Chaos only got to Middenheim because of massive author fiat, which tells us that inevitable victory was indeed intended but further confirms it certainly wasn't actually inevitable.
I've been thinking about this more. It implies a lot about the state of the Ice Court and reveals that weakness not just to the world, but to Boris as well. Does Ljiljana even speak for Ice Witches beyond her little band? Realm of the Ice Queen presented them as being fractious even under Katarin. I imagine they were even more so before Boris began restoring the realm.
I suppose it depends on what he actually hears back about it. Boris isn't omniscient, and a report that says "Waystones making great progress, Ice Witches included on many research projects" is both true and something that Zlata would send home. Niedzwenka would laugh and call Zlata a child among adults, but then she'd do that regardless of who they sent and Boris knows that. Mathilde spoke only briefly to him last turn and both times they had issues slightly more pressing to discuss.
If anything the Elfs have kind of underperformed. Yes they have presented some good work but their stuff is consistently the option least able to scale.
Wait what? I thought Magnus wielded Ghal Maraz against Asavar Kul?
Nah. Common misconception. He arose during the 3 Emps period but was not one of the claiments. He was actually not a high noble (I think Baron) of Nuln and cobbled together a force to help Kislev. But he wasn't made Emps until after since y'know he shish-kabobed an Everchosen and was backed up by the Tsvarina and Teclis and the ENTIRE ARMY who followed him.
Thanks to picklepikkl I was able to simply count the actions we had put her on. We've taken eight waystone options that are vaguely related to research. So fat that's basically all the non-recruitment/mapping/deployment options. We put her on five of them, which is a decent amount. Of them the only thing I thing she did anything helpful on was on leylines and that was just saying that leylines are reversible or bidirectional.
I object to this, a lot. The Grey Lord orbital enchantment is brilliant and is at least comparable to the Dwarf clockwork. Hatalath (re?)invented the Carving method for the Rune, which can basically be done by anyone in comparison to the expertise the other components will take. The Stone Flower is pretty good, not really worse than the other two Capstone options. Sarvoi didn't provide any components, but he was incredibly informative in the updates. He's the one who told us about waystones orbiting winds around Dhar. He also has talked a lot about things that Hatalath wouldn't and has helped us get information out of Hatalath (unknowingly or not). Cadaeth (who is sorta an elf) also invented the tributary method that made Eltharion happy enough to share the waystone codes.
Nah, for two reasons: 1)He wasn't Emperor yet, only being elected after the war, and 2) the real Ghal Maraz had been lost for centuries and only got recovered during the reign of Karl Franz
That second one is not necessarily the case in quest-canon. In fact, I'd imagine it'd be rather hard for it to be true.
I don't think that second thing is true in quest cannon.
Was also endorsed by Taal too, at Talabheim.
Yes they have allowed us to save a whole bunch of time by consistently having very good prepared theory work which has saved us going down a bunch of dead ends.
I appreciate the shout-out, but I honestly think @Gavin Prince and @ReImagined's resources are better -- the flowchart format works better as an image (and Gavin's is more complete) and ReImagined did a great job of comparing the top two plans, which in a first-past-the-post system are the two things that matter the most. I just posted my thing first.
I can see it getting misplaced/stolen/secreted away during the Time of Three Emperors (and Cult of Sigmar having a counterfeit one made in response), but agree on it being fake through the most of Empire's history being dumb.
