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The largest of the three insectile creations stands tall by her Mistress' side, a wide-bladed greatsword held to one side by two of the four arms she bears, claws tight on the grip, knees bent and ready to lunge. To the Royal'ss left a long, dagger-limbed Centipede roils about its own length with obvious impatience, occasionally glancing between you and your allies with a pair of beady eyes before curling back in on itself in irritation. Lastly, the malformed spider, whose refinement you stymied by collapsing the underwater cavern that now gorges on the lake's receding waters...it just sits, balancing on eight spears of chitin, utterly unmoving.

Constructs. Constructs, they have to be. But they're so very unlike your own brood, so irregular...and their faces, their too-human visages frozen in a trio of inscrutable expressions, it's enough to make you wonder if...

Again, Lepisma beckons. For the fourth and final time her talons reach out and curl back in towards her palm, her other pair of mantis-like claws held tight to her chest, the wound they frame almost completely healed and yet not. It still weeps the ichor that coats November's blade, the wound coming almost to a close save for a brittle hole that resists that last little bit of sealing. The owner of the once-gaping wound pays it no heed, betrays nothing of any pain she may be feeling. Instead, all you feel is a calm, quiet assurance in the path she's chosen.

She regards you with the cold, collected confidence of an executioner, of one who's seen this all before...and will live to see it play out again, again, and again.

Until it is done.

But you...you are Shu the Defiant, Hunter of Gods. You’ve slain the gods before…so what’s a royal to you, then? You take a deep breath, an inhalation in time with the lake's exhalation of existence.

You let it out in a long, relaxed breath...and you move to end this.

HP: 1210% (+52% [Dominus: Deactivated], Tractus, Whistle: RHO CUNT)
BIO: 1280% (+90%, 1 Sonar-Jackling, 1 Subversive Swarmling [Armed w/ Contender] 2/30)
CONTENDER: LIONHEART FORM: Fullbore x2, Cicada (Parabellum drilling Centipede, B.33 in Lepisma's left hand, detonation in 2 rounds). LOCATION: 1 Zone away, held by Subversive Swarmling
RAVENOUS MAW: Primed.
HUNDRED-HANDED: Replacing Right Arm.
ACT: 3/3

DORIAN HP: 960% (235%, Interitus [ATK+, SPD+] Caelorum, Gutgrab [ELEC STACKS: 0])
NOVEMBER HP: 2420% (Tier 3 Core, Deliverance, [ATK+ DEF+])
METALL GESCHOSS: Cord Intact.

Threat: Medium range, anticipating your next move. Lepisma & Retainers x3 (Silver Warrior, Grey Rogue, Stillborn Mage)

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

Opponent: Lepisma
Targets:
• Lepisma
• Soldier Construct (Warrior)
• Centipede Construct (Rogue)
• Spider Construct (Mage)
Current situation:

Lepisma, flanked and surrounded by 3 constructs.

Lepisma has the following: Flesh Artisan/Neuromantic hybrid core, ability to scan daughters by touch, Domination Neuromancy from physical contact, and manipulation of constructs by dissection. Her adaptability is key and getting into close range yields dangers in being susceptible to Neuromantic override due to physical contact. Construct creation from raw biomass, works better when using biomasses from Amalgam/Daughter Carcasses. Very picky in her construct creation, but won’t hesitating in dropping a swarm of silverfish drones.

Sword Construct has the following: Fibromancy strength, Electricity Immunity, GreatSword, Acid immunity(?) and 1 level of heat resistance. Full strength

Centipede Construct has the following: Parabellum worm in heart, set to explode in 2 turns(?) Unknown abilities. Rogue archetype means speed, stealth and flanking attacks.

Spider Construct has the following: Half-baked construction, abilities unknown but severely gimped. Possible Neuromancy or Fibromancy shenanigans given the mage archetype.

The Battle’s opening salvos were theoretically surprise initiative potshots from one side aimed at the other. After the events of the current round, both sides are now at a standoff on apparent equal footing.

Current known Enemy tactics:

Uses Silverfish swarm and large bodies as screening and distraction
Can prioritize and disarm relics from Shu’s team.
Will seek to assimilate enemy constructs to develop temporary countermeasures and turn assets (ours) against them.

What Lepisma knows:
Knows Shu’s core ability, guesswork and fighting Shu has allowed her to have a good estimate of Shu’s other abilities and overall fighting power. She knows that Shu has an ability that allows her to still handle her gun despite being disarmed and the bullets fired from the gun are specialized constructs.

Figured out that The Tank is the primary damage dealer and November drives it.

Dorian has a humoral paladin ability that allows him to shred constructs like wet paper. Feels Fear from Dorian so it might clue her in that Dorian’s got investments in an aura based Phantasmal Conduit ability.

1/2

>>3780066
Lepisma’s possible next move:

Considering Lepisma’s playstyle and her title and her current assets, Lepisma is inviting Shu to make the first move so she could analyze and create a proper counter to her ability while proactively making diversion plays to split up the party.

She’s caught a B.33 round with her hand. You can bet Fuzzbuzz's ass that She's gonna take the time to dissect that bullet type and repurpose it into benefiting her. We need to prevent her from completing the dissection ASAP, otherwise we’ll be facing the honey bomb effects from Lepisma weaponizing the B.33 round against us.

Her targeting priorities would probably be in this order: Shu, November, then Dorian.

She would probably send Centipede and Soldier to Tie up Dorian and November while using the half-baked Spider as a defensive bulwark to separate Shu from Dorian and November, and keep the Contender away from Shu’s hands.

Soldier would go in a brawler match against November and force the fight to close quarters, given that Soldier’s got one level of heat resistance and has Fibromancy strength enhancements, it would fare long enough against November to deal heavy damage to her and tie her up long enough to keep November Isolated from Shu and Dorian.

Centipede would probably match Dorian in the speed department so Lepisma would send it after Dorian to keep him away and prevent him from supporting Shu or November.
Its abilities unknown, but I would reckon, Lepisma would also sent Centipede to sabotage the Tank after November’s sufficiently tied up with Soldier.

Half-baked Spider’s not that particularly useful given that it’s incomplete, Given its mage archetype, it's going to have choice abilities that cast utility spells or terraforming bullshit so any functional abilities it has will have to be those that provide Lepisma technical utility in order for her to gain an advantage in battle if it does contribute, otherwise it’s a functional meatshield that can block incoming cannon fire from November’s Tank.

Last but not least, Lepisma. Given that she’s got foremost knowledge of Shu’s core ability and the fact that Shu’s shown most of her hand in the abilities that she has, Lepisma would be fairly confident in taking Shu in a 1v1, with the Contender a secondary worry. Lepisma would be slightly wary of Shu’s skills with Terraforming as it did catch her somewhat off guard, but other than that Lepisma herself would handle Shu. With 3 separate constructs to command, Giving each construct a comprehensive set of orders for each would take up 1-3 Acts from Lepisma’s action economy, giving her at least 4-6 ACTS per round to play with.

(Gentlemen, voting shall remain open for the next two and a half hours. Expect long voting times today [around two to two-and-a-half hours] to account for both combat planning and an unexpectedly busy work docket on my end. I hope you all had a good weekend, and good luck.)

>>3780061
Shu;
>Blow the whistle.
>as you do, step right and Leash the two constructs to her right, the Centipede and the Spider.
>Once leashed, stun the two of them quickly.
>Spawn a swarm of Banelings. Have them shower the ground under the Royal and her constructs with acid, to melt the Fleshscape under them into a soup to slow them down.
>>All Swarmlings set to Auto-Destruct.

Dorian;
>switch to Creator form and flood the sword-Construct with Paintlings, aiming to glue down her sword arm.
>Switch to Critic Form once Shus has stunned the other two and dash them down, aiming to deal as much damage on the pass as you can.

November;
>Soon as Shu starts, distract the royal and her Sword-Construct.
>Activate the Joker MAsk to get your initiative off first.
>make it seem like you plan to toss the Dainslef into the Royal, only to swing hard at the Sword-Construct when she goes to block.
>Use the Dainslef as a pry bar to force the Sword-Construct to the side.
>Have the Tank unload on royal.

>>3780076
hope work doesn't hit you too hard BHOP!

>>3780078
The baneling soup tactic I don't recommend. her constructs have shown to have the ability to burrow. If anything we should Terraform the Ground to become more solidified.

>>3780086
we cant stun and terraform in the same turn. only one of her constructs would have acid resistance as far as we know, including her. burrowing through acid sounds like a very bad idea, and would take actions aswell as remove them from being able to react properly to anything we throw at her. especially if we get the stuns off, it wont be something the other can afford to do.

>>3780088
>>3780078
Have we tried using the Dominus Bloodline's Dominon Jack feature? We could easily conscript Grey Warrior that way, but we'll need to make more Jacklings in order to strengthen our Neuromancy power.

>>3780069
Good analysis. Let's talk possible actions. Firstly, I think the Kaiser Flare is a good opening move on November's part. Lepisma doesn't know about that ability, so it should catch her unaware. Furthermore, I suspect given her appearance that she's very susceptible to being blinded. Her appearance was stated to be part silverfish, part barreleye. Barreleye anatomy is intended to focus light directly onto the rod cells. That's what that transparent head is about. Lepisma should be pretty easy to blind. Kaiser Flare is guaranteed to cause two rounds worth of blindness at medium range, but with Lepisma's light-sensitivity it might go for the close-range version of three rounds blindness plus increased critical chance.

Secondly, Dorian actually already has a bunch of Inspired Paintlings lurking around. They're hiding in that cave mouth, placed there under the assumption that she'd exit the cave the normal way instead of riding on a sand-worm. While these should obviously be kept away from Lepisma herself, they can be directed at her Retainers. I'd suggest having them attack the spider, take advantage of its incomplete state by piling on crippling effects. Reduced mobility and the SEVERE BLEEDING status should keep it pretty well-occupied, plus they're very difficult to extract from wounds once they've worked their way in there so Lepisma shouldn't be able to pull them out and reverse-engineer them.

Thirdly, I'm still in favor of Dorian dash-slashing the constructs. Prime his Halo counter, have Shu paralyze with Dominus Bloodline, run past the two we've stunned. Even if Lepisma has inoculated them against anti-construct abilities (which I personally doubt she's capable of, because if she could why wouldn't she always have that active?) or our paralysis, that's still four high damage high crit-chance attacks against two opponents. Not bad. Plus he can fire off a lightning bolt against one of the Retainers that isn't Swordie.

Fourth, steal her Retainers, let her have a taste of it. Dominus Bloodline plus Dominion Jack plus Neurotic Halo level two means we should be able to take over one of the Retainers. Not as well as Gina could with Neuromancy level seven, but still effectively. I propose Swordie, knock out the Retainer that is immune to two of our main damage types. Make us not have to focus on it, and gives us a powerful weapon against Lepisma.

>>3780076
Bhop, would this new vein, and the fight essentially being reset to a neutral position despite the opening salvo of potshots we took on Lepisma, would this be considered the beginning of combat again?

>>3780091
i dont think Jacklings are worth it. the swarmlings would have to survive getting close and avoid having to self destruct. best to not do any plan relying on a swarmling to survive, given the circumstances.

as for Domination, Shu doesnt have as good feedback protection, but has little to no risk of such things from the stun. i have a strong feeling these Constructs are Phantasmal Based, and might be much harder to Hijack.

>>3780097
The Jacklings don't have to be on the target, just by existing they give a concentration bonus. Really, given that Shu has infinite range to her swarm and can turn swarmlings on and off as a free action, we should just make a bunch of Jacklings and leave them back at the Lair for a booster whenever we need it. Something for another time. Anyways, as for feedback protection, the Neurotic Halo can provide it. It means turning off Shu's empathic field, though. Possibly worth it, we trust our team, but might be too much of a loss just to knock out Swordie.

>>3780069
I think the one ability of Shu's that the Royal didn't get a glimpse of in action is the Ravenous Maw and maybe the Drill. It will be obvious that Shu has a Gluttonous power with huge mouth filled with sharp teeth on her abdomen, but she probably doesn't know what it does exactly yet.

>>3780092
im fine adding the Flare to Novembers orders sure. she might of made her constructs to cover some of her weaknesses, so i dont want her to move forward expecting it to work as well as we hope.

the Cave is damn far away though, so id not rely on Dorian getting those here in time. you have to remember the Cave is across the lake, we took he fight on the far shore where we first arrived.

ill add Halo Counters to his Orders.

>>3780099
i dont think its worth it. in battle, communication is key, and avoiding spoken communication is even better. we have a better shot with less risk to Shu or team coordination to just aim to kill them, than hijack them.

>>3780094
(It is not, I'm afraid. It's better that it isn't as that would return Lepisma to full strength, as well.)

>>3780103
She saw the Drill. She shouldn't know the extent of its armor-penetrating power, but she knows it exists. What she doesn't know about is the Hundred-Hands. She saw that Shu managed to regrow a severed arm as a chitinous limb, but that could just be a weird regeneration power. And the swarmling holding the Contender is in stealth, Lepisma can probably tell that our gunblade is being held by an invisible swarmling but not what sort of appendage it's using. Granted, I'm not sure we want to use our Hands too much in this, because they're technically constructs. We don't want her turning our hands against us. God, I hate Lepisma. And the Cord does this, too, remember Professor Uzu's notes? So we'll get to go through this all over again in the endgame. I really hope we can get an Augment or Passive somewhere (maybe from Lepisma herself?) to make us immune to this shit.

>>3780106
>the Cave is damn far away though, so id not rely on Dorian getting those here in time. you have to remember the Cave is across the lake, we took he fight on the far shore where we first arrived.
I don't think we did. We're on the lake bed, exposed by the receding waters, with Lepisma ahead of us by the island's shore.. The cave should be right behind Lepisma, actually. Pretty sure. BHOP, care to clarify?

>>3780111
like half the point of our opening plan was to avoid having to cross and fight on the island, so we would have more open ground, nor be caught trapped on the island if things went south.

>>3780115
No, I'm pretty sure we crossed over to the island, we're described as standing outside the cave entrance. And how would Dorian's Paintlings have gotten over to it if we hadn't made that land-bridge? They're liquid, swimming would just dilute them.

>>3780122
they could cross the land bridge without us. i also dont remember that, and if so then BHOP wholly misinterpreted the orders and id never of supported them if we we to do that, which i did specifically as our goal was to avoid doing that.

>>3780061
>>3780078
regardless, some order amendments;

Shu;
>Blow the whistle.
>as you do, step right and Leash the two constructs to her right, the Centipede and the Spider.
>Once leashed, stun the two of them quickly.
>Have your Maw and Tractus ready to help hold the two targets down if immune to stunning.
>Spawn a swarm of Banelings. Have them shower the ground under the Royal and her constructs with acid, to melt the Fleshscape under them into a soup to slow them down.
>Have the Contender stealthily make its way back to us.
>>All Swarmlings set to Auto-Destruct.
>>Prime Halo

Dorian;
>switch to Creator form and flood the sword-Construct with Paintlings, aiming to glue down her sword arm.
>Switch to Critic Form once Shu has stunned the other two and dash them down, aiming to deal as much damage on the pass as you can.
>>Prime Halo

November;
>Activate the Joker Mask to get your initiative off first.
>Soon as Shu starts, distract the royal and her Sword-Construct, opening up on them with a Kaiser Flare.
>make it seem like you plan to toss the Dainslef into the Royal, only to swing hard at the Sword-Construct when she goes to block.
>Use the Dainslef as a pry bar to force the Sword-Construct to the side.
>Have the Tank unload on royal.

