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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Zaratustra said:
The problem with this analogy is that the Toolbox doesn't have a size limit. Is not like we have to chose some spells over other, that we have to sacrifice realiable option for acess to the more powerfull ones, we can have both.

So think like that, is better to have all the tools and then chosse the best one for the situation, or not have and try to make do ?
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The tool box absolutely has a size limit. It's called 'the amount of AP we can spend expanding it'. Any AP spent on one tool is AP not spent on a different one. Further, any AP spent expanding the tool box is AP not spent using it.

Opportunity cost is always a consideration.
 
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Valmond said:
I'd rather she have unreliable tools instead of no tools.
But when it comes to magic, thread seems to prefer no tools because a slightly crooked hammer might explode or something.
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You are missing that by learning battle magic, we put the tool into the common use category. All concern over if a tool is reliable enough to use is done by deciding whether or not to learn it. This has been stated by Boney.

NSMS said:
Honest question: can somebody explain the logic behind having cavalry acting as bodyguards to me? The strength of cavalry lies in its mobility and ability to deal charges, not in standing around (or appearing around) to defend a lone individual, so it just seems like a poor use of the available resource to me. I'd be completely down for bodyguard with a humanoid apparition or something, or even a red in a non-cavalry form, but with this form it just doesn't click to me.
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Horses are actually really good at crowd control and bodyguarding, just in a different way:

CrimsonOddball said:
[Other explanations about other uses]
...
For bodyguard
Kitty would be better at locking down specific combatants, since again tackle and maul
But Horse is better at running around and breaking apart groups, warding groups of opponents away from Mathilde as they circle protectively around her and strafe

I think it's a mistake to think that because we picked Horse, the only thing it'll be good at is the Charge option

@Boney do I have the right idea here?
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Boney said:
Yes
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Retrueno said:
So basically you don't think there's a situation (or that Mathilde will never be in such a situation to begin with) where Mathilde's safest path of action would be to cast BM and so there's no point to even learning BM because there will always be a better tool in our toolkit for what we want to do?

Cause honestly that is what I am getting from your messages.

If not I don't get your reason against Mathilde having a slightly but very powerful unreliable tool in her toolkit? (Unless you don't trust her judgement in battle of course).
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I am pro developing Fog based Battle Magic, which has the same power tier as regular Battle Magic, but reduced difficulty for us because of the Staff of Mistery. There is still risk involved here, but it is front-loaded into development, and therefore not an indefinitely increased risk.
 
GrimTheMad said:
It's all a measure of risk vs reward. Some risks are worth it, some are not. Non-mist battlemagic is firmly in the 'not' category for me, as clearly Mathilde can consistently function extremely well without it.
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This confuses me, where do you think the risk of learning Battle Magic is them ? Because that is why the risk is low, we won't be casting it all the time.

GrimTheMad said:
The tool box absolutely has a size limit. It's called 'the amount of AP we can spend expanding it'. Any AP spent on one tool is AP not spent on a different one.

Opportunity cost is always a consideration.
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Yeah but that is and entire diferent debate, no one is arguing that would want to do something besides leaning battle magic, they are arguing to never learn any battle magic, that even if they had infinit AP they would never spend a single one on learning Battle Magic.
 
Neathbow said:
How is it decided who will become a battle wizard? What makes a child a good fit for battle wizard training?
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The Dean and their staff. Trusting, obedient, studious, introverted, the same sort of thing that'd make someone a good fit for a monastery. A very promising trait is wanting to be a Battle Wizard - there are quite a few people that decide that after about a decade as an Apprentice within the College walls, they want to remain within the College walls and dedicate their life to delving as deeply as they can into their Wind, emerging only occasionally to demonstrate their mastery of it in the service of the Empire.
 
Abhorsen said:
You are missing that by learning battle magic, we put the tool into the common use category.
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I highly doubt that Mathilde will start casting BM without the clear need to do so, even if the thread decides to learn it. And if it still happens often enough to be called 'common use' I'll be glad that we picked it up because we would probably be dead otherwise.
 
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I am assuming that Mathilde likes being alive and that she knows about the risks of battlemagic. Even if we give her the pendulum, she likely wont use it, if hitting with a sword does the job well enough. Id say her judgment is good enough to only use it if it is necessary or the advantage she gets from it are worth the risk
 
Putting a tool into the "use" category and putting a tool into the "common use" category are two very different things and I do not recall any statement indicating that we'd whip out Pendulum - or indeed Miasma - at the drop of a hat, which seems to be borne out by the fact that we've used Miasma fairly rarely since learning it and only when we've been in a situation where it was clearly appropriate. (Though if there is such a statement, I'd love to see it.)
 
DragonParadox said:
The logic is it is a big beefy killy thing with a sword that cannot be hurt by npn-magical weapons. We are not playing this quest from the perspective of the rider trying to maximise its talents
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We should, however, be trying to make best use of its talents if we want to get the most out of our spell.
LadySerpentine said:
Unlike mundane cavalry it doesn't die if you stab it with nonmagical weapons and physically can't be unhorsed. That changes the situations you can use it in significantly.
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While that does make it a better defensive option, it's a case of compensating for weaknesses rather than playing to strengths. It can function as a bodyguard, but it has more ways to apply what it's good at in a charge.
chaetopterus said:
I'd also think it has big advantages concerning Mathilde's tendency to get stuck alone behind enemy lines. Next time she winds up failing a stealth roll and finds herself surrounded by orks, with this option, there is the possibility to just pull some hardy, supernatural fighters out of her metaphorical pocket (other options can do so too, but are focused offensively and would not be as useful in a chaotic situation, especially when she is in danger herself)
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That explains why you'd want a bodyguard spell, and I'm not arguing it wouldn't be useful, but I don't see why a red rider specifically should be used as a bodyguard. It just seems like it's not making full use of the rider's talents, especially when we could capture some other apparition that doesn't take the form of a horseman to be a bodyguard.
 
