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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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@Alratan
The amount and difficulty of the obstacles of any given plan depends on the number the dice throw up. You should instead check the what the worst case scenario for singular dice rolls would be, what the expected reward for mission success would be, what inevitable costs there are, and what potential boons we could get if the dice go incredibly right. Otherwise, as long as the QM deems our plan as acceptably plausible, climbing a difficult wall in silence is as hard as sneaking up on a shaman, is as hard as torturing someone for information, is as hard as cracking a cipher.

In that light I dislike Thorns the most due to miscasts depending on 2 rolls that are done by a character with unknown stats, granting only numerical bonuses against the Greenskin reinforcements, and having low potential of being hilarious to read.
Shadows definitely lose us a stat boost on all rolls done by human mercenaries during battle, but would otherwise be straightforward, dependent solely on OP Mathilde and have low chances of harming allies during a miscast. On the other hand it makes us face complete unknowns in the form of counter-casting shamans as if yet not rolled up into existence.
Fire has a chance of massive damage, with rolls mostly mitigating that instead of incurring costs. Explosives has a high amount of rolls, a wildcard companion doing his own rolls, but if successful, will definitely delay reinforcements, though for a randomized amount of time. It has also the most potential for a hilarious reading experience as we interact with a poor, floating dwarf architect.
 
Alratan said:
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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This is not an argument to not cast it. :V Saves costs of ammo at least, and when else with Mathilde get such an opportunity?
Like, she has a bit of a vain streak, and it's not like killing some greenskins is a thing Dwarfs can possibly object to, even in such a flamboyant fashion.
 
Rafin said:
Fire has a chance of massive damage, with rolls mostly mitigating that instead of incurring costs. Explosives has a high amount of rolls, a wildcard companion doing his own rolls, but if successful, will definitely delay reinforcements, though for a randomized amount of time. It has also the most potential for a hilarious reading experience as we interact with a poor, floating dwarf architect.
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We'd probably want to cast Mockery of Death on him anyway, so that we'd have a final chance to bluff if the contents of the bag get exposed, by orc-Mathilde claiming he was a corpse she'd brought in for dinner and buying another chance to shank the orcs when they're distracted about how to share him. That would also stop him making involuntary sounds if we had to swing him around quickly and he's chosen to be able to make sounds - as remember he's not a front line fighter or trained spy.

I also think you're underestimating the reading pleasure of the crowning moment of awesome of Burning Shadows-ing a greenskin city, or whatever burning it down would look like. Humour is not the relevant metric of this, and is probably one of the most divise with what one person finds funny being more likely to leave another person completely cold.

Another way to look at the roll consequences is that if say, the engineer fails his roll to blow the place, it's likely to be a binary failure, where we achieve nothing, whereas fire will at worst kill a lot of greenskins in the Caldera so they are too dead to be reinforcements.

ctulhuslp said:
This is not an argument to not cast it. :V Saves costs of ammo at least, and when else with Mathilde get such an opportunity?
Like, she has a bit of a vain streak, and it's not like killing some greenskins is a thing Dwarfs can possibly object to, even in such a flamboyant fashion.
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Rocks are free. Bundles of burning pitch are probably pretty cheap. If it does significantly risk a miscast (induced by counter spelling or naturally) as people are suggesting, it would be unconscionable to take the risk when it wasn't required, particularly after the lecture she just gave.
 
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Alratan said:
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.
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Most of your doubts are nitpicky with the answer simply being we'll roll Learning or Intrigue, depending on if we're using a spell or bluffing/tricking our way through. The only major failure point that I can find is that if we get caught, we're stuck behind enemy lines. The advantage of having several rolls is that you can mitigate a failure, rather than just fail. In the case that we really have no way to finish the mission, we can use our Dread Aspect to terrify them and Pall of Darkness to blind them, letting us quickly get out. Worst case, we have the Seed. The dwarf will be traumatized but unharmed.

Shadow requires us to give up the initiative, which risks the situation changing as well as losing a morale bonus to army rolls. Then it requires us to sneak close to the citadel without getting discovered and then cast the spell. Once we cast the spell, we have to resist any dispels from the enemy shamans as well as any ranged assaults from inside and outside of the citadel. Even if we do succeed, Burning Shadow only lasts for a few minutes after which there is nothing stopping survivors from attacking or orc shamans from targeting us directly.

Plan Fire also explicitly lists the time taken to light the fire as a downside. What are the plans to prevent greenskins from noticing us start the fire or one of the black orcs in the citadel who are keeping an eye on the town from noticing us? It just needs one greenskin out of thousands to suspect and then risk running to the citadel for shelter, which is the only place they can go and the one place we don't want them to. Even if we set the fire, these are orcs. They might decide to risk charging through the fire vs running some other way.
 
