To Kill a Mistborn

[Frustration]

So thinking about two recent topics, specifically these

Spoiler

https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/201771-to-kill-a-herald/

 

 

I decided to work out an idea

Mission details:

During a hypothetical era 3 war a northern Mistborn is causing the Malwish trouble on the battlefield. Your mission is to eliminate them. 

 

The Malwish have no metalborn to spare, and all combat useful Medallions are currently in use.

What is your plan?

[Qianweilian He/him]

Well, given that it's Era 3, aluminum should be common enough. If it's an open battlefield, this is easy: pump then full of lead (actually aluminum). If it's in an urban environment, this gets trickier. I'd probably send a small group to kill the mistborn, (very noisy), with a larger group slowly encircling and getting into ambush positions. Ideally, this squad would be able to shoot down at the mistborn from elevation, probably a roof. There's a decent chance of inter-planet trade, so I'd use blackbane coated bullets in an attempt to paralyze and kill them. Given that they're probably going to have metal on them, (coins or something), I'll use primer cubes to try and stun them if they try to escape with steel/iron. Speed bubbles shouldn't be an issue, as the Mistborn will have to be constantly moving to avoid being shot. The main strategy is to tie them down with fire and slowly advance until the Mistborn is caught.

[Trusk'our he/him]

32 minutes ago, Frustration said:

So thinking about two recent topics, specifically these

  Hide contents

https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/201771-to-kill-a-herald/

 

 

I decided to work out an idea

Mission details:

During a hypothetical era 3 war a northern Mistborn is causing the Malwish trouble on the battlefield. Your mission is to eliminate them. 

 

The Malwish have no metalborn to spare, and all combat useful Medallions are currently in use.

What is your plan?

I see what you did there *wink wink*

 

So, we know the Mistborn isn't just attacking in the political leaders, but is actively attacking and disrupting the battlefield itself. I'm going to assume much of the damage they do is through espionage and assassination. If so, we can use that to our advantage.

First, we're going to need more information, then we'll use that to set up an unfair trap and beat them in their own game.

We're Malwish. We don't have the same cultural stores and historical accounts of Mistborn, so we'll want to obtain as much as we can from our (presumed to exist) agents in the North. We especially examine old Hazekiller tactics and see what we can take and what we can adapt to our modern technology and the new metals.

We'll want to push the Mistborn to attempt an assassination on a particular military leader so that we can rig it in our favor. In addition to aluminum firearms, we'll want Tineye-disrupting tools (loud noises, bright lights) that can blast them when they enter the target's "home" (obviously we'll put up a front, maybe use body doubles to make it truly seem like they're there to all but the most trusted few). Also, rig the place with C4 and aluminum shrapnel.

We'll need a method of extremely precise detection to tell when the Mistborn enters. I'm not sure exactly how, but we can put our engineers in charge of that. When the Mistborn tries to kill their "victim", we unleash the explosives. If they survive (such as cropping up a speed bubble and avoiding the main blast, maybe with a pewter-duralumin hit to boot) we have a dozen Uzi-wilding psychopaths that we don't care about charge in and gun them down.

Barring that, the stunners come into play should they try to escape and our backup force (one we care about a little more) does their best to hit them with nets and bullets.

 

A little unhinged, but as a Malwish politician, I think it has a decent shot.

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

I get in the fight, fight as hard as I can, and lose on purpose so that the Mistborn can have a W.  It is a small sacrifice to make for Scadrial.

 

(Jokes on us, there will be no feruchemy or allomancy in era 3.  Only complaining, pain, and terrible romance subplots.)

[Frustration]

4 minutes ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

I get in the fight, fight as hard as I can, and lose on purpose so that the Mistborn can have a W.  It is a small sacrifice to make for Scadrial.

Your sacrifice will be remembered, but they will erase your name and give you a cool two word title instead.

4 minutes ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

(Jokes on us, there will be no feruchemy or allomancy in era 3.  Only complaining, pain, and terrible romance subplots.)

If you jinx this I will [Insert ominous threat involving Hemalurgy here].

Especially the romance subplots, just please I beg of you no.

Edited January 24 by Frustration

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

9 minutes ago, Frustration said:

If you jinx this I will [Insert ominous threat involving Hemalurgy here].

Especially the romance subplots, just please I beg of you no.

