No, his name is Folg Flamegut
Mercenary Mage Quest: Asur Dogs of War in Warhammer Fantasy
- Thread starter Blackout
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- Fantasy
No, his name is Folg Flamegut
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
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- He
The plan isn't to stay small forever. It's to take advantage of a unique opportunity and use it to accumulate more cash and reputation. Then we can recruit arrow catchers and mobile shields for our elites.
And concerning relevance on the battlefield, we will gain that the second we learn a BM spell.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Exactly. We will not "accumulate more cash" because Elven Elites cost a fortune for only 20 guys. Meanwhile we will not accumulate institutional knowledge or train humans. It's just Unreplaceable Elite x2
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
The funny thing is that earlier we had someone astonished about plans voting for us to hire any humans given that they thought that the Lightfangs need to be a force of elites in order to justify getting high pay for their numbers.
Personally I'm voting for the 20 Lothern Sea Guard because we've been told by the GM that hiring all 20 together would make them more effective then only hiring a part of them because we wouldn't be breaking their unit apart.
Though I also think we're just in a bad time for hiring green human troops in general. Once this downtime is over we're probably going to be heading to a mission immediately, meaning we won't have time to either train them or buy them some more equipment. Personally I'd like it if in our next recruiting round we put an action in advance to train new recruits as well as buy a shield for every spearman we recruit. If we're starting to recruit humans I'd prefer to be known as someone who invests in their recruits by making sure that they have proper equipment and training for those that do sign up, then to be known as someone who just immediately brought some greenhorns to the field in order for them to die.
As is the Lothern Sea Guard add a much needed ranged component to the Lightfangs, which is something I was hoping to get, while also being good enough in melee that they can join up with our swordmasters at the frontline when ever needed.
Personally I'm voting for the 20 Lothern Sea Guard because we've been told by the GM that hiring all 20 together would make them more effective then only hiring a part of them because we wouldn't be breaking their unit apart.
Though I also think we're just in a bad time for hiring green human troops in general. Once this downtime is over we're probably going to be heading to a mission immediately, meaning we won't have time to either train them or buy them some more equipment. Personally I'd like it if in our next recruiting round we put an action in advance to train new recruits as well as buy a shield for every spearman we recruit. If we're starting to recruit humans I'd prefer to be known as someone who invests in their recruits by making sure that they have proper equipment and training for those that do sign up, then to be known as someone who just immediately brought some greenhorns to the field in order for them to die.
As is the Lothern Sea Guard add a much needed ranged component to the Lightfangs, which is something I was hoping to get, while also being good enough in melee that they can join up with our swordmasters at the frontline when ever needed.
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Sertorius
Rebellious Legate
- Location
- Roma Invicta
Ithilmar armour as well and good quality equipment, let's not forget that.
Needless to say, this will only reinforce our standing policy of retrieving the fallen. Not only to properly bury them, but also to take back their expensive battle kit and to prevent any human (or worse) from claiming it.
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
This might be the total war player in me speaking but in my mind's eye in the longer term I imagine the Lothern Sea Guard acting as a force in our flanks, guarding the sides of our mostly unbloodied archers while there's a frontline of mostly human spearmen and our swordmasters. The Sea Guard can stay relatively back as archers, but if a cavalry force tries to flank us they could also brace to take their charge.
Add some human blackpowder artillery that we can find and a griffon for ourself to act as an air force and you have a ready made small army. Maybe a few scouts that can double as horse archers and a few lancers to act as shock cavalry.
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Ragingbear21
Victoria Concordia Crescit
- Location
- Lebanon
This is one of Kislev's specialty, so we should definitely try and recruit ungol horse archers, maybe even try to save an ungol tribe and have them become part of our mercenary unit, winged lancers are gonna be more difficult to recruit since they usually are the nobility of the land and if they want to go mercs they would usually join the Gryphon Legion, but if we roll good enough We could maybe start recruiting some of them.
Sertorius
Rebellious Legate
- Location
- Roma Invicta
That's fine and all, but their stuff is worth a small fortune to anyone who grabs it and we simply cannot allow that to happen. Even if we ourselves won't make use of it, since the next of kin or the remaining Sea Guards may lay claim to it, there is the matter of cultural implications: Ithilmar can't be allowed to fall into mortal hands if we can prevent it.
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
Okay. I don't think I said anything about passing on their Ithilmar armor to anyone else?
I looked at list of "Approved Dogs of War", and realized that someone just needs to make Mercenary Company lead by Ogre Hunter, and we will have "covered" all Ogres's "Hero Units" (Bruiser, Butcher, Firebelly and Hunter) from Tabletop
Sertorius
Rebellious Legate
- Location
- Roma Invicta
Nope.
It's just, that before we will even get the things you mentioned, the Sea Guards might not even be there at all or shall be relegated to officer roles. Maybe they'll perish, leave or we shall dismiss them. Planning is all good, but we are still to decide whether we shall go for a miniature army or will we specialize. A single round of recruitment doesn't mean anything really. Sometimes we may not have the option to get the troops you want and we will have to pick something suboptimal just to fill in the gaps. Many merc companies are such a mix, since there was no other choice.
