Okay, setting aside the issue of how to take our council seat, let's take a look at our other options.
Spending time with and getting to know:
[ ] Ulthar Alriksson, Head Ranger
[ ] Skaroki Grimbrow, Thane
[ ] The Amber Wizard journeymen.
[ ] The Gold Wizard journeyman.
[ ] The Stirlander forces
[ ] The Halfling forces
[ ] The Demigryph Knights
[ ] The Winter Wolves
Having good social relationships is going to be vital. Let's see what the implications of each are...
The Head Ranger is in charge of a few thousand dwarves and also has the kind of scouting/intrigue skillset that would make him an excellent friend. The way that his hair color shifts between brown and black in the update is clear evidence of his mastery of skullduggery.
The Thane is in charge of even
more dwarves- more than all the other organized dwarven forces combined, in fact, and over a quarter of them including the misc ones. I suspect that when it comes down to dealing with the dwarves on this expedition as a whole his will be the most important voice, even if it's King Belegar Ironhammer's campaign. He also has all the dwarven cannon. We definitely want him on our side.
The other wizards would be nice to talk to, although this is only actually important rather than convenient if we're claiming to be in charge of them and thus need to know their capabilities.
The Stirlanders are leaderless; just letting them know that we're here and part of the campaign is likely to be a huge morale boost to them even if we don't declare ourselves in charge. Since they form about a quarter of the human forces that would be significant to the campaign as a whole and well worth our time. If we want to take charge of them we'll absolutely need to do this. They might also be useful in that we could recruit some of them to bring us word of what the other groups in camp are saying- internally monitoring the camp for rumors and opinion as sort of a morale officer is something we'd probably be good at and they could help with. With this many disparate groups getting together there is certain to be some friction between them and with a march longer than the entire length of Stirland+Sylvania ahead of us (if I read the map correctly) there is a lot of time for desertion in the face of miserable marching and greenskin harassment.
The Halflings have also fought at our side before but we've never really worked with them properly. They don't feel urgent to me but ignoring them forever would be kind of rude, so mark this one for later.
The various knights are interesting. I don't think they're urgent, but we're also kind of disgusted with Sigmar's performance in ruling the empire so there's at least some common ground to bond over. There's an order of Myrmidia who probably has some tactical insights into the fog of war that we could learn from, or get lessons in a Tactics/Command skill. If we take charge of the Stirlanders then we'll be a peer commander to the Ulricans as fellow leader of the masses of the human contingent, so introducing ourselves and forming a good working relationship will be critical. On the downside Ulricans are no fans of magic, but on the other hand we have a wolf following us around of its own will, so... religious appearance bonus?
Other Pursuits:
[ ] Spend time with your wolf pup, trying to develop a famliar bond.
[ ] Deliver last-minute messages for Belegar, trying to scrape together any remaining support to be had before leaving.
- [ ] To Elector Counts.
- [ ] To mercenaries.
- [ ] To the Colleges of Magic.
- [ ] To Knightly Orders.
- [ ] To Dwarfholds of the Grey and Black Mountains.
Well, screw socialization, this option set is more important.
We really, really, should not pass up the wolf pup option. No, that's not because it's cute, though it is; it's because
a familiar can give you +1 magic. Mathilde is currently Magic 6, and at Magic 7 she no longer suffers a miscast chance on Fiendishly Complex spells, and while she only knows two of those both of are extremely potent. "This can win the battle when used properly" potent, in the case of Dread Aspect. As we all know, miscasts are spectacularly awful and everyone hates them; having a miscast at a bad moment not only might kill us, but even if it doesn't it is certain to lose us a lot of credibility with everyone else who is evaluating our work and prowess. That respect that we just got from the dwarves for being a "Master
Mhornokri"? Dwarves don't hand out the title "Master" to fuckups. Don't let them think that we're one.
Binding a familiar can take more than a month of spending time with it, and even once bound getting it to develop a specific ability can be time and effort intensive. If we want to be able to spam our best spells without worrying about blowing up, we should be taking the wolf option
now.
Running messages is less personally important to us but more important to the campaign, as choosing that option and then getting a good roll could easily mean thousands of additional troops. Bringing that kind of support to the campaign isn't something that will be unnoticed, either, as they'll know perfectly well that those troops wouldn't have come if not for us and could mean the difference between success and failure; there's the chance to gain a
lot of credibility in this action set.
Ultimately I think we need the wolf action and at least one message running action. If we go with one message run instead of two, then socialize with either the Stirlanders (if taking command of them) or one of the wizard options (if taking command of them).