I have hated the romance subplots since before most of you readers had ever heard the names of Bilmes, Sanderson, and Feder.  Do not speak to me of suffering!  Not to me, who has endured the endless cringe.  HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE THE SMOOCHY SUBPLOTS SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF TINY HATS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR THOSE ROMANCE SUBPLOTS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. HATE. HATE.

(On the plus side, zero of my predictions have ever come true.  Ever.)

9 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Your sacrifice will be remembered, but they will erase your name and give you a cool two word title instead.

Worth it.

Edited January 24 by Aliroz-The-Confused

[therunner he/him]

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

So thinking about two recent topics, specifically these

  Reveal hidden contents

https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/201771-to-kill-a-herald/

 

 

I decided to work out an idea

Mission details:

During a hypothetical era 3 war a northern Mistborn is causing the Malwish trouble on the battlefield. Your mission is to eliminate them. 

The Malwish have no metalborn to spare, and all combat useful Medallions are currently in use.

What is your plan?

If on battlefield, use 

1. Suppression (aluminum) fire to pin them down, doesn't matter if they throw up a bubble or not
2. Once pinned down, artillery strike or other explosives on their location. Ideally all around the bubble, so they have no room to escape.

Done. 
If in closed space, step 1 is the same, step 2 is grenades and other explosives.


Frankly, Mistborn shouldn't be on a battlefield from ~1920s tech onwards, they simply aren't all that anymore. 
They should be assassins, like we were told even in Era 1. They are best suited for that:

• Copper
  • Hide their own use of Investiture
• Steel/Iron
  • Improvised weapons, and quick mobility using terrain
• Tin
  • Edge over guards/target
• Zinc/Brass
  • Distract guards/target
• Bendalloy
  • Quickly hide/reposition or to quickly kill target
• Cadmium
  • For long stretched of waiting in secure location
• Electrum
  • Double check if your move will work out before attempting anything risky (e.g. passing hall you don't know is empty or not)
• Chromium
  • Helps when target has Investiture that could heal them, though depends on how much Investiture they have

 

For battlefield, Mistborn are simply too fragile, and not that strong offensively without Atium (and even Atium won't help them against Aluminum bullets and shrapnel).

Edited January 24 by therunner

[Qianweilian He/him]

15 hours ago, Frustration said:

Especially the romance subplots, just please I beg of you no.

Somehow, Zane returned.

That edgy love triangle was the worst part of WoA (in my opinion).

Edited January 24 by Qianweilian

[Frustration]

I'd take maybe twelve people with aluminum machine guns. Have three aim for above the Mistborn, while another four take the sides. The other five flank ang go for the sides to cut them off.

[Schizoposting]

Mistborn are really not that powerful without Atium—Kelsier struggled against a couple of Hazekillers in TFE, when he was forced to fight without it. In era 3, a random guy with aluminum expanding bullets can probably take down a Mistborn in single combat (although this depends on the environment).

Now, if they can get their hands on some Atium, then it's a different story. But given that requires Trellium (which itself is nigh unobtainable for Scadrians), and a very dangerous process, it's unlikely that we'll see it in any substantial quantity.

[Qianweilian He/him]

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Mistborn are really not that powerful without Atium—Kelsier struggled against a couple of Hazekillers in TFE, when he was forced to fight without it.

It was more than a couple, but yes, Mistborn don't fare nearly as well as say, radiants, on the open battlefield. They are much more effective as assassins and/or guerillas.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

In era 3, a random guy with aluminum expanding bullets can probably take down a Mistborn in single combat (although this depends on the environment).

Maybe if the Mistborn still uses glass daggers. A Mistborn would be very scary to face in single combat, it would be like fighting Batman. Only, it turns out Batman probably doesn't do very well on a battlefield either.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Now, if they can get their hands on some Atium, then it's a different story. But given that requires Trellium (which itself is nigh unobtainable for Scadrians)

They have a decent stockpile of trellium, the issue is that they don't know how to split harmonium. (Given that it's Era 3)

Quote

Questioner

So, by the end of Era 2, we witness the greatest explosion ever caused by a man. From Wax’s experiments, we know that ettmetal can be split into lerasium and atium. Could this mean that the sea is now filled with lerasium? If so, could that somehow lead to the emergence of more Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

First, to get the god metals when it divides, you have to do something specific that Wax did and no one else has done. Simply causing the explosion, you will not get the god metals; you will get something we call *inaudible*, which you´ll see in Era 3. Wax did something different. No one in Era 3 knows what he managed to accomplish. He did not <try it again>, he thought it was too dangerous.

