The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
The fact that Nirupadhika Synapse Interfaces allow very small ships to travel on the subsector scale is honestly probably more valuable to us than divination in terms of scouting.
Dragon Kings in the 41st Millennia (Exalted/40K Empire)
- Thread starter StarJaunter
- Start date
"So say we all" -Adama
Erinys
the Frantic Archivist
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That sounds excellent! Does it also need to be included in the plan and how many AP does it need, of what kind? I don't see it in the turn options.
I need to read and ponder more before responding to your post otherwise.
You are right that Dragon Kings wouldn't be bothered by a god being inhumanly aggressive or violent. But Khaine is an out-of-control loose canon and a whole pantheon of Incarna couldn't control him. Dragon Kings wouldn't want him to:
1. Genocide the Craftworlders and/or Exodites because they/their ancestors created Slaanesh. We know for a fact he tried and that he has even more reason to hate them now. There's really no reason to think he wouldn't just do it again. He evidently doesn't care about having worshippers.
2. Flip out and try to genocide the Dragon Kings for whatever reason. Again, worshipping him won't matter to him.
3. Permanently maim or imprison our gods, including Aeldari gods we start worshipping. That's something he's done repeatedly. We don't want to go on an expensive epic quest to rescue Isha, only for Khaine to drag her off somewhere else.
4. Threaten our gods in ways that interfere with their jobs. There's no reason he wouldn't.
5. Find a way to permanently kill gods he hates. I don't know if this is possible but the rest are.
6. Randomly decide to do something else insane that greatly hurts us, the Elves, or the Humans. He's such a loose canon that we really don't know what shit he'll get up to next.
None of the above are acceptable. As an Incarna, he's beyond our ability or the Celestial Bureaucracy's ability to control. We can't make him swear Eclipse Oaths. We can't put a Geas on him. Calling on an Avatar of Khaine lets the Aeldari control him, it doesn't invite him to genocide them. As long as he's shattered, he evidenly can't do so. Also, while aggression and killing are fine with us, unbound psychopathic violence isn't acceptable in an adult. We deeply value honor, Temperance, Compassion, our moral code, piety, and Sun-given reason. We don't admire mindless raging psychopaths with zero self-control. We may understand Orks but we don't admire them. And people who genocide their own worshippers are exactly like the Primordials we tried to overthrow. Honestly I don't know what the difference between Khaine and Khorne, besides their origin stories. Dragon Kings don't know much about Khorne yet, but once they truly understand him I don't think many will admire or worship him either.
We don't need to admire or even really respect a god to find it useful. But we can't afford one who will very probably cause random total disasters for us and our only allies.
If we could have a coherent conversation with Khaine (all of him) and he acted reasonable and told us something like "Look, I tried to kill the Aeldari because I knew they were about to create Slaanesh and the Eye of Terror and really fuck over the whole galaxy. The universe would actually have been better off without them. But it's too late now. I don't want revenge, I just want to stop Chaos." then it might be different.
That was a lot longer than I thought it' be.
I have some questions:
Thank you. So an auto success counts as an AP spent? I didn't know that.
What about this question?
Are we still going to be in Gothic Sector in Turn 51? Originally you tol us that turn would be spent cleaning up Chaos warbands and pirates.
Does anyone know this?
I read here that there are 11 Blackstone Fortresses: Blackstone Fortress - Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum
So why is the quest to find one sending us to the hardest one to conquer?
Do the rest of you still want to make the astrological beacons to put on Blackstone Fortresses? We never did that.
What about the earlier suggest of Mosok gaslighting? Since Abaddon started spouting "crazy conspiracy theories" about Lizard People, someone suggested "Mosok gaslighting" to screw with cultists and confuse them about what we are/what they're fighting. Can we create a soulless, mindless, biomotonic replicant that resembles a stalker but does not have anatomy similar enough to us to give Chaos any useful information? We could leave it somewhere for cultists to "find".
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None of the above are known to DK in character. Out of character it sound like anti-khaine propaganda created by his competitors
Are you asking how many layers of contingencies he has? It's a valid question although not useful at this point. If you want to ask after countering the most likely to be triggered you should reword it slightly.
The expedition is done regardless, I want some normal turns and under no circumstances am I gonna deal with a local ork fight while also running expedition turns. You can decide to leave ships there to help and support them on a normal turn budget scale
Usually. Not always but almost. Usually it's the case and when it's not it will be mentioned in the project. I have said some rushed projects will mess with such traits to ensure rushing is mechanically meaningful
In character? They are shrouded beyond sight and the alien enemies broke the seal on this one.
Also
The oaths are all meant to be roughly similar in challenge from the GEOM perspective, he wouldn't give you access to an easier one if he had it, which I am no going to confirm or deny
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
So we know enough Deep Lore about Khaine to piece together his method of resurrection but not enough to know about his many well recorded Severity 5 crimes? Is that the kind of thing a spoiler question divine profile as described below would tell them?
Or are you saying that Khaine isn't a loose cannon in this AU?
Yeah, it seems like once we have the time for it, an Observatory Ship with a Hanger Bay full of NSI capable Manta Skiffs can just hop over to a new subsector and start constructing an astrological profile/starmap for it while the Skiffs quickly do initial surveys of all the systems.
My plan focused on having a high rate of success for every project so we could get them done now, get the project rewards now and have less projects to worry about decaying. I want us to eventually be able to have Plans where we have a number of projects we can likely finish and then a couple of high AP projects we can chip away at faster by having less spread out AP.
Partially completed projects do nothing. It is not overspending when it gives you a 70 to 80% chance of finishing the project on the same turn. That matters more than the possibility of overspending. Finishing a project to get the reward is all that matters. The possibility of overspending a single AP does not matter compared to that. I cannot believe we have 25 whole projects in progress and then there is talk of starting new ones. Now we will have 6 different GEOM oaths to keep track of. It is bad that we have to think of projects to put a minimum amount of AP into because we are afraid of the project progress decaying. We should not be in that position. I am already repeating what I said and do not want to do more of that.
It is good if we can do that.
