Roshar vs Scadrial

[asterion137 he/him]

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

Newly created Koloss will be the smallest size (~5 feet) though, and probably not much use.

They don't seem that much harder to kill than a normal human (Elend, pre-Allomancy, kills a small koloss with a dagger). And they won't have much real reach advantage -- even if they're strong enough to use really huge swords, their height will limit the length they can practically use. So spears will out-range them, and pikes/polearms even more so.

And koloss replenishment only matters after the first battle, and koloss's big advantage, besides the reach (and toughness?) of the giant ones, is 'shock and awe' against those who haven't faced them before.

Once they know what to do, IMO trained human soldiers spears/pikes/polearms should be able to do much better than 1:1 against koloss. If spearmen/pikemen form a closed square formation with points outward in all directions (probably is a technical term for this...) there's not much non-gigantic koloss can do except bury them in bodies.

And a lot of pikes were long enough to match the reach of even the big koloss.

spears won't kill koloss easily. Plus the Alethi long spears are 10-12 feet long right? A big koloss can reach around that far with a 6 foot sword. Killing a koloss with a spear also leaves the spear tangled in skin which creates a break in the phalanx. 

Plus there's the issue that not all the rosharans are as disciplined as alethi soldiers. There will be some alethi "home guard" or aziri holding the flanks as auxiliaries which will be easy meat for the koloss.

[Dellexe he/him]

2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Newly created Koloss will be the smallest size (~5 feet) though, and probably not much use.

They don't seem that much harder to kill than a normal human (Elend, pre-Allomancy, kills a small koloss with a dagger). And they won't have much real reach advantage -- even if they're strong enough to use really huge swords, their height will limit the length they can practically use. So spears will out-range them, and pikes/polearms even more so.

And koloss replenishment only matters after the first battle, and koloss's big advantage, besides the reach (and toughness?) of the giant ones, is 'shock and awe' against those who haven't faced them before.

Once they know what to do, IMO trained human soldiers spears/pikes/polearms should be able to do much better than 1:1 against koloss. If spearmen/pikemen form a closed square formation with points outward in all directions (probably is a technical term for this...) there's not much non-gigantic koloss can do except bury them in bodies.

And a lot of pikes were long enough to match the reach of even the big koloss.

"Newly created Koloss..." 

Well, that's kinda wrong. They still have the natural armor that larger Koloss have, since they literally use the same skin. The effect is even heightened because of the slick and tangling folds the overlarge skin will have. They also still have greatly enhanced strength, seeing as how they use the same weaponry. 

"They don't seem..."

Elend picked a small one because he thought he had no chance against an older one. He also surprised it, it wasn't enraged or ready for battle. If I remember right, it also still fought back, not enraged and mortally wounded. Reach wise, new Koloss only have slightly shorter reach, and wield significantly larger weapons, overcoming that discrepancy. Assuming Alethi short-spears are the same lengths as Hoplite spears (around 7 feet) and assuming that they wield them in the same fashion (spear held just below the center of mass), they have their arms + 3.5 to 4 feet of reach. Koloss have their arms + 5-6 feet of club/sword, or longer reach. Koloss don't really obey typical war convention with regards to reasonable weapon size. Their strong enough that they don't care. Pikes and Polearms, making the jump to Alethi using Phalangite tactics rather than Hoplite tactics, would have more reach than the Koloss, I concede that. The issue is that an enraged Koloss, unless the spearhead hits something REALLY vital, like nerve control, are not going to stop their charge. Even young Koloss have more mass than humans, and that charge isn't going to stop once they hit the spear point. 

"And Koloss replenishment..."

It doesn't matter? If the war drags on, even 10% recouped losses will turn into a sizable numerical advantage for Scadrial. I also wouldn't say that "shock and awe" is vital to the Scadrien strategy, just very helpful. Even after Alethi are accustomed to the appearance of Koloss on the battlefield, Koloss remain stronger, faster, and more hardy than ordinary humans. They recover from wounds quickly, need no supply lines, and don't have the same morale issues as normal troops. They are unfailingly loyal to their controllers, and obey their orders as best as they can. 

"Once they know..."

Back to my previous post about the battle between the Senones Gauls and Rome in 390, it took the Roman army decades to reform their army to counter Gallic tactics, and it was adapt or lose for them. The Senones sacked and occupied Rome for six months before being forced home by disease, not a great comeback by the Roman army. Hoplite phalanxes are wholly ineffective against armies that fight the way the Gauls/Koloss do. Admittedly, phalangite phalanxes fare better because of their more independent nature, but they are exactly like hoplite phalanxes in that they also are wholly inept at fighting forces from the side or rear, and Koloss tend to swarm, not rigidly attack from the front. The formation you are referring to is called a pike block, and was used by medieval pikemen as a defense against cavalry. Do we ever see the Alethi use pike blocks, or just standard phalangite/hoplite formations?

"And a lot of pikes..."

And how prevalent are long-spears in Alethi armies? How long are they? Are they 10-foot medieval pikes or 20 foot sarissa? I'm gonna start rereading WoK for some more information on this. 

And as Asterion mentioned, not all of Roshar use Alethi tactics or are as disciplined as Alethi. According to the estimates I've read in this thread, there could be around 150k Alethi soldiers marshaled, 200k at a stretch. There's already a quarter-million Koloss at least, not to mention their ability to recoup losses.

[Rich2244]

16 hours ago, asterion137 said:

Well yes but it's still the smallest continent. My point is that TFE can be that large without taking up a large portion of the planet like Brandon said. My scaling of TFE might have been a little off but at the very least the final empire is Australia sized if not larger

Australia is approximately 1.5% of the total area of the planet, while water is about 72% that would mean Australia alone is 5-6% of the land on earth, I don't understand how that can be viewed as 'relatively small' relative to what Jupiter?

