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I said Regular Dryads are about as strong as regular humans. Branchwraiths are Heroes.
I just wanted to provide context to the melee strength of the enemies we are going to engage. Your post was answering a question on how strong they are, but didn't comment on the Branchwraiths themselves, except labeling them spellcasting Dryads, which might give the impression that a 3v1 against them would be easier and faster than it actually is. I edited my post to make that clearer, sorry for the confusion.
 
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The battle is happening now. Looking at my two preferred options; leader or trio one main thing stands out to me.

Mathilde can attack the group spellcasters now, and then withdraw invisibility or react after, or she can spend time looking for a hidden ulgu user. I say we should take out the spellcasters we can see and have faith in our belt if the leader throws a spell at us, provided we are quick against the three casters.

[X] Spellcasters
 
[X] Spellcasters

Look, all of our allies here are either already engaged or can't see the significance of this trio due to lacking Magesight.
 
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As a polity? Probably not. I do think they have some decent individuals though. Naieth the Prophetess seems quite reasonable. She argued with Orion so that he would save Karl Franz' life, which was an incredibly gutsy move because he seemed to briefly contemplate killing her for her temerity, but she succeeded and Franz was saved. People like that might be helpful, but I don't know if we can really seek them out.
One of the twilight sisters tries to be reasonable, friendly, and diplomatic with humans, dwarfs and other elf's.

She is bad at it. ( Being tied to the hip with her much more hostile sister, only being one of the reasons) but she does try.

But she is bad at it.
 
The only assurance I can give Bretonnia fans for how done dirty the Fay Enchantress was during the End Times is that Volkmar suffered just as much from the bad writing.
Volkmar is used to suffering.

In the Storm of Chaos, he died fighting Archaon, then Be'lakor found his body and brought him back to life to nail him to his banner.
 
She's dedicated to a being believed to be insane and/or corrupted by Chaos, she is extremely fantasy-racist against Elves, and she obsessively chants a mantra of the name of every forest spirit that she believes died due to Elves. The root of the tension between Dryads and Elves is that the Dryads used to be the dominant force in Athel Loren and the favourites of the Elders, but now the more flexible and reliable Elves have that status.
If she had a point, then it was twisted in later incarnations of her story to the point where she's literally just evil now. She used to be an angel in 4th Edition, then turned evil in 6th Edition, then 8th Edition comes up with them literally saying that "she was always evil". I have hope that Boney may have a better interpretation of her, but canon doesn't really do much to make her assertions seem reasonable.
So going on "racist" being the operative word for evil here, she really is just insane? An example would be a tree end tripping into a lake and drowning and her blaming the elven immigrants of taking inland real estate?

She's just an evil character with stats played straight in the rpg/video game?

She really has no valid point? I'm guessing she was never a POV character, there's no storyline with her as a major character then. No alien magic corrupting Coeddil's mind alluded to, not someone extremely empathetic to her own race and just blames the elves in her overwhelming grief?

Also kinda weird since I know some of 40k and this and I know Asuryan was the same god from there. But the dwarfs were extinct and written out (in 40k) but here they're on par with elves.
 
Haven't had time to catch up because in on my lunch break, but here are my thoughts:

I'm concerned about the treeman, but at the same time the person best suited to countering that is right in front of it. That said, taking out the treeman frees Ljiljana to do damage elsewhere, which is pretty invaluable—but it could force Mathilde out of the fight in her place.

On the opposite end of the scale, I'm not too worried about the spell casters. Mathilde thinks the scouts can easily kill them, there's an Ice Witch nearby, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the first thing Johann will target when he gets here with the reinforcements. He's a smart lad with solid windsight and the ability to tear enemy casters to pieces. I don't think they are going to be a problem for long.

I feel the same way about Boris—his father is going to leap at the chance to slay a beast of Chaos, so he just needs to survive long enough for reinforcements. Also I don't want to interrupt his bonding time with his future wife.

Now for Drycha—i don't know what she's doing, and I don't want to see her finish it either. By the sounds of it she's trying to exert control over the spirit of the forest, which is in return fighting back so hard Mathilde's Avatar trait is picking it up.

