Initially I was going to go for Gigadyne all the way, forgetting about minions and aiming to kill off all males, but I figured that no one was really going to go for that. In place of that, I've put together the following plan.
Out of the maximum forces I want to bring a pretty sizable fraction, all of everyone except for of the bandits and slimes.
I intend on leaving the bandits out because I think that they're better off expanding Fortunio's... well, fortunes, and I think if any of them were captured and interrogated it would be much worse than for any other group. Think about it: the goblins are fanatically loyal to us, the slimes are just considered as dumb monsters and the golems obviously can't speak. Human bandits would tend to be talk more readily than any other group to our enemies here, and given that we have their loyalty only indirectly through Fortunio I think that they would not quite eagerly go through torture rather than spilling the beans as a goblin would. That could mightily endanger Fortunio's operations nearer to the capital.
For the slimes, I am considering a quote that treave left us a while back:
The goblins are more expendable. I just don't want the relatively high-level slimes to be the weakest critters on the battlefield so that they aren't wiped out, so to that end I'd rather have goblins take more of the hits. The slinggoblins are probably best to have at the edge of the woods or the engagement where they can pick off troublesome opponents caught up in the battle, and each slime ought to have assigned to it one elite goblin (the pink one can have two since a living prey as it requires is the most dangerous) as well as five speargoblins. That ought to ensure that the speargoblins are all kept in shape by a more experienced commander who can exhort them to glory and keep them in a relatively organized state in the confusion of battle, rather than leaving the inexperienced speargoblins totally on their own to figure out what to do.
Now, I realize that it's quite likely that a good number of our goblins will die here while going up against strong adventurers regardless of how good Erd is at the offense game. I think it's acceptable, though, as the survivors will be very much hardened and that's really the most that we can expect from them. Once we get slime queens, we'll have plenty of literally squishy minions to throw away at problems; the goblins just can't fill that role, we don't have enough of them and they don't reproduce quickly enough. The golems are even being created more quickly than them, and the golems are better in just about every way aside from their actual thinking and skill. The goblins can fill an intermediary role as our commanders until we can get better minions and find the proper situations to deploy our other cannon-fodder in, but to get to that point we need to have them actually go into battle and get that experience to know what they should be doing.
It'd still just be a bloodbath with the goblins, but fortunatley we have the combat golems at our disposal. I'd like to assign a good dozen of them to each slime group to be ordered around at the elite's command, making sure to have them tank as many of the hits as they can manage and serve as a dangerous flailing shield wall from behind which the spear goblins can poke at enemies with relative safety.
As to the approach we take, I'd prefer to go for an immediately aggressive one taking advantage of their surprise. Gigadyne (or obliterate with with some other suitably powerful spell, for those of you wary of the squire noticing it or something) a prominent area of the camp (preferably the one with the mages in it given a choice), take out whatever defenses haven't been triggered by the stupidly powerful magic and have the slime squads rush in (maybe with a hapless golem at the front in case of traps) and seize victims for their respective slime. They can then set to holding their positions while the slimes have their fun, with Erd doing a lot of menacing flopping about as the Dark Schlong and vaporizing the most troublesome people in the startled camp before they can form organized nuclei of resistance. Inevitably it'll end up like stirring a beehive and Erd won't be able to secure all the groups, so before then he ought to have the squishier elements retreat while the golems hold the line. He can do one last flashy move to murder other prominent figures, and then order a general retreat while they're occupied with that and issue the most uptight of them a challenge against him within his castle.
treave, do you think that Erd can conceive of a better way to develop thegoblins slimes? I'm devising this mostly with the goal of getting them to be in a better shape, but I'm not precisely sure of what helps them out. Do they develop more from muching on their preferred food, or from being in actual combat? Is this an alright way to train them, or would Erd have a better idea in mind for that? I don't want to form the basis of my plan on a misconception.
Out of the maximum forces I want to bring a pretty sizable fraction, all of everyone except for of the bandits and slimes.
I intend on leaving the bandits out because I think that they're better off expanding Fortunio's... well, fortunes, and I think if any of them were captured and interrogated it would be much worse than for any other group. Think about it: the goblins are fanatically loyal to us, the slimes are just considered as dumb monsters and the golems obviously can't speak. Human bandits would tend to be talk more readily than any other group to our enemies here, and given that we have their loyalty only indirectly through Fortunio I think that they would not quite eagerly go through torture rather than spilling the beans as a goblin would. That could mightily endanger Fortunio's operations nearer to the capital.
For the slimes, I am considering a quote that treave left us a while back:
We want them picking up experience, the sooner we can get them up to Slime Queens means the sooner that they reach relative autonomy and begin the mass production of minor minions. The four of them that I want on the case are the carnivorous one, the omnivorous one, the one that munches on armor/weapons and the one that consumes the passion of the entangled. There are plenty of bodies and weapons at this site, a bounty for them to feast upon provided that they are adequately protected. That said, it doesn't do to place all eggs in one basket, so just in case I'd rather that our ore-muncher and the herbivorous one stay away from the field of battle.
The goblins are more expendable. I just don't want the relatively high-level slimes to be the weakest critters on the battlefield so that they aren't wiped out, so to that end I'd rather have goblins take more of the hits. The slinggoblins are probably best to have at the edge of the woods or the engagement where they can pick off troublesome opponents caught up in the battle, and each slime ought to have assigned to it one elite goblin (the pink one can have two since a living prey as it requires is the most dangerous) as well as five speargoblins. That ought to ensure that the speargoblins are all kept in shape by a more experienced commander who can exhort them to glory and keep them in a relatively organized state in the confusion of battle, rather than leaving the inexperienced speargoblins totally on their own to figure out what to do.
Now, I realize that it's quite likely that a good number of our goblins will die here while going up against strong adventurers regardless of how good Erd is at the offense game. I think it's acceptable, though, as the survivors will be very much hardened and that's really the most that we can expect from them. Once we get slime queens, we'll have plenty of literally squishy minions to throw away at problems; the goblins just can't fill that role, we don't have enough of them and they don't reproduce quickly enough. The golems are even being created more quickly than them, and the golems are better in just about every way aside from their actual thinking and skill. The goblins can fill an intermediary role as our commanders until we can get better minions and find the proper situations to deploy our other cannon-fodder in, but to get to that point we need to have them actually go into battle and get that experience to know what they should be doing.
It'd still just be a bloodbath with the goblins, but fortunatley we have the combat golems at our disposal. I'd like to assign a good dozen of them to each slime group to be ordered around at the elite's command, making sure to have them tank as many of the hits as they can manage and serve as a dangerous flailing shield wall from behind which the spear goblins can poke at enemies with relative safety.
As to the approach we take, I'd prefer to go for an immediately aggressive one taking advantage of their surprise. Gigadyne (or obliterate with with some other suitably powerful spell, for those of you wary of the squire noticing it or something) a prominent area of the camp (preferably the one with the mages in it given a choice), take out whatever defenses haven't been triggered by the stupidly powerful magic and have the slime squads rush in (maybe with a hapless golem at the front in case of traps) and seize victims for their respective slime. They can then set to holding their positions while the slimes have their fun, with Erd doing a lot of menacing flopping about as the Dark Schlong and vaporizing the most troublesome people in the startled camp before they can form organized nuclei of resistance. Inevitably it'll end up like stirring a beehive and Erd won't be able to secure all the groups, so before then he ought to have the squishier elements retreat while the golems hold the line. He can do one last flashy move to murder other prominent figures, and then order a general retreat while they're occupied with that and issue the most uptight of them a challenge against him within his castle.
treave, do you think that Erd can conceive of a better way to develop the
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