Macros
omnisciently vague councilman
- Location
- Dirac Sea
Best In Life - Imperial Knight Order Quest [Warhammer Fantasy]
- Thread starter Swordomatic
- Start date
- Fantasy
That's still pretty implausible. Yeah, okay, the scrubs got their first strike in. So what? Basically when it came to blows, those are some peasants and deserters, barely superior in numbers, taking on guys with years of training and top-class equipment. A knight of empire to die in such a clash must be both extremely unlucky (i.e. getting an arrow straight to the brain area of face) and borderline incompetent (i.e. forgot to flip the visor part). Getting wrestled down and held by two bandits while the third one pokes you with a dagger when they don't even have 3-to-1 numerical advantage means not only they are worse at wrestling than peasants and failed to keep them at distance with knightly polearms or longsword. It also means that there wes no one around to pay attention and cut down two sitting ducks who try to hold the knight in question.Nat 1s on armour saves are more likely than you think. Alas.
It doesn't get much more assymetrical that a fight where you can strike anywhere to land a wound or at least a heavy bruise, and your opponent has to look for chinks in armor he can't penetrate to land even a scratch. Even with huge numerical advantage it wouldn't be a fair fight: "the first five who dare to approach will die, after that it's 50-50" is not exactly good for morale.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Why on earth wouldn't it be possible? Any man will die if you bodycheck him five to one and slip a knife through the visor. Reiksguard are good, but they're not invulnerable, heck, they're not even Inner Circle - wherever did you get that idea?
a) Do you know they were only peasants and deserters? Do you know who those deserters were?
b) Swordo literally just told you they had a five to one advantage in combatants.
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Macros
omnisciently vague councilman
- Location
- Dirac Sea
In my experience of the tabletop, "implausible" is something that tend to happen from time to time. I mean, it WAS pretty implausible when I saw a bunch of skavenslaves tear apart a unit of chaos knights, and yet it happened.
Sometimes the dice just hate someone.
- Location
- france
[X] Mediocre or not, you still need an order. They shall stay, so you can beat some worth into them.
[X] Your initiates proved themselves, and so you won't be disappointed in them. But they can be more. Teach them how.
[X] Your initiates proved themselves, and so you won't be disappointed in them. But they can be more. Teach them how.
a) Okay, there could be some failed baker or alcoholic mercenary in here too, I suppose.
b) Missed it, sorry. I was under impression there's under 100 of them. It makes more sense now, still doesn't make perfect sense.
The thing is, rolls were not so bad apart from the first where we got a sneak attack.
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Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Or alternatively there could be a hard core of veteran deserters fed up with how the Count kept throwing them where the fire was hottest. Or a group of fanatics for the cause of democracy out to amass a war chest by any means necessary. Or a group of survivalist nutjobs obsessed with living by the blade beyond society, and were well on the way to becoming a Khornate cult. Or a band of hardened freedom fighters straight out of a Robin Hood story, because the Empire treats its lower classes badly.
Bandits are not necessarily poor fighters, dude. Especially not in Warhammer, where being a brigand means competing with greenskins and beastmen without the protection of state armies or fortified cities. It is entirely possible that these people really were simply that good.
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
Especially on the route to Stirland where there would be a constant low key flow of outlaws fleeing the rent-seeking tax farmers and sheriff of Nottingham-style bailiffs sent out by their absentee landowners.
And there are plenty of non-Chaotic Twists and Turnskins less mutated then the average Bretonnian peasant but the Empire casts them out regardless, for anyone (or anything) to recruit.
And there are plenty of non-Chaotic Twists and Turnskins less mutated then the average Bretonnian peasant but the Empire casts them out regardless, for anyone (or anything) to recruit.
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If you're bringing "it's warhammer", remember that knights are in the weight class of people who can on a good day wrestle down half-ton monstrous beast into submission just to have a cool ride. Where bandit "scrubs" are larger than life and can't compare to their "realistic" counterparts, knights are still even more exaggerated.
- Location
- Singapore
Sometimes shit happens. I'm not going back and changing what happened.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Except that's not actually true.*
Yes, Demigryph Orders are a thing. And they have the highest turnover rate of applicants in all the Empire, because most of the people trying to join them, people who would in other Orders (even the Reiksguard) make for perfectly fine knights, get torn limb from limb by the creatures they're trying to tame. Those who survive (and no, they are not described as wrestling the creature into submission, only that their "final quest is to capture a Demigryph and break it to his will." so it is entirely plausible that they set out with a full hunting party) are both a) either the very cream of the crop or phenomenally lucky, and b) heavily scarred from the deep wounds they invariably suffer even in success.
* It's also ignoring that the "it's Warhammer" point was a final corollary I tacked on to the end of my main argument that bandits are not necessarily poor fighters, period.
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- Location
- Singapore
Anyways this is late, but votes are locked.