Footnote: The reporter believes the inaudible word was "pikemetal".

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/545/#e16902

Edited January 25 by Qianweilian

[Frustration]

3 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

It was more than a couple, but yes, Mistborn don't fare nearly as well as say, radiants, on the open battlefield. They are much more effective as assassins and/or guerillas.

It was eight.

[Duxredux he/him]

No idea, because I don't really know what the Southern Scadrians will have access to. That's a big hole in the information there. I don't know how far my hypothetical technology will have diverged at that point.

That said, I do think we're underestimating a fully loaded Mistborn at war. This isn't supposed to be a fair fight like a lot of our matchups. This isn't a smash-and-grab like Kelsier against Venture Hazekillers. We're going up against a Mistborn expecting heavy resistance. Expect them to come in like Wax with the Big Gun and Duralumin at a minimum. Anti-personal grenades in close quarters that would be suicidal for anyone except a Coinshot, vehicles or whole buildings ripped apart by structural steel via Duralumin-Pushes after the grenades blasted the aluminum coating off. Primer cubes charged with Iron lobbed behind our lines. Compared to many conventional energy sources, the power density available to a Mistborn with a stomach full of steel is terrifying. I expect a storm of steel and debris obscuring the Mistborn as they wreak havoc, then the debris blasting outwards when they left a primer cube and faded either back to restock or behind my lines - I don't know which.

Beyond that, they are not operating as a one man army here. They will have a support team that can restock them midfight, add suppression fire of their own, and the Mistborn can duck back and recharge the team's primer cubes and make it very difficult to pin down where exactly they are. At this point, who knows, maybe the Mistborn did just a quick recon hit-and-fade and is calling in an airstrike on the target they identified and is planning on going in while the area is actively being bombed. We hardly ever see the protagonists when they aren't outnumbered, generally working nearly solo or with one or two others.

I'm gonna sit back and try to think of how I would address this, because this does not look easy to counter and the solution I bring to the war room had better not be "and hope they're out of their most useful equipment." Bare minimum, I would beg for backup and ask for the metalborn and combat ettmetal resources the OP restricted from us posthaste.

[DoctaDajman]

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

No idea, because I don't really know what the Southern Scadrians will have access to. That's a big hole in the information there. I don't know how far my hypothetical technology will have diverged at that point.

That said, I do think we're underestimating a fully loaded Mistborn at war. This isn't supposed to be a fair fight like a lot of our matchups. This isn't a smash-and-grab like Kelsier against Venture Hazekillers. We're going up against a Mistborn expecting heavy resistance. Expect them to come in like Wax with the Big Gun and Duralumin at a minimum. Anti-personal grenades in close quarters that would be suicidal for anyone except a Coinshot, vehicles or whole buildings ripped apart by structural steel via Duralumin-Pushes after the grenades blasted the aluminum coating off. Primer cubes charged with Iron lobbed behind our lines. Compared to many conventional energy sources, the power density available to a Mistborn with a stomach full of steel is terrifying. I expect a storm of steel and debris obscuring the Mistborn as they wreak havoc, then the debris blasting outwards when they left a primer cube and faded either back to restock or behind my lines - I don't know which.

Beyond that, they are not operating as a one man army here. They will have a support team that can restock them midfight, add suppression fire of their own, and the Mistborn can duck back and recharge the team's primer cubes and make it very difficult to pin down where exactly they are. At this point, who knows, maybe the Mistborn did just a quick recon hit-and-fade and is calling in an airstrike on the target they identified and is planning on going in while the area is actively being bombed. We hardly ever see the protagonists when they aren't outnumbered, generally working nearly solo or with one or two others.

I'm gonna sit back and try to think of how I would address this, because this does not look easy to counter and the solution I bring to the war room had better not be "and hope they're out of their most useful equipment." Bare minimum, I would beg for backup and ask for the metalborn and combat ettmetal resources the OP restricted from us posthaste.

@Frustration

I do agree with a lot of what is said here. I dont consider any of what we saw in Mistborn 1 or really even 2 to be a great showing of a mistborn at war against non metalborn. 

Mistborn is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, system Brandon ever built. As such it has a massive counter and no healing. 

But against a squad of non metalborn... and armed for a battle... we never saw one really truly operate that way.

