Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Voting is open
Reader mode
Prime 2.0 said:
She's in the forest of shadows and the shadows are on her side and against Drycha's. In character, I see nothing that says Mathilde is averse to hit and run - we just happened to wind up in a bunch of cage matches.

Also, we had an entire character arc and mega-trait that was about desperately searching for a way to get out of dodge, which led to getting smoke and mirrors. I'm pretty sure Mathilde understands the Joestar Secret Technique, here.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
She's never actually used Smoke+Mirrors to retreat from a fight she was losing. Instead, she keeps ending up in said cage matches. I'll be happily surprised to see her break that pattern, but so far, it seems like a very bad idea to send Mathilde into fights where we're not confident she won't come out on top.
 
Derpmind said:
She's never actually used Smoke+Mirrors to retreat from a fight she was losing. Instead, she keeps ending up in said cage matches. I'll be happily surprised to see her break that pattern, but so far, it seems like a very bad idea to send Mathilde into fights where we're not confident she won't come out on top.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The only fights she was losing I can think of are Alkahard which went from losing to winning so fast there was no point, and chaos wastes where she physically couldn't.

Weighed against a character arc, this is shadow jumping.
 
DragonParadox said:
I mean sure they will refocus on us, but we still have both our native ability to dispel, which I rather trust over non-Lord spellcasting Dryads and the belt that will eat one spell for free. I am a lot more worried about getting a malus to all our spells after this engagement over the whole span of the battle. It may well be enough to degrade all FC spells to the point where we have to roll for them as if they were battle magic and that would be nasty since the FC spells are what we use as a base for teleportation.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't want to rely on it cause if it fail we are in a bit of trouble(even with the mind erasure there still more than one) but yah it def a risk
 
Derpmind said:
You expect Mathilde to retreat when an enemy is still in sword range? I can't recall a time when she's done that. If you were voting for something like-

[] Make a distraction attack on the Leader, then retreat.

Maybe it'd work out. But on her own usual initiative, she's more likely to overextend herself into taking death saves than to retreat. Plus, Drycha is an Ulgu caster, meaning Mathilde would have to rely on her gear to save her. That almost didn't work out for her when facing Alakazam; she was one bad roll away from the belt not saving her then. I don't want to repeat that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The thing is, we're much better off facing Drchya if we strike her first rather than waiting to be counter-ambushed by Drycha teleporting in behind Mathilde while she's locked in combat with someone else.

Don't look at is a a question of do we face Drycha or not, that choice isn't up to us, it's the question of what context we're prepared to face her in. If we chose to attack someone else, we're choosing to surrender the initiative to her, allowing her to choose to strike when Mathilde is least capable of defending herself or someone else important.
 
Alratan said:
The thing is, we're much better off facing Drchya if we strike her first rather than waiting to be counter-ambushed by Drycha teleporting in behind Mathilde while she's locked in combat with someone else.

Don't look at is a a question of do we face Drycha or not, that choice isn't up to us, it's the question of what context we're prepared to face her in. If we chose to attack someone else, we're choosing to surrender the initiative to her, allowing her to choose to strike when Mathilde is least capable of defending herself or someone else important.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'd far rather have an army as backup, (which has multiple hero+caster units,) than to have Mathilde go in alone. And TBH, I'd rather have said army take that ambush for us than have Mathilde throw herself in front of it.
 
Spellcasters vs leader is hard, but the returning scouts have a chance of realizing the spellcasters are a threat and killing then. Only Matilda can engage the leader.

[x] Leader
 
Derpmind said:
I'd far rather have an army as backup, (which has multiple hero+caster units,) than to have Mathilde go in alone. And TBH, I'd rather have said army take that ambush for us than have Mathilde throw herself in front of it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Drycha has no reason to attack in a way that allows the rest of the army to meaningfully intervene. She could open up a Pit of Shades beneath Boris' or an Ice Witche's feet, or simply teleport behind Mathilde or another of the characters' backs while they're engaged on combat with someone else and shank them with a Mindrazor.

The only way to avoid her ambush is to find her and ambush her first. If Mathilde gets stuck in elsewhere Drycha has complete discretion about when and where and who to attack, and she could easily choose to whack Mathilde first if she shows herself to be dangerous.