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Erinys
the Frantic Archivist
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah I'm very confused how we have detailed stories about all the major Aeldari gods, enough to understand the detailed mythlines to resurrect them that the Aeldari themselves can't read despite knowing so much more than us for 10 millennia*, but we know nothing at all about anything Khaine has done in any of those stories, like trying to genocide his worshippers. That doesn't make sense to me. We can't know how to resurrect him without knowing his entire mythline which exists in the stories about his deeds. If we know nothing about Khaine then we can't resurrect him. The Lesson was described as knowing the mythlines by listening to the stories about the gods. It was stated explicitly at the time that we would know those stories.
Khaine's stories are intertwined with the stories and mythlines about the other gods too. How do we know enough to resurrect Vaul without knowing that he made the Swords and was maimed both because of Khaine? How can we know enough about Isha without knowing about her tears? How can we know how to resurrect Asuryan without ever hearing about his Edict, which was done because of Khaine? This is illogical. If all the stories Ulthwe told us involving Khaine are their lies, then they can't contain the true mythline to resurrect him, and probably not Vaul either. That would also be illogical.
And, in addition, we don't have a demesne for him, which is necessary to resurrect him.
We weren't told that we would be forced to resurrect all the gods when we were offered the Lesson of Wonder and Loss. I didn't join in time to vote on that, but I wonder if the vote would still have gone to Aeldari gods if we had known at the time that we would have no choices about how to do it. I saw some players saying at the time that they voted for it in part to help the space Elves... nobody said they wanted to exterminate them.
Most of the above also applies to Morai-Heg (very likely to sabotage our Celestial Bureaucracy) and Asuryan (whose Edict would prevent genocide but mean we [and the Aeldari] get zero assistance or benefit from any of these gods, period, making the whole exercise entirely useless).
*The alternative is that they know how to resurrect their gods, but don't want to because they know it wouldn't help them, and they get a choice but we don't.
If we don't know those stories about Khaine or Asuryan in character, then I want to use my QM question to give the Dragon Kings (and players) the true stories about Khaine, whatever is true in this AU. And I'll ask Froggy to switch his QM question to the same thing for Asuryan, or to "Will resurrecting Asuryan also put his Edict into effect?".
Khaine's stories are intertwined with the stories and mythlines about the other gods too. How do we know enough to resurrect Vaul without knowing that he made the Swords and was maimed both because of Khaine? How can we know enough about Isha without knowing about her tears? How can we know how to resurrect Asuryan without ever hearing about his Edict, which was done because of Khaine? This is illogical. If all the stories Ulthwe told us involving Khaine are their lies, then they can't contain the true mythline to resurrect him, and probably not Vaul either. That would also be illogical.
And, in addition, we don't have a demesne for him, which is necessary to resurrect him.
We weren't told that we would be forced to resurrect all the gods when we were offered the Lesson of Wonder and Loss. I didn't join in time to vote on that, but I wonder if the vote would still have gone to Aeldari gods if we had known at the time that we would have no choices about how to do it. I saw some players saying at the time that they voted for it in part to help the space Elves... nobody said they wanted to exterminate them.
Most of the above also applies to Morai-Heg (very likely to sabotage our Celestial Bureaucracy) and Asuryan (whose Edict would prevent genocide but mean we [and the Aeldari] get zero assistance or benefit from any of these gods, period, making the whole exercise entirely useless).
*The alternative is that they know how to resurrect their gods, but don't want to because they know it wouldn't help them, and they get a choice but we don't.
If we don't know those stories about Khaine or Asuryan in character, then I want to use my QM question to give the Dragon Kings (and players) the true stories about Khaine, whatever is true in this AU. And I'll ask Froggy to switch his QM question to the same thing for Asuryan, or to "Will resurrecting Asuryan also put his Edict into effect?".
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Excluding the hiatus, we have spent a year and 20 turns in the Gothic War. We should never have another event take this long.
For one heavenly crimes with a severity level are not a thing gods or dragon kings would have heard of in this setting as they had not been invented yet before the exile.
For another, once again you are judging explicitly alien gods and their MYTHs like it's an after action report rather than a story meant to convey a lesson to the listener
For a third Dragon kings would not judge eldar gods by the standards of modern exalted setting heaven but by the standard of the brutal conditions of primordial rules.
Khaine is tame! Luna was way worse
I am saying that everything you accuse khaine of in terms of being a lose cannon was the result of a death curse afflicting him while heroically slaying a nigh-primordial. Something that afflicted all exalted AND dragon kings
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
I'm not entirely sure what lessons such myths as "Khaine murders the coolest Eldar who everyone liked" "Khaine got such a huge boner for genociding the Eldar that the godking forbid all contact between gods and mortals in perpetuity" and "Khaine chained the craftsman god to his own anvil after breaking his legs and commanded he never craft wonders again, only make ever more super weapons" other than "Khaine is a huge asshole and never piss him off or he'll ignore the chain of command and murder you"
I'm pretty sure Luna never killed Sol's most favored servant or tried to wipe out all mortal life based off a vague portent from the Maidens. She was dangerous, to be sure, but she was dangerous within the acceptable context and chain of command of divinity.
I'm not sure I know what you're referring to and, for the one flavor of Exalted they actually knew that about (the Eternals), everyone decided to seal them in the underworld and cut off all memory of their existence in canon. I don't see why we wouldn't make the same decision we made for them or Amoth.
I guess my biggest issue is Amoth. He committed way fewer/smaller scale unsanctioned atrocities and we decided to kill him and turn him into a weapon with specific restrictions and drawbacks. I don't see why we wouldn't decide to just not expend the effort on Khaine who was already killed and turned into a weapon with specific restrictions and drawbacks.
Lots of them are metaphors. Like chaining Vaul to his anvil is a thing about what war does to artists.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
I'll give you that, but I still hold that, given the only data we actually have on his behavior, we have no particular reason to believe he wouldn't be a loose cannon and the Dragon Kings' stance on divine loose cannons during times of crisis has been established.
Erinys
the Frantic Archivist
- Pronouns
- She/Her
@Slamu I agree with @Gunman than a turn spent chipping away at umpteen projects, and finishing none, is a very unrewarding turn. An unfinished project isn't a failure per se, but it is useless until finished. And when successes start decaying, that is a failure and a waste of AP. If StarJaunter told us omake successes never decay and you have a quote for that, and can identify which unfinished projects are like that, it'll help a lot to narrow down which projects are decaying.
Putting the minimum AP into each unfinished project, to reset their decay rate, might be a good idea. But it's a problem that we even need to, not a good way to spend a turn. And that would take ... 55 AP per turn.
