[Onos]

What did everyone think of the use of Moranth Munitions in RG?

I thought they were way over used. It got to the point where it didnt matter what the marines were facing, i didnt really care since they would just blow it up... Not really sure how they could have succeeded that well without them, but it has gotten to the point where they are just rediculous and there is no such thing as a common battle anymore. (i did really like the use of cussers in the battle of Coral, but that was ok since the it just somewhat helped against the KChain)

Also, werent the marines supposed to be travelling light? I imagine a cusser to be somewhere near the size of a football. How many did they carry?? "oh no, we are NOW down to only 5 cussers, well not counting the extra 2 Fiddlers is hiding under his cap." I find it hard that a each squad member was carrying 2+ cussers plus sharpers and flammers. And then they had armour and weapons, and must have had food and water since they didnt have time to scavenge, and probably other standard equipment.... And cussers are somewhat fragile. With that many around whole squads should have blown themselves up all over the place.

I am kinda ok with Hedges munitions, as that seems to be his 'special' ability to have a bottomless pit of cussers. But combined with the other overuse of them....

Anyway, RG cant be changed now so i kinda have to live with it as is, but i dont really want to seem anymore. Am i the only one to be bothered by this? Am i out of line?

[fan_83]

err you are talkng about soldiers who are going on a near suicidal missions.. you don;t think they will cram in as many ammo as possible? esp moranth ammo which is extremely effective..

if i was a soldier out in the field i would happily sacrifice other equipment for more ammos..

every experienced soldier out there knows that your weapons are your best friend and thats more important than the misc stuff

[tiam]

Also Tarr and others mention the oversized pack that they are given. It seems likely that the sappers had there packs full of munitions while other carried food and other equipment. Moranth munitions also seem to be known as the deciding factor so likely stocked up fully in the packs of sappers. It also mentions that there were bolstered numbers of sappers in the squads.

Although i do agree that they were overused

[Thelomen Toblerone]

Surely you cant be disappointed with the cool way Fid used them in that trap though.

That was awesome, God knows what him and Hedge are gonna get up to with the munitions now Hedgey boy is alive again.

To me the over-use made a bit of sense because it was their "shaved knuckle in the hole" so to speak, and they'd want to make the most of it while they were planning the offensive, bearing in mind huge disruption from small roving squads was the aim.

The problem I have is the supply issue. They're no longer part of the empire, and had been on a massive campaign in Seven Cities, didnt restock at Malaz Island, and went straight on. Where did they get all the Munitions from in the first place for the voyage?

[Agraba]

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That was awesome, God knows what him and Hedge are gonna get up to with the munitions now Hedgey boy is alive again.

Wow, you really think highly of SE...

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The problem I have is the supply issue. They're no longer part of the empire, and had been on a massive campaign in Seven Cities, didnt restock at Malaz Island, and went straight on. Where did they get all the Munitions from in the first place for the voyage?

Both the 10 minutes of fighting in Y'Ghatan and that small bit of holding off citizens in Malaz Island wasn't supposed to be nearly as big as fighting Sha'ik's rebellion. They had a whole stock saved for the rebellion, used against the Letherii.

[Kurt Montandon]

Well, I've been wondering if there was going to be a talk about munitions so that I could chime in ...

Anyways, I've always figured cussers were more about softball sized at most, and sharpers about a little larger than golf-balls.

As for the Fourteenth, they were no doubt loaded with munitions:

*They were the only active mobile army in the Empire, giving them priority.
*They used hardly any on the entire campaign to Y'Ghatan, and the used a moderate amount there.
*The importance of their original mission meant they were no doubt carrying more than the usual loadout.
*Some of the veteran sappers probably brought along their own personal stashes.
*And I've no doubt Admiral Nok's fleet brought more along with them, meaning a moderate resupply after Y'Ghatan.

Keep in mind that the Seventh's sappers still had, after months of fighting, fifty-two (one?) cussers with which to rig their underwater bridge. And they were part of an understrengthed army that wasn't expected to see much fighting to begin with. So if three-fifths of a garrisoning army had (likely) a few hundred cussers to start the Chain of Dogs with, I wouldn't be surprised if the Fourteenth originally left Aren with two or three thousand of just cussers, and then picked up some more from Nok's fleet.

