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Paradox of Choice: The Quest (Ulthuan Quest)

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[X] – Storm the city, but first take the time to coordinate with the fleet and what reinforcements His Highness the King can muster.
Occupying the Naggarothi fleet will make your approach easier and allow you to call on heroes from the garrison at Tor Achare, but the Druchii will be able to restore their spirits and prepare final defenses.

We have the chance to potentially kill Malekith himself if we can cut off his retreat, at which point we win. It may not be a big chance, but it's bigger than if we just charge in.
 
Imrix said:
Real talk? I'm generally fairly averse to perfect solutions, hindsight or otherwise. It cheapens the story. Did you ever read Renegade Reinterpretations? There's a passage there that rings true for me, typo's and all;
You were never going to get a perfect engagement out of this. Not against Malekith. Even with a Coil affecting his judgement, he wouldn't have given battle on terms that wouldn't let him at least make a fight of it, and that would have cost you.

Sometimes there is no perfect solution, you know? But the choice of which imperfect solution, of what you value most, that's interesting. So, you didn't fully rout Malekith's army, and you didn't stop him reinforcing Tor Dynal. But you did keep him from getting into Cothique, you drastically cut down on his stock of meatshields, you forced him into a humiliating defeat, and you suffered minimal casualties - Teclis' army is a little messed up, but the core of it is solid and it was always the smaller force.

In other words,

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Imrix said:
I would have veto'd it, so, no. Coils let you influence destiny, not railroad it.
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Hrm, the geography shift forced him into his own traps... would you have veto'd the coil if it also defined the remaining paths Malekith could've still taken to Tor Dynal as also being imperfect?

Say give him options like coming within bolt thrower range of Elisia's walls or traversing the burned glades(and defining said glades as being poor in edible forage yet rich in the unquiet dead and/or hateful Fey)?
Because a third option would've been things like blasting a new road with sorcerous might or pulling fleet elements to bypass difficult terrain past the Elisian. Or heading somewhere else.

Macros said:
Ok, I voted against that particular plan, but I don't think it's fair to blame it for this particular problem. I mean, yes, we couldn't put that much dice into Naggartyhean forces, but we still had Ellyrians available. There was an argument to use exactly that, unfortunately the majority didn't go with it.
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Deadly Snark said:
Reminder; Ellyrians were available on mass, we simply didnt choose them for this plan.
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Imrix said:
Per the King's orders, a significant portion of Ellyrion's armies remain at the Phoenix Gate as a reserve force in case of disaster, and of those that did arrive in Chrace, a portion are exhausted or in disarray after Daeanvaras' campaign. As such, no more than 2 points may be spent on Ellyrian troops.
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Q.E.D. The Tor Achare fallout also restricted the number of available Ellyrion troops. So it actually is pretty fair to also blame the Tor Achare plan for limiting the amount of Ellyrian skirmishers. Because it did.

No7sHere said:
Honestly if Malekith wasn't about to try and steal one of our cities, I'd be predisposed to letting him just leave we seem to have gained a decisive long term lead in naval affairs and be developing faster so that him not winning a decisive victory right now equates to serious loss to him.
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It's less the military advantage Malekith gains from creating a proto-Black Ark and more that the political fallout would probably cost Thiraenal a fair amount of influence(that could've otherwise been spent on military improvements, rebuilding Chrace, building up buffer states or encouraging population growth) and possibly reduce Thiraenal's influence by tarring him with memories of the Sundering.

Granted, memories of a high butcher's bill(not to mention the whole bit with risking the Everqueen and being a walking corpse at times) is also likely to cast us in a negative light but the Asur are more accustomed to seeing their blood spilt than they are with enemies sundering the home continent.
 
[X] – Press this advantage! Storm the walls immediately and advance into the city. (x1.6)

He has had no time to prepare.

If we storm the city, Malekith will escape.

But at least he will be less likely to pull a "taking you with me move" that option two may provoke if we call in the fleet to block his last exit and give him time to prepare.

This fight will be bloody and the Doom will be potent.

But Allarielle is present, she is notable in mass healing entire regiments at a gesture and by suppressing the effects of the Doom with her mere presence.

Time now to kill a couple generations of Druuchi and render them a minor threat for decades to come.
 
[X] – Storm the city, but first take the time to coordinate with the fleet and what reinforcements His Highness the King can muster.
 
Qeqre said:
Q.E.D. The Tor Achare fallout also restricted the number of available Ellyrion troops. So it actually is pretty fair to also blame the Tor Achare plan for limiting the amount of Ellyrian skirmishers. Because it did.
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Yeah, but we didn't even use the ones we had access too.

Don't get me wrong, the "killing sorceresses" plan was not something I was keen on, and I argued for including more skirmishing forces for this vote, but I'm not linking the two. Had we wanted, we could have had a skirmishing force to harass Malekith and slow down a retreat. People just didn't vote for that.
 
