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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Glau said:
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.
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I think Branhule's eating of Ulgu (+ other ambient magic? ) to power itself may counteract this. I don't think runecraft is that visible.

As may the fact that Mathilde is surrounded by the magic of the Forest of Shadows.
 
Alratan said:
Ironically, attack is by far the best form of defence here. Drycha is the most powerful enemy here. Once we attack once, as you say, we're likely to have buffs counter-spelled and be more vulnerable to attack ourselves.
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You want to drive into a forest hunting a forest spirit in scrap of ulgu that we think is the mastermind to this whole thing, while her army rips ours to shreds?

The longer were wait to reveal ourselves the bloodier this is going to be for us. Boris could die to the Manticore, the risen forest will give the cannon fodder a bad time until the reinforcements get here, and if Lilijana loses that whole flank collapses and the kremal guard gets decimated by a giant. There are a lot of very pointed threats right now, and a good chance Drycha can win without even revealing herself.

Which would make time wasted hunting after her in the woods time wasted.

What it boils down to is I am not convinced we can bring her to battle.

Or that hunting her will stop her from dropping her alphastrike ANYWAYS before we find her. And then we aren't in a position to save the target.
 
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Glau said:
You want to drive into a forest hunting a forest spirit in scrap of ulgu that we think is the mastermind to this whole thing, while her army rips ours to shreds?
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Her army is not "ripping ours to shreds". The situation is roughly even at the moment, and Kislev has an entire stack of reinforcements incoming.

If Drycha and Mathilde both did nothing for the rest of this battle, Kislev would win handily.
 
Glau said:
You want to drive into a forest hunting a forest spirit in scrap of ulgu that we think is the mastermind to this whole thing, while her army rips ours to shreds?

The longer were wait to reveal ourselves the bloodier this is going to be for us. Boris could die to the Manticore, the risen forest will give the cannon fodder a bad time until the reinforcements get here, and if Lilijana loses that whole flank collapses and the kremal guard gets decimated by a giant. There are a lot of very pointed threats right now, and a good chance Drycha can win without even revealing herself.

Which would make time wasted hunting after her in the woods time wasted.

What it boils down to is I am not convinced we can bring her to battle.
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What?

Did you just forget that we have reinforcements inbound that Drycha has no clue exists? Time is on our side, not hers. All we have to do to win is stop any table flips until that happens. That means fucking with her, personally, and trusting the force with us to fuck with the mages.
 
Redshirt Army said:
Her army is not "ripping ours to shreds". The situation is roughly even at the moment, and Kislev has an entire stack of reinforcements incoming.

If Drycha and Mathilde both did nothing for the rest of this battle, Kislev would win handily.
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What is Drycha's win condition, to you?

Because if it's killing Boris, then a 1:1 loss ratio against an equally sized force is a win for her, even if her aren't is ultimately destroyed, if she gets her shot off on Boris.

I don't think hunting her is going to stop her from alpha striking.
 
Glau said:
I don't think hunting her is going to stop her from alpha striking.
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...why do you think that?

If she's specifically waiting to geek boris, I think the obvious moment for it is when he's fighting the gryphon - which she brought, so that's probably her explicit plan. If we attack Drycha before the Gryphon does, how is she supposed to follow through?

Frankly, that's what this all comes down to, isn't it? This battle is a distraction to let her secure the kill without interference.

Let's not fall for the Distraction Carnifex, please.
 
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Redshirt Army said:
Her army is not "ripping ours to shreds". The situation is roughly even at the moment, and Kislev has an entire stack of reinforcements incoming.

If Drycha and Mathilde both did nothing for the rest of this battle, Kislev would win handily.
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That's an assumption. On the other hand it's equally valid to assume that if neither intervenes Boris dies to the Manticore, the rotas break as the forest comes alive against them, and Lilijana gets murdered by a Treeman. That's why there's a vote now, the battle is at a tipping point. There is no clear winner as yet, although Kislev has come off better so far, and has reinforcements. Battles aren't predictable easy things though, and those advantages could fail to win the day if the Forest Spirits play their cards right.
 
