Rillik watched as the dense pack of mercs floated over the water on a shield toward land. He shook his head.
“Do you think they’ll be alright?” Elly asked, uncharacteristically soft-spoken.
“No,” the golgari said, his voice flat.
“I find their tactic questionable,” Lacos noted, a hint of curiosity in his tone. “If they did not find success yesterday when attacking in numbers, why try again with an even larger group?”
The leader of the crew unclenched his hands from the railing at the edge of the the deck and rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension there.
“Let’s head down into the boat. We can talk on the way.”
The other two nodded, and together they checked their gear before climbing down the rope ladder into the waiting dinghy. Once they settled in their seats, Rillik picked up the oars, pushed off the ship and resumed his speech.
“There’s two schools of thought when it comes to tackling weak monsters in large numbers. One way is to split wide and pick at them from the edges. If they try to swarm you, there’s space to just pull back to prevent getting surrounded. It’s slower, but much, much safer.”
“And the other way?”
Rillik grunted.
“Go all in. Ball up in numbers and dive into the middle. The theory goes that the number of enemies doesn’t really matter beyond a certain point. With enough people, you can layer shields, support and firepower to the point where the weak monsters can’t touch you. It can work well enough under normal circumstances.”
“Normal circumstances?” Lacos asked.
and unorganised. It’s possible that people have run into intelligent swarm monsters before, but I’ve never
“They obviously disagree.”
a few kills yesterday
He shook his head.
aren’t thinking about what it costs to get the little they
had, poking and prodding to assess the monsters before they went in, standard delve tactics. A smaller number had been more reckless, diving in headfirst against the ‘weak’ ants. Those crews had lost
cause of death
said quietly, “unless they retreat early. The moment they go underground, I think that
tried to let it go. He’d said his piece in the morning, Drake was a grown man, he could
if they
—----------------------
there, lad!” a
his blade and sent another slash streaking
the terrain. He grit his teeth as
“Damn monsters,” he grated.
them was unnerving. The ants were huge. Heavily armoured
shouted. “Ball up, stay together,
mercenaries in the group, using their Skills and magic to push back the waves of ants, who blasted
that we haven’t been surrounded yet?
invite us deeper?” Drake asked, a hint of
Hartos grinned savagely.
smash them to bits and grab the rewards
roar over
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