Sigrún: We’ll start with sword fights — using our training swords, of course. Your heartswords can . . . obscure your level of skill.
Thorn: Of course we won’t ask you to trust the safety of a heartsword. But I must tell you that they can be made safe, for practice. Violet?
[SWISH]
[GASP!]
[BONK]
Sigrún: Huh. That’s useful.
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*Sets up betting stand* Okay folks, I’ve got 10:1 odds on the Sonheim guards, 20:1 on the Chalice team, betting closes by tomorrow’s strip.
Now that’s not fair, what if tomorrow’s strip isn’t fighting?
I bet two internet vouchers on Violet winning.
Coincidentaly, those last three words are about all I can come up with for a comment…
Amazed, amazed, Deadpan.
Aww, Leif’s reaction. And I giggled at the “bonk.”
Oh, yeah, now that’s a level of trust that I think will take a long time to establish. So they *can* be made safe for practice. How does one tell if they *were*? What does it take to switch modes? If it’s just a matter of the person’s will or intent, it’s really useful for the heartsword users. But suddenly, so important to not piss off your sparring partner. If your sparring partner has the perception that you control their pay, but you don’t, that could be tricky if they have any complaints about their pay.
Considering the benefit of this sort of event – either everybody wins or everybody loses, as far as Sønheim vs. the Chalice team. As far as the other competition goes, I’m willing to bet that Juniper will win. I mean, yes, I read the September 28 update, but the group mostly seem to get along well enough that there shouldn’t be any hard feelings about the choice, so the net attitude change will just be that someone will be more appreciative of Juniper.
It seems to me Heart Swords work like an extension of will: if the user wills it, the sword can be made harmless. Likewise, it’s possible it can be willed to inflict terrible damage as well (more than the weapon otherwise would) which makes more violent/deceptive Heart Swords possibly more deadly than their traditional weapons would imply.
I think that’s what Sigurn is going to use Leif as the test subject for.
What does Sigúrn mean when he says that heartswords can obscure their level of skill? Is it a matter of them being stronger than other weapons, and therefore more easily able to break them, or is something else causing him to say that?
Sigrún is a she!
Normal swords can’t block or parry a heartsword, because it’ll slice right through them. So a heartsword-user can win that battle without a lot of actual skill.
Because of this, the heartsword-users in the Ceannic knighthood spend a lot of time practicing against other heartsword-users, to make sure they don’t get lazy about it.
Would you say that heartsword users then make up the core elements of Ceannis’ operational and tactical battle plans then? Or have their enemies learned through experience to just rain bolts and projectiles on them from a distance and therefore lower the cost-benefit of placing them on the field?
For any serious large-scale army in this region, I’d say mages are the core of their battle plans. (As we saw during the aquarium storyline, a barrage of projectiles isn’t worth much against a well-prepared magical boy.)
is there a typical dispersion of mages per squad/platoon?
It depends. A squad like Thorn’s typically only has one, but there are also all-mage squads, and they’ll be teamed up as necessary.
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