The actual blame lies on the fact that we were too enamored with the idea of forcing a bloody grand battle then and there and forgot the main purpose of cavalry and skirmishers. So we put more frontline troops to fight the battle instead of adding some harassers to actually make it happen.

That is the problem.

Blaming it on a operation that yes was controversial, but it accomplished what it set out to do, drove back the siege and granted us an magical edge that is still being noted in the narrative is not really productive.
 
If the war ended now we would come out much better from it than malekith so I'd vote to siege the city and let malekith retreat if he didn't retreat to the sea with the city.

Fuck him, what remains of his sorceresess are exhausted, he has run out of human shields to throw at us and his troops are exhausted. Meanwhile our morale is heroic, we have superior numbers, dragons, more mages and are ready to finish this. Now is the time to attack when we have the initiative.

There will be casualties but the odds are with us and our mages will help us defend against the bombardment of the black arks. Not having the navy there could even be an advantage because it does give malekith the opportunity to retreat when he sees the city is lost, otherwise the dark elves will fight like cornered rats and our casualties will be even worse.

It still will be bloody and is a bet, with teclis, tyrion and malekith in the same battle anything could happen but meh, fortune smiles the bold.

[X] – Press this advantage! Storm the walls immediately and advance into the city.
 
[X] – Press this advantage! Storm the walls immediately and advance into the city. (x1.6)
The approach will be still costly, but the mages of Saphery are confident they can mitigate bombardment from the Arks. More, you will be advancing upon the heels of an enemy that has spent days beating a demoralising retreat. Tyrion, Teclis, Muirain and Nananthorigen all argue fiercely for this approach, and so votes for it are more heavily weighted.

While I personally would prefer to coordinate with the fleet, the people arguing for this approach are theoretically more experienced than us at war. Plus, if our push is strong enough we may end up bagging ourselves a Black Ark.
 
Macros said:
Yeah, but we didn't even use the ones we had access too.

Don't get me wrong, the "killing sorceresses" plan was not something I was keen on, and I argued for including more skirmishing forces for this vote, but I'm not linking the two. Had we wanted, we could have had a skirmishing force to harass Malekith and slow down a retreat. People just didn't vote for that.
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Point is, Ellyrians were even more restricted in points than Nagarytheans. And between the two, there were a total of 5 points available.

5 points is 2.5 dice, striking at Malekith's force was noted to require a minimum 4 dice commitment(which is 8 points). Technically feasible if one also commits the full 3 points available from Eataine but that caps out all skirmishers(unless one counts more iffy provinces like Chrace or Cothique).

Sure, we could've included more skirmishers and sure we could've scraped together enough skirmishers to probably make a significant dent but we were tight on skirmishers and a big part of the reason why we were tight on skirmishers was Tor Achare.
Icebern said:
There will be casualties but the odds are with us and our mages will help us defend against the bombardment of the black arks. Not having the navy there could even be an advantage because it does give malekith the opportunity to retreat when he sees the city is lost, otherwise the dark elves will fight like cornered rats and our casualties will be even worse.
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The fleet is still there, it was noted to be blockading Tor Dynal.

The fleet option means taking the time to arrange things so that the fleet will storm Tor Dynal at roughly the same time as the army. Y'know, if we wanted Aislinn(praise be upon Mathlann) to share in the glory or retaking Tor Dynal.
 
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Qeqre said:
Hrm, the geography shift forced him into his own traps... would you have veto'd the coil if it also defined the remaining paths Malekith could've still taken to Tor Dynal as also being imperfect?

Say give him options like coming within bolt thrower range of Elisia's walls or traversing the burned glades(and defining said glades as being poor in edible forage yet rich in the unquiet dead and/or hateful Fey)?
Because a third option would've been things like blasting a new road with sorcerous might or pulling fleet elements to bypass difficult terrain past the Elisian. Or heading somewhere else.
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Mmm, maybe. That would be a case-by-case judgement call.
 
Imrix said:
Generic Sapherian Wizard #171 has received your complaints, and blames it on the illusions being cast ahead of time when you were still too far to get a good look at what was happening, then subsequently hidden under the general storm of Aethyric activity stirred up by assorted daemonic sacrifices and the presence of a Black Ark.
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The excuses provided by the Sapherian wizard known as Generic of House #171 have been noted. Particularly the one about the Black Ark that was not, in actual fact, present on the battlefield.

I propose we send him to the Grey Order of the Imperial Collage of Magic for remedial lessons. Perhaps learning from people skilled in guile and cunning rather than just throwing raw power at problems will give him a new perspective.
 
[X] – Dig in, consolidate your supply lines, lock the city down and siege it. (x1.2)

Storming right now with Malekith inside doesn't seem like a good idea. I rather the supply lines are established before going inside.
 