[The One Who Connects he/him]

8 hours ago, KalaDellexe said:

There's already a quarter-million Koloss at least, not to mention their ability to recoup losses.

As was pointed out to me a long while back (the Final Empire vs real world empires thread IIRC) that the massive army at the end of HoA was created by Ruin and his Inquisitors from the people of the outer dominances during the events of that book.

What the Lord Ruler had was much closer to 50,000.

Elend managed to get ahold of roughly 40,000 for the siege of Fadrex city, and there were losses along the way from the siege of Luthadel up to that point (in the thread, he estimated about 10K losses in that timeframe) since they learned to replenish at a 1:1 ratio, the casualty numbers are only from when they got pushed back/taken over by Vin(since she wouldn't really approve of that method)

50,000 is still a large number, but it's much more surmountable than a quarter million.

Edited April 2, 2017 by The One Who Connects

[Rich2244]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

As was pointed out to me a long while back (the Final Empire vs real world empires thread IIRC) that the massive army at the end of HoA was created by Ruin and his Inquisitors from the people of the outer dominances during the events of that book.

What the Lord Ruler had was much closer to 50,000.

Elend managed to get ahold of roughly 40,000 for the siege of Fadrex city, and there were losses along the way from the siege of Luthadel up to that point (in the thread, he estimated about 10K losses in that timeframe) since they learned to replenish at a 1:1 ratio, the casualty numbers are only from when they got pushed back/taken over by Vin(since she wouldn't really approve of that method)

50,000 is still a large number, but it's much more surmountable than a quarter million.

Also remember that every person who is spiked wil lessen the power of that spike, even if the loss is 10% (I think it's much more) then that would be a 1% loss per encounter, which btw any military commander would view as huge

[asterion137 he/him]

9 hours ago, Rich2244 said:

Australia is approximately 1.5% of the total area of the planet, while water is about 72% that would mean Australia alone is 5-6% of the land on earth, I don't understand how that can be viewed as 'relatively small' relative to what Jupiter?

It's small compared to eurasia or africa. Just like if you dropped the final empire somewhere on our globe it would be big but far from the biggest thing around.

[asterion137 he/him]

3 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

As was pointed out to me a long while back (the Final Empire vs real world empires thread IIRC) that the massive army at the end of HoA was created by Ruin and his Inquisitors from the people of the outer dominances during the events of that book.

What the Lord Ruler had was much closer to 50,000.

Elend managed to get ahold of roughly 40,000 for the siege of Fadrex city, and there were losses along the way from the siege of Luthadel up to that point (in the thread, he estimated about 10K losses in that timeframe) since they learned to replenish at a 1:1 ratio, the casualty numbers are only from when they got pushed back/taken over by Vin(since she wouldn't really approve of that method)

50,000 is still a large number, but it's much more surmountable than a quarter million.

well I don't think the Lord Ruler could take over the world with 50,000 koloss and there's not much supporting the 50,000 figure except ruin's quote "I made them from your people" when he was talking to vin which could also refer to ruin's influence on TLR.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

3 hours ago, asterion137 said:

well I don't think the Lord Ruler could take over the world with 50,000 koloss and there's not much supporting the 50,000 figure except ruin's quote "I made them from your people" when he was talking to vin which could also refer to ruin's influence on TLR.

Per TFE Annotations(might've been WoA) He showed off his powers to foreign kings to get them on his side and repaid those that joined with Lerasium. He had entire kingdoms on his side to help take over the world, not to mention that per a Reddit WoB, he was "actively pretending to be someone that he was not" so I imagine he could use the "I am Alendi and I stopped the Deepness" to his advantage.

As for numbers during his takeover, I don't think he used that many. Koloss are Hemalurgic constructs, so he couldn't just make them with the Well's power, he had to spend the time spiking people. Even if you automate that via underlings, 50K would take ages to do. (Not to mention justifying the deaths of 200,000 people for spikes, and another 50,000 to receive those spikes. Good PR can only go so far before one of his newfound allies think he goes too far.)

Fairly certain that Ruin's line (or something else) directly confirmed he made them from people in the outer dominances. I could be wrong, but at the very least I'm pretty sure his line wasn't as ambiguous as you imply it to be.

[asterion137 he/him]

There were 20,000 koloss at least in the southern dominance alone. Given that the Southern Dominance was one of the smallest dominances, I think we can assume there were 100,000 at least under the lord ruler. Plus it's implausible for TLR to keep half his koloss army in the South when most of the fighting is in the outer dominances.

5 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

As for numbers during his takeover, I don't think he used that many. Koloss are Hemalurgic constructs, so he couldn't just make them with the Well's power

IIRC he did this with the First Generation

Quote

"Have you counted the koloss in my army, Vin? Ruin asked. I've made them from your people, you know. I've gathered hundreds of thousands."

He gathered hundreds of thousands

[8bitBob]

I realise that I'm super late to this discussion, but I figured I'd chime in with my opinion on Era 1 vs Roshar because I feel there's some very important factors that have not been adequately addressed. I'm basically using the same premise suggested by Erunion here. Long story short, it's all of Roshar at the start of WoK vs The Final Empire at the start of TFE. That means no Heralds, Honor Blades, Radiants, randomly trained Chasmfiends, Parshendi, etc for Roshar. Similarly, that means no Lord Ruler (He wins. Period. The Lord Ruler going to war could probably fight all ten Heralds and all of Roshar by himself) no Duralumin, no directly controlling Koloss, no self replenishing Koloss and no Feruchemy (aside from limited Inquisitors.) The forces are warring on neutral ground, but still have access to Stormlight, metals, etc.

