So, seeing as the war against the Fimir is going to last into at least next turn and maybe even the turn after what do people think about using the time we have next turn before the next stage of the campaign and using four of our actions next turn to make another piece of gear for Snorri and using the fifth to go on campaign again?
I was thinking we make the upgrade to our anti-magic amulet seeing as the most dangerous Fimir are going to be the spell casters so if there was ever a time to make the upgrade to our anti-magic talisman it's probably next turn.
For the Master Rune the obvious pick is Amplification and for the minor Runes I was thinking some combo of Sanctuary, Spellbreaking, and Thungni.
Sanctuary to lean into Snorri's Winds Denied trait and I think it would combo well with Amplification as it does basically the same thing, Spellbreaking as it's the most bluntly "no magic here" Rune, and Thungni for maybe some more esoteric effects.
I don't think Spelleating is worth as our gear is already overflowing with spare energy between Barak Azamar and Skarrenbakraz.
I wish there was a way to combo in an anti-magic talisman with out existing set but I just really see a way to do it.
I don't see a need in stepping away to make another piece of kit for Snorri and then diving back into the war after making it. For one thing his bonus is already so stupidly high that we are already doing a cosplay of a natural disaster through their lines. This consideration of his bonus being Sufficiently High will only change if the Meargh proves to be such a pain that continuing to throw Snorri at such beings is unwise (so consistently an entire tier above him in combat bonus, which I think is extremely unlikely). In such an alternate path, I'd prefer spending our time finishing Akazit and working on Understanding Purification so we can determine if using it in a Runestaff or replacement Talisman is viable because Purification is more likely to engage with our Set due to its high energy nature and associations with heat.
And even in the case of the Meargh's being too spicy I'm still not particularly interested in making a new item any time soon. Such a spiciness could be ameliorated via changing tactics or context of the fights involved, such as going for wall breaching tactics and fighting to avoid or misdirect the Queens rather than kill them. Point is, its near the bottom of my list of possible responses.
In the current order of things where they are probably not too spicy, I have no interest in making a new item because we have other important calls on our time, namely Akazit, Movement for Siphoning, Kradskonti, and Gromril Chainmail to every Master Smith with the money to pay for it (most of them). Gromril Chainmail from master smiths will impact any war effort going forward and proliferate quickly through the Holds of the Far North.
In this scenario where we can duel and kill Meargh's I'd rather put at least 2 of our actions to Akazit and fill turn 48 with other necessary things and one action into campaigning. Continuing the War may need to happen so I'm fine with giving effort towards that.
However, I also think that your time estimate is off. As of now we know of five Fimir Cities within the area described by the green arc and red line of this map from Soul.
Again, at least 5 Cities from reports in the deep ranging, but they never got to the Western coast. You will only be able to reach this city and 3 others for this phase of the campaign.
View: https://imgur.com/xDwINjS
ignore the geography and black lines, the red line is roughly the start of Fimir territory and green is the deepest extent that the ranging from a few turns ago got.
We can get to four of these five 'Green Area Cities', each one with a major monolith within their walls. This will push the frontline to be much more like the green line rather than the red and that is very bad strategically for the Fimir as it enables the dwarves to secure their backlines, build fortifications behind the advancing Throng, and the loss of all four monoliths is a significant impact in magical terms. Reducing how much magical energy they can harness, and thus reducing the ultimate power they can lever in their dark rituals and daemon summoning. There's also the simple matter that if they lose four Cities in this campaign, the dwarves have still lost none of their Holds in Norsca, which is a significant logistical mismatch.
Geographically, logistically, and magically the loss of four Cities is a very big problem for the Fimir. It makes it much harder for them to harass and threaten the dwarves in the Central and Eastern Sectors of the peninsula for a number of compounding reasons, those being simple increasing distance requiring more energy to teleport across, fortifications popping up in the western section to catch Fimir movements heading east that they have to waste time and effort going around to get to squishier bits, and simply more Dwarven bodies out here to fight them.
Looking at the western coast we can make a rough estimate that losing four Cities is somewhere between a third and a half of their Cities. Given their amphibious requirements its definitely possible they have more densely populated the coast than the mountains and foothills. Arranging five cities within the Green Area naturally inclines for them to be less densely positioned due to foothills and crap in the way.
And with the limiting factor for major settlements equivalent to the one we're besieging now on the coast being the number of major waystones, because of that we may be able to get a more direct estimate of how many Cities they have when we go talk to Ogra at the end of this campaign and confer over how many major waystones there are in the Fimir held area.
Making a new piece of gear for Snorri sounds pretty cool to me, op. It would clash with the designs of insanely big dragon crew though, who's got a big list of preproduction research and builds they want to do (starting with an additional smelter, which is necessary for them to afford their preferred golem size at a reasonable timescale). So I think it depends on how posters collectively feel about making the upcoming golem Insanely Big - if we're content to make it "just" bloodthirster sized then it's easy enough to put a new amulet for Snorri on the docket, but if a majority wants to triplesize it that entails a lot of prepwork which doesn't leave much room for other projects like yours.
The amulet's adamant cost doesn't matter one way or the other. A rounding error pretty much. With or without a new Smelter, we can build the body of the Big One on turn 52 and have about 10 bars left over if I remember my last math so delaying a new smelter to build an item is viable. Research getting in the way is more relevant, but again, not really that big of a deal. Four actions is a weird choice to put into it though, and makes things more awkward for not a lot of gain at the end of the day, for a temporary item made in response to this specific campaign's threats.
The only research at this point in time that really needs to get done before turn
51 52 (Got confused for when Khazagar gets finished) for the Dragon is upgraded Siphoning (just takes a few turns, we have no prods left) and understanding Thungni's Master Rune. The other projects that have come up in chatter before turn
51 52 are more general things that are useful for our other goals, like proliferated Gromril Chainmail. E: (And
really we only need Siphoning at most before turn 52)
