Challenge: CS vs. anti-CS - justify the other side

[Dustin Fireblade]

The CS thrives in a area that has little in the way of ley lines and nexus points, which mages and the supernatural are more attracted too. Small independent villages that the CS may have absorbed in these area's are likely to only have a few defender's that the CS can throw greater number's at to achieve success. Beat the defender's, throw out the D-Bee's and build up the village to become a asset to the CS.

The CS has a proving grounds of sort, in old Chicago. Here they can send their forces to cut their teeth against mages and the supernatural without worrying about overwhelming odds against them.

Victories in defeating these small villages and small number's in ruins like old Chicago are then amplified by CS Propaganda, making them seem more powerful/stronger than they really are.

[ZINO]

The CS thrives in a area that has little in the way of ley lines and nexus points, which mages and the supernatural are more attracted too. Small independent villages that the CS may have absorbed in these area's are likely to only have a few defender's that the CS can throw greater number's at to achieve success. Beat the defender's, throw out the D-Bee's and build up the village to become a asset to the CS.

The CS has a proving grounds of sort, in old Chicago. Here they can send their forces to cut their teeth against mages and the supernatural without worrying about overwhelming odds against them.

Victories in defeating these small villages and small number's in ruins like old Chicago are then amplified by CS Propaganda, making them seem more powerful/stronger than they really are.

i second that!!!!!

[Balabanto]

Realistically, I believe that the CS should have won that war, but needed too little force to do it. They should have had to throw at least another 500,000 men into the crucible.

The Tolkeenites should have done the following things, which don't actually require a lot of resources that they did use and waste. Why did the Tolkeenites spend all that time and energy on those Juggernauts? I have no comprehension of this.

What they should have done: At the Forty Mile Mark outside of Tolkeen, they should have used Earth Elementals and warlocks to create a forty mile ring of mud that's thirty feet deep all the way to the city. It's a lot of Earth Elementals, but it's still cheaper than building all those juggernauts. Into that heap of mud you place the most disgusting, slimy worm creatures you can imagine. Worms of Taut are common enough and have a decent horror factor score. If you want to force people to fight for every inch, make them crawl. You can't land planes in it, you can't walk across it, and it exposes the Coalition to constant underground assault, leaving them only air support to bombard the city with. The skelebots can't really walk over it, which means you have to bring in an Engineering Corps to make your way to Tolkeen. That means that you only need to kill one group of key targets. The Coalition is limited by their supply chain, since they are the aggressor. Tolkeen can open rifts to anywhere and resupply indefinitely.

This gives magic a nearly insurmountable advantage without weapons that Karl Prosek refuses to use. Now that you've done this, you make it rain. For days and days. You're magicians. It's not that hard. The nice thing is, because you're magicians, you don't have to make it rain water. You can make it rain MDC acid, MDC Aqua Regia, or MDC greek fire. It really doesn't matter. As long as you are willing to sacrifice a fifty mile radius which you can rebuild later, you don't really CARE what the Coalition does.

Can the Coalition dig a tunnel? Not without the elementals detecting it and responding, and that allows you to mount point defense counterassaults. Plus, flooding a tunnel is incredibly easy for a water warlock.

So what do we do with the money that we save by summoning elementals instead of building 12,000+ Juggernauts? You build simple, easy, proximity TW floating mines and drop them right into the mud. Since the creators can easily sense magic, you don't have to worry about reclaiming the mines, steal the PPE back and deactivate them if the Coalition decides the war is a bad idea.

Before anyone says "Hey, what about all the people in this area?" I'd like to point out that most of the twelve, with the exception of King Creed (At the start, he becomes aberrant later) and the Kuznya are evil! They really don't care that much. Evacuate to Tolkeen directly or suffer the consequences.

Now, while the Coalition is busy dealing with your evil minefield, point assaults on their engineers, giant worms of taut and whatever else you can cook up and summon, you can focus on building AERIAL Juggernauts and take the AIR WAR to the Coalition directly.

While that nastiness in the sky goes on, you are training your evacuees in S+D, Guerilla Tactics, and other military nastiness. So instead of a bunch of refugees, by the time the Coalition has reached Tolkeen proper, they've lost a TON of manpower, and most of the people (With the women and children transported elsewhere to start new lives) that the Coalition must face are heavily armed soldiers, loaded with TW weapons and other nastiness that they KNOW the Coalition will refuse to use in the event of their deaths. Since they know the coalition will kill them anyway, every single soldier should be carrying a one use TW item that turns them into a living bomb that propels them directly into the mass of whatever killed them. If it's going to be do or die, die in the messiest way possible for your enemies.

[Blight]

After the first volley just up and vanished the should have used mini-missiles to find the shield range then turned the city to ash with a combination of aerial and subterranean nuclear explosion. Literally turning the city and it's defenders to mush between the colliding shock waves. The best defense was already brought up by Balabanto. Mobilty and speed of attack were Tolkeen's best opitions they had available. I still can't believe they, Tolkeenites didn't use assassins, magic make that kind of shadow war almost a sure bet.

[Dog_O_War]

The CS has bomb-grade nuclear material; this is an undeniable fact thanks to the near million vehicles and PA it has that run off of nuclear power-sources.

No one ever said war was nice, or that it was infact the opposite of hell...

The CS's ecconomy relies heavily on shipping and trade routes; with who? I don't know, but that is what said in the Coalition Navy book. Now, we know that the Coalitions' Navy is weak, and that who ever these people are that the Coalition ships to (likely small communities and such, besides their big-state allies), are so small they aren't even worth mention.

So the first step is to bring about ecconomic ruin by attacking these communities. This should bring about a stronger, more ocean/air-oriented force deployed away from home. This will take a decade (at least), but it will happen.

Next is to use weapons they said they'd never use; nuclear bombs. These are easy to get and build (relatively considering the time period). We know there are ways into Chi-Town, as any City Rat knows basically (more factual information pulled from the books) so smuggling in a bomb would be a sinch.

We've dismembered the body by forcing a strong but spread-out force; these soldiers (and likely their families now) live away from the central government.
We've also cut the snake's head off, by destroying their seat of power (Chi-Town)...

From here we wait until the morning for the head to truely die, because even a severed snake-head can still bite back with lethal force. By this I mean we wait for these localized forces to set up protection-rings and singular city-states. They are weak by themselves in their fledgling state, and if a person can act quick enough, he can wipe out these smaller forces with relative ease.

Or rather, you let the other big dogs do this work for you; that is, Tolkeen, FQ, NG, MI, Lazlo, New Lazlo, LoneStar, etc... will absorb or destroy the remnants for you, thus abolishing the Coalition.


On the Flip-side (the side I believe to be true, and thus will argue against) how does the Coalition support itself on farmers and super-cities? Simple; it doesn't, and there is more to the nation than meets the eye.

The Coalition and by extention the Dominion of Man is a vast place clearly filled with cities from the Gulf to the St. Lawrence. While the coming of the Rifts has destroyed much of the Civ. we (or they in the Golden age) knew, it didn't wipe it completely clear of the map. Many, many places will/do have old structures that still stand. This are likely the basis for many small but numerous city-states. It is my belief that we only hear about the largest and most successful of the states; that there are infact more than 6 (or whatever the number is).

These places are "loyal" to the CS, but clearly like the Manistique Imperium, they do value the trade offered by the enemy. Even Russia during the cold war was buying American products and such; they just weren't doing it from the America-Store.

This brings about the CS's silent business partner; the Black Market. The book will never say it directly, but it brings about some intesting conspiracy theories.

The Black Market sells SAMAS suits that are remarkably similar in look to the CS Death's Head.
Has anyone ever wondered why this is, or why they would do this? It is because it is a Death's Head retooled.
The CS has been selling their old military stock to their enemies and mercenaries for years - it's just undergone a cosmetic face-lift. Why would they arm their enemy? Because they are fully aware of the advantages and flaws of the old suit; this is why they're changing over to the Super SAM and the Smiling Jack as their standards. These suits can take the Death's Head in a one-on-one no prob., and you'll note that the BM is a truely devious device, because the CS will never have to worry about their equipment falling into enemy hands in any great number.

