On warfare against the Spawn of Holistic Detective
A more comprehensive study of arms and armor of the dwarven midlands kingdoms complied by Forgemaster Stalhansch.
Tests carried out by Researcher Splint Leanhelped, Great Great Nephew of Splint Spearspin with the aid of the 5th Penal Infantry Regiment and Royal Biologic Studies Academy.
All tests approved by Queen Gecko Bannerspear.
Alright, for intents and purposes, this is a considerably larger test than the past ones. There will be two kinds of tests.
- Weapon and armor testing (primarily testing equipment effectiveness; several variations)
- Skill testing (Untrained Recruit, Basic Infantry, Veteran Infantry, and Legendary Champion levels)
Weapon Testing will have 10 tests applied to each weapon, and be in 10v10 battles. The primary goal is to determine which weapons are most effective in battle the spawn. All weapon testing teams will receive Basic Infantry training Iron armor, and Iron weapons. Ranged soldiers will be issued Iron bayoneted crossbows wooden siege crossbows and unbayoneted crossbows. Two-handed weapon users have their shield skills allocated evenly (more or less) to armor and dodging. During weapon tests, morale may not be active.
Armor Testing will focuse on what armors confer the most benefit: While steel and adamant armors will obviously work the best, it's also possible lighter armor suits may provide enough mobility to have spawn encounters be survivable, though in my professional opinion it will likely result in dead penal troopers and my assistants having to bathe the test chambers in magma. Armor testing will be done in 10v10 battles and go from bone/leather to adamant.
Skill testing will test the abilities of different training levels against Spawn Warriors, and is divided into four catagories.
- Untrained Recruit: Exactly what it says on the tin. These are to represent dwarves who are called to combat in haste, equipped, and rushed to the battle lines.
-No training, discipline, or really any fucking clue what they're doing. - Basic Infantry: Represents soldiers who have a basic understanding of discipline, use of arms, armored manoeuvring, and just generally not being mowed down like cave wheat before the farmer's sickle. These soldiers will be used for all weapon testing.
-Based on average world-gen soldier's competency.
-4 (Skilled) in weapon, armor, dodge, discipline, observer, shield (wear applicable,) archer (where applicable,) and fighter. - Veteran Infantry: Represents soldiers who have seen battle or have received above average training in the ways of war.
-Noticeably better skills than a basic footman (+3 across the board.)
-7 (Adept) in relevant skills (on par with the Spawn's natural fighting skills.) - Legendary Champion: Heroes that would make Our Lady Fischer proud in battle, they are the uncompromising soldiers every nation wants: Steadfast, loyal, and more than willing to fight, kill, and die for their people.
-Legendary warriors.
-15 in all relevant skills.
-Will face worse odds in testing, being outnumbered by 5.
I have done some small changes to the Spawn.
-Spawn are now susceptible to status effects of nausea and stunning to see how it affects their performance.
-May do smaller tests replacing status effects with brain damage susceptibility to see how it affects balance.
UNIFORMS
Dwarven Battle Dress Uniform
Pig tail Fabric tunic, trousers, legwraps (in place of socks,) hood, and cloak. Ideally all soldiers would have this or an equivalent to avoid bad thoughts in the event of metal equipment shortages. As a note, apple wood (being classed as a hard wood and likely easy to acquire depending on the area,) will be used for shields.
Skirmisher: Light armor sets that make heavy use of chain and few rigid metal components. Marksdwarves should be issued such armor to improve response time and firing speed.
Leather Armor
Chain leggings, coif, and hauberk
plate gauntlets
leather boots
Leather helmet
Apple wood round shield (for melee only)
Weapon
Line Infantry: Full metal armor. For weapon testing purposes this will be the standard equipment, made of iron.
Barbute
Chain coif and hauberk
Breastplate
Greaves
Gauntlets
Boots
Apple wood heater shield
Weapon (iron, though silver will be used for hammers, as is normal for hammer testing.)
WEAPONS TO BE TESTED
1. Pernach (mace)
2. War Hammer
3. Bardiche (two-handed axe)
4. Battle Axe
5. Short Arming Sword
6. Falcion (Hacking Sword)
7. Glaive (two-handed pike skill weapon)
8. Spear
10. Boar Spear
11. Pike (two-handed)
12. Hatchet
13. Bayonet Crossbows
PERNACH TEST REPORT
The pernach mace proves woefully ineffective a weapon against the spawn. While they do kill 13 spawn and leave most in varying states of injury (some even missing limbs and it looks like at least a third had every tooth bashed out of their stupid toothy maws,) the dwarves are killed to a man. The only saving grace here is that the spawn have more or less suffered a phyrric victory since a very large portion of thier warriors won't be much a threat to dwarves packing edged weaponry.
