Who would win?

[PinkPlasma she/her]

alright I like fights.

you like fights.

so lets talk abt some cool fights. cus we all know we want to.

1 koloas army vs shallan, jasnah, and kaladin (in their current forms) each with a lot of stormlight but still a limited amount, and no refills. who wins?

[alder24]

Another versus thread? Storms, I'm not ready!

8 minutes ago, PinkPlasma said:

alright I like fights.

you like fights.

so lets talk abt some cool fights. cus we all know we want to.

1 koloas army vs shallan, jasnah, and kaladin (in their current forms) each with a lot of stormlight but still a limited amount, and no refills. who wins?

How big is the Koloss army? 1000? Trio wins. 10000? Difficult with limited Stormlight. 300000? They will run out of Stormlight and get overrun.

 

Shallan would create an army of illusions like during the Battle of Thaylen Field to distract Koloss, Jasnah would soulcast ground to create obstacles for them and funnel them to Kaladin, who would kill them at the narrowest point. But Shallan's army of illusions drained a lot of Stormlight, this isn't a sustainable tactic, it would give time for Jasnah to create obstacles, walls and trenches to funnel them into a narrow space where they will slowly kill them with Shardblades, using Stormlight just to give them strength to preserve as much as it as possible. But with a big army of Koloss they would run out of Stormlight, get outflanked and overrun.

[Spearguy]

How big is the army, are they being lead by anyone, and are the Koloss pre or post Catcendere?

Edited May 10, 2023 by Spearguy

[PinkPlasma she/her]

alr lets say the same size as the one that attacked luthadel

[Frustration]

Radiants win pretty easily.

First they soulcast a large stone fortification around them with a single entrence. Then Kaladin stands in the entryway, and uses his plate to open vaccums around the kolosses heads, while he kills any that gets close with a shardblade. Eventually enough Koloss would die the rest couldn't get in and then they just wait for the spren to kill off the rest of them.

[Duxredux he/him]

There needs to be some more context to this. Are they defending Thaylen City as Odium who has somehow brought the army of Koloss to defeat them and stirs them into a frenzy with the Thrill? Are the Radiants traveling around and just come upon the army? Kaladin can just fly them out if they don't need to fight them. There are options to decoy them away as well.

Jasnah uses the spren to scout the Koloss army encampment and identify the psychology and behavior of the Koloss, probably forcing a grumbling Shallan to take notes. The spren, particularly Syl note that there is something seriously wrong with the Koloss (due to the hemalurgic spikes).

After identifing the behavior of the Koloss, Shallan Lightweaves Kaladin to look like a really ugly Koloss while Jasnah and she become much more proper and lady-like Koloss. Kaladin beats up the biggest Koloss and gains the respect/deference of the army.

Kaladin then proceeds to get too invested in their well-being and Jasnah and Shallan have to drag him away before the Koloss army gets adopted into Bridge Four and start flying around as Windrunner squires.

[cometaryorbit]

2 hours ago, PinkPlasma said:

alr lets say the same size as the one that attacked luthadel

20,000 koloss? Hmmm. I'd say the Radiants eventually lose (but can easily escape if they're willing to retreat before running out of Light) if the koloss are directly controlled, but probably win if they're not.

I don't think Shallan can do her full Battle of Thaylen Field super illusion army without the perpendicularity, and Jasnah's Soulcasting scale is probably also limited. She can totally Soulcast people normally (as we see in WoK) but it's hard and likely Light-expensive.

On the other hand, Plate is awesome and koloss have no defense against Shardblades & probably won't even try to dodge. So Jasnah and Kaladin will kill a ton of koloss extremely quickly, and non-controlled koloss will have their morale break.

But if the koloss are controlled... koloss are strong enough that their Plate will be taking real damage, so they'll be burning through Light fixing it. I don't think they could actually kill 20,000 this way.

As of RoW Jasnah doesn't have the knowledge to Soulcast explosives or whatever, which could theoretically be decisive.

[alder24]

34 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

non-controlled koloss will have their morale break.

What morale? They don't have that. They can feel fear, yes, but the more you kill them the more they want to kill you, as they see you as a challenge, while not understanding why something so small is so strong. They won't run, they won't stop fighting, they won't hide - you will only make them more angry.

36 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I don't think Shallan can do her full Battle of Thaylen Field super illusion army without the perpendicularity, and Jasnah's Soulcasting scale is probably also limited. She can totally Soulcast people normally (as we see in WoK) but it's hard and likely Light-expensive.

Good point, the closeness of 3 realms is what allowed Shallan to create such an army in the first place. She would likely be able to make one on a smaller scale (like she did in the Tower while fighting Re-Shephir), which should be enough to draw the attention of some Koloss.