A saying comes to mind, "you can always pay one half of the poor to kill the other" (Gangs of New York - possibly older but that's where I heard it)

That is, you can have one side buy your equipment, then pay them pitance to go and kill or be killed by your other enemies.

So in conclusion, the CS is also the Black Market (to an extent). You will still get the rogue markets and the Black Black Market trades that the CS might not want to happen, but when it comes right down to it, the BM is twice as beneficial to the CS as it is to the buyer, as there will always be people who hate their neighbor or who slay dragons, etc... but there is no such thing as a good politician.

And politics is the only way the CS could ever fall.

[Balabanto]

No. The people rising up against it's leaders could happen, too.

That's not politics, that's just open revolt. And if the story in Federation of Magic is true, it could happen very easily if the existence of such a person could be proved and that person were to take action, or their descendants did.

[Dog_O_War]

No. The people rising up against it's leaders could happen, too.

That's not politics, that's just open revolt. And if the story in Federation of Magic is true, it could happen very easily if the existence of such a person could be proved and that person were to take action, or their descendants did.

A politician insites these things; remember, not every politician carries a senior card and wears a suit.

A leader is a politician, and one who insites a revolt is creating politics.

So yes, even an open revolt is politics, as people must always ban together under a single voice to get these things done.

[dark brandon]

I think CS should have won, they are just too strong, vast in numbers and better trained. It was a nation vs a city.

Justifications for why they should have lost:

1) War on 2 fronts should have eaten away at their capabilities.

2) The war on Quebec should have eaten away at their morality, even so far as to cause great dissension among the ranks...even rebellion

3) Magic and supernatural creatures. CS basic armor is not equiped with thermals, making the spell invisibility: Simple and the natural ability to turn invisible to be a grunt killer.

4) Carpet of Adhesion + Magic net

5) Lazlo should have jumped in the fray. A war on 3 fronts would have been devistating. Just look at how it tore Rome apart.

[Balabanto]

Thermals are irrelevant as of Rifts: Mercenary Adventures

Simple Invisibility, Invisibility to Sensors and Mystic Invisibility. It's a LOT of PPE, but during that time you can do just about ANYTHING to anyone. Heck, once you've got those, throw Frequency Jamming on top of it and do horrible things to people to your heart's content.

[Balabanto]

I personally think that, without any DM filling in the blanks, the CS would be obliterated. In a world where supernatural abilities that can...

• provide arbitrary information as desired (divination magic & psionics)
• create unlimited resources (use self-renewing PPE/ISP to create nuclear-grade heat & electricity, or physical materials)
• find something to counter or overcome every technological solution

The CS is far too poorly equipped to reliably contain and resist the flexibility and "lateral capabilities" of supernatural power.

My justification for the CS surviving

1. Organized Psychic Information Gathering
   The CS tracks its psychics, not only to maintain control, but also to enforce some level of mandatory service.
   This extends especially to Clairvoyant psychics (which include some Dog Pack and Psi-Stalkers), who are required to submit Clairvoyant reports regularly on various subjects, and/or spend 1 day per week in a CS-controlled premonitory analysis facility, feeding the computers clairvoyant data for processing. This vast pool of seemingly random data is filtered, processed, correlated, purified and ultimately provides reliable projections on the future, including attacks that will be made against the CS. A single clairvoyant vision is sketchy, but a thousand visions can be used to make reliable results, if used correctly (ever seen Minority Report?)
   This also applies to other "sketchy" psionics such as Object Read, Remote Viewing and similar; artifacts confiscated from the enemy (and potential enemies) are categorized and queued up for Object Reading on a regular basis, to gather information about the artifacts themselves, and also to track the movements of key targets (x+2% current location) on some regular basis.
   Note that it's likely true that every major kingdom has similar benefits, which is why there are so many stable region of power emerging in Rifts. It also explains why it's no longer about "sneaking nukes into Chi-town" kind of attacks. Such attacks are useless against a group that uses some measure of Clairvoyant intelligence gathering. Instead, the only attacks that work are the ones that can't be stopped with foreknowledge... such as an army burning down your city with a million lasers.
2. Agents of Deniable Association
   The CS (somehow) has vast resources. Enough to mass-produce thousands of nuclear powered MDC robots, power armor, skelebots and weaponry, with manufacturing time being the only limit. Further, the CS would confiscate millions of credits worth of MDC hardware almost every week. Such products are incredibly valuable, and useful for trade in the dangerous world of Rifts North America. Especially for anyone whose life is filled with danger, such as mercenaries, adventurers, spies and similar. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people living these lifestyles, and giving them a supply of confiscated MDC technology can easily earn the debt of some information and the odd job.
   This creates 2 kinds of CS operatives: Handlers and Dissociative Contractors.
   The Handlers are CS agents who lead 2 lives - one is as a stalwart CS intelligence officer in his Deadboy Armor, the other is his/her cover, often a gritty but generous smuggler and weapons dealer who exchanges (confiscated) MDC weapons for "dirty jobs" or specific information. They build business relationships with the Dissociative Contractors, which is anyone who is willing to hold their end of the bargain and maintain some level of professional discretion and/or loyalty. Even supernatural beings and magic users are applicable Dissociative Contractors, for at least as long as they remain ignorant of the Handler's true colors.
   The simplistic beauty of this setup is that the Dissociative Contractors, and (to a lesser degree) even the Handlers are expendable. A covert sanctions team can be deployed to "clean up" any exposures or messes if the word gets out, and the CS would deny any knowledge, or simply shrug and remain ominously silent. Of course, to maintain the CS's terrible reputation, these exposures are sometimes not so quiet, and the Handler vanishes (black-bagged and given a few hours with a plastic surgeon, only to return next month as someone else) and the Contractors are noisily annihilated, while the CS "leaks" information that the Handler was acting against orders and is publicly executed (a la faked video) and the Contractors were enemies of the state. Staged situations like this induce paranoia among the enemies of the CS, and thus reduces the enemy's ability to organize reliably. Misinformation is a powerful tool. Just ask Joseph Prosek II.
   I personally love this because it means there are dozens of anti-CS persons out there who don't even realize that they're on the CS's payroll, obliviously working for the very same Fascist enemy they loathe. This is a fantastic plot hook for any campaign.
3. Birth Control
   Many talk about how the CS's most incredible resource is the huge population of citizens and desperate prospective citizens willing to fight for the state. This is true, but for more reasons than you think.
   The Lone Star labs have inspired an incredible array of genetic research and production facilities, able to tweak food products, people, produce dog boys and (here it comes) produce humans. But they're not really clones per se... instead, there's just an unusual number of instances where CS citizens are the proud parents of twins, triplets, even quadruplets. When Sally goes in for her first ultrasound, her genetic profile is quietly reviewed for the capacity to sustain and birth multiple children. After the screening process comes back positive, her unborn child is... blessed with a sibling - and gosh what splendid "luck" - thanks to genetic research. If early enough, the one child can be made into multiple. If late in the game, an artificially grown child is implanted under the guise of a standard medical procedure, and then the twin is conveniently "discovered" at the next appointment.
   The end result is a constant population explosion, which keeps the genetically inferior prospective citizens from flowing into the CS too quickly, and also keeps the frontlines well stocked with human fodder.
4. Fact Control
   No matter what you do to the CS, so long as the propaganda machine is running, there is no such thing as demoralization: "Every CS battle is either a "glorious victory" or a "horrible upset, by the cruel tricks of demons". The CS fortresses such as Chi-Town are 100% rat-free and impenetrable by any force of the cosmos. You will be rewarded for turning in your neighbor if he is caught in unlawful acts of literacy, or expressions that do not agree with the CS agenda. The CS leadership knows best - thriving through Armageddon is evidence of this fact."
   So, let's say by some miracle someone outmaneuvers the psychic intelligence community, isn't ratted out by the Dissociative Contractors (or isn't one himself) and radiates the CS break basket. It won't damage anything from a morale perspective. It will only incite more aggression, more expansion, more war to take resources from the "evil demons who will starve your babies". Blood-thirsty rage would be the only result... effectively a reaction of "you pollute my food, so I kill everyone you know and eat theirs". Sure, thousands will starve to death... but the CS will manage the distribution of resources to maximum effect, and it won't stop them from marching (especially the Skelebots and Borgs).