Honestly, this is the best time to take her out—she's in the middle of casting a spell against another target, she's distracted, she's in a battle of wills with an entire forest, and Mathilde can see where she's hiding. If we want to kill Drycha, it is now or never—this is the best opportunity we will have. Also, whilst we don't know what effect taking her out will have on the army, but I doubt it will do them any favours.

[X] Leader
 
Volkmar is used to suffering.

In the Storm of Chaos, he died fighting Archaon, then Be'lakor found his body and brought him back to life to nail him to his banner.
At least in Storm of Chaos Volkmar broke out of his bindings and got back his position as Grand Theogonist in a "The King Returns" moment, even if he was traumatised by it. End Times got him DIOed. Literally used as a vessel for Nagash's reincarnation.
 
So going on "racist" being the operative word for evil here, she really is just insane? An example would be a tree end tripping into a lake and drowning and her blaming the elven immigrants of taking inland real estate?

She's just an evil character with stats played straight in the rpg/video game?

She really has no valid point? I'm guessing she was never a POV character, there's no storyline with her as a major character then. No alien magic corrupting Coeddil's mind alluded to, not someone extremely empathetic to her own race and just blames the elves in her overwhelming grief?

Also kinda weird since I know some of 40k and this and I know Asuryan was the same god from there. But the dwarfs were extinct and written out (in 40k) but here they're on par with elves.

For our purposes it does not matter, we are not trying to argue philosophy with her, she is here, she is trying to kill our allies, we have to either drive her off or kill her, it is that simple.
 
So going on "racist" being the operative word for evil here, she really is just insane? An example would be a tree end tripping into a lake and drowning and her blaming the elven immigrants of taking inland real estate?

She's just an evil character with stats played straight in the rpg/video game?

She really has no valid point? I'm guessing she was never a POV character, there's no storyline with her as a major character then. No alien magic corrupting Coeddil's mind alluded to, not someone extremely empathetic to her own race and just blames the elves in her overwhelming grief?

Also kinda weird since I know some of 40k and this and I know Asuryan was the same god from there. But the dwarfs were extinct and written out (in 40k) but here they're on par with elves.
If there exists any story from her POV, then I don't know it. She was never really given the time of day. It's probably why she's so one dimensional. Another reason being that GW probably either disdain enviromental activists and are presenting her as a caricature of one, or they just made a character and didn't realise the implications of making her like that.
 
If there exists any story from her POV, then I don't know it. She was never really given the time of day. It's probably why she's so one dimensional. Another reason being that GW probably either disdain enviromental activists and are presenting her as a caricature of one, or they just made a character and didn't realise the implications of making her like that.

I am not sure we we can lay Drycha's characterization at the feet of GW having an agenda, the Asrai in general were made worse and worse in later edition in a way that feels biased as hell, but Drycha was always shown as having been Fallen, she is the worst of their policy and the representative of their darker impulses, nature wounded yes, but also lashing out in bloody rage and endless spite. Those are the kinds of themes you find all over the sort of fantasy that inspired the setting, including the Lord of the Rings (the Old Forest and the 'black hearted hurons' of Fangorn).
 
So going on "racist" being the operative word for evil here, she really is just insane? An example would be a tree end tripping into a lake and drowning and her blaming the elven immigrants of taking inland real estate?

She's just an evil character with stats played straight in the rpg/video game?

She really has no valid point? I'm guessing she was never a POV character, there's no storyline with her as a major character then. No alien magic corrupting Coeddil's mind alluded to, not someone extremely empathetic to her own race and just blames the elves in her overwhelming grief?

Also kinda weird since I know some of 40k and this and I know Asuryan was the same god from there. But the dwarfs were extinct and written out (in 40k) but here they're on par with elves.

Canon doesn't give any solid answers about what her underlying motivation is. Could be hatred, grief, loyalty, irredentism, insanity, Chaos corruption, or just because she's a designated villain. So an evaluation of how valid her beliefs might be can't really be made from canon materials.
 
I think the big reason to go after the enemy leader rather than anything else is the risk of a counter-ambush. They can probably also teleport and may have a one hit kill weapon (if they cast Mindrazor), so if we jump out and stat doing damage they can do exactly the same right back to us, or to one of the other friendly heroes on the field when they're engaged and distracted by the manticore or the treeman.

However, if we're pressuring them, or simply being a threat in being that might keep them in hiding or busy dodging or engaging us
 
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