Editing A ritual and no Pearls (section)

==Back at the Tower==
Alexa ends the ritual.  She sees why Marek needed so much effort– it was breaking an army combat, which is probably extra effort in general, and also it had the side effect of us all being in the same hex.  That probably affects the “getting far apart is fuzzy” effect, since how big an army combat hex is is fuzzy.  There are interesting implications for the interface between army combat and non-army combat that are probably worth investigating.

It’s not unlikely that an assault on a keep will turn into an army combat.  The fact that the different factions didn’t turn into different units is where someone probably cheated.  It’s possible the attacker only had one big unit, but Alexa would have thought the Pirates should have had a unit, and the cataurs would have a unit, and…   That’s where someone is cheating.

Bringing down the effects in a particular order is important.

It’s interesting to think about whether the army combat knew that the Oasis effect was going to happen.  Because the Named character would have escaped from the keep even if the keep was taken, unless they knew the Oasis effect was happening.  So there may have been some coordination there, or the Breaker’s Avatar just knew it was coming…?

The removal of Middlesea’s spirit probably did a lot to disable Middlesea as a defensive military unit.  

Named characters are unlikely to instantiate as a military unit, but a Squad of Paladins of Rush should be an army unit, in the way that they don’t appear to have been.  Possibly Marek and Petrov could have been an army unit.  But they could have joined an army unit.

If it’s an army combat on a board you can escape from, Named characters in an army combat will get away.  The mooks will be on the ground dead or dying, but the Named people will generally escape.  Given that there was no escape, then it’s more likely that in an army combat that the named characters go down. 

There are two possibilities for that part of the muddle: 
The orcs are actually too big for individual squads to generate as a unit, and there was no single Leader to unite the Middlesea defenses (Cara was down).
Someone forced the orcs into a unit big enough to make that effect happen, by Cheating.  Possibly because Slayer prevents the orcs from being broken into smaller groups?  It wasn’t Blue; it could have been Discipline saying“we are One Unit”.

The time stop is the thing that most prevents a win for the Breaker.

Alexa thinks that none of the Delegations were big enough to be a Decisive Battle for the Comet.  It would have been a First Strike, and an effective one.  She’s unclear whether Middlesea’s effort would have been successful.

In the short term, we have earned a battle or two of Alexa’s support for the Admiralty.  It’s unlikely that further investigation of Marek’s effect would be worth further battle, but she’d be willing to negotiate for more.

Marek’s effect is not smooth; we’re not on a single huge battlemap.  It’s several battlemaps hooked together.   Marek broke the army combat using Extra Effort by throwing Blue Magic at it without an actual Spell.  The thwackback is probably a Berserker Rage, but maybe that wouldn’t be a problem with General Petrov standing right there to take him down if he got out of control.

We report on all our mage negotiations to Captain Latiras via Yellow spell.  

The sluagh reappears to talk to Scout.   Scout is disappointed that the spider didn't go all the way to Green, but no, it was just to summon the sluagh.    Scout reports provides a brief summary to the sluagh and can report more over a secure channel. 

"Do you know his Majesty's name?"<br>
"....no,"<br>
"Interesting."<br>
"I doubt he knows mine."