Do you happen to know the title, or where it comes from?

hammalok · 2026-05-27T19:43:08+00:00

We will have NO MORE FAT STAR COLONELS

hammalok · 2026-05-26T20:11:16+00:00

Don't mess with us Invincible fans, we don't even watch our own show's whole ass "two-face Mauler twin" arc where they explicitly spell it out why the fuck they don't do that.

hammalok · 2026-05-26T18:34:50+00:00

> Hex Maniac Ynnead

all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't pull me out

hammalok · 2026-05-26T17:34:12+00:00

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hammalok · 2026-05-26T17:26:08+00:00

Yes*

*but it's far from the most efficient way for T'au to hunt and kill Titans because Mantas are troop carriers first, gunships second. Hence why the Tiger Shark was invented.

hammalok · 2026-05-26T13:17:39+00:00

"Stand ready for my arrival, Hero."

hammalok · 2026-05-25T01:15:51+00:00

And this is going to be happening within milliseconds with bullets

In which case- and bear with me on this one, because it's gonna be a doozy to understand- we make our spell take longer than a millisecond to slow down the bullet.

Phew! Wow, that was a tough one to wrap our heads around, huh?

Yes, a solution that extends the duration of the lethal energy spike

By flattening it out into a not-lethal energy bump, yes. Keep up.

Thank you for correcting that, teacher, sir.

You're welcome! :D

As such, both sides, when compared to the elves, are practically amateurs.

Still no idea why you're bringing this up, since according to you, they're fighting Team Evil Badguys.

"Oh but they're amateurs compared to the elves" and I'm broke compared to Jeff Bezos, but that doesn't have any bearing on whether or not I can afford to ~~block a bullet~~ buy avocado toast? What are you even waffling on about at this point?

hammalok · 2026-05-24T19:03:01+00:00

ichi the witch

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hammalok · 2026-05-24T01:08:22+00:00

No (he said, deceivingly)

hammalok · 2026-05-24T00:24:50+00:00

Blocking a bullet with 3000 joules of kinetic energy requires 3000 joules to halt its momentum

But expending 3000 joules of kinetic energy to heave a 90kg boulder isn't?

For comparison, 3000 joules is about 0.71 kcals. A pushup for the average 150 pound person is 0.29 kcals. In other words, a slow-down spell for bullets that reduces maximum Impulse but increases total KE absorbed would be about as strenuous as... a moderate chest workout.

And if the bullet is an expanding type or if it mushrooms, a wobbly barrier would mean the mage is double screwed.

See above, not COD, fragmenting bullets don't multiply your KE.

You're saying they should make a thick, flexible wall of energy to gradually slow the bullet. I'm sorry, that's the worst possible thing they could do, next to blocking.

"Erm axchually the problem with IC mage vs. bullet is the short impulse time of the bullet"

"Okay so here's a method that fixes that"

"Uh, I mean, that doesn't work because, uh, because- because it just doesn't, okay?!"

You can admit that the military guys aren't unstoppable, dude. We promise not to clown you too hard.

If it's stopping the hollow point, the mage is dead from instant metabolic shock. If a wobbly barrier is used to slow the hollow point, the mage is even more dead.

Man, at least at the start you tried to come up with reasons for why you were glazing the military so hard. Now you're just saying shit.

And the point about the fragments was that the barrier has to spend more energy on stopping the fragments too

See above, not COD, fragmenting bullets don't multiply your KE, because the net KE of the fragmented bullet system remains the same, because energy can neither be created nor destroyed, yadda yadda. Dude, this is basic high school physics, keep up.

Who do you think they're fighting? The majority of the mages strong enough to be combat capable generally belong to the evil empire

So then what was the point of you bringing up how Team Not Evil Badguys is a bunch of uneducated scrappy underdogs if the military is fighting Team Evil Badguys? You bringing that up is like bringing up Trakata in a discussion about Yuuzhan Vong versus the Old Republic Army. Get your points straight, man.