Drycha is an Ulgu spellcaster. She's no reason to fight the army as a whole when she can just decapitate it while her own troops serve as a distraction. Consider it as being like fighting against Mathilde herself.
 
Last edited:
I'm hesitant to include this into my reasoning, since Mathilde doesn't know this, but whether Boris is her actual target or not, Drycha thinks he is. So doing anything but attacking her risks her ambushing/assassinating him while he's occupied. No one else has any hope of seeing this coming or preventing this, because no one else can find her.
 
[X] Leader

The forest is aiding us and we have the element of suprise.

This may be the best shot we have at preventing Drycha shenanigans.
 
The main thing to consider here is that we don't actually get to decide whether Mathilde faces Drycha or not - Drycha gets a vote too, so unless you think that she's going to sit out this entire battle because reasons, we're going to have to deal with her eventually anyhow.

That being the case, I'd much rather deal with Drycha by attacking her from stealth, rather than have to deal with Drycha after she attacks us from stealth.
 
Another consideration, which I don't think is metagaming, is that Mathilde should have complete strategic surprise. No one should expect there to be an Imperial Lord Magister on this battlefield.

After she reveals herself and makes her first strike, the enemy general can adapt and take account of our presence, but our first hit should be the most devastating because no one will be expecting a teleporting assassin with a sword that hits like a cannon ball to suddenly intervene on the Kislevite side.

That means that our initial strike will be the most devastating, so we should aim for the highest value target we can, as after that we'll probably be less effective. That target is the enemy general. It's just poetic justice that said enemy general probably thinks they have a monopoly on teleporting backstabs in this engagement so won't expect it.
 
Last edited:
I really don't think we're going to get a second chance at Drycha. Either she completes whatever it is she's doing and suborns the forest against us or she cuts her losses and flees.

Whilst I can live with the second, the first is catastrophic. The three branchwaiths are out in the open, theres an experienced Ice Witch near them, and the scouts are more than equipped to deal with them—and I haven't even touched upon the reinforcements, which the forest spirits are not even expecting.

Drycha is in the forest, away from the battle, doing something weird, but more importantly she's locked in a battle of wills with the forest and is distracted and vulnerable.

If we want to strike at her, now is the best time to do so.

And for all the people saying we're outmatched—I strongly believe we're not. We're nearly at master greatsword level, we have a ton of runic gear specifically designed to ruin people like Drycha's day, we can teleport, we can hear the whispers of the Forest of Shadows, and we can heal ourselves.

Now is the time to go full Grey Wizard and remove the head from the snake.

One last point—we're here to make friends, and being friends with a magical forest isn't a bad thing. Let's help Loren Arhain oust these unwanted invaders.
 
Ok. Bottom line for me? Drycha can counter spell us. Which means we get one alpha strike and then our items become unreliable and our own spellcasting dangerous.

Such as it is, then, I'd prefer to fight this battle defensively, prioritizing protecting the people we can't afford to lose in some piddly border skirmish. To me that's Lijliana, Boris, and Johann.

So this also means burning down the enemy from most dangerous to least dangerous, in the hope they retreat as objectives become impossible to take without offensive power. Right now, the Manticore and the tree man are the largest threats on the board.

Let me argue for a shock and awe plan:

First we double-team the treeman with the ice witch. She freezes it, we flask it, the whole thing explodes immediately. We free her up and remove Drycha's rook. This does mean Boris takes the Manticore charge, and the forest is summoned.

Second, we bounce to help Boris with the Manticore. Since we won't be able to cast for a little bit without breathing fire as Dhar burns off, swords. This serves the triple purpose of putting us next to him for ambush-protection, letting us observe the other going all-out in a way the duel did not, and burning down Drycha's knight.

Third, we take Boris with us and attempt to kill the spellcasters keeping the woods angry. I suspect that the trees will subside immediately rather than running through the spell duration as we might otherwise.

Then our reinforcements get here.

I don't want to play cat and mouse with Drycha. I want to deny her the target, and have her retreat.

I'd prefer to crush the immediate threats than to seek out the leader or so the spellcasters and risk leaving all of Drycha's pieces on the board.