>>3780061
>Free action:
>Shu and Dorian prime their halos.

November:
>Activate Joker's mask and use the initiative to make the first move. Nova Lunge towards Grey Warrior only to Kaiser flare and swerve past it, center the flare on Lepisma. Lepisma will take that as Shu's first move and will make her move accordingly.
>use the Dainsleif spear as a spear, but hold it on the side closest to the Grey Warrior to block the greatsword swing. If the sword misses you, take the opportunity to impale Lepisma again. while your free arm takes a swipe at the mage with the Cinnibar Talons during the lunge.
>Your back will be towards them, and if you get flanked by Centipede, Retaliate with appropriate melee countermeasures

Metal Geschoss:
>Fire main cannon at Royal or Stillborn mage, Priority at Royal.

Shu:
>spawn a subversive Jackling carrying one of Escher's Gear's spokes and have it plant the spoke.
>Free action: leave a Crimson Cord Message for Gina with the message [Planting gear spoke down, might need help, I'll signal you if fight gets messy so you can be the cavalry]
I'm going to say we left Escher's Gear back at home and took a Gear spoke with us before we went out on the hunt so our family can teleport in and feast at the killsite as well as coming in as Reinforcements if a battle turns south.
>Spawn Two jacklings, A Rook-Baneling Hybrid, and a bunch of banelings. Have them all set to auto-detonate should they be touched by Lepisma, and 6 platelings to function as boots for Shu's team. Send the banelings to acidify the ground. Subversive swarmling with the gun should return to Shu.
>If the Stillborn mage pulls terraforming bullshit, use Neuromancy to counter that

Dorian:
>Critic to Canvas form and spawn a trail of 2 long-range Fiber wires that unspool behind you and a dozen short range wires at your arms as personal defense, charge alongside November, Intercept Centipede if Centipede makes its move and make a pass, use your free attacks to aim for Centipede's many legs, just aim for the legs of the centipede.


>>3780097
>>3780122
>i have a strong feeling these Constructs are Phantasmal Based
which means they have daughters piloting the meat bicycles, ergo the constructs can "think".
We need to be wary.

Sorry if my vote took this long.

>>3780124
(To clarify, you're on a stretch of open terrain across the lake from the island with the Spire, allowing you room to maneuver.)

>>3780133
>>3780061
>Free action: leave a Crimson Cord Message for Gina with the message [Planting gear spoke down, might need help, I'll signal you if fight gets messy so you can be the cavalry]
>I'm going to say we left Escher's Gear back at home and took a Gear spoke with us before we went out on the hunt so our family can teleport in and feast at the killsite as well as coming in as Reinforcements if a battle turns south.
im vetoing this with a passion. it makes no logical sense IC for us to not have kept an escape option on us, and is stupid, outright retarded, to not have it on us.

those jacklings need to be bane-jacklings, otherwise they cannot detonate. we cannot make a Rook-Baneling hybrid. Platelings could be hijacke,d im highly agaisnt that. everyone already has armor we dont need to slow ourselves down.

we should aim to have Dorian get his auto-destruct off on the two we can stun. not doing so is an outright waste of moves and the abilities we have at our disposal.

im highly, very strongly against your plan.

>>3780135
I must have misunderstood, then. Alright, no big loss.

Also, a question: We can make minor changes to our swarmlings' shape, that's how we got things like the winglings or stiltlings. Can we make what amounts to "shaped charge" banelings? Because I'm looking at these plans to shower the ground beneath Lepisma with acid to leave her in the muck, and I'm thinking "hey, if we're going to have a bunch of banelings down around her feet, ready to detonate if need be, why not make them daisy cutters?". I'm thinking banelings shaped more like a disk than their usual bulbous ovoid, with their chitin spikes shaped so that when they detonate the explosion is mostly confined to a plane. That way if we have to blow them, the flaming acidic shrapnel will all be focused on Lepisma's knees. If we're lucky, we might manage a dismemberment.

>>3780142
(That's possible, yes. Shaped Banelings were how I assumed you took out the cave's support system in the first place.)

>>3780145
Excellent. Let's do that, then, see if Lepisma's combat experience includes getting her knees blasted off by directional mines.

Oh, and another question: how wide is the cone of the Kaiser Flare? Wide enough that if November opened up with it before taking other actions it could hit Lepisma's entire side of the field, or would she have to specify targets?

>>3780148
(You would not have to select a target, as it's quite a wide field.)

>>3780148
im fine with this. i mean, could be implied to happen anyways. though, i kinda didn't want the Banelings to stick around their feet, more like bombing runs to spray out their acid and pull back. they still cost Bio to create and id still prefer to not risk them sticking around the Royal, even if they are set to auto-detonate.

with the number of Banelings id argue they dont even need to get that close either, basically just make it rain down on them and the sheer volume of acid will be enough.

>>3780138
aw come on now, I understand your disagreements, but no need to be that vehement, and its almost as if you basically just hate me for my apparent "stupidity"

Most of my plans in the voting have been geared towards mindgames and long term plans in dealing with Lepisma. Granted I can see the merit in your plan and don't disagree with it.

Dorian unspooling the fibromancy wires is a setup to use his speed to round the constructs up and hogtie them with razorwire in the next round if they continue to stay together while he runs in circles and stays on the move.

November impaling Royal with the Dainsleif (again) is to keep her out of the equation while Kaiser Flare blinds her to the situation and Shu and November work to Conscript the Sword Construct (which I forgot to mention in my vote).

>>3780160
>>3780138
>aw come on now, I understand your disagreements, but no need to be that vehement, and its almost as if you basically just hate me for my apparent "stupidity"
I take back the second half of this statement.

>>3780160
>>3780162
alright, ill admit the 'stupid' comment was a bit much, but mind you, i have literally not used either of those words yet in this quest for very good reason. im using them now for very good reason, and it was aimed only and solely at the Gear idea, not at the plan as a whole or you as a whole. and for better or worse, i stand by using it there.

Dorain has no reason to tie them up if we kill them, which we have a way to do instantly for two of them if he instead focuses on that.

like i said, i dont want November to rely on them not being immune or resistant to it. plus, we have more options. we can have November take out or at least distract the last construct while we still keep Royal busy. her not actually being prepared to face the last Construct will only end in her getting badly hurt.

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>>3780092
>>3780091
>>3780078
>>3780106
The plans outlined here are very, very good, and adding all actiions and contingencies from every plan together seems possible without problem, given action economy. I support them all.

Still, I would place three additions:

> a) Prime our Halo crit-counter.

> b) Hundred-handed grapple + Fear to thread effect Lepisma as in >>3780111
If we grapple her to the ground, maybe adding fear to thread, we will simply overwhelm her. So far, we have won all our combats because Shu is the queen of mobility kills and Kneecap bursting. No foe to date, noty even Isabelle, has managed to resist when we really put our mind into grappling them. Let´s not give up our main advantage.

> c) Send subversive swarmlings to bring the contender to our grasp, set to self-destruct upon control.
Since it is a critical part of our kit and main damage dealer, we need Contender back at any costs. If Lepisma gets to use it (and she has a skillset geared for looting it), we are dead. Conversely, if we get rid of his retainers and we can get 6 fullbores into her face next turn, she is VERY dead. The fullbore is the bane of kneecaps and tested and true Godkiller ordinance.

So in my mind, I think that the important thing is to get rid of the retainers, get the contender back, and then use the Dainslef spear and Shu´s arsenal to grapple her in place, and then get overwhelming fullbore fire, tank and Dorian attacks to shred her to atoms.

>>3780168
True, there's no reason to leave them alive, but should they somehow survive or if something disrupts Shu's stun and prevents Dorian from landing the Critical strike, the Fibromancy will exist as a contingency option to hinder them and keep them temporarily out of the equation.

>>3780154
>im fine with this. i mean, could be implied to happen anyways. though, i kinda didn't want the Banelings to stick around their feet, more like bombing runs to spray out their acid and pull back. they still cost Bio to create and id still prefer to not risk them sticking around the Royal, even if they are set to auto-detonate.
Not much. With the Halo's enhancements they currently only cost 2% Bio to make, Shu can fill her entire cap and still have net positive Bio regen. Honestly, with how quick we can restock and the risk of Lepisma subverting them we might want to not even have them spray their acid. Go right to detonating, get the acid out and on the ground that way. They'll be more like living missiles.

>>3780170
The only thing that I'm worried about is the fact that Lepisma has one of the B.33 rounds in her hand (not the one that's buried in her other hand, I'm talking about the round that she caught out of the air). She'll use the chance to dissect one of our bullet types and then create an appropriate countermeasure Honey traps to use against us.

>>3780170
>Hundred Handed
those are constructs, too risky to use, especially on Lepisma. honestly im worried she added Construct stealing to at least the two finished ones aswell, though it would make most sense for the mage to have it, she hadnt even finished sculpting it much less made it anything but shaped biomass, so she was lucky to even get it active in the first place it has been implied.

>Fear to Tread
we can only do it directly under our feet, we wont be close enough, and it effects allies aswell. no go on that.

>>3780172
that also implies they are even all close enough to attempt that or will stay so. plus, action limits and all that.

>>3780173
that implies they are ever our only cost nor that our regen might not get interrupted. also, its implied spawning constructs still takes up concentration from Shu, and they also then are having to travel from shu to their destination, which is not instant. having them alive and already scattered about allows us to have them react faster and be more likely to react in time, which swarmlings being out of position and too slow has on numerous occasions been an issue before.

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>>3780142
>>3780145
>>3780148
>>3780154

I have to say that I WHOLEARTEDLY approve of the directional landmine Baneling plan. Please make them subversive for extra survival potential, they can be set to squirt acid in bombing runs at their targets knees, and if they get caught, their self-destruct will act as a shaped landmine.

The best of both worls :-)

Also, another thought that occurs to me: November's shotgun should work fine against Swordie. Yeah, Swordie has heat resistance. So the shotgun will deal less heat damage. But the shotgun also does piercing, and we saw from the fight against B'Ni that even with the heat damage being absorbed and used to heal the target, the piercing damage is high enough to still make the shotgun blast pretty damaging. If she gets into melee with Swordie, she should be using her gun, not just her spear.

>>3780182
i dont remember it having heat resistance, only lightning. while she can use the spear one handed, id imagine she can use it much better two handed, especially when shes having to block and counter a giant two handed sword.

>>3780175
Okay anon, I agree with you on the need to remove that B33 bullet prior to analysis; I did my suggestions on the condition that they would not override your previous plans.

To you, >>3780177 anon, isn´t Hundred-handed a GENERATOR ability? This counts as in thunder, fire or acid generator or vitruvian abilities, which means that Lepisma should be unable to counter them.
We are not using one of the best grappling tools on our arsenal based on a misunderstanding, I feel. We NEED to hold down Lepisma before she wreaks more havoc, and Hundred-handed is our best tool left.

Am I right on Hundred-armed being a GENERATOR ability, BHOP, or am I mistaken?

>>3780185
It absorbed one of our Knights, remember? It's heavily implied from how its shell changed to have the Kynar Chitin and Ironblood Brood Augments applied to it, now. So immunity to acid and one level of resistance to heat.

>>3780186
It is a Generator ability, but it still makes constructs. Maybe Lepisma can only usurp Hive Mistress constructs, but that's not something we want to risk.

>>3780182
>>3780177

Personally, I think that the Dainsleif - while a good heavy weapon to be used in blocking the GreatSword, would be better served in keeping Lepisma pinned and impaled...

A thought did occur to me. Would it be possible for November to disarm Soldier and deprive it of its greatsword?

>>3780186
It's a physical type Generator ability, not an elemental type.
>>3780185
It gained heat resistance when Lepisma dissected one of our Knightlings and gave the augments to Soldier.
>Ledisma prowls forwards while it's gaping stomach-wounds stitches itself shut, a tall, armored figure matching their every step and you watch as the soldier absorbs the remains of your Knightling. You watch as its chitinous armor shifts from a dull silver to a glossy green-black, and it hits you with a jolt of realization that its armor is now just like those of your resilient swarm. It leans down, never once taking its dark eyes off you as two of its four arms retrieve a thick-bladed bastard sword from the ground, tearing it free after so handily throwing the Dainsleif back to its rightful owner.

>>3780186
its doesn't matter if it is a Generator ability or not, BHOP has confirmed the arms count as Constructs before. they also have no elemental effect to them. we have three other non Construct grappling methods, and Shus busy focusing on something else that if we dont take care of we wont even be able to get to the Royal in the first place.

>>3780187
>>3780188
oh yeah, i forgot we have heat resistance now. still, that just sounds like less of a reason to use the shotgun, not more.

>>3780188
and i disagree, as she will expect that. so long as the constructs are alive or not distracted, its a foolish move to expect us to get a clean shot at the royal. let her get the Sword-construct taken care of or at least distracted, she has another methods to deal with the Royal.

>>3780186

So to clarify, they are NOT constructs as in hive mistress, but rather part of a GENERATOR arsenal. They should not count as constructs, and hence not be susceptible to hijack.

In addition, LEPISMA needs her hands or Talons to dissect and hijack our swarmlings or constructs. This means that an overwhelming Hundred-handed grapple to all her limbs would render her unable to use her most fearsome weapon, allowing our swarmlings and paintlings to got to town on her.

>>3780194
they have been confirmed to be constructs multiple times in the past and we are not putting constructs near the Royal that cannot auto destruct.

>>3780186
(It is a Generator ability, though the arms still count as constructs which is rather unusual among Generator powers.)

>>3780185
Hey, I just remembered. Dorian's Inspired Critic form lets him deal an automatic critical hit, which procs the Hunter's Fury augmentation and Red Death lvl 6 Construct killing edge.

>>3780193
>oh yeah, i forgot we have heat resistance now. still, that just sounds like less of a reason to use the shotgun, not more.
My point was that it also does a ton of piercing damage, to the point where having the heat damage reduced somewhat isn't a big problem. The shotgun was effective against B'Ni, despite her actually absorbing heat. If the piercing damage is high enough that subtracting the heat damage from it entirely still leaves the shotgun as a decent weapon, simply lowering the heat damage a bit leaves the shotgun as a powerful weapon.

>>3780187
>>3780188
>>3780193
> Wait, we can still grapple Lepisma with our Ravenous maw tongues, right?
We should do that instead of Hundred-handed, no construct involved, and BHOP said that Lepisma is vulnerable to Gluttons
(He said that Alpha, a High level glutton would have been a nightmare to Lepisma)

It also would give us a good follow-up to close quarters should we be succesful. Ravenous maw is level 5-7, I think, and very strong... I think that BHOP may have set this fight as a tutorial for our drill and Ravenous maw use.