Slamu I hope you don't mind I'll only use the Quote widget for first quote
We apparently do have enough adamant for the Teteocon Expansion actually, we have 3 successes in it. I agree the expansion itself isn't an immediate priority.
Explanations of my plan:
Slamu: "I disagree; most of that can be started now, and we can probably conquer one or more worlds without support from the Gothic Sector troops."
Are you saying you want to invade an 8-planet Waaaagh! with just the Nobz Gob and a few Skyremes, now during the Gothic War, or while another big ork force is invading Tokat? Or with Nobz Gob plus Kroozer? We needed Nobz Gob plus Luminous Herald plus Rocs just to invade Tocha, and they only had one planet and had already lost all their boyz and ships in a previous battle. I won't agree to this invasion plan, especially not leaving our own planets undefended while they're invaded by orks.
"Population growth; it is entirely possible to both complete CCI (Tocha) and Continuing Grace in the same turn."
For 39 AP, yes. I didn't say anything contrary to this. It isn't done yet.
"Warships; 1 turn to design, 1 turn to build the Leeyata Templeship."
I didn't say anything contrary to this, either. We don't have that warship yet. I only want to increase our AP income and basic planetary defenses before sending all of our current ships away to invade an 8-planet empire. I don't see why that's unreasonable. Keep in mind that our performance in the Gothic War has been almost entirely due to Holy shenanigans. None of that works against orks (unless we want to Wrath-bomb all our own ships). We can't count on Nysela or Final Hymn to help against orks either (Final Hymn might be willing).
After we have real defenses for each of our planets (physical and spiritual and Shining Inquisition and Cuttlefish), Tocha cleansed, and some unfinished projects out of the way, after we have fought off the ork invasion we know is coming very soon, then we should invade the local Waaaagh! one system at a time. Again, why is this unreasonable? If preparing a warfleet and defenses only takes 3 turns, then you won't have to wait long.
"Defending worlds; we have astrology to see when a specific planet is due to be invaded and can shuffle numbers around as needed."
No, we can't move any ships between the Tokat and Ophelis sectors, except tiny motonic boats which we haven't built yet. We can't move the Night Faring Gem, Defense Grid, Aurichim, or Argentim between systems at all, and only Tokat has them. We only have 1 elite legion and 1 QRF (both currently in Gothic Sector). We can't move Legions to Tocha while the Abundant Feast is away fighting a war. And pulling an entire warfleet back from an invasion of an ork system at the last minute could lose two wars simultaneously.
"Moreover the Dragon King civilians are basically as effective as run of the mill Imperial Guard"
Civilians, militia, and PDF together weren't enough to repel even a very minor ork raid. Stopping that raid required 3 Skyremes, an Orbital Redoubt, Argentim, Aurichim, Ruby Arrows, Quick-Response Force, several Hosts of real Legions, and the advantage of the Fortress-Arena to herd all their ground forces into one fortified spot. We only have enough of each of those for one planet, not 3. Tocha and Ophelis are utterly unfortified, plus Tocha is covered in spores and has no CCI or omen chimes. If we send all our skyships on an invasion, then we can't repel a tiny casual ork raid, let alone the big ork invasion we know for a fact is coming soon. Nor any military invasion by Abaddon, Biel-Tan, random Drukari, etc.
I just reread the little ork raid. I know what forces we needed to beat them. To fight off full military invasions, we need to leave behind more than what we used against the little ork raid, at each of our planets.
"~600,000 Dragons in a population of 30million which ought to be more than enough to defend the city walls."
Militia armed with crap on the ground can stop warships and orbital bombardment in space? I'm sorry, I don't believe that. Even to conquer Tokat, we used actual trained Legions.
"We have options that do not require us to desist from conquest should we so choose."
I never said "desist from conquest". I specifically said I DO want to invade the orks, when we're ready. I said we need to build defenses to leave behind at each planet, including at least 1 warship per planet, before we invade elsewhere. I don't believe we can defend a planet from a military invasion with absolutely nothing but golems and militia with the lowest tier of crap gear.
"Hiding things from Abbadon; we have the Prying Veil of Discretion being built and can occlude the Hand/Eye's fate as necessary. Furthermore we can build a special little hidey-hole in a single turn if the Maiden of Secrets' efforts aren't good enough for you (Astrology + 12 AP for 'probably complete', 13 AP for 'statistically likely to complete without needing rerolls')."
That only hides which planet/sector it's in. He already knows that we have it. All hiding it does is delay his counterattack. He only has to do the Chaos vision quest equivalent to find our planets. And IIRC I read that the Eye of Night is more central to his future plans than the Hand of Darkness. The solution to the Eye of Night is to transform it into something else (or destroy it, but I'd rather transform it), so Abaddon's divination tells him he can't get it back. If each planet has a Solar Templeship in orbit, he'll likely think twice. If he only has to bomb our militia into submission, he has little to lose by attacking all 3 planets once he finds them.
"Biel-Tan: Their aggression is likely to be presaged by a 'get out' letter being sent us instead of a surprise war host."
OK, I believe you there. I'm still somewhat worried about how we can respond to their GTFO demand. It looks like you suggest offering them Immaculate Seed medicine? And you believe they'll accept that in exchange for us keeping Ophelis? But, couldn't they just invade to steal the Immaculate Seed plantations?
"'you helped us once, but now you aren't actively helping us so die!'"
We haven't helped Biel-Tan themselves yet. So we would want to set up something we can offer them. But in character we don't know about them and can't prepare ahead of time with anything Elf-specific.
Will hurrying to get an Avatar of Isha make them less likely to invade us (because we're doing them some good) or more likely to invade (making Ophelis too valuable to leave in our hands) ? But again, that's metagaming. Population growth options are a decent reason to get her soon, but in character it doesn't make her temple urgent.
"Did I miss any of your concerns?"
Yes. I don't believe we can defend our planets from full military invasions with NO ships at home, no additional angels or Orbital Redoubts, and only militia gear. I don't agree that we should leave them like that. I don't agree we should leave Tocha covered in spores. The Gothic War has already left us undefended a long time and we just made new enemies.
