Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
Yes but it has been under Greenskin control so there should be some minor wear and tear that could introduce a weakpoint.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Austria
Every plan has many issues if you want to poke it.
Fire relies on managing to set enough fires for it to matter (given it's Ork settlement, they must have fires quite regularly, so it's harder than it sounds) in a small enough timeframe to not be late.
Shadow leaves us relatively open to attacks, and with each Shaman being a Hero Unit (and thus unlikely to be killed fast enough), open to dispels too.
Thorns relies on Panoramia not miscasting - and, again, is open to dispels.
Explosives relies on managing to sneak in, examine architecture, and sneak out, and then blow the thing up.
Projectiles has no big weak points, but, being a straightforward battle plan, is liable to incur more casualties.
Way I see it, Explosives is the simplest of Gimmick Plans, and is easiest to fall back from, thus making it preferable first option.
As BoneyM said we are going to fall back on second-most-popular option if the first fails, we can pick fallback too - either Shadow or Fire should be decent "well that didn't work" options, in different ways.
But, Shadow and Fire are, I think, hard to fall back from, because they rely on getting started when fighting starts - we will not have time to start fire or examine architecture if the battle is ongoing and we, for example, have miscasted Shadow, or were dispelled by some Shaman. Same goes for Fire, maybe moreso. So those are bad first options, while being good fallback ones.
edit: Goes for all options sans Explosives, really; each of them is a good "fuck that did not work" button, but each is a poor "let's try it and then do something else if it fails" option, cause they all imply fighting has already started and thus falling back is hard. Sans maybe Thorns, actually - if it fails/is dispelled, we can just ignore it (and heal Panoramia if she is hurt) and proceed with whatever was second choice. Hence me voting for Explosives - it's far from ideal, but easiest to fall back from.
edit 2: Shadow failing can be not too bad either, I suppose, depending on the way of failure. But it still leaves us sitting on Citadel attack without a way to deny the caldera Orks way in - Projectiles or Thorns would be a decent fallback from Shadows, I guess.
Fires are piss-poor at being second, I guess? Not sure.
Projectiles suck at being first, being conventional battle and thus leaving no time for other options if they fail (sans maybe Thorns), but are arguably best fallback option - if we fail at any Gimmick Plan, we fall back to tried and true shooting things.
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- Location
- Hawaii
[X] Fire
[X] Gandalf +Balrog
-[X] as a last resort, Mathilde holds the gate with Crown of Fire and Dread Aspect, possibly Burning Shadows and shadow tentacles. They shall not pass!
[X] Gandalf +Balrog
-[X] as a last resort, Mathilde holds the gate with Crown of Fire and Dread Aspect, possibly Burning Shadows and shadow tentacles. They shall not pass!
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
Inserted tally
I was indeed typing at the time. Sorry. The thread is moving quite fast.
There's one thing I'm not entirely understanding- is there any reason for stealth after the initial 'block'?
From my understanding the entrance to the Citadel would be obstructed either via explosives, magic or targeted artillery and then the archers, artillery and mages would work to destroy grobi town and disperse or kill the greenskins that reside there whilst the infantry assaults the Citadel.
- Location
- Aotearoa
I was the first proponent of blowing up the gate, you don't have to sell me on the multiple tactical advantages it offers.
But sneaking a Dwarf Engineer (balloon) unnoticed all the way through the Citadel... twice...
that's not what I expected to have to do when I proposed the idea.
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If a plan fails and secrecy is lost the Dwarves will go all-in on non-stealthy measures. The hope is that a method of preventing reinforcements can be in place before the greenskins become aware of the need for reinforcements.
A voting period extending to 48 hours is not an enormous hardship, and it's taking the normal update speed for granted to treat it like it is. If you're not enjoying the discussion you don't have to engage with it.
No.
- Location
- Norway
Huh, I'd forgotten that Substance of Shadow made the target outright invisible rather than merely ghostly. Well then.
That was not meant to come off as criticism of you, I'm sorry if it did. Just venting minor exasperation at the discussion seemingly going in circles.
- Location
- Austria
I was the first proponent of blowing up the gate, you don't have to sell me on the multiple tactical advantages it offers.
But sneaking a Dwarf Engineer (balloon) unnoticed all the way through the Citadel... twice...
that's not what I expected to have to do when I proposed the idea.
Eh, he's gonna be invisible, and orks are hardly most observant folks around.
Dwarf having to take very close look and maybe poke physically at stuff is more problematic part, really.