99% of what we see of mistborn in combat is based on them planning for a stealthy mission or being prepared for combat against another mistborn. We never saw one wear armor ever. 

You get a mistborn armed with a koloss sword like Vin was and give them a decent set of armor and I do believe they will blow through an army of non metalborn pretty dang easily. 

All of the mistborn we see purposefully ran around underequiped... but true warfare they wouldnt be restricted by any of that. 

Brandon fueled the story purposefully so that Kelsier and Vin would be up against the most elite non mistborn fighters out there. If anything he handed all of the hazekillers the ultimate plot armor, a magical killer who wasn't a soldier and had no intentions of killing unless they had too. 

 

Not to mention. Once someone like Ranette figures out that Wax can burn steel and duralumin I am sure she could whip up an auto feeder style device running with springs and spools of metal wires that insert into piercings to allow automatic cycling of metals for duralumin bursts. Cover that bad boy in aluminum and you suddenly dont even need any vials. 

Mistborn are so much more powerful than the narrative shows but how long would radiants last if they decided that only a few diamond chips was enough to go into battle with or that using a shardblade and plate was a bad idea because a small part of the population will auto counter them for existing. 

[Frustration]

4 hours ago, Duxredux said:

I'm gonna sit back and try to think of how I would address this, because this does not look easy to counter and the solution I bring to the war room had better not be "and hope they're out of their most useful equipment." Bare minimum, I would beg for backup and ask for the metalborn and combat ettmetal resources the OP restricted from us posthaste.

Well Harmonium would be useable, they have lots of it. Though I'd probably just stick to dynamite.

6 minutes ago, DoctaDajman said:

@Frustration

I do agree with a lot of what is said here. I dont consider any of what we saw in Mistborn 1 or really even 2 to be a great showing of a mistborn at war against non metalborn. 

Mistborn is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, system Brandon ever built. As such it has a massive counter and no healing. 

But against a squad of non metalborn... and armed for a battle... we never saw one really truly operate that way.

99% of what we see of mistborn in combat is based on them planning for a stealthy mission or being prepared for combat against another mistborn. We never saw one wear armor ever. 

You get a mistborn armed with a koloss sword like Vin was and give them a decent set of armor and I do believe they will blow through an army of non metalborn pretty dang easily. 

All of the mistborn we see purposefully ran around underequiped... but true warfare they wouldnt be restricted by any of that. 

Brandon fueled the story purposefully so that Kelsier and Vin would be up against the most elite non mistborn fighters out there. If anything he handed all of the hazekillers the ultimate plot armor, a magical killer who wasn't a soldier and had no intentions of killing unless they had too. 

 

Not to mention. Once someone like Ranette figures out that Wax can burn steel and duralumin I am sure she could whip up an auto feeder style device running with springs and spools of metal wires that insert into piercings to allow automatic cycling of metals for duralumin bursts. Cover that bad boy in aluminum and you suddenly dont even need any vials. 

Mistborn are so much more powerful than the narrative shows but how long would radiants last if they decided that only a few diamond chips was enough to go into battle with or that using a shardblade and plate was a bad idea because a small part of the population will auto counter them for existing. 

I suppose that's a possibility, but I must disagree. While duralumin can do incredible things I don't think it would make quite that much of a difference, because while yes the protagonists are not using armor the plot serves as a far greater protection than steel ever could.

Imagine the fight at the start of WoA if Cett had sent two or three more normal people with stone tipped arrows. I don't think Vin makes it out of that one.

[DoctaDajman]

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Well Harmonium would be useable, they have lots of it. Though I'd probably just stick to dynamite.

I suppose that's a possibility, but I must disagree. While duralumin can do incredible things I don't think it would make quite that much of a difference, because while yes the protagonists are not using armor the plot serves as a far greater protection than steel ever could.

Imagine the fight at the start of WoA if Cett had sent two or three more normal people with stone tipped arrows. I don't think Vin makes it out of that one.

That is a big part of what is missing. Vin never wore armor of any kind. Stone tipped arrow wouldnt do much of anything if she were wearing any kind of armoring. 

That is the plot armor though. Just like Rashek didnt stop her from tearing off his braces mistborn never protected them selves. 

Armoring and weapons made for a battle would make a massive difference. 

I agree that mistborn have far more weaknesses than other arts. That is all built into their revolving around metals. Which is such a well known counter.  Like antilight may become in the future. 