Codex said:
Arhain is the Eltharin word for Shadows/Stealth/Perfidousness etc. It clearly refers to the Forest of Shadows, except it's in Eltharin. The first thought is of course, the patron goddess of the Forest of Shadows, Haletha. The intriguing question however, is why the inserted thought was in Eltharin. Is it perhaps true that Ranald/Shallya are also Elven Gods and that poured over into their child if Haletha is truly the child here? Or is it some Elven God/dess that isn't Haletha that's also in this forest? There was a Cult of Styriss in Ostermark relatively recently that worshipped Anath Raema, but I somehow doubt Anath Raema would be fighting back against Drycha.
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I'm not sure that we should make much of the thought being in Eltharin. It might be that Halétha - or whatever force is at work here - is implenting the abstract idea that the Forest of Shadows is opposed to Athel Loren, and the exact shape that this takes in the recipient's mind depends on them. Maybe Mathilde just thinks in Eltharin when thinking of magical forests? Her frame of reference for those things is Laurelorn, after all, and the other forest foremost in her mind at the moment is obviously Athel Loren. And we have numerous instances of Mathilde using plant based metaphors since she began spending time in Laurelorn, sometimes even when speaking Reikspiel, which I think indicates Mathilde's inner dialogue is in Eltharin at least some of the time.

If we are to ascribe meaning to the Eltharin then one possibility is that the forest itself is speaking to Mathilde. Perhaps the Forest of Shadows communicates in Eltharin when it communicates with mortals at all, because in ancient times it was always elves that spoke with the forest spirits. But from what I can gather the Forest of Shadows seems pretty malevolent, and while it may be hindering Drycha I don't think it would outright assist Mathilde, who is also an Ulgu user not of the forest and could be considered an invader herself (though unlike Drycha she isn't attempting to subvert the spirits of the forest to her will so maybe the forest is being pragmatic and working with the lesser evil?). I think Halétha, Goddess of Protection from the Forest of Shadows, is more likely to whisper advice into the mind of someone opposing destructive forces active in the forest.

On the other hand, it might be that Mathilde has unwittingly channeling the spirits of the Forest of Shadows, just as she did in the Mork heist. No accidental ritual this time, but she's an Ulgu user with an arcane mark that makes shadows cling to her and she's acting against the invaders, and with her avatar trait that might be enough resonance to 'hear' the spirits of the forest without any intentional decision on anyone's part.


Anyway, regarding the vote:
[X] Spellcasters
I haven't caught up on all the discussion but I think that I would prefer to face the leader of the opposing force with an army on our sides. Besdies, riding into the forest in search of the leader will take time, and in that time the spellcasters might act unopposed and seriously harm our forces. If Mathilde quickly dispatches the spellcasters we can reassess, and if she doesn't then it means they aren't that easy to deal with in which case we'll be glad that we didn't leave them alone.
 
Prime 2.0 said:
. If we attack Drycha before the Gryphon does, how is she supposed to follow through?
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Redshirt Army said:
Then what will?
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Nothing. Nothing guaranteed, anyways.

She's a master Ulgu user in her native environment trying to go unnoticed until she drops her alpha-strike. We need to FIND her before we can attack her, and knowing she is out there from the ulgu being a little weird is a bit distant from actually knowing where she is, getting there without her noticing us, and successfully attacking. Three roles to succeed is what I see, and only if we make all of them will we stop her action.

So I'd prefer to be next to the target, as a bodyguard, because then at least we will be able to do something for sure.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
That's an assumption. On the other hand it's equally valid to assume that if neither intervenes Boris dies to the Manticore, the rotas break as the forest comes alive against them, and Lilijana gets murdered by a Treeman. That's why there's a vote now, the battle is at a tipping point. There is no clear winner as yet, although Kislev has come off better so far, and has reinforcements. Battles aren't predictable easy things though, and those advantages could fail to win the day if the Forest Spirits play their cards right.
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Well yes, nothing is ever 100% certain on the battlefield, but characterizing a situation where Kislev has the better odds by far as "her army ripping ours to shreds" is extremely sketch rhetoric.