I also don't see any desperate emergency to drop everything and kill all the orks in the sub-sector on Turn 50 or 51, so I don't understand why we can't spend a few turns preparing. We certainly should attack them soon, within the next 10 turns. I doubt 3-5 turns of preparation would allow them to suddenly become as built-up as 'Undred-'Undred Teef. They have fewer solar systems than the Teef, and our scouts haven't seen any sign of a Space Hulk. And I suggested using Stalking Mantis or another sneakship to sabotage them every turn until our invasion.
We don't even have enough imidazole on hand to cleanse Tocha yet, so we can't use it as a weapon until we build some plantations. Oh, and conquering Khyral will cause multiple planetary biospheres there to collapse, requiring terraforming to restart them. We haven't even researched a way to prevent that yet.
Lastly, we have a bonus to all martial arts actions until Turn 60. Dropping everything to invade 3 ork solar systems immediately would squander that bonus.
The vote for the Lesson was entirely OOC, by design. And made with very incomplete information, voting for what feels like a trap now. So nothing about it was ever in character.
Putting the minimum AP into each unfinished project, to reset their decay rate, might be a good idea. But it's a problem that we even need to, not a good way to spend a turn. And that would take ... 55 AP per turn.
Slamu I hope you don't mind I'll only use the Quote widget for first quote
Lion-Dogs and Celestial Lions are for more than just Teteocon, though. We have an incomplete pantheon riddled with holes, gods who still need to be bribed every turn, and almost no spiritual defenses for our planets. I don't want unfinished projects to decay. Also, I made my plan by compromising with Gunman and I have 3 votes. I'm not sure how much I can change before people either change their votes, or feel like I unfairly pulled the plan out from under them.
We apparently do have enough adamant for the Teteocon Expansion actually, we have 3 successes in it. I agree the expansion itself isn't an immediate priority.
Explanations of my plan:
Ruby Arrow Recruitment and Wash the Spears: These are to beef up our best legions for the rest of the Gothic War.
Suppression (Tocha): This is to reduce the upkeep cost of the Tochan feral orks next turn
Taking the Shine to Known Threats: This is because we have a dangerous gap in our defense against cults.
Long-Term Support For Spy Rings: This is because the Gothic War is almost over and several players have said keeping the spy rings would be valuable.
Soulsteel Deal: This is an unfinished project, I don't want it to decay, and we'll need soulsteel to make Wondrous Globes more quickly for our ships. That said I can take 1 AP off of it to keep Magical Population Growth from decaying.
Repairs and Salvage: This is to get something out of the ork ships before they fall apart.
Train Celestial Martial Arts: You suggested using the Dojo to improve our forces.
Naval Administrative Oversight: The sooner we finish this, the sooner we decrease our fleet upkeep by 2 AP per turn.
Astrology: This is to help us in the "big showdown" coming up in the Gothic Sector, and improve the chances of finishig Ruby Arrow Recruitment.
Lightning Ballista: This is an unfinished project, I don't want it to decay. It might have been fairly recent though so maybe I can move that 1 AP to delay the decay of Map the Other Stars.
Lumina Pacts: These are for the "big showdown" in the Gothic Sector.
Stockpiles: These are for the Gothic War and to make sure we aren't down to empty at the end of it. That said, I don't know how many logistics and standard stockpiles we have left in Gothic Sector. If we're certain we have enough left for Turn 50 then I can redirect those Ateliers to grace or invocation stockpiles, or human care packages, or Long-Term Support.
Human Care Package: 2 hive worlds are starving and it seems like the Imperials might let us help feed them, although 1 package won't be enough for everyone.
Pay the Debt: We need this done by turn 51 so we can pay back Lugganath. Or Kelvari. Not sure which we owe, both have been mentioned and Kelvari might not be canon.
Jach'Uchil Sulfur Exploitation: This is to increase our AP income.
Prying Veil of Discretion: This is to hide the Eye of Night after the Gothic War. Mind, it'll only disguise what planet it's on. Abaddon already knows we have it on our ships and will assume we'll bring it back to one of our planets eventually, so if he wants it back he'll start trying to find our planets by scouting, divination, or whatever.
Imidazole Plantation: This is to make cleansing Tocha easier so we can sooner stop paying upkeep on the feral orks.
Brass Legions: I included this from Gunman's plan, I think. I was thinking we can send them to the War, but maybe they aren't good enough to fight what we're up against. Or we can send only the amount we already have. I'm most open to changing this, but to what? We don't have enough AP to design and build another ship for the war, do we? I leave the fiddly shipbuilding math to you Slamu. If we can use that AP and golem success to finish a Void Kraken Collar of Clockwork Diligence this turn, then I'd like to switch to that. But I haven't seen how what minimum AP that project requires, with or without your omake.
"I think you want Elemental Support for plantations;"
"I think you'll want to +manta the Jach'Uchil Sulfer Exploitation project to lower the DC further"
Thank you, I think I'll do these.
Suppression (Tocha): This is to reduce the upkeep cost of the Tochan feral orks next turn
Taking the Shine to Known Threats: This is because we have a dangerous gap in our defense against cults.
Long-Term Support For Spy Rings: This is because the Gothic War is almost over and several players have said keeping the spy rings would be valuable.
Soulsteel Deal: This is an unfinished project, I don't want it to decay, and we'll need soulsteel to make Wondrous Globes more quickly for our ships. That said I can take 1 AP off of it to keep Magical Population Growth from decaying.
Repairs and Salvage: This is to get something out of the ork ships before they fall apart.
Train Celestial Martial Arts: You suggested using the Dojo to improve our forces.
Naval Administrative Oversight: The sooner we finish this, the sooner we decrease our fleet upkeep by 2 AP per turn.
Astrology: This is to help us in the "big showdown" coming up in the Gothic Sector, and improve the chances of finishig Ruby Arrow Recruitment.
Lightning Ballista: This is an unfinished project, I don't want it to decay. It might have been fairly recent though so maybe I can move that 1 AP to delay the decay of Map the Other Stars.
Lumina Pacts: These are for the "big showdown" in the Gothic Sector.
Stockpiles: These are for the Gothic War and to make sure we aren't down to empty at the end of it. That said, I don't know how many logistics and standard stockpiles we have left in Gothic Sector. If we're certain we have enough left for Turn 50 then I can redirect those Ateliers to grace or invocation stockpiles, or human care packages, or Long-Term Support.
Human Care Package: 2 hive worlds are starving and it seems like the Imperials might let us help feed them, although 1 package won't be enough for everyone.