[X] Treeman

TempestK said:
I honestly doubt it. We're allied to the land here, and at least partially attuned to the Forest with how we got that information dumped right into our head after killing the spite.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'd remind you that weare carrying the seed, the candle, the flask, the belt, and the sword, all of which are very high tier magical items theoretically visible under windsight. And Mathilde does have a lot of ulgu in and around her, which I think normally is good for being unseen but is likely the reverse against a fellow ulgu practitioner.
 
Last edited:
Glau said:
Ok. Bottom line for me? Drycha can counter spell us. Which means we get one alpha strike and then our items become unreliable and our own spellcasting dangerous.

Such as it is, then, I'd prefer to fight this battle defensively, prioritizing protecting the people we can't afford to lose in some piddly border skirmish. To me that's Lijliana, Boris, and Johann.

So this also means burning down the enemy from most dangerous to least dangerous, in the hope they retreat as objectives become impossible to take without offensive power. Right now, the Manticore and the tree man are the largest threats on the board.

Let me argue for a shock and awe plan:

First we double-team the treeman with the ice witch. She freezes it, we flask it, the whole thing explodes immediately. We free her up and remove Drycha's rook. This does mean Boris takes the Manticore charge.

Second, we bounce to help Boris with the Manticore. Since we won't be able to cast for a little bit without breathing fire as Dhar burns off, swords. This serves the triple purpose of putting us next to him for ambush-protection, letting us observe the other going all-out in a way the duel did not, and burning down Drycha's knight.

I'd prefer to crush the immediate threats than to seek out the leader or so the spellcasters and risk leaving all of Drycha's pieces on the board.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Ironically, attack is by far the best form of defence here. Drycha is probably the most dangerous enemy here. Once we attack once, as you say, we're likely to have buffs counter-spelled and be more vulnerable to attack ourselves.

If we follow your plan, we're much less able to respond to Drycha's own reaction. She's not forced to let us do whatever we want. Her reaction to use teleporting to attack the Treeman could easily be to teleport in right behind us right after we engage and stab us in the back with a Mindrazor. Or to do the same to the Ice Witches, or to Boris.

The only way to counter that is to hit her first, and it's the most valuable thing we do. Committing ourself anywhere else gives Drcha a free hit on us or anyone else while we're all distracted, as no one is marking her, to use a sports metaphor. I don't believe we should give our enemy free hits.

By your own logic of starting with the most dangerous enemy and working down the list, we should hit her first.
 
Glau said:
Such as it is, then, I'd prefer to fight this battle defensively, prioritizing protecting the people we can't afford to lose in some piddly border skirmish. To me that's Lijliana, Boris, and Johann.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

All of those people are put at tremendously greater risk if we allow Drycha to get her own alpha strike from stealth off unimpeded.

The current battle is relatively evenly matched, even before accounting for the incoming major reinforcements for Kislev. That will change hard if Drycha can dump a Pit of Shades in the middle of our formation while Mathilde is too busy fistfighting a tree to counterspell properly.
 
Last edited:
Alratan said:
Another consideration, which I don't think is metagaming, is that Mathilde should have complete strategic surprise. No one should expect there to be an Imperial Lord Magister on this battlefield.

After she reveals herself and makes her first strike, the enemy general can adapt and take account of our presence, but our first hit should be the most devastating because no one will be expecting a teleporting assassin with a sword that hits like a cannon ball to suddenly intervene on the Kislevite side.

That means that our initial strike will be the most devastating, so we should aim for the highest value target we can, as after that we'll probably be less effective. That target is the enemy general. It's just poetic justice that said enemy general probably thinks they have a monopoly on teleporting backstabs in this engagement so won't expect it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
...I'm now picturing Drycha freezing up in existential confusion upon seeing Mathilde:

"She uses magic which is elf-pawn, but has a runeblade which is dwarf-pawn? How?!??"
 
[X] Leader

In another timeline, Drycha was crucial in destroying the world. I will take the gamble of dire danger if it means a chance at striking her off the board.

I do this with full recognition that the risk is high, and the chance of taking her out may be limited. I think the risk isn't the worst, she does seem to mainly win through element of surprise in the lore.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open
Remove ads
Back
Top