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[RAM]

If two people really really can't get along, can we construct a large catapult and launch one of them at random into the enemy camp?

[Iituem]

Magic Lance: [1, 3, 6]  You already have experience conjuring simple elemental forms and substances, so this provides a basis for your work on conjuring 'magic lances' to assist your men.  Following the description of your intended spell, you and your fellow mages spend several months working on how to conjure a solid, strong material able to form the basis for lances to improve your cavalry charge.  Eventually you devise a complex, draining spell that summons a lance of shimmering crystal that will last for about an hour before dissipating into the aether.  The crystal is strong, hard and has surprising tensile strength, and focuses into a deadly point at its business end.  It is on par with a lance made of steel, but substantially lighter.

The only problem is that you currently are unable to summon any lance wider than one quarter of an inch in diameter.  In its current form it has little practical use in a mounted charge, as even with its strength it will still snap on impact with such a slender cross-section, although some other use could be conceivable.

It is now the Revision Phase.

[OceanSoul]

If two people really really can't get along, can we construct a large catapult and launch one of them at random into the enemy camp?

That gives me an idea...living ammunition. An enchantment that gives arrows enough consciousness to twist and turn mid-flight to aim themselves, or for rounded stone boulders to roll and crush the enemy from within. What weapon is effective against a stone? Only a powerful crushing force. And if we make it well enough, the stone boulders could gather up into a stone golem that damages the enemy from behind their front lines, taking the attention of some of their forces so that we can pierce their lines quicker?

And as for the reading-out-generals-minds thing, it's a simple, non-magic solution; change who are generals are, disguise our generals as common folk, and give different fake generals of ours commands that they will execute when we give them the right signal...each different fake strategy having a different signal, that we will never give them. No general would know the strategy or signal of a different general, until it's noticeably occurring for the enemy at soonest. We would just need to be able to give the right general the right signal quick enough to shrink the window for potential mindreadings.

[Roboson]

+1 on the decoy generals. We should give all the fake generals (dressed in officer armor) the same plan. Then when the enemy prepares for that plan, we hit them with a plan designed to counter their counter to the fake plan. If the enemy gets several plans from our false/real generals, then they'll just prepare for anything and it will be a fair fight. But if they think they know what the plan is, they'll build their strategy around that, and we can counter them.

Right now it seems to me that we have invented magic arrows. If we can use them as arrows in their current form (Would that work Iituem, or will they need to be fletched and all that?), as well as revise the spell to create lances, then we're going to be golden during the next fighting phase.

Edit: Now, in the case we want to stick with magic arrows (and they can be used as arrows without revision), I have a revision for our wasps to propose.

We revise our wasp's venom to contain chemicals which ignite when exposed to air (there are several that occur naturally and we have the wand of fire, so figuring this out would be hard, but not impossible. But if the venom combusts when exposed to air (when the wasp removes its stinger) then it will cause some serious burns to enemies. Furthermore, it may set enemy camps and other things on fire. Plus they can't swat at the wasps (because if they squished them the venom contained in the wasp will all be exposed at once, causing a larger flame). This, besides being horrifying (and painful) to the enemy troups, will be especially useful if we can use our wasps to attack their sailing ships. If our wasps can set their sails (and then their ships) on fire, then we will rule the seas.

So, formal proposal, wasp revision: Fire Wasps

[stabbymcstabstab]

Think about it since we can magically mess with matter slightly better now, could we use that to improve our steel and iron in quality and production? If we did that we could simply mix in spells to enchant weapons and armor for our troops.


Well for later of course, otherwise Decoy general's it is.

[10ebbor10]

Oh bugger.

The spear wall is absolutely useless. We get to summon 1 spear per 5 squads per battle, and they can't even be used in battle without breaking immediatly. That's not going to do much, is it. Using them as arrows might work, but the complexity still means you get to fire just 1 arrow per battle.

The decoy generals, while a nice idea, has the obvious issue that all generals must know from whom the real signal will come. Hence, with 2 mind readings they'll get it done where earlier they'd need 1, which isn't much of an improvement.

Revision : Fire Wasps.

[Iituem]

Right now it seems to me that we have invented magic arrows. If we can use them as arrows in their current form (Would that work Iituem, or will they need to be fletched and all that?), as well as revise the spell to create lances, then we're going to be golden during the next fighting phase.