Pay the Debt: We need this done by turn 51 so we can pay back Lugganath. Or Kelvari. Not sure which we owe, both have been mentioned and Kelvari might not be canon.
Jach'Uchil Sulfur Exploitation: This is to increase our AP income.
Prying Veil of Discretion: This is to hide the Eye of Night after the Gothic War. Mind, it'll only disguise what planet it's on. Abaddon already knows we have it on our ships and will assume we'll bring it back to one of our planets eventually, so if he wants it back he'll start trying to find our planets by scouting, divination, or whatever.
Imidazole Plantation: This is to make cleansing Tocha easier so we can sooner stop paying upkeep on the feral orks.
Brass Legions: I included this from Gunman's plan, I think. I was thinking we can send them to the War, but maybe they aren't good enough to fight what we're up against. Or we can send only the amount we already have. I'm most open to changing this, but to what? We don't have enough AP to design and build another ship for the war, do we? I leave the fiddly shipbuilding math to you Slamu. If we can use that AP and golem success to finish a Void Kraken Collar of Clockwork Diligence this turn, then I'd like to switch to that. But I haven't seen how what minimum AP that project requires, with or without your omake.
"I think you want Elemental Support for plantations;"
"I think you'll want to +manta the Jach'Uchil Sulfer Exploitation project to lower the DC further"
Thank you, I think I'll do these.
Are you saying you want to invade an 8-planet Waaaagh! with just the Nobz Gob and a few Skyremes, now during the Gothic War, or while another big ork force is invading Tokat? Or with Nobz Gob plus Kroozer? We needed Nobz Gob plus Luminous Herald plus Rocs just to invade Tocha, and they only had one planet and had already lost all their boyz and ships in a previous battle. I won't agree to this invasion plan, especially not leaving our own planets undefended while they're invaded by orks.
"Population growth; it is entirely possible to both complete CCI (Tocha) and Continuing Grace in the same turn."
For 39 AP, yes. I didn't say anything contrary to this. It isn't done yet.
"Warships; 1 turn to design, 1 turn to build the Leeyata Templeship."
I didn't say anything contrary to this, either. We don't have that warship yet. I only want to increase our AP income and basic planetary defenses before sending all of our current ships away to invade an 8-planet empire. I don't see why that's unreasonable. Keep in mind that our performance in the Gothic War has been almost entirely due to Holy shenanigans. None of that works against orks (unless we want to Wrath-bomb all our own ships). We can't count on Nysela or Final Hymn to help against orks either (Final Hymn might be willing).
After we have real defenses for each of our planets (physical and spiritual and Shining Inquisition and Cuttlefish), Tocha cleansed, and some unfinished projects out of the way, after we have fought off the ork invasion we know is coming very soon, then we should invade the local Waaaagh! one system at a time. Again, why is this unreasonable? If preparing a warfleet and defenses only takes 3 turns, then you won't have to wait long.
"Defending worlds; we have astrology to see when a specific planet is due to be invaded and can shuffle numbers around as needed."
No, we can't move any ships between the Tokat and Ophelis sectors, except tiny motonic boats which we haven't built yet. We can't move the Night Faring Gem, Defense Grid, Aurichim, or Argentim between systems at all, and only Tokat has them. We only have 1 elite legion and 1 QRF (both currently in Gothic Sector). We can't move Legions to Tocha while the Abundant Feast is away fighting a war. And pulling an entire warfleet back from an invasion of an ork system at the last minute could lose two wars simultaneously.
"Moreover the Dragon King civilians are basically as effective as run of the mill Imperial Guard"
Civilians, militia, and PDF together weren't enough to repel even a very minor ork raid. Stopping that raid required 3 Skyremes, an Orbital Redoubt, Argentim, Aurichim, Ruby Arrows, Quick-Response Force, several Hosts of real Legions, and the advantage of the Fortress-Arena to herd all their ground forces into one fortified spot. We only have enough of each of those for one planet, not 3. Tocha and Ophelis are utterly unfortified, plus Tocha is covered in spores and has no CCI or omen chimes. If we send all our skyships on an invasion, then we can't repel a tiny casual ork raid, let alone the big ork invasion we know for a fact is coming soon. Nor any military invasion by Abaddon, Biel-Tan, random Drukari, etc.
I just reread the little ork raid. I know what forces we needed to beat them. To fight off full military invasions, we need to leave behind more than what we used against the little ork raid, at each of our planets.
"~600,000 Dragons in a population of 30million which ought to be more than enough to defend the city walls."
Militia armed with crap on the ground can stop warships and orbital bombardment in space? I'm sorry, I don't believe that. Even to conquer Tokat, we used actual trained Legions.
"We have options that do not require us to desist from conquest should we so choose."
I never said "desist from conquest". I specifically said I DO want to invade the orks, when we're ready. I said we need to build defenses to leave behind at each planet, including at least 1 warship per planet, before we invade elsewhere. I don't believe we can defend a planet from a military invasion with absolutely nothing but golems and militia with the lowest tier of crap gear.
"Hiding things from Abbadon; we have the Prying Veil of Discretion being built and can occlude the Hand/Eye's fate as necessary. Furthermore we can build a special little hidey-hole in a single turn if the Maiden of Secrets' efforts aren't good enough for you (Astrology + 12 AP for 'probably complete', 13 AP for 'statistically likely to complete without needing rerolls')."
That only hides which planet/sector it's in. He already knows that we have it. All hiding it does is delay his counterattack. He only has to do the Chaos vision quest equivalent to find our planets. And IIRC I read that the Eye of Night is more central to his future plans than the Hand of Darkness. The solution to the Eye of Night is to transform it into something else (or destroy it, but I'd rather transform it), so Abaddon's divination tells him he can't get it back. If each planet has a Solar Templeship in orbit, he'll likely think twice. If he only has to bomb our militia into submission, he has little to lose by attacking all 3 planets once he finds them.
"Biel-Tan: Their aggression is likely to be presaged by a 'get out' letter being sent us instead of a surprise war host."
OK, I believe you there. I'm still somewhat worried about how we can respond to their GTFO demand. It looks like you suggest offering them Immaculate Seed medicine? And you believe they'll accept that in exchange for us keeping Ophelis? But, couldn't they just invade to steal the Immaculate Seed plantations?
"'you helped us once, but now you aren't actively helping us so die!'"