[Qianweilian He/him]

47 minutes ago, DoctaDajman said:

But against a squad of non metalborn... and armed for a battle... we never saw one really truly operate that way.

We did. (Although it was surprise). Vin obliterated, from what I remember, hundreds of soldiers.

[DoctaDajman]

40 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

We did. (Although it was surprise). Vin obliterated, from what I remember, hundreds of soldiers.

Not just soldiers but Koloss. 

And that is still unarmored. Using pewter as her only true defense which is basically the equivalent to a slightly padded vest at a normal burn rate. 

 

[Qianweilian He/him]

Although, Vin isn't an incredible example of the average Mistborn. Aluminum bullets to inhibit pewter will reduce their capabilities further.

Quote

Kurkistan

What would happen if you shot a thug with an aluminum bullet or stabbed him with an aluminum knife?

Brandon Sanderson

Ah, that's a good question. The wound would not be able to heal around the aluminum, but once the aluminum came out and was gone from the system, they would be okay.

Kurkistan

Wait, is that a Bloodmaker, not a Thug?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, you're talking about Thugs?

It would work similarly, but it really wouldn't have a huge effect on them.

Kurkistan

Alright, because Peter was implying that there was some weird aluminum interaction with Thugs.

Brandon Sanderson

What was he thinking of...?

There is some weird interaction but...

Kurkistan

In the wedding scene, Wax thinks they would have aluminum bullets to deal with Thugs, and I was like, "Oh, that's a typo." And Peter was like, "Oh no it's not..."

Brandon Sanderson

No, no. That would just be-- it's like I said: healing it until the bullet is gone, it's just the same as Bloodmakers.

Footnote: Referring to AoL sample chapter commentary.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/219/#e6365

I concur that Mistborn are wasted on the battlefield and would make exemplary assassins—like in TFE.

Edited January 28 by Qianweilian

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

2 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

We did. (Although it was surprise). Vin obliterated, from what I remember, hundreds of soldiers.

Shhhh!

Don't talk about that or mister Sanderson will retcon it away because he hates Scadrial.

[therunner he/him]

10 hours ago, Duxredux said:

We're going up against a Mistborn expecting heavy resistance. Expect them to come in like Wax with the Big Gun and Duralumin at a minimum.

Mistborn with Big Gun, gets big backlash, Wax used it because he had F-Iron, which Mistborn lacks.
Duralumin requires the Mistborn to stop burning all other metals for a moment, and leaves them open for a moment afterwards, so it is a high-risk high-rewards sort of tactic. 
Which can be a big risk on battlefield.

Quote

Anti-personal grenades in close quarters that would be suicidal for anyone except a Coinshot,

They would still be suicidal for Mistborn, because nothing in their powerset would protect them from the pressure blast

Quote

vehicles or whole buildings ripped apart by structural steel via Duralumin-Pushes after the grenades blasted the aluminum coating off.

Assumes that the structural steel doesn't have aluminum coating directly on its self.
Plus the whole risk of dropping other metals to use Duralumin.

Quote

 Primer cubes charged with Iron lobbed behind our lines. Compared to many conventional energy sources, the power density available to a Mistborn with a stomach full of steel is terrifying.

Primer cubes they don't necessarily know how to make.
And something Southerners should be easily able to counter, since they invented those things.

Quote

I expect a storm of steel and debris obscuring the Mistborn as they wreak havoc, then the debris blasting outwards when they left a primer cube and faded either back to restock or behind my lines - I don't know which.

Yeah, such storm won't do much against explosions, or bullets.

Quote

Beyond that, they are not operating as a one man army here. They will have a support team that can restock them midfight, add suppression fire of their own, and the Mistborn can duck back and recharge the team's primer cubes and make it very difficult to pin down where exactly they are. At this point, who knows, maybe the Mistborn did just a quick recon hit-and-fade and is calling in an airstrike on the target they identified and is planning on going in while the area is actively being bombed. We hardly ever see the protagonists when they aren't outnumbered, generally working nearly solo or with one or two others.

If they are operating as part of larger group, they are: 

• Easier to track and target
• Less mobile then they would be otherwise

The same tactics still apply, Mistborn has nothing to protect from aluminum bullets or explosions, and are nearly as fragile as regular human.
If any support team proves trouble some, target those first, as they are not Mistborn.

6 hours ago, DoctaDajman said:

But against a squad of non metalborn... and armed for a battle... we never saw one really truly operate that way.