>>3780204
So have Dorian insta-kill the constructs, while November shoves Soldier out of the way an kaiser flares, and then Shu follows up with a Grapple lunging bite pass? We could proc the Halo's auto-dodge critical hit and simply decapitate Lepisma that way with the Ravenous Maw's Executioner's Jaw attack.

>>3780201
he would have to forgo using his paintlings and they wouldn't be stunned, thus he would not be guaranteed to hit them. someone would still need to get him a clean shot on them, and Shu is still the best of that, so he has no reason to really use his other ACT like that.

>>3780203
lets let a Question to BHOP decide this
>>3780199
would November gain any advantage by using the spear two handed/ lose anything using it one handed?

>>3780204
and i still think Shus actions are better used elsewhere.

>>3780204
That's probably because Gluttonous abilities are good at taking out constructs. A high-level Glutton could eat all of the Retainers in one go. But Ravenous Maw is a bit atypical for Gluttonous powers in that it doesn't have any anti-construct powers.

>>3780204
(Ravenous Maw's tongue counts as part of your body, not a construct.)

>>3780210
(November would not lose anything mechanically speaking if she were to wield it one-handed, primarily because it's a slotted Relic.)

>>3780194
Yes, they are Generator constructs. Generators are said to have the least sturdy constructs in West's notes.

>>3780211
>>3780204
You know what I realized? There's a key weakness in Lepisma's skill set. She's starving for Bio. She doesn't have much in the way of bio regen. Her main abilities work best if she moulds bio from other sources, be it amalgam corpses or daughter corpses. She might have an augmentation that prevents her from making constructs from her own body.

I'll be leaving soon....for the dentist. I am expecting pain.

>>3780214
>(November would not lose anything mechanically speaking if she were to wield it one-handed, primarily because it's a slotted Relic.)
We should get her a shield, too, let her be a hoplite.

>>3780214
thank you for responding.

>>3780128
>>3780061
more minor order adjustments;

Shu;
>Blow the whistle.
>as you do, step right and Leash the two constructs to her right, the Centipede and the Spider.
>Once leashed, stun the two of them quickly.
>Have your Maw and Tractus ready to help hold the two targets down if immune to stunning.
>Spawn a swarm of Shaped Charge Banelings. Have them shower the ground under the Royal and her constructs with acid, to melt the Fleshscape under them into a soup to slow them down.
>Constructs that must detonate or see a necessity to do so, should aim for the Royal.
>Have the Contender stealthily make its way back to us.
>>All Swarmlings set to Auto-Destruct.
>>Prime Halo

Dorian;
>switch to Creator form and flood the sword-Construct with Paintlings, aiming to glue down her sword arm.
>Switch to Critic Form once Shu has stunned the other two and dash them down, aiming to deal as much damage on the pass as you can.
>>Prime Halo

November;
>Activate the Joker Mask to get your initiative off first.
>Soon as Shu starts, distract the royal and her Sword-Construct, opening up on them with a Kaiser Flare.
>make it seem like you plan to toss the Dainslef into the Royal, only to swing hard at the Sword-Construct when she goes to block.
>Use the Dainslef as a pry bar to force the Sword-Construct to the side.
>If you can get a good angle, try and get the Shotgun unloaded on the Sword-Construct.
>Have the Tank unload on royal.

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>>3780199
>>3780198
>>3780188
>>3780187
Thanks for your kind clarifications, it is true it could turn into pic. related. I proposed Ravenous maw tongue grapple in >>3780204
as a consequence.

It is just that I have a hard time that we will fare well without grappling or crippling Lepisma somehow. Our build is oriented around crippling and mutilating our foes at a distance, suprresing their actions so our family can use our superior action economy to make the kill.
If we don´t get her grappled somehow or kill her attendants, she will have the advantage in action economy...and, seeing how we have used THAT to fell literal gods, I don´t want to be on the receiving end.

Remeber, gentlemen: she has FOUR dozen succesful duels under her belt...if not more. I call on your ingenutity to find a way to cripple/grapple her besides the Dainslef spear, bless her bloodthirsty polearm soul. Kudos to the anons that crafted and kitted it, she´s a BEAST.

>>3780209
>>3780210
>>3780225

Thanks for your support to the Ravenous maw use and its inclusion in the battleplan as contingency, it is really appreciated.

Voting for >>3780225 as final plan in response to >>3780061

>>3780222
Yeah, maybe. We can drain Bio with the Bloodline, but she can just reverse that so fuck us, right? Or Dorian can affect it with his Paintlings, but oh wait Lepisma can subvert those. So again, fuck us. I hate this creature. I will be happy when she is dead.

>>3780226
We're planning on destroying her constructs. We've got Dorian set to dash-slash the spider and centipede, which even if they don't get taken out by his critical anti-construct powers will still be hit by four pretty heavy-damage attacks each, which have good chances to be criticals on their own just from his various boosts, and which will at minimum inflict SEVERE BLEEDING and may also TERROR and cut off limbs (which is admittedly not so useful against a spider and a centipede). Combine that with the spider being half-formed and the centipede having a Ravenous Parabellum in her heart and we're probably good.

>>3780225
Can we add Fibromancy wires to the trailing edges of the Scythes of critic form like streamers? the whiplash of the wires would help deal additional damage with its erratic pattern and might clock another construct in the face. It's only fair that the form switching is a free action while things like spawning fibromancy wires would eat up half an action.

As for November, have her charge and shove the Sword Construct with a Nova Lunge, no need for November to simply walk up and bat the sword construct aside with the Spear. If anything, your proposal of shoving the sword construct aside would work better with the shotgun follow-up by impaling Lepisma again since we're opening up with November using kaiser Flare to blind them and giving them 2 rounds of an accuracy debuff (severe blindness in Lepisma's case)

>>3780225
Supporting.

>>3780235
both are out of Actions, and and otherwise i dont think either would be necessary compared to what we have.

hell actually the Flare uses up 2 ACTs so she already might be past her limit.

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>>3780061

I agree to all of this >>3780128 except I'd love to see
>>Spawn a swarm of Banelings. Have them shower the Royal and her constructs with acid.

I think putting more damage on target is better here.

>>3780061
Supporting >>3780225

Wow i managed to get back home before voting was over...

>>3780245
Damn. Didn't know that. thanks for letting me know. Anyways. I must go. Dental pain awaits me.
Plan's looking solid so far. I just wish we have better countermeasures against Lepisma's countermeasures.

>>3780252
Well i Hope it wont be too bad. Hpe you tstill will have a good day

>>3780252
Ouch. Well, I hope it isn't too bad, anon.

(Thank you for the votes and I am writing now, Gentlemen. I appreciate your patience and participation both, and I hope your day is going well.)

am >>3780252

>>3780257
>>3780254
appointment wasn’t that bad. shallow cavity meant minimal pain. but i still had to head for work almost immediately after won’t be back until late in the day after dinner rush. being away from an event like this makes me squirm.

>>3780304
day is going by at a reasonable pace...i’m not going to jinx my day.

>>3780328
(Well given how the day is going on my end, you may not be missing much since I'm down three people at work and it's been inordinately busy.)

>>3780328
We will do our best Dont worry we will push through this challenge
The good thing about Octopath Traveler is that is is turn based so i actually have time to helpo out with planning

>>3780339
That suck sorry to hear that

>>3780339
>down 3 people and the workplace is busy because of that.
big OOF.
I can feel that pain. it hurts me so much to hear that.

>>3780339
oof, yeah if thats how your days going to be, dont be afraid to focus on work BHOP. if this has to wait it has to wait.

>>3780339
Damn. I'm sorry to hear that, BHOP.

>>3780339
Yeowch. Take care of yourself first, dear BHOP. If we have to wait, we WILL wait. Please don´t burn yourself out.
Best luck

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>>3780061

There’s a burst of heat and a screech of metal as the Jester’s Mask howls to life, November’s entire form emanating a dull hum as she readies herself for what’s to come. It’s a drone that’s drowned out by the sound of Amara’s echoed epithet screaming forth from your whistle, your Dominus Leash springing back into existence and binding you to both the Spider and Centipede. The former’s stillness is now due to being frozen by your Neuromancy while the latter darts to your left, your Leash inexplicably failing to grab hold as its target moves with vicious intent towards your Contender. Dorian lunges past, arcing towards the Rogue and Mage when you hear November’s chest-plates shift to reveal her Forge Core, the Warrior shifting her blade to guard her mistress before the entire scene is washed out in a blinding flare.

The ripple of movement through the paintlings that Dorian’s left in the wake of his murderous spree are your first hint at the Warrior’s aims as it lunges past them and towards November, sword locking with the Dainsleif mid-swing as their terrible clash echoes across the draining beach. You’ve spawned a host of banelings to prepare for an aerial bombardment when you glance back towards Lepisma, and you wonder if you’d have as much of a window to react to her being a mere meter away if you hadn’t thought to blow the Whistle, first. You move to block, your arms seizing her talons at the wrist as her mantis-claws dart forth to disembowel you in a singular strike…a plan which fails utterly when your Maw opens wide, snatching her mantis claws with its prehensile tongue and tearing them off with gnashing of teeth.

Even now, the Royal fails to react as her bladeless secondary arms spout clear liquid from their stumps, but still she’s forcing you back with sheer strength alone, angling you towards some unknown goal as her Knight and your Soldier likewise grapple for dominance, the former’s extra set of arms making headway in disarming November of the Dainsleif with expert movements. A pop from Dorian’s location draws a glance as you see the Mage explode in a cloud of ash and debris, Dorian’s scythe-arms halfway through carving the construct in half. He stumbles mid-stride, a series of painful coughs wracking his body as you throw open the empathic channel as you strain to hold Lepisma’s lethal talons at bay.

[Dorian! What’s…!?]

“Paralysis, but I’m not…I’m stunned, it’s not a full-body thing.” He groans, struggling to rise back to his feet as he fights the Neuromantic effects that are wreaking havoc on his liquid form. “Some damage-over-time effect, but not as bad as it could be, Miss Shu.”

A deafening, resounding clang of steel sounds from behind you, and there’s a glint in Lepisma’s eyes as November’s scream of warning tears across the space.

“Shu, look ou…!”

Blinding pain rips through your chest as your world goes white with agony.

(Continued)

>>3780558

Scarlet and translucent blends into a shower of pink that sprays you both as the Dainsleif tears through your back and into her chest. The taste of iron fills your mouth as something wriggles out of the Royal’s wound and explodes, your hijacked B.33 round binding the spear and your bodies together in an agonizing fusion of flesh, bone and honey, your Maw filled with the Dainsleif and the thick, yellowed goo that locks its jaw in place.

You can sense November’s horror as the Knight’s sword is sent spinning down the beach, both fighters deprived of their weapons in a trade that was planned from the start. Having thrown the Dainsleif at its intended target the Knight construct closes the gap to November, only to have the right side of its chest blown apart by soldier’s skillful aim. Its reaction is the same as its Master’s, heedless of the damage inflicted as it struggles to subdue its target hand-to-hand. Dorian rises, and through a mouth still filled with your own blood you try in vain to warn him as the Rogue slithers from beneath the ground behind him. It lunges, capitalizing on his weakened state to deliver a final, critical blow…

…a foolish mistake.

Dorian’s Halo flares with amethyst light as he twists around, his legs and lower torso locked in place as his upper torso becomes a whirlwind of blades that carve through the Grey Rogue as though it were made of the very canvass that Dorian’s so accustomed to. It’s shredded before your eyes even as Dorian staggers to one side, the burst of movement causing him no end of pain, but it’s worth the price he’s paid as the centipede’s remains scatter to the chill winds that waft along the shoreline.

It’s a stalemate, your hands holding hers at bay. The moment one of you goes for the gun, the other strikes. The Metall Geschoss’ barrel is trained on you, but the trigger can’t be pulled without first pulling yourself free. Your eyes meet Ledisma’s, a mix of her blood and yours splattered across her braincase as the substance within flickers with calculations.

Face-to-face, chest to chest, you realize her plan was insane, risky, and brutally effective with no regard for her own safety as she aims solely for victory, at any cost.

There’s something so unnervingly defiant that glimmers in the inscrutable voids that returns your gaze.

HP: 812% (+90% [Dominus: Untethered], Tractus, Whistle: EMPTY) {HALO: PRIMED}
BIO: 1280% (+90%, 1 Sonar-Jackling, 1 Subversive Swarmling [Armed w/ Contender], 26 Banelings, 28/30)
CONTENDER: Fullbore x2, Cicada.
RAVENOUS MAW: BOUND
HUNDRED-HANDED: R. Arm.
ACT: 3/3

DORIAN HP: 960% (235%, Interitus [ATK+, SPD+] Caelorum, Gutgrab [ELEC STACKS: 8], STUNNED, 1 Round, DOWN TO 1 ACT)
NOVEMBER HP: 1963% (200%, Tier 3 Core, Deliverance, [ATK+ DEF+]) {HALO: PRIMED}
METALL GESCHOSS: Cord Intact.

Threat: Melee range, grappling each other. Lepisma & Retainers x1 (Silver Warrior-Stable)

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

(Gentlemen, my sincerest thanks to you for your patience with my schedule. This wasn't the day I expected, but such is life. Voting shall remain open for the next two and a half hours as I finish out this day, and thank you once again for bearing with me.)

>>3780566
...BHOP, can the Maw be spawned from our regular mouth, even if its just a weaker version? i understand at the moment it has limits, but it feels like our actual mouth might be an exception at least.

also November, sadly, does not have a Halo... unless someone spend the time and Biomass to make her one or something?

>>3780561
Melee range and grappling....
>I think now is the time for a supersonic punching barrage spawned directly form our chest and hitting her point blank..... Extensiona and return in a single act with two doend fists aimed for her head and arms.... one of them will break. And if not the power of the punches will probably rip her off the Dainslef unless she manages to hold on

>>3780574
The Rogue went for Dorain and got annihalated by the critical counter instead fo dealing a crit

>>3780558
Wait, I'm confused. Several actions appear to have taken place before the Kaiser Flare, which shouldn't be possible given the Masque's effect. That was the point of activating the Masque, to make sure everyone on their side was blinded before we made any other move and reduce their ability to respond.

>>3780578
ok? what does that have to do with anything i said?

>>3780580
(Mechanically, the Masque moved November up to first in the cue, allowing her to fire off the Kaiser Flare first. Apologies for the awkward wording, as the Centipede didn't actually start moving until the flare had fired, and was having to rely on tremorsense to navigate fiven that it had been blinded. As far as the Knight goes, a passive was triggered by the status effect about to be inflicted on Lepisma, so that bumped her up in the queue. For the sake of being transparent no pun intended there's a Relic Lepisma possesses that's allowed her to match whoever's first in the cue. She's otherwise rather slow, but it something to even the playing field against speedsters, at a severe cost depending on how many rungs uo the turn order she's forced to jump by its activation.)

>>3780574
(I will rule that it can, though it is quite weak at the tree's current level.)