So, why am I bothering to chime in? Because, unlike others, I feel Roshar gets absolutely crushed under these restrictions, and it comes down to a few key facts about the forces involved:

1. Roshar Uses Steel Equipment

Aside from Shards, Roshar uses metal for most of its equipment. I cannot adequately express how much of an advantage this gives Scadrial. How in God's name are you supposed to assault a force that can:

• Deflect every arrow you fire at them, either by Steelpushing them or using Lurchers to safely pull them into a single target.
• Foul up any melee charge at their line by pushing or pulling on the forces as they close in

Even if the Rosharan forces magically realised that metal was the culprit and decided to refit their entire army, what would they even use? Stone? Bone? Good luck using that to penetrate the steel plate that your opponents are still allowed to use. I realise that neither of these tactics will work 100% of the time, but this in itself is such an insurmountable advantage for Scadrial that it almost makes my next points seem superfluous.

2. Coinshots Are Overpowered

When pitted against medieval technology, it honestly seems ridiculous how powerful Coinshots would be in comparison. Aside from the aforementioned complete nullification of the enemies projectiles, they also have so much more killing power than a bowmen that the comparison becomes laughable.

Quick explanation time. With traditional bows and crossbows, there's two factors that determine the speed at which a projectile is fired: draw length and draw weight. A very heavy crossbow would have something like 1200lbs (455kg) of draw weight and up to 10.5 inches (0.267m) of draw length, and these were more than capable of penetrating even the strongest plate armor at close ranges.

I'm going to give some incredibly conservative estimates on the abilities of Coinshots here. To lift themselves, a Coinshot needs to be able to Steelpush with a force at least equal to their weight, but we've seen Wax and others do far more than that. He's carried people while pushing, lifted the Wilg hundreds of feet into the air with equipment on board, etc. Let's just say that a Coinshot can push with 500lbs (227kg) of "force" up to a distance 50 meters. While less than half the "draw weight" of a very heavy crossbow medieval crossbow, a Coinshot would have almost two hundred times the "draw length" due to being able to push on the projectile in flight.

There are way too many factors in this to bother with calculating things like velocity and penetrating power, but, even assuming a uniform acting force for the crossbow (in reality, it's much lower) then the Coinshot will still be performing almost 100 times the Work on the projectile that a crossbow would. This level of force is honestly something closer to a cannon or modern rifle than it is a crossbow, and the estimates are very conservative. I realise that the exact calculations for these things are far more complex than I am letting on here, but this should convey the sheer magnitude of difference between the two.

So, why does this matter? Because the killing power of a Coinshot on a battlefield is going to be horrific, versatile and maneuverable. Imagine you were commanding a medieval army, and at your disposal you had a couple dozen rapid firing cannons that could be instantly set up, repositioned faster than a mounted force, was impossible to run down because they can basically instantly take off and fly away, and able to fire anything from a full volley of arrows to heavy cannon shot at will. If a group of vanilla humans can break Shardplate with hammers, then a Coinshot with sufficient distance would smash Shardplate, to say nothing of the effects on regular infantry.

Forget Koloss. I simply do not see how a Rosharan force without Radiants would have any hope of taking on a force with Coinshots at their disposal.

3. "Hey, neat stuff you got there. I'mma take it."

To me, there is one other huge advantage for Scadrial: they can kill Shardbearers and take their stuff, while Rosharan's cannot do the same. Maybe it doesn't happen immediately, but if Scadrial ever figured out that they can use Shards, then you can bet that there is immediately going to be an assassination campaign from the Mistborn and Inquisitor forces.

Honor is Dead on Roshar, but it would be fair to say that it never even existed in The Final Empire. Remember that Mistborn were more commonly used as assassins and spies, not soldiers. They are very experienced in this sort of thing, and they would have no qualms about using skaa or Koloss to bait in Shardbearers, which are going to be needed everywhere to counteract the massive advantage which Allomancy provides. God forbid the assassins use Atium for this, which kind of lowers the risks to near minimum. With every shard you steal, the others become easier to acquire.

 

I realise my points ignore things like tactics, training, experience, leadership, logistics, etc, all of which favor Roshar, but I've also ignored things like Rioting panic in the enemy, Soothing panic for your forces, Kandra spying, Inquisitor's Feruchemy, etc. Both sides have a lot of positives and negatives which I did not cover, but I think those things are nowhere near as important as these factors.

That isn't to say that it's impossible for Roshar to win, but they're basically bringing fancy swords to a magic fight. No contest.

Edited April 3, 2017 by 8bitBob

[The One Who Connects he/him]

9 hours ago, asterion137 said:

There were 20,000 koloss at least in the southern dominance alone. Given that the Southern Dominance was one of the smallest dominances, I think we can assume there were 100,000 at least under the lord ruler. Plus it's implausible for TLR to keep half his koloss army in the South when most of the fighting is in the outer dominances.

IIRC he did this with the First Generation

He gathered hundreds of thousands

The Outer Dominances aren't that big either. The Crescent Dominance is literally a wasteland, the Remote Dominance is described as untamed, with little noble presence, probably some rebels but not many cities for them to raid for supplies. The Terris Dominance likely has human soldiers running the breeding program, we know basically nothing about the Farmost Dominance (I think Renoux claimed to be from there?) The Southern Isles were mentioned as having resisted in the past, but navally transporting Koloss seems.. difficult.

