(CR) The Wrong Way to use Healing Magic

[Tenzen12]

She uproot and throws trees for hundreds meters. No normal great sword would withstand such power. Not even something like Guts Dragonslayer (if it didn't come with similiar magical properties)

That's fair but from what we could see, Nero didn't use any item at that particular moment.

[Rasty]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

She uproot and throws trees for hundreds meters. No normal great sword would withstand such power. Not even something like Guts Dragonslayer (if it didn't come with similiar magical properties)

A solid chunk of metal is stronger than a few roots. I am pretty sure that Dragonslayer could withstand her power even if made from normal steel and even if not you can just bake it more into a cleave instead of "plank" and then you have no problem.

If she had enough power to destroy some 10cm thick steel chunk by just swinging it then her punch wouldn't send the guy to the nearest tree, but to the nearest other country.

[ryllharu]

Originally Posted by Rasty

Give her a greatsword or zweihender and there is no way she is gonna break it, you might as well double or triple the weight if there is a problem with durability, just make it thicker. Even the spiked mace (random demon underling A had) would do a good enough job.

Maybe like, giant sword with a wedge-shaped cross section?

Spoiler for Like this?:

It's surprisingly difficult to find good screenshots of Karulau using it herself these days.

Spoiler for Something like this for sure. yt clip:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/yB9pRR3bFEI

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Tenzen12]

Show me sword that can withstand 7 tons of weight (or 60 kN of force), which is what you need to uproot tree, because normal swords break around 0.6 tons (6kN). You would need literally 100 times stronger sword than is standard.

[FlareKnight]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

She uproot and throws trees for hundreds meters. No normal great sword would withstand such power. Not even something like Guts Dragonslayer (if it didn't come with similiar magical properties)

That's fair but from what we could see, Nero didn't use any item at that particular moment.

I'm just going to throw out the thought that she was one of their main military leaders. I think they can afford to give her new weapons each time she breaks one. Not like she's getting into military conflicts every day! Even if she breaks a weapon with every attack...she'd need one swing to finish that particular fight!

I mean geeze. If her troops all died because they didn't want to extend the budget a bit...I'm not sure that was worth it

[Strahan]

I think letting the redhead demon chick carry the leader away was a bad move. Yea, she looked like her subordinate, but seriously... you're gonna let a strong demon leader get away just because of that? Should've ended them both to prevent future deaths of your people.

As to the weapon, hell, just give her a girder to swing around lol. That made me curious so I went and asked GPT4 for its opinion

Spoiler:

edit: holy crap why is that so huge, lol. well, at least it'll be easy to read

Those numbers make it sound like it may be feasible if they make her a big metal club. Really, she'd probably be better off just using her fists and when she gets into situations like in the last ep when she's pummeling the guy, have a belt knife she can use to just slit their throat and be done with it. Probably more efficient than lugging around something stout enough to survive her use.

[Tenzen12]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

I'm just going to throw out the thought that she was one of their main military leaders. I think they can afford to give her new weapons each time she breaks one. Not like she's getting into military conflicts every day! Even if she breaks a weapon with every attack...she'd need one swing to finish that particular fight!

I mean geeze. If her troops all died because they didn't want to extend the budget a bit...I'm not sure that was worth it

She also needs one swing of her fist to finish any given fight and only thing that get broken would enemy bones.

[Rinvelt]

You guys are thinking way too hard about it. She's just a fist fighter. You don't tell a martial artist to use a sword, do you?

[Alchemist007]

Kind of weird that they showed some sympathetic point of view when the underling was carrying her boss away...right after he used some zombie magic on his own team to slaughter hers.

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Alchemist007

Kind of weird that they showed some sympathetic point of view when the underling was carrying her boss away...right after he used some zombie magic on his own team to slaughter hers.

That's what I mean when I say that the demons characterization seems all over the place.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

That's what I mean when I say that the demons characterization seems all over the place.

I think it's Rose's that's problematic. Demons are able to lay down their lives for the cause. Just like humans. They also feel loyalty for each other. Just like humans. This isn't a contradiction.

But Rose, a soldier in a war, has problems because the enemy aren't just mindless monsters?

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I think it's Rose's that's problematic. Demons are able to lay down their lives for the cause. Just like humans. They also feel loyalty for each other. Just like humans. This isn't a contradiction.

But Rose, a soldier in a war, has problems because the enemy aren't just mindless monsters?

It's more that outside of their invasion plans, the demons are portrayed in that kind of comedic goofy way. It's really incongruent with what their actual intentions are (and we don't even know why they are invading in the first place, outside of lust for conquest).

[Alchemist007]

I've been half expecting a reveal that the king is doing something fishy behind the scenes but it still hasn't happened. It's literally just "demons bad" until we see anything else.

[SuitUp]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

It's more that outside of their invasion plans, the demons are portrayed in that kind of comedic goofy way. It's really incongruent with what their actual intentions are (and we don't even know why they are invading in the first place, outside of lust for conquest).

Yeah, outside of this one specific and tragic flashback, demonkind has been portrayed as just a goofy as the humans we are currently rooting for, down to having zany subordinates acting as comic relief.
I'm unsure if thats a setup for some sort of subtext comentary later on or if its just that this work is going for a classic shonen vibe where it might all be in good fun in spite of the seemingly dire consequences.

[Lex79]

I'm assuming the author will pull a Lord of the Rings and show us later that sparing the two demons was the right thing to do.