We haven't helped Biel-Tan themselves yet. So we would want to set up something we can offer them. But in character we don't know about them and can't prepare ahead of time with anything Elf-specific.
Will hurrying to get an Avatar of Isha make them less likely to invade us (because we're doing them some good) or more likely to invade (making Ophelis too valuable to leave in our hands) ? But again, that's metagaming. Population growth options are a decent reason to get her soon, but in character it doesn't make her temple urgent.
"Did I miss any of your concerns?"
Yes. I don't believe we can defend our planets from full military invasions with NO ships at home, no additional angels or Orbital Redoubts, and only militia gear. I don't agree that we should leave them like that. I don't agree we should leave Tocha covered in spores. The Gothic War has already left us undefended a long time and we just made new enemies.
I also don't see any desperate emergency to drop everything and kill all the orks in the sub-sector on Turn 50 or 51, so I don't understand why we can't spend a few turns preparing. We certainly should attack them soon, within the next 10 turns. I doubt 3-5 turns of preparation would allow them to suddenly become as built-up as 'Undred-'Undred Teef. They have fewer solar systems than the Teef, and our scouts haven't seen any sign of a Space Hulk. And I suggested using Stalking Mantis or another sneakship to sabotage them every turn until our invasion.
We don't even have enough imidazole on hand to cleanse Tocha yet, so we can't use it as a weapon until we build some plantations. Oh, and conquering Khyral will cause multiple planetary biospheres there to collapse, requiring terraforming to restart them. We haven't even researched a way to prevent that yet.
Lastly, we have a bonus to all martial arts actions until Turn 60. Dropping everything to invade 3 ork solar systems immediately would squander that bonus.
Yeah, after turning loose-cannon Amoth into an artifact cannon 100% under our control, it would be wildly out of character to resurrect an Incarna who's even more of a loose-cannon and just let him do whatever he wants to us and our allies.
The vote for the Lesson was entirely OOC, by design. And made with very incomplete information, voting for what feels like a trap now. So nothing about it was ever in character.
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@StarJaunter how good is a Brass Legion? How good will they be with Brass Engines of Destruction? How good are Staran Defenders and how good will they be with Wood Striders? How big is an Order of Staran Defenders?
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Eh, I wouldn't really consider it a trap as such. Several of the Eldar Gods are probably fine. The only three I'm really concerned about are Khaine, Asuryan and Morai Heg. Asuryan and Morai Heg are probably within the broad range of acceptable eccentricity for the Dragon Kings, just someone to be cautious about and establish checks and balances for like Luna or Five Days Darkness. Khaine, it seems, we have no reliable information on (except possibly the whole thing with the Edict since that one is historical fact with measurable consequences) which just means we should run divinations on or ask surviving/earlier rezzed Gods about him before making a decision. We got what we paid for, knowledge of how to resurrect the Aeldari gods. We have options and opinions on how best to utilize that knowledge but I'd argue it's far from worthless.
Erinys
the Frantic Archivist
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It would have been fine, if we were allowed to have a choice about which gods to resurrect. But it turns out we don't.
He said that we are not allowed to have any in character reason not to resurrect them. I think he is saying that we will be forced to resurrect both Asuryan and Khaine. The entire Lesson is either "you wasted all that effort for NOTHING because of the Edict" or "you just got your allies obliterated and you're next". That looks exactly like a trap and several retcons to me. I want to be wrong about this.
In the sense that sitting in the Immaterium pretending we don't exist won't hurt us, no, other than the colossal, galaxy-scaled effort we will waste resurrecting them. It won't help us either. Every last one of them will be useless once Asuryan is back. And since they'll also be required to pretend the Aeldari don't exist, and/or Khaine will immediately kill them all, we also get zero benefit from the alliance with Ulthwe -- depending on which god StarJaunter resurrects first.
Oh, also it isn't clear whether the Edict would stop Khaine and Morai-Heg from totally sabotaging the gods we brought from Creation.
So
1. You're retconning the Lesson of Wonder and Loss to say we were never told any stories at all about Khaine or Asuryan and know absolutely nothing about them except, nonsensically, how to resurrect them? So it's impossible to know about the trap until we spring it?
2. And you've declared by fiat that in character, we don't give a shit if Khaine genocides the Aeldari and/or US? And that IC we don't give a shit that the Edict will remove absolutely 100% of the benefit of all of the resurrected gods? And IC we don't give a shit if Khaine kidnaps or maims our gods and fucks up our pantheon to the point that we can't use our own gods? Each one of those would be a retcon of your explicit statements that the Lesson would help us.
3. We are not allowed to choose which gods we resurrect, you've decided to force us to do them all no matter what by saying that in character we can't refuse?
No, it's not in character to say "Oh well, I guess we might be genocided anyday then, LOL GG." Genocide =/= a few thousand temporary deaths. Genocide = game over.
It's not in character to be happy that our only allies, who we spent so much effort and AP courting, are going to be genocided.
It's not in character to want to waste huge amounts of effort on epic quests for absolutely no gain, resurrecting gods who will sit on their thumbs in the Immaterium completely ignoring us and the Aeldari. And retroactively making the entire Lesson either 100% useless or a trap that leads to our genocide or to losing our only allies feels very unfair.
I used to be excited to resurrect the [nicer] gods but now I'm feeling totally shitty about the way this has turned out.
I'm going to edit my plan I guess.
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The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
I think you're reading too much into his statements. We can do divinations and interviews on the subject of those gods (who would be later in the order for practicality reasons if nothing else) and if StarJaunter still thinks we have no reason not to resurrect them, I'm inclined to believe it's because he retconned their characterization to be less harmful than him retconning the DKs to be stupid.
He told you we do not have a choice. He did not say "you do not have a choice until you spend divination". He did not mention that in the Lesson selection process or after we got the Lore. He said Khaine is tame by Primordial standards so the DKs would want to revive him. We made an OOC choice about what to learn. He said we do not know about how bad Khaine and Asuryan are IC. In the Lessons selection and after it, it said we learned stories that had a hidden message on how to revive the gods that the Eldar did not notice. Those stories did not include the Edict or why it was implemented.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Did he say we don't have a choice? He questioned whether my concerns were valid in character, but he never said "I'll force you to spend AP on this" like with the Oaths IIRC. And one of his primary arguments against my concerns was that I was taking the myths literally. To be clear, that's not a point I agree with since we're dealing with gods, but if he says they aren't meant to be taken literally and I'm saying Khaine's worse than he is, I'm inclined to believe he's made yet another sweeping lore change as is his prerogative as QM. Only, unlike "Yaksha are shitty and dangerous" which was bad for us "Khaine lacks qualities that would make him a dealbreaker for the DKs" is promising considering the threshold of what is a dealbreaker.
