Sigil and Words
I don't know enough about Warhammer Fantasy to have a strong opinion.
Plan
I placed my plan near the front of my post for easy skimming. Details and thought process come after.
[x]Plan: Break the Siege
-[x] Send them to scout out and secure our path
-[x] Yes all of them should help win the battle. (150 Longbeards take the place of 150 warriors)
-[x] March as soon as ready
-[x] Teach the Umgi lords how to fight beastmen on the field
-[x] The Old Mine Tunnel
Rangers
1. Secure our path
Probably our best option; the immediate goal, as I understood it, was to relieve King Stark, who is currently sheltering at Ironrath against the beastmen.
2. Help secure Ironrath
Ironrath is where King Stark is holing up against the beastmen (as of our most recent report on the subject).
> This task sounds like a very heavy fight, which rangers aren't really equipped or set up for.
> Relieving a siege at Ironrath was what I thought the
main army was being gathered to do.
> Probably not the best use of this resource.
3. Make the Beastment bleed
Clearly not the best use of this resource.
> Iirc, we don't have a grudge against the beastmen at the moment, and even if we did, relieving a siege they're running sounds like a much more worthy payoff for it than killing some random patrols.
"Secure our path," is where rangers will be most beneficial.
Longbeards
We managed a painful win against the beastmen earlier, and should be able to incorporate lessons learned if they come again (assuming we can get that broken gate fixed in a hurry). Also, we have a large part of the clan's throng here now.
> We managed a win against the beastmen last time (albeit a rather costly one), and our best information seems to indicate that we should do significantly better if they come at this fortification again.
> From what I understood of our reports, the main beastmen force was near Ironrath as best our informants can tell.
> I believe that the longbeards would be best deployed near Ironrath.
Throng
1. Practice alongside the human soldiers
If we have significant experience against this particular enemy (that was the impression I got), and they don't, I think the best use of the dawi would be trying to teach (share that knowledge), which this one doesn't seem to be doing.
2. Teach the humans techniques to fight beastmen
If we expect to fight beastment soon, this sounds like a good use of our time.
3. Throng and humans fight alongside:
Probably not optimal: some differences in equipment, some differences in the tactics we use, difference in
height.
> The clasic pattern is heavy infantry front and center, with lighter infantry and cavalry guarding the flanks and ranged troops (archers, crossbowmen, slingers, etc.) protected by the front ranks.
> From what I could tell, dawi warriors and longbeards seem to be "heavier" than the local humans have managed to produce on a comparable scale (dawi plate vs. Westeros using more chain). Our and their
ranged troops might be able to merge, but I don't think the respective melee troops will merge well.
4. Teach the lords
Also definitely something worth doing: the lords are the leaders.
> Westeros, or at least this section of it, seems to have a cavalry centric military doctrine, based on the troop figures from the previous battle.
5. Rest
I might be overestimating people's endurance, but I think the combat bonus from "teach the umgi" (or possibly "teach the lords") will be higher than the bonus from this option.
Looks like either "teach the umgi" or "teach the lords" would be best, from what I can tell.
[] Teach the umgi techniques to fight beastmen
[] (snipped)
[] Teach the Umgi lord's how to fight beastmen on the field
Can you clarify what the difference is between these two? And why we can't combine them?
One will actually teach the army to fight and the other will actually let the lord's make the correct decisions in battle. So the choice is between having better soldiers better commanders.
I guess I'm going with good commanders, then. Having both would be nice, obviously, but I think good commanders can compensate for poor soldiers better than vice versa.
Time
1. March soon:
Well, the dawi clan and throng seems to already be gathered here if I understood the chapter correctly.
> Taking the time to gather the human banners means more time for the beastmen to gather their own strength, and more time for something to go their way at Ironrath.
2. Gather strength:
Gather from where exactly? Deepwood Motte (where we currently are) didn't have many other settlements nearby on either map, and from what I could tell of the
second map, Ironrath (the city we're marching to aid) is the closest city to where we currently are.
> Meanwhile, the locals' performance in the battle we just had was . . . kind of disappointing. If this is representative of general Westeros performance against beastmen, I think I'd rather not bother.
From what I can tell, the risk of delay outweighs the benefits.
Path
1. Mountains
> Described as a longer route. That means slower, and this and mountainous terrain will each be harder on the logistics.
> Mountain passes tend to have rock walls on both sides. That means elevated positions for the enemy to pelt us with projectiles (and they will have shelter from our own ranged weapons), and maybe even trigger snow- or rockslides.
> This one sounded like a moderate to low chance of getting intercepted, but
if we do the resulting battle is likely to go very badly for us.
2. Forest:
> Presumably the most direct route, and therefore fastest. We are relieving a siege.
> More open terrain (relatively speaking) means a higher chance of being intercepted. On the other hand, it also means our allies' combat performance against interception forces will be better.
> In short, this one seems to be the best if nothing goes wrong, but presents the highest chance of something going wrong. On the other hand, it doesn't present the disaster potential that the mountains and mine tunnel do.
> I don't think the high reward is high
enough.
3. Mine tunnel:
> Seems to be the lowest chance of something going wrong en route. On the other hand, if we do get intercepted our human allies will be pretty useless in the dark and the confined space.
> I'm not particularly familiar with dawi in particular, but based on the stereotypical dwarves I've seen elsewhere, tunnel fighting is one of their specialties. If we aren't facing skaven (and as far as I can tell those haven't been mentioned in this quest so far), our rangers should have little difficulty ensuring that this route is secure.
> Risk of the far end being held by the enemy and turned into a choke point. Our rangers should be able to at least mitigate this.
All three routes present problems, obviously, but I think that our own tools allow us to work around or mitigate the problems of the mine tunnel most reliably.