Brandon's words were "He turned all surviving Feruchemists into Mistwraiths." Not Kandra, so that point still has legs to stand on.

I don't see the need to have hundreds of thousands of Koloss. That much smaller force basically took Luthadel, and it was the only city in the Inner Dominances that was allowed to have manmade defenses(like City Walls) He could stomp most any big city with a couple thousand, and I don't see rebel groups taking a whole city from whatever nobles run it without a fight before the Koloss get sent in.

---

@8bitBob A few issues with your points.

Point 1) A small group of Coinshots wont be able to deflect every arrow because of the scale of combat. Like Kelsier says about Mistborn: "we can't be everywhere." That doesn't even take into account the fact that constantly pushing that many objects would have them basically operating on instinct, pushing as soon as the line shows up, which means that here and there two will push on the same arrow. The amount of wasted steel is minimal, but can add up over time.

Secondly, where do the arrows go? They still have to land somewhere, and a light push to slow it down risks it landing in the frontline, as the Alethi aim to hit the middle lines where they are less spread out.

Point 2) Might have been 2 pages ago now, but Oversleep linked a Reddit WoB that "Shardplate would resist a bullet well." Coinshots have better odds at breaking Plate than most regular forces, but they won't smash plate, at least not with the coins they usually push. Heavy stuff sure, but carrying a bunch of lead weights or something will throw off the natural balance of using pushes to fly, since they are now a lot heavier. Can they adapt to dealing with it? Absolutely. But it'll make them slower until they adapt, and will cost them more steel to keep the pre-weights speed they are used to.

Against regular infantry, the advantage is much more profound, so I'll just move to point three.

Point 3) Let's talk about the logistics behind actually stealing Rosharan stuff.

Shardblades can be taken. With great effort, but thats unavoidable. (Killing the bearer and all that..) Learning to bond then could be an experience, but we'll save that discussion for when we understand how bonding works.

Shardplate... Not so easily stolen. From the battlefield, they get nothing. Break the plate, it needs Stormlight to regrow. Stealing gems with Stormlight to regrow it is the easy part. They have to first figure out that they can regrow it, then figure out that it needs Stormlight to do it, steal the gems, and then figure out how to feed it Stormlight. I don't think you can just say "open wide" like you're feeding a toddler and have it work, but we don't know how it's done either. They also have to hope they get the bigger piece or else the Rosharans could rebuild it themselves and Scadrial just gets wasted effort. That's also assuming that they consider it worth taking in its semi.. exploded state.

Stealing it from the enemy camp has its own issues. It takes several people helping the person to put it on, one piece at a time so our thieves will have to carry a lot of separate armor pieces with them. Pewter gives strength, but not the extra arms to carry all of it. It's too invested to push/pull on it, so that method is out too. It takes a team to put the thing on, so they can't just equip it to themself and leave that way. It's relevant here if they try that, but even if they do get a suit of Plate, they are gonna have to put it on in the right order or else the person inside will get crushed under its weight. Pewter can negate, but using pewter while armoring up? The metal burns out pretty fast compared to others. 

Then there's the matter of getting used to wearing plate, in more ways than just what Renarin had to deal with. They literally don't know their own strength, have to recalculate push/pulls to counter the extra weight, assuming the Plate doesn't interfere with their powers. (It would've prevented Szeth from using his Honorblade Surgebinding, and it's the same general magic system as Plate. Affecting things with Allomancy might not even be feasible in plate.)

I know you didn't mention stealing Soulcasters, but I'll bring it up just for good measure. Scadrian people have no Realmatic theory, and would have no idea how to use the things. Young Ardents(who have experienced people training them) have to practice a lot in order to effectively use Soulcasters, (and not make poison food b/c that's bad.) Not to mention having to resupply on infused gems, knowing what gemstones allow you to do what, finding out about Soulcasters and what they can do in the first place, etc.. Fabrials too, assuming they've made more than just Spanreeds in this timeline. We still don't know how some of them work, and we actually know what they do while Scadrians won't.

Long story short, stealing Rosharan stuff would not be an immediate advantage to Scadrial. There's a lot more trial and error/learning involved than just "this is mine now."

[8bitBob]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Point 1) A small group of Coinshots wont be able to deflect every arrow because of the scale of combat. Like Kelsier says about Mistborn: "we can't be everywhere."

They can't be everywhere for an entire war, but they can certainly be everywhere for a battle. It's important to remember how absurdly mobile Coinshots are compared to a medieval army, and their area of influence is pretty massive. I admit that their influence is reduced as the size of the warfront increases, but the same could be said of Shards and fabrials.

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Secondly, where do the arrows go? They still have to land somewhere, and a light push to slow it down risks it landing in the frontline, as the Alethi aim to hit the middle lines where they are less spread out.

Long range arrow fire is robbed of a lot of its force during flight, and their actual momentum is quite small by arrival. I don't see why Coinshots couldn't just push the arrows back passed their own front line. Again, I don't think this would work perfectly every time, but it would render Rosharan ranged weaponry nearly useless.

Alternatively, I would actually use Lurchers for this role. Basically, you set up a massive pile of hay or something in front of a strong backing, set a Lurcher behind them and safely pull the arrows into it. This would be the safest and easiest way to go about it for a large battle, assuming you have any prep time.

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Point 2) Might have been 2 pages ago now, but Oversleep linked a Reddit WoB that "Shardplate would resist a bullet well." Coinshots have better odds at breaking Plate than most regular forces, but they won't smash plate, at least not with the coins they usually push.