40 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

But if the koloss are controlled... koloss are strong enough that their Plate will be taking real damage, so they'll be burning through Light fixing it. I don't think they could actually kill 20,000 this way.

Yes, I agree, they don't have enough light to defeat 20000 Koloss. That's too much, they would run out of Stormlight. But I think even non controlled Koloss would win.

[Trusk'our he/him]

5 hours ago, Duxredux said:

There needs to be some more context to this. Are they defending Thaylen City as Odium who has somehow brought the army of Koloss to defeat them and stirs them into a frenzy with the Thrill? Are the Radiants traveling around and just come upon the army? Kaladin can just fly them out if they don't need to fight them. There are options to decoy them away as well.

Jasnah uses the spren to scout the Koloss army encampment and identify the psychology and behavior of the Koloss, probably forcing a grumbling Shallan to take notes. The spren, particularly Syl note that there is something seriously wrong with the Koloss (due to the hemalurgic spikes).

After identifing the behavior of the Koloss, Shallan Lightweaves Kaladin to look like a really ugly Koloss while Jasnah and she become much more proper and lady-like Koloss. Kaladin beats up the biggest Koloss and gains the respect/deference of the army.

Kaladin then proceeds to get too invested in their well-being and Jasnah and Shallan have to drag him away before the Koloss army gets adopted into Bridge Four and start flying around as Windrunner squires.

I love literally everything about this scenario (also, I could totally see this being the way it shakes down). Sorry I couldn't give you more than one reputation!

[The Stick]

I see this as essentially coming down to two factors.

1. Who is leading the Koloss.

2. How much Light do radiants have and where are they?

I see some fun scenarios with people like Cett, Vasher, Elend, Dalinar, or Bavadin leading the armies.

As for Light, I have wished for years that Brandon would publish a definitive guide to Stormlight measurements like 3 clearchips equals one basic lashing. I would say give the radiants the Coalition Emerald reserve.

[cometaryorbit]

21 hours ago, alder24 said:

What morale? They don't have that. They can feel fear, yes, but the more you kill them the more they want to kill you, as they see you as a challenge, while not understanding why something so small is so strong. They won't run, they won't stop fighting, they won't hide - you will only make them more angry.

I don't know.  Every large scale fight we have seen with koloss involved Allomantic and/or Ruin control of them.

Era 2 koloss, at least, I'm pretty sure genuinely could break morale. Era 1 not controlled is unknown... we know fear makes them easier to control, but not if it matters otherwise.

15 hours ago, The Stick said:

 I would say give the radiants the Coalition Emerald reserve.

I think that probably would be enough to win. I was interpreting it as a large-but-reasonable amount of gems to carry.

Another factor is how the fight starts. We know hitting the koloss first, before they frenzy, is a significant advantage.

Despite being very strong, koloss aren't very well built to fight Shardbearers. They're not going to dodge, so a Shardblade will go through them like butter. They have the strength to break Plate, and so the Radiants will be burning Light to repair cracks in Plate ... but they won't be very effective at breaking it, I don't think. Koloss use swords instead of hammers, and I doubt even the strongest koloss is as strong as Shardplate*. Basic (small) koloss are probably stronger than warform, though - but their weapons are not great against Plate, so the effect might be similar. Small cracks puffing a little Light, a lot of time needed for real damage. And in that time koloss will be dying like flies.

And that's before the actual Surges enter the picture - though conserving Light may be key in a long fight like this.

@Frustration may be right about using Soulcasting to alter the terrain, though. Koloss can jump very high, so just walls won't necessarily help, but ...

It won't work if the Radiants are trying to defend something (and why else would they be doing this?), but in theory, if they're just 3 Radiants vs 20,000 koloss in an open field, Jasnah could probably make a stone dome with one opening around the Radiants.

With a narrow choke point, it might actually be winnable. A Shardblade can cut right through the koloss swords - given Kaladin's fighting skills plus the grace benefits of holding Stormlight, how often would he actually get hit and Plate cracked if he could take on the koloss one at a time?

*thoughts on comparative strength spoilered for length

Spoiler

 

A koloss is a human with 4 "human strength" spikes, so it's the sum of 5 people's strength minus Hemalurgic decay. Say 4.5x normal* human strength.

However, larger koloss are stronger.

Koloss start at about 5'. If that 5' koloss has x1 normal strength (its starting strength) plus x3.5 from the spikes... a a 10' koloss would have x4 normal strength (by square cube law) plus  x3.5 from the spikes ... about x7.5 total. A 12' koloss would be ~x5.75 by square cube law plus x3.5 from the spikes ... about x9.25 total.