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
Also on the plus side hiring some Lothern Sea Guard will probably help with training any future unbloodied recruits. Our swordmasters might be a bit rusty with their archery, but the Lothern Sea Guard regularly make use of it as part of their vocation, so they'll still have plenty to teach even the 18 prowess unbloodied.
That seems like a good plan to me. I would just add some Ogres for monstrous infantry.
We may be able to use Elementals for that, and we don't have to pay them
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
Also doing with a few trolls what the prophet did with ogres depending on what the results of our experimentation of implementing animals with elementals are.
Speaking of which with regards to cavalry we might be able to create magical mounts for a cavalry force of ours to ride with elemental implementation.
Yeah, that would be a very good asset for our company.
I worry about the results of Trolls having elementals bound to them creating new sub-species of troll. Trolls very readily mutate based on, I think, the magic absorbed by their food. I expect they would do the same with the magic they're exposed to if possessed by an elemental. This is an issue because if a troll gets seriously wounded in battle it can produce a new troll, one that doesn't have an elemental bound to it to make it obedient, and that we might miss a lump of flesh it would grow from after a battle leaving it to grow.
Yes, although Kislevites may not approve messing around with their horses like that.
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
That's fair. Either way we're not there yet. If we do try elemental implementation in trolls it'll only be after we've already done enough experiments to know what the effects of each elemental is when implemented and then experimenting with a single troll to see what effects are on it, including what happens in case it reproduces like that, if it can.
We could just buy our own horses and look for cavalrymen who had their horses die. We don't need to ask for their permission if it is our own horse.
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Even if a Kislevite sells you a horse, they might still be horrified and disgusted and furious if you bound a Wind Elemental to it, as legal ownership doesn't mean people stop caring about what's right enough.
Just as in the UK if someone sells you their horse and you kill and eat it they'll likely hate you forever, and most people who hear about it would be revolted.
It's worth recalling that in Kislev the Winds are considered inherently corruptive and evil, like Necromancy. An elemental made from a Wind will not be perceived the same as a regular spirit. And if we have them permanently bound rather than just deployed in battle we're much more likely to get caught by someone with Witchsight and authority.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
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- He
Blackout already said that spirits bound in animals are actually less likely to get us accused of demonology. The overwhelming majority of people will see a wizard with exotic pets and think "that's regular wizard business", while the very few people who can actually notice the truth are also the ones most likely to see that it's not demons we've bound.
Edit: we also don't plan on shouting on a public square that we're binding elementals into horses. What people ignore can't upset them.
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Imperious
Without the sun of my life
We've been told by Word of God that using animals implemented with elementals is likely to actually bring us less negative attention then using elementals by themselves. The jist of it is that animals implemented with elementals could pass of as just being odd, with most people not even being able to understand what they are when seeing them, but elementals are obviously unnatural and are more likely to bring to mind comparisons to daemons to people seeing them then an animal that just has an elemental implemented in it.
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Yes, it's less likely to attract negative attention in one way, as most people can't see a possessing entity. Compared to wandering around Erengrad with some summoned elementals out in the open, having elementals bound inside hosts is much less obvious and likely to attract attention.
However, there are some people, magic using priests, Hag Witches, and Ice Witches, who can perceive supernatural phenomena and entities just by looking at them. If they take a look at a horse possessed by a Ghyran elemental, they'll be able to see the Ghyran elemental with their Witchsight.
Legal magic users aren't that rare in Kislev that we can be confident that one will never, ever see our forces.
By contrast, if we're summoning them on the fly, we can choose to do so when there are no witnesses.
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Imperious
Without the sun of my life
Alratan, we don't need for a legal magic user to never, ever see our forces. We are a legal magic user. Most human nations, Kislev included, give elven spell casters a pass as part of a legal framework meant to not sour relations with Ulthuan. We are officially given a figleaf of being a priest like Damsels are, for that matter we even are a priest. This idea to try to hide from people that we use wind magic at all seems wildly impractical. Even if we never ever casted wind magic, meaning all of our magics, not just elementals, in front of legal casters in Kislev, mundane witnesses are going to be able to describe to people what they saw us doing when we summon a tangle of vines or a living flame. We've not exactly made a secret of us being a wizard so far.
For that matter witnesses are probably less likely to talk about seeing an odd animal compared to an elemental anyway.
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K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
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It would require careful examination by a caster with a learning high enough to see it. Fanriel has Learning 30 and didn't notice until a close look.
In fact, why should we care about it? The Prophet has the same problem and managed just fine. And Hag Witches very officially use spirits all the time and don't suffer any backlash for it. Binding one inside an animal doesn't seem like a big leap, and it's not like concern for animal well-being is a thing for humans in this world.
In other words: 'Yep, the fire in that fire horse comes from my god. He is the god of... er magical elf fire. The horse's mane is clearly on fire, but it is unharmed so just as clearly magical and I am an elf.'
