melee combatant, so that doesn't make him a BAD commander; he could just as easily be merely an AVERAGE one.
Well, this is progress. However an exceptional melee combatant is only worth maybe 100 troops. A bad commander can lose that many very rapidly. And it is at least arguable that Hinjo's failure to send troops to the breech lost that many in desertions alone. So no, Hinjo is not such a super fighter that it is better strategy to put him on the front line and forget his duties as commander.

it says that Axe thinks that Hinjo too often gets into heroics that may kill him, and that Axe's main thought is to safe Hinjo. Basically, that Hinjo is an aggressive -- perhaps excessively aggressive -- and honourable commander
And that is at least part of the reasons he is a poor commander.

Hinjo, basically, seems to be no worse a commander than most paladins would be.
Possibly, but this merely means paladins are poor commanders.

so far he was a SUFFICIENT commander.
Sufficient is rather limited praise, but where's the evidence of that? He is basically the commander because of birth and having the backing of the paladins. Nothing to call him competent. Plenty to call him the only choice they had, no matter how bad.

Note that one of his reasons for staying is TO kill Redcloak while he had a reasonable chance of doing so (RC low on spells and in the open).
As noted, his chance to kill Redcloak, even if he was out of spells, was about zero. In fact, he would have been lucky to even get close enough to wound him.

Axe would still justify it on "And Hinjo's life is more important than any other military objective". He would do this whether he thought Hinjo was the greatest commander ever (which he isn't) or the worst commander in existence (which he isn't either).
Since we don't know what commanders Axe has served under, we can't say much about where he would rank Hinjo among them. However, we have him on record criticizing several of Hinjo's actions, criticism Hinjo accepts, reluctantly, as correct.

Hinjo is a brave man, a good man, one you want at your side in bad times, but he is just not a good commander.

Yoritomo Himeko

2007-09-22, 08:31 PM

Spoiled for space:

But we can't assume that without giving them a reason not to desert. Support arriving before they see the charge for example. Whether troops or Hinjo himself, they need to be in place, not just promised when 452 happens.

It is your assertion he was needed. What is the actual evidence?

Does not follow. His fighting on the wall merely says there is a problem at the wall. And on the available evidence, it was the wrong reaction to Redcloak's strategy, in fact falling into a trap. Redcloak made a feint at the walls. Hinjo reacts to the feint and leaves himself vulnerable to the real attack at the breech.

Hinjo's actions are based on his opinion.
That they were hard pressed seems a bit doubtful when we consider 438. Granted, paladins are the type to stop fighting to enforce some petty regulation, but it still fits poorly with "hard pressed".
And the available evidence continues to be that the breech was harder pressed. We have enemy on the walls. The breech has enemy past the walls. The walls have lines of troops behind them in each comic, doing nothing but stand there. We see empty space behind the breech. We have Redcloak saying he expected the attacks on the walls to fail and was not surprised that they are failing.
The walls may have been a problem. The breech was a PROBLEM.

But Hinjo has not focused his troops on the weakest part of the wall, again an error in command.

You can adapt a reactive strategy, but you are not forced into it. By all our evidence, Hinjo had idle troops he could have moved in a proactive manner.

The most favorable reading for Hinjo is not that forces can be shifted, but that they will be.

Or rather, they wouldn't shift them. This is perfectly consistent with the breech having sent for support, and the individual commanders refusing on the claim they needed all their men, and Hinjo not over-ruling this like the commander should.

Again, we have picture after picture of idle troops behind the wall. Just how is it going to cripple anything to move them to where they can be useful?

The very nature of a breech meant it was always the most endangered part of the wall. That it was holding well for the moment did not change that.
Moreover, it clearly did become insecure long before the great charge.

I see in 454 a great many troops that were not lined up before the gates of the palace as well. I see this in every other picture as well.

So we are to ignore the evidence that does not fit, of which there is a lot, and take the word of a nameless NPC who may have been merely stating his opinion.
But it is not safe to assume anything of the sort. It is expected that soldier hold their position until ordered to move. We have no evidence that Hinjo tried to move them until too late. Entirely reasonable to think he got wrapped up in his own fighting and forgot, or didn't realize they were needed at the breech.

