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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Seeing the several pages of debate, I must say I want to investigate Codrin Petrescu and his plans more. I don't have enough information to make a judgment. He could be a horrible person trying to get the 'rabble' killed, he could be a sensible cynic trying to avoid having the dwarven crusade turn into Constantinople 1204*, he could be horning in on our Grey Wizard secret police niche, he could be an undercover agent of the Grey College testing Mathilde (a little paranoia is healthy in the Grey College), or something else entirely. It depends a hell of a lot on how he plans to implement this idea that he talked about for all of one paragraph. I'm going to vote for
[X] His command, his business. Stay out of it.
simply because I don't have a basis for saying it's either a good or bad idea. How much does he view the looter-forces as merely expendable compared to active liability, etc?

*Long story short: Eastern Christians of Constantinople and surroundings call for help against Muslim invaders. Western Christians send help in the form of crusaders. Crusaders have a bit of a money shortage along the way to where the Muslims are. Crusaders sack Constantinople for money. Muslims point, laugh, continue annexing Middle East.

Also, getting around to voting on other items:

[X] The Snotlings need to be wiped out so their 'city' can be filled in. Join in the extermination, possibly with a Journeymanling along to see how they fare in battle.
- [X] Bring Esbern and Seija

[X] Thane Skaroki Grimbrow
[X] Master Engineer Durin Wutokri
[X] Grand Master Sigwald Kriegersen
[X] Grand Master Ruprecht Wulfhart
[X] Marshal Titus Muggins

Talk more to people! Fill out the Dramatis Personae!
 
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Valerian said:
.....
Except as people have repeatedly mentioned. Most members of medieval armies act exactly the way he is concerned these men will act.

aka loot everything that isn't nailed down.

Have you read about the aftermath of battles, any battle, that took place from the birth of civilization to the Napoleonic Wars?

The winning army after battle (and sometimes during it) tended to dissolve into Locust like swarms of looters, rapists and murderers. Sometimes it caused battles to be lost, because a detachment of enemy forces came upon the looters that were out of formation and slaughtered them which triggered a rout.

Military commanders typically allowed it to happen because they had claim on a percentage of the loot, they didn't give a crap about what happened to the non-combatants and that they did not have the number of disciplined forces still under their command that could stop it.

Now, take that knowledge and add the fact that Dwarves are extremely prickly about their property, are outnumbered by the human forces and already distrust humans in general.

It's.....not a good mix. I am in favor of Cordin's action. And Mathilde is a member of the Gray College, aka the "do dirty deeds so Empire can survive another day" mentality.
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I haven't extensively read accounts of ancient battlefield looting and aftermaths no. Still from accounts of relatively modern and modern deeds I think I have a fairly good idea of how totally fucked up people can be.

Firstly lets look at the circumstances these men are all in. They're fighting orcs, goblins and skaven so there's not exactly a fantastic source of people to rape and murder. Also they're surrounded by dwarfs, knights and have a grey wizard hovering around. Finally they're a long way from anywhere where they could sell valuable dwarf artifacts, going to be in the middle of a dwarf hold, getting all their supplies from dwarfs and surrounded by orcs. Basically the amount of trouble they can get into is actually fairly limited and is best dealt with by installing discipline, police and other non-murderous and treacherous safeguards.

Also this could backfire just as badly as anything else. Maybe the men find out about how their commander is plotting to murder them all and justifiably get angry about it. Maybe the whole thing is actually a cunning trap by Cordin to find out if Mathilde is totally fine with having a commander who plans to murder his men.

The question isn't is it okay to stick gold and glory seekers in the vanguard, it's are you okay with Cordin actively planning on killing as many adventurers as possible because he thinks they're more likely to be thieves.

Anyway I find myself suspicious of his motives and don't trust him since we know pretty much nothing about him. We should at least investigate him and get more information on his plans before we team up with the guy who wants to kill his own men.
 
