[Spoilers] Ibuprofen and Eyeglasses: Thoth plays a Middle Aged game

[Thoth]

Made an assault on Commodore's Central island city with amphibious CR3 Grennies plus some support units.

He had 8 units plus 9 damaged ships.





Lost one Grenadier at 88% odds and it came down to a well promoted knight vs the catapult at 96+% odds.


FUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

[Thoth]

Commodore reinforced with 8 units and attempted to surround Trident.

I killed a privateer with a Frigate to open up a path and then killed two knights in Welsh Cobb at 99+% odds with a pair of CR3 Grennies. Rested and healed the remainder of my strikers and repositioned my attack ships.

[Thoth]

I think I'm finally in position to take another serious shot at Welsh Cob next turn. Commodore landed a treb to his stack on Trident's Deer so I hit his stack with a B3 cat (died inflicting no damage), followed by a W3/C1/Pinch Grennie at 49% odds. Won that one with just a few hp left but gained enough xp for a promotion next turn. Then sent in a W3/C1/Medic 1 Grennie at 65ish% odds. Lost that one (it's ok, I've got a spare supermedic on a ship in harbour ). Then cleaned up with a Grennie, knight, and a 7/8 xp longbow and won all 3. No super-knight killing catapults with this stack thankfully.

I've got 5 CR3/C1 grennies that get 99+% odds vs the top defenders in Welsh Cob and a few other well promoted amphibious units to take care of the other 5 units. Might come up a bit short again and won't get another shot at his fleet in port but I should have the city under my control in a couple of turns at the outside. That puts 3 (currently, more are under construction) 6 move galleons with highly promoted city raider amphibious grennies within 6 tiles of Commodore's Heroic Epic capital.

I'm aiming to capture Commodore's island cities and burn most or all of his inner sea coastal cities. If logistics permit (which they probably won't) I may keep one city for a turn or so in order to unload commandos to burn a few more backline cities. But I'm probably going to need those forces to contain Pindicator who is 2 pop drafting Rifles while collecting 230+ gpt and prepping to tech Mil Trad for Cavalry.

So I need to cripple Commodore quickly so I can focus on killing Pindicator's inland sea ports (including his capital and his Heroic Epic city (not same city).

I'm not sure I can pull it off anymore. If I'd had slightly less egrariously bad combat luck in the first battle of Welsh Cob, I'd be looking at burning my way to victory right now. As it is, I can still cripple Commodore but I don't think I've got enough time to then pivot and cripple Pindicator. But as Granny Weatherwax says "I antn't ded" at least not yet.

[Thoth]

Commodore stacked what appears to be most of his innersea navy outside Welsh Cobb.  I could have engaged one or the other of his two stacks but I'd have lost a significant (if not all) portion of my own innersea fleet.


So I did this instead:




2 Grennies (1 elite, one with only around 10 xp) in exchange for a size 10 city.   I'm good with the trade.  

I've also now got 9 units (4 injured) in striking range of Commodore's capital.   Might be time to wake up my land forces and see about liberating former Scooter-land.

[xist10]

[Thoth]

I wound up keeping Commodore's capital in order to avoid having my entire task force sunk.


Pics to follow.

[Krill]

Boudicca should never be allowed to get up to speed, good job on giving everyone that really important lesson. Nicely done, I look forward to the report

[Thoth]

I started the turn by advancing a Privateer to scout.  Then I checked odds vs Commodore's 6 unit capital garrison. 




I'm risking my entire strike force if I attack.  If I don't take the city I have to leave my galleons out where then can be hit by Commodore's Doom Fleet.

But I've got 9 hitters vs 2 longbows, a crossbow, two knights, and an axeman.  Once the longbows are dead/heavilly damaged I'll get odds vs everything else and I've got two damaged Grennies who can do cleanup.




So I sank a blocking Galleon/Galley pair with a Frigate and a Privateer and then advanced one galleon....

And the Grennie died but redlined the Longbow.  Next best odds were with a C1/CR3 grennie at 29%.  Yech.    But it was a 13.2 vs 13.8 fight with him getting a first strike so I figure my odds of getting at least a crippling level of damage were pretty good.  So I advanced another galleon and sent in the noob.  Who won. 

After that I was getting decent but not amazing odds (70-80% range). 

And it came down to this:




The full health and almost-full health Grennies are my C1/W3/Amphibious/Medic Supermedic and a W3/C1/Pinch/Amphibious with some damage.  The Supermedic was getting 77% odds vs the knight so I sent him in.

Won it and cleaned up the remaining longbow and





Moved as many of my galleons as possible into the city and unloaded them.




I don't need to hold the city forever, just for a turn or so to heal and re-embark to hit the next target.


And I figured I should give Commodore something else to worry about so I advanced a few troops towards our border.





I need to check F8 to see how much land/pop I need for Domination.  I suspect I'll need all of Commodore's current land which might just be doable.  I'm close to twice his power and he's got close to 20 defenders between Welsh Cobb and his other island city garrisons.  Plus 6-8 frigates in the outer sea and this impressive naval doomstack in the inner sea:





So I might just have enough to defeat him on land.


And finally, the log: 

[Thoth]

Boudicca should never be allowed to get up to speed, good job on giving everyone that really important lesson. Nicely done, I look forward to the report

Boudicca of Viking has been every bit as much fun to play as I thought it would. 

But it's a much weaker combination on an Ancient start where early expansion and teching ability are more important than on Medieval starts where I already had access to the means to project power (Galleys, Agg/Cha Swordsmen, Horse Archers, and Cats).  


Absurdly well promoted Grennies out of the box (and with my latest GG settled in the capital, CR3 Beserkers every 2t from Halberd) are good fun.  Unfortunately I don't have any Commando Grennies with the strike force, I wound up using the available promotions to get odds.   But I'm ok with that tradeoff.     


Speaking of absurdly promoted units, I took Tokugawa of Ethiopia for a spin in SP with the RtR mod awhile back.   C1/D1-4 out of the box at 0 xp Oromos.   Good fun rotflstomp vs the AI.

[scooter]

Very nicely done.

Next best odds were with a C1/CR3 grennie at 29%.  Yech.    But it was a 13.2 vs 13.8 fight with him getting a first strike so I figure my odds of getting at least a crippling level of damage were pretty good. 

Forgive me if I'm misreading and you already know this, but in case you don't, you can hold down SHIFT when hovering to see this. It'll break down odds of remaining HP for the defender like it already shows for the attacker. I consult this often to see if it looks like I can weaken a stronger unit enough to finish it with a second unit, or if I'm risking a flawless loss.