How else can you read this other than "you have to resurrect him"?
He said Khaine is tame by current DK standards in response to a conversation about Khaine trying to commit genocide. He did not say "Khaine did not attempt genocide on the Eldar". The best he said he said is that IC we do not know about the genocide attempt and that OOC it is probably propaganda? If this was not meant to be a trap vote that is going to have Eldar gods be a pain in the ass after we are forced to revive them, he should say that because he said enough in such a way that it is causing concern about whether we picked a trap Lesson.
We did have a choice and we chose the Eldar pantheon. We could have chosen the ancient marketplace gods but that option is long gone now.
Because you are Human, Mortal, and not the intended audience.
Eldar are Eldar, basically demigods, and the intended Audience.
Dragon Kings are Dragon Kings, basically Demigods, and used to this shit, and have the Benefit of the Lesson.
The Dragon Kings in character understand shit you don't. Eldar in character also understand which is why they still work with and Worship Khaine. Not because he is too weak to be a threat. If there is a canonical statement saying that is true I am ignoring it as farcical.
So if the Eldar are willing to Work with, Worship, and if they had the chance ressurrect Khaine after hearing the stories the Dragon Kings heard than why wouldn't the Dragon Kings who are already at one remove from the threat indicated in the stories.
If there are not stories whispered by mortals about this I would eat Luna's hat.
Ditto, mortals believe anything.
Amoth committed no atrocities, his purviews are inconvenient for establishing a civilization.
Khaine's purviews are Violence, Conflict, Destruction and Murder. Basically Maiden of Mars and Maiden of Endings merged into one, amped up to being at least as strong as full Luna and given a bad temper.
Considering this is Warhammer and there is "only war" leaving out an Incarna of it seems a dumb move.
Because if you don't the eldar likely will try to do it on their own and being Eldar will likely fuck it up.
For the Record, That is what I meant by "Do you though..."
You will need to do it to keep the Eldar from breaking the Galaxy again... maybe.
One: Amoth never died, you negotiated for him to shapeshift into a weapon and keep him that way through placations and worship.
So Two: Even if you hilariously worst case scenarios are true than you advocate Dragon King would weaponize Khaine?
Which is what the Eldar effectively did?
Seems like Dragon Kings and Eldar are on the same page with Khaine
Three: Khaine is like 100 times more powerful and useful than Amoth.
You have no "data on his behavior" You have stories which used Essence tricks to bond a lesson teaching about the gods and their rebirth through Allegory.
You certainly do not have human interpreted chaos tainted propaganda the thread is spewing in my face to the point of making me regret my life choices.
Nor do you have a reason to believe he WOULD be a loose cannon, no more than Hulk would be on the Avengers team AT THE WORST.
This feeling is wholly created by shit spewed all over the thread by the other participants, not the QM.
Assume its not a Trap and interpret my words through that lens instead of the opposite.
A little worse then a Dragonic Legion mostly in staying power (ie they are more likely to lose units after each battle)
Roughly the same difference as Thunder Warriors and Draconic Legions.
That is adding stuff like this does not make the unit stronger, its adds options, tricks, and such to either give a circumstantial advantage when the time is right or cancel and enemies.
For example:
Devotional Cannon: Apply combat dice far outside of range (unless they also have artillery) to perform special missions like damaging buildings, terrorizing populations, and savaging unprepared soldiers. Positioning rolls can be (but don't have to be) completely unopposed.
Implosion Bows: May apply combat dice to enemy as a free extra round before true exchange starts as long as your formation is holding ground and enemy is moving towards you. Implosion Bows may not be used while you are on the move.
Siege Lizards: Acting as mobile bunkers, mounted with Recanters and armored platforms for Raptok armed with Firedust and Garda weaponry. They act as living walls and bulwarks against swarm units, removing a level of swarm bonus from enemy combat dice as hordes of lesser beings break themselves upon the flanks of the mighty Siege Lizards.
Ox-Dragons: Living Tanks armed with vehicle sized Flame Lances and a single recanter and each unit provides and Armored Die. They glory in the charge and units which possess Ox-Dragons can unleash them upon their foes, reducing the effect of prepared defenses by a level as armored Ox-Dragons Trample over trenches and minefields and bulldoze over bunkers and walls.
Claw-Striders: A fast moving calvary in which the mounts are almost or as dangerous as the riders. These range ahead and around a formation on the move and conduct patrols when stationary. Enemy units attempting positioning against Claw Strider protected units treat them as one higher level of defense.
Essence Battlements: Siege Lizards mounted with Essence Battlement Projectors and the crews to maintain and protect them. Can be used to form Walls or Domes while still providing more lightly shielded slits to return fire through. As long as holding still the formation is night immune to artillery or orbital bombardment and can raise defense level against position enemies.
Windslave Chariot Mounted Re-Canters: High volume blessed munitions can be sent streaming into enemies from platforms able to move 65 kph in a sustained way. Combat dice backed by Recanters can "return fire" against Aircraft based Combat dice. Combat dice gain a plus one modifier if target is either a swarm or vulnerable to holy (does not stack if both are true though).
Tyrant Lizards: Giant and Aggressive beasts trained to fight at your behest. These Super-Heavy Monsters may not be a match for a Warstrider but come far closer than most things do. When fighting Legendary units, Super-Heavy Units are able to damage them on a 8+ instead of 10+. A unit with Super-Heavy units fighting one without has an easier time pushing through and doing real damage, so they may re-roll dice that show "5" if they want to try for a better result.
About as good as B1 Droids from Starwars. Or about as good as the average (not a good one, average) PDF militia in 40k
You are.
No, Dragon Kings have is all the ACTUAL stories.
What you Erinys "know" is what 40k humans tell themselves after halfassed efforts to interpret in a way that makes the Eldar look even more like crazy Xeno scum and probably tainted with Chaos as well.
No, you do not believe that will happen.