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
Specifically, he's going to be soundless, invisible and mostly intangible. The only failure point here is Mathilde, who has pretty much made of stealth.
- Location
- Austria
We will have to rematerialize him once we are at the gates, so that he can poke things. That's the riskiest part, I think.
Not sure we have some sort of trick to deal there; maybe have explosives with us, prepare them and light 'em and and escape under our Pall of Darkness(or what was the AoE darkness spell) if we are spotted? But it's an escape if spotted, and we do not have good tools to ensure dwarf is not spotted when examining gates. Or I don't recall any, at least.
The problem is that if it fails we're stuck inside the Citadel with a very non-stealthy dwarf engineer and no way to get him out as once sunstance of shadows is cancelled, we're very unlikely to get it up again.Even if we're prepared to abandon him to be eaten, Mathilde would have a hard time getting out, and I doubt we're prepared to do that, which means fighting until she dies, overwhelmed by a fortress full of orcs.
An orc carrying a huge bag as large as it is wll be noticable, so Take No Heed shouldn't function. It's also noticeable in a bad way, as other orcs will want to know what's inside in case it's food, fungus ale, or loot, and they're going to be willing to brawl to find out. If that provokes combat then the dwarf is likely to be revealed, because as soon as the bag is open the spell hiding him will end, and when they see that some git has been trying to smuggle in dinner without sharing there'll be a pile on to steal him to eat.
I think this should be seens as a exceptionally high risk plan, as if it fails we're completely screwed, and the failure mode is both obvious and almost impossible to counter. We've also used up Ranald's intervention for this six month period, so we can't rely on luck. It's not even that high reward a plan.
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- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yup! Here's the passage from the spellbook threadmark for anyone interested:
If I'm reading this right, our passenger will still be able to talk when he wants to.
- Location
- Austria
That's worst-case scenario of failure, cause it implies we are so stuck we do not even have time to recast on him, or kill an ork who noticed us cause there were, like, a 100 instead of a lone straggler.
Talking about only it is about as fair analysis as analyzing Shadow plan via only looking at "we miscast Burning Shadow, alert all greenskin Shadows who then alert entire caldera and start balttle casting in our general direction"; or "we miscast and summon demons on our position". It can happen, but I looked at exclusively this scenario while analyizing Shadow plan, I would be being...extremely uncharitable and unfair.
Every plan is bad if you only look at results of rolling ~nat1 at the crucial roll.
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This isn't a natural one kind of bad luck. We need to walk in through the East Gate of the citadel. I strongly doubt there's no one there. How do we get past the gates with a huge bag without the orcs hanging around the entrance way suspecting we're coming back to the Citadel after scavenging for loot or food and wanting to make sure they get their fair cut? That's not even bad luck. That's a scenario we should fully expect to happen unless we're incredibly lucky. If Mathilde isn't carrying a huge bag, then she can pretend to be a relatively runty orc or goblin that no one cares about, and so use Take No Heed to make her entrance, but the giant bag is unusual so that won't work.
Also, we don't know the current internal layout of the Citadel. We have to traverse it carrying a huge bag, and you want to assume we'll never meet a group of orcs together? One again, meeting a group of orcs in a corridor doesn't require a natural one, it's a perfectly expected thing to happen in an orc held fortress. It's avoiding it that should require particular good luck., and once again, the bag is the problem.
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And this is why the discussion keeps going in circles. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
- Location
- United States of America
[X] Fire
- Location
- Austria
Same way we kept doing every time we had to infiltrate things. Dwarf balloon complicates things, but being invisible, soundless and almost intaglible makes it less of an issue than it could be.
If it were someone more capable of being on high alert - Skaven or more orderly Chaos worshippers or, god forbid, Lizardmen - it would have been riskier. Orks are not good at spotting stuff at best of times, and right now Citadel is severely weakened, explicitly, so it's even worse than usual. Them being Black Orks compensates for that to some degree, but I still am willing to bet on it being easier infiltration than some we've performed in the past.
It's not utterly free of risk, although I would put riskiest part squarely at "dwarf has to physically poke walls and examine them to figure it out" part, not any of the parts where we are basically dragging dwarf balloon around. But no plan is without risk, and I doubt it is riskier than casting a big spell with indeterminate amount of counterspellers in caldera and a high chance of every ork being alerted (by shamans who probably can notice the spell which turns huge shadow into a pool of acid) if we either fail or are dispelled. Or even if we succeed, really? I think some shamans have a magesight analogue, after all.
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