Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
...Something's been bugging me about the current reasoning, and this just crystallized it:
Belegar seems to believe the likelihood of the second line driving off the Waagh is 0%. If that's the case, it's not a matter of whether we hold or lose the Karags, but a matter of how many Dwarves and Orcs die before we lose the Karags, and whether that trade is better or worse than inflicting moderate casualties and then fighting on the final lines while we're still at full strength.
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Note that our oldest and bestest friend has a significant investment in the Empire and it's ruling family at the moment. That very much needs keeping an occasional eye on. I would suspect figuring out what the fuck is up with the Sigmar/Ulric cult tussling, or mitigating some of it's effects like the weakening of the Empires unified military response in the face of threats like Castle Drachenfels, may well become a plot point sooner rather than later.
I mean, it's a lingering plot hook from when we talked to the Winter Wolves Grand Master:
This shit has been going on since 2475, and was initially triggered by territorial disputes, and has esclated to villages going missing between Middenland and Nordland.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest Fantasy - Users' Choice!
As a Journeywoman, Grey Wizard Mathilde Weber is dropped into the deep end of intrigue and double-dealing after a surprise assignment to the necromancer-afflicted province of Stirland. Follow her trials, travails, feats and discoveries as she makes her way in the world and does her best to...
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I don't believe there is any such thing as overdoing your duty. Succeeding beyond expectations, sure.
Overdoing your duty? Our master is still having running duels with beastmen sorcerers in the forest at his age and seniority, and both Patriarch Algard and Supreme Patriarch Dragomir are still doing field missions.
Thinking that way sounds very much like how things like Teufelheim become a significant threat that requires major campaigns to put down. Or Sylvania to build up enough to become a threat. We aren't a Necrarch or a research mage; we don't do research for its own sake, but because it aids our longerterm mission of serving the Empire and it's allies against the forces of Destro.
I mean, a senior wizard(and Matty certainly qualifies) will always have a backlog of things they would like to get to.
But you don't get to ignore the world and huddle up in your laboratory.
Not unless you want to come out to everything on fire.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Mate, it's 2:30 in the morning for me, you know what I mean.
- Location
- Earth
This. Let's do the second coming of "Being fired from being spymaster." You know, that thing where we could actually study and advance ourselves. Biggest thing I can see is building another Tower on the Other side, probably on Yar. It won't be as good as the Nar tower, the Eye of Gazul, but even just a tower that stops them every dawn with regular Burning Shadows would be a boon. It would mean that for most of the Morning, and before noon the Western side of the West Gate is death.
Other then that, there's a lot of backlog. Also, it's high time Mat started looking for a partner if she's to have a family.
After securing one of the safest places in the world, a dwarf hold with double towers protecting it, we can lay down some roots. What better time than now? Someone needs to populate all those peaks, and man those towers after Mat leaves/ages out.
I want Belegar and Kragg to be uncles to Mat's rambunctious kids and watch them grow up into Wizards of Karag Eight Peaks themseves.
If Mat doesn't somehow become immortal, she still has a mortal lifespan. They have dwarven ones.
Let's make sure "There must always be a Weber in Eight Peaks. Skaven are coming."
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- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
One of my favorite parts of the quest was right after we got fired. The freedom of a private citizen. It was tainted by the emotions of being fired but the joy of just being able to do what we wanted for a couple of turns instead of rushing to put out a fire was a great feeling. I would love to set down some roots here in K8P and really explore all of our new found abilities and loot.
- Location
- Canada
Not quite how I read it, the second line is explicitly not the last line of defense yes, but if we choose to hold them then the goal is exactly that, to hold them and keep them out of the Karags if at all possible, however even if we choose to try to hold them Belegar wouldn't and indeed shouldn't continue make a stand there if the defenses are overwhelmed and the defenders fall. If, and not when, that happens we pull back to the final line to make our last stand.
It's entirely possible that between two Anvils of Doom, the Eye of Gazul, the greatest concentration of artillery this side of the world and plentiful archers, that we will break the momentum of the Greenskin charge and prevent them from recovering, killing them all right there in the caldera like shooting fish in a barrel.
Should the Karags be breached as the orcs try to fight their way out of the kill zone I believe its a better idea to meet them there behind prepared defenses, keeping them inside the caldera for as long as possible where the Eye and all the other implements of mass death can continue to obliterate their back lines as they attempt to push into a mountain, if all goes well the defenders should be able to deal with desperate and disorganized dregs rather than a properly organized assault. The alternative of withdrawing with fighting retreats and traps may sound tempting, but the attempt to preserve Dwarven lives then will likely end up costing those very lives at the final line of defense as the orcs will have free reign to run into and seek shelter from bombardment inside one of the mountains, and their minor losses from traps and fighting retreats will not stop them particularly with so many expendable snotlings to soak those casualties.