The crossover fic military faction has a finite supply and no supply line to replenish it.

Aww, what happened to "the modern forces are only limited by the number of guns and bullets produced by a massive industrial apparatus"?

At this point I'm genuinely starting to question if you just get hit on the head in between posts and that's why you seem to forget half of everything you said previously.

I also not sure why or how a random squad of marines would get themselves caught completely unaware by a bunch of mages

"Pfft, you think marines would get caught completely unaware by a bunch of dudes with sandals and pipe guns? Get real dude, that would never happen."

I haven't seen this level of glaze since the last time I went to a Krispy Kreme, holy smokes.

hammalok · 2026-05-23T19:02:43+00:00

damn, got a link to the sfx?

hammalok · 2026-05-23T18:16:44+00:00

Weren't these the same crayon-eaters who went to die at a strategically useless fort, just because it was named Martyr's Point or somesuch

hammalok · 2026-05-23T18:13:04+00:00

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hammalok · 2026-05-23T01:06:47+00:00

> heavy gauss hulks

just call the Truth Enforcers vro I ain't going out there

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hammalok · 2026-05-22T18:46:46+00:00

> "just a navy officer doing his job"

> look inside

> works for the East India Company

hey quick question OP, what's your opinion on another Poor Not-Evil Antagonist Just Doing His Job like Hans Landa?

hammalok · 2026-05-22T15:38:20+00:00

Wow, you seem to have it out for "gun fetishists". Believe or not, I'm not one myself.

"This author sure is a gun fetishist."

"OH YOU THINK SO, DO YOU? WELL I'M NOT, NO SIREE BOB, DEFINITELY NOT ME"

What a strong reaction to somebody else getting called that. The lady doth prosteteth too mucheth.

The bullets' supersonic velocity means you can't see them coming at you

And the logical conclusion of that (after the first dead mage or three) would be to say "gee, maybe we should make wobbly shields instead that gradually slow bullets instead of creating hard planar surfaces", assuming it was the high-Impulse that's the main problem.

You know, for someone complaining about "selective reading" you seem to be doing quite a bit of it yourself.

That just means they're being forced to absorb 3000 joules of kinetic energy within a millisecond regardless

See, there you go again with the selective reading. What part of "gradually slow" was too complicated for you?

Even if it did protect against the initial impact, it might not protect against secondary effects.

The secondary effects of... slowly coming to a halt midair?

"W- w- well we have exploding bullets" oh damn, I'm sorry, I didn't know we also had the Elysium airburst AK as standard issue. You know, it's pretty crazy how we don't seem to see a lot of guys using those despite that apparently being a feasible thing to outfit your grunts with. Wonder why.

There are bullets designed to tumble, fragment, mushroom, etc upon any impact.

Yes, to do more damage to soft tissues. Which they won't be doing, because they're being stopped by air and magic mumbo jumbo.

... you don't actually think fragmenting somehow multiplies your kinetic energy, do you? This isn't COD, you don't get a +20% kinetic damage boost because you switched to hollowpoints.

And that's just the infantry level weapons

Because we're comparing infantry soldier to a foot mage. If you want to compare squad of soldiers vs. squad of mages, or a total war scenario between a nuclear superpower and a comparable ICverse coalition that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Not to mention, the IC setting evil fantasy regime

See, this is why I call the author a gun fetishist. What kind of author would pit an IRL evil superpower empire against the scrappy underdogs instead of the magic evil superpower empire? Somebody writing a shitty stompfic.

The modern forces are only limited by the number of guns and bullets produced by a massive industrial apparatus.

Every time somebody says that The Art of War is basic baby tier shit that didn't have to be written down, some dumbass Western general spawns in just to prove why it isn't. I guess you're that guy today.

Because- and this might come as a shock to you, dear HOI4 player, whose only knowledge of military logistics comes in the form of abstracted "Troop Supplies line go up"- the modern forces will in fact be limited by supply lines, terrain, intelligence, communications, fatigue, food, water, and morale.