>>3780561
Orders;

Shu;
>Have the Contender aim and fire off at the Silver Warrior with its full load.
>Transform your hands into drills to drill past Lepismas grip on you.
>Respawn your Maw in your own mouth and wrap Lepismas head up tight and go in for a bite.
>Have the Banelings split their attention.
>Half swarm the Silver Warrior, help Dorian and November to tie it up and hold it down.
>Half swarm Lepisma, keeping a bit of distance, but aiming to melt her joints with acid and blast them off with detonations.


Dorian;
>Spawn long Range threads to wrap around the Silver Warriors neck and noose the fucker.


November;
>Combine Gauntlets and Claws to dig deep into the Silver Warrior so it cannot run away.
>As soon as Dorian sends his Threads around it, Nove Lunge in the opposite direction while grappling it, to help severe its head.
>>If the Silver Warrior is dead, lean towards landing next to Shu, and unload the shotgun onto Lepismas to try and knock her prone.
>>If the Silver Warrior is not Dead, Aim to use your momentum to crush its torso under your weight upon landing, before unloading a Shotgun at her face.

>>3780585
alright, neat. i expected it wouldn't be as strong, but it gives us unexpected options, thank you for responding, despite your busy day.

>>3780585
Ah. I figured she probably had some sort of reflex-enhancement ability. Just checking to make sure I understood what was going on, because for a moment there I thought I had misunderstood how the Masque worked and we could only cut in line on the first round. I was hoping it was just that she had abilities to also go first which lead to a roll-off, so good.

>>3780585
oh, damnit forgot to ask. did our Baneling plan actually accomplish anything? did we see if Lepismas body reacted to the acid raining down on her and building at her feet, even if emotionally she didn't?

>>3780581
Sorry i misinterpreted what you said... I thought it was something you refered to in the text itself and not in the comabt statistics after the text...

>>3780594
fair enough? didn't mean to make it sound like i was snapping at you i just generally was confused in what you meant.

>>3780588
also ill be having Dorian and November spend some health with their Armor aswell.

>>3780561
>>3780588
amended orders;

Shu;
>Have the Contender aim and fire off at the Silver Warrior with its full load.
>Transform your hands into drills to drill past Lepismas grip on you.
>Respawn your Maw in your own mouth and wrap Lepismas head up tight and go in for a bite.
>Send the Cutis Tractis out and around Lepismas Neck, activating its constricting feature.
>Have the Banelings split their attention.
>Half swarm the Silver Warrior, help Dorian and November to tie it up and hold it down.
>Half swarm Lepisma, keeping a bit of distance, but aiming to melt her joints with acid and blast them off with detonations.
>Have our Sonar Jackling terraform the ground under Lepismas, aiming to crush her legs out from under her.


Dorian;
>Spawn long Range threads to wrap around the Silver Warriors neck and noose the fucker.
>>Spend 200% Health to build 600% Strength.


November;
>Combine Gauntlets and Claws to dig deep into the Silver Warrior so it cannot run away.
>As soon as Dorian sends his Threads around it, Nova Lunge in the opposite direction while grappling it, to help severe its head.
>As the Tank can use an ability from November, have it take careful aim with her BAR to take pot shots at any part of Lepismas it thinks it can safely do. Reposition itself if it needs to.
>>If the Silver Warrior is dead, lean towards landing next to Shu, and unload the shotgun onto Lepismas to try and knock her prone.
>>If the Silver Warrior is not Dead, Aim to use your momentum to crush its torso under your weight upon landing, before unloading a Shotgun at her face.
>>>Spend 600% Health for 1500% Speed and 1500% Strength

>>3780561
SHU
>Activate another Fear To Tread. Shu can't be moved by it, Lepisma can, Lepisma being bound to Shu means the spiral will be constantly knocking into her. Like getting tossed around in a drying machine.
>Use the cloth "limbs" of Cutus Tractus to overpower Lepisma and gain control of the grapple.
>Activate Heaven's Drill on both arms. Rev up drills, both throwing off Lepisma's grip and start to drill her arms off.
>Converge Banelings on Lepisma and detonate in sequence, taking advantage of their shaped charges both to prevent fratricide and use Lepisma as a barrier against shrapnel.

DORIAN
>Spend 50% Bio to activate Sloughing Armor, remove negative status effect.
>If this returns ACTS to normal, slash-dash Lepisma and then garrote Swordie with Resplendent Thread.
>If still down to one ACT until next round, only garrote Swordie.

NOVEMBER
>Swap Ignition Gauntlets to Heat damage, dig in to Swordie's flesh with them and Cinnabar Talon.
>Fire left-hand shotgun point blank into Swordie.
>Once Dorian has garroted her, Nova Lunge away to assist in pulling head off.

METAL GESCHOSS
>Swap target from Lepisma to Swordie, fire a shell at her after November is clear of blast radius.

>>3780629
fair point on the spiral, but id think Lepismas will see that coming, and she may be able to use her foot to flesh art the ground and cancel it out. Shus ACTs would be better spent throwing her a curve ball like with the mouth maw. aswell as the fact the maw deal incredible damage and this is exactly the situation it was made for. even a weaker maw will still deal good damage, due to just how high the standard ones is.

also, im unsure that will work for Dorian as its not a subcatenous effect like flesh artisan attacks, but technically an attack on his nervous system, which im pretty sure is different. because of that, it would be better to try and plan for November to aid Shu, not Dorian, as she is much more likely to be able to do it. Dorian would also have to recover first which could slow him down, and is perfectly in potion to surprise the Silver Warrior compared to attacking Lepismas. he also has many abilities and chances that make him better suited for focusing on the construct, no matter the ACTs he has.

>>3780646
also, Dorian will lose the Tormentis aswell if he does that. meaning a loss of alot of protection, and stat boosts. doing that would make it a terrible idea for him to then rush towards the main opponent.

>>3780561
Supporting >>3780626

>>3780592
(Lepisma was unhindered by the softened terrain, and she appears to at least have one level of resistance to acid. So you can conclue that she has some sort of movement ability that allows her to easily cross difficult or aqueous terrain.)

>>3780654
damn, disappointed but not surprising. Acid honestly is a terrible damage type to have late game it feels like. need to get us some anti-resistance acid....

>>3780646
>fair point on the spiral, but id think Lepismas will see that coming, and she may be able to use her foot to flesh art the ground and cancel it out. Shus ACTs would be better spent throwing her a curve ball like with the mouth maw. aswell as the fact the maw deal incredible damage and this is exactly the situation it was made for. even a weaker maw will still deal good damage, due to just how high the standard ones is.
Yeah, I guess. My focus was more on throwing Lepisma off balance, keep her from dictating the fight (I think we've done a...decent showing of that), but I suppose that you do have a point that she'd likely expect more ground-shaping from us.

>also, im unsure that will work for Dorian as its not a subcatenous effect like flesh artisan attacks, but technically an attack on his nervous system, which im pretty sure is different.
Maybe. It was literally a topical attack, he got it from getting ash on his skin. It might count. He said it was more damage over time than just paralyzing him, which makes me think it's a continuous effect from the ash on his body. He should wash it off somehow.

> Dorian would also have to recover first which could slow him down
It can cost an ACT or Bio, not both. Spending the Bio means that it shouldn't slow him any.

>>3780651
>also, Dorian will lose the Tormentis aswell if he does that. meaning a loss of alot of protection, and stat boosts. doing that would make it a terrible idea for him to then rush towards the main opponent.
That's a good point, though. Crap. Well, there goes that idea. Okay, new idea: Dorian left some bloodlings in his wake. Did any of those survive? Let's have them come back to him and wash the ash off with their bodies.

>>3780629

We are shackled to her via the Dainslef and the corrupted honey.so trying to off balance her via the spiral will unbalance us as well not because off Fear to tread but because we are shackled to soemthing that is affected by it
So to me it seems like a bad idea, that could lead to the Dainslef being ripped out of Shus boddy and possibly Lepismas Body. The latter would be alright since it would deal a lot of daaamage again but would leave Shu immobile. The earlier would be really bad....

Dorian can just chill until the debuff disappears naturally he does not need to shed his hull for something he can probably not shed at all because its in his nerves instead off his skin....

>>3780658
That is kind of what ironblood is.... I know it just skirts the problem a bit by dealing fire damage... Maybe we can make a relic that can be applied to someone to make their produced acids more agressive

I was expecting Lepisma to be more impressive honestly

>>3780660
>That's a good point, though. Crap. Well, there goes that idea. Okay, new idea: Dorian left some bloodlings in his wake. Did any of those survive? Let's have them come back to him and wash the ash off with their bodies.
we can try it sure.

>>3780662
well anti-resistance damage/augments do exist, is what i was thinking.

>>3780664
what? shes terrifying. compared to most fights for sure, shes countered a ton of our moves and flipped the tables on us more than once. we currently have our own immovable Relic through us that will deal considerable damage if we remove it and has two levels of things to it preventing that. she also has sown herself to be more than capable in melee range. to be honest its been a 'bag-o-tricks' fight, each side only gaining ground from unexpected moves. the second either side finds something that works solidly they win the fight, and im not sure we have found that, meaning she still has a chance to.

also we dropped a cave on her. if we hadn't done that this fight feels like it would be over in her favor already.

>>3780658
Ironblood Brood means that you actually need to resist both acid and heat to prevent damage from our chemical payload. Lepisma took damage from that attack, I'm sure. But there is a visual effect where the acid bursts into flame if it fails to do damage via corrosion, so we'd still be able to tell from that visual that Lepisma has acid resistance.

>>3780662
>We are shackled to her via the Dainslef and the corrupted honey.so trying to off balance her via the spiral will unbalance us as well not because off Fear to tread but because we are shackled to soemthing that is affected by it
The idea is that with us at the center of the spiral the worst we'd get is turned around, while Lepisma would be bounced about. But I've been talked out on other grounds already.

>>3780664
Her fighting style seems to be based around having the time to come up with counters to anything her foes throw at her. But we adapt pretty fast ourselves, and have a versatile power set, so the best she's been able to manage is this admittedly pretty-clever trick with the Dainsleif. I'm sure she has a plan for when in this close range, but I'm not sure what. She's seen our drills, she knows we can spawn them, so she has to be expecting that we'll transform our hands. What, can she subvert our drills, too? Some power that makes anyone trying to form Calcite weapons when in close proximity to her have backlash? Maybe. But I don't know if we can afford to not make plays like that just because we're afraid of hypothetical counters.

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>>3780664

>>3780675
BHOP, what damage types does the Autumn Protocol inflict? Heat, obviously, but does it deal anything else? Because I have an idea for something that Lepisma is definitely not expecting, but mostly because it's potentially incredibly stupid.

>>3780678
id very much prefer to not use the autumn protocol and will already say ill be against any move to use it.

>>3780679
Yeah, it's probably not something we'll use, but I just want to know if the idea is possible.

>>3780668
I mean she lost all three of her constructs in one round, she's down one set of arms and she's ALSO got said giant spear in her chest and is stuck to us.

I mean she countered us earlier sure but the deck's been swept clean now and she has a tank, Dorian, November AND Shu on her.

>>3780673
>Clever trick
Dude she impaled herself too and stuck herself to us after getting two of her arms ripped off. This is a terrible position for her. We can just make a drone, produce a hand from it and pick up the contender and shank her.

>>3780690
i get what you're saying, but you are ignoring she deliberately pinned us together and then also deliberately GLUED us together. she without a doubt has something planned for this. which is why im hoping we can at least get November over here and throw her for a curve ball. hopefully for once in our lives we can cause something of the enemies the try to pull on us to fail, but we'll see.

Dorian also is simply way too hard a counter against constructs, yet she still has managed to tie us and our actions up with them and still is.

>>3780690
>I mean she lost all three of her constructs in one round
Only two. Swordie is still up and about. So we're a bit distracted taking her out, first, then we can all dogpile on Lepisma. Still, yeah, we've mostly countered everything she's thrown out.

>Dude she impaled herself too and stuck herself to us after getting two of her arms ripped off. This is a terrible position for her. We can just make a drone, produce a hand from it and pick up the contender and shank her.
And yet it's clearly something she wanted to have happen, and she maneuvered us into position quite masterfully. I don't know what her game is, what she's going to do now that could possibly be worth moving into this disadvantageous position, but the fact that she's in it is not a failure of hers. This is going as planned. It might be a really dumb plan, but it's the plan.

>>3780702
My guess would be she can flesh shape even living/active biomass, if i had to guess.

>>3780707
Oh, she definitely can. That's how she pulled off our arm earlier. Note that we took very little if any damage from that attack, it was no greater than 50% Health given that that's what our Regen was. I think she softened our flesh, first, that's how she was able to pull it off so easily. So yeah, she's going to try to do something with twisting our meat, but I'm just not sure it's worth it for putting herself in such a poor position. She must have something planned to directly counter anything we might pull off in a close grapple, in order to get the fleshshaping off, but I don't know what. Really, this just says to me that we need to get Francine up to combat-ready fast, so that we can bring her to fights and have her scan opponents' character sheets. Then we won't have ambiguity like this.

>>3780712
perhaps. but then we would have to have Francine in every fight and thats just not gonna happen.

>>3780561
>>3780626
a few small changes, though nothing major, so amending orders one last time.

Shu;
>Have the Contender aim and fire off at the Silver Warrior with its full load.
>Transform your hands into drills to drill past Lepismas grip on you.
>Respawn your Maw in your own mouth and wrap Lepismas head up tight and go in for a bite.
>Send the Cutis Tractis out and around Lepismas Neck, activating its constricting feature.
>Have the Banelings split their attention.
>Half swarm the Silver Warrior, help Dorian and November to tie it up and hold it down.
>Half swarm Lepisma, keeping a bit of distance, but aiming to blast off her joints with detonations.
>Have our Sonar Jackling terraform the ground under Lepismas, aiming to crush her legs out from under her.


Dorian;
>See if your paintlings cannot wash the stunning ash off of your form.
>Spawn long Range threads to wrap around the Silver Warriors neck and noose the fucker.
>>If you regain your missing ACT, Rush Lepismas with your Daggers, grappling her and pulling her back as you carve away at her with your scythes.
>>Spend 200% Health to build 600% Strength.


November;
>Combine Gauntlets and Claws to dig deep into the Silver Warrior so it cannot run away.
>As soon as Dorian sends his Threads around it, Nova Lunge in the opposite direction while grappling it, to help severe its head.
>As the Tank can use an ability from November, have it take careful aim with her BAR to take pot shots at any part of Lepismas it thinks it can safely do. Reposition itself if it needs to.
>>If the Silver Warrior is dead, lean towards landing next to Shu, and unload the shotgun onto Lepismas to try and knock her prone.
>>If the Silver Warrior is not Dead, Aim to use your momentum to crush its torso under your weight upon landing, before unloading a Shotgun at her face.
>>>Spend 600% Health for 1500% Speed and 1500% Strength

>>3780745
Sounds good to me.

>>3780745
Do you suppose maybe she's baiting us into consuming her and has a Neuromancy ability that'll kick in when we do?

>>3780787
seems likely.
also wtf happened while im at work?
still at work btw,
and mad that i didn’t get to contribute

(Back home and writing now, Gentlemen.)

>>3780678
(It just deals Heat damage, currently.)