Two more points worth noting:
-A falconet from the sixteenth century has a max range of roughly 1500m.
The caldera is only 2 km across.
There is a good chance that at maximum range, our cannons can reach the entrance to the Caldera from the Citadel using roundshot.
And if we're massing upwards of 30 guns in one defensive battery, that is going to get bloody fast.
BEFORE they get close and we switch to canister.
Best we make sure that they don't get murdered by enemy casters.
They will likely be more important to this battle than it first appears.
-At the Battle of Flodden Field in the 16th century, the Scots were only managing a shot per minute from their cannon.
The English, with lighter artillery, were managing 2 or 3 times their firing rate.
That's something to keep in mind about artillery performance.
-A falconet from the sixteenth century has a max range of roughly 1500m.
Our cannon are larger.
The caldera is only 2 km across.
There is a good chance that at maximum range, our cannons can reach the entrance to the Caldera from the Citadel using roundshot.
And if we're massing upwards of 30 guns in one defensive battery, that is going to get bloody fast.
BEFORE they get close and we switch to canister.
Best we make sure that they don't get murdered by enemy casters.
They will likely be more important to this battle than it first appears.
-At the Battle of Flodden Field in the 16th century, the Scots were only managing a shot per minute from their cannon.
The English, with lighter artillery, were managing 2 or 3 times their firing rate.
In Niccolò Machiavelli's The Art of War, the Italian Renaissance writer observed that "small pieces of cannon… do more damage than heavy artillery. The best remedy against the latter is making a resolute attack upon it as soon as possible…"[12][13] As was the case at Flodden in 1513, the Scottish siege artillery could only fire one round a minute, while the English field guns could fire twice or even thrice as many.[14] Guns also had to be moved back into position after recoil, and the speed of this would reflect the gunners' experience.[14]
en.wikipedia.org
Cannon operation - Wikipedia
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The Hold plan seems to have no defense in depth. If a Karag is breached, that's it - there's nothing else slowing the Orcs as they pour inside. And while I agree with you on the potential for snotlings neutralizing traps (although I think "minor losses" is seriously understating the effectiveness of the Withdraw strategy), any Orc hiding from bombardment inside a mountain is an Orc that's not attacking the final lines in the East Valley, and thus good for us.
- Location
- Finland
It would be nice to take a half a dozen to dozen standard turns to just do research, explore, get to know people (especially our new best friend the Empress).
Maybe try to develop fog of war based spells.
We also need to make sure to be the coolest (and spookiest) auntie for the new prince, sure he might not remember much of what is going on right now, but never too early to get started to make ourselves a standard sight in the imperial palace.
Maybe try to develop fog of war based spells.
We also need to make sure to be the coolest (and spookiest) auntie for the new prince, sure he might not remember much of what is going on right now, but never too early to get started to make ourselves a standard sight in the imperial palace.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
Who is our best friend, exactly?
Anton? Belegar? Roswita?
I don't really think we have one.
They mean Ranald our patron deity and most annoying friend at least that is what I would think what with him being responsible for the new heir
The defense in depth of the Hold plan is the Eye of Gazul.
And possibly Grombrindal OOC.
Not when you're still going to spend dawi and human lives to dig them out later before they breed.
It's the difference between paying $20,000 for a car up front, or paying off a car loan in monthly installments of $500 over 5 years. The first option might have more sticker shock, but it's STILL much cheaper than the instalment plan that ends up charging you $30,000 over 60 months.
And note that humans are generally at a disadvantage in tunnel fights where they can't mass their force multipliers, while Orks are equally at home underground or on the surface.
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Ranald.
By word of Mathilde herself.
That's firepower, not depth. Defense in depth means you have the ability to fall back while continuing to defend, which is the opposite of the Hold plan.
That is the tradeoff - but again, we're probably going to have to do that anyway, with Hold meaning we have less dwarves to dig out less orcs.
Depth is not only measured in space to fallback into, it's also measured in fallback options.
The Hold option has the fallback option of activating the Eye of Gazul on any Ork breakthroughs or penetrations. The Orks are not vulnerable to the Eye underground.
Entrenched Ork infestations can be hell to root out.
And Dawi in particular are vulnerable to being nickel and dimed to death. The more so when their human allies aren't particularly good at underground fighting, and Halflings are even worse.
Better to hold them here and bring every possible force multiplier to bear than to risk tunnel fights in freshly captured Karaks.