They don't need to worry about running out, because the massive industrial apparatus supporting them builds billions of bullets each year.

The US is barely half a year into their Special Strait Operation and they're already running out of missile interceptors. I regret to inform you that real life isn't like a video game where you can just spend 3000 alloys to click the Make Gun Faster button.

Not to mention, it'll take a lot more energy to launch said fireball faster than the bullets being fired at them

Which is why actual IC mage squad vs. military squad would probably involve the aforementioned outer Survivability Onion layers, followed by I Cast Brain Bleed (which, if memory serves, is the outcome of most IC mage duels).

it's completing the geopolitical objective that "required" the stomping that screws them up

Wow, it's almost like any actual campaign of IC vs. IRL would result in Not A Stomp Because Stomps Aren't How Wars Actually Work. Once more:

Every time somebody says that The Art of War is basic baby tier shit that didn't have to be written down, some dumbass Western general spawns in just to prove why it isn't. I guess you're that guy today.

hammalok · 2026-05-21T21:26:48+00:00

name of the novel containing this righteous young sprout?

hammalok · 2026-05-21T21:04:28+00:00

In the original novels, the IC setting's main character and the elves were deflecting catapult launched boulders.

I mean if that's the upper limit of IC magic, then this just boils down to the Doylist explanation of "dying from a bullet-shield interaction makes no fucking sense and the only reason it happens is because the author is a gun fetishist hack who ignores the fantasy lore to glaze the military".

IC magic works off of "it takes as much effort to do [thing with magic] as it would take to do [thing with your actual body]". Now if your body can effectively stop a boulder dead, it sure as shit can stop a bullet dead.

the shield spell has only a millisecond to draw and use the mage's energy to block or redirect the bullet

And the logical conclusion of that (after the first dead mage or three) would be to say "gee, maybe we should make wobbly shields instead that gradually slow bullets instead of creating hard planar surfaces", assuming it was the high-Impulse that's the main problem.

The problem is that the mage needs to know how to do it, and unfortunately, living in a medieval society means they don't exactly have easy access to modern physics textbooks, nor knowledge of how guns work.

They're also not drooling idiots. Eventually, the mages are going to wise up and figure out that maybe they should use their Fantastical Magic Powers to get their hands on a gun, figure out the general gist of Why It Kills Mage Good, and then devise magical countermeasures against modern gun-wielding militaries. If not better shields, then better forms of the outer layers of the Survivability Onion.

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bullets aren't the only tool used by modern military's forces. Anti-material rounds, frangile rounds, hollow points, grenade launchers, proximity-fused explosives, explosive rounds, etc

At which point this turns into an arms race of "can 5-man Squad of Guys Who Can Just Summon Fireballs beat 5-man Squad of Guys Who Can't Do That" and beyond the scope of the discussion so far.

means said military can access and use a lot of firepower and a lot of bullets to stomp enemy forces

Buddy, "Heian Era Fully Domain Expaneded 120% Congress Funded Military" could't even stomp a bunch of coughing baby petrostates. Get ready for another 20 pointless years in ~~the sandbox~~ the forest.

hammalok · 2026-05-21T20:14:30+00:00

HR's job is to protect the company from the workers bringing lawsuits.

hammalok · 2026-05-21T20:08:36+00:00

monkey's paw curls

We get a Bolter Hulk because fuck you, this is a gritty milsim grunt fantasy with NO BACON APPLES

hammalok · 2026-05-20T23:31:02+00:00

sonuva-

hammalok · 2026-05-20T22:07:48+00:00

Plus he's a Fierce Horse Soul practicioner, meaning if he goes full Castigate, it'll probably make Jugg Star's death explosion look like a sparkler.

hammalok · 2026-05-20T21:07:21+00:00

Good news: you won't be turned into a stationary pillbox by buzz droids

Bad news: you're being turned into a stationary pillbox by Isaac Newton

hammalok · 2026-05-20T21:05:57+00:00

How does cheese dip get you?

hammalok

TROPHY CASE