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The Enemy Within (WHF Witch Hunter Quest)

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[X] Reinforce the Mines

This is where Etelka will go. Like the tower option says, she won't destroy her home, so she'll go to the mines instead. Without us there to shoot her, our allies will be sitting ducks.
 
[X] Reinforce the Mines

Our Apothecary is in the mines, and I'd really rather not have her die at the hands of beastmen. We bait Etelka into a location where her most desired targets are, and shoot her when she deigns to appear. The morale shock will route the beastmen if we're lucky, and the mine is the most defensible position here with most of our manpower, so it's our best bet at staying alive.

In contrast, a tower against a horde of beastmen will be swiftly infiltrated when there's just 2 people to man it. Nowhere near enough hands to keep the beastmen from entering.
 
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[x] Sally Forth
A counter charge will be the last thing the beastmen expect, and for good reason. You will be vastly outnumbered, surrounded and clearly visible, almost certain to die before accomplishing anything of note… but you might, just might, live long enough to reach the witch and strike Etelka Herzen down.
Let's see this through.
 
One thing that I'd think Markus would know from Lore (Witches) is that most ranged spells need line of sight to work, so if she shows up at the mines and is able to cast a spell at us, it means she'll be in a position where we can see her, and can thus shoot her. Frankly, we're more likely to kill her at the mines than by sallying.
 
Viking_Berzerker said:
That really depends on the architecture of the towers and if the Beastmen have bothered to make any ladders for climbing gear.
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It's beastmen, so I don't doubt at least some among their number sport animal parts that could scale the tower.

Our best bet here is going to the mines where Etelka has to appear within line of sight for us to shoot her. Between the concentration of force in the mines which Markus can bolster morale-wise to hold and grind the beastmen down where they can't utilize their full number, and the fact that Etelka will have to present herself for us to shoot if she wants to cast a spell to break our line, we have the recipe to route the beastmen through the morale shock of losing their leader and a bunch of their troops.

In contrast, if we stay in the Tower, we have a high chance of losing our Apothecary since there's no way the mutant militia survives without us, and if Etelka goes up to the tower to present their heads to us, I expect Markus' morale to be harshly punished at seeing all his efforts go down the drain. A defensive position is useless when the tower isn't what we need to defend. Our retinue and the people here are what needs defending, not some witch's tower.
 
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The tower is two stories tall, is internally mostly a comfortable living space for a noblewoman, and has one door. It does however have several windows. Markus feels confident he could use the spiral staircase and various doorways to maintain some chokepoints, but obviously with only two fighters there's a limit to what can be achieved. Consequently it is more defensible than outside, but less than the mines.
 
[X] Hold the Tower
You and Max will remain within the witch's tower, firing from the windows and fending off those beasts that seek to break in. Your presence will take pressure off the mine's defenders, and it is likely that Etelka Herzen will not wish to burn her own home to the ground, but it will still be you and Max alone against anything the night might throw at you.
 
I'm not really seeing a win condition for staying in the Tower. Etelka won't come here since her spell-casting will destroy it. Similarly, why would she go to where a gunman could snipe her from a vantage point?

In contrast, it seems like she's here to punish the mutants who betrayed the cult. She has a clear goal here, and we can use it to predict what she'll do next. If we know where she'll go, we know where she'll be vulnerable to a bullet to the head.

The only way to win this battle is to kill the witch, and the mines is where we have the best chance of doing that.

In contrast, what does staying in the tower net us? A semi-defensible position, less so than the mine, that's completely divorced from our win condition (Kill the Witch, save the mutants) and lacking in manpower to make full use of it. Etelka can just mire us in Beastmen while she completes her actual goal and escape or turn her attention on us after we're exhausted, and we'll be an apothecary short with a lot of dead mutants whose hopes we ignited only for that to be snuffed out just as quickly.

That more than anything, will break Markus' spirit and a defensive position is useless if the men behind them have their morale damaged.
 
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didn't we else try to get human help not just dwarfs ?

Edit: i am surprised that the dwarf didn't want to settle a grudge with the witch
 
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Tensiv said:
didn't we else try to get human help not just dwarfs ?

Edit: i am surprised that the dwarf didn't want to settle a grudge with the witch
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Markus did get some degree of assistance from the authorities in the town - he instructed them to alert him the moment Etelka Herzen returned, and they promised to keep an eye out. But since it took over a month for her to get back, their vigilance waned and Etelka (a veteran chaos magister with her own spies at large) was forewarned and able to slip through the net.

The humans of Grissenwald were never going to loan you troops to defend Black Peaks with, not when the mutants there burned down several farms and killed many of the families who lived there. There was no test for that because it is the sort of thing that a charm test simply cannot achieve.

As for the Dwarfs... well, they do want to settle their grudge with Etelka Herzen. They just aren't willing to settle for an intermediate step less than "the mutants fuck off and give us back our mine", and since Rolf and his people won't do that (and Markus won't sign off on it) they'll pursue that grudge alone.

That's sort of the thing with dwarves - they're psychotic, miserly bastards. I love the little shits, they're fantastic, but they're not reasonable.
 
Andres said:
This is where Etelka will go. Like the tower option says, she won't destroy her home, so she'll go to the mines instead. Without us there to shoot her, our allies will be sitting ducks.
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Five Gold Coins says if we don't go to help the mutants and they survive, they'll be unhappy we didn't come to their aid. They can understand the rest of the locals leaving them for dead.

We're the ones who saved them from state-sanctioned genocide. We're the sole person who gives them access to as normal a life as one can get in the Empire. We. Are. Their. Hope.

[X] Reinforce the Mines

Hope and Faith go hand in hand. If we're gonna get something special out of all this mess, it's gonna be standing our ground with those we swore to Sigmar to protect.
 
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