- Location
- Singapore
The value of Defense In Depth lies in being able to overextend the enemy while shortening your own line of battle, reducing the density of their forces (and thus their breakthrough capability/local and strategic reserves) and exhausting their forces both locally and strategically, permitting the use of one's own reserves to sweep in and shatter the enemy and recover lost territory in the counterattack for disproportionate losses inflicted upon the enemy. Assuming you can just reclaim the Karags afterward the normal way without suffering the standard rate of losses requires a strategic reserve of troops that won't otherwise be occupied by the battle and be exhausted afterwards. A reserve that Karak Eight Peaks does not have.
Defense In Depth is valuable as a defensive doctrine to trade territory for strategic width (and lives, if enough traps can be set during the withdrawal), and valuable as an offensive doctrine IF you have a striking arm ready to capitalise on the opportunity of exhausted enemy troops who haven't properly fortified their positions yet. Which is further compounded by the fact that Karag fighting is tunnel fighting; these territories are already unbelievably hard to fight in and claim, even with dwarves having exceptional tunnel senses and skill in tunnel warfare.
And there's no point in letting them have the tunnels. Our strength is in artillery, which isn't easily used in tunnels, and the grapeshot cannons are defensive in nature, not something you can use to project power. No Irondrakes are available to push breakthroughs in the underground and no Ironbreakers, who would be the next best thing. Dwarf Warriors would be better suited defensively. Even the throng of Karak Azul, who have all multiclassed into Rangers, are better served holding the line; possibly as the Quick Reaction Force in response to any breaches.
Defense In Depth is not always a good idea. Sometimes you just trade one problem for another of equal headache.
EDIT: Also note that the historical value of Defense In Depth, the eastern front of World War 2, required Russia to have shitloads more manpower and material than Germany and also have massive stretches of territory with no resources and loads of bitterly cold winter to fuck up the Germans enough for the counterattack at Kursk that spelled the end of the German war machine at the eastern front. Guerilla Warfare, the next closest thing, isn't something that wins wars. Its most successful execution against a superior force, the Vietnam War, was only won because America gave up due to a loss of political will to fight.
Defense In Depth is valuable as a defensive doctrine to trade territory for strategic width (and lives, if enough traps can be set during the withdrawal), and valuable as an offensive doctrine IF you have a striking arm ready to capitalise on the opportunity of exhausted enemy troops who haven't properly fortified their positions yet. Which is further compounded by the fact that Karag fighting is tunnel fighting; these territories are already unbelievably hard to fight in and claim, even with dwarves having exceptional tunnel senses and skill in tunnel warfare.
And there's no point in letting them have the tunnels. Our strength is in artillery, which isn't easily used in tunnels, and the grapeshot cannons are defensive in nature, not something you can use to project power. No Irondrakes are available to push breakthroughs in the underground and no Ironbreakers, who would be the next best thing. Dwarf Warriors would be better suited defensively. Even the throng of Karak Azul, who have all multiclassed into Rangers, are better served holding the line; possibly as the Quick Reaction Force in response to any breaches.
Defense In Depth is not always a good idea. Sometimes you just trade one problem for another of equal headache.
EDIT: Also note that the historical value of Defense In Depth, the eastern front of World War 2, required Russia to have shitloads more manpower and material than Germany and also have massive stretches of territory with no resources and loads of bitterly cold winter to fuck up the Germans enough for the counterattack at Kursk that spelled the end of the German war machine at the eastern front. Guerilla Warfare, the next closest thing, isn't something that wins wars. Its most successful execution against a superior force, the Vietnam War, was only won because America gave up due to a loss of political will to fight.
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No it does not. The Eye of Gazul can't reach the entrances to Karagril and Karag Mhonar, and once the Orcs break through they will be underground and immune to the Anvils, artillery and gyrocopters as well as the Eye. This happens in both second line plans, the difference is how many Dwarves and Orcs die first.
As I just said, both plans risk tunnel fights in freshly captured Karags. The Hold plan just means the forces on both sides will be smaller when those tunnel fights happen, due to much of both sides dying at the Karag entrances.
This, again, falls into the assumption that the Hold plan means we won't lose the Karags, when the update suggests otherwise. We will very likely lose the Karags, it's just a matter of how much we pummel the Orcs first.
The choice is this: when we fall back to the final lines, meaning that we don't have as good chokepoints but the Eye of Gazul is back in play, do we want to have inflicted heavy losses while taking moderate losses (Hold plan) or inflicted light losses while taking no losses (Withdraw plan)?
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- Location
- Finland
Defense in depth might cost more lives in the long run, but that only matters if we can afford the higher losses in the here and now.
