Pro:
Kills Daemons, with the attendant effects of doing so (Less enemy psykers).
Potentially augments Sirens???????
Cons:
Reveals an Ace to the Abomination. (OMgwtf they have Sirens, things that EAT SOULS)
Severely weakens our defences against Telepathy. (Prev: Tamia, both choirs, Sirens. Now: Tamia, Both Choirs (1/2 Power). Or basically 1/3 defenses).
Risks Sirens (Which weakens our Telepathy defences and may have diplomatic fallout.)
@Shard, I am going to kindly ask that you revise how you're doing these pro/con lists. This is the second time you've made one and you evidently cannot help but be biased and misleading when it comes to making these assessments. Standard etiquette is to at least
try and make a fair comparison and you clearly are not.
Pros:
Kills Daemons, with the attendant effects of doing so (Less enemy psykers, less summoned daemons, potential difficulty in future summonings).
Potentially augments Sirens
Data
Cons:
Reveals an asset/ace to the Abomination.
Weakens telepathic defence
Risks Sirens
Overkill
I will now rebut all these points. In full.
I disagree with some of the things you're saying here, but some of the things you've written here are useful to my plan.
First,
No, killing Daemons is not Counter-Telepathy. The characters responsible for making the telepathy checks are by and large the enemies' psyker choirs, which our pyromancers are working on whittling down. Their Daemons do not contribute quite as much, particularly after we permakilled their 3rd Circle Angyl and wiped out the greater whole of their Daemons in the Angyl Ambush.
Second,
Yes, Daemons are dangerous. Completely relatedly, our standard assets have wiped out the majority of their daemons for trivial losses. Saying it's not potent enough is bullshit. It's like bombing 70% of a country's population and going 'It's not enough. Our bomb weren't potent enough even though we killed most of them. WE NEED MORE, NUKE THEM ALL!'. Also, Sirens suck at Pyromancy, particularly relative to their other abilities.
Third,
Per Durin, only Seraphim and stronger Daemons count for permadeath terror rolls. Unless we get quite lucky or have a well-prepped planned to lure those Daemons into a nice place for our Sirens to feast on, it's highly unlikely that they will obtain a substantial amount of kills.
1. It's either their psykers performing mind control or their daemons. If we buff psychic defence, more of our men will be controlled by daemons. If we kill daemons, more of our men will be controlled by psykers with telepathy, both by the daemons in play and the daemons the daemons can summon.
2. Fair point. See my changes to the plan below.
3. Fair point. See my changes to the plan below.
First,
Our Telepathy Choirs are at half-strength right now. Without Siren help they're at basically 1/3 power.
Second,
Our enemies do not know we have Sirens and their abiities. Sending them out changes that fact.
Third,
Sirens can die. If they are dead, we can obviously not use the dead Sirens for our Anti-Telepathy efforts. Or anything, really. Also, there might be other negative diplomatic effects to having dead Sirens. Probably not, but it can happen. Sirens on Telepathy are highly unlikely to die compared to having them on killing Daemons. At melee. Where our enemies will FF them to death.
1. We have daemonologists dispelling while our pyromancers burn their psykers. Doesn't bridge the gap, admittedly, but for the rest, see point 1 above and the fact that we slow the rate at which mind-control units are summoned.
2. An admitted con. I don't think using them potentially sub-optimally throughout the war is worth it, though.
3. Based on their strength stated by Durin and effectiveness shown in the omake, I don't think they'll die so easily that there'll be a substantial effect to future anti-telepathy efforts. So long as we're not stupid or careless with them, we don't have to worry about diplomatic incident. Sirens killing daemons are also highly unlikely to die, given what we've seen of them and what we've been told about them.
These are the changes I've made to the plan.
--[X] Anti-Daemon
---[X] Sirens (focus on Seraphim and up)
-[X] Other
--[X] Support the Sirens with military. Keep their unfavoured enemies off them so they only have to fight daemons.
--[X] Lure Seraphim and up into a trap where the Sirens can consume them.
This solves a number of the criticisms that Shard and others have made in regards to Sirens Versus Daemons.
1. The first criticism solved is how we'd be more vulnerable telepathically. Greater Daemons and Heralds of the Abomination have very strong mind control capabilities. Removing them from the board should have a significant effect.
2. The second criticism solved is the potential for Sirens to die. This is where Frederick's Paragon Martial comes in. With his competence and battlefield control, our assets will only fight the enemy assets they are best-qualified to fight. This way, we don't have to worry about the Sirens getting shot by enemy infantry.
Focusing the Sirens on killing Seraphim+ has a number of advantages. To begin with, it turns the con of "our standard assets are already good at killing daemons" into a pro. Instead of the Sirens being overkill, they intentionally handle the hardest of the enemy forces for maximum effect. This isn't a good idea unless we can be sure our forces can handle the attendant forces of the Seraphim+, but, to quote, "our
standard assets have wiped out the majority of their daemons for
trivial losses."
Focusing them on Seraphim+ should also assuage the worry that we won't kill enough to achieve anything more than a negligible effect on future daemon summoning efforts. By focusing their efforts on them, we're practically assured we'll permakill a great many of them, certainly enough to achieve significant effect.
EDIT:
Per Durin, only Seraphim and stronger Daemons count for permadeath terror rolls.
Nitpick, but this is incorrect. Durin said a morale check was possible "if we send them to attack the daemons". The "Seraphim and stronger" comment was in regards to making future summonings more difficult.
Here's the post.