99% of what we see of mistborn in combat is based on them planning for a stealthy mission or being prepared for combat against another mistborn. We never saw one wear armor ever. 

We never saw them operate that way, because as described in literally the first Mistborn book, they are ultimately not that strong in battle (without Atium). 
They are fragile, and even 8 trained people can be dangerous for them.

Duralumin shifts the balance a bit, but not too much.

Quote

You get a mistborn armed with a koloss sword like Vin was and give them a decent set of armor and I do believe they will blow through an army of non metalborn pretty dang easily. 

Any armor they would have will be leather at most (or kevlar + ceramic in era 2), which still leaves them open to simple stone tipped arrows (or obsidian, if we would get fancy).

In Era 1, such equipped Mistborn would still get bodied by any reasonable army, because that army has metalborn, so the Koloss sword would be stripped away pretty fast.

Ditto for Era 2.

By Era 3, melee equipped Mistborn would just get shot from a distance by Aluminum bullets, even if opposing army has no metalborn.

5 hours ago, DoctaDajman said:

That is a big part of what is missing. Vin never wore armor of any kind. Stone tipped arrow wouldnt do much of anything if she were wearing any kind of armoring. 

Against leather armor stone tipped arrows would do fine. If she wore metal armor...enemy Mistings would use it against her.

They were properly equipped for what they were doing, and that included fighting against enemy Metalborn.

Quote

Armoring and weapons made for a battle would make a massive difference. 

Depends on battle. 
Even in Era 1, Mistborn couldn't afford to wield anything metallic themselves, because otherwise opposing Metalborn would use it against them. That leaves them with leather armor at best, but that won't protect much from stone tipped arrows, or obsidian daggers. 
Same with weapons, they can't really use any metallic weapons.

In Era 2, guns are starting to be a problem, but aluminum is not yet commonplace, but neither is any bullet resistant armor. Which leaves Mistborn in similar position to Era 1, except now there is a risk that someone will just drop a dynamite on them.

By Era 3, Mistborn can have some bullet resistant armor, but that won't protect their hands or legs that much. And even those won't protect them from explosives. Combined with aluminum bullets, Mistborn are basically slightly more mobile soldiers who can interfere with metals from range of 20-50 meters, far less than range of a simple gun.

 

Mistborn have all their powers relatively short-range based, if they were not considered sufficient for battle field use in Era 1, they won't be useful on battlefield in Era 3, where most of their advantages have been washed away by advancing tech.

[Duxredux he/him]

Just checking, how much of Wax specifically surviving against Aluminum bullets and explosions to the age of retirement are we chalking up to plot armor? You call it plot armor in lieu of actual armor, I think this is minimizing how hard it would be to track and shoot a Coinshot/Pewterarm/Slider moving erratically across complex terrain. Basically, if Wax could beat your setup, it needs work.

The real point of my post is to start with "if pushed, what would a Mistborn do to fight at a large scale?" Strategies like "have a squad shoot aluminum on all sides around them so they don't have a way they can dodge" is a severe oversimplification of a war zone. In essence, I'm asking you very clever people to start with how you would fight in a war as an Era 3 fully funded and supported Mistborn trying to cause as much damage as possible to the enemy's ability to wage war on you first. Then counter that. 

11 hours ago, Frustration said:

Well Harmonium would be useable, they have lots of it. Though I'd probably just stick to dynamite.

And response to this... why are you assuming I want Ettmetal for exploding stuff? Sigh. Is that really all you would use it for? No Allomancy detected AoE A-Aluminum/A-Chromium Leeching? No A-Cadmium traps? Again, your considerable intellect is being applied asymmetrically to the problem. Unless this is part of "we don't have metalborn and so we can't use our own technology effectively."

 

I still assert that we don't know enough about the Malwish, nor are we thinking like them. No talk about airships and air superiority, the exact flex Admiral Daal gave Wax in TLM, the technology the Consortium is most proud of. No talk of how they already cracked aerial bombardment decades before BoM (at least the obsolete ship was carrying a bomb capable of leveling the Sovereign's temple). The solutions I'm seeing feel like they were taken from U.S. war movies/games with Northern Scadrial tech slapped on, not a civilization that took an entirely different leg on the tech tree from anything Earth has seen with mechanized Allomancy and Feruchemy. 

