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[chubby2man]

Let's aim to have Revisions in and voting done by Wednesday.

Overall your forces are shaping up pretty well, you have a good advantage in an ranged exchange thanks your new longbowmen and your arrow ward spell. You are lacking in calvary, leaving the knight free to attack, which you can guard against with your spearmen. You also may be hampered in pursuing targets.

In regards to infantry you have an advantage, though with their healing priests and slayers it is a slim one.

They also have the advantage on you in the magic arena. You can use a revision to create an elite, higher tier unit, including spellcasters.

In regards to heroes, you are unsurprisingly outnumbered (though not outmassed!) The Wall-Breaker is still vulnerable to enchanted weapons, and very slow. A hero would have a good chance of taking it out. I would highly recommend at the least using the Duke to create a Minor Champion, if not even another revision. Minor Champions are just as strong as Champions, just if they die they die for good.

Note on the Black Bow, the arrow can and probably will be blocked if fired at a Hero. If fired at or near a Guardian type (such as Bruce), it would probably be blocked for free. Another hero might require a use of a Light Point to deflect it, if one is available.

[Nirur Torir]

They also have the advantage on you in the magic arena. You can use a revision to create an elite, higher tier unit, including spellcasters.

Initially, it feels like a waste to create a T5 caster with only T1 spells, but it might actually work out well. Arrow ward scales with spell power, we'd get a back-up if It's Just Raptors fails to make them useful this round, and he can go on a training montage so he can be a proper battle-mage fighting from atop a Terrible Claw.
If either go well, he should at least be able to corral a group of them, even if not well enough to trust them in a fight near our troops.
Most importantly, he'd be great support for The Wall-breaker against a hero, at least until we need the cavalry elsewhere. Not able to take on a hero alone, but able to harry and distract them from taking advantage of openings against our hero, and very difficult to pin down.
I will be calling the upgrade a singular entity. I'm not going for a minor champion, but T5 units are described as being potentially unique, and I don't know whether or not we have enough acolytes to upgrade more than one.

The Bloody Hand (Tier 5, acolyte upgrade)
Upgrade priorities: Magical Creature control, combat. Upgraded spell-casting tier optional, as their magic training might be too specialized to count for general spell-casting.

One of our most powerful acolytes has displayed a skill with the blade from his former life, and has a startling affinity for controlling the Terrible Claws. He will be given an accelerated re-training program to polish his swordsmanship up to be worthy of enchanted gear from the Dark Lord, and to practice fighting from atop a Terrible Claw. We think he will have time to learn to corral a group of them, fight, or cast Dark Bolt while riding.
The Dark Lord himself will forge a suit of enchanted medium mail armor for him, a shield to reflect magic, and a large sword, enchanted so that one of our spellcasters can imbue it with darkness, inflicting terrible wounds. As the Dark Lord is busy, the armor and shield will likely also be powered directly from the user. The mount will only have regular armor.

He will be the first of The Bloody Hand, to eventually be an order mage-knights controlling our magical creatures. For now, resources are too limited to expand recruitment, but the founder will still be expected to find and train a successor.
Editor's note: Perhaps in the future, he will have a squire to ride into battle alongside him, and keep the beasts from eating him and going berserk through our lines if he is incapacitated? Make the suggestion to him after he's already committed to forming the order.

Is this a suitable tier 5 unit revision from a mage? It feels like it's most of the way to a champion, but I'm not sure where the line is between a singular elite unit and a champion.

[chubby2man]

The Bloody Hand (Tier 5, acolyte upgrade)
Upgrade priorities: Magical Creature control, combat. Upgraded spell-casting tier optional, as their magic training might be too specialized to count for general spell-casting.

One of our most powerful acolytes has displayed a skill with the blade from his former life, and has a startling affinity for controlling the Terrible Claws. He will be given an accelerated re-training program to polish his swordsmanship up to be worthy of enchanted gear from the Dark Lord, and to practice fighting from atop a Terrible Claw. We think he will have time to learn to corral a group of them, fight, or cast Dark Bolt while riding.
The Dark Lord himself will forge a suit of enchanted medium mail armor for him, a shield to reflect magic, and a large sword, enchanted so that one of our spellcasters can imbue it with darkness, inflicting terrible wounds. As the Dark Lord is busy, the armor and shield will likely also be powered directly from the user. The mount will only have regular armor.

He will be the first of The Bloody Hand, to eventually be an order mage-knights controlling our magical creatures. For now, resources are too limited to expand recruitment, but the founder will still be expected to find and train a successor.
Editor's note: Perhaps in the future, he will have a squire to ride into battle alongside him, and keep the beasts from eating him and going berserk through our lines if he is incapacitated? Make the suggestion to him after he's already committed to forming the order.

