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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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I'll just say that, considering out logistics situation, if the Kurgan reneges on the deal and then keeps so far away that there's no raiding them, then we're... Borek'd.
 
DragonParadox said:
Indeed. To put things bluntly Borek's lack of preparation in terms of logistics is itself proof that he is unfit for command.
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I think you are ignoring foraging as a good source, as well as the deal we made. Most of the food requirements are raw meat, so best kept on the hoof rather than weighing down the wagons- and it means that hunting can, with luck, perhaps double the amount of food we have along the way. (IE, we arrive at Dum with the same amount we left with, prepared for a sprint home.)

Chronic said:
Though rereading the update, none of the expedition leaders seem to be too worried about the logistics situation. Maybe we are making a mountain out of a molehill here, the people on the ground ought to know better than us armchair generals.
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Probably they have a good sense of how much game is available for a crew of 200 hunting knights, especially since we are going sideways rather than straight into the wastes. We'll want to eat as much game as possible early on, to preserve the preserved foodstuffs, but it shouldn't be a huge problem.

Heck, with Deathfang to herd the herds toward the knights? Its gonna end up like Oregon Trail, where you shoot 12000 pounds of buffalo but can only carry 200.
 
On the subject of the supply situation, in the event that there are Dwarves surviving in the hold then we can expect that they will have their own food supply of some kind. So if we do manage to convince them to evacuate they will have food we can use to restock a bit and once we are out of the wastes we can forage again.

Also keep in mind that our Knightly Orders are dedicated to Taal (God of the wild) and Ulric (God of "Be ready for winter") so I expect both groups to be very skilled at keeping themselves fed on the march.
 
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Glau said:
I think you are ignoring foraging as a good source, as well as the deal we made. Most of the food requirements are raw meat, so best kept on the hoof rather than weighing down the wagons- and it means that hunting can, with luck, perhaps double the amount of food we have along the way. (IE, we arrive at Dum with the same amount we left with, prepared for a sprint home.)
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Foraging in the Dark Lands is dangerous and not particularly fruitful, doing the same in the Wastes, separated from the group and from each other in the vastness of the plains is dangerous to body and soul. I do not think we can afford to be glib about 'go out into the howling borderlands of hell and hunt lunch'.
 
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BoneyM said:
Gotrek shrugs. "Thorek's lads did some amazing work on the boilers, setting up runes to shunt heat out of one compartment into the boilers so we've got a freeze-room for meat and need much less coked peat to keep the boilers going at full steam, but we only broke even trading peat storage for meat storage, and then we needed powder and shot for the cannon. We went heavy on the former at the expense of the latter because if we've got powder but no shot we can still fire gravel or scrap metal or what-have-you. The mother-ship helped, but if we rely only on stores we'll be down to stonebread by halfway."

"You're telling me we've got enough food to get there, but nothing for the return trip?"
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Aw fuck, I knew it. I'm totally going to take this opportunity to say that I told you all.
BoneyM said:
You shake your head. "I'd strongly advise against that. The Knights of Taal's Fury are dedicated to Taal, and the Winter Wolves to Ulric. It would be like if you picked one out of Morgrim and Smednir to give superiority over the other." You leave unmentioned the political troubles, since you'd rather not air the Empire's dirty laundry in front of its allies unless you really have to. The Winter Wolves are no longer part of the Empire and the Knights of Taal's Fury very much are. There likely won't be trouble if they're simply fighting against a common enemy, but if one is given command over the other it will get political very quickly. But considering the grimaces on the faces of the three Dwarves, your simile has hit its mark.

"Point taken," Borek says. "Both it is, then. I take it you're familiar with those organizations?"

"Fairly familiar personally, and Masters Esbern and Seija are among the Knights of Taal's Fury, and Journeyman Hubert is King Belegar's Envoy to the Winter Wolves."

"Then I'd appreciate if you could find whoever is in command of them and bring them to this meeting."
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Sounds like we're kind of unofficial liaison slash interpreter for the Knights, which is a solid mix of authority.
BoneyM said:
Six Councillors and six steam-wagons leads to the natural conclusion that each should take residence in one. Borek has already claimed the Alriksson and Gotrek claims the Urmskaladrak for logistical reasons, and it's extremely straightforward to give Sir Ruprecht the Kriestov and yourself the Volans.
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The Wizards gets the Volans.



On the vote, I agree with @picklepikkl's evaluation that we should primarily be talking to the big scary people that we've taken responsibility for. Get the rest of our one-on-ones out of the way like a good manager, in other words.

That said, we might want to sit down with the leaders of the Knightly Orders and let them know that there might be some issues with high command and they'll want to be ready to back you up, so also supporting those.