>>3780795
Huh. So this is a terrible idea, and probably not something we should do, but Cutus Tractus' cocoon mode grants immunity to Heat damage. I don't think Lepisma would expect us to call in a tactical-scale plasma cannon strike on our own position. Wrap ourselves up, fire the cannon, if she's still alive afterwards I'd be very surprised. Downside if that if she's still alive afterwards November would be severely reduced in capabilities (though no longer quite as crippled, thanks to Relic slotting). We shouldn't do it, but it would be quite satisfying if we did.

Back from work....and I see that although the situation's better on the construct side...Lepisma's tunnel visioning HARD on Shu. She's planned to mold and sculpt Shu into her puppet, going so far as to willingly impale Shu and herself in order to get into melee range.

And i see that I've missed the voting window. Just peachy..

>>3780858
Well, she got a look at our Core. I think between that us using Dominus Bloodline on her, she figured out that we're the party leader with all the support and coordination abilities. She wants to knock that out as quick as possible. Unfortunately, our other party members are still pretty strong, so we've taken out all her distractions and are about to seriously dogpile on her.

>>3780893
>so we've taken out all her distractions and are about to seriously dogpile on her.
>When Sword soldier retainer is still alive and Lepisma's performing surgical rape on Shu's body.

>>3780902
Swordie is going to be dead in a moment, and Lepisma has just as many problems being this close to us as we do. I'm not too worried.

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>>3780561

November's speakers can barely voice the scream of of rage that tears forth from them as she burns through her own existence, fueling the strength that drives her fists into the Silver Warrior's chest before it can react. It's frozen in place as Dorian's paintlings swarm over their master's form, and in a fluid motion a pair of strands fly forth as the paintlings collapse to the ground with their creator once again standing tall. The wires form a noose around the Warrior's struggling form, a garrote around its neck that tightens when light flares at November's back, and it's putting up a decent fight until your Contender rings out across the chaos.

One, two, three retorts send your remaining rounds cracking into the Warrior's back, your Fullbores biting into its spine while the cicada just screams at the back of its neck. Concentration shattered, the Warrior's sleek silver form is buried under half of your Baneling swarm as they move as one to assist in your team's effort of execution. November roars one final time as the flames from her boosters go from neon orange to searing white, and you watch as the Warrior's sword flies back to their grip just as its head goes flying into the scarlet sky of dawn. Its decapitated form brings its blade down across November's plating as it scours a jagged, sloppy line down her peerless frame in a final act of defiance. Impressive, but not enough to stop the woman's victorious charge as Dorian's wires withdraw, the thing's own clear blood flicked clean from his immaculate strands with a delicate flick of his wrist before they retreat back into his long, delicate fingers.

Your hands begin to twist in turn, rotating with terrible force as they snap Lepisma's wrists with a satisfying crack. The Royal is helpless to recoil as your jaw hinges wide, your tongue lengthening as you manifest what little of the Ravenous Maw you can from your abominal cavity into your actual mouth. Your foe is trapped in a snare of her own making as your tongue encircles her skull, her shattered hands giving your shoulders one final caress that sends a chill through your core as you plunge your drills into your foe's throat. Ozone fills your nostrils as your warped hands carve past chitin and meat, tearing through the being before you as its head is reduced to a churned, pulpy mass, its shell...

...the shell of the malformed silverfish before you is utterly annihilated under your attack, leaving you alone with the Dainsleif run through your chest, and no sign of Lepisma.

(Continued)

>>3780918

Your feel the earth rumble beneath your feet as your Sonar-Jackling picks up a fresh set of readings, a host of small creatures tunneling up from the depths with incredible speed. Your Jackling is close, much too close to the emergence zone to avoid the devouring swarm as they bloom from the Obsidian Spire's abyss in a thin cloud of grey, silver, and glossy green-black. Immediately both November and her steed begin a duet of machinegun fire, their twin B.A.R.s meeting the cloud of constructs with a cloud of hot plasma while Dorian begins to dart along the beach, building charges for his own long-range assault.

You turn with some effort, the Dainsleif shifting uncomfortably in your chest as the whirring of your hands dies down, and you look with your Halo-enhanced vision at what approaches. Silverfish, like the ones she sent to overthrow the tank, and yet...something more. There are a variety of new shapes, a host of mutated forms that don't fit the silverfish at all, but uncannily familiar. You recognize them now, as they draw closer, your breath hitching in your throat as you realize what the Royal's done.

Knights, Rooks, Bishops...a host of modified swarmlings flying on silver wings.

Your Ravenous Maw is slowly regenerating off to one side of your wound as you realize your foe wasn't trying to control you, not at all. She was understanding you and your most potent skill, its intricacies and quirks, all in an effort not to merely control, but to replicate, to craft with what she left behind down in the cavern's murky depths. A swarm, a marriage of her will and your skills, spread out to not get caught too easily in the single-target fire she now knows Dorian and November are capable of. Perhaps six-dozen of the newborn brood close in, one or two picked off in the hail of gunfire that shreds through the cool morning air. They're just missing one thing.

Lepisma's not among their considerable number.

She could come from anywhere. Above, below...you have no idea where she'll strike next. She's clever, but so are you. She's taken as many risks as she has hits, and she chose to flee instead of counter you in melee when she saw your arsenal up-close.

Victory's in your grasp, if you can just find an opening...or force one.

HP: 864% (+90% [Dominus: Untethered], Tractus, Whistle: EMPTY) {HALO: PRIMED}
BIO: 1280% (+90%,1 Subversive Swarmling [Armed w/ Contender], 26 Banelings, 27/30)
CONTENDER: Empty.
RAVENOUS MAW: Regenerated, Primed.
HUNDRED-HANDED: R. Arm.
ACT: 3/3

DORIAN HP: 960% (235%, Interitus [ATK*5, SPD+] Caelorum, Gutgrab [ELEC STACKS: 8])
NOVEMBER HP: 956% (200%, Tier 3 Core, Deliverance, [ATK*5 DEF*5])
METALL GESCHOSS: Cord Intact.

Threat: Long range. Possesses your Swarmling sub-classes and augmentations, Lepisma unaccounted for. Dainsleif still embedded in your chest.

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

(Gentlemen, I shall be pausing here for the evening to try and get an early night's sleep. Voting shall remain open for the next twelve hours, with posting to resume in roughly fourteen. I shall be around for a little while longer to address questions, concerns, or criticisms, and I welcome them all and shall address any I don't get to tonight in the morning. Thank you all for your patience, participation, and enthusiasm. I hope you have a good evening one and all, and rest well.)

>>3780925
(Also, an addendum; Dorian's ELEC Stacks should read 17 instead of 8. Additionally, the Silver Warrior's sword is next to November.)

>>3780925
how the actual heck did she switch places with a construct while pinned onto something she cant remove herself?

>>3780920
Huh....I think I get it now. Lepisma's a hive mistress that took the swarm route.

>>3780937
Rook Teleport Swap ability. Remember? She castled herself with a Silverfish, she already got a good read on Shu the moment she closed into melee, and now she's got the entire Hive pastebin in her hands.

>>3780918
I'm confused. Is the implication that we weren't fighting Lepisma, just a construct in her shape that she swapped out at some point (I guess during the dust cloud from the cluster grenade bombardment)? Because we ate that thing's brain. If that was Lepisma it should be dead, she has not shown the sort of regeneration needed to survive that.

>>3780942
that felt way to fast but whatever. in that case we're fucked then. all she has to do is keep a single bishop back and we can literally under no circumstances actually confirm a kill, meaning all of this was for nothing. fucking godamned wonderful.

>>3780937
(Simple; she switched out with a Bishop-class Swarmling. Due to her setup, she's been able to map your Swarmling classes abilities onto her own swarm, the majority of which were down in the dark, spawning from the remains of the Worm as she streamed them technical 'updates' as to their specifications.)

>>3780943
(You were absolutely fighting the real Lepisma, who castled herself with a Bishop the second she realized she was about to die in melee combat.)

>>3780947
Great... There she goes cannibalizing what was supposed to be OUR PREY.

>>3780946
You. Go outside. Take a 30 minute walk, or just walk away from the computer for about an hour and cool your damn head. You're too emotionally involved and have gotten so tunnel visioned that you didn't take into account for the long term mindgames. Lepisma's playing you like a fiddle, that's why you're so frustrated.

>>3780947
How fast are the silver-lings flying? Do we have enough time for a proper setup?

>>3780947
>(You were absolutely fighting the real Lepisma, who castled herself with a Bishop the second she realized she was about to die in melee combat.)
Okay, I think I see. Is she making Death Saving Throws, then? Because even before she teleported out (assuming that's the ozone smell), we were already driving our drills into her throat. I'm pretty sure that would cause mortal wounds. Can we just wait out this fight until she bleeds out?

>>3780952
no, im not, and go fuck yourself with thinking you know what state of mind i am in. what i said is a very obvious and real possibility and if you're gonna ignore it and make a personal attack to brush it aside you are not worth listening to.

>>3780947
Also, wait, Bishop-class? You mean Rook, right? Bishops are the ones that give speed boosts.

>>3780952
(Also, to clarify; any levels she absorbed from the Worm have been added to what she drops on death, so nothing's been lost. Depriving you of that simply wouldn't be fair.)

>>3780957
(They may have your swarm's abilities, but they're a good bit weaker. Thus, you have about half a round of set-up before they reach you. If they were your Knightlings, then they'd be on you in an instant.)

>>3780958
(She's not making death saving throws yet, but you did deal a considerable amount of damage before her teleport triggered. If she was the talkative sort, she wouldn't be anymore with what you managed.)

>>3780961
(You're absolutely correct, I'm just exhausted.)

>>3780960
>>3780946
(If I may offer a word; I'll never throw you up against something you don't possess the tools to dismantle. I tweak and balance every encounter with your current tool-set and party composition in mind. You and everyone here have shattered my fights and broken the game in ways I didn't even think of. You've got this.)

>>3780920
Orders;

Shu;
>Have our banelings go low and spread out, becoming a minefield across the battlefield.
>Get the damn Contender back in your hand.
>Try and get a read on her with Halo and Jackling alike.
>Fuck this. You have a large sum of Biomass, and you’re tired of your foe hiding underground. Strain yourself, push your Terraforming to its limits. Harden the earth, shake it up, and force it and anything underground to the surface in a massive cascade of an upheaval plate movement.
>As soon as you find her, Have your Banelings swarm, using your Cutis Tractus to pull you forward on a Baneling while your Maw is ready to snatch her up no matter which direction she runs.
>bring the lionheart against her.
>>all Benlings set to auto-destruct.


Dorian;
>Masque of War the incoming swarm, releasing lighting from inside of yourself to electrocute them all in one big storm cloud.
>Send your Paintlings to spread out and cover the battlefield, so any place she emerges from, you will feel it and and draw the paintlings to that point.
>If you finish off the Silverfish swarmlings, be prepared to burst speed to tackle Lepismas wherever she comes out at.


November;
>Free Shu of the Deliverance as gently as you can.
>only if Dorian needs it, use your BAR and Shotgun to help clear them out.
>Otherwise, Prime your Tank to fire off a tank sized Shotgun blast. IF shu is able to force her to the surface, fire it off to try and knock her prone.
>Then, Nova Lunge for Lepisma, Shotgun ready to try and keep her pinned if she manages to avoid the initial barrages against her.
>Otherwise use the weight of the Dainself to pin her down and to the ground.


>>3780973
a primable teleport upon getting struck taking her all the way back to the cave even Dorian probably couldn't reach in a turn and is caved in to where we cant get to it is a pretty impossible thing to counter.

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>>3780960
I apologize for the apparent personal attack.

I'm sorry.

The tone of the post too similar to the "doomposting" spree we had back when Isabelle counter-backstabbed Ozmas, And I sorta tunnel visioned on that "we're fucked then" and the "meaning all of this was for nothing" part.

In any case, I think I can see a silver lining here. If Lepisma's abilities require her to get a complete scan of the enemy, then being forced to spawn a massive wave of swarmlings using bio from her own abilities and that of the corpse, then she'll be starving for Bio the moment we survive.

>>3780973
Bhop...Are we fighting Body Horror's equivalent of a literal Necromancer? Because she pulled the equivalent of pic related.

>>3780973
>(You're absolutely correct, I'm just exhausted.)
I'm sorry to hear you had a rough day. I'll try not to keep you up too long with my questions. Here's my big one:

Things moving fast through Dorian's mist form disrupt it, right? Is that enough to count as "attacks"? Because I'm thinking, at ten levels of CHARGE Dorian counter-zaps anything that attacks him. We have him rush over to the swarm, build up another three stacks of CHARGE in the process to bring him to an even twenty, then turn into Masque of War. He becomes a big red thundercloud, zapping the first twenty (I assume with their mass movement they'd all get resolved at once instead of on a per-unit basis and therefore make him stop when he gets down to nine CHARGE) swarmlings, any further that he catches take damage from Masque of War and are confined. Lepisma hasn't seen Dorian use Masque of War yet, she's not prepared for it.

>>3780979
(Ha, essentially yes. If the nature of her constructs seems a bit obtuse, it's because she has three Hybrid abilities as her main tool kit, all of which are spliced with a Hive Mistress skill tree and which have interaction effects with the others along with a host of bizarre Augmentations that play into them. It's a very odd solo-play build, definitely niche.)

>>3780987
(No worries, it comes with the territory and regarding your question, I'm always happy to help. Yes, that would trigger it.)

>>Lepisma hasn't seen Dorian use Masque of War yet, she's not prepared for it.

(Indeed. There's a good bit about your secondary skills that she's blissfully unaware of, to say nothing of your allies.)

>>3780991
If we have perfect vision, do we have an exact headcount of the Swarm composition of Lepisma's Silver-lings? How many of each type?

>>3780994
(There are seventy Faux-Swarmlings; Forty-five Knights, fifteen Bishops, and Ten Rooks.)

>>3780975
I generally like this plan, but I would like to make some amendments as I have a few creative ideas that involve keeping the Dainsleif embedded in Shu's chest, but it's dependent on which way the spear is pointing.

>>3780991
Also, which way is the Dainsleif's spearhead pointing? Is it pointing out from our stomach and ahead? or are we seeing the blunt end and the spearhead is behind our back?

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>>3780991
>(Indeed. There's a good bit about your secondary skills that she's blissfully unaware of, to say nothing of your allies.)
Yes. Yes, there is. Alright, bit of an odd question here, but...how many Hundred-Hands would we need to spawn to grab every single swarmling out of the air and bring them together into a tight ball for Dorian to envelop in the Masque of War? Just create this huge branching fractal of limbs like one of Hans Moravec's bush robots, that then retracts instantly to pull them together and recycle the biomass. Lepisma isn't up here to potentially hijack our hands, we're free to go wild. Shu has 1280% Bio, that's enough to spawn 426 Hands. Get Dorian into position in the center of the swarm, use Hundred-Hands level five to spawn them off him, pull them all together. Oh, wait, even better: Can we spawn the Hands off of his mist form, or does that not offer a solid enough purchase?

>>3781001
It entered through our back, it's pointing forward.

>>3781001
(Looking down, you see the speartip. It went through your back and out your stomach.)