[x] Fire

Several strategic and tactical supposedly geniuses has written treatises on how useful fire can be

primemountain said:
You know, I was reading about Ranald and this came up:
A true devotee of Ranald uses the dagger and stiletto, only
amateurs and the slow-witted need armour and long swords

So as much as Mat is sometimes irritated by Ranald, so too does she irritate him back.
"Oh this?" points to Greatsword on her back.
"This is just a large dagger." Mat notes, of the blade nearly longer than she is tall.
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May I point you to the Kriegsmesser? It's a two-handed knife (technically built similarly to a knife or dagger... except huge) :p
 
Also, the dwarf we'll be sneaking in with us is not just going to be a civilian, he'll be a dwarven architecture expert. He can probably guide Mathilde through the fastest routes to get to the entrance we need to block and advise on alternative routes when needed.
 
[] Shadow

I still really want to use burning shadows, but this isn't the plan we advocated for yesterday. Yesterday's plan also involved an incendiary bombardment, for instance. Now it's just 'if you wait a day and lose out on moral, I can cast a spell for a few minutes that'll be real neat' and one can look at the votes and see that nobody thinks that's worth anything.

I don't have a solution to that, but it does make me sad.
 
If blowing up the Citadel entrance doesn't work, standing in front of it to prevent reinforcements getting in does legitimately sound reasonable. These are goblins after all, and goblins who've just suffered a ruddy awful fight the day before, so their morale would be poor. What's more, their only recourse would be to charge straight at us, which would put them in Gork's sphere of influence rather than the angry and motivated Mork's. Might just cause a mass rout and scare them all away.
 
banelord said:
@BoneyM Is there any reason that Alratan's previously seen as workable plan isn't actually a full option in the current vote? As he thinks the Shadow vote isn't actually the same thing as his previous plan, being a stripped down version.
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Burning Shadows is one way to prevent reinforcements from reaching the Citadel, infiltrating and scattering caltrops is another, indirect fire onto the avenue from stone throwers is a third. The problem with using all three is that all three have parts that risk alerting the enemy, and using three different approaches triples the potential failure points but doesn't triple the chance of success. Whatever approach is chosen, it has to be in place before the greenskins realize that a battle is imminent.
 
DarkLight140 said:
If we're not responsible for raising troops or providing military service personally then in what capacity does the Elector Count have the ability to order her vassals to do anything other than pay taxes (which are presumably what is done instead of providing direct military service, and used to support that standing army) and obey the laws (which will not include "Elector Count can order whatever they want" clauses because the nobility would rebel)?
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Probably with that oath we took. The one that said.

BoneyM said:
"This day do I render homage and fealty to my Lord, the Elector Count Abelhelm Van Hal of Stirland, who will, from this day forward, be my Liege. I will remain true in all ways, serving him faithfully - this do I swear, by my life and by my Gods. So say I, Mathilde Weber"
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Not to mention the fact that, technically speaking, she can make the law for Stirland, and unless it breaks Imperial law (and even then, it'd probably have to be an important law) no one would blink an eye. Hell, Marius Leitdorf once nearly started a war with Bretonnia and received no censure. As far as I can tell, the lack of need for petty/lesser nobles to raise troops means that they aren't an incredibly powerful force in the Empire, with the Burgomeisters, the major cities and the Elector Counts being those.
 
chocolote12 said:
[] Shadow

I still really want to use burning shadows, but this isn't the plan we advocated for yesterday. Yesterday's plan also involved an incendiary bombardment, for instance. Now it's just 'if you wait a day and lose out on moral, I can cast a spell for a few minutes that'll be real neat' and one can look at the votes and see that nobody thinks that's worth anything.

I don't have a solution to that, but it does make me sad.
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Yea it makes me kind of sad as well. The burning shadows plan would have been awesome in multiple senses of the word.
 
BoneyM said:
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.
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Yes that was what I intended thanks. Greenskins have plenty of time to react and there's zero subtlety. But once it's all in place reinforcements aren't getting through and only then do we strike for the Citadel.

Basically I was hoping for something similar to the plan I originally came up with during the last voting phase. Which basically consisted of scouting out and killing everything and then sending in forces to the Citadel when the way was clear and easy. It was super unpopular but damn it I'm going to vote for it anyway (although I'll probably also approval vote for something that's actually popular).

Well why not? My token write-in vote.
[X] Subtlety is for Elves


Edit:
[X] Shadow
 
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BoneyM said:
Burning Shadows is one way to prevent reinforcements from reaching the Citadel, infiltrating and scattering caltrops is another, indirect fire onto the avenue from stone throwers is a third. The problem with using all three is that all three have parts that risk alerting the enemy, and using three different approaches triples the potential failure points but doesn't triple the chance of success. Whatever approach is chosen, it has to be in place before the greenskins realize that a battle is imminent.
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The idea of the stone throwers in the original shadow plan was that the artillery would fire at dawn just as Burning Shadows was cast so shouldn't have an extra chance to alert them. It was intended to drive the orcs out of their homes into the Burning Shadow and might also help suppress any shamans that we're around. If Burning Shadows somehow failed the bombardment would also serve as a backup just in case.

I may be misunderstanding something though. I thought the catapults could fire into the Caldera from where they were. How would them being ready to fire at dawn top off the orcs? Am I missing something about the situation? I easily could be.