Ian Drash said:
If Karak Azgal is any indication of the general mindset, being a hold where the dwarves let adventurers go down and try to clear the infested parts and tax the loot they bring up, their plan was most likely quite simple. Pay people a fair share of gold and stand around menacingly with impenetrable armor and runic weapons to convince people that the share is fair and looting that ancient statue is a bad idea. Dwarves are pretty good at that kind of diplomacy.
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They weren't very happy with relying on such a huge amount of mercenaries, but I imagine in this case a hold retaking tends to be utterly ruinous to human forces involved in terms of casualties, especially the lightly armored and eccentrically armed bands of random adventurers
WorldSlayer said:
This guy is practically a stranger and one of the first things he says is he plans to commit mass murder and then tries to tempt us with the obvious lever of dwarf favor. We should be investigating him for corruption and possibly cult connections not trying to support his plans.

Besides a commander who kills his own men is basically bad guy stereotype number 1.

Commander who wants to kill his own men! Seriously, that's totally messed up. I hope no one would even think about considering this acceptable in reality because even in a fictional medium it's totally crazy.

Imagine having your boss decide to plot your death because he doesn't think you're trustworthy, made even worse somehow because it seems to be based primarily on where you came from.
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This is literally medieval warfare 101:
-Protect your loyal men -> He is doing so, the Stirland and Sylvanian contingents will be taking less casualties due to being preferentially(and justifiably, they're basically ALL missile units) put into safer positions
-Reduce your portion of opportunists preferentially, or they may attack you afterwards -> This is also normal, by putting him in control of a force of 10k loyal and disciplined men and 10k rabble, he wants the aftermath to leave him with at least 2:1 loyal:rabble ratio, or he'd not be able to control the rabble in the looting by threat of force.

Theres a very good reason most armies don't rely on a general call to arms if they can manage it, because the type of people who show up are typically as dangerous to you as they are to the enemy. Especially don't envy his force, given that he's got 10k archers screened by 10k rabble.

And the rabble are going to die in droves, because they aren't really archery screen materials(you want pikemen or shieldwalls for that, but unfortunately he has neither). Fortunately, he has something like 5 times the recommended screen size and he has unbreakable flanks if they are dwarf based.
 
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[X] His command, his business. Stay out of it.

[x] The Snotlings need to be wiped out so their 'city' can be filled in. Join in the extermination, possibly with a Journeymanling along to see how they fare in battle.
- [x] Bring Esbern and Seija
[x] Thane Skaroki Grimbrow
[x] Introduce him to the dwarven smiths so he can try to convince them to teach him.
 
It would be very good sense to make sure that Cordin doesn't survive the expedition as well. This would be very easy to sell as betraying of humans to get them killed by orcs and 'subterranean beastmen'. A secret shared by two people is safe when one of them is dead, and I think he's just demonstrated that it should be him.
 
WorldSlayer said:
Firstly lets look at the circumstances these men are all in. They're fighting orcs, goblins and skaven so there's not exactly a fantastic source of people to rape and murder. Also they're surrounded by dwarfs, knights and have a grey wizard hovering around. Finally they're a long way from anywhere where they could sell valuable dwarf artifacts, going to be in the middle of a dwarf hold, getting all their supplies from dwarfs and surrounded by orcs. Basically the amount of trouble they can get into is actually fairly limited and is best dealt with by installing discipline, police and other non-murderous and treacherous safeguards.
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The expedition almost certainly has a large train of camp followers, including merchants, in part expressly to provide a marketplace for loot. Attracting such people is a great part of how medieval armies kept themselves supplied (with the other great part being looting the surrounding area). So, yes, looters will be able to sell their spoils on with ease. Further, 'installing discipline, police'? Yeah, that ain't happening. Not in this era. Like, the concept of 'military police' as anything more than keeping the troops from killing each other in camp brawls is a 19th century idea. It is extremely new. If you tried to institute that kind of thing in Warhammer or a comparable historical era, you'd be met with blank looks of incomprehension. "Restrain the men from looting? ... Why? Damned silly idea!" "Well, because it despoils the land and angers the locals." "Yes? And? What of it?"

EDIT: Frankly, it's my view that Petrescu is possessed of uncommon intelligence and insight to think of an idea like "looting might actually be a bad thing on this campaign. I should do something about that..."
 
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Imrix said:
The expedition almost certainly has a large train of camp followers, including merchants, in part expressly to provide a marketplace for loot. Attracting such people is a great part of how medieval armies kept themselves supplied.
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Well, the large medieval armies. Particularly of the later period.