This was a GREAT response. Kudos to you.

In my game, the PC's DID actually take a job for one of the deniable contractor types. They actually FIGURED out he was Coalition. The mission was "Destroy this Xictix hive expansion." They sat down, weighed the moral implications of the coalition vs. the moral implications of everyone, coalition and non coalition alike being eaten by bugs, and did the job. And he paid them. If anything can get people to put aside their collective stupidity over these issues, it will be the ever expanding hives of bug people.

[glitterboy2098]

personally i'd say the CS doesn't do that as an official policy (however secret). but we know that Lyboc has a fairly large illict market network, so it could well be that he took on himself to do it unofficially. and i wouldn't put it past other commanders in the different regions to have done similar to lyboc (placing themselves in control of a sizeable percentage of the local blackmarket), since the advantages (like you pointed out) outweigh the disadvantages.

[dark brandon]

Or the party can be used to justify CS expansion. The contractor sends the party to raid a CS outpost, using a nearby village as a base of operations. The CS retaliates by storming and occupying the village to weed out the insurgents. The PCs escape, and the CS searches for them, and quietly settles in with a new outpost... they now control the village. The neighboring communities are less likely to respond aggressively if the CS was "merely defending itself".

I like the way you think...

[dark brandon]

Or the party can be used to justify CS expansion. The contractor sends the party to raid a CS outpost, using a nearby village as a base of operations. The CS retaliates by storming and occupying the village to weed out the insurgents. The PCs escape, and the CS searches for them, and quietly settles in with a new outpost... they now control the village. The neighboring communities are less likely to respond aggressively if the CS was "merely defending itself".

I like the way you think...

Thanks.

An extra benefit is that the raid is planned, so all the target items stolen could also be part of the plan

• returned to the CS via the Handler
• Tracked by serial number to help sniff out a trail of contraband dealers
• Observed via psychic sensitives (if possible) to further spy on potential threats
• Tracked via a dormant transmitter in a few items, only activating 2 weeks later and sending a 1/4-second homing burst transmission every 12-15 minutes. This almost guarantees the discovery of contraband traders

One thing to be careful of is screwing with the party too much. If they feel like they're getting a size seven poop chute, you may want to tone it down.

It also may cause neighboring towns to become paranoid of strangers, creating hostile/unfriendly tension between 2 states, which would allow CS to come in and help "quell" the war before it happens by making a deal with one state and obliterting the other.

[GlitterKnight]

I feel there is a little to argue with in the book series. Tolkeen was an incredibly powerful city state, but as others have said, they are a city against a nation. A nation with vast technological and logistical supplies. The Coalition relies on its technology and its vast population, so they are able to fight a modern war, as we understand today. Most cities and nations in RIFTS North America are city states and small kingdoms, few of which mobilize full time standing armies with the organization, resources, and technology of the Coalition. They are THE human power in North America for a reason. I find the psychic precognitive command idea fantastic; like Minority Report, I can envision the CS enslaving powerful precognitives and keeping them in sensory deprivation tanks to focus their power. But to my larger point; the CS are a military power head and shoulders above any other power in North America. Yes the CS would require huge numbers to break Tolkeen, but they have that. This is not sully the power of Tolkeen; magic is, as the books explained, an incredible equalizer. Invisiblity rocks your socks off, Elementalists possess incredible combat engineering ability, and the resources magic can summon with adequate PPE are staggering. But while going completely guerilla would probably have secured Tolkeen a victory, or at least cost the CS a crippling amount of men and material, the problem and reason for Tolkeen's defeat lies with its leadership. Erin Tarn, Lord Coake and others begged them not to try to stand against the CS like they tried to. They did so because they felt Tolkeen would lose, and furthermore, saw the terrible lengths the Tolkeen leadership was going to, and would go to in order to win. Deals with monsters and demons, human sacrifice of POWs, torture and unimaginable cruelty. But this also made military sense, aside from the moral implications. Tolkeen did not have the resources to throw indefinetly at the CS, and misused it's resources. The Juggernaughts are a mistake; yes they are fearsome and powerful war machines; they are however, ineffecient and not cost effective. But arming every citizen and training them in guerilla warfare would requiring surrendering their city and lands to the CS, and fight them in the ruins of all they sought to defend. This was not in line with Tolkeen's leadership rhetoric; the CS threw down the gauntlet, and Tolkeen took it up. They would show their power, that their magic and Technowizardry was a match for the CS legions and their technology. They would be the bulwark, the bastion that withheld the might of the Death's Head, the line drawn in the sand that would end the Campaign of Unity and mark the edge of the Dominion of Man. They wanted a straight up fight, which they failed to realize they couldn't win. Fighting as partisans would have meant allowing the CS to roll over their territory and their city, which would break the will of the defenders, who had heard their leader's swear the CS would never take their city. It requires a hard heart to lay quiet while your enemy destroys your home, so that you can strike him in the back when he lets down his guard.

[AlanGunhouse]

The seige vs tolkien was, as I understand it, basicly the same as the American Civil War, as far as resources on each side go.

I have not read the books, but basicly the only way the weaker side could have won was by a preemptive strike at the "head". During the Civil War, the South had a chance after an early victory to launch an attack on Washington DC. It was the only time they had a serious chance of victory.

I never have figured out where the Resources of the CS come from though...

[Shadyslug]

Tolkeen was fighting a defensive war...against a vastly larger army.

Was the Coalition a stronger army? Debatable. They had an easier army to replace as it takes less time to teach someone to become a PA pilot than a Mage.

That being said...Tolkeen didn't handle themselves all that well, and neither did the Coalition.

If it were a real war with battle hardened veterans, I think that Tolkeen would've won. I just find it hard to believe that magic wouldn't scare the bejesus outta a non-magical army.

[DhAkael]

Why?
It's potato Vs. Pottato.
One side will say the Cs is godly, the other will say they are spawn of Hitler's illegitimate love childe.
It's all dependant on the individual GM.

[Dog_O_War]

Why?
It's potato Vs. Pottato.
One side will say the Cs is godly, the other will say they are spawn of Hitler's illegitimate love childe.
It's all dependant on the individual GM.

The people arguing why the CS should have won are the ones that believe they should have lost. The ones arguing that the CS should have lost are the ones that agree with them winning.

It's not a "potato VS potato", it's a mental exercise to see the flaws and views of the other side.

[Shadyslug]

I'm just wondering when we'll see the last of the SoT arguments. Probably never...

[Dog_O_War]

I'm just wondering when we'll see the last of the SoT arguments. Probably never...

When Tolkeen from the past portals to the future, so that the siege on Tolkeen took place and that the CS won, but Tolkeen is back - so people can use it again.

[Samored II]

He who would defend everything, defends nothing.

By that I mean instead of attacking small, high-value targets within the CS like Chi-town and the Proseks; attack Missouri, Iron Heart and the CS farmlands. Destory their food supply with the Blight spell, attack oil fields and mining operations with Greater Air and Earth elementals. Spend PA 103-105 surveiling CS operations and identify the technical specialists and mechanics that keep the war machine running. Target these people for assassination. Emperor Prosek and the millitary high command can be and are defended with the utmost care, but logistics wins wars; kill the logistics tail and the CS war machine grinds to an impotent halt.