Yep, I'm familiar with that WoB. I assume you'd have to use a literal cannon shot to do it, but Coinshot physics is honestly absurd if you do the math. They're capable of generating force far greater than even modern handheld weaponry. That's why I compared it to something more like cannon fire, which is going to be much more effective. I admit I'm doing a lot of guess work there, but it's all based on feats we've seen in books, and I think I was conservative enough with my numbers for it to be plausible.

Basically, barring some unknown magic rule about Plate that says it can always take two hits before breaking, then I see no reason why a Coinshot couldn't do it if a person with a hammer can.

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Heavy stuff sure, but carrying a bunch of lead weights or something will throw off the natural balance of using pushes to fly, since they are now a lot heavier. Can they adapt to dealing with it? Absolutely. But it'll make them slower until they adapt, and will cost them more steel to keep the pre-weights speed they are used to.

They don't have to take their ammo with them when fleeing or repositioning. Would be a far better use of personnel to have the regular troops set up caches of ammunition in advance, and cart more ammo in the new firing position. Better to leave a bunch of scrap metal than risk your wizards, or waste their time.

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Point 3) Let's talk about the logistics behind actually stealing Rosharan stuff... Shardplate... Not so easily stolen.

I basically don't disagree with your points here: Plate would be a long term goal. I do have some nitpicks about stealing Plate though. I think you're underestimating a Mistborn or Inquisitor's ability to perform a smash and grab. Tin let's them see perfectly at night, when Alethi scouts are basically blind and would have a hard time spotting something that is, you know, basically flying into their camp. Escaping is as simple as throwing the Plate in a chain net and hauling it behinds you via Ironpull as you Steelpush away. We basically saw Kelsier do something similar in the first book with a safe.

Thing is, stealing the Blades is arguably far, far more important, and much more easily accomplished. Plate without a Blade is basically just a very well trained Koloss. Okay, I'm underselling Plate a lot here, but you get my point. It robs them of their incredible killing power and the one real weapon that Allomancers can't push on.

Unfortunately, the reverse is not true. A Mistborn or Inquisitor with a Shardblade is something closer to Kaladin or Szeth, minus the skill with weaponry, and you do not have to bond with a Blade to kill with it (although I am now amused by the idea of someone accidentally bonding with a Blade and then losing it because they can't summon it). They would be able to do incredible things with that increase in offensive power.

I'm basically assuming they'll never get soulcasters working without the war going on for years, with Kandra infiltrating to learn their secrets and steal them. They seem much more complicated.

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Long story short, stealing Rosharan stuff would not be an immediate advantage to Scadrial. There's a lot more trial and error/learning involved than just "this is mine now."

So yeah, I basically agree with this in relation to everything except Blades, but I also feel that Blades are by far the most important and fairly easy to acquire.

Edited April 3, 2017 by 8bitBob

[Calderis he/him]

@8bitBob right on board with you. Without surgebinders Roshar has some major issues adapting to the abilities of allomancers.

2 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Point 1) A small group of Coinshots wont be able to deflect every arrow because of the scale of combat. Like Kelsier says about Mistborn: "we can't be everywhere." That doesn't even take into account the fact that constantly pushing that many objects would have them basically operating on instinct, pushing as soon as the line shows up, which means that here and there two will push on the same arrow. The amount of wasted steel is minimal, but can add up over time.

Secondly, where do the arrows go? They still have to land somewhere, and a light push to slow it down risks it landing in the frontline, as the Alethi aim to hit the middle lines where they are less spread out.

Point 2) Might have been 2 pages ago now, but Oversleep linked a Reddit WoB that "Shardplate would resist a bullet well." Coinshots have better odds at breaking Plate than most regular forces, but they won't smash plate, at least not with the coins they usually push. Heavy stuff sure, but carrying a bunch of lead weights or something will throw off the natural balance of using pushes to fly, since they are now a lot heavier. Can they adapt to dealing with it? Absolutely. But it'll make them slower until they adapt, and will cost them more steel to keep the pre-weights speed they are used to.

Against regular infantry, the advantage is much more profound, so I'll just move to point three.

Point 3) Let's talk about the logistics behind actually stealing Rosharan stuff.

Shardblades can be taken. With great effort, but thats unavoidable. (Killing the bearer and all that..) Learning to bond then could be an experience, but we'll save that discussion for when we understand how bonding works.

Shardplate... Not so easily stolen. From the battlefield, they get nothing. Break the plate, it needs Stormlight to regrow. Stealing gems with Stormlight to regrow it is the easy part. They have to first figure out that they can regrow it, then figure out that it needs Stormlight to do it, steal the gems, and then figure out how to feed it Stormlight. I don't think you can just say "open wide" like you're feeding a toddler and have it work, but we don't know how it's done either. They also have to hope they get the bigger piece or else the Rosharans could rebuild it themselves and Scadrial just gets wasted effort. That's also assuming that they consider it worth taking in its semi.. exploded state.

Stealing it from the enemy camp has its own issues. It takes several people helping the person to put it on, one piece at a time so our thieves will have to carry a lot of separate armor pieces with them. Pewter gives strength, but not the extra arms to carry all of it. It's too invested to push/pull on it, so that method is out too. It takes a team to put the thing on, so they can't just equip it to themself and leave that way. It's relevant here if they try that, but even if they do get a suit of Plate, they are gonna have to put it on in the right order or else the person inside will get crushed under its weight. Pewter can negate, but using pewter while armoring up? The metal burns out pretty fast compared to others. 