Because I will never tire of citing the Laws of Ine (a king in early medieval England) on the subject of how small an army can be. Said laws codify that the number of people required to constitute an army is thirty-six. Which you can probably keep supplied by going to a nearby tavern.
 
Exmorri said:
Well, the large medieval armies. Particularly of the later period.

Because I will never tire of citing the Laws of Ine (a king in early medieval England) on the subject of how small an army can be. Said laws codify that the number of people required to constitute an army is thirty-six. Which you can probably keep supplied by going to a nearby tavern.
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I dare say we have a large army even just counting mercenaries.
 
Exmorri said:
Well, the large medieval armies. Particularly of the later period.

Because I will never tire of citing the Laws of Ine (a king in early medieval England) on the subject of how small an army can be. Said laws codify that the number of people required to constitute an army is thirty-six. Which you can probably keep supplied by going to a nearby tavern.
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Almost certainly.

Although I suspect that looks like a large gang of angry men with polearms bullying the innkeep into giving them free drinks. "Military discipline" in this era, largely isn't.
 
The thing is, deep on the Badlands, there are no merchants. There is no market. The dwarves have a monopoly on supplies. If the adventurers want to eat, they have to do what the dwarves tell them. Otherwise they starve.

This isn't anything like a late medieval army because of this.
 
Alratan said:
The thing is, deep on the Badlands, there are no merchants. There is no market. The dwarves have a monopoly on supplies. If the adventurers want to eat, they have to do what the dwarves tell them. Otherwise they starve.

This isn't anything like a late medieval army because of this.
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Again, no, there is absolutely a market in the badlands: the expedition itself, and the train of camp followers trailing behind it, who are attracted to the expedition on the basis that large armies are lucrative opportunities for merchants and tradespeople, because they acquire war spoils. To a merchant or a tradesperson's eye, an army on the march is a captive market, a large body of people often loaded down with treasure and with little control over where they go, which restricts their access to goods and services. You can make a financial killing in that kind of environment with the greatest of ease.

EDIT: Like, bluntly, this is an expedition of nearly a hundred thousand men under arms. It is the size of the combined standing armies of a significant chunk of the Empire. It has hundreds of artillery pieces, thousands of knights, and tens of thousands of mercenaries. If the unrecorded camp followers and assorted hangers-on aren't at least a middling sized city in their own right already, they damn well will be once we reach Karak Eight Peaks and have a static base of operations.
 
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[X] His command, his business. Stay out of it.

[x] The Snotlings need to be wiped out so their 'city' can be filled in. Join in the extermination, possibly with a Journeymanling along to see how they fare in battle.
- [x] Bring Esbern and Seija
[x] Thane Skaroki Grimbrow
[x] Introduce him to the dwarven smiths so he can try to convince them to teach him.
 
Imrix said:
Again, no, there is absolutely a market in the badlands: the expedition itself, and the train of camp followers trailing behind it, who are attracted to the expedition on the basis that large armies are lucrative opportunities for merchants and tradespeople, because they acquire war spoils. To a merchant or a tradesperson's eye, an army on the march is a captive market, a large body of people often loaded down with treasure and with little control over where they go, which restricts their access to goods and services. You can make a financial killing in that kind of environment with the greatest of ease.

EDIT: Like, bluntly, this is an expedition of nearly a hundred thousand men under arms. It is the size of the combined standing armies of a significant chunk of the Empire. If the unrecorded camp followers and assorted hangers-on aren't at least a middling sized city in their own right already, they damn well will be once we reach Karak Eight Peaks and have a static base of operations.
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Why would the dwarves feed the camp followers? How could they afford to feed the camp followers, when they have to maintain a supply train stretched over hundreds of miles of incredibly hostile territory?

More than that, why the notoriously greedy dwarves feed their own rivals when they can corner the market in loot and ensure they control it's distribution?
 
Alratan said:
Why would the dwarves feed the camp followers? How could they afford to feed the camp followers, when they have to maintain a supply train stretched over hundreds of miles of incredibly hostile territory?

