Actually, wheellock mechanisms are really old. There's a decree written by a king in the 1500s banning the production/purchasing of wheellocks by a certain province (can't remember the exact details). And wheellocks were basically always used by cavalry until the proliferation of flintlock mechanisms. The reason they weren't standard is cost--they were a LOT more expensive to make than matchlocks until much later on. Obviously, given that we can easily mass produce Doomspheres and Deathspinners, wheellock mechanisms are easy.
My point with the Doomspheres is that they're so much more complex and advanced than flintlock mechanisms.
Also, the reason flintlock mechanisms took as long as they did to proliferate was mainly cost and refinement.
There's little worry about flintlocks being too great a technology jump--while they make the reloading process a bit easier, the main benefits of flintlocks/wheellocks is that you don't have to deal with lighting something on fire and keeping it on fire for the entire time you want to be ready to shoot. Well, that, and the ability to reliably use guns in the rain.
It's the jump to percussion caps that really get things going. Even paper cartridges have lots of problems involved (though they are a substantial improvement over the previous loading method), and without the ability to mass produce primer and metallic cartridges, you won't get anything like the Lebel.
Is the possibility of using Gold Wizards to help forge better-than-steel armor and weapons feasible (if not in the next few years, maybe a bit further down the line)? I mean, if Alexandra's idea for creating this very thing, but with Ice Magic, is possible, I can't see how doing the same with wizards specializing in metal would be harder (if anything, I'd expect it to be easier). Even better if we could get some priests from Sigmar, Ulric, etc, to further enhance/bless said gear in the forging process.
It's a hell of a lot easier to deal with than loading cannons one-handed, that's for certain. Especially if each ogre grenadier has a human by his/her side to light the fuses.
I could see it being something they think of once they consider the question of something to market to Bretonnia. Because if guns/gunpowder are right out, then something involving bows would be pretty popular...so more dakka for bows!
Mmm, well, I'll be honest. Technological overdrive/creep is a major concern of mine, and has been for quite a long time. In my head, the progression goes from matchlocks, to wheellocks, to snaplocks, to snaphaunce, to flintlocks. And while wheel-locks may come about, I really just...I'm very leery of jumping all the way to flintlocks anytime soon. Mallus has weird technological progression, obviously, so I don't necessarily want to go beyond, like, the earliest 1700/1800's in terms of most tech...barring things that are stupendously simple like the road thing you brought up earlier. I acknowledge the possibility that my aversion to such rapid advancement might be going beyond the realm of normal reason, but...I don't know, atm. You've
just started on getting really improved matchlocks, and next step will be, for certain, wheellocks. Even if there are examples of it already (dwarfs, most likely), the research for that would be for making them more affordable and cheaper to make. Doomspheres and Deathspinners are extant creations, to be honest, things that shouldn't work IRL but happen to do so on Mallus, same as the lightning horse and pure steam warfare gyrocopters n'such. I don't necessarily want to use them as examples for 'cost' in terms of materials or otherwise, right now. I don't even want to think about percussion caps or the like right now.
Well, we have multiple examples of 'better-than-steel' things in-universe. You've got something called 'truesteel', which is quite clearly something other than 'just steel', in use by the High Elves. Harnesses of the stuff for dragons in Caledor, as well as an entire drawbridge made of the stuff near Vaul's Anvil. Introduced in TWW1 and 2, are the possibility of something known as 'puresteel' crossbows for dwarf quarrelers, where the wooden stock is replaced entirely by the stuff. I use, and plan to use, plenty from those games because they are awesome and so we can consider the existence of puresteel canon for the quest as well. Plus Ithilmar and Silverine or whatever it is from Bretonnia. Gromril, obviously. So...maybe? We'll have to see. Not going to get, like, titanium, I don't think, but maybe something. The material that Alexandra is making is never going to be widespread, and neither will any hypothetical gold wizard-aided thing, but who knows.
I'm thinking on the Grenadier thing, still. Armament and the like.
I really don't know how well selling crossbows to Bretonnia would go. You'd only be selling to peasants, honestly, and they don't have the money to buy at anything less than a loss in terms of profit. The nobility, the majority at least, wouldn't like it much, I don't think. Well.
Maybe you could sell to, like, the bandits n'such, but that doesn't seem like something Frederick would do.
People already spoke about why the need for different books.