GoodMonday said:
[X] – Dig in, consolidate your supply lines, lock the city down and siege it. (x1.2)

Storming right now with Malekith inside doesn't seem like a good idea. I rather the supply lines are established before going inside.
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Umm, that just puts us in strategic turns again and sacrifices all initiative to the Strategic genius leading the enemy army.

But its your call.
 
Imrix said:
Generic Sapherian Wizard #171 has received your complaints, and blames it on the illusions being cast ahead of time when you were still too far to get a good look at what was happening, then subsequently hidden under the general storm of Aethyric activity stirred up by assorted daemonic sacrifices and the presence of a Black Ark.
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Angelform said:
Once more that 'throw Skirmishers at heavily guarded sorceresses' plan comes back to haunt us.
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Ah, cripes, thanks, I needed a good belly laugh after watching this turn go awry.

Qeqre said:
Point is, Ellyrians were even more restricted in points than Nagarytheans. And between the two, there were a total of 5 points available.

5 points is 2.5 dice, striking at Malekith's force was noted to require a minimum 4 dice commitment(which is 8 points). Technically feasible if one also commits the full 3 points available from Eataine but that caps out all skirmishers(unless one counts more iffy provinces like Chrace or Cothique).

Sure, we could've included more skirmishers and sure we could've scraped together enough skirmishers to probably make a significant dent but we were tight on skirmishers and a big part of the reason why we were tight on skirmishers was Tor Achare.

The fleet is still there, it was noted to be blockading Tor Dynal.

The fleet option means taking the time to arrange things so that the fleet will storm Tor Dynal at roughly the same time as the army. Y'know, if we wanted Aislinn(praise be upon Mathlann) to share in the glory or retaking Tor Dynal.
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Why would we even need more than 5 points of skirmishers in a 10 point army? We never lacked for skirmishers, we just didn't take any. Two points to fix the army would have done the trick, and we could have taken that from any of the hosts that were present. You still needed the bulk of the army to come from heavy stand-up knock-down forces. Preposterous contention to suggest that Tor Achare meaningfully obstructed our options.

Meanwhile, Tor Achare is probably going to save our bacon by sharply reducing the sorceress assets delivered to the ritual site while we have concentrated our forces.
 
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So that went much better than I feared (which is not saying much), considerably worse than what I hoped (which is not saying much) and overall okay.

Illusions of Druchii Army. fffffffff

Literally Malekith not being amused at our dragon raid.
 
Valerian said:
Umm, that just puts us in strategic turns again and sacrifices all initiative to the Strategic genius leading the enemy army.

But its your call.
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The strategic genius trapped in a single city with low supplies? What can he do besides retreat home with his constellation prize? I think tens of thousands of dead Asur is much too expensive a price.
 
@Imrix

1. We have 7 Saphery Dice, 2 Mage Dice and Teclis. The enemy is roughly out of sorcerers and warpstone. Could we just ritually blow up the city? Skip the siege, rock falls and everyone dies.
2. Apart from the painful lack of skirmishers (on a reread) and perhaps seripus presumptions on slave deposition, would you have anything else to say on my plan? Constructive criticsm and such.
3. Did anything occur to this action?
Shard said:
-[] - Malekith's armies are always preceded by chaos and knives in the dark, and this campaign is no exception. For now the incidents have mostly been limited to minor sabotage and sentries murdered in the night. Anaethiral reckons they're still probing your defenses, which means any major attack will be preceded by something worse - unless you can bloody their noses now. It won't be easy, but counter-espionage is where the Moonwatcher is most comfortable. [Opposed roll, odds unknown]
- Anaethiral, Malosurana's Free Dice

Stunt: In the retrospective, it was so obvious. To catch a thief, set a thief on them. Presenting, Malosurana, former Druchii agent.
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Mathematicae said:
The strategic genius trapped in a single city with low supplies? What can he do besides retreat home with his constellation prize? I think tens of thousands of dead Asur is much too expensive a price.
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Nuke the army? Have you been reading the thread? Everyone is scared shitless that he'll pull through the ritual that's supposed to literally break the continent beneath everyone's feet.
 
Mathematicae said:
The strategic genius trapped in a single city with low supplies? What can he do besides retreat home with his constellation prize? I think tens of thousands of dead Asur is much too expensive a price.
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He's not really trapped.

The Naval Blockade is not strong enough to stop Black Arcs from making supply runs.

And he still has a number of doomsday weapons that can turn the city into a deathtrap.

Mathematicae said:
You're referring to warpstone, right? He's already used them up.
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No they are talking about the city killers that Malekith still has in stock.

He didn't use them all up yet.

Just most of them.

But he only needs one now. Since we have simplified the situation and limited the battlefield.
 
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