More than that, why the notoriously greedy dwarves feed their own rivals when they can corner the market in loot and ensure they control it's distribution?
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Because they're part of the Karak Eight Peaks Expedition and provide a valuable service to the manlings, thus freeing up good dwarfs to do actual useful things or to service their own forces, and are also obligated to ensure that they don't die?

It's not a difficult concept to grasp. There are only so many dwarfs and a fuckton of mouths to feed. Not only that, not feeding the camp followers - which likely includes family, wives, and comfort women (not to mention the personal entourages of the many actual Knights on the expedition) would just invite the exact kind of mutiny people are afraid that the Marshal will kickstart by trying to make sure his raping and pillaging rabble is at the front.

He's not actively making sure they're going to die, people. He just wants to make sure that when people do die, it won't be the people who just want a chance to buy a farm and live a quiet life.
 
Alratan said:
Why would the dwarves feed the camp followers? How could they afford to feed the camp followers, when they have to maintain a supply train stretched over hundreds of miles of incredibly hostile territory?

More than that, why the notoriously greedy dwarves feed their own rivals when they can corner the market in loot and ensure they control it's distribution?
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Camp followers are a fact of life. Its only in the last 2 centuries that armies have shaken the need and existence of them.

And that was only due to the State taking care of all needs for the army. Before that soldiers had to pay for and procure their own weapons, equipment and sometimes food. A King did not equip his armies, he may equip his personal retinue, but the rest of army had to acquire their gear on their own. They also had to maintain it at their own expense, buy clothing, repair clothing, etc.

All of those goods and services? They were provided by camp followers.

Camp Followers are not just whores and general merchants. They are sutlers, blacksmiths, laundresses, weavers, fletchers, etc. Specialists in a wide variety of fields that follow an army of their own accord and are allowed to stay becuase they provide a panoply of goods and services that the State does not provide itself.

Furthermore, with the docks and port built to secure a supply line to Barrak Var, aka one of the busiest ports in the world, you can bet that a small city of non-combatants will book passage with the convoys to reach where the army sets up for the retaking of the Hold.
 
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Alratan said:
Why would the dwarves feed the camp followers? How could they afford to feed the camp followers, when they have to maintain a supply train stretched over hundreds of miles of incredibly hostile territory?

More than that, why the notoriously greedy dwarves feed their own rivals when they can corner the market in loot and ensure they control it's distribution?
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Mu.

Better question: How are they going to stop the camp followers? Are they going to look at this growing train of cooks, stableboys, farriers, prostitutes, brewers, hunters, cooks, apothecaries, nurses, seamstresses, launderers, dozens of brands of smith, tanners, cobblers, merchants, peddlars, entertainers, bakers, squires, bards, grooms, ostlers, waggoneers, drovers, construction workers and more, and... what, tell them to go away?

Many of these people will be the wives and children of soldiers in the expedition. Are the dwarfs going to put them to the axe? Set guards over the army camps to ensure none of the mercenaries avail themselves of the waiting services? Don't be absurd. This is just how an army works; on any kind of long expedition, camp followers are simply an expected part of logistics. They provide necessary services (many, many necessary services) that allows soldiers to act as soldiers instead of general labour.
 
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Alratan said:
Why would the dwarves feed the camp followers? How could they afford to feed the camp followers, when they have to maintain a supply train stretched over hundreds of miles of incredibly hostile territory?

More than that, why the notoriously greedy dwarves feed their own rivals when they can corner the market in loot and ensure they control it's distribution?
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Removal of camp followers as a big widespread factor is in the middle 19th century, where both organizational and technological innovations make this more possible.

In WHFB, if you are not Undead, Orks or Chaos bullshit, your army will be a disorganized mess on the march, with fuckton of followers running around.

edit: for Orks or Chaos there will still be a mess on the march most likely, but it'll be more or less WAD because the fucks do not care about logistics it seems.
 
Alratan said:
Why would the dwarves feed the camp followers? How could they afford to feed the camp followers, when they have to maintain a supply train stretched over hundreds of miles of incredibly hostile territory?
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Camp followers ARE the last mile of the supply train, for the most part.

