Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
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It's totally different to every other time she infiltrated every where, as she hasn't had to take what's basically a civilian with her. It's a very different challenge.
You also keep dismissing the fact that it's very likely indeed that she won't only encounter orcs one on one. Orcs usually run around in groups, because despite )or because of their fighting) they're a very social species, and the gates are very likely to have a number of guards.
It's also very misleading to call it an invisible dwarf. It's a dwarf in a bag. That's why we can't rely on Take No Heed working, which is a crucial part of her infiltration toolkit. The bag will move very oddly in a way that she be apparent at a glance. The orcs aren't that observant (except if they're black orcs, which these might be) but if you've ever seen anyone carrying blocks of aerogel, which this will be similar to, it looks very weird. It could even be worse, like a giant helium balloon, so it will look to the orcs like she's carrying something very weird, possible magical. Mathidle has never, I think Substance of Shadow-ed someone else before, so won't be practiced at compensating for these.
Why u bringing shit in da Citadel den? I keep tellin you boys. Chuck it right aut.
Beyond that, an orc lowering himself to carrying something that looks worthless rather than getting gobbos to do it is suspicious in itself, and these are quite possibly black orcs. Orcs don't do manual labour. Also, even orcs aren't stupid enough to think that just because a bag is worthless that the contents are, given how the spell works:
K / Eye of the Beholder: You can change something's appearance to make it look either worthless or valuable for several hours.
- This does not go all the way to repulsive, nor all the way to irresistable.
- Shape of the object appears unchanged. Usually changes material, craftsmanship, intricacy, decorations, and so on.
Making the material of the craftsmanship of the bag worse would not make knowing the contents of the bag less interesting. A filthy roughly made sack can still have a dwarf for dinner inside. It seems like a visual illusion, not a mental 'nothing valuable here' effect
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SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
It's obviously a Stiletto for a giant.
It's all about moral stature, and obvious Mathilde is a paragon of virtue
- Location
- Austria
Well, she has gigantic faith and titanic achievements, so it all fits.
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
These aren't impassable obstacles. She can't go through the doors? She walk over the walls. There is a group of orcs in the corridor? She'll wait for them to leave while sitting invisibly in the dark, shadowy corner. If they don't leave? She'll take another way or figure out a way to murder them all.
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The problem is moving all of that into position could not be done quietly and would give the greenskins plenty of time to react. Once it's all in place it could prevent any additional reinforcements but all that get through before are adding to the meat grinder inside the Citadel.
You could move the quieter or more mobile parts into place first but at that point it's just the existing Shadow or Projectile or Thorn plans.
I suspect that the walls are a lot taller than she can run up to on a line that's twenty meters long (so say, fifteen meters). It's a dwarf fortress that can do a good impression of a small mountain. Mathilde can't fight the entire fortress if she makes a mess, and a strange orc roaming around is not going to get a pass without Take No Heed, as these orcs are at war with the orcs outside. Remember they're shooting at anyone that approaches the Citadel. They're not impassable options, but every extra step to overcome them risks exposing her and the engineer, and if they get caught they could be seriously screwed, unless Mathilde is prepared to abandon the engineer. It's not hard to cancel substance of shadow. A choppa blow at the wrong time or simply grabbing and tearing the bag would do it.
It's not an impossible plan, but it seems like a fragile one, where a lot of things need to go right for Mathilde in a row, and if they go wrong she's stranded with a civilian in the middle of enemy territory and it gets increasingly hard to either complete the mission or exfiltrate. The Shadow plan is something that Mathilde is more familiar with, as are the others. She has to infiltrate solo, which she's very experienced with and knows how to use her spells to accomplish it. Being sure Take No Heed would work makes a huge difference. She then has to cast a spell she's experienced in casting. Sneaking in someone else is new to her. We've at least used Burning Shadows to melt an army in other exceptional circumstances, and used artillery to blast the enemy to pieces. We've never tried this kind of thing with Substance of Shadows.
Worse, it's a fragile risky plan that doesn't actually achieve that much, it's a high risk, low reward plan, as if it succeeds it achieves the same basic objective as all the other plans, but all the other plans also accomplish other very useful things (with the possible exception of Thorns). What are we getting in return for the additional risk here?
Admittedly, I wouldn't vote for the current plan shadow, as it's completely reliant on a single spell with no backup and does nothing to prevent the spell being instantly counterspelled or dispelled.
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- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
Hmm. With the clarification about how the town is indeed flammable, this seems like a pretty valid approach. The real issue is that it takes time to get going, but even then it should cut off most of the orcs from heading to the citadel - and given that this'll happen before the attack in earnest begins, the orcs and goblins that try to head to the citadel early may well end up being rebuffed. (Or, in OOC terms, it'll be up with a reaction roll, likely with a modifier favourable to us.)
[X] Fire
[X] Fire
[X] Shadow
With the current plan shadow I can't in good faith vote for it alone given my previous arguments for it, as it's been reduced to the caricature of itself that it's opponents argued against and I insisted it wasn't. It could have been glorious, but the opportunity has gone, and the Explosives option just seems full of potential failure modes for no extra reward.
[X] Shadow
With the current plan shadow I can't in good faith vote for it alone given my previous arguments for it, as it's been reduced to the caricature of itself that it's opponents argued against and I insisted it wasn't. It could have been glorious, but the opportunity has gone, and the Explosives option just seems full of potential failure modes for no extra reward.
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- Location
- some computer lab
[X] Shadow
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
@BoneyM out of curiosity, given that we seem to do this a lot now are there any stealth/burglary/infiltration skills available to learn?