Abhorsen said:
You are missing that by learning battle magic, we put the tool into the common use category. All concern over if a tool is reliable enough to use is done by deciding whether or not to learn it. This has been stated by Boney.
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And so it will be used when Mathilde judges it's necessary to use it?

I don't get what is the concern, that Mathilde will suddenly start spamming BM just because she knows it?

Should we also be concerned that Mathilde will start trying to fight in melee with her dwarf revolvers just because she has them or that next time Mathilde needs to silently kill someone she will use the Dragonflask? Just because they're in the "common use category"
 
GrimTheMad said:
"We have taken risks before, and therefore should take every risk available to us" is not an argument that's ever going to convince me of anything.

It's all a measure of risk vs reward. Some risks are worth it, some are not. Non-mist battlemagic is firmly in the 'not' category for me, as clearly Mathilde can consistently function extremely well without it.

If we decide we do need more battlemagic, just inventing our own that we can cast as FC instead will always be worth it.
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I feel like you are misunderstanding the actual argument several of us are making for battlemagic.

The argument for learning battle magic is thus.

There is a situation happening on the battlefield. For the sake of argument, we'll say that a bunch of units are charging at our exposed flank. Without Battlemagic, your chance of losing the battle and/or dying to the charge is say 80%. With it (again for the sake of argument), you can solve the situation and bring down your chance of losing and dying to say 5-20% range for rolling a miscast, followed up by rolling very badly on what type of miscast.

Learning battlemagic let's you make that change of odds from 80% chance of death to 80% chance of life. The cost is taking a risk of consequences upfront (which can be extremely heavily mitigated via the gambler). It is not "we should take every risk available to us". It is, "we trade a small risk upfront for the ability to take actions on the battlefield that have much lower overall risk of death".

Now to quickly speed through the common counter arguments:
"We can train swords instead." - Becoming a sword grandmaster doesn't let you scythe down large numbers before their charge reaches you. Most battlemagic is intended to counter different things than you'd use say a Knight Grandmaster to counter.
Mathilde can always escape with Smoke and mirrors. - There are battles where Mathilde will not want to escape and leave her allies behind.
We can invent mist based battle magic instead. - Possibly, though even with the staff of Mistery I'm skeptical that 'invent a new and powerful battle magic over several actions' is actually overall safer than 'learn this one codified and well understood existing spell' even if any individual miscast might be less dangerous. Also AP hell. Just AP hell.
 
MossPiglet said:
I highly doubt that Mathilde will start casting BM without the clear need to do so, even if the thread decides to learn it. And if it still happens often enough to be called 'common use' I'll be glad that we picked it up because we would probably be dead otherwise.
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Retrueno said:
And so it will be used when Mathilde judges it's necessary to use it?

I don't get what is the concern, that Mathilde will suddenly start spamming BM just because she knows it?

Should we also be concerned that Mathilde will start trying to fight in melee with her dwarf revolvers just because she has them or that next time Mathilde needs to silently kill someone she will use the Dragonflask? Just because they're in the "common use category"
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Our decision on whether Battle Magic is a good idea to cast is made when we decide whether or not to learn battle magic.

Learning battle magic means that we have already decided it's a reasonable choice to cast this magic in situations it'd be useful in. Mathilde will then cast it when it would be useful (not when it would be outright stupid).

The thing is, battle magic is useful a lot. Casting Melkoth's Miasma is pretty standard for us in battles now, because it's really really useful. We don't roll for it because we have the staff. But for this? Every time we are going to battle, it'll be useful to cast, so I see us casting this a lot. But the staff doesn't apply.

Again, there's a Boney quote about this I'll eventually go look for.
 
My thoughts on battlemagic is that I'd rather have us die miscasting a spell, than die because we were attacked by a greater demon and our only option was to melee it.

I want the option to throw out a battlemagic level caustic, choking, grappling fog so that we can safely take out monsterous threats from a distance without having to melee them.

Because currently our only real weapon against such a thing is the dragon flask and swording them in the face, both of which feel riskier to me than casting mist based battlemagic.

And to hell with AP hell. This is something worth committing to.
 
I see a lot of very good arguments for 3 or 6 riders and taking charge or duel.
However, aesthetically I voted for The Dämmerlichtreiter because I saw it as a single being.
And while the utility of charge or duel cannot be denied, I just like the idea of someone trying to attack us and getting blindsided by The Dämmerlichtreiter appearing out of nowhere.
Also, I trust Boney to not give us trap options. So while there may be unexpected occasions where our apparition does not behave as expected, I believe that Boney will ensure that we have a fun and flavourful experience with it.
All that said...

[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
[X] [NUMBER] One
 
[X] [NUMBER] One

Frankly I don't care much about it's use. Close or far, it will sword(and trample?) things to death.
What I do care about is having a tool we aren't shy of using. Having a spectral knight on call at pretty much all times? Considering how Mathilde rolls her die deep in enemy territory, that's already a lot.
 
PurposefulZephyr said:
[X] [NUMBER] One

Frankly I don't care much about it's use. Close or far, it will sword(and trample?) things to death.
What I do care about is having a tool we aren't shy of using. Having a spectral knight on call at pretty much all times? Considering how Mathilde rolls her die deep in enemy territory, that's already a lot.
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Personally I am very unsure just 1 Rider would be useful the next time we have to fight a Champion of Khorne in melee or something similar.
 
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