>>3781001
you're gonna have to explain yourself pretty good to convince me to keep a spear that prevents Shu from moving or properly reacting in her stomach. because that sounds like one of the worst ideas possible.

>>3781003
(His mist form is not quite solid enough to generate Hundred-Handed constructs, I'm afraid.)

>>3781010
Okay, but we can generate them when he's solid and have him turn to mist after the swarmlings are in position. Do we have enough Hands for that?

>>3781004
did we manage to stand up with the Spear still stuck in our gut or lying down? Because if I remember the wording correctly, the strength requirement to lift or even pull it out involves Fibromancy strength augments. Does that still apply when you have a spear stuck inside your gut? and Can we move around properly with the Dainsleif stuck inside?

>>3781003
>>3781014
dude... we are not doing that. Hundred Hands are CONSTRUCTS. literally all but 10 of them probably have the corruption gunk inside of them, or have a strong possibility to have it. we are not giving her the chance to turn 426 hands against us.

>>3781017
Hundred-Hands are also bullet-fast. We'll reel them in before they can spew any goo.

>>3781019
if our own Banelings can auto-destruct why couldn't hers. hell fucking no man, thats an absolute terrible plan that could easily horribly backfire and get us overwhelmed insanely quickly.

>>3781015
(Basically, without Lepisma helping to support one end the tip is basically in the ground and angled to keep you standing.)

(...it looks rather ridiculous, actually.)

>>3781023
Exactly, our banelings can self-destruct faster than they can be infected. Which means that our Hands, which are even faster, can retract faster than they can be infected. I'm not even convinced Lepisma can infect the Hands, actually. She didn't when she was grappling with Shu. Our right hand is a Hundred-Hand right now, it's fine.

>>3781000
>10 rooks.
Thank you for the information.
>>3781024
>>3781009
I intend on returning the favor on the shenanigan Lepisma pulled.
Snipe down the 10 Rooks. We impale Lepisma by impaling ourself onto Lepisma by slingshot latching onto her with hundred handed constructs and then reeling her in. If she has no rooks to castle with, she can't escape Shu's Maw.

Having November waste an action to extract the spear is a waste on November's part.

For now, we focus on mowing down the 70 silver-lings.

>>3781019
I have to say I'm vetoing your proposition for having Shu spawn hundred handed arms from Dorian as an origin point. That would defeat the purpose of having Dorian go out and become a cloud of construct murder. with November providing clean-up.

>>3781030
>I have to say I'm vetoing your proposition for having Shu spawn hundred handed arms from Dorian as an origin point. That would defeat the purpose of having Dorian go out and become a cloud of construct murder. with November providing clean-up.
Not really. He goes out, the Hands spawn and retract near-instantly, then he turns into a murder-cloud. The Hands are a Generator ability, they're really fast. And November won't be needed for cleanup if Dorian has got all the constructs on lock.

>>3781024
Hey Bhop, I have a question. is it possible to perform an impromptu dual-tech on the spot with Dorian? Because I'm thinking of creating the Fulgurbug Faraday field dual-tech to help Dorian mop up the silver-ling swarm.

>>3781033
It's a waste on Shu's action economy. Shu has 3 actions. Ideally we want to spend 1 action focusing on our swarm, another action on bringing Lepisma out of hiding, and then spending our final action tagging grabbing Lepisma and putting her in a position where she can't escape.

>>3781037
>It's a waste on Shu's action economy. Shu has 3 actions. Ideally we want to spend 1 action focusing on our swarm, another action on bringing Lepisma out of hiding, and then spending our final action tagging grabbing Lepisma and putting her in a position where she can't escape.
We don't spend actions on our swarm unless we're spawning new members. We're near full on Banelings, so we're not going to be doing that. We've got an ACT free.

>>3781028
>>3781033
she may of not known it was a construct and up close she doesn't seem to have the bile, the bile seems to oddly be something she has access to via our acid.

we also cant in any way guarantee our arms retracting can outpace her infecting them. this is an outright terrible plan that could easily, easily backfire horribly compared to anything else we have tried. its both an unnecessary risk and a massive one, with the benefits not at all outweighing the possible negatives.

>>3781030
i highly disagree. we need to be able to cover multiple avenues, and Shu cant do literally anything so long as this spear is inside of her. she would rely on November being in position to draw her towards her, which is a terrible plan that makes November unable to actually go after Lepismas properly and makes Shu unable to actually properly react to her movements. taking the spear out of Shu is not a waste, its the best move we can do to ensure victory.

im also still against risking putting HHs near her.

>>3781041
yes, we do. commanding the swarm still takes an ACT, it just takes a single ACT for the entire swarm.

>>3780918
>>3780920
Well I'm glad SOMEONE is making use of the teleport abuse we're capable of but never seem to employ.

>>3781042
>she may of not known it was a construct and up close she doesn't seem to have the bile, the bile seems to oddly be something she has access to via our acid.
She's shown the ability to infect via a touch, she was touching our hand. We're good.

>we also cant in any way guarantee our arms retracting can outpace her infecting them. this is an outright terrible plan that could easily, easily backfire horribly compared to anything else we have tried. its both an unnecessary risk and a massive one, with the benefits not at all outweighing the possible negatives.
Yes, we can guarantee it. The Hands fire and retract near-instantly. If we have the time between contacting the goo and infection kicking in to detonate Banelings, we have the time to retract our hands. And the benefits are huge, it gets rid of the entire swarm all at once.

>>3781045
Pretty sure you're wrong, but whatever. Doesn't matter if it's right. We don't need to do things with the swarmlings if we've got the enemy swarm knocked out.

But fine, you don't like it, let's look at other ideas. BHOP is clearly hinting that there's an ability we're not using that would be really effective here, so if you're so determined it's not the Hundred-Hands let's try to brainstorm uses for others. Let's see...does establishing the Dominus Bloodline actually take an action? I can't remember. If not, is there anything to stop us from lashing the entire swarm two by two, attaching and disconnecting in sequence to inflict them all with the bleeding it causes?

>>3781046
Since we got it we've only been in fights where we were either pursuing a highly mobile target or in a confined space. This is the first time "teleport away from the fight" wouldn't be counterproductive, and we didn't have any Rooks out precisely because we didn't want Lepisma to hijack them. Turns out that she just needed to touch us to steal the blueprints, but we didn't know that at the time.

>>3781037
(You could certainly jerry-rig something on the spot, but as far as a full-blown Dual Tech the chances of unlocking one mid-combat are quite rare, I'm afraid.)

>>3781056
Eh, "teleport out of the way of incoming damage" has been useful the whole time. Exactly the way Lepisma's using them.

>>3781042
Point made.

>>3780975
We don't have a seismic jackling active, the one that we had before was destroyed by the silverling hive. We'll need to make another one.

Can we convert some banelings into jacklings? If we're going to pull the equivalent of Old Faithful in Yosemite and flush Lepisma out with a combination of Earthen Mind and Hydroformer in a geyser eruption, then we'll need some more jacklings to boost our concentration and make our move more bio-efficient.

>>3781046
Don't worry, we'll come up with ways to abuse that. I've already got a good idea involving merging a baneling with a Rook and having that Rook auto-self destruct immediately after teleporting, essentially a teleporting suicide swapper.

>>3781060
I think I've got something that could suffice as a substitute, but it'll involve FuzzBuzzes and banelings. Very Fluffy Fuzzbuzzes and banelings. Give the Banelings the fluffiest down fur and have them all stick to Dorian, the rubbing fur will accumulate the rate in which Dorian gains his electrical charges when he has half a round for the setup, and the baneling aspect will have them auto detonate the moment Dorian goes Masque of War, which will stem the incoming shower of corrosive goop. In fact, have Dorian create Fibromancy strings so the Fuzz-banelings can accumulate more charge by latching onto the wire with more surface area and sheer air friction.

>>3781062
No, it hasn't been, because the Rooks are slow and we'd have to leave them behind in our highly mobile combat. We wouldn't just teleport out of danger, we'd teleport to the other side of the battlefield. Something we haven't been able to afford. We've only been able to use them when we either had the battlefield prepared (that aborted ambush against Lara) or to get around an enemy in a confined space (trying to get past Phalanx Vulthat's defense grid). Spamming them to escape danger hasn't been practical.

>>3781052
>She's shown the ability to infect via a touch, she was touching our hand. We're good.
no, she hasnt, anything she has done vie herself has involved a process of rearranging the construct into her own, not only via touch.

>Yes, we can guarantee it.
no, we cant, and we have other, less utterly retarded and risky options to take care of them.

>Pretty sure you're wrong, but whatever. Doesn't matter if it's right
BHOP has mentioned it several times. its an Ability, using an Ability costs an ACT. its not that hard to wrap your brain around. and it does matter, as we have limited actions and we still have uses for our swarm.

>does establishing the Dominus Bloodline actually take an action? I can't remember. If not, is there anything to stop us from lashing the entire swarm two by two, attaching and disconnecting in sequence to inflict them all with the bleeding it causes?
its based on the leash and the leash specifically states its a free action ,so no. using any other effects through it that arent automatic is however would. i dont think it actually inflicts bleeding though, only drains REGEN, or rearranges stats a bit. its doesnt actually deal any damage itself. i also think BHOP has said theres a limit to how many times we can switch it in a single turn, and id think its far below the number of swarmlings present.

its also unnecessary to have Shu help take care of the enemy Swarmlings. or more importantly, Shu has the best ability to draw Lepisma out and deal with her, and Dorian without a doubt is the best suited for focusing on the Swarmlings.

>>3781067
worse case we have a swarmling slot open.

>>3781067
>Can we convert some banelings into jacklings? If we're going to pull the equivalent of Old Faithful in Yosemite and flush Lepisma out with a combination of Earthen Mind and Hydroformer in a geyser eruption, then we'll need some more jacklings to boost our concentration and make our move more bio-efficient.
If we bring them in close. We still need contact to convert up, we can only convert down at range. So bring in a bunch of Banelings, turn them into Jacklings. Want to make them Sonar-Jacklings again, to get a better sense of Lepisma's position underground and be better able to flush her out?

>>3781072
>BHOP has mentioned it several times. its an Ability, using an Ability costs an ACT. its not that hard to wrap your brain around. and it does matter, as we have limited actions and we still have uses for our swarm.
Spawning the swarmlings is an ability. Commanding them is not necessarily. Like, okay, spawning clones via a Phantasmal Conduit ability takes an action. We've never seen it take an action off the original to command those clones. Why would Hive Mistress be different?

>its also unnecessary to have Shu help take care of the enemy Swarmlings. or more importantly, Shu has the best ability to draw Lepisma out and deal with her, and Dorian without a doubt is the best suited for focusing on the Swarmlings.
No, he's not. Not on his own. The Masque of War only covers a medium area, and the swarm was specifically mentioned to be dispersed and widespread to avoid them all being caught by one attack. Dorian will catch some, but most will go right past him. That's why I want to concentrate the swarm. Fine, you don't want to do it with the Hands, even though it should be safe. Can you think of any other ways to lure them in?

>>3781072
I've got an idea for bringing Lepisma out into the open easier. Instead of wasting time and bio to perform a Seismic Earthquake, why not use all of the lake water that's conveniently drained into the underground lake and then Hydroform it? We have half a round to prepare before the silver-ling horde is upon us.

The issue of course is getting a swarmling there in the first place, but I've got you covered. We create a soundling with a Jackling modifier, and a Knightling with the Gurrenling modifier, then fuse the two to create a Gurren-Seismic-Jackling Knight. Have that hybrid tunnel deep into the earth with its drill and get into the cave where then once it makes contact with the lake water, Shu can use her Neuromancy to Manipulate as much water as she desires, creating a water prison that literally flushes Lepisma out.

>>3781067
i do have to say though the idea of Shu stuck on the spear as it flies back to November is a hilarious image, and yes, if we COULD properly line it up i could see there being worth, but unless we could ensure Lepismas is already pinned and cannot dodge the Shu Kebab it would simply give her too much of an avenue to dodge, and Dorian and Shu really have the best ways to do that, but couldnt in this situation.

>>3781068
>>3781067
also, both of you were talking about something odd BHOP was trying to point out. might not be all of it, but he randomly for no reason pointed out where the Silver Warriors sword was to us. personally i havent seen it do anything spectacular but it is random like i said for him to point it out.

>>3781077
>Spawning the swarmlings is an ability. Commanding them is not necessarily. Like, okay, spawning clones via a Phantasmal Conduit ability takes an action. We've never seen it take an action off the original to command those clones. Why would Hive Mistress be different?
you mean Amaras clones that literally as PART OF THEIR ABILITY SHEET GIVES THEM THEIR OWN ACTS? something Hive Mistress does not say and has never done, while BHOP has multiple times confirmed commanding the swarm takes an ACT?

>No, he's not. Not on his own.
its almost like he has aid and can move still while in that form. you do realize she specifically is using them as a distraction to draw our attention away from her next attack, right?

>>3781080
i dont like that. we could potentially deal alot of damage to her with earthen Terraforming, and BHOP specifically said she has some advantages with liquid terrain. im fine throwing in Hydromancy, already did actually, but I dont at all trust it by itself. plus, she seems to most likely be coming back. if she doesn't, we couldn't reach her in time anyways, but its implied shes put too much into this fight to at least at the moment just retreat anyways. and again, if that is her plan, we already lost.

>>3781068
You're exaggerating pretty hard. They've still got at a minimum 1 Movement Zone per turn, that's plenty enough to act as a route of withdrawal in most of the battles we've been in.

This is beside the point right now anyway though.

>>3781085
>also, both of you were talking about something odd BHOP was trying to point out. might not be all of it, but he randomly for no reason pointed out where the Silver Warriors sword was to us. personally i havent seen it do anything spectacular but it is random like i said for him to point it out.
Yeah, I don't know what that's about, either. I can't see how it would be useful in this instance, unless it's something like we can jack into it to get access to the swarm and take them over or something improbable like that. I guess it's a nice sword, we might as well pick it up.

>you mean Amaras clones that literally as PART OF THEIR ABILITY SHEET GIVES THEM THEIR OWN ACTS? something Hive Mistress does not say and has never done, while BHOP has multiple times confirmed commanding the swarm takes an ACT?
I was actually thinking about B'Ni, she didn't need to take actions to direct her clones. Or her weird memory constructs, either. But fine, maybe it's possible that Phantasmal Conduit abilities are just different from Hive Mistress powers. I don't care. We need to get rid of that swarm.

>its almost like he has aid and can move still while in that form. you do realize she specifically is using them as a distraction to draw our attention away from her next attack, right?
"November can shoot a few swarmlings, I guess" is not Dorian being aided. Not sufficiently. He moves very slowly in cloud form, most of the swarm will get past him. And it doesn't matter if it's a distraction if it's also sufficiently deadly. Hell, Lepisma is the less deadly thing right now. She's got no arms left. The swarm was what she was building to this entire fight, it's her trump card and the thing we should worry more about. Can we at least have November fire off a cluster grenade instead of trying to take the swarm out with her machinegun? We've got half a turn before these things are on us, the machine gun will not clear them fast enough.