But koloss are more robust than humans, so x9 at 10' and x12 at 12' might be more reasonable - their growth in strength might be more than square cube law.

Shardplate grants "the strength of many men" (WoK). Dalinar's hammer is heavy for two soldiers, so likely over 100lb. Real life warhammers are more like 5lb... which would suggest something like 20x strength (though the greater mass of Shardplate probably also helps). Shardplate doing impressive jumps while weighing something like 1400lb + wearer also suggests enormous strength... frankly even x20 feels a bit low for that. They're jumping a lot more than twice a normal person, while having probably x8-x10 the weight.

*Era 1 koloss seem to be made out of rebels and prisoners and such, so they probably aren't picking weightlifting champions ... otoh they are probably mostly reasonably aged adults, I don't think they are turning 90 year olds into koloss either. So probably your average koloss spike or koloss candidate is reasonably average strength for a fairly active young to middle age adult.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[therunner he/him]

14 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

*thoughts on comparative strength spoilered for length

  Hide contents

 

A koloss is a human with 4 "human strength" spikes, so it's the sum of 5 people's strength minus Hemalurgic decay. Say 4.5x normal* human strength.

However, larger koloss are stronger.

Koloss start at about 5'. If that 5' koloss has x1 normal strength (its starting strength) plus x3.5 from the spikes... a a 10' koloss would have x4 normal strength (by square cube law) plus  x3.5 from the spikes ... about x7.5 total. A 12' koloss would be ~x5.75 by square cube law plus x3.5 from the spikes ... about x9.25 total.

But koloss are more robust than humans, so x9 at 10' and x12 at 12' might be more reasonable - their growth in strength might be more than square cube law.

Shardplate grants "the strength of many men" (WoK). Dalinar's hammer is heavy for two soldiers, so likely over 100lb. Real life warhammers are more like 5lb... which would suggest something like 20x strength (though the greater mass of Shardplate probably also helps). Shardplate doing impressive jumps while weighing something like 1400lb + wearer also suggests enormous strength... frankly even x20 feels a bit low for that. They're jumping a lot more than twice a normal person, while having probably x8-x10 the weight.

*Era 1 koloss seem to be made out of rebels and prisoners and such, so they probably aren't picking weightlifting champions ... otoh they are probably mostly reasonably aged adults, I don't think they are turning 90 year olds into koloss either. So probably your average koloss spike or koloss candidate is reasonably average strength for a fairly active young to middle age adult.

 

 

Argument can be made that Koloss are large because of the spikes, in that they grow into their 4.75x strength, and smaller Koloss are weaker.
It would be interesting question to ask.

[cometaryorbit]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

Argument can be made that Koloss are large because of the spikes, in that they grow into their 4.75x strength, and smaller Koloss are weaker.
It would be interesting question to ask.

It would be interesting to ask, yeah. But I don't think 4.75x normal human strength would be enough for the largest koloss we see fighting to be able to fight. They are huge.

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

It would be interesting to ask, yeah. But I don't think 4.75x normal human strength would be enough for the largest koloss we see fighting to be able to fight. They are huge.

True enough, solely due to weight of their bodies.

Though I will point out that largest Koloss are 12-13 feet, i.e. about 2x the size of human, so their muscles are about 4x the size of what is feasible for 6.5 feet tall human.
So it is odd that coincidentally Koloss top out roughly where 4x the human strength is.

[cometaryorbit]

12 minutes ago, therunner said:

True enough, solely due to weight of their bodies.

Though I will point out that largest Koloss are 12-13 feet, i.e. about 2x the size of human, so their muscles are about 4x the size of what is feasible for 6.5 feet tall human.
So it is odd that coincidentally Koloss top out roughly where 4x the human strength is.

The issue with that, though, is that koloss seem to be a lot more robustly built than humans, so their muscles will be much larger than that simple scaling would suggest.

Also, Hemalurgic Iron seems to give extra strength to muscles beyond what their size would suggest - TenSoon says that's how the Blessing of Potency works. To be fair, it may not be identical for koloss and kandra.

[therunner he/him]

29 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

The issue with that, though, is that koloss seem to be a lot more robustly built than humans, so their muscles will be much larger than that simple scaling would suggest.

Well, are they more robustly built then the most extreme of body builders? Various artworks suggests they are in that ballpark.

29 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Also, Hemalurgic Iron seems to give extra strength to muscles beyond what their size would suggest - TenSoon says that's how the Blessing of Potency works. To be fair, it may not be identical for koloss and kandra.

Kandra spike are made differently, so there could be that.