Is this a suitable tier 5 unit revision from a mage? It feels like it's most of the way to a champion, but I'm not sure where the line is between a singular elite unit and a champion.

This reads to me more along the lines of a champion, particularly with the enchanted armor. The Tier 5 units are singular in the sense that they are commanded individually, so a large army might have a dozen or more, while champions are always just one.

You could probably trim the design to fit a revision better though, or stick with it as a minor champion. (Champion would have much greater combat capabilities, the revised acolyte would have mediocre personal combat skills at best, though the Terrible Claw will still do terrible things to its opponent in combat.)

[Happerry]

It's Just Raptors has my support. We made the terrible claws, so we should actually put them to use.

[King Zultan]

I also support It's Just Raptors.

[Madman198237]

Novices of the Forge-God (Magic I, tier 3)
Amongst the Orcs, just like among humans, there are those who can wield magic. We don't have time to find all the ones who can do it but we can pull the most capable magic users and, well, basically just make them like our Dark Acolytes but with less black themes, fewer ominous robes, and a little more in number. These new Novices are drawn from Orcs instead of humans and wear the lighter weight armor of the Shieldbearers. Their surcoats bear a golden crown and red flames, the flames held by a steel-grey hand, the heraldry of our magical forces. Their mail is burnished black, their light gambesons are a deep red, as is their surcoat.

They are only a first-level spellcasting unit but are capable of casting every spell we've got. All two of them.

[Nirur Torir]

Here's a better proposal than my last one. They'll serve us well now, regardless of how well we roll for Raptors, and in the future if we make more magic creatures.

The Savage Hand (tier 5)
Some of our acolytes are better at controlling the Terrible Claws than the rest. With can give them specialist training at controlling magic beasts, light mail armor for protection, and the training to ride them. The Savage Hand will be able to either corral a mindless swarm of Terrible Claws as they are now, or, if we can make them safer on their own, a member of The Savage Hand will be able to control a group of them as though they were a hive mind, with devastating unity.

[Nirur Torir]

The GM has strongly advised us to take the minor hero to level the playing field against enemy heroes.
If making the minor hero lets us win well enough, we'll probably get a bonus from this battle worth at least as much as a +1 hero design.
We don't need to hold back to get a slightly better hero, since two +0 heroes will have more impact on a fight than 1 +1 hero, even if we have to be careful not to lose the duke.
If we use the hero conservatively and lose him this battle anyway, then we were out-gunned enough that it was still important to make him instead of holding the token in reserve.

Defender Duke
The former duke was already well-trained as a knight, accustomed to fighting in a group. It would be a simple matter to have the Dark Lord check over his runic armor and corrupt the former duke into an effective elite support fighter for our elites and champions. Trained especially to take advantage of openings provided by an ally or prevent an enemy from doing the same, he will be much more effective with an ally than fighting alone.

Defender Duke: (1) Nirur
Don't use the hero token: (0)

It's Just Raptors: (1) Nirur
The Savage Hand: (1) Nirur

[Glass]

Defender Duke: (2) Nirur, Glass
Don't use the hero token: (0)

It's Just Raptors: (2) Nirur, Glass
The Savage Hand: (1) Nirur
Novices of the Forge-God: (1) Glass

Blegh, I'd like to keep the Duke in reserve, but yes, given the current hero unit situation, we do kinda need more of those.
Raptors need revision, but between the Savage Hand and the Novices of the Forge-God... we need more mages. Magic allows for some more out-there tactics that could end up blindsiding us without a good counter for a while if we let the Light outdo us by too much in that category.

Speaking of, next turn, we should probably do a counterspell/antimagic thing for our sorcery development. It's just a helpful thing to have available.

[Madman198237]

I also would like to keep the Duke in reserve but we definitely could use more Heroes what with whatshername's glorious escape and whatever.

Defeated, forgotten, his greatest triumph stolen by a simple act of loyalty and a massive fist, the Duke is now ours. He was badly injured by the Wall-breaker, and was little more than a shell, the hollow remnants of a man first burned away by Light and then broken by the Dark. His body, heavily enchanted by the magics of the Enemy, was salvageable, however, and we have forged him into a powerful Hero-killer. His broken limbs have been replaced with machinery and enchantments, his armor is padded to separate the Light still roiling in it from his now much less holy body, and his shattered mind has been rebuilt, painstakingly, so that it isn't horrifying. He is entirely loyal to the Dark Lord, and is still an immensely skillful swordsman and duelist. Between the magic roiling in his veins and armor and his mechanical pieces, he is very hard to actually permanently injure or kill, and we've placed some Darkness with him to resist the Light of Heroes.