Most common cause of death was crushing of the upper and lower body with a pernach. Following that was kicks and shield strikes doing the same and then heart damage. For the dwarves, spinal damage and unprotected upper arms as well as the odd neck chomp + the resultant shake were the main causes of death.
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WAR HAMMER TEST REPORT
The hammers proved only marginally more effective, killing an additional two spawn to the mace's already small 13. The results were basically mirrors otherwise, with the majority of spawn being grievously harmed and 100 dwarves massacred due to their unprotected upper arms and inability to efficiently remove limbs on the first hit (and to a lesser extent, their unprotected neck occasionally contributed as well.) Though admirably, they ensured spawn teeth flew freely and everywhere in massive piles beneath their mangled corpses.
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BARDICHE TEST REPORT
The dwarves fare much, much better. While lacking shields to block with, their weapons and dodge and armor use skills more than make up for it. This time I simply split the groups, and hurled them at eachother in one big mess, and may well do that for the other tests; while less detailed in data presentation, it's a hell of alot more enjoyable while still providing the same results.
In all, the bardiche-armed dwarves fare much, much better than their pernach and hammer-equipped fellows. A guestimated average has three spawn killed before a dwarf dies (though some groups fare worse than others.) The bardiche, with it long cleaving blade, consistently shatter hearts and in general cleave bodies apart. Often times opening moves included knocking out the spawns' teeth, resulting in very large piles of them all over the battle areas. Limbs are severed, heads roll, and blood is spilled, mostly from the upper arms and sometimes the neck.
100 spawn meet their ends, most commonly by heart damage, and generally lose multiple limbs during the fighting, and often at least one or two per group end up with their teeth bashed/kicked out. In contrast, only 29 dwarves are killed. However I put in an estimate of around 15 or so injured (and possibly infected with spawn fever,) and at least 3 others who'd have probably died of their injuries shortly after. Probably 90% of the kills/injuries were to the upper arms (which lack a rigid armor to protect them, only the sleeves from the mail hauberk,) and 10% may have been neck injuries, as I had two of the bleed outs die because they'd been clawed or bitten and shaken around by the neck.
Regardless, it went much better than with the maces or hammers. By a huuuuuuuge amount.
===
BATTLE AXE TEST REPORT
The tried and true battle axe, alongside a sturdy hardwood shield, performs with flying colors! While a few dwarves are injured, most have only bruises or no injuries at all. A few unlucky dwarves lost hands to bite-latch-shake and others are in critical condition by way of blood loss but may recover. Again, I can't really give an estimate of possible spawnitis infectees, but anyone who lost a limb or is in really bad shape blood-wise I'm assuming has it.
The spawn get fucked up pretty badly, with most being killed by edged pulping, AKA upper or lower bodies being cloven asunder.
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SHORT ARMING SWORD TEST REPORT
Sword-and-board performs admirably, with only 17 dwarves killed, and most injuries (barring a minority of injuries,) are relegated to light to moderate bruising that aren't fatal, though a few have broken feet or hands, and a trio of especially unlucky dorfs received nothing worse than a bruise.... And disfiguring loss of their noses. Anyone with arm injuries I assume has spawn fever though, since arms (and the claws that they come with,) were usually usually the first to go when the fights started. Most dwarves killed were usually taken out by a blow to the head (taking between two and four hits that manage to bypass the barbutes usually, and always from claws,) but a few also bled out from upper arm injuries.
The spawn meanwhile were pretty messed up right out of the gate. Within the first few moves three spawn died in three different groups from stab wounds, and 13-15 died before they took a dwarf out (the flood of HSx has been struck down messages made counting a bit tedious but it was at least 13.) Granted this is due in part to combatants tripping over eachother and the stunning/nausea nerf I imposed.
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FALCION TEST REPORT
9 suffocations (neck or spine injuries,) 17 bleed outs (from arm or neck injuries,) 3 claws to head. The falcion proved a mighty weapon, but in the end it wasn't enough and armor is still going to be a deciding factor. Arm and neck injuries have a good hunk (I can't tell how many specifically, but it seems to be around 2 of every 5 surviving soldiers,) out of commission or otherwise injured. The falcion's weighty choppitychopping blade was able to consistently damage hearts after a scant 3-5 strikes from the dozen or so reports I looked through, with a lesser amount of edged pulping than the axe-skill weapons.
The spawn in all the tests seem to be single-minded; once they pick a target, they'll more often than not focus on that target alone unless another one gets in their way or happens to be easier to hit. This lead to many spawn being literally cut to ribbons by the much less focused swordsdwarves who went after whatever happened to be in slicing range.
Regardless, the falcion served admirably, scoring more points for weapons that severe over bludgeoning.