[felix]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

It's more that outside of their invasion plans, the demons are portrayed in that kind of comedic goofy way. It's really incongruent with what their actual intentions are (and we don't even know why they are invading in the first place, outside of lust for conquest).

Land, food, resources or external threat they cant beat are usually the top of the list. They could just as easily say because demon lord wants it and thats that, as wars waged just to establish legitimacy arent uncommon.

At this point, given their previous failure, "revenge" is also reason enough.

[Rasty]

My opinion about this battle: Siglis (the general) is either cooperating with the demons or is an absolute idiot who should never have been let to lead an army.

One side of the camp has a triple defense, the rest has absolutely none (if there is it's not shown and the soldiers are fighting outside it anyway, which would be worse). Sure, the forest might impede cavalry charge a bit, but the demons don't even have cavalry and while reinforcing the weakest side is OK, not touching the rest isn't. There are no scouts (who would have noticed the illusion magic). The whole battle is absolute chaos of 1v1s where nobody knows where who is. The soldiers used to have spears, but for whatever reason threw them away and fight with less effective swords (without shields). There is no tight formation and magic is flying randomly over the heads of mixed melee brawl hitting nothing.

I will present you with an absolutely genius (meaning rudimentary) battle plan. Dig a ditch around the whole camp, palisade/spikes on top if you have time. Use the forest borders so that the enemy can't concentrate formations but you can. Mounted scouts to all sides to prevent surprises. Spears pointing to the enemy, soldiers tightly packed so that they never fight alone, some reserve troops and heroes to fill gaps. Concentrate magic fire on big (=strong) monsters and high concentrations of troops, or to counter enemy magic. This way you are always fighting 2-3 middle range (spears) against one short range (axe) and easily winning.

Additional benefit: since the wounded don't happen behind enemy lines they can be easily transported to the back with no "kidnapping" needed.

As for the return-fire enemy: dig a big hole (you can use magic), push him in, cover the hole, finished.

[ChronoReverse]

Then they'd go around and ravage the kingdom? Anime and WN's love to have the fortress/stockade defense idea so that a smaller force can defeat a larger but unless there's a reason for the enemy army to attack (like geography), all that does is tie yourself up in a fixed location that's obvious and took a lot of time and resources to prepare.

The enemy can just detach a token force to watch if you come out from the fort while the main force keeps going and lays waste.



Of course, this is already more thought put into this than the story likely intended. If I were the demons against such a stockade defense, I'd just set the whole forest on fire and move my entire force past while the flames locked the fortress garrison in place. Depending on what my forward scouts say about the remaining guard at the city, I'd either smash in and use its walls against the enemy force behind me or I'd set some villages on fire to make them hurry then double back suddenly and attack them while they're scrambling to catch up.

[Rasty]

Originally Posted by ChronoReverse

Then they'd go around and ravage the kingdom? Anime and WN's love to have the fortress/stockade defense idea so that a smaller force can defeat a larger but unless there's a reason for the enemy army to attack (like geography), all that does is tie yourself up in a fixed location that's obvious and took a lot of time and resources to prepare.

The enemy can just detach a token force to watch if you come out from the fort while the main force keeps going and lays waste.

They already had enough time to create triple layered defense in the front, digging a ditch doesn't take too much time (so you can do the same in every field camp during maneuvers) and it's not a fortress, just a basic camp defense. Considering the demons attacked their camp, it is only logical to conclude they had to go through this point, otherwise they should have just gone around to begin with. And my bigger problem is with the army tactics, not the camp itself.

Originally Posted by ChronoReverse

Of course, this is already more thought put into this than the story likely intended. If I were the demons against such a stockade defense, I'd just set the whole forest on fire and move my entire force past while the flames locked the fortress garrison in place. Depending on what my forward scouts say about the remaining guard at the city, I'd either smash in and use its walls against the enemy force behind me or I'd set some villages on fire to make them hurry then double back suddenly and attack them while they're scrambling to catch up.

Lush forests don't burn well. Considering how green the forest was, setting it on fire will produce just a bit of smoke and nothing else.

If one side can't win in open field battle all they have to do is barricade in cities and vacate nearby villages. The enemy army will just starve out this way. Especially if there is a handy fortress in the middle (which there wasn't, but but field army in a camp they fear to attack will suffice) that can disrupt their supply lines.

[ChronoReverse]

Lush forests don't burn on their own but magic and fuel makes even those quite burnable. And you only need to burn enough around it to prevent an easy escape. The reality is, preparing defenses is slower and going around is always easier. Locking down a force that was intent on defending is also not difficult.

Defenders historically need to either have a relief army coming to force the besiegers away or have a weather element (usually winter) that does the same thing. Without that, the attacking force has the advantage unless they throw away their advantage by pressing unnecessarily Hollywood style.


Furthermore, the idea that a pillaging attack force needs supply lines more than defenders is incorrect. The limit for a strong pillaging attack force is whether the soldiers get sick of it. Only scorched earth tactics combined with winter (or similar inclement weather and disease, swamps and malaria come to mind) can actually stop that and it's a Pyrrhic victory at best if you're forced to rely on that.




In any case, the tactics in anime/WN's/movies are always questionable in the first place. But fortifying more in a fixed outpost isn't something that usually works either. Going around historically has usually been the answer that worked really well as long as the fortification itself isn't the strategic objective (like the capital city).