While skilled in individual combat, the Duke should still be protected from hordes of enemies, as he isn't the Wall-breaker and his weaponry is effective against only a couple of opponents at a time.

We were called out for not having a duelist Champion to actually take out enemy Heroes (the Wall-breaker only sort of counts) so here's one.

Defender Duke: (2) Nirur, Glass
The Last Duke: (1) Madman
Don't use the hero token: (0)

It's Just Raptors: (3) Nirur, Glass, Madman
The Savage Hand: (1) Nirur
Novices of the Forge-God: (2) Glass, Madman

[King Zultan]

Defender Duke: (2) Nirur, Glass
The Last Duke: (2) Madman, King Zultan
Don't use the hero token: (0)

It's Just Raptors: (4) Nirur, Glass, Madman, King Zultan
The Savage Hand: (1) Nirur
Novices of the Forge-God: (3) Glass, Madman, King Zultan

[Maximum Spin]

Defender Duke: (2) Nirur, Glass
The Last Duke: (3) Madman, King Zultan, Maximum Spin
Don't use the hero token: (0)

It's Just Raptors: (4) Nirur, Glass, Madman, King Zultan
The Savage Hand: (2) Nirur, Maximum Spin
Novices of the Forge-God: (4) Glass, Madman, King Zultan, Maximum Spin

[Nirur Torir]

I wanted a mage academy so we could cheapen our acolytes into tier 3, but Novices of the Forge God tries to get a tier 3 caster that have better armor, and presumably can out-fight their human counterparts with orcish combat prowess, without that magic infrastructure. This doesn't seem like it can succeed at all as a revision without rolling a 6, what premium discord information am I lacking?

Defender Duke: (1) Glass
The Last Duke: (4) Madman, King Zultan, Maximum Spin, Nirur
Don't use the hero token: (0)

It's Just Raptors: (4) Nirur, Glass, Madman, King Zultan
The Savage Hand: (2) Nirur, Maximum Spin
Novices of the Forge-God: (4) Glass, Madman, King Zultan, Maximum Spin

[Madman198237]

Well, not much, but C2 did mention that now that human recruits have dropped to T0 availability (same as Orcs) he was thinking about making their casters T3 instead of having them remain T4, for free. I think he decided that he wanted us to invest at least a small amount of effort bumping them down, but making "the same unit, but Orcs, and making that small jump" seems to me to be not super difficult. As for superior armor, well, they're just being equipped with the same stuff we're already making as a no-brainer sort of improvement that'll prevent them from getting killed stupidly on the battlefield.

[Maximum Spin]

It's probably too late to gain any traction, but...

We thought he was our enemy for life. We thought he could never understand. We thought the Dark Lord would have to break him, or worse. The world has a certain way of subverting expectations.

As the former Duke recovered from his wounds, he was accorded the privilege due to a prisoner of rank and honour — no great risk with the chains of the Dark One on his soul to hold him. However, his resentment and disgust, packed and dried into heaping layers of stale hatred, made him a recluse in his room in spite of the relative freedom offered, refusing to engage with the lesser creatures around him. That is, at least at first. It's impossible to say what machinations of fate drove a handful of orcs, who had just as much reason to hate him if not more, to take pity on him, bringing food and water and clean linens to his door when he would not leave to collect them himself, even, tentatively, offering conversation, as he grew willing, eventually teaching him orcish games of chance (such as "twenty-one") to pass the time ­– and slowly, slowly a strange camaraderie grew, which was surprise enough – but for the young orc-maiden who returned evening after evening, collecting his worn clothes, leaving offerings of fresh fruit, tidying up his space, and, before long, staying long into the night sharing stories... do such things as this even demand explanation? Are any of us so far gone that we could not have imagined this?

It is not that he has changed, exactly. He still fears, just a little, that he might be making the wrong choice. He still loves his daughter and hopes desperately to see her again (and not as an enemy). But, in small ways at first, but growing ones, he has come to understand. He is eager to repent, now. He has learnt from defeat, too; grown more cautious, less willing to throw precious life away in the face of possible alternatives – having seen himself that change is possible, he seeks to bring it to his former comrades if he can. We do not all trust him fully, but... we hope.

Defender Duke: (1) Glass
The Last Duke: (3) Madman, King Zultan, Nirur
Duke of Orcs: (1) Maximum Spin
Don't use the hero token: (0)

It's Just Raptors: (4) Nirur, Glass, Madman, King Zultan
The Savage Hand: (2) Nirur, Maximum Spin
Novices of the Forge-God: (4) Glass, Madman, King Zultan, Maximum Spin