[Talavar]

I can't think of any good way for Tolkeen to have won. I mean, Tolkeen would have incredibly powerful individual units, but not a coherent army, and not nearly enough of those powerful units. Take a fire warlock as an example - at high levels, they can be incredibly destructive, plus they can summon elementals (and does the CS even have anything that can hurt a fire elemental?) but there can't be very many high level warlocks compared to the number of CS grunts with guns, or even soldiers in power armour. And in the end, the CS doesn't even have to bother fighting those fire elementals - there are too few to defend an entire city, and there are enough CS forces to keep them pinned down and go around them simultaneously.

I do think that the cost of winning should have been higher for the CS than it's sometimes presented though - there would be a lot of soldiers needing significant medical care, a huge financial burden from arming and equipping all those soldiers in the first place, and caring for the wounded afterward, an ongoing "insurgency" throughout the Tolkeen area and right into the Chi-town burbs, and what to do with all those soldiers once they're de-mobilized.

[Samored II]

Less than 1500 9th+ level mages of all types, including the dragons of Freehold. Deduct those and there's barely a re-enforced company.

[dark brandon]

I can't think of any good way for Tolkeen to have won. I mean, Tolkeen would have incredibly powerful individual units, but not a coherent army, and not nearly enough of those powerful units. Take a fire warlock as an example - at high levels, they can be incredibly destructive, plus they can summon elementals (and does the CS even have anything that can hurt a fire elemental?)

Lasers do 1/2 damage to all elementals I believe, as well as possible psionics.

but there can't be very many high level warlocks compared to the number of CS grunts with guns, or even soldiers in power armour. And in the end, the CS doesn't even have to bother fighting those fire elementals - there are too few to defend an entire city, and there are enough CS forces to keep them pinned down and go around them simultaneously.

Good point. A good stratagy may be to "kite" the elemental with some juicers or something that are fast, but don't actually have to fight it and elementals are not smart enough to develop stratagies or know when they are being "kited" unless they were specifically told to stay in a spot.

[Talavar]

That's true - lasers and particle beams can hurt a fire elemental, I'd forgotten that. But it only further supports my argument: Tolkeen couldn't hope to field enough troops to defend themselves against the CS, even if the kill ratio is ridiculously in their favour. I think every Tolkeen mage & warlock probably took several grunts to kill, but the CS could still afford those losses.

[The Galactus Kid]

4) Carpet of Adhesion + Magic net

Thats all you need. Tolkeen wins.

[glitterboy2098]

the CS made two huge blunders.

1st, they got involved in a two front war. while Quebec leaving was a blow, it wasn't a big one. Quebec didn't really add much to the CS's industrial might, nor was it particularly vital in any other way. and FQ had never really considered itself a member state, but more as a "allied state". the CS should have said "ok, we don't mind. would you like to negotiate a trade treaty?". this would have allowed them to focus all their attention on tolkeen.

2nd, when they resorted to nuclear arms, they did it in half measures. the plan to nuke the city apparently relied on masses of nuclear LRM's. which as we all know are all subkiloton. given their limitations, it is no wonder the rift defense system stopped them. now, if your going ot let the nuclear genie out of the bottle, you might as well go with the most effective option. masses of conventional missiles would have done to show any weakness in the cities defenses. or in this case, it would have shown the rift defense existed. then you call in a strike by a volley of BGM-109 Tomahawk TLAM-N cruise missiles. either fired from a submarine or from a mobile launcher.

these missiles would have been uneffected the the rift defense system.
A.) rifts extend 1 mile high. while the optimal height for an airburst from a 200kt warhead like the TLAM-N's W80 is 600 meters (about 1/2 a mile), it could be set to detonate 2km up and still be reasonably effective. in order to assure optimum devestation regardless of the non-optimal height, standard nuclear deployment policies (as defined by the pre-rifts military) would be followed, using a cluster of devices set off in a pattern of overlapping airbursts, spreading the destructive power out more or less evenly and ensuring total coverage of the target by the blast effects. a dozen TLAM-N's would be sufficent here.*
B.) rifts only transmit solid objects. this has been true since the RMB. water, air, and energy does not pass through the rift, and will be unheeded by the rift. the overpressure wave of the nuclear detonations is air and energy. thus it cannot be shifted to other dimensions by the rifts, nor will it be stopped by the rifts. while some parts of the city might surivive through magical protection or sheer toughness, the majority of buildings, vheicles, and people in the city will be destroyed.

once the city of tolkeen is gone, their army will be cut off from any form of centralized resupply. many groups will cease fighting entirely. others will attempt to fight on, but will be easily mopped up by the CS forces as the tolkeenite supplies run out.

* before anyone makes the claim that they have limited supplies of nukes, SB4 details the CS is building TLAM-N's for their navy, and produced dozens each year. it is only the Trident II SLBM's on the CS Ohio class SSBN's that the CS has in short supply.

[Talavar]

the CS made two huge blunders.

1st, they got involved in a two front war. while Quebec leaving was a blow, it wasn't a big one. Quebec didn't really add much to the CS's industrial might, nor was it particularly vital in any other way. and FQ had never really considered itself a member state, but more as a "allied state". the CS should have said "ok, we don't mind. would you like to negotiate a trade treaty?". this would have allowed them to focus all their attention on tolkeen.

2nd, when they resorted to nuclear arms, they did it in half measures. the plan to nuke the city apparently relied on masses of nuclear LRM's. which as we all know are all subkiloton. given their limitations, it is no wonder the rift defense system stopped them. now, if your going ot let the nuclear genie out of the bottle, you might as well go with the most effective option. masses of conventional missiles would have done to show any weakness in the cities defenses. or in this case, it would have shown the rift defense existed. then you call in a strike by a volley of BGM-109 Tomahawk TLAM-N cruise missiles. either fired from a submarine or from a mobile launcher.

these missiles would have been uneffected the the rift defense system.
A.) rifts extend 1 mile high. while the optimal height for an airburst from a 200kt warhead like the TLAM-N's W80 is 600 meters (about 1/2 a mile), it could be set to detonate 2km up and still be reasonably effective. in order to assure optimum devestation regardless of the non-optimal height, standard nuclear deployment policies (as defined by the pre-rifts military) would be followed, using a cluster of devices set off in a pattern of overlapping airbursts, spreading the destructive power out more or less evenly and ensuring total coverage of the target by the blast effects. a dozen TLAM-N's would be sufficent here.*
B.) rifts only transmit solid objects. this has been true since the RMB. water, air, and energy does not pass through the rift, and will be unheeded by the rift. the overpressure wave of the nuclear detonations is air and energy. thus it cannot be shifted to other dimensions by the rifts, nor will it be stopped by the rifts. while some parts of the city might surivive through magical protection or sheer toughness, the majority of buildings, vheicles, and people in the city will be destroyed.

once the city of tolkeen is gone, their army will be cut off from any form of centralized resupply. many groups will cease fighting entirely. others will attempt to fight on, but will be easily mopped up by the CS forces as the tolkeenite supplies run out.

* before anyone makes the claim that they have limited supplies of nukes, SB4 details the CS is building TLAM-N's for their navy, and produced dozens each year. it is only the Trident II SLBM's on the CS Ohio class SSBN's that the CS has in short supply.

Except using non-tactical nukes a few hundred miles northwest of the farmland that supports your society is a really bad idea, at least, if you like eating.

[glitterboy2098]

the CS made two huge blunders.

1st, they got involved in a two front war. while Quebec leaving was a blow, it wasn't a big one. Quebec didn't really add much to the CS's industrial might, nor was it particularly vital in any other way. and FQ had never really considered itself a member state, but more as a "allied state". the CS should have said "ok, we don't mind. would you like to negotiate a trade treaty?". this would have allowed them to focus all their attention on tolkeen.