Edited January 28 by Duxredux

[therunner he/him]

5 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Just checking, how much of Wax specifically surviving against Aluminum bullets and explosions to the age of retirement are we chalking up to plot armor?

A lot to be honest. E.g. I think Wax at the end of TLM (the charge on the Tower) was pure plot armor. All it would take for Wax to die would be someone firing aluminum bullets down that stairwell, or dropping a grenade with aluminum shrapnel. 
Across the entire length of skyscraper once they used aluminum grenade against him, and no bullets. If that is not plot armor, I don't know what is. He is not even trying to dodge anything.

They didn't even set the most basic of traps, tripwire in stairwell + explosive.

Interestingly, he is described as trailing mist, despite being indoors, so perhaps Wax got a little boost from certain Harmony. 

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Finally—trailed by the mist, trailing death—he reached the top. The endof the stairwell.

Hell, take the train fight in BoM. If instead of primer cube with chromium Set threw a stick of dynamite, Wax would be dead then and there.

Not to mention your regular Mistborn won't have skill of neither Wax nor Vin.

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You call it plot armor in lieu of actual armor, I think this is minimizing how hard it would be to track and shoot a Coinshot/Pewterarm/Slider moving erratically across complex terrain.

• Pewterarm is 2x as fast (maybe).
• Coinshot is moving depending on where they are in arc, somewhat faster than sprinting human, but not by much (see spikeways, or Vin's horseshoe spike way).
  • Wax could be more unpredictable thanks to F-Iron, but Mistborn won't have that.
• Sliders are the fastest of the bunch, but their metal is also very fast burning.

None of them are moving fast enough do dodge bullets or explosions. Even Slider has to either anticipate them, or get lucky they are sufficiently far to react in time.

5 hours ago, Duxredux said:

The real point of my post is to start with "if pushed, what would a Mistborn do to fight at a large scale?" Strategies like "have a squad shoot aluminum on all sides around them so they don't have a way they can dodge" is a severe oversimplification of a war zone.

I told you what I would do as Mistborn, stay the hell away from front lines, my skills are better used elsewhere. Assassination, sabotage, the works.

In Era 1, 8 people with melee weapons and wooden shield are a threat to Mistborn, and Mistborn are repeatedly stated to be primarily used as spies and assassins. Only with Atium are they large scale danger.

By Era 3, Mistborn did get access to few more metals, of which only two are relevant in combat against non-Invested people, Bendalloy and Duralumin.
Except humans now have aluminum bullets, and helmets, and armor of their own, which nullifies the ranged advantages of Mistborn, and you have to realize you are in danger to use Bendalloy defensively, i.e. you have to survive the first few shots/explosions, which is just luck.

So now Mistborn keeps the edge in close range (sub 20 meters), but are in no way better at long range. Modern warfare is waged on hundreds of meters, range at which none of Mistborn abilities work, so considering them is pointless. Which in turns mean Mistborn are a bit faster, bit more accurate (pewter + tin) soldier. Which is a waste of their abilities.

In purely urban environment, Mistborn could be useful, as the range of conflict drops to dozen meters , where their abilities start being more relevant.  But they are still vulnerable to everything regular soldier is (assuming everyone is using aluminum because they should), which makes using them for direct combat a pointless risk

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In essence, I'm asking you very clever people to start with how you would fight in a war as an Era 3 fully funded and supported Mistborn trying to cause as much damage as possible to the enemy's ability to wage war on you first. Then counter that. 

What equipment synergies with Mistborn? 
You say primer cubes, but ultimately Basin doesn't have access to ettmetal, only Southerns do. 

Marasi has to have them smuggled in by Allik few at a time, so the Mistborn likely won't have them available once the relationship gets even worse.

Which reduces Northern Scadrian Mistborn to, well regular technology as far as we know. And Mistborn with guns, is just a person with guns, just a bit more mobile.

Which means you counter them like you would any other person, except you bring in more people to account for mobility. So larger scale suppressing fire, and then area of denial weapons like explosives.

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I still assert that we don't know enough about the Malwish, nor are we thinking like them. No talk about airships and air superiority, the exact flex Admiral Daal gave Wax in TLM, the technology the Consortium is most proud of. No talk of how they already cracked aerial bombardment decades before BoM (at least the obsolete ship was carrying a bomb capable of leveling the Sovereign's temple). The solutions I'm seeing feel like they were taken from U.S. war movies/games with Northern Scadrial tech slapped on, not a civilization that took an entirely different leg on the tech tree from anything Earth has seen with mechanized Allomancy and Feruchemy. 