[x] Magister Michel Solmann
[x] Asarnil the Dragonlord
[x] Deathfang
[x] Magister Egrimm van Horstmann

[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger
[X] Preceptor Joerg von Zavstra
 
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DragonParadox said:
Foraging in the Dark Lands is dangerous and not particularly fruitful, doing the same in the Wastes, separated from the group and from each other in the vastness of the plains is dangerous to body and soul. I do not think we can afford to be glib about 'go out into the howling borderlands of hell and hunt lunch'.
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From the information we gathered, the dangers of the Dark Lands (as opposed to the Chaos Wastes) are mostly of the "attack by Skaven/Chaos Dwarves/Kurgan/etc" sort... which is something that the forces we have available are pretty ready to handle, I believe. Given that the Knightly Order groups have hunting planned into their schedule, the "run out of food other than stonebread halfway through" forecast is a worst-case scenario. I'm not trying to be glib about it, but rather say it's something we need to be aware of, but not a definite problem.
 
DragonParadox said:
Foraging in the Dark Lands is dangerous and not particularly fruitful, doing the same in the Wastes, separated from the group and from each other in the vastness of the plains is dangerous to body and soul. I do not think we can afford to be glib about 'go out into the howling borderlands of hell and hunt lunch'.
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As far as not particularly fruitful, I'd say that's speculation on your part: grasslands without a lot of hunting pressure from humans do tend to build up large herds of herbivores, which would be supremely easy to hunt with a dragon as a sheep dog.

We do know that large populations of creatures who are, to put it lightly, not famous for their farming survive pretty well, so the productivity of the environment overall can't be that low.

And I think that corruption through food is an overstated concern for about 3/4 of the distance, so while it is a real concern as we head north, I think it will impact supplies less than you think.
 
Frankly, if a GUO attacks, we can probably say goodbye to every human that's on the expedition. We don't have a bit of magical healing.

Should clear up the food situation.
 
Lightwhispers said:
From the information we gathered, the dangers of the Dark Lands (as opposed to the Chaos Wastes) are mostly of the "attack by Skaven/Chaos Dwarves/Kurgan/etc" sort... which is something that the forces we have available are pretty ready to handle, I believe. Given that the Knightly Order groups have hunting planned into their schedule, the "run out of food other than stonebread halfway through" forecast is a worst-case scenario. I'm not trying to be glib about it, but rather say it's something we need to be aware of, but not a definite problem.
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Yeah, the provisions mentioned are very much a worst case scenario. If the Khurgan deal falls through, and hunting fails, and the Khurgan don't attack to be repulsed, and we fail to successfully attack the reneging Khurgan, then we have an issue. If even one link on that chain succeeds, we can manage.
 
NSMS said:
To a point, yes, and taking on more troops than they had initially was definitely the right way to go. The problem is that Borek took on too many by a significant amount, and didn't do a thing to stop Mathilde from continuing when she'd already recruited enough to stretch things thin. Supplies are not something you leave to chance or run the risk running out of unless you've no other choice, but that's exactly the situation Borek's allowed here. An army that goes without food for more than a short period will fall apart, full stop, no questions asked- the only thing more critical is water- and the expedition is only a few problems or delays away from that fate.
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You have to remember that all of this preparation was happening simultaneously. The designs of the steam wagons were being revised to leave less room for food storage at the same time that Mathilde was recruiting more troops, and with them realizing that they'd have to operate slower than expected due to long term axle wear only shortly before the expedition departed. Mathilde was also reporting back, "Oh hey the food situation might be basically solved if the horsemen keep their deal," and I guess Borek allowed himself to get optimistic. Belegar wouldn't have, but Belegar is a genius of logistics.

Real talk; this whole thing with the steam wagons is "spending gold instead of blood" along the classic Belegar philosophy. I mean, they're testing out radical new steam-powered land vehicle designs on a trip to the Chaos Wastes? It's insane! The proper way to do this thing was with a Throng of 10,000 dwarves. The trouble is, the dawi can't afford to lose 10,000 dwarves. So they spent a lot of money and labor-hours instead building these crazy steam tanks. Of course nobody has any idea how best to use them, or how supplies can be stretched, or how many cavalry they can support. They have ideas, but there was always going to be a thousand practical problems to work out between the drawing board and the battlefield. Normally these are the sort of things that the dawi would spend hundreds of years working out under controlled conditions before they considered the steam tanks safe for real usage, but Borek wasn't going to wait any longer so YOLO.
 
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Mopman43 said:
Frankly, if a GUO attacks, we can probably say goodbye to every human that's on the expedition. We don't have a bit of magical healing.

Should clear up the food situation.
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If any greater demon attacks, we're in serious trouble. The only reason I don't say absolutely fucked is because Deathfang is here.
notanautomaton said:
Yeah, the provisions mentioned are very much a worst case scenario. If the Khurgan deal falls through, and hunting fails, and the Khurgan don't attack to be repulsed, and we fail to successfully attack the reneging Khurgan, then we have an issue. If even one link on that chain succeeds, we can manage.
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It's unfortunately more likely than a worst case scenario. Delays, loses of provisions to damage, the Dolgan having less food than we hope, even something as simple as getting lost... we'd need to have things go wrong, yes, but we're not in a position where a single link in the chain is enough to prop us up, and in the chaos wastes things will go wrong. And that's just on the journey to Dum- the trip back could be far worse supply-wise, though I'll admit I'm giving Borek's logistical skills a pass there thanks to his other issues.
 
