Just speaking my mind. Personally, I always felt that Abelhelm was failed much worse by men than he was by Sigmar.
I wouldn't mind that, but, the trait doesn't really read like that to me.
It reads like it's personal spite against Sigmar himself for not saving Abelhelm.
Thats also partly because of her religious beliefs. Her disdain for Sigmar reinforced her faith in Ranald, because he's up front about it, he's got your back, but luck is luck and will mess with you any time, and really he's not that strong as gods go.
Sigmar as god of the Empire, of friendship with the Dawi, of hatred of the greenskin and the undead...was seen from Mathilde's perspective to be focused on the conflicts between Man and Man, worse, between Ulricans, Sigmar's own god, to the extent that his church could deny aid to the Dawi and refuse to send help to the fight against vampires!
In the final extreme, he failed an Elector count, an inheritor of his will. He failed a sterling witch hunter in his hour of need. He failed his own priest, fighting against the undead.
Mathilde is understandably rather bitter about the whole experience...even as she, short of her being a wizard, has been doing very Sigmarite things, upholding the Empire's stability, slaying greenskins and undead, coming to the aid of the Dawi when they called. She recognizes that these are worthy things, done by worthy people.
Perhaps one day there may be a reconcilation.
Perhaps not.
Certainly not with the current leadership. The Grand Theogonist has clearly deemed playing silly buggers over political dominance when Sigmar himself sought the blessings of the other gods of the Empire more important than protecting the Empire.
Until that changes, it would be very difficult for her to look at it with any other gaze than disappointment. If OTL events proceed apace, she's only going to get even more disappointed in the decades to come.
I'm seeing a disturbing amount of overconfidence and arrogance about soloing armies because we have the seed of life.
Just remember everyone
"Remind yourself overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer."
People purposing to run into the middle of hordes of orcs need to remember this quest is played with dice, dice that can fail horrendously for us and work fantasticly for our enemies.
The leading vote is to perform opportunistic strikes though? The only bit that dives into enemy mass is the shaman assassination, where yeah, if it goes wrong extracting is going to be a little sticky.
They're all archery units, their roles in the coming battle will be mostly identical for each. It's largely a matter of who you feel they'd work best with - dwarves, humans or halflings.
Dwarves - Ironically they probably trust it more than the humans, if nothing else, because they've had no expectations and thus been pleasantly surprised to date by wizardly performance to date.
-Panoramia has pretty good fieldcraft, so she won't be impeding the Rangers stealth any. Her ability to create barriers and cover on the go also works well with the lower movement speed of the dwarves.
-Maximilian is on paper, not too different from a dwarf missile unit. Tankyish, accurate shots. However he does not appear to have significant stealth capability, should the rangers opt to stealth deploy. His ability to Enchant Item for performance would probably not be looked on favorably.
Humans - They probably wouldn't like wizarding too much, being the traditionalist, conservative Stirlanders. Still its war.
-Panoramia's fieldcraft works with their stealth. Her particularly overt magic is going to unnerve them however.
-Maximilian's magic basically gives them a sniper that can buff their missile fire. Relatively easy fit.
Halflings - Magic, whats the fuss?
-Panoramia's magic's cover is probably a fair chunk more effective when covering halfling sized units.
-Maximilian's magic basically gives them a sniper that can buff their missile fire. Relatively easy fit.
So pretty much all's fine. Can't go TOO badly.
Largely, yes. It's a staggeringly enormous force for the era, drawing from three different species. Belegar is trusting each of the leaders to make decisions themselves rather than trying to implement some sort of top-down grand strategy. The general order of battle is that Belegar and Skaroki's forces are the core, Ulthar and the halflings on one flank, Codrin and Wulfhart on the other, artillery and Kragg in the rear. You and the demigryph knights have no set place, having the mobility to make yourself useful however and wherever you best see fit.
Doctrine: Intitiative!
Traditional grand strategy just isn't going to work well here, given how much of a confused mass this force is. Nobody has the kind of martial education to make sense of it, so I assume he has a map marked:
-Dwarfs. We put them in the middle to bulldoze our way to the enemy slowly and reliably, and also so we can cover the Umgi when they inevitably mess up.
-Artillery. In the back of course. Duh.
-Kragg. Put him far, far away from where stray greenskin arrows can take out an irreplacable treasure. Also with a good view so he can smack down enemy spellcasting.
-Unreliable(read: not dwarf) archery. We put them on the flanks where they can do a lot of damage without being exposed to too much pressure. Then we put the reliable dwarf archers with them so they don't do anything too stupid.
-Dismounted Knights. These guys are like less reliable dwarfs, we put them on one flank without supervision. Even Umgi can't mess up a hammer and anvil, even if they do ride around on those beasts.
-Cavalry. You guys do whatever. You know your jobs, we don't really use any cavalry. Make yourself useful.
-Mathilde - *Scratches head* Well...everyone says you know your stuff. Go do...stuff.
No, I'm reading the whole 'magic resistance goes away if the dwarves have a wizard' thing as wargame balance and not an actual in-universe phenomenon.
Personally I read it as the dwarves voluntarily lowering spell resistances so that the wizard can support them with minor spells below battle magic.