2nd, when they resorted to nuclear arms, they did it in half measures. the plan to nuke the city apparently relied on masses of nuclear LRM's. which as we all know are all subkiloton. given their limitations, it is no wonder the rift defense system stopped them. now, if your going ot let the nuclear genie out of the bottle, you might as well go with the most effective option. masses of conventional missiles would have done to show any weakness in the cities defenses. or in this case, it would have shown the rift defense existed. then you call in a strike by a volley of BGM-109 Tomahawk TLAM-N cruise missiles. either fired from a submarine or from a mobile launcher.

these missiles would have been uneffected the the rift defense system.
A.) rifts extend 1 mile high. while the optimal height for an airburst from a 200kt warhead like the TLAM-N's W80 is 600 meters (about 1/2 a mile), it could be set to detonate 2km up and still be reasonably effective. in order to assure optimum devestation regardless of the non-optimal height, standard nuclear deployment policies (as defined by the pre-rifts military) would be followed, using a cluster of devices set off in a pattern of overlapping airbursts, spreading the destructive power out more or less evenly and ensuring total coverage of the target by the blast effects. a dozen TLAM-N's would be sufficent here.*
B.) rifts only transmit solid objects. this has been true since the RMB. water, air, and energy does not pass through the rift, and will be unheeded by the rift. the overpressure wave of the nuclear detonations is air and energy. thus it cannot be shifted to other dimensions by the rifts, nor will it be stopped by the rifts. while some parts of the city might surivive through magical protection or sheer toughness, the majority of buildings, vheicles, and people in the city will be destroyed.

once the city of tolkeen is gone, their army will be cut off from any form of centralized resupply. many groups will cease fighting entirely. others will attempt to fight on, but will be easily mopped up by the CS forces as the tolkeenite supplies run out.

* before anyone makes the claim that they have limited supplies of nukes, SB4 details the CS is building TLAM-N's for their navy, and produced dozens each year. it is only the Trident II SLBM's on the CS Ohio class SSBN's that the CS has in short supply.

Except using non-tactical nukes a few hundred miles northwest of the farmland that supports your society is a really bad idea, at least, if you like eating.

actually, an airburst generate relatively little fallout, just that from the fission byproducts and casing. given the wind currents at 2km up, the majority of this would be blown eastward, falling over northern Gun, lazlo, and the great lakes. in levels low enough to barely be detectable over the natural background radiation.

on the otherhand, the tactical nuke warheads the CS did employ were A) remarkably inefficent, leaving most of the fissile material intact creating greater contamination B) ground burst, tossing up tons of irradiated dust into the atmosphere, C) used far more fissile material. the strategic strike above would use at best a ton of enriched uranium. the quantity of tactical warheads required to destroy the city would require dozens of tons, if not hundreds. D) done at a low altitude, where the main wind currents were southerly, which would have blown the contamination towards the CS's breadbasket.

so if fallout is tyour concern, the strategic strike i outlined above is still your best option.

[Samored II]

He who would defend everything, defends nothing.

By that I mean instead of attacking small, high-value targets within the CS like Chi-town and the Proseks; attack Missouri, Iron Heart and the CS farmlands. Destory their food supply with the Blight spell, attack oil fields and mining operations with Greater Air and Earth elementals. Spend PA 103-105 surveiling CS operations and identify the technical specialists and mechanics that keep the war machine running. Target these people for assassination. Emperor Prosek and the millitary high command can be and are defended with the utmost care, but logistics wins wars; kill the logistics tail and the CS war machine grinds to an impotent halt.

Is this what you honestly think? If so, care to counter your own argument (and if this is not what you honestly think, GJ! )?

All I know is that line of attack would be one hell of a lot harder to defend against than a pack of Iron Juggernauts. Who at the end of the day are just giant, slow moving targets. Tolkeen tried the match the CS war-machine for war-machine, not only was that impossible, it was stupid.

[Lenwen]

The CS has Script Immunity ...

Unlimmited Supplies .. when thier needed ... (Millions of old style samas still in cobwebs )

Unlimmited Production Value ... when needed ... ( Millions of Skelebots just "Appear" with nuthing written on how long it takes for them to be mass produced .. or thier REAL actual numbers ... )

As well as Altering species to suit thier needs .. ( Xitixic and Gen Homes )

Can anyone outside of Atlantis really threaten the CS ?

I mean honestly ?

In Theory ... Magic .. in my mind shoulda have easily thwarted the CS invasion .... but .. Things like ..

1) Tolkeen's Head hanchoe's who knew an invasion was comming .. dident follow up on thier scouts reports or try to get even that much intel prior to the actual invasion .. I mean really ?

2) Gen Holms retreat into Xitixic Lands ... and they let them go ? I would think since Tolkeen was on the Xitixic door step for Generations now .. that THEY would know more about a species their living next door to then anything produced by the CS .. but again ... Nope that dident happen ..

3) Teleportation ..... Hello !!!!! That spell alone would be more then enough to tip the tides of war in ANY scenario .. Gorilla warfar where they jump IN and OUT so fast you really have no clue whats going on ...

4) Invis ( Lesser ) You could Litterally place the Snipers where you need them with Teleportation to take out ANY CS leader in theater ...

5) Astral Projection ... Hello .. the most perfect way ever to litterally see what you want to see when you want to see it .. used properly .. you could literally have up to the second battlefeild intel ..

6) Time Slip ... used with Teleport .. placeing Bombs perfectly where needed ..

This is crazy nonesence stuff that I came up with in less then 3 minutes of thinking .. Now think of those Tolkeenites who have used such magic thier whole lives ... think of how or what they could have done ..

I mean this whole war ... to me ... stinkes .. cause its like they crippled Tolkeen prior to ever really setting the stages for the CS to invade them ...

Basically they took Tolkeen outta thier written character .. and made them into what they wanted to make them into ...
thats how I personally see this whole war ..

[Talavar]

Teleport is high level and expensive to cast though - the number of people who can cast it, let alone repeatedly over a short period of time, is going to be small. Individual units like this probably gave the CS fits, but there wouldn't have been enough of them to change the outcome of the war.

Invisibility lesser is handy, but it can be beaten by anything with thermal imaging and most dog boys.

The army that just happened to not get torn about by Xiticix bugs me, but my biggest problem with the Tolkeen War was that the CS seems to have diverted lots of soldiers and skelebots that must have come from other areas without consequence. I think the CS grip on some other area should have been weakened enough that they paid a penalty for it - maybe serious attacks by Pecos Bandits on Lone Star or El Dorado, the Federation of Magic causing serious trouble - something.

The CS seems to have come out of the war stronger or at least as strong as before, but there should have been some loss. The financial burden would be staggering, the loss of military lives and hardware should mean weakened defences elsewhere, and conquering Tolkeen doesn't actually get the CS anything. Sure, there's one less ideologically opposed neighbour, but there are no significant captured resources to offset the war's cost, and the conquered territory is going to be the centre of an insurgency that the CS will need to combat for years.

Conquering Tolkeen should have been largely a pyrrhic victory, but Aftermath presents a CS stronger than ever, with the meaningless disclaimer that they've turned more groups against them. I mean, the communities to turn against them are basically Lazlo, New Lazlo and the Federation of Magic. The FoM already hated them and would be likely to attack again regardless, and even with the war I can't see Lazlo or New Lazlo ever attacking first.

actually, an airburst generate relatively little fallout, just that from the fission byproducts and casing. given the wind currents at 2km up, the majority of this would be blown eastward, falling over northern Gun, lazlo, and the great lakes. in levels low enough to barely be detectable over the natural background radiation.

on the otherhand, the tactical nuke warheads the CS did employ were A) remarkably inefficent, leaving most of the fissile material intact creating greater contamination B) ground burst, tossing up tons of irradiated dust into the atmosphere, C) used far more fissile material. the strategic strike above would use at best a ton of enriched uranium. the quantity of tactical warheads required to destroy the city would require dozens of tons, if not hundreds. D) done at a low altitude, where the main wind currents were southerly, which would have blown the contamination towards the CS's breadbasket.

so if fallout is tyour concern, the strategic strike i outlined above is still your best option.