Edict died with Asuryan and will not auto repopulated when he comes back. You are clever enough that what makes him come back will be dead man switched so that if he Re-enacts the edict he will auto die again. Not that you actually believe that will happen.
The stories that guide you and the eventual re-instantiations of the gods are not going to be 100% identical or perfect continuations of the beings that came before.
Its closer to a clone that only has the memories the original recorded in a diary they knew was for that purpose.
You very much care and very much do not think it will happen and if it does every once in a million years or so, the efforts from Khaine on your behalf during that million years will almost certainly have made up for it.
Except they are not, you are over reacting... Again.
Sure, but if you don't the Eldar will almost certainly look at you side eyed about it and I shouldn't have to tell you that there will be consequences to that. Including misguided eldar trying to res Khaine on their own and breaking the galaxy again.
Those consequences existing in thinking YOU have the right to pick and choose which of the Eldar's gods exist should have been apparent to all who voted for it.
Since there has been no investment in actually clearing the Lesson I am willing to let the vote for the third lesson be redone if there is overwhelming support for doing so.
ALL THE ELDAR GOD MANSES go poof in that case. Nothing you saw because you picked the Lesson will actually be truth anymore, there will be NO secret discovering how to res one of the gods because you tried hard.
I think it should be apparent from my comments by now that i do not believe I have to retconn his Characterization because YOU DO NOT KNOW HIS CHARACTERIZATION.
QM being snarky on a camping trip which was known to all when this argument started, which is likely why it escalated so far?
No, this thread has manifested the belief in a Trap Lesson from the Ether. All the Lessons are in general positive, all of the Lessons come with quirks or minor negative consequences. This is the same. Having to negotiate with an angry god with a bad temper that can smite you if angered is NORMAL for dragon kings, not a trap.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Considering humans in Warhammer don't know jack shit about the Eldar Pantheon, and we've been drawing most of the details from Warhammer Fantasy where he's still alive and the Elves are all saying similar shit about him, I respectfully disagree? Like, absolutely you're allowed to retcon it but I find it incredibly hard to believe that the sourcebooks across two interconnected franchises that are supposed to be from the perspective of his worshipers and mention stuff humans have no way of knowing anything about (and in 40k even admitting anything in regards to Khaine's existence is heresy) are human propaganda.
Like, again, it's absolutely valid for you to say that's the case in your interpretation of this universe, and I'm actually really glad that it is, but claiming that "the broad consensus of the Elves, other gods, and every source book across three settings with no other data points" is "out of nowhere/from the ether" is kind of fallacious. Like, were we supposed to just assume that our (as in, us, the real people reading this thread) only sources of information on the subject of Aeldari/Elf Gods were not only completely wrong but actually wrong in such a way that it was wildly more advantageous to us off of nothing other than our guys not being actively concerned about something we haven't even really had much of an in character chance to acknowledge?
Erinys
the Frantic Archivist
- Pronouns
- She/Her
First of all, I'm crying because surprise punishment out of nowhere for incomprehensible reasons I can't understand is an EXTREMELY severe PTSD trigger for me. It makes me feel like absolute and utter total shit. For real I am going to need weeks or months of extra fucking therapy to recover from this fucking shit you're pulling out of nowhere (and blaming us for! and yelling at us for!). Yeah and being blamed for being unexpectedly punished for not being a mind-reader is ANOTHER TRIGGER for me.
And you're totally pissed off that we couldn't read your mind to guess that? All I have to go on is the wikis. I have no mind-reading magic. I also have no read-tone-of-voice-on-forums magic but your text sure looks pissed and you're punishing us by taking away all our Ophelian manses.
You told us explicitly that we had heard "stories" about the gods and let us spend over a year assuming that of course those were the canon stories in the canon wikis, you watched Froggy repeatedly tell those canon stories to the other players on this thread, and now you're outraged that we believed the obvious when you deliberately never corrected us.
I don't think I want to keep playing a game that is going to keep triggering me over and over. That is not emotionally safe for me.
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@Gunman, I'm bequeathing my spreadsheets and plans and unused omake to you. Do what you will with them.
Edit: I use my QM question to ask for a yes/no answer whether or not Khaine will actually commit genocide (of Dragon Kings, Craftworld/Exodite/Harlequin Aeldari, or Imperium) when he is resurrected. Just so players will get some warning.
So yes, we're being forced to do it and punished if we don't. And although this is the 3rd or 4th time Froggy has said he wants to leave certain gods dead, you never mentioned or hinted at this requirement and punishment until now.
No, I advocate leaving him dead/shattered and doing nothing at all with him. As Froggy has discussed 2 or 3 times before in this thread with zero objection from you until today.
So 100% of information about all the gods in the wikis is 100% lies and you've retconned everything there is to know about the gods?
And you're totally pissed off that we couldn't read your mind to guess that? All I have to go on is the wikis. I have no mind-reading magic. I also have no read-tone-of-voice-on-forums magic but your text sure looks pissed and you're punishing us by taking away all our Ophelian manses.
You told us explicitly that we had heard "stories" about the gods and let us spend over a year assuming that of course those were the canon stories in the canon wikis, you watched Froggy repeatedly tell those canon stories to the other players on this thread, and now you're outraged that we believed the obvious when you deliberately never corrected us.
So canon Khaine info might or might not be retconned, and he might or might not do all the canon things I fear, and we have no way of knowing if he will IC or OOC. You say you didn't intend it to be a trap, but also told us the DK wouldn't consider genocide of our only allies a trap or a disavantage. And if he will genocide the Aeldari we don't get a choice about it anyway. And we're supposed to play however many more turns without having any way to guess whether or not Khaine will destroy our allies or cause Elves to blow up the galaxy or otherwise fuck us over, just sitting on a time bomb. We also know nothing about the other gods or what shit they might do to us.
They were already revealed to be present on Ophelis before we got the Lesson. So this is another arbitrary punishment and retcon.
I don't think I want to keep playing a game that is going to keep triggering me over and over. That is not emotionally safe for me.
(deleted)
@Gunman, I'm bequeathing my spreadsheets and plans and unused omake to you. Do what you will with them.
Edit: I use my QM question to ask for a yes/no answer whether or not Khaine will actually commit genocide (of Dragon Kings, Craftworld/Exodite/Harlequin Aeldari, or Imperium) when he is resurrected. Just so players will get some warning.
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