To be fair, sending the Bat is the equivalent of a tactical nuke only if you are playing Ogre. It was, until shortly before WhiteWall, *commonly* used against Pelorian edge Orlanthi like the Bilimi, as much to keep it from fading away and needing resummoning as for any military need. Supposedly, the Bat has been fed to bulk it up, recently, although Broyan would not know, nor care much about, that detail.
> Broyan is supposed to flee or die. The fact
> he does neither should be deeply disturbing.. ...
Except that the Lunars have him trapped there, already.
I remember reading a comic AltHist take on the Alamo, where the Mexicans defeat the Texans by leaving an easy way out of the mission (and no Fannin/Goliad Massacre before they do); we have a similar situation here. If WhiteWall was more like Bastogne and less like Helm's Deep, the Lunar would have had an easy win (and we would have never have cared about it).
All know that the Bat cannot be attacked by magic, nor can anyone sneak up on it. The solution is, instead, to blind it with information overload, so that the Bat priests cannot do anything but react to shadows and struggle to keep the Bat under control. Baffling it with bulls**t. Actually, that would be a good way to do it - fly above the Bat and drop tons of Sky Bull and Sky Ram manure on the priests :-)
Using the elemental progression, we can assume that the Lunars will use Earth magic to ground Orlanthi flyers; if Broyan has some troll allies, arrange a feint by one Orlanthi unit on the Earth priests or priestesses to give cover for the main troll attack; ideally, the Earth force will overcommit to the feint, which they "know" that they can defeat. Also, the Solars magic can be countered by water magic, ala Heler and Helamakt. The result is that the defenders should be able to get a loud thunderstorm to distract the Bat.
Of course, this assumes that Broyan can get everybody working together. I do not know that trolls are looking to get the Empire looking askance at them, yet.
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