You clearly know more about nuclear weapons than I do, so I accede to your knowledge on the subject.

[Lenwen]

Exactly ...

Like I said ...

Script Immunity ...

Unlimmited Supplies ...

Unlimmited Production Value ...

for a country that has litterally 5 megacities ...

And not to mention King Creed flat out put scrolls in peoples hands litterally ...

The high lvl of the Teleport spell would not be as big an obstical as one would think .. come time of war .. thats not even debatable ...

[Lenwen]

Script Immunity ...

That's not an in-game reason. That's a metagame reason.

Unlimmited Supplies ...
Unlimmited Production Value ...

Care to elaborate as to how or why?

--

Script Immunity .. is infact .. an In-Game reason ... otherwise .. Tolkeen would have had a chance ... think about it haha .

Unlimmited Supplies ... to mass produce in a neat little way .. virtually every item they need .. Rounds of ammo .. to E clips to Skelebots to Power Armor .. how did they swell up to over 1.5 million troops and yet ... had no issues what so ever to equip and arm them all and not to mention school them all ... even now .. thier not even "strained" what so ever for lack of need of anything ... this goes hand in hand with Script Immunity ..

Unlimited Production Value ... where do all those new ammor rounds come from ?
Where does all those litterally hundreds of thousand Skelebots come from ? They instantly poof to where thier needed or something ?

How bout .. the fact that the CS needs nuthing to back up that production ? I mean honestly ? for real ?
You would think having a DOUBLE front war effort would at LEAST bere minnimum "strain" thier resources ... come on now .. think people ...

War is not rocket science ... you lose people and resources .. fact ... they need to be replenished some how ... yet the books delibretly leave that "convienently" outta alll the books .. and the CS dispite having a double sided war front against TWO powers ... is now more powerful then ever ... get real ...

[Lenwen]

As for the unlimited resources, again I ask, using other words... What could explain the vast resources of the CS? Could it be a colossal cache of pre-rifts tech right under Chi-town? A pact with a powerful Spatial Mage, kept so secret that even the elite don't know? A tech-based interdimensional mining operation? If you were to write a Rifts sourcebook about the CS, and wrote the big secret to how the CS produces without limit, what would you write?

I couldent explain that .. as I said .. its hand in hand with thier Script Immunity ..

How else do YOU explain thier being able to equip/feed/gear an estimated .. 1.5million human troops needed just for the war against Tolkeen .. ( Thats not counting the litterally hundreds of thousands of Skelebots )

I personally .. would have wrote the whole war differently...

For starters ... a duel front war .. would drain thier overall National Resources to the point that even thinking about another war in a generation or two would simply put Not be worth it .. there are no indicatores to how big production of anything close to the war machines was written .. means .. we have to basically take the whole thing an just be like ok yeah guess thats what happened ...

Secondly .. Tolkeen was defending thier home ... nuthings as bad as trapping an animal against a wall and its only way out is threw you ..

Thirdly .. I would not have made the Leaders of Tolkeen drop in I.Q. by oh lets just say ... collectivly .. hundreds of I.Q. points .. thier Leaders .. they have been trained ( some) in the ways of war for hundreds of years ...

[Lenwen]

That said, you're posting on the wrong thread.
This thread is about providing creative explanations in the form of game material.

You are prolly right .. and I apologize for bringing rational thought to the mess they called "siege on tolkeen"

I shall refrain from posting upon your thread again .. unless I have any new idea's to the how or the why ... the CS should be stronger after a duel front duel war effort ...

...My bad .

[Dog_O_War]

That said, you're posting on the wrong thread.
This thread is about providing creative explanations in the form of game material.

You are prolly right .. and I apologize for bringing rational thought to the mess they called "siege on tolkeen"

I shall refrain from posting upon your thread again .. unless I have any new idea's to the how or the why ... the CS should be stronger after a duel front duel war effort ...

...My bad .

I smell sarcasm.

You're completely missing the point of this thread. The question was, "If you believe that the CS rightfully won the seige on Tolkeen, post why they instead they should've lost (without breaking canon)"
The flip-side of that question was, "if you believe that the CS should have lost the siege on Tolkeen, post a reason why they ended up winning anyways (without breaking canon)"
All without using meta-game reasons.

So far all you've posted was meta-game reasons or how you'd re-write it - completely off-topic and irrelivant to the conversation at hand. Malignor attempted to explain this, but I see he's been knocking on the wrong door.

[Lenwen]

That said, you're posting on the wrong thread.
This thread is about providing creative explanations in the form of game material.

You are prolly right .. and I apologize for bringing rational thought to the mess they called "siege on tolkeen"

I shall refrain from posting upon your thread again .. unless I have any new idea's to the how or the why ... the CS should be stronger after a duel front duel war effort ...

...My bad .

I smell sarcasm.

You're completely missing the point of this thread. The question was, "If you believe that the CS rightfully won the seige on Tolkeen, post why they instead they should've lost (without breaking canon)"
The flip-side of that question was, "if you believe that the CS should have lost the siege on Tolkeen, post a reason why they ended up winning anyways (without breaking canon)"
All without using meta-game reasons.

I like how you just "ADD" things .. "All with out using meta-game reasons"

Go back an reread what the original question was .. no where in there unless he edits the question now ... does it say anything about not using meta game reasons ... just says not to change canon ..

Perhaps some should go an knock on the door of reading comp again ?

[Dog_O_War]

I like how you just "ADD" things .. "All with out using meta-game reasons"

Go back an reread what the original question was .. no where in there unless he edits the question now ... does it say anything about not using meta game reasons ... just says not to change canon ..

Perhaps some should go an knock on the door of reading comp again ?

I didn't add anything. I clarified his post - he stated using in-game reasons, that stands to mean "reasons that aren't meta-game". So far everyone else has read that part and stuck to it.


Perhaps the "some" is you.

[Samored II]

A) Do you think that the CS should not have won, given the forces they were facing? If so, come up with some in-game concepts, which don't contradict existing material, that would have justified CS-victory to your satisfaction.

B) Do you think that the CS victory was justified, given the game material? If so, then come up with some in-game concepts, which don't contradict existing material, that would have changed the outcome.

My mistake. I chose Option B. I think the CS should have won and my original post was an attempt at using in game, non-contradictory reasons that would have changed the outcome.

To counter that line of attack would require more details on CS border security. At first pass, I'd suggest roving skycycle patrols by psi-stalkers/dog boys combined with astral recon by Psi-Batt. There would need to be a fast reaction force of nega-psychics and nullifiers backed up by fast attack RPA.

[Library Ogre]

Clairvoyance doesn't have a 90' limit. While any one won't be super specific, good data processing will go a long way towards it. "What angle was the sun at?" "What level did it appear to be?" "Could you see a tier?"

[Ravenwing]

Just a quick question. Does anyone know the numbers of the CS's Psi-Battlion? A book and page number would be nice as well.

[Library Ogre]

Problem with that one is it's vague as hell, it's only of a possible future and could be today, tomorrow, next week or not at all.

If you've got one psychic? Sure, it's vague. If you've got ten psychics showing the same event? Twenty? A hundred? A thousand? If you assume that Chi-town has a million humans in it, then 250,000 of those are psychics (not including psi-stalkers and dog boys). If you assume that 1/3rd of those psychics are Sensitive psychics, then you're looking at 83,300. If one out of every twenty of those has Clairvoyance, you're looking at 4100 humans with clairvoyance... that doesn't include Dog Boys or Psi-stalkers. That's a LOT of psychic information coming in every day... and the CS has smart systems to improve their predictive capabilities, and a small stipend to psychics who are willing to divine on behalf of the Emperor will go a long way to getting psychic data available.