Then there's the matter of getting used to wearing plate, in more ways than just what Renarin had to deal with. They literally don't know their own strength, have to recalculate push/pulls to counter the extra weight, assuming the Plate doesn't interfere with their powers. (It would've prevented Szeth from using his Honorblade Surgebinding, and it's the same general magic system as Plate. Affecting things with Allomancy might not even be feasible in plate.)

I know you didn't mention stealing Soulcasters, but I'll bring it up just for good measure. Scadrian people have no Realmatic theory, and would have no idea how to use the things. Young Ardents(who have experienced people training them) have to practice a lot in order to effectively use Soulcasters, (and not make poison food b/c that's bad.) Not to mention having to resupply on infused gems, knowing what gemstones allow you to do what, finding out about Soulcasters and what they can do in the first place, etc.. Fabrials too, assuming they've made more than just Spanreeds in this timeline. We still don't know how some of them work, and we actually know what they do while Scadrians won't.

Long story short, stealing Rosharan stuff would not be an immediate advantage to Scadrial. There's a lot more trial and error/learning involved than just "this is mine now."

1. Allomancers can effect multiple target's at once, and the very small mass of an arrow in flight means that a single coinshot/lurcher could effect a lot of arrows, and that they'd be able to move them a significant distance, the image in my head is lines of coinshots at the opening of a battle pushing the opening volleys back into the archers before scattering into preset strike teams.

2. I think plate would hold up against guns (at least small arms fire) worse than coinshots mainly for the application of force by a coinshot at the time of impact (in addition to the continuous application during flight) whereas a bullet is operating on pure momentum that will be redirected once the projectile strikes one of the rounded or angled surfaces of the plate. 

3. The main point I wanted to address, I agree with one aspect and disagree with another. Yes stealing plate at all probably isn't going to occur to the until they start registering that it can be regrown, let alone how to make that happen. Once they do though... Szeth didn't want plate because it would interfere with his surges. I don't think it would effect allomancy similarly. 

Every application of gravitation we see is either applied to the self, or through touch, and shardplate as an invested barrier impedes the transfer of investiture because of the lack of physical touch to infuse Stormlight with the surge. Likewise the plate itself resists the investiture and cannot directly be effected by gravitation and so there goes flight...

Allomancers don't have that limitation. The weight would definitely keep coinshots from flight, but beyond that, all other allomancy should be fair game. 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

1 hour ago, 8bitBob said:

They can't be everywhere for an entire war, but they can certainly be everywhere for a battle. It's important to remember how absurdly mobile Coinshots are compared to a medieval army, and their area of influence is pretty massive. I admit that their influence is reduced as the size of the warfront increases, but the same could be said of Shards and fabrials.

Long range arrow fire is robbed of a lot of its force during flight, and their actual momentum is quite small by arrival. Alternatively, you set up a massive pile of hay or something in front of a strong backing, set a Lurcher behind them and safely pull the arrows into it.

Yep, I'm familiar with that WoB. Coinshot physics is capable of generating force far greater than even modern handheld weaponry. That's why I compared it to something more like cannon fire, which is going to be much more effective. I admit I'm doing a lot of guess work there, but it's all based on feats we've seen in books, and I think I was conservative enough for it to be plausible.

Basically, barring some unknown magic rule about Plate that says it can always take two hits before breaking..

Would be far better to have the regular troops set up caches of ammunition in advance, and cart more ammo in the new firing position. Better to leave a bunch of scrap metal than risk your wizards, or waste their time.

I think you're underestimating a Mistborn or Inquisitor's ability to perform a smash and grab. Tin let's them see perfectly at night, when Alethi scouts are basically blind and would have a hard time spotting something that is, you know, basically flying into their camp. Escaping is as simple as throwing the Plate in a chain net and hauling it behinds you via Ironpull as you Steelpush away. We basically saw Kelsier do something similar in the first book with a safe.

Thing is, stealing the Blades is arguably far, far more important, and much more easily accomplished. Plate without a Blade is basically just a very well trained Koloss. Okay, I'm underselling Plate a lot here, but you get my point. It robs them of their incredible killing power and the one real weapon that Allomancers can't push on.

Unfortunately, the reverse is not true. A Mistborn or Inquisitor with a Shardblade is something closer to Kaladin or Szeth, minus the skill with weaponry, and you do not have to bond with a Blade to kill with it (although I am now amused by the idea of someone accidentally bonding with a Blade and then losing it because they can't summon it). They would be able to do incredible things with that increase in offensive power.

I'm basically assuming they'll never get soulcasters working without the war going on for years, with Kandra infiltrating to learn their secrets and steal them. They seem much more complicated.

So yeah, I basically agree with this in relation to everything except Blades, but I also feel that Blades are by far the most important and fairly easy to acquire.

Guess I'm assuming majority of battles will be big areas like in Kaladin flashbacks.. Anyway, I wasn't counting mobility towards them being everywhere because it's not like the east flank will fire, then the west, then the middle, then the... It's all over, all the time. Haphazardly of course: reload time and all, but that mobility rushing to protect the west flank from arrows would open up the east flank that you rushed away from. It'd serve them better to ignore that movement speed and give them designated sectors to defend.

Fair enough about long range arrows, that's my fault for not taking into account that the armies don't start close by. I do like the Lurcher and Hay idea, even if its a pain to drag with you on the march.

(This but is for @Calderis as well) I see where you're coming from, but I just don't think something small like coins could break it with any speed, given that we see people(technically a Kandra) take coins to the chest without any real wounds. Some minor bleeding, but little more. I feel that if plate can resist a bullet, it can resist that.