>>3781060
hey BHOP, whats the limit to Dorians threads when it comes to numbers and spreading them out, and id also imagine just like the Hands he cannot keep the formed while in Masque form? or does them being his own ability loosen the rules on that?

>>3781102
Yes, it's enough to act as a route of withdrawal. My point is that we didn't have the opportunity to withdraw in the fight against B'Ni. We had to press the offensive constantly, so we didn't use them there. But we did use them against Phalanx Vultha, in the more confined space. We've made as good use of them as we could given the circumstances.

>>3781107
November has actually been shown to be incredibly capable at taking out large construct counts due t her BARS sheer rate of fire.

but whatever, we clearly are not going to agree, and ive got a question to BHOP that will settle how i plan this anyways depending on his answer.

>>3781107
>>3781115
Cluster Bomb takes two ACTS. she might already be at her limit without that.

>>3781110
Are you implying what I'm thinking? Fibromancy wires charged with Accumulating charge electricity?

>>3781115
What, you want to have him whip around the Threads and have them slice through swarmlings outside the range of the Masque? That might work. Or is it more of a net you're thinking of?

>>3781119
>>3781121
i was thinking more he ropes in any that he cant reach, but i mean, any of that works yeah. BHOPS answer really just changes whether he needs to spend more time cutting and roping them in before hand, and if he cant keep them going while in a cloud, some might escape, but i think even if he can only use the Threads before he switches to Masque it will still work and will still corral them enough to make them not much of a problem.

>>3780920
>>3780975
Amendments to orders;

Shu;
>Have our banelings go low and spread out, becoming a minefield across the battlefield.
>Get the damn Contender back in your hand.
>Spawn a new Jack-Baneling.
>Try and get a read on her with Halo and Jackling alike.
>Fuck this. You have a large sum of Biomass, and you’re tired of your foe hiding underground. Strain yourself, push your Terraforming to its limits. Harden the earth, shake it up, Flood its crevices with water, and force it and anything underground to the surface in a massive cascade of an upheaval plate movement.
>As soon as you find her, Have your Banelings swarm, using your Cutis Tractus to pull you forward on a Baneling while your Maw is ready to snatch her up no matter which direction she runs.
>bring the lionheart against her.
>>all Benlings set to auto-destruct.


Dorian;
>Intercept the swarm, spawn as many Threads at what length you need to draw them into your second phase of the attack.
>Masque of War the incoming swarm, releasing lighting from inside of yourself to electrocute them all in one big storm cloud.
>Send your Paintlings to spread out and cover the battlefield, so any place she emerges from, you will feel it and and draw the paintlings to that point.
>If you finish off the Silverfish swarmlings, be prepared to burst speed to tackle Lepismas wherever she comes out at.


November;
>Free Shu of the Deliverance as gently as you can.
>only if Dorian needs it, use your BAR and Shotgun to help clear the enemy swarm out.
>Otherwise, Prime your Tank to fire off a tank sized Shotgun blast. If Shu is able to force Lepimas to the surface, fire it off to try and knock her prone.
>Then, Nova Lunge for Lepisma, Shotgun ready to try and keep her pinned if she manages to avoid the initial barrages against her.
>Otherwise use the weight of the Dainself to pin her down and to the ground.


>>3781060
as you do seem to possibly be asleep, do take into account
>>3781119
>>3781121
aswell, if you dont answer the question and me update the orders in time with your response to my question on the threads limitations.

>>3781127
Wait. If Dorian's a cloud in Masque of war Form, can't he change the shape of the general cloud of his Masque form? instead of being a giant sphere or a circle, have him transform and expand outwards like a net or a cone.

>>3781132
im very unsure of that, and it might still be locked to medium range at the moment. could help a bit but would need alot more info on how that actually works.

>>3781132
I'd think that if that were allowed it wouldn't specify that he affects a medium area, though. He probably has to retain a certain amount of concentration to be effective. Maybe it would work, though.

>>3781127
We need a sonar-jackling to get a better read on Lepisma's location. Sonar-lings got better sensory when it comes to underground activity, and Lepisma might be underground. change that Jack-baneling into a Sonar-jackling.

>>3781152
cant, if its not a baneling its a liability.

>>3781110
(THe strands can be active during Masque of War, yes. Also, their number is somewhat dependent on the amount of BIO you're willing to spend on their creation, as they scale to that.)

>>3781127
(Also, if something exists as a reasonable conduit for the electricity, such as strands of any sort, linked limbs/bodies, or conducting terrain, then Dorian's Accumulating Charge would absolutely go through it, much like how the Silver Warrior's sword was able to disperse the attack earlier.)

>>3781156
I'm not sure how much of a liability it is. It will be burrowed into the ground, isolated from any subversion goop. And if Lepisma did get her hands on it, the worst she could do through it is use her touch-based Neuromancy through it instead of at touch range. But since we'll be up in her face anyway I don't think that matters.

>>3781171
Also, couldn't we just have one of the Banelings hang out next to it, if we're that worried? Its blast would be big enough to take out the Jackling, too.

>>3781174
>why would it be underground?
Better immersion in the medium it's scanning, was my thinking. Didn't we have the Jackling that we're replacing underground?

>>3781178
no? it was just jacked into the ground, which with neuromancy id argue is just as good, but without trapping it by making it have to dig.

>>3781174
>Free Shu of the Deliverance as gently as you can.
Don't you mean Dainsleif?

>>3781178
said jackling was at the entrance to the cave near the spire. said jackling was destroyed by the 70 silver-ling swarm.

>>3781181
I just had a thought. What if we had November fire another Kaiser flare? We've got a swarm of bugs heading towards us. Us firing a giant flash bomb would disorient the fuck out of them.

>>3781181
Must have misunderstood, I thought we had it burrowed into the ground a bit. Ah, well, doesn't matter. Either way we should be fine, as you say it's got more than enough senses to not really need it.

>said jackling was at the entrance to the cave near the spire. said jackling was destroyed by the 70 silver-ling swarm.
That's right, it was underground because it was in a cave.

>I just had a thought. What if we had November fire another Kaiser flare? We've got a swarm of bugs heading towards us. Us firing a giant flash bomb would disorient the fuck out of them.
If we can get the swarm and Lepisma in the same arc of fire, otherwise I don't think it's worth the two ACTs it would take.

>>3781185
Don't you mean Dainsleif?
happy now?

>>3780920
>>3781127
Amended Orders;

Shu;
>Have our banelings go low and spread out, becoming a minefield across the battlefield.
>Get the damn Contender back in your hand.
>Spawn a new Sonar-Jack-Baneling.
>Try and get a read on Lepismas location with Halo and Jackling alike.
>Fuck this. You have a large sum of Biomass, and you’re tired of your foe hiding underground. Strain yourself, push your Terraforming to its limits. Harden the earth, shake it up, Flood its crevices with water, and force it and anything underground to the surface in a massive cascade of an upheaval plate movement.
>As soon as you find Lepisma, Have your Banelings swarm with intent to shred her with shaped charges, using your Cutis Tractus to pull you forward on a Baneling while your Maw is ready to snatch her up no matter which direction she runs.
>bring the lionheart against her.
>>all Banelings set to auto-destruct.


Dorian;
>Intercept the swarm in Masque form, using a mix of as many threads as you need and your lightning charges decimate the swarm and hold them off for the rest of your team. Focus down the Rooks first if you can.
>Send your Paintlings to spread out and cover the battlefield, so any place she emerges from, you will feel it and and draw the paintlings to that point.
>If you finish off the Silverfish swarmlings, be prepared to burst speed to tackle Lepismas wherever she comes out at, holding her in place with your Daggers.


November;
>Free Shu of the Dainsleif as gently as you can.
>only if Dorian needs it, use your BAR and Shotgun to help clear the enemy swarm out.
>Otherwise, Prime your Tank to fire off a tank sized Shotgun blast. If Shu is able to force Lepimas to the surface, fire it off to try and knock her prone.
>Then, Nova Lunge for Lepisma, Shotgun ready to try and keep her pinned if she manages to avoid the initial barrages against her.
>Otherwise use the weight of the Dainself to pin her down and to the ground.


>>3781185
>What if we had November fire another Kaiser flare?
not worth the two Acts, limited range, shes needed elsewhere, if Dorian pulls his thing off it wont be necessary at all.

>>3781174
(As the meme goes; "God has cursed me for my hubris, and my work is never finished.")

(I am headed to bed, finally. I wish you a good evening, and an even better night's sleep.)

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>>3781196
fair enough, have some artwork ive been meaning to post for like a day to soften the sleep deprivation.

>>3781198
night BHOP.

think im off then too. think the plans more than solid, or at least as solid as we can be given the situation. theres only one possible issue we could try and cover but its not actually something we have a means to prevent so its a moot point.

>>3781196
And now we know BHOP's true identity: Bryan David Gilbert. This whole quest has just been the setup for an episode of Unraveled.

Sleep well, BDGHOP.

>>3781199
That's some great art. You do that yourself?

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>>3781207
sadly no. art is not something i have a talent for.

https://jubeimuffins.tumblr.com/
https://twitter.com/BizarroDumpster

took me a sec to remember where i found it at, but here you go. never looked at the rest of their, has a sorta futuristic biopunk feel to it.

anyways, really, my lord im feeling the hours. night.

>>3781228
Thanks for the link.

And yeah, I'm getting drowsy, too. Good night, everyone.

>>3781191
Why don't we send a few banelings to target any concentrations of enemy banelings we see to set off chain explosions in their ranks?

>>3781291
>>3781291
See >>3781000
>(There are seventy Faux-Swarmlings; Forty-five Knights, fifteen Bishops, and Ten Rooks.)
I see zero Banelings, nor see

Worth a shot however, but given the fact that each and every one of them have the Kynar Chitin, we won't be having much luck getting a proper chain reaction going. The Knightlings maybe...but banelings...It's a hard sell.

>>3780920
Supporting>>3781191

>>3781191
Supporting. Just whatever EXCESS banelings go to help>>3781291 and >>3781294 plan, as long as it doesn´t compromise >>3781191 MAIN plan.

As a side note, I love how infuriating Lepisma is to fight. I wouldn´t mind her being a bit harder to beat, she´s a cunning and worthy foe, and she still must have leftover tricks under her sleeve I wish to see.
No matter the frustration, it is actually good to come back to the "no holds barred" old style fights we had at the begining of the quest, where team member death was a very real posssibility.
Remember we have a "REVIVE" function in the engine and can recover dream daughters, even in a TPK scenario we get a "round two" rescue mission with the rest of the family next session.

Let´s kick down the stress a couple of notches, shall we? BHOP going "D&D Tomb of Horrors" on us would be interesting, given the failsafes involved. s long as it is only Shu and not more family mebers than the engine has charges, and there´s the "SACRIFICE QUACK" option for that...

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>>3781191

I am VERY glad about the Terraforming+Hydromancy inclusion to perform a MIGHTY YELLOWSTONE geiser attack. Boiled SilverFish dish is trending high right now.
Regarding the plan, when she inevitably survives and surfaces? Lepisma is the Gopro, we are the Nokia. We must be some of the most stupidly hardy and persistent daughters left in the fleshcape, it is only fitting that THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.

Let´s McLeod the f***cker!
Satyrical Soundtrack while we dogpile Lepisma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0WQOGVLLGw

>>3781504
We have one revive
One in the engine until we have to recharge it. Which we have no idea how to do it safely without damaging the engine
A TPK would be very bad

>>3781504
I could not disagree with the entirety of the sentiments and points of a post more than i do this one, so congrats for that i guess.

This is an outright terrible and horrible way to think about any situation, aswell as is just wrong on so many levels.

>>3781504
Also on the point of a rescue mission

Lepisma might consumed Shu for her versatile Abilitys
That would loose us our dreamdaughters we have inside Shu. They will die and Shu herself might not be able to be revived due to her situation of her not actually being a person before the crucible

November would be destroyed outright by Lepisma. Not worth it for the silver fish to try and search for Biomass in a body powered by a Forgecore. She would be lost to us with no hope of recovery due to her body being shattered

Dorian.... She might use him as fuel for a new construct and maybe would consume him to bolster her speed. But that is not guaranteed to get him into her head so we might loose him as well unless she takes his core. Which she probably won't do since her entire schtick is to take over constructs not outright destroy them. We would also loose Dorians Hexxane headbudy

And the whole difficult fight thing. Sure a challenging fight us more fun. But the fight against a truly intelligent opponent(a daughter even) was not something we wanted too much. The entire thing was to test out the tank and Dorians new abilities on this hunt. And while we can do that it would have been nicer if we could have just had a normal Amalgam as a first opponent. But we chose this fight and we are gonna win it. Not with relish but with gritted teeth. I do not want to see anymore of her tricks. She just stole our own tricks so she is probably mostly spent on those.

Have you played the Tomb of Horror? I read the module a while back and it's a fucking corpse treadmill. Not at all what this quest is about. Reviving someone is a considerable effort.

Also talking about Dr. Fran like that is incredibly demeaning and reduces her from a person to an object.

>>3780918
>>3780920
I fucking knew we had this in the bag the moment we slaughtered two of her constructs in one turn.

>>3780946
Bruh, what are you so worried about? She's half dead, Novemeber is unscathed, Dorian is damaged but has space to heal and absorb biomass and she's been so fucking shook that she had to send a swarm of bugs we can mince at us to try and buy time.

Where will she run to? Away from the worm? Then we get it and we pursue her. Towards the worm? We kill her there then. She has lost a MASSIVE investment in this fight, with three constructs dead, her silverfish swarm almost deleted and she had to waste a bunch of the worm.

Jesus if this is the worst BHOP "fucks" us, it's nothing compared to Dark Lord Quest or Joker Quest.

Hey, is there any reason we shouldn't just send some banelings into the silverfish part of the swarm and melt them to slag? We can have our knights and rooks clean up the knock off of our rooks and knights she made.

Keep November on overwatch with her insane priority. Have Dorian heal for this turn and maybe help out our swarmlings if we don't manage to kill them all.

>>3780920
Oh and remove that fucking spear already.

>>3781607
Actually can't we just castle out of the spear as well?

>>3781604
>Hey, is there any reason we shouldn't just send some banelings into the silverfish part of the swarm and melt them to slag? We can have our knights and rooks clean up the knock off of our rooks and knights she mad

The thing us those guys produce a compound she can use to take over our normal constructs
Also her swarm has copied our swarmling sheet and is presumably immune to acid and heat. So Banelings are little more than shrapnell to kill them

It also is not a question if the royal has lost or not. The Question is will she run or will she try to go for the consolation prize by killing Shu and then running away with her corpse underground
She can burry very well and aside from Shu no one can actually get to her below ground.

She could also try to go for November's Tank from below and since we lost surveillance of the ground we can not tell where she is and where she is burrowing

>>3781604
if she decides to teleport away with a rook she has in the cave or has flown away to some undisclosed location we have no way to track her or catch up to her properly. if she decides to escape she has the means to do so and get away with doing it, and making the entire fight pointless. i mean, she might, but really theres no reason for her to not choose life and losing her investments here, than trying fruitlessly to win.