No, the general is worried that the hobgoblins don't seem to consider it secure.

Again, you are confusing can't and won't. Indeed, the idea the support is going to take 10 minutes to get there guarantees we are talking won't. Support from inside the wall quite obviously could reach the breech faster than the charging army, if it wanted to. If you wanted to form the troops up and then march them over, then it takes 10 minutes. If you tell them to get the !@#$ over there now! That takes a minute, maybe less. Quite simply, they were taking their time.

But we see no change in Hinjo or his orders at this time. And there is still loads to time to order troops over to the breech.

Repeating again, and again. There is a series of lines of soldiers, all along the walls, row after row of them, shown in several pictures. These soldiers see no action until the breech is lost. They are simply an idle reserve. That reserve can be easily moved without serious danger to the wall.
We have Redcloud telling us "I didn't expect the attack on the wall to get thru, and I am not surprised it didn't. I am not going to waste my time wondering how to manage such a feat." The walls simply were not that threatened.

The breech, by the very nature of being a breech, is the weak point that needs the most troops. Go real world here. The standard strategy was to create a breech, and attach that breech, with enough complications to keep the defender guessing. Hinjo, and everybody else, knew the breech was the weak point, and the center of any attack.
The DK is at best a defense for Hinjo only during part of the fight. At best the question becomes why didn't he send troops after it attacked and broke up the defenses.
And the evidence again is that no matter how much we say the walls were pressed, the attack at the breech was much more pressing.

Of course he can be blamed. He's the commander. He gets the credit, and the blame. If he put people in command whe screwed up their job, that is his failing.
And there is little sign of such a command structure. In 413 Hinjo is acting the role of commander, not the inexperienced newbie who will defer to the more experienced. The only other command figure in the battle we see is the general. We can speculate he went to the breech to get a report from the local commander and was responsible for moving troops around, but with his death, this duty goes back to Hinjo, and again, he gets the blame.

And breech does equal bad, as you have acknowledged. And we have no evidence that Hinjo did anything about that until it was too late. We have several pictures showing he could have done something, and your assertions he could not are simply in the teeth of the evidence.

Quite often you do. Especially if you are reacting to Redcloak's attacks. That way you can send him to the most endangered spot.

But this again is saying he is a lousy commander.

The hobgoblins were not making any further progress, so it would seem they are being killed as fast as they arrive.

Well, this is progress. However an exceptional melee combatant is only worth maybe 100 troops. A bad commander can lose that many very rapidly. And it is at least arguable that Hinjo's failure to send troops to the breech lost that many in desertions alone. So no, Hinjo is not such a super fighter that it is better strategy to put him on the front line and forget his duties as commander.

And that is at least part of the reasons he is a poor commander.

Possibly, but this merely means paladins are poor commanders.

Sufficient is rather limited praise, but where's the evidence of that? He is basically the commander because of birth and having the backing of the paladins. Nothing to call him competent. Plenty to call him the only choice they had, no matter how bad.

As noted, his chance to kill Redcloak, even if he was out of spells, was about zero. In fact, he would have been lucky to even get close enough to wound him.

Since we don't know what commanders Axe has served under, we can't say much about where he would rank Hinjo among them. However, we have him on record criticizing several of Hinjo's actions, criticism Hinjo accepts, reluctantly, as correct.

Hinjo is a brave man, a good man, one you want at your side in bad times, but he is just not a good commander.

I don't know why so many people think Azure City is going to be liberated so soon. At least now Hinjo realizes he needs to take care of the refugees before confronting Kubota. And we know he is definitely going to try to fight Kubota and his ninja team, it's in his nature. He's brave, but dumb.

Well, the way I see it, is that maybe Hinjo wasn't meant to command armies or sit on a throne, but fight head on. Maybe he'd be better off as an adventurer, (with his own party, not the OOTS).

What I'm trying to say is maybe there are going to be two "good guy" teams from now on, one will be the OOTS, and the other will be the Sapphire Guard. I mean, there are now at least three "bad guy" teams, Team Evil, the Linear Guild and now Kubota and his allies. And eventually, Lord Tyrinar. The OOTS can't take them all, someone is going to have to help.