If we have to lodge the orcs out from one of the mountains again, that's fine, but if the line breaks and we are not prepared for it, it can harm us lot more than allowing orcs to have one of the peaks for now as we make them bleed for every step.
And even if we keep withdrawing at the secod line, the orcs still need to cross the artillery kill zone, allowing us to thin out numbers even as they keep pouring in from the entrances we have left open.
If we have to lodge the orcs out from one of the mountains again, that's fine, but if the line breaks and we are not prepared for it, it can harm us lot more than allowing orcs to have one of the peaks for now as we make them bleed for every step.
And even if we keep withdrawing at the secod line, the orcs still need to cross the artillery kill zone, allowing us to thin out numbers even as they keep pouring in from the entrances we have left open.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
The whole plan is to prevent the orcs from getting inside the Karags. We think that with the Eye of Gazul, massed artillery, and collapsed entrances the orcs strength will be so drained that our defenses at Karag Mhonar and Karagril will be able to hold the line. Lets look at the options the orcs have when the eye fires and they start to scatter.
There will be two places that will be safe for the orcs to go to. Karag Mhonar and Karagril. If the warboss survives the firing than I give good odds to all of the orcs going one way or another. This is fine. There can be only X orcs trying to reopen the entrance. I am pretty confident that X will be less than the total number of orcs remaining. This will leave them extremely exposed to our massed artillery.
Digging out an entrance will take time. Time that can be used to redeploy our armies to the Karag being attacked in this situation. This means our artillery hammering their rear and and the near totality of our forces defending a single passage. I expect the orcs to break quickly under such conditions and try to completely scatter over the caldera and lose all cohesion.
The orcs could also split into two different groups. Depending on how they split we could react in different ways. A 50/50 split is fairly bad for us but we could then split our forces 50 50 as well and try to hold. Our artillery would be split which would suck but there is little we can do in this case.
Another split possibility would be along the lines of a 1/3 2/3 split or a 1/4 3/4 split. This makes the situation more complicated and I am not completely sure how best to approach this. We could do focused artillery to completely break the weaker fraction before they get into our second line while we send our army to reinforce the Karag under greater pressure. Or just splitting our armies as much as possible.
Our strength lies in our artillery, especially the doom anvils. Withdrawing moves away from those advantages. Defense in depth helps shorten our supply lines while extending the enemy supply lines. Orcs however don't need supply lines. So a large part of why defense in depth is so good falls away. Given that I feel it is best to try and focus on two of our greatest advantages. Artillery and morale. Morale will be sky high defending the fully reclaimed Karag. This allows us to hold longer at the key choke points while reinforcements are on route. Since the under caldera is taken we can reinforce far far more easily and quickly than before. With our artillery the orcs will be under a constant barrage of fire. This will make shake the orcs a great deal even before the hit the super hyped up dwarfs waiting for them inside the mountain.
@BoneyM I know we can't use the great cannons from the death pass fire support but will we be able to move the mortars to the citadel before the orcs arrive?
- Location
- Singapore
Assuming the defenses will fall is a viable plan, perhaps even the plan that will minimise casualties for this battle, but you seem pretty certain that they'll fall. I believe that a strong defensive network that focuses on keeping the orcs out is better than a dozen lines that will keep them occupied for minimal loss in dwarf lives, because 1) I believe keeping them exposed (and more importantly bunched up) is valuable for the artillery, and 2) by the time reinforcements arrive these karags will be full of orcs again, or at the very least filled with rested and fortified orcs that will be harder to dislodge. And the morale boost of holding onto all eight peaks may be the clinching factor.
I do think both are valid. Yours is definitely the more cautious plan. But I believe that the cautious plan won't turn things around. Being able to show Thorgrim that Karak Eight Peaks, in its entirety, can stand against such a daunting Waaagh even with such paltry numbers will do wonders for reversing the decline of the Karaz Ankor due to its own depressive cycle.
A breakthrough is ruinous, yeah. But that's what Kazador and his lads are for. The minutiae of force deployment will be up to Belegar but he'll probably agree that ten thousand rangers in heavy armour (which is what the Throng of Karak Azul is in essence) are the ideal force for shoring up minor breaks in the line before they become major breakthroughs, and maybe even launching small counterattacks to relieve pressure elsewhere as the orcs look for a bigger fight.
My preference - and it is preference - is to hold the line. I think the morale boost of holding all eight peaks will save more lives than ceding territory for lives, because there are so many orcs that even if ten out of twelve lines kill ten thousand orcs as they fall, the remaining two lines will still have to face a hundred thousand more. The exhaustion that makes Defense In Depth a capable and terrifying doctrine cannot be inflicted here.