[dark brandon]

Just a quick question. Does anyone know the numbers of the CS's Psi-Battlion? A book and page number would be nice as well.

Coalition war campaign. I can't give the page numbers, since the book is in my car, but it's near the back. You can probably find it in the table of contents since it's a pretty decent sized section.

[Ravenwing]

Just a quick question. Does anyone know the numbers of the CS's Psi-Battlion? A book and page number would be nice as well.

Coalition war campaign. I can't give the page numbers, since the book is in my car, but it's near the back. You can probably find it in the table of contents since it's a pretty decent sized section.

Cool thanks DB.


I'm really likeing the whole "Minority report" Ideal, and the text for PSi-Batt, and Psi-Net seem to elude to that being the way things are in the CS.

[Ravenwing]

Despite the fact of how much I love the CS.....


As written Tolkeen should have won the war. Why? Simple the CS should not have been that willing to throw away HUMAN lives. It goes against everything written about them so far. Think about it. The creation of Dog Boys and their use. The skelebots. All created to SAVE human lives. After the Sor. Revenge the CS should have backed off, re-grouped and waited. I think the CS would have ceded the first war to Tolkeen. But came back a few years later better prepared. Tolkeens plan was also a pretty good one during that period. Hurt, demoralize and slaughter. Since they met all their mission goals in that conflict, I just can't fathom why the CS went right back, after only a six month pause.

[Nightbreed]

I'm just wondering when we'll see the last of the SoT arguments. Probably never...

If they had written the SoT without any bias toward the CS then there wouldn't be any arguments. Then there is as others have said, how the IQ points of the leaders just dropped to the point of them being imbeciles.....

While there have been good points made, it's hard to not go against the so-called "way it was written" when in fact there were things that were simply unbelievable. I'll just point out what no one from what i read in this thread has.

1)Tolkeen making allies with Free Quebec: NEVER would have happened and don't give me the enemy of my enemy thing, FQ are just as bad as the CS in regards to being pro-human. WHY would they even ATTEMPT to ally with them?!?

2)Holmes surviving up north: Ok, i concede on how they trekked thru the Xiticix, but he still had over 300,000 troops to feed for 6 months! Cut off from the CS and eventually the rations WILL run out. That means ALOT of animals in the wild will disappear, and no one up north notices this? Granted it's not like there's an array of cities, but the Tundra Rangers do travel around there. Then there is the fact of no wandering monsters even affecting them? There should have been some casualty. Not saying that the army would be decimated (though a wandering dragon maybe?) but then there are natural disasters, ley line storms, random rifts popping open. I'm sure you get the point.

These are the 2 things that stand out that no one else has pointed out (surprisingly IMO).

For the record i feel that Tolkeen would have fought the CS to a draw, (any Rifts game i run has them holding off the CS easily) since they were fighting a 2 front war with the Xiticix starting to get a little too close to the CS with their expansion. If the CS didn't have any problems with any other major power, then Tolkeen loses as they really wouldn't be able to withstand a full frontal assault by a CS that has been gearing up for this. Though they would hold out for years before they fell.

[dark brandon]

This is the way I view it. I play (and have for almost a decade now) a 12th level shifter.

I am not the most powerfull mage to walk our world. I command no rune weapons. I don't have extreme quantities of magical energy. I don't have decades of experience with warfare. Supposedly our leaders have been fighting for years. Some of them for centuries. Yet they don't know even simple tactics known to any experienced mage.... The fact that Tolkeen lost this war amazes me even to this day, and stands as a testament to how uncreative and stupid our leaders have acted with the resources they had commanded....

I mean for christ sake, the coalition has NOTHING that can stop us tolkenite's from teleporting ourselves, our minions, bombs or any other horrible thing you can think of right in the middle of their camp.... Even to Chi-Town if we so choose... You can spot the command tent of a coalition post fairly easily... You could even go astrally there to familiarize yourself with the area, come back and teleport a bomb right into the tent... There's NOTHING they can do to stop you... Completely safe, from tolkeen, or any other place of your choosing. Even a low power caster can accomplish this with a little or no help.... Teleport: Lesser (15)... You can get 2/3 of that for FREE from the ley line. (totally free for ley line walkers!) Grenades = .5lbs each. 50lbs per level.... 5 miles per level... Problem?!?

The Tolkeen leaders might not be willing to teach everyone (or even very many) a spell like Steel Rain, but 2-3 of us with this one spell alone could lay waste to entire coalition camps and bases... Even more so if their stupid enough to be anywhere near a ley line...(And they would need to be if they ever hope to take our city.) I know at least 15-20 people that know this spell in tolkeen alone. Undoubtedly there are people in the other city's that know it... Fairly common spells similar to this type can be just as devastating to unsuspecting platoons and squads. Most people that would even remotely consider themselves a mage has the energy to cast meteor... Get a small group of ley line walkers to patrol the line with it and goodbye coalition death squad. Even if they dont all die, most of their gear is going to be destroyed. How much MDC does that Gun and E-Clip have? I dunno, but I'm sure it doesn't have enough...

The mud mote around the area would be an AMAZINGLY successful idea. This wouldn't stop the CS ground forces forever, but it would buy ALOT of time and allow us to carry out extremely effective hit and run tactics on them.... I bet if they did get a bridge going or a way across we could get the earth elementals to just move the ring with them... How do you fight the very earth with a laser? How could they stop us from destroying the bridge they built? I know for a fact that I alone would be more than capable of doing it... Why wouldn't our leaders and the REALLY powerfull mages....

I don't know when the lot of you learned your Carpet of adhesion spell. But I have known it for a very very long time. Even an apprentice can cast this spell. It's dirt cheap, commonly available, and takes almost no energy to cast (literally nothing if your on a ley line). Couple that with some common sense and even the most powerfull power armor will fall.

The CS army's greatest weapon is it's soldiers. Those soldiers are HUMAN. Humans require basic needs. Primarily WATER. They have to get it from somewhere... Why can we not summon a water elemental or 2 to stop them from getting it... Or at the very least, force them to transport it from other locations. There is a very finite amount they are going to be able to transport at a substained rate. If they have more troops than they can water, they will have to remove those troops...

We, as a people of magic have something that the coalition cannot fathom. INFINITE mobility. We can go ANYWHERE. There shouldn't be a definite "Front line." Why would we do that? They outnumber us so greatly that we couldn't possibly sustain this.. We can hit them from behind, from the flank, from under the very earth they walk on. They are stronger than us, why would we go toe to toe with them? That's just stupid!

Here is something I would do that wouldn't cost me anything but some time and a few credits. I would write down Armor of Ithan, Impervious to energy, Carpet of adhesion, Magic Net, Shadow Meld, Escape, and Teleport lesser. Most of those spells cost nothing or almost nothing to cast on a ley line. All are extremely common and easy to learn. I would make thousands of copies and litter the city with them. Even if you cant read, you wouldnt find it too difficult to find someone that can to read it to you so you can learn it... Those spells alone would make even the lowliest mage, mystic, or a friggen kid with talent a force to be reckoned with which would greatly aid our cause...

Sometimes, I wonder if when "upping the IQ" of tolkeen leaders, people purposefully lower the IQ of an already dunced CS.

[dark brandon]

This is the way I view it. I play (and have for almost a decade now) a 12th level shifter.

I am not the most powerfull mage to walk our world. I command no rune weapons. I don't have extreme quantities of magical energy. I don't have decades of experience with warfare. Supposedly our leaders have been fighting for years. Some of them for centuries. Yet they don't know even simple tactics known to any experienced mage.... The fact that Tolkeen lost this war amazes me even to this day, and stands as a testament to how uncreative and stupid our leaders have acted with the resources they had commanded....