The caltrops were there not to fully block the path, but as a speed bump in case some orcs leaked through or came up the path as Mathilde was casting. It was to buy a few moments of extra time for her to respond. I expected her to throw out a dozen or so the caltrops at the top of the path, and then immediately get to work, as she has limited carrying capacity anyway.

The other problem with the current shadow plan is it seems it just flat out fails if there are any living shaman to dispel it, and there are no mitigations.
 
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How alert are the orcs by the way? As a species built for war they should have a gut feeling that an attack is imminent judging by the previous day's battle. Also is the new orc commander killed during their charge?
 
Andres110 said:
If blowing up the Citadel entrance doesn't work, standing in front of it to prevent reinforcements getting in does legitimately sound reasonable. These are goblins after all, and goblins who've just suffered a ruddy awful fight the day before, so their morale would be poor. What's more, their only recourse would be to charge straight at us, which would put them in Gork's sphere of influence rather than the angry and motivated Mork's. Might just cause a mass rout and scare them all away.
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These are orcs. The relevant ones are anyway.

butchock said:
How alert are the orcs by the way? As a species built for war they should have a gut feeling that an attack is imminent judging by the previous day's battle. Also is the new orc commander killed during their charge?
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If they're black orcs, they'll be alert and relatively professional.
 
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Alratan said:
The idea of the stone throwers in the original shadow plan was that the artillery would fire at dawn just as Burning Shadows was cast so shouldn't have an extra chance to alert them. It was intended to drive the orcs out of their homes into the Burning Shadow and might also help suppress any shamans that we're around. If Burning Shadows somehow failed the bombardment would also serve as a backup just in case.

I may be misunderstanding something though. I thought the catapults could fire into the Caldera from where they were. How would them being ready to fire at dawn top off the orcs? Am I missing something about the situation? I easily could be.

The caltrops were there not to fully block the path, but as a speed bump in case some orcs leaked through or came up the path as Mathilde was casting. It was to buy a few moments of extra time for her to respond. I expected her to throw out a dozen or so the caltrops at the top of the path, and then immediately get to work, as she has limited carrying capacity anyway.
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Most of the siege weapons are currently at the East Gate, which is some distance from the Citadel. Moving them into position at night is possible, as was demonstrated previously, but there's a fair bit of time between when dawn starts brightening things up and when the sun becomes visible over the mountains.

One advantage of the Shadow plan on its own is that Mathilde can cast it on the Citadel's shadow without having to go through it and into the caldera, which is fairly trivial so there's basically no failure point before the orcs are alerted by the assault. Going through it and casting it from inside the shadow is possible, and would let her do other things to obstruct reinforcements like scattering caltrops, at the expense of having to make that trip, the dangers of which have been fairly well discussed because it's required for the Explosives plan.
 
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BoneyM said:
One advantage of the Shadow plan on its own is that Mathilde can cast it on the Citadel's shadow without having to go through it and into the caldera. Going through it and casting it from inside the shadow is possible, and would let her do other things to obstruct reinforcements like scattering caltrops, at the expense of having to make that trip, the dangers of which have been fairly well discussed because it's required for the Explosives plan.
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So you don't need to touch the shadow. If Mathilde casts the spell by touching the Citadel on the west side, is it possible for her to be counter-spelled by someone without line of sight to her or the spell? I was working on the basis that Mathilde has to sneak thought the Citadel for Shadows to work.

That doesn't stop them just instantly dispelling it though, so the presence shamans is still pretty much instant lose in this scenario, as there's nothing in place to stop them dispelling every time Mathilde casts it.

I also wouldn't have thought that Mathilde alone would have in she same order of magnitude of trouble sneaking through the Citadel alone as she would carrying a giant near weight/inertia-less bag with a dwarf and load of explosives inside, but perhaps that's just me.

Also, note that people in support of the Explosives plan don't seem to really accept that the discussed issues with sneaking though are meaningful.

The explosives plan also needs Mathilde to sneak through both ways, where with shadow sneaking, she'd just need to sneak in one direction.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Sep 26, 2019 at 9:11 AM, finished with 188 posts and 80 votes.
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Alratan said:
So you don't need to touch the shadow. If Mathilde casts the spell by touching the Citadel on the west side, is it possible for her to be counter-spelled by someone without line of sight to her or the spell?

That doesn't stop them just instantly dispelling it though, so the presence shamans is still pretty much instant lose in this scenario.
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Mathilde fancies her chances in the game of spell-counterspell against your standard issue shaman, and even if it's dispelled it can be recast. Also a bullet is a heck of a trump card during a casting duel, as Mathilde demonstrated during her Magister examination. It's not guaranteed - none of the plans are - but nor is it doomed.

Alratan said:
I also wouldn't have thought that Mathilde alone would have in she same order of magnitude of trouble sneaking through the Citadel alone as she would carrying a giant near weight/inertia-less bag with a dwarf and load of explosives inside, but perhaps that's just me.
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It would depend too much on circumstance to make much of a plan ahead of time, but Mathilde has a fairly substantial suite of abilities that should be able to block or douse or bypass light sources.
 
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