So figure the marines went ashore with about fifteen hundred cussers and ten thousand or so sharpers (the remainder being with the main army), if not more. And keep in mind that Fiddler's squad, in the village where they met Hellian's, only had two or three cussers left - it was the squads that showed up at the village after not seeing any fighting that had a bunch to save the day.

So, really, a good case could be made that the supplies of munitions available in Reaper's Gale are reasonable.

And keep in mind that the Fourteenth is more reliant upon munitions than the usual full-complement Malazan army of days gone by, due to the lack of High Mages.

[kaf09]

kmmontandon;192579 said:

Well, I've been wondering if there was going to be a talk about munitions so that I could chime in ...

Anyways, I've always figured cussers were more about softball sized at most, and sharpers about a little larger than golf-balls.
..................

I suspect they were a little bit bigger than softballs; certainly the Moranth cussers were much too heavy to throw any distance. How Fiddler rigged a crossbow to throw the cussers is a bit of a riddle.

In the older forums there are a few threads on the anachronistic nature of explosive ordnance in a world of sword and sorcery. My own opinion is that they do not belong there - they give way too many possibilities.

[Kage-za]

Moranth munitions were basically the reason why the Malazan marines were able to conquer most of Northern Genabackis. Only areas like Mott Wood where terrain presented problems, and Pale, which was under the protection of Rake, were able to resist conquest.

In Lether the marines had the experience of having some leadership which had fought in the Northern Genabackis campaigns so had firsthand knowledge of guerrilla tactics, and the advantage of fighting an enemy that had never seen munitions and had no idea how to counter them.

Eventually the Letheri adjusted, but at that point Hellian's and Fiddler's squads had pushed almost all the way to the capital. The other Malazan groups had reformed with Keneb and were meeting the larger number of assailants with more "traditional" tactics.

[Morgoth]

the malazan's conquered their empire with munitions in much the same way the europeans conquered the world with cannons ..

I really see no problem with the munitions. It shows that Wu, unlike other fantasy worlds like that of GRRM, develops technologically. I'm sure it wont be too long before others learn to make similar devices and then the things will even out until someone develops cannons or something.

[Mulch]

kaf09;192584 said:

I suspect they were a little bit bigger than softballs; certainly the Moranth cussers were much too heavy to throw any distance. How Fiddler rigged a crossbow to throw the cussers is a bit of a riddle.

In the older forums there are a few threads on the anachronistic nature of explosive ordnance in a world of sword and sorcery. My own opinion is that they do not belong there - they give way too many possibilities.

I always had cussers down as about the size and weight of shot putts. They're attached to crossbows for goodness sake - asny heavier/larger would make the size of crossbow needed to launch them too large to carry.

The reason for the lack of throwing ability is more for the volitile nature than the strength it would take to hurl one (think nitroglycerine)

[tiam]

I thought they were around football size therefore cannot be thrown any distance. Sharper and flamers around tennis ball size. Seems reasonable that the Cussers arent too big

[Mulch]

C'mon, no one is thinking this through properly. how many occasions in the book do we see a sapper with a cusser in each hand?? Do you honestly think that if they were the size of a football (soccerball) and heavy to boot you could carry more than one at a time?

Re-read if you doubt me.

[Mael]

Thelomen Toblerone;192511 said:

To me the over-use made a bit of sense because it was their "shaved knuckle in the hole" so to speak, and they'd want to make the most of it while they were planning the offensive, bearing in mind huge disruption from small roving squads was the aim.

I think that the largest point being made by SE was to express the sheer superiority of the Malazan military (or more specifically the bonehunters) over thier Letherii counterparts.

Remember in MT how the Letherii were made out to be this fantastic military super power that virtually conquered thier entire continent before they got pwned by the Edur and the CGs power. Yet in RG when they finally end up in a fight with the Malazans both the Edur and the Letherii find themselves completely outmatched, not just due to the munitions (although they are a tremendous help) but also in tactics, equipment (at one point one marine tells another to get rid of the shitty Letherii shield he picks up) and overall strategy. Even the thousand or so Grey swords inflicted tremendous losses before they were finally defeated by the Letherii.

After all the small skirmishes and demoralizing minor battles like Y'ghatan the Bonehunters have faught, SE wanted us to finally see what these malazans were made of.