Also November just took a very hard hit to the back, and unlike normal daughters cant just mend her flesh back together. her swarmlings are a hard counter to ours, immune to anything ours can throw at them while being able to corrupt and force ours to auto-detonate. Dorian has multiple methods to make him the best at taking out the swarm as a whole.

also i dont know anything about either of those quests and honestly am tired of people trying to compare quests to others. i dont care. it doesn't matter, or change the context of this quest when compared to itself and how things have gone within this quest. whats considered to have becomes reasonable to expect from this quest has nothing to do nor changes when comparing it to another. whats fucking the playerbase over or not in one quest is completely different than in another. as far as im concerned honestly keep your comparisons to yourself.

>>3781636
I thought it was only her banelings that can do that? Can every single drone she makes do it? Also, her silverfish haven't shown immunity yet and shoe no visual indicators of any changes.

>kill Shu
What? We have 800+ health. We aren't even below 60% yet.

Am I just fucking crazy? I don't get why people are so concerned.

>>3781645
she makes the corruption gel via changing the fluids in our drone types. both our banelings and knights have acid she could and has shown herself to change. the bishops too easily could have that.

these are copies of our swarmlings we have already been shown have anything our swarmlings do, including acid and hat resistance.

yes you are being unreasonable to have absolutely no concerns and to be throwing caution to the wind. we have seen damage dealt in this of over 400% health in a single turn. it is still entirely possible any one of our team could be killed.

>>3781191
I want to add an amendment to this. Use the Yellow Stone Eruption to take out the Silverling swarm. Have Dorian protect Shu and November and the Tank from the strays that survive the initial eruption. And have Shu be lifted by a knightling and stay off the ground when she does her Eruption attack, that way Lepisma can't figure out where Shu is through Tremorsense.

>>3781649
im vetoing this.

>>3781651
all of it or part of it? because the part where Shu stays off the ground via knightling makes sense to me to prevent ambush while the Jackling searches for Lepisma. And the Eruption also uproots and exposes the cave that Lepisma is hiding in while taking out the silverling swarm.

>>3781644
She's been crippled horrifically from this fight though; if she fights an undamaged, semi powerful Daughter now, she's fucked. Not only that, what else were we going to do after killing her or checking her besides check out the worm? This seems like pointless worrying. She's overcommited to this fight so much even if she did try to get away she'd probably die.

November took out her biggest gun and has one wound to show for it while having the Masque on giving her incredibly high priority. She doesn't heal normally but she's also much harder to hurt and she absolutely pulverized the knight. Not only that, we haven't seen her silverfish adapt to anything and these may have been some she finished earlier and brought back now or else they're adapted. In either case, we have a fuck ton of banelings to use to kill her force and I've only seen her banelings be able to covert ours; just send a single banelings after each of hers or tell Dorian to target them first and then we can shred the horde with our own.

>I don't want you to compare quests
That's stupid as hell. For one thing, what else are you to compare a quest to besides another quest? Secondly, OP has always been open that he was inspired by Joker Quest and we have a relic literally based off of it now. The very first thread of this quest was presented almost identically to the first thread of JQ. Not only that, that wasn't an indictment of OP but me telling the other anon 'this isn't harsh GMship compared to other quests'

We're in a pretty great position right now as long as we keep one party member on the look out for Lepisma and hunting for her. Giving her time to hide and cover us in mooks is foolish.

Alternatively, we could try to bait her into an attack but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. Should we maybe probe with the Halo to look for her? It's not like she can steal anymore from our mind, OP said so

>>3781648
She has silverfish in there. Her normal silverfish. I'm saying go for those with our drones while our banelings kamikaze hers and her knights and Dorian picks them off.

And how is she going to do over 400% damage this turn? She's lost her constructs, which seem vital to her fighting style. She's lost her Mantis blades. She's had both wrists broken. She's been impaled by Dainslef twice. She's had her head winged by one of our bullets. If she had had a big, high damage attack, she'd have used it last turn. The amount of damage she's taken is crazy and she's taking additional debuffs from her relic which keeps forcing her slow ass to keep up with Novemeber's boosted Masque

>>3781636
>Also her swarm has copied our swarmling sheet and is presumably immune to acid and heat. So Banelings are little more than shrapnell to kill them
Technically it's just resistance to heat. You use the worse of your acid or heat defenses to see if you can avoid damage from our acid, so they'd still be hurt by it. But yeah, I don't see it as particularly efficient, either. I've been satisfied in my desire to kill the swarm by wirestorm Dorian, I think that will probably catch a wide enough net to get it done.

>>3781648
>yes you are being unreasonable to have absolutely no concerns and to be throwing caution to the wind. we have seen damage dealt in this of over 400% health in a single turn. it is still entirely possible any one of our team could be killed.
I mean, to be fair, she only managed that because of Swordie throwing the Dainsleif through our back. Lepisma's shown very little personal combat ability, she's pretty dependent on her constructs. And without her Retainers, she's left with just the silverfish swarm, which are quite weak unless she happens to have the good fortune to be fighting a Hive Mistress she can copy off of. The more I think about it, the more I feel certain that Lepisma actually has a really inefficient gimmick build and that she's only doing as well as she is (Retainers all dead, limbs lost, huge hole in throat) because we've been put off our usual game by denying us swarmling support.

>>3781651
at least give me a good reason why you're vetoing this instead of not stating a reason, otherwise I'll get the wrong impression that you just don't like my ideas.

>>3781658
>>3781663
Yes all of it.
I just woke up, just had to deal with the other guys, was trying to find a moment to go get breakfast, and only had 5 minutes before voting closed. Once im home in 20-30 minutes sure ill explain myself but at the moment I did not have time.

>>3781664
thank you for letting me know. I hope you'll explain what about the amendment clashes with your overall plan that you need to veto it.

>>3781566
I was referring to the EVIL Dr. West and its cornucopia of terminator clones, not our dear Francine; that was why I termed her "the QUACK".
I would point out that if there is the need of recharging the engine, Dr. West has over 200 amazingly evil daughter copies, so they are prime fuel for it in a desperate situation.

Besides, I point out that Isabelle situation and dream Chrystal Tech demonstrated you could recover the dream daughters of somebody consumed. So, while of COURSE we play tout win, there should be a bit of confidence, enough to be able to enjoy the challenges in our path.
Remember that Lepisma made gala of a twisted sense of fair play when she gave back the spear at the end of ther previous thread.

>>3781659
>>3781661
oh my god you are so off the mark and so fucking retarded im not even sure where to begin.

look i already know how this is gonna go, we're going to argue pointlessly with neither one of us even changing eachothers mind on even a single, minor point. you;re not worth the effort and im not worth yours. we're going ot disagree here and thats not going to change, and honestly it already looks exactly like to me you dont want that to change or would be willing to change, and im tired of having circular arguments in this quest where no one will budge and everyone keeps rehashing the exact same arguments over and over.

>That's stupid as hell.
hardly, and the fact you think that just shows you arent worth the effort to try a conversation with.

>For one thing, what else are you to compare a quest to besides another quest?
itself and if it itself brings you enjoyment on its own.

>>3781669
we cant be certain the "eruption" will even reach that high, nor such an uncontrolled event could have the accuracy to hit her constructs. Dorian pulling back to protect them instead of rushing to intercept only leaves them more exposed to the swarm and possibly allows more of them to get by, not less. i was specifically intending to see if we couldn't bait her into going after Shu or November, instead of staying away from us and pulling another trick out or her sleeve. if she wasnt going to go for us, the the knightling would be a moot point anyways.

>>3781678
the isabelle situation was specifically because Gina had neuromancy and time to prep the halo to do that.

it goes against our morals to use anyone, even West, as fuel like that. your way of thinking is exactly how you lead yourself to disaster. fail-safes only work as intended if you go forward as if you dont have them at all.

>>3781680
>we cant be certain the "eruption" will even reach that high, nor such an uncontrolled event could have the accuracy to hit her constructs
It's also very dependent on Lepisma being in exactly the right place. If she's not beneath the swarm, it won't help. We can't rely on that. I mean, if our eruption happens to hit some of her swarm, great. But I don't think it's something to plan for.

>>3781680
>we cant be certain the "eruption" will even reach that high, nor such an uncontrolled event could have the accuracy to hit her constructs. Dorian pulling back to protect them instead of rushing to intercept only leaves them more exposed to the swarm and possibly allows more of them to get by, not less. i was specifically intending to see if we couldn't bait her into going after Shu or November, instead of staying away from us and pulling another trick out or her sleeve. if she wasnt going to go for us, the the knightling would be a moot point anyways.

Fair points. Can we alter part of the "eruption"? Because the way I read the Terraforming movement was more akin to a Geyser Eruption and a Fissure opening up at the same time. So I figure that having parts of the earth break apart and having the salt-water spray lift them up to deal damage to them would be a giant anti-air attack and would wipe out a good chunk of the silver-ling swarm while exposing the subterranean caverns to the surface and Lepisma...if she's down there that is...

>>3781686
id prefer not to.
and at the very least she has shown no ability to fly and at the moment doing so would actually heavily expose her, and similar with walking. plus, if shes on land, the terraforming will still easily find and hit her. her best and safest travel method is tunneling, and she most likely isnt expecting us to dump this many resources into digging her out of the ground.

and if she hasn't come back to the fight at all? then honestly its all a moot point anyways and we're gonna have alot of extra actions to help Dorian with the swarm, i guess.

>>3781692
so how much bio are we dumping into plate tectonics and recreating Old Faithful Geyser? I reckon a good 900%-1000% bio would do it.

>>3781695
ill admit i have no idea, only that terraforming is not on the cheap side. i still think its worth it mind you, only BHOP has never given us guidelines on terraforming costs to even begin estimating with.

>>3781692
Come to think of it, I don't think she knows we can terraform. She saw us slap down a spiky Fear To Tread, but she could have easily confused the spikes for just part of the Flesh Artistry. Shu suddenly grabbing hold of the entire local landscape and wrenching it hard should give her a nasty surprise.

>>3781703
>>3781698
>Shu pulling the Terraforming equivalent of a tableflip

Ye Gads, imagine Shu and Gina both doing the same action together and combining their bio to Flip an entire mountain upside down.

>>3781703
very possible. the good news is, some things are hard to deal with even if you see it coming, and id imagine this is one of them.

>>3781704
hah. yeah that would be terrifying.

>>3781698
This seems unnecessary. We've already peeled away most of her defenses and we aren't sure exactly where she is underground. Why are we making a giant flesh geyser that will use up almost all of our biomass, and a ton of our defense, to nuke an area we are standing on and our allies are standing on because of the possibility that she's near us? Seems massively wasteful and it won't let us replenish our build.

>comparing something to it's inspiration and the system it's based off of, nechronica, is dumb because I say so
Wew

>>3781703
She read our mind; I'd say she might have an inkling. Also, didn't we terraform the ground with our drills when she was pinned by the dainslef and she barely got away?

I still think we're better off just munching through her swarm woth ours and having Dorian pop the acid carriers. If she interrupts or fucks with us while we try to make a flesh geyser and we get caught in the explosion, it could be disastrous.

Wait. Could she be going for the tank? We haven't seen what's been happening to it. Would she be able to seize control of it? I'm at work and can't read the rules about it right now.

>>3781711
She can't really seize control of the Tank. November's in it and tethered to it. Nothing can happen to the tank without November's consent.

>>3781708
>I'm safe in my underground batcave
>It may have water problems, but fortunately they can't swim!
>And 60 silverfish with the Defiants Design is a marvel. Shame I can't consume her...oh the designs that she had...
>why is the water glowing pink OH GOD FUCK

>>3781713
Well should we at least not use the geyser because of the tank then?

>>3781708
>very possible. the good news is, some things are hard to deal with even if you see it coming, and id imagine this is one of them.
Yeah. She doesn't seem to have the power set to effectively counter this. Actually, her attempting to counter it would only help us. Say she tries to liquefy the ground to get it out of our control. She can't affect as large an area as we can, so she'd liquefy the ground immediately around her, making just a bubble of lubricant as we squeeze her out.

>>3781711
>She read our mind; I'd say she might have an inkling. Also, didn't we terraform the ground with our drills when she was pinned by the dainslef and she barely got away?
BHOP said that she only got a look at our Core that way. Our Neuromancy should be beyond her knowledge. And that terraforming was the spiky Fear To Tread that I'm talking about. She does not know the limits of our ability to reshape the terrain. All she knows is that we can make ground-blenders.

>Wait. Could she be going for the tank? We haven't seen what's been happening to it. Would she be able to seize control of it? I'm at work and can't read the rules about it right now.
Not unless she can get inside it. The tank is very hard to subvert without actually piloting it.

>>3781718
>>3781711
(She was limited to analyzing your Core, so she does not know your other skill trees.)

>>3781718
>>3781713
technically with hydroformer wouldn't we still be able to control that ground anyways? though i suppose it depnds on how control works, and she would have a more direct and focused hold on controlling it, if hers is even like terraforming and she can have a constant hold on it at all.

>>3781722
yeah. it would still be within our domain, But I'm not sure who would get the trump. It's also why I proposed making more Jacklings, to have them boost our concentration and dominate in the Terraforming.

>>3781725
fair point i suppose. just feels like it probably wouldn't be necessary is the thing i guess.

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also, just found this image, and realized it would be a very terrifying way for a Hive Mistress to spawn her constructs. i mean, just imagine getting tackled by her and then giant spiders start to crawl out of her mouth to attack you.

>>3781749
Honestly, I find Shu's method creepier. Coming out of your mouth doesn't worry me, because there's storage space in there. There's supposed to be. Coming out of a hive in their spine? Nope. Holes are not supposed to be there. Gross. I am so glad Shu has covers for them, now.

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>>3780920

I think I'm late to the voting, I'm happy enough with >>3781191. I do want to do the geyser though, mostly because I'm concerned that she has a way to heal, or regain biomass, while she sends her silverfish at us.

Why does this fight give me Aviator's Paralyzed vibes? We're just so evenly matched, it's like counter-counter-counter-counter moves.

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>>3781752
you do make a very good point. do you think they were like that one frogs type, or like little waxy hexagonal openings in her back, to fit the bee theme?

>>3781758
Oh god just when i had managed to forget that picture. Time to get back for another session in the Mindcleanser

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>>3781759
to be fair, this is not the quest to be in if you wish to never have a chance to run into disturbing bodyhorror imagery.

>>3781763
The rest is not that bad but that one picture gets me every time no matter what kind of fucked up shit i have seen already

>>3781758
Hahaha, there isn't a power in the universe that can make me click on that spoiled image and risk seeing a Surinam Toad. Those things are nasty.

My image of Shu's hive is that it started as just irregular holes in her back, to fit the name Trypophilic Hive ("trypo-" literally means just "hole", but is usually used in the context of trypophobia, the fear of irregularly-spaced holes. It's more common than you'd think, despite sounding so specific, and is a major component of a lot of body horror). But as she leveled up the skill it got more and more regular, eventually becoming a nice geometrically-placed honeycomb pattern before being covered up by the chitin plates once she started getting visible Corruption. I think BHOP said the plates are even hexagonal, so definitely a bee hive sort of thing now.