I don't know if Szeth hit the plate beforehand, but he shatters a breastplate of a Shardbearer in interlude I-9. Granted that was with a large block of the wall and some absurd number of lashings, but it might be our only example of something that isn't an Invested Weapon taking under 3 hits. (Szeth's Honorblade seems to take two, according to some people on here. I'd have to reread)

Thats a fair point about carts with metals. Ignoring the prep time of that method(can never really get rid of prep time) the weight of the object they are pulling would still slightly throw off their flight path. Nothing irreversible, but using a little extra steel each time can still be an issue in an extended battle. Though I guess they'd be given a few extra vials in a military campaign that what they carry around Luthadel.

Getting in and out was never the issue. Getting out with the spoils was the difficult part. I suppose they could use a net that they can pull on to hold the Plate. That's pretty clever actually, nice idea.

I know they don't have to bond it to kill with it, but without that bond, they would have to manually go and grab it if it got knocked out of their hands. A bonded one has the respawn time, but you don't risk someone else picking it up and swinging it at you before you reach it.

I just added in the Soulcasters bit to get it out of the way, because someone mentioned in the early pages about how they'll "never go short on metal once they get a Soulcaster" or something to that effect. They aren't that easy to use, people.

Minor thing on the Kandra is that might still stand out. The Espionage game will be more tricky here, as Scadrians and Rosharans are ethnically different. I don't think Kandra have had any practice imitating Alethi epicanthic folds before, or Thaylen eyebrows(their issue with hair) and I'm sure there are several other defining features that Kandra won't have tried before. Granted, this issue works both ways, since Rosharans won't look like Scadrians. Anyway, that's a different discussion for a different time.

Lastly Calderis, the bit about interfering with Allomancy was basically my speculation. I feel like being fully inside an Invested object will prevent you from messing with objects outside of it via other Investiture(sort of like a very rich man's aluminum) We know that Radiants in Dalinar's visions could lash in plate, so I don't think the lack of touch is the main issue there. I don't have any real evidence to back up what I'm speculating, but we don't really have anything definitive about using magic in Plate other than what's been said.

[Calderis he/him]

7 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Lastly Calderis, the bit about interfering with Allomancy was basically my speculation. I feel like being fully inside an Invested object will prevent you from messing with objects outside of it via other Investiture(sort of like a very rich man's aluminum) We know that Radiants in Dalinar's visions could lash in plate, so I don't think the lack of touch is the main issue there. I don't have any real evidence to back up what I'm speculating, but we don't really have anything definitive about using magic in Plate other than what's been said.

Fair enough. I can understand your interpretation and will agree to disagree. 

[8bitBob]

55 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Guess I'm assuming majority of battles will be big areas like in Kaladin flashbacks.. Anyway, I wasn't counting mobility towards them being everywhere because it's not like the east flank will fire, then the west, then the middle, then the... It's all over, all the time. Haphazardly of course: reload time and all, but that mobility rushing to protect the west flank from arrows would open up the east flank that you rushed away from. It'd serve them better to ignore that movement speed and give them designated sectors to defend.

Fair point. I'd say it's a fair concession that Roshar would fair better the larger the line of battle was. I guess it would ultimately come down to whether or not you could stretch the Coinshots, Lurchers and Mistborn far enough across the army to create dead zones in the protection.

55 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I don't know if Szeth hit the plate beforehand, but he shatters a breastplate of a Shardbearer in interlude I-9. Granted that was with a large block of the wall and some absurd number of lashings, but it might be our only example of something that isn't an Invested Weapon taking under 3 hits. (Szeth's Honorblade seems to take two, according to some people on here. I'd have to reread)

Right, I forgot about that scene. I'm currently in the middle of a WoK reread, so I'll have to pay special attention to Szeth's murders. Thanks for the heads up on this.

55 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Nothing irreversible, but using a little extra steel each time can still be an issue in an extended battle. Though I guess they'd be given a few extra vials in a military campaign that what they carry around Luthadel.

Personally, Steel/Iron consumption is actually one of the things I'm least worried about in this conflict. So much of the Allomantic combat we've seen is shaped by the assumption that your enemy will mess with your metal, but that's not an issue here. Like, if you compare the cost in steel to outfit an army in basic gear and create arrow tips, it makes the metal burned by mistings seem tiny by comparison. You don't even have to bother turning them into shavings so they'll make poor anchors either. Just swallow a nearly endless supply of cheap beads throughout the battle and make sure to burn off your excess reserves at the end of the day.

55 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Minor thing on the Kandra is that might still stand out. The Espionage game will be more tricky here, as Scadrians and Rosharans are ethnically different. I don't think Kandra have had any practice imitating Alethi epicanthic folds before, or Thaylen eyebrows(their issue with hair) and I'm sure there are several other defining features that Kandra won't have tried before. Granted, this issue works both ways, since Rosharans won't look like Scadrians. Anyway, that's a different discussion for a different time.

Just a thought, but are all Ardent's Alethi? If I were a Kandra, I'd disguise as whatever race was not already present and imitate them. WoB says that most Rosharan's are super racist, and they often have a harder time picking on the subtle differences between people of different races, so you could potentially have an easier time of it. If you pick a people who speak a different language then it becomes even easier, because it'll explain away your likely weak command of the language.

This would still take years to do (mainly to learn a basic competence in the language) but it could potentially be easier this way. Alternatively, just disguise as a horse or Parshmen and nick it when you get the chance. You can work out the mechanics later, and every lost soulcaster cripples the Alethi infrastructure.

55 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Lastly Calderis, the bit about interfering with Allomancy was basically my speculation. I feel like being fully inside an Invested object will prevent you from messing with objects outside of it via other Investiture(sort of like a very rich man's aluminum)

Honestly, I kind of suspect this too. One of the questions I desperately want to ask Brandon is if a Coinshot could push on objects if he was in Shardplate. The chances of this happening are unlikely enough that he may answer.