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GLAIVE TEST REPORT
Multiple spawn are taken down rather quickly within the first few rounds of attacks, and unlike the swords and battle axe that relied on edged pulping (cleaving asunder and whatnot,) the initial casualties are nearly all bisections. Following the initial dwarven death, another six spawns in the test groups are killed, the majority again being bisections, though some die to edged pulping of the upper body. This sets the trend for the battle, with roughly 6 spawn dying for every dwarf killed until several dwarves die of their injures rather quickly, mainly through blood loss.
At the end, there's 84 dwarves still standing - mostly. A handful of unlucky ones are missing a foot or hand, and several have broken bones, and at least a few need stitches and may be infected with spawn fever. And a guestimate puts at least three likely to die of their injuries before help can arrive, depending on if they're still bleeding or not, as several dwarves stop bleeding from injuries mid-battle.
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SPEAR TEST REPORT
15 dead dwarves and 100 dead spawn (and the usual mountain of forcibly removed spawn teeth,) the majority have moderate to severe bruising. The wounded however are nearly all likely to die of their injuries barring a "lucky" few who might have spawn fever; the reports being as jumbled and unsearchable as they are, leaves it open as either claw injuries or chomping. The spear proved a rather powerful tool, and made up for the more shallow penetrating power and reduced mobility with the option to use a shield.
Solid Anti-spawn weapon.
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BOAR SPEAR TEST REPORT
Head and shoulders above all, with 9 dead, 11 seriously wounded (8 not counting one guy missing an ear and another who suffered easily treatable claw wounds,) is the Boar Spear. While circumstance did leave 3 dwarves dead real early in the battles, the boar spear armed dwarves have suffered the fewest casualties of any weapon. It seems to have the perfect balance of choppiness and stabiness combined with the ability to use a shield.
I have to say this weapon repeatedly surprises me in the test fights, and may well be the weapon of choice come Spearbreakers II if we don't modernize the weaponry we have. Speaking of which, I'm going to post a new poll on the matter.
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PIKE TEST REPORT
Before going on with talk of the weapon's effectiveness, a find was made during the battle that Spawn can in fact be knocked unconscious by mild harm to their hearts. Biologists figure in such rare instances the hit to their heartstone dislodges it rather than damages it, resulting in a brief bout of incapacitation.
The pike, as is expected of the chosen arm of Champions, proves to be a most deadly implement against the spawn. by the time six dwarves die (two succumbing to blood loss, and two to head injuries, 52 spawn are killed by the pike's deep-penetrating point, predominantly via chipping or shattering their heartstones. The sheer efficiency the weapon shows in the task is truly monstrous, as the spawn bodies pile up before my eyes during the tests.
However as the last 20 or so spawn begin to die off, so too do wounded dwarves, ripped off hands or feet, shredded necks, battered spines, and mangled arms taking their toll. In fairly rapid succession 10 or so dwarves die, primarily through blood loss though a handful are killed by the desperately flailing spawns' claws and one suffocates. The majority are no worse for wear besides being tired, though at least six from random inspection of six of the ten test squads need to have injuries treated and most have some measure of severe to moderate bruising. Like all the "successful" tests there is also likely at least a few now infected with spawn fever.
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HATCHET TEST REPORT
The hatchet proved... Unimpressive, but not bad. Oddly the hatchet teams all suffered fewer injuries, but they suffered around the usual 20 dead. Injuries and such were the usual bruising and a few more serious arm and neck wounds.
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BAYONET CROSSBOW TEST REPORT - Melee test.
Not great. One test team actually got wiped out, and most others lost one or two guys at least. Still, thousands of times better than just packing a regular ol' crossbow with no stabby nit on the end. 29 dead dorfs, 97 dead spawn.
And that concludes the weapon testing portion! While less than informative, due to my less in-depth inspection of reports and all, it gets the job done.
As far as weapons go, polearms (Glaive, Bardiche, Spear and Boar spear, and the Pike,) by far seem to fare the best, with the humble boar spear, a tool meant for hunting things like large boars and irate wolves being far and away the best choice. Swords and axes come in after them and blunt weapons are downright terrible. This means while as of .40xx we can field mixed weapon units like back in the 40d era, mace and hammerdwarves
need to be set up in thier own squads and kept away from confrontations with the spawn unless there's no choice.
On a related note, Iron armor testing was also taken care of; works well enough, but not the best. Let's in a number of hits that lead to fatal face clawing, which from a balance standpoint? Fuckin' awesome! Next up is going to be armor material testing since I'm on the subject.
And last of all, with Stal's Armory and with the status effects, the Spawn are now much more balanced. While still horrendously difficult to kill due to not bleeding and lacking a damagable brain, stunning and nausea have made them closer to the original while still retaining their hellish durability and strength (what with them being able to crush a dwarf's skull with an average of two penetrating hits through an iron helmet, a hood, and and chain coif plus all thier tissues.)
Poll
55 (71.4%)
Author
Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2273149 times)