You can spend a revision on trying to refit them as magic arrows, as currently the spell only summons shafts; since each shaft only exists for an hour, fletching them by hand would be impractical.  You would need to add fletching-like fins as part of the spell.  It would also give you an opportunity to rebalance them for missile combat.

If you do not, the men in the field may try to do this anyway, but at a significant disadvantage.  A shaft does not an arrow make.

If you can devise a use for them that doesn't require refitting them or changing their shape, you can suggest it to the King and his thanes and they may implement it.  The spell was aimed to provide enough lances for a squad of chargers, so these can be produced several at a time (but again, if you want to use them as arrows, spend a revision on it).

[OceanSoul]

You are right; there will be someone from whom the signal comes, who, if identifiable as a specific person, can then be mind-read for the strategy. If that is the case, we make the source of the signal anonymous. If the mindreader figure out the symbol(s) that determine the correct source, though, they can relay a fake signal to give our troops the wrong order. Thus, the symbols must be variable. We tell our generals that they will know the signal, without a doubt, as long as they stamp out all trace of the symbol. Before this, we give them oddly-lined stamps that they are to use in all communications between them and others. We make another stamp for each general that, when overlapped with their own stamps, makes a positively-associated image, like a four-leaf clover, a checkmark, the symbol of the Arstotzkan empire, etc. The symbols do not need to be exclusive to specific generals, just different parts of the symbol on each of their 2 stamps.
...Or is this too complicated?

[Playergamer]

+1 Fire Wasps.

[OceanSoul]

Yeah, +1 Fire Wasps. Also, initiate Fake Generals.

[RAM]

The lances would make excellent spears to be thrown in place of charging. One possible revision would be to reduce the duration to, say, ten minutes, so that they could be handed out immediately before a charge, but to increase the number that are summoned...

Revision: spider webs. Lighter webs that hold large spiders, capable of confusing/startling/disabling a horse through poison and really like going for the eyes. If you are first to charge through the webs, then you get covered in spiders and die. They would be less effective at gumming up a squad, but perform better as barriers against retreat or advancement.

But maybe that is too much for a revision, it seems like a simple combination of webs and swarms with the webs having a natural affinity for spiders, but it is adding a new element to an existing spell...

These lances are, presumably, about 2-3 metres long(as far as I can tell, 3 metres is short for a "lance".), and a quarter inch is, what, almost a centimetre? That seems on the large side for an arrow. I doubt we will be launching them without a revision of the spell or the bows. I guess it might be possible if the lances can be broken, but they are like steel...

For now we should at least tell folk to use the current spell as cavalry javelins and spear walls. They may not have the strength to stop a horse's charge, but they ought to discourage one, and reduce the change of the horse being effective after its charge.

[Roboson]

They're javelins!!! We've made Magic Javelins. Javelins are perfect weapons for the situation we're in. If we train our infantry in the art of javelin throwing, we will be able to ravage their forces before entering into direct combat. A hard as steal, but very light, javelin thrown by soldiers with good training, could probably take down a lightly armored horse or soldier (which is all of their horses and all of their soldiers). And javelins make really good skirmishing weapons, allowing hit-and-run tactics to weaken and disrupt enemies before taking them out.

Here is (the first draft of) my official recommendation to the king and thanes:
1) We keep the magic lance spell as it is for now. We train some or all of our infantrymen in javelin throwing (the number here is determined by how many javelins can be made by each wizard).
2) We revise wasps so they can set things (enemy soldiers, horses, sails, and camps) on fire.

Spoiler:  How the Fire Sting Should Work (click to show/hide)

Flaming wasp stings are possible with very little magic. First of all, the wasps wont spontaneously combust because the venom is contained in a venom sack within the wasp. The stinger also remains within the wasp until its ready to sting (meaning its not exposed to air, but is coated in venom). This is important because the venom wont ignite until the wasp withdraws its stinger from its target (as the stinger is inside the target and not exposed to air during the actual sting). This is great because it means the wasp can escape before the venom combusts.

This will be incredibly damaging (and painful) weapon because it will cause combustion on the surface of the target (skin) down to the full length of the stinger. Which would be painful and horrifying. Whats more, killing the wasps would actually be worse for the enemy than being stung. If an enemy squishes a wasp, its entire venom sac will combust at once, causing a small explosion. On the issue of enemy ships, we can just direct them to sting the sail. The cloth will catch very easily and will leave their ships dead in the water (and possibly on fire if the flaming sail falls onto the ship).

The only magical bit is making the venom combust when exposed to air. 