I'd point out historically impoverished knights and unemployed mercenaries were a leading source of bandits.
To the contrary you don't get a lot of woodsmen or levy deserters doing full time banditry...because to make any kind of money out of banditry at all you have to be good enough at fighting to deal with any caravan escorts and militia.
You get the scrub bandits mostly when places suffer economic crashes or failed harvests, then the desperate decide they'd rather risk dying by the sword than certain death by hunger. Or when you have unusually well armed woodsmen who pick off lone travelers to rob, but otherwise are entirely upstanding hunters socially.
To the contrary you don't get a lot of woodsmen or levy deserters doing full time banditry...because to make any kind of money out of banditry at all you have to be good enough at fighting to deal with any caravan escorts and militia.
You get the scrub bandits mostly when places suffer economic crashes or failed harvests, then the desperate decide they'd rather risk dying by the sword than certain death by hunger. Or when you have unusually well armed woodsmen who pick off lone travelers to rob, but otherwise are entirely upstanding hunters socially.
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
If I can also throw my voice into the ring, just because our knights were wearing armor does not automatically make them immune to damage. While that's typically the depiction in most fiction, armor is basically metal clothes, and while the steel might be able to resist other metal, protecting the wearer from most forms of damage, the one wearing it is still being hit in the chest with a dozen arrows and bullets. It's steel, it can be broken by mundane means. And even if it doesn't, being hit in the chest with an arrow can leave one hell of a bruise if it doesn't go through you. Get hit enough times and bruising might turn into internal damage. Internal bleeding, bruised or ruptured heart or lung muscles, the human body can be surprisingly tough, but also surprisingly fragile.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Regardless, we can make up reasons for how it happened, but it still happened and it's believable.
All we can do is, try and improve.
It's not like it was a complete loss after all, at least we destroyed them.
All we can do is, try and improve.
It's not like it was a complete loss after all, at least we destroyed them.
[] Mediocre or not, you still need an order. They shall stay, so you can beat some worth into them.
[] Your initiates proved themselves, and so you won't be disappointed in them. But they can be more. Teach them how.
Edit: Did not realize the vote was closed
[] Your initiates proved themselves, and so you won't be disappointed in them. But they can be more. Teach them how.
Edit: Did not realize the vote was closed
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- Location
- Sweden
Bullshit. This is Dwarf made armour we're talking about, arrows shouldn't do squat against the knights.
Joanna's overconfidence allowing for the bandits to ambush the Order, and forcibly dismounting a few unfortunate souls, is a perfectly satisfactory explanation on its own.
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
Steel is still steel. Dwarven-forged or not, it is not magic. Enhanced, yes, but not perfect. And it does not change either of the facts that people can still be hurt underneath armor or that even plate mail has gaps that enough arrows or bullets could find their way through.
Now please, let's have this conversation rest. Is it an upset for this ambush to have worked? Yes. But it happened. Let's not be sore losers, especially before we even have a turn 2.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Arrows aren't going to penetrate full plate armour, no, barring an extremely lucky shot - even regular plate armour is verrrry sophisticated in how it protects the joints, and dwarfish smithing will only improve on that. If you want penetration, then it's visor slits or bust, basically. Likewise, while steel can be broken by mundane means, a regular human whacking at it with a sword is not one of those means. That doesn't happen outside of fiction, dwarfish crafting or no.
All that said, blunt trauma does still transfer, and being shot at is still nerve-wracking. Even if you know the chance of death is astronomically unlikely, all but the most insanely couragous of warriors will still flinch at the whack of an arrow clattering off their armour, and it does still cause bruising and fatigue.
It's also worth noting knights wear plate armour, but the initiates probably do not. Let alone the various camp followers which inevitably come with a group of men-at-arms.
All that said, blunt trauma does still transfer, and being shot at is still nerve-wracking. Even if you know the chance of death is astronomically unlikely, all but the most insanely couragous of warriors will still flinch at the whack of an arrow clattering off their armour, and it does still cause bruising and fatigue.
It's also worth noting knights wear plate armour, but the initiates probably do not. Let alone the various camp followers which inevitably come with a group of men-at-arms.
The thing about arrows killing knights is that it happened less by penetrating their armor and more by hits were their was no armor or hits to the knights mount which then either threw them and/or fell on them. We have records from the Crusades of King Richard's of knights wearing just mail and helms being shot with a multitude of arrows by their Saracens opponents and while they looked like porcupines unless their horse was killed they were able to fight as tho they did not have a bunch of arrows sticking out of their armor when the armies closed with each other. What is done is done however so lets see how the next set of rolls go.
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IT happened, it was maximum 'SHAMEFULL DISPLAY!!', and it's over now. We now have to train our dudes to the level they need to be to live up to our standards and keep up with us as the CK Protag.
It makes sense to me because no armor is perfect and we got ambushed, shit happens.
It makes sense to me because no armor is perfect and we got ambushed, shit happens.