Re: To beat the Bat.

From: David Cake <dave_at_4XsvxqIcdvexTQJcmjfE8bJHOcXcrTdIHJ0sHnQ-eFNshYyVfULcph9UbGQyzPEC_ZtWHxW>
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 13:52:50 +0900

At 6:33 PM -0800 5/3/07, Roderick and Ellen Robertson wrote:
> > Has anyone thought about a hvy Balista with an untempered iron tip
>> coated with Lvl 20 poison. That should be able to penetrate the bat
>> hide.
>
>Nah, the bat's natural armor in RQ (any edition) is 85, and in HQ it would
>shrug off the hit with "Really Freakin' Huge, Man 10w4" or whatever I gave
>it. Even the Harpoon on the Zola Fel probably would have a bare chance of
>penetrating on a critical.

        I'm with Roderick. This scheme never even had a chance in RQ2, where its stats where the least impressive. Even if you criticaled to get through its armour, its Con of 120 and its 162 hp would render a lvl 20 poison little more than annoying, and a heavy ballista bolt at worst kind of irritating (momentarily irritating, anyway - it regenerates 20 hp a location per round). Irritating it means you get at least one of its 12d6 tongue attacks the next round. You need to do at least 50 pts in a location (after its 85 points of armour) to even momentarily hinder it for a round.

        In later games, it tended to get more impressive (which I think is due solely to later editions having a better sense of scale).

>Not mention that if you're close enough to hit the bat with your ballista,
>it probably turned your brain to jello long before...
>
>Basically, the bat is impervious to anything a non-Capital-H-Hero can do to
>it. It will shrug off any mundane weapon, absorb magic cast *on* it (but not
>necessarily *around* it), and drive you crazy with it's screams.
>
>It has been upgraded considerably from the days of WBRM, when it was *just*
>an even battle for a basioc infantry unit (as long as the Bat wasn't stacked
>with another unit).

        Not quite true. If memory serves correctly, just an even battle for a basic infantry unit providing it hasn't already eaten the infantry unit with chaotic magic in the magic phase. (I think it gets one unit a phase to eat)

        Which sounds about right - if one infantry unit is willing to sacrifice itself to the bats hideous alien maw (and tentacles, and acid spit, etc), a second unit might have a fighting chance at taking out the bat handlers - a few of them through sheer luck or timing or cunning strategem might not get their brains melted by its chaos scream, and the bat handlers aren't THAT tough (the sheer turnover tends to reduce their average quality somewhat), and are likely arrogant enough not to be that prepared for many to get past the bat. While this doesn't kill the bat, it does effectively eliminating the bat as a military unit as it runs amok uncontrolled, probably gorging itself on the nearest civilian population

	Cheers
		David