At this point, you're just cooking up what-if scenarios and when I present a solution to those scenarios, you're just adding another obstacle. You say that the plan is fragile, but honestly it seems more like it has the most fall-backs.
Using Panoramia, an inexperienced journeyman to create a field of thorns is vulnerable to dispel, and risks daemons on failure. Plan Burnjng Shadow wastes time and also risks dispels or even us blowing up on failure.
With fire, all it takes is for orcs to stop the flames beforecthey spread or even just charge through the flames before they catch.
At the end of the day, plan explosives shuts down dwarven reinforcements completely while the other plans only reduce them. I don't think it's any more risky than the other plans, much less than most in fact and the reward is very much worth the risk that Mathilde fails doing what she does best
That's your assumption. The walls are too big is an assumption. The gate will have too many guards is an assumption. That Take-No-Heed wouldn't work is also your assumption.
At this point, you're just cooking up what-if scenarios and when I present a solution to those scenarios, you're just adding another obstacle. You say that the plan is fragile, but honestly it seems more like it has the most fall-backs.
Using Panoramia, an inexperienced journeyman to create a field of thorns is vulnerable to dispel, and risks daemons on failure. Plan Burnjng Shadow wastes time and also risks dispels or even us blowing up on failure.
With fire, all it takes is for orcs to stop the flames beforecthey spread or even just charge through the flames before they catch.
At the end of the day, plan explosives shuts down dwarven reinforcements completely while the other plans only reduce them. I don't think it's any more risky than the other plans, much less than most in fact and the reward is very much worth the risk that Mathilde fails doing what she does best
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It's mostly within the realm of mechanics I haven't worked on yet but there's likely to be species/culture-specific infiltration skills to learn.
- Location
- Austria
Don't worry: shantytown of myriad orcs or Citadel are not going anywhere.
We can do this Shadow thing every dawn afterwards if we care to; and, realistically, we will have to push into caldera at some point in the future, when ability to clean up orks might come in handy.
[X] Fire
By far my preferred plan.
[X] Projectiles
What I believe to be the most reliably plan, but not a particularly effective one.
[] Explosives
As amusing as it would be to see how the other councillors, Kragg especially, react to the idea of Mathilde towing a Dwarf-kite around I just cannot vote for so risky a plan. If either of the others fail we just have more Greenskins to fight in the Citadel. If this plan fails then Mathilde and a Dwarf architect are left stranded in the middle of an enemy fortress with no backup. And we need to fight all the Greenskins in the Citadel.
[] Shadow
The cost in mercenary fighting quality far outweighs any benefit of this plan.
[] Thorns
We just got done telling her to be careful about pushing beyond her limits. Seems a bad idea to then demand she throw near-Battle Magic spells about.
By far my preferred plan.
[X] Projectiles
What I believe to be the most reliably plan, but not a particularly effective one.
[] Explosives
As amusing as it would be to see how the other councillors, Kragg especially, react to the idea of Mathilde towing a Dwarf-kite around I just cannot vote for so risky a plan. If either of the others fail we just have more Greenskins to fight in the Citadel. If this plan fails then Mathilde and a Dwarf architect are left stranded in the middle of an enemy fortress with no backup. And we need to fight all the Greenskins in the Citadel.
[] Shadow
The cost in mercenary fighting quality far outweighs any benefit of this plan.
[] Thorns
We just got done telling her to be careful about pushing beyond her limits. Seems a bad idea to then demand she throw near-Battle Magic spells about.
You don't address the problems, you come up with reasons to dismiss them, not solutions to mitigate them. And yes, there are so many potential places that the spell can go wrong that I keep thinking of more of them.
That's not the way it works. You're making the positive claim about the plan. The assumptions you're making are the positive ones, that things will just work.
Plan Explosions has no fall backs. If Mathilde and the Engineer get caught by more than a couple of orcs in the middle of the fortress, they're probably screwed.
And both Shadow and Fire should shut down reinforcements completely if they succeed. It's hard to reinforce if you're dead before you get to the gates.
When we hold the Citadel the dwarves will have the vantage point to base artillery that commands the caldera, so it would be a pointless vanity to cast the spell then.
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I favour tomorrow over this aftenoon. Everyone fought a big battle just yesterday. High morale or not, that needs physical recovery time. Armour repair, weapon re-sharpening, operational planning, moving stuff into position, letting rangers creep over to grobi town - all benefit from the extra time. I think morale will remain high over an afternoon and night of purposeful prep and rest.
[x] Fire
Worth doing at some point even if we don't use it as a diversion for this.
[x] Shadow
I've wanted to do a big sunshine burning shadows for a while. The coolest option.
[x] Projectiles
We should set up for this whatever else we do and attacking tomorrow morning gives us more time to get (people and*) engines into position this afternoon. It might rain tomorrow and that would rule out both fire and shadow. Mathilde might miscast. We will need the projectiles ready to take on the job. Even if Shadow goes ahead, Mathilde will tire eventually, the sun will move, taking the citadel could take all day.
*A night on the Sentinels would be no fun but might be worth it.
[x] Fire
Worth doing at some point even if we don't use it as a diversion for this.
[x] Shadow
I've wanted to do a big sunshine burning shadows for a while. The coolest option.
[x] Projectiles
We should set up for this whatever else we do and attacking tomorrow morning gives us more time to get (people and*) engines into position this afternoon. It might rain tomorrow and that would rule out both fire and shadow. Mathilde might miscast. We will need the projectiles ready to take on the job. Even if Shadow goes ahead, Mathilde will tire eventually, the sun will move, taking the citadel could take all day.
*A night on the Sentinels would be no fun but might be worth it.
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