The Cube Hoppers

Department of HumanitiesPsychology/Sociology Section

For: Chief EngineerSubject:: Cubehopping.

This campaign technique is so named due to a special spell designed for Acheron. The "cubehopper" spell allows a small raiding party to gate into or out of a battlefield from/to another cube. It wasn't long before some savvy commander figured out this method could work equally well for full-scale armies. Goblins and orcs are notoriously well known for using this tactic.

For full-scale armies, "cubehopper" spells don't cut it. The main body of the army travels through permanent gates. They use the same general tactic, yet the entry and exit points of these portals are known fixed points. See, the thing is, why travel across the face of a cube when it's to your advantage to mask your numbers and overall objectives? Once you have reached the battlefield, you can pull troops through as long as a "gate seal" spell hasn't been cast over the contended area.

Cubehopping also eliminates distances an army must otherwise travel. Such cuts in distance help commanders to conserve manpower, water, ration, wealth and other crucial resources. As soon as the battle has ended, casualties or remnants of a smashed army can be evacuated through the use of "cubehopper" spells. Or, conversely, if there is a lull in the fighting, replacements can be brought in to fill the gaps in the lines.

During the heat of battle, "cubehopper" spells come in handy for gating in reserve components and even shock troops to flank the opposing force. It is paramount for cube-hoppers to be lightning-quick and free to utilize magic that allows them to gate in and out. Cubehopping grew out of the guerilla warfare tactics campaign. Acheron's cubes and their resultant gates have forced this tactic into existence. It's impossible to tell which fiendish race learned this technique first, but the Baatezu claim that is was they who learned it. Seeing that the tanar'ri are too chaotic for such precision, they cite.

Acheron's cubes make perfect battlefields. They are the same dimensions on each side. Unless they are cluttered, the fields offer no decisive advantage for either force. Any well-lanned berk will tell you that these fields are slaughtering grounds. Open terrain in Acheron doesn’t stay that way for long. The aftermath of the pointless wars see to that. The collisions don't let the cubes stay this way for long either. The pits and craters, along with the refuse of battles forgotten give rise for a cube-hopping campaign to take place.

Calix Arvandus, Shaper 2.