[no players] The Hyborem Fan Club, a Lurker Thread

[Mafro]

With Jalapeno's latest update, the key players are doing a good job building suspense for us onlookers...can't wait to see how it all goes down...hopefully HK isn't right, that it's going to be terribly anticlimactic.

I find the assault versus pillage quandary to be an interesting one. I also wonder if just planting units on key hammer tiles might not be a bad strategy. In looking at Kwythellar it appears that hammers are being produced from 19 specific tiles (not including the city tile, pillar of chains, and specialists). After chopping the ancient forests that number will drop.

Jalapeno looks like he'll have close to 100 units, including spectres and skeletons, that he could potentially pile on those tiles (obviously skeletons limited movement would restrict them to only certain tiles, but you get the idea). Given TBS's focus on defensive units, perhaps Jalapeno could kill enough of his production to buy time for HK to get into the fray.

Though TBS has been masterful in eking out every advantage in this game, so if he wins it will certainly be well deserved...!

[Azoth]

There's no chance of it being anticlimactic. Jalapeno is ahead of TBS in turn order so there WILL be a grand showdown on T113. We might even see some action on T112 if TBS chooses to strike Jalapeno's death nodes. At the very least, he should Dispel the Regeneration off Jalapeno's assembled units after hitting them with Maelstrom. And then hit them with Rust, if he has the Adepts.

I think Jalapeno will have to pick pillage over assault. With 70 defenders behind 105% defenses, Jalapeno won't be taking Kywthellar in one turn. He'll only have around 70 attackers himself. (Skeletons won't be useful for the assault because they can't move on the turn they're summoned. And they can't be summoned in advance, because then they won't reach Kywthellar.) I wonder if Jalapeno will make a play for TBS' other cities. Assuming TBS doesn't win on T113, Jalapeno will want to deny him as much mercenary gold as possible. And if Kwythellar falls, he'll want to keep the Kuriotate megacities out of dwarven hands. Maybe he'll raze them, hoping for a timely assist from one of the Four Horsemen.

TBS has played an excellent game. But he has had his share of luck. Jalapeno's detour to Empyrean in response to Misforms, which meant he couldn't get any Ritualists into play. A last minute Great Engineer, giving TBS a chance to win before the Druids arrive. I'm rooting for him. In which case the game will be anticlimactic *for HK*...

[Mafro]

At the very least, he should Dispel the Regeneration off Jalapeno's assembled units after hitting them with Maelstrom. And then hit them with Rust, if he has the Adepts.

Jalapeno seems to be anticipating Maelstrom, but no mention of Dispel or Rust in his latest post....

[Azoth]

Jalapeno seems to be anticipating Maelstrom, but no mention of Dispel or Rust in his latest post....

TBS hasn't mentioned them either... Maybe none of his units had a promotion to spare during the, what, two turns he had an Entropy node? He looks to have drafted Kwythellar three times (its size has fallen from 35 to 29), adding 9 base hammers via the Pillar of Chains, so he's certainly paying attention to details...

First ritualist can hit Kwythellar on T114.

Now this is worrying.

[Azoth]

Well, that's that. Jalepeno did a lot of damage to the Kuriotate countryside and TBS did a lot of damage to the Calabim army. They both made mistakes but Jalapeno's were worse: equating PoC production with city population, ignoring the other factors (draft anger, WW, the Tax Office), which threw his estimates off, and triggering blight at the worst possible time. If I have the mechanics right, Jalapeno will be hit by death damage on his next turn and more of his redlined units will die, while TBS will be unaffected until the turn passes on to him. That's rough.