Mopman43 said:
Frankly, if a GUO attacks, we can probably say goodbye to every human that's on the expedition. We don't have a bit of magical healing.

Should clear up the food situation.
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Incorrect. The Light wizards have Ill-Bane, which cures poison and disease, and Mathilde has the Candle of Cleansing, enchanted with Boon of Hysh, and of course the Seed, as well.

Regarding attacking daemons, how well does a Greater Daemon deal with a volley of cannon? Because that's likely to be the first thing they face. (Or, of course, Deathfang.)
 
Briefvoice said:
You have to remember that all of this preparation was happening simultaneously. The designs of the steam wagons were being revised to leave less room for food storage at the same time that Mathilde was recruiting more troops, and with them realizing that they'd have to operate slower than expected due to long term axel wear only shortly before the expedition departed. Mathilde was also reporting back, "Oh hey the food situation might be basically solved if the horsemen keep their deal," and I guess Borek allowed himself to get optimistic. Belegar wouldn't have, but Belegar is a genius of logistics.
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Things were happening simultaneously, but also over the course of months, there was plenty of time to consider the little details like 'ok, so how much cargo space do we have, and of that how much will be the food?'
 
Before we get to enthusiastic bashing Borek, I'll remind people that Roswita got a similar reaction, especially once we learned about the excise man and selling tax rights to the EIC. Which, knowing more, was actually part of a clever and effective anti-vampire strategy. A bit risky, since it put the economic well being of Stirland in the hands of people who were displeased with her, but it worked out.

Do I think it is the same here? No, not really. Form what I've seen, I think Borek is suited to his position, and he's fucking up. Though I thought Rosi was fucking up too.
 
065tdsa said:
Things were happening simultaneously, but also over the course of months, there was plenty of time to consider the little details like 'ok, so how much cargo space do we have, and of that how much will be the food?'
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Yes, and there's not a simple answer to those little details. Tell a bunch of knights not to show up because you want to be more confident on food, and you're leaving behind troops who might be desperately required. All is risk. Making the last steam wagon into a mobile warehouse was Borek's compromise, which seems to have turned the supply situation from "guaranteed failure" to "a big risk".
 
[X] Thane Borek Forkbeard
[X] Preceptor Joerg von Zavstra
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger
[X] Asarnil the Dragonlord
 
Briefvoice said:
You have to remember that all of this preparation was happening simultaneously. The designs of the steam wagons were being revised to leave less room for food storage at the same time that Mathilde was recruiting more troops, and with them realizing that they'd have to operate slower than expected due to long term axle wear only shortly before the expedition departed. Mathilde was also reporting back, "Oh hey the food situation might be basically solved if the horsemen keep their deal," and I guess Borek allowed himself to get optimistic. Belegar wouldn't have, but Belegar is a genius of logistics.
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I'm pretty sure 'dwarf counts on chaos worshipers not to starve' isn't so much optimism as a pathological condition, given the dwarf mindset and views on Chaos and those who worship it
 
Lightwhispers said:
Incorrect. The Light wizards have Ill-Bane, which cures poison and disease, and Mathilde has the Candle of Cleansing, enchanted with Boon of Hysh, and of course the Seed, as well.

Regarding attacking daemons, how well does a Greater Daemon deal with a volley of cannon? Because that's likely to be the first thing they face. (Or, of course, Deathfang.)
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None of them like being hit by large amounts of cannon fire, but unfortunately Bloodthirsters and Lords of Change can fly (and LoC have all kinds of funky magic too), Great Unclean Ones are just ridiculously hard to kill, and Keepers of Secrets are super agile and can completely mess with the heads of anyone that see them. I'd only bet on cannons doing any real damage to a GUO, but even there it's dicey as to whether it'd stick.
BurnNote said:
Before we get to enthusiastic bashing Borek, I'll remind people that Roswita got a similar reaction, especially once we learned about the excise man and selling tax rights to the EIC. Which, knowing more, was actually part of a clever and effective anti-vampire strategy. A bit risky, since it put the economic well being of Stirland in the hands of people who were displeased with her, but it worked out.

Do I think it is the same here? No, not really. Form what I've seen, I think Borek is suited to his position, and he's fucking up. Though I thought Rosi was fucking up too.
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This is why I asked whether anybody had a good explanation that could answer this beyond 'he's wildly incompetent'. So far, the only one that's been at all convincing is that they left testing the wagons far too late and didn't realise they'd need to travel so slowly, and so basically halved their necessary provision estimate.
 
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