Edited April 3, 2017 by 8bitBob

[Zennix he/him]

So many people have noted the damage that the Kandra can inflict on the Rosharan armies but I think that they can be countered by Knights Radiant and proto-Radiants who can enter Shadesmar. For example, an Elsecaller like Jasnah can partially enter into Shadesmar and verify whether someone is not a Kandra in disguise. 

On the other hand, it seems like we all have forgotten that spren (e.g Syl, Pattern, Wyndle etc) can be used to spy on the Scadrian Forces.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

@8bitBob I feel like there was a WoB that Kandra couldn't imitate Parshendi Carapace and would need the real deal for it, but I'm not in a position to search for it at the moment. (Have to pick up sibling from school)

Given that the Kandra Congract forbids them to kill directly, it'll take a bit more doing, but nothing impossible. Just pointing it out.

[Fezzik]

@Zennix, the recent discussion was limited to TFE era Scadrial and pre-WoK Roshar, so no KR, just the basic 10 metals, no compounding, and no medallions. Given the pace of technology on Scadrial, I feel the longer this war is put off, the advantage swings to Scadrial.

[+Extesian he/him]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

@8bitBob I feel like there was a WoB that Kandra couldn't imitate Parshendi Carapace and would need the real deal for it, but I'm not in a position to search for it at the moment. (Have to pick up sibling from school)

Given that the Kandra Congract forbids them to kill directly, it'll take a bit more doing, but nothing impossible. Just pointing it out.

This one

Quote

INTERVIEW: Feb 27th, 2016

Librarypalooza

PALADIN BREWER

Can a kandra duplicate a parshendi carapace?

BRANDON SANDERSON

No, they cannot.

 

[CaptainRyan he/him]

On 3/30/2017 at 3:24 AM, Rich2244 said:

Australia might look relatively small on a map or a globe, the scaleing is off, Australia is storming huge.

This is a minor correction but globes are not "to scale". Australia is exactly to scale on a globe as are the other landmasses.

[Rich2244]

I think I may have said this before, but I'll repeat as it was a long way back, a large part of this argument is very difficult to make a 'fair' fight, the books on Roshar have far more basic tools available at the start and develop hugely through the books, mistborn have most of their tools available for the first series available at the start of the first series. What I'm saying is essentially that you can't remove radiants from roshar unless you take allomancy from scadrial because that is voiding one of their magic systems due to how the plot of the book is working. 

Currently the only place I can see being somewhat fair is the current Roshar at the END of WoR against the Scadrial mentioned, that allows Roshar it's magic system however it also hugely limits it, only a few radiants have said oaths and even those that have are only 1-3 oaths in, maybe a little more for Shallan? I know there was a WoB that said she was more advanced than Kal?

The other hugely relevant argument here is how easily Scadrial could take down Shardbearers, seeing how quickly Adolin can move and how devastating Shardblades are if Coinshots couldn't penetrate plate relatively easily allomancers would die very quickly, any general with sense would just send their shardbearers to kill anyone who showed the slightest amount of 'wizardry' or unusual abilities.

The last important factor to consider is equipment, Scadrial is aware of Allomancers so it seems to me as if their equipment has evolved to deal with that, which has made it generally far less suitable to deal with traditional weapons. Though obviously Steel and Iron will wreak havok on metal equipment as well.

 

Edited April 4, 2017 by Rich2244

[Calderis he/him]

Surgebinders in general seem to be rarer then allomancers though. Even including them, I'm not inclined to believe they'd swing things away from Scadrial. Surgebinders are definitely powerful, but I think they'd lose to allomancers from sheer numbers. 

[Dellexe he/him]

1 hour ago, Rich2244 said:

The last important factor to consider is equipment, Scadrial is aware of Allomancers so it seems to me as if their equipment has evolved to deal with that, which has made it generally far less suitable to deal with traditional weapons. Though obviously Steel and Iron will wreak havok on metal equipment as well.

 

Sorry, but if I remember right, that's just wrong. Allomancers may be more common than Surgebinders, but they weren't common enough (or risked enough) to justify skipping out on effective gear. That's the entire reason why the Hazekiller class of soldier exists. 

Most fighting in the Final Empire at the time of the beginning of TFE is from failing rebellions. Who's rebelling? Skaa. Who doesn't have as many Allomancers? Skaa. They don't have the Allomancers to pose a threat to the Final Empire, so the Final Empire doesn't concern itself with building its army around countering Allomancers. From descriptions of soldiers, we hear that they wear metal helmets, metal breastplates, metal shields, and wield metal weapons. Hazekillers exist SPECIFICALLY to replace regular soldiers when fighting Allomancers. We even have quotes from various Allomancers, including Kelsier's teacher, that becoming proficient in Allomancy will allow you to kill men with their own weapons, and crush them in their own armor. 

So no, they're equipment is not "less suitable to deal with traditional weapons," because their equipment IS traditional armor and weaponry. Hazekillers aren't as good, yes, but they are a miniscule part of the Scadrien armed forces. 

[Rich2244]

3 hours ago, Calderis said:

Surgebinders in general seem to be rarer then allomancers though. Even including them, I'm not inclined to believe they'd swing things away from Scadrial. Surgebinders are definitely powerful, but I think they'd lose to allomancers from sheer numbers. 

Oh I agree, surgebinders seem far more powerful than any allomancer alone, obviously apart from mistborn but there are far far fewer.