I mean for christ sake, the coalition has NOTHING that can stop us tolkenite's from teleporting ourselves, our minions, bombs or any other horrible thing you can think of right in the middle of their camp.... Even to Chi-Town if we so choose... You can spot the command tent of a coalition post fairly easily... You could even go astrally there to familiarize yourself with the area, come back and teleport a bomb right into the tent... There's NOTHING they can do to stop you... Completely safe, from tolkeen, or any other place of your choosing. Even a low power caster can accomplish this with a little or no help.... Teleport: Lesser (15)... You can get 2/3 of that for FREE from the ley line. (totally free for ley line walkers!) Grenades = .5lbs each. 50lbs per level.... 5 miles per level... Problem?!?

The Tolkeen leaders might not be willing to teach everyone (or even very many) a spell like Steel Rain, but 2-3 of us with this one spell alone could lay waste to entire coalition camps and bases... Even more so if their stupid enough to be anywhere near a ley line...(And they would need to be if they ever hope to take our city.) I know at least 15-20 people that know this spell in tolkeen alone. Undoubtedly there are people in the other city's that know it... Fairly common spells similar to this type can be just as devastating to unsuspecting platoons and squads. Most people that would even remotely consider themselves a mage has the energy to cast meteor... Get a small group of ley line walkers to patrol the line with it and goodbye coalition death squad. Even if they dont all die, most of their gear is going to be destroyed. How much MDC does that Gun and E-Clip have? I dunno, but I'm sure it doesn't have enough...

The mud mote around the area would be an AMAZINGLY successful idea. This wouldn't stop the CS ground forces forever, but it would buy ALOT of time and allow us to carry out extremely effective hit and run tactics on them.... I bet if they did get a bridge going or a way across we could get the earth elementals to just move the ring with them... How do you fight the very earth with a laser? How could they stop us from destroying the bridge they built? I know for a fact that I alone would be more than capable of doing it... Why wouldn't our leaders and the REALLY powerfull mages....

I don't know when the lot of you learned your Carpet of adhesion spell. But I have known it for a very very long time. Even an apprentice can cast this spell. It's dirt cheap, commonly available, and takes almost no energy to cast (literally nothing if your on a ley line). Couple that with some common sense and even the most powerfull power armor will fall.

The CS army's greatest weapon is it's soldiers. Those soldiers are HUMAN. Humans require basic needs. Primarily WATER. They have to get it from somewhere... Why can we not summon a water elemental or 2 to stop them from getting it... Or at the very least, force them to transport it from other locations. There is a very finite amount they are going to be able to transport at a substained rate. If they have more troops than they can water, they will have to remove those troops...

We, as a people of magic have something that the coalition cannot fathom. INFINITE mobility. We can go ANYWHERE. There shouldn't be a definite "Front line." Why would we do that? They outnumber us so greatly that we couldn't possibly sustain this.. We can hit them from behind, from the flank, from under the very earth they walk on. They are stronger than us, why would we go toe to toe with them? That's just stupid!

Here is something I would do that wouldn't cost me anything but some time and a few credits. I would write down Armor of Ithan, Impervious to energy, Carpet of adhesion, Magic Net, Shadow Meld, Escape, and Teleport lesser. Most of those spells cost nothing or almost nothing to cast on a ley line. All are extremely common and easy to learn. I would make thousands of copies and litter the city with them. Even if you cant read, you wouldnt find it too difficult to find someone that can to read it to you so you can learn it... Those spells alone would make even the lowliest mage, mystic, or a friggen kid with talent a force to be reckoned with which would greatly aid our cause...

Sometimes, I wonder if when "upping the IQ" of tolkeen leaders, people purposefully lower the IQ of an already dunced CS.

because the CS as written doesn't have an answer to those tactics beyond the few nega psychics in psi-bat? Don't get me wrong the CS would have 'won' but both sides should have been much smarter, having to use concealment of command points, baiting traps for the remote bomber mages etc, the victory should have been massively more expensive.

Sure there are, and they are simple tactics. One is to not have "command posts" anywhere near the front line. CS has 4 very distinct advantages on the mages. Speed, air superiority, men and range, yet they send the troops in with vibro knives because it's more exciting. SO use the speed to keep command posts far from behind. Keep in the air and moving so things like Magic net and CoA are pretty much negated.

to stop mages with rain of steel, use clairvoyance, or the dog boys/psi-stalker abilities to specifically target these 3 mages.

Don't fight near or on a ley line. About the city of tolkeen is the only place this isn't possible. Mages have a finite power source in battle. Exploit this.

Use hit and run tactics and specifically target mages. Use that range and those skills to keep hidden. After all, once a mage is dead, he's dead. It'll take something like 12 years to replace him. Keep to the air. CS has a whole stockpile of old school samas just begging to be use.

In all honesty I think if CS had been smarter, The SoT shouldn't have taken months. Maybe a few weeks.

[dark brandon]

Your kidding right? You can cast steel rain from a quarter mile away.... It's literally as easy as walking up to that 1/4 mile (half on a ley line) while under invisibility... Cast the spell and recast invisibility. Your only visible for about 7 seconds... Nothing they can do.. nothing... You would be long LONG gone before any dog boy / psi stalker would be able to even respond. Much less track you down... I would even go so far as to have my familiar put a shield up around us just in case there is that long shot of there being a sniper around.....

A quarter of a mile is fair distance. But, if smart, CS will have dog boys and psi-stalkers, who would hopefully be in the air. Many of them have the ability to see invisible. I'm not saying it would be easy. Also, the distance is 50 ft. per lvl. at 12th lvl 600 ft is a big range, but with the speed of the vehicles, I don't imagine any part of the army staying within it longer than a minute or so. I'm not saying running out would be the answer, but definatly, jumping on a vehicle would be the best action.

Teleport would be difficult, but remember, all they ahve to do is kill him, and a 12th level mage is not going to be replaced.

You are right about the cs's advantages though. Speed for sure. Air superiority unquestioningly. Range (/sigh magic sucks for range.) Although potentially a TW weapons could have the same range as any conventional, it doesn't. No comparison to a missile or bombardment ability... However leaving your command posts far behind is fairly pointless because distance means nothing to a mage. At least not in that manner.

Range is going to be tough to beat. But to teleport is a 600 PPE spell. Not something that's going to be cast carelessly.

A mages power source is finite. But it's impossible for them to bring the fight anywhere even remotely close to the magic zone without being on/near a ley line.... Heck, if your in "The magic zone" your never more than a mile or 2 (3 tops) from a ley line. There are 100 ley lines and 13 nexus points within those 80 miles. A SMALL ley line is a half mile wide. Normally they are betweeen 1 and 1.25 miles wide. That means nexus points are going to be at least 1-2.5miles in diameter which in turn means almost 1/3 of the entire region itself is ON a ley line nexus.... So much for limited power source...

Simple, don't attack them on a ley line. Make them bring the fight to you.

I dont believe they have too many clairvoyants like that near the front line. The information you would get from a clairvoyant regardless would be at best "There will be an attack here in the near future," or, "many men here will perish soon." You wont get "Three mages are going to level this place at 3pm tomorrow from the north at coordinates xxx"


Edit: Cause i spellz goodz

Claravoyance is one of those "maybe" spells. Even if we ignore it since it's one of those cruddy psionics, but there would still be other ways to detect or find him. If anything, they'd create a perimeter around the base using the psi-stalkers and dog boys to keep on alert, using samas to keep them from being stationary targets.

One thing to remember is the power of these spells of legend. There is a huge problem with teaching these spells. One is the incredible power. Not all mages are going to be completely honest or good. Granting this kind of power to someone may end up biting you in the butt. After all, assuming tolkeen wins, now you've got many mages who know these rare spells, who would be very tempted to sell the spell for money, magic items...ect...because unlike deadly tech, it's much more difficult to "take away" a spell someone has learned.