A supply ship from Barak Varr shows up in port with for example six miles of thread - what happens next is not the soldiers lining up at the ship to mend their boots, nor the sailors diligently cutting thread into boot-long strings and distributing them, but the supply ship sells the thread to camp followers (in this case, shoemakers) and the shoemakers then go and sell boot-sewing services to the soldiers.

Camp followers are what make it possible for an army around here to run mostly on pay, rather than the officers and quartermasters having to hand out every-last-little-thing that the soldiers might want on the trail.
Without camp followers, when the soldiers want or need (Some Object), either the officers have to provide that object, or the officers have to say "Can't be done" and morale takes a hit. With camp followers, the officers can instead hand out salary and say "Go buy one, then".
 
After a time of fairly agonising arguments with myself, I came to a decision to swap my vote. I am conflicted enough I won't be arguing for it, but...

[X] He's got a point. You should help where you can.

[X] The Snotlings need to be wiped out so their 'city' can be filled in. Join in the extermination, possibly with a Journeymanling along to see how they fare in battle.
- [X] Bring Esbern and Seija
[X] Introduce him to the dwarven smiths so he can try to convince them to teach him.
[X] Grand Master Sigwald Kriegersen
 
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It would be okay if Petrescu just planned to throw the adventurers into dangerous situations first to preserve the life of his loyal men. That is just good sense.

However, he goes a lot further. He wants to ensure that as many of the adventurers as possible die. And not to help win the battle or to keep the Stirlanders alive, but to make sure that their looting doesn't endanger the due reward of the Stirlanders. I also really doubt that he can be that certain that the adventurers will go overboard with looting the Dwarfhold, while his Stirlander troops won't. Especially the second part. After all, as people have pointed out, looting is perfectly common for medieval armies.

I can't support that.

[X] Dangerous nonsense. This needs to be stopped.
[X] His command, his business. Stay out of it.

[X] The Snotlings need to be wiped out so their 'city' can be filled in. Join in the extermination, possibly with a Journeymanling along to see how they fare in battle.
- [X] Bring Esbern and Seija

Maximilian de Gaynesford of the Gold Order
[X] Introduce him to the dwarven smiths so he can try to convince them to teach him.

[X] Grand Master Ruprecht Wulfhart
[X] Marshal Titus Muggins
 
[X] His command, his business. Stay out of it.

[X] The Snotlings need to be wiped out so their 'city' can be filled in. Join in the extermination, possibly with a Journeymanling along to see how they fare in battle.
- [X] Bring Esbern and Seija
[X] Introduce him to the dwarven smiths so he can try to convince them to teach him.
[X] Marshal Titus Muggins
 
Gingganz said:
It would be okay if Petrescu just planned to throw the adventurers into dangerous situations first to preserve the life of his loyal men. That is just good sense.

However, he goes a lot further. He wants to ensure that as many of the adventurers as possible die. And not to help win the battle or to keep the Stirlanders alive, but to make sure that their looting doesn't endanger the due reward of the Stirlanders. I also really doubt that he can be that certain that the adventurers will go overboard with looting the Dwarfhold, while his Stirlander troops won't. Especially the second part. After all, as people have pointed out, looting is perfectly common for medieval armies.

I can't support that.
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The Stirlander troops can be expected to follow orders or face heavy discipline from their own ranks.

The mercenaries, vagabonds and adventurers are not subject to any of that and will do whatever the hell they please. The worry here is not them nicking a few coins here and there, but outright thieving important Dawi heirlooms, mighty rune weapons and artifacts that date before even the War of the Beard.



[X] His command, his business. Stay out of it.

[X] The Snotlings need to be wiped out so their 'city' can be filled in. Join in the extermination, possibly with a Journeymanling along to see how they fare in battle.
- [X] Bring Esbern and Seija
[X] Introduce him to the dwarven smiths so he can try to convince them to teach him.
[X] Grand Master Ruprecht Wulfhart
 
[X] His command, his business. Stay out of it.

[X] The Snotlings need to be wiped out so their 'city' can be filled in. Join in the extermination, possibly with a Journeymanling along to see how they fare in battle.
- [X] Bring Esbern and Seija
[X] Introduce him to the dwarven smiths so he can try to convince them to teach him.
[X] Grand Master Ruprecht Wulfhart
 
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