Glau said:
Nothing. Nothing guaranteed, anyways.

She's a master Ulgu user in her native environment trying to go unnoticed until she drops her alpha-strike. We need to FIND her before we can attack her, and knowing she is out there from the ulgu being a little weird is a bit distant from actually knowing where she is, getting there without her noticing us, and successfully attacking. Three roles to succeed is what I see, and only if we make all of them will we stop her action.

So I'd prefer to be next to the target, as a bodyguard, because then at least we will be able to do something for sure.
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"Being a bodyguard" means revealing our presence to Drycha, something she otherwise would be blindsided by, and ceding the initiative to her.

Ulgu is significantly more potent on the attack than on the defense - if we were a Hierophant then your plan might make sense, but we aren't.
 
Glau said:
You want to drive into a forest hunting a forest spirit in scrap of ulgu that we think is the mastermind to this whole thing, while her army rips ours to shreds?
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Glau said:
She's a master Ulgu user in her native environment trying to go unnoticed until she drops her alpha-strike.
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The forest itself is against her, not sure why she should get a bonus for hiding here. Actually we already know that we can sense her because the forest is helping us by making her Ulgu stand out.
and the forest is resisting all attempts of it to blend in to its shadows,
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I saw someone make the point that Johann would be part of the reinforcements, and he'd certainly notice the Branchwraiths.

Suppose it depends on if he's part of the force coming in right away or if he's farther.
 
I'll admit to beeing torn here. Under normal circumstances I'd honestly be against going after either Drycha or the trio directly; Mathilde's good in a fight or at assassinations, but I don't think she's solo-a-mythic-Lord-or-trio-of-Heroes-good.

But the forest... the hostility of the forest changes that. It turns what would normally be a big advantage to Drycha & co into a neutral or even negative modifier, and that's enough to tip the scales for me. While normally I'd probably vote for either nuking the treeman to free up our best offensive spellcaster, here I think we have a shot at ganking the casters or the enemy leader. It's which one we have a higher chance of dying to that has me uncertain, here; Drycha is individually significantly more powerful than any of the trio, but fighting multiple enemies at once is its own brand of hazard.
 
"ripping our army to shreds" because each death before Drycha cuts and runs is wasted: she doesn't care about casualties, we do. Therefor I regard a equal trade as a win for her.
 
[X] Leader

The forest wouldn't have pointed her presence out to us if dealing with her, or even disrupting her, wasn't important. I shall believe in the heart of the trees.

Drycha may not care about casualties, but she still has to take them into account. If she didn't, we would have been drowned in enemies by now. She will have to retreat once the casualties mount enough. Even if she goes berserk and doesn't retreat, that only means we should disrupt and fight her when we have the chance. She might not care about losing her forces, but her forces WILL care about losing her, or even her getting injured. Otherwise, she will nuke us and we won't be able to counterspell her specifically because she's supposed to be so much better at magic. If there is anything we can contribute against her, it's keeping her in melee and stunning her by provoking a powerful spell against us. To do this, we need to take the initiative and spook her into lashing out at us. The forest has provided an opportunity for this.

Everything else is secondary, because no matter how well the battle goes and how many of our soldiers we save, it will all go to hell once Ulgu battlemagic starts flying around. In large part because Drycha won't care about collateral damage.
 
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Mopman43 said:
I saw someone make the point that Johann would be part of the reinforcements, and he'd certainly notice the Branchwraiths.

Suppose it depends on if he's part of the force coming in right away or if he's farther.
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There's two sets of incoming forces: the krugs who were scouting who will show up right behind Mathilde, and the Winged Lancers who are coming down the path with Johann who are further off. The krugs are coming in from the 'side' like Mathilde did so they'd be able to attack the magic users directly, but the Lancers will be coming from the other side of the battle from them.
 
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