3) Fake generals.

Spoiler: How I Think Fake Generals Should Work (click to show/hide)

Step 1: Dress non-generals as generals and order them to think hard about a set of fake plans we give them.
Step 2: Identify enemy mind readers. We did this in the last battle without knowing what we were looking for, so we can certainly do it again now we're looking for them.
Step 3: Allow the enemy mind readers close enough to our fake general to read their mind. Simultaneously keep our disguised generals far from anyone wearing robes 
Step 4: Allow the enemy mind readers to escape and deliver the fake plans to the enemy.
Step 5: Start killing and capturing mind readers on sight. Give our real generals several guards specifically for this task. Place a heavy emphasis on preventing enemy mind readers from returning after the initial few we pretend to have escaped.
Step 6: Have our real leaders give the real orders after the enemy mind readers have returned and we've started killing them (do this as close to the fighting as possible so as to limit the chance of any stragglers mind reading our real plans). These orders are to be designed to counter enemy preparations to the orders we already gave. So if the fake orders say we're going to hit them from the west, we sneak in from the east. That sort of thing.

Even if the enemy mind readers discover our plan to fool their mind reading, it wont matter because they wont know our true plan (as it wont be reveiled until after we start targeting enemy mind readers anyways. So even if it doesn't trick them, their mind readers are still ineffective.

Important note: Only do this for the main combat stage, during skirmish and rout, KILL ALL THE MIND READERS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.

[OceanSoul]

A note; If we can find and study wasps with special venoms, especially those that react with air, it should make the alterations easier. I recommend sending a small group of people to harvest wasps for this purpose.

[Roboson]

Here is my propaganda submission: Master Wizard Myark
Before magic was discovered, Master Wizard Myark was an average soldier in our army. They were just like every other soldier fighting in this war. He had been on the front lines, and has caught and bled for this great country. Like every man, he was feirce and true patriot who would give his life to keep the Moskurg invaders out of our ancestral lands. When magic was discovered, he discovered he had a great affinity for it and began training with our nations wizards. Now he's returned to the frontline to fight with his compatriots once again. He is a devastating force, single handedly keeping the enemy from taking our fields and farms out in the plains. Rumors of his power and humility are rampant among the men. They say he plucks the sun from the sky and hurls at the enemies. They say he can burn entire armies with a single blow. They say that after his Great Stand of 910, fire wasps came from across the world to join our army because they think he's their king. Similar grandois tales are widespread, and entertain and inspire the men. Those that have met him on the front lines attest to his character, and to the wild stories surrounding him. Truly he is an Arstotzkan hero.

[Iituem]

Summon Fire Wasps: [5-1] It helps that you are adjusting the existing spell for summoning ice wasps (which are just a stinging insect common to the tundra), but trying to essentially modify a creature as you summon it is not easy.  Fortunately, thanks to the brave sacrifice of dozens of apprentice wizards sent off to the jungle to hunt for specimens, you are able to discover a rare beetle that has a gland capable of producing a sticky, burning substance.  With great difficulty, you manage to alter the summoning spell so that ice wasps are summoned but with fire beetle glands.

The resulting wasps are no easier to summon, so they have limited use in main battle, and the fire beetle gland does not do any more physical damage than the ice wasp sting did, but the sticky burning substance works wonders against the cloth sails of the Moskurger sailships (though its fires are not hot enough to burn down ships as a whole).  Stationing a few wizards on longships at sea greatly assists in offensive manoeuvres, where burning out their sails reduces their favoured ability to run away.

Decoy Generals: [Disadvantage: 1] Your attempts to disguise generals as common soldiers and thanes as carls is an utter disaster.  Nobody is sure who is taking orders from whom, several orders are completely mis-relayed and the whole affair backfires horribly.  For the next turn only, skirmishes in the [1]Jungle suffer a morale penalty.

Magic Javelins: [Disadvantage: 1+1] Although your wizards are able to conjure crystal javelins before a battle, they have spent little to no time balancing these new weapons, and they can only be used for an hour, so they typically have to be summoned right before a battle.  Worse still, they can only be summoned in limited number (as they are still working off a spell base designed to conjure enough re-usable lances for a squad of chargers) and so relatively few of your front line infantry can be equipped with them.  Many disappear before battle can be joined, especially during skirmishes, and those thrown do not make a significant difference to combat.  A few troops do take up their use, as they are simple to wield, but not enough to make a strategic difference.

Stand by for Combat Phase.