I don't speculate about this, because in past such speculation always proved wildly optimistic compared to what happened in books. 

• After Era 1: People speculated incessantly about Scadrial creating and fielding Compounders left and right.
  • Reality, no Compounders and they cannot be created.
• After BoM: People speculated about giving people Medallions + Hemalurgy to create functional Fullborn.
  • Reality: Again Compounders cannot be created, and you cannot grant more than 4-5 abilities.

So I stick to basics, aluminum weaponry. And frankly, that is enough to deal with Mistborn.

 

EDIT: Additionally, Mistborn won't have the same level of skill with their abilities as e.g. Wax has with steel, or Spook with Tin, or possibly Wayne with Bendalloy. 
They have more powers, so they won't be as skilled in any of them as Mistings are in theirs.

Edited January 28 by therunner

[Frustration]

3 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Just checking, how much of Wax specifically surviving against Aluminum bullets and explosions to the age of retirement are we chalking up to plot armor? You call it plot armor in lieu of actual armor, I think this is minimizing how hard it would be to track and shoot a Coinshot/Pewterarm/Slider moving erratically across complex terrain. Basically, if Wax could beat your setup, it needs work.

Well I personally feel like most of it was plot armor, because while Mistborn can move fast we can shoot moving vehicles, which I consider to be faster.

And certain events like the fight in the warehouse in BoM should have gotten Wax killed

3 hours ago, Duxredux said:

The real point of my post is to start with "if pushed, what would a Mistborn do to fight at a large scale?" Strategies like "have a squad shoot aluminum on all sides around them so they don't have a way they can dodge" is a severe oversimplification of a war zone. In essence, I'm asking you very clever people to start with how you would fight in a war as an Era 3 fully funded and supported Mistborn trying to cause as much damage as possible to the enemy's ability to wage war on you first. Then counter that. 

That's certainly a step in the right direction, though personally if I were a Mistborn in that situation I think I'd be better used for special operations and not battle.

5 hours ago, Duxredux said:

And response to this... why are you assuming I want Ettmetal for exploding stuff? Sigh. Is that really all you would use it for? No Allomancy detected AoE A-Aluminum/A-Chromium Leeching? No A-Cadmium traps? Again, your considerable intellect is being applied asymmetrically to the problem. Unless this is part of "we don't have metalborn and so we can't use our own technology effectively."

There appears to be some miscommunication. If you had said primer cubes I would have known what you were talking about, I thought you meant bombs.

Primer cubes, um sure we could use those.

[Trusk'our he/him]

6 hours ago, Duxredux said:

In essence, I'm asking you very clever people to start with how you would fight in a war as an Era 3 fully funded and supported Mistborn trying to cause as much damage as possible to the enemy's ability to wage war on you first. Then counter that. 

Alright then.

As a Mistborn, I'd be a super mobile, highly stealthy (copper, tin, pewter, iron/steel), and have an incredible amount of raw force at my disposal if I have the metals (stomach full of steel and iron plus some duralumin).

As such, my main tactic would probably be to fly into enemy territory under the cover of the Mists, use copper and steel to determine where all the viable metals were, then use a sack full of metal pellets to blow the place to smithereens with a duralumin Push. If I can wreck their equipment (such as their more fragile airships) then they won't have the forces to compete with my allied forces.

What's more, after I use a duralumin attack I can immediately pop up a speed bubble, eat some more metal, then steelpush away into the night with great speed (also using duralumin).

If specific targets need to be assassinated, it's unlikely I can get into whatever bunker they have. So, I'd cheese the whole process and duralumin Push the bunker from outside (bringing a large metal anchor to smash into the soil if no others are expected to be in the area- or maybe just Steelpushing with duralumin above the thing, shooting myself away in the process), destroying it and killing everyone inside. Much safer than trying to sneak in with enemy Tineyes and surveillance systems.

 

The thing about fighting such an enemy is that they're not that hard to fill with aluminum bullets in a head-to-head confrontation. As Invested forms of durability go, pewter is not that amazing. However, if they're smart and ruthless they won't give you that opportunity to begin with- they have the tools to be an extremely mobile glass cannon. Running headlong into a battlefield to be pelted with shrapnel is just inherently unwise when they're so much better equipped for the alternative.