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I thought they were around football size therefore cannot be thrown any distance. Sharper and flamers around tennis ball size. Seems reasonable that the Cussers arent too big

I had always assumed that a Cusser was about the size of a softball but about 2-3 times as heavy. Large enough to keep on your person or mount on the end of a sturdy x-bow bolt but really too heavy to throw far enough to survive it (we have seen them thrown). Remember that the x-bows for these are very large and need to be rested on something to shoot. I would assume that they shoot about 2-3 times as far as you could throw one. The sharpers are slightly smaller and probably half the weight of a cusser. Crackers are wedge shaped and i can't quite remember what they said burners were like in RG but there is a description of one when they are fighting in the streets of Letheras.

Remember that the Moranth munitions were invented specifically to combat magic or more precicely the Silver Moranth who now rule all of the Moranth and are magic users. When the Malazans formed an alliance with the moranth they only really had cussers since they munitions were designed to be dropped by the Moranth from thier Quorls from high above. The creation of the Sharpers, burners, crackers, etc came later at the request of the malazan military and thier sappers.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I agree they were overused. I disapprove of the munitions precisely because they indicate technological advancement. I want my fantasy worlds to at least seem like they are't going to change. Doesn't anyone else find it vaguely depressing to think of Wu advanced to modern technological levels someday, where instead of thee great world we have seen there are peoplle driving to work in offices every day? Part of the nice thing about fantasy is to get away from the real world a little bit. I don't want to be reminded that Wu is going to someday turn into the real world.

[Morgoth]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;192701 said:

I agree they were overused. I disapprove of the munitions precisely because they indicate technological advancement. I want my fantasy worlds to at least seem like they are't going to change. Doesn't anyone else find it vaguely depressing to think of Wu advanced to modern technological levels someday, where instead of thee great world we have seen there are peoplle driving to work in offices every day? Part of the nice thing about fantasy is to get away from the real world a little bit. I don't want to be reminded that Wu is going to someday turn into the real world.

why would you want that? Wouldn't it ruin the whole thing if Wu was not alive and developing but static? And would it not also go completly against the thousands of years of history we've learned of?

If you're looking for a static world, then you've got plenty of pages in forgotten realms and such.

[Agraba]

Raymond, you seem to forget that the people we're reading about are extra special. 99.9% of Wu's population are spending well over 40 hours per week (probably most of their time) farming, or fishing, or if they're lucky, merchanting. How would gaining technological advancements make that world less exciting?

Plus, you seem to forget that the entire history of Wu is completely un-static. There have been shifts of power and technological ages all over the place. The Short-Tails had technology to dwarf our own.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Agraba;192705 said:

Raymond, you seem to forget that the people we're reading about are extra special. 99.9% of Wu's population are spending well over 40 hours per week (probably most of their time) farming, or fishing, or if they're lucky, merchanting. How would gaining technological advancements make that world less exciting?

Plus, you seem to forget that the entire history of Wu is completely un-static. There have been shifts of power and technological ages all over the place. The Short-Tails had technology to dwarf our own.

It has a sense offinality though this time. The cycle will be broken, techology will progress normally after this. I just get that feeling.

Regarding the shorttails: I like to pretend they accomplished all they did with magic, not tech. I know this isn't accurate, but i just really hate advanced tech in my fantasy.

[caladanbrood]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;192712 said:

Regarding the shorttails: I like to pretend they accomplished all they did with magic, not tech. I know this isn't accurate, but i just really hate advanced tech in my fantasy.

Why?

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

caladanbrood;192717 said:

Why?

i don't exactly know. I guess in my subconcious, I have a set idea of what fantasy should be, and a set idea of what sci-fi should be, and don't want to see them mix.

What's reallly strange is that while I don't enjoy sci-fi elements in my fantasy, I don't mind fantasy elements in my sci-fi. An example of this is Dune. In some ways, there are quite a few fantasy elements there, bu at it's heart it is a sci-fi story, so i don't mind the mixing.

~Luxury Yacht, mentally insane.
Blalawhoodiewhoodiewooooooo!!!!!!

[Mael]

Alchemical Munitions packed into fired clay pots sealed with wax that explode on contact with air and have an even more violent reaction when exposed to the magic they were designed to destroy....sounds like fantasy to me.