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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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I just went to reread the update where we learned Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma, because I was under the impression that the "it's actually time-fuckery and nobody is ready for that" was a secret. This does seem to be the case, as the information is hidden even from Grey Magisters. But now Mathilde is just casually saying it to Johann and to the Ice Witches?
I think I've misunderstood one of these two updates.
 
DragonParadox said:
Ulgu shrouded assassins would not have to kill the whole army, they could pop in kill the tzar and then teleport out, Ulgu has that, an assassination not a grinding attack. Having someone with mage sight on hand could stop that dead in its tracks.
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So you're saying we should leave one of our wizards with the Tzar as an anti assassination measure? Which one? The Ice Witches are out as far as I'm concerned because they aren't fast enough to respond with the Tzar and his forces if the attack happens inside the forest, so that leaves Johann and Mathilde. And if those two are out patrolling and scouting any would-be assassins would have to get past their Windsight anyway. Are we concerned about teleporting assassins? And if so, why couldn't they teleport past Mathilde and/or Johann even if they are close to the Tzar?

We can't prepare for every eventuality, and this is not a likely one. I stand by my proposed plan.
 
Remember in the Hedgewise update Johann helped the villagers by dragging away logs with just one hand?

I think it makes sense to ask him to help those clearing the forest, and that puts him in a good spot to defend them if the forest spirits try to attack there.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
I just went to reread the update where we learned Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma, because I was under the impression that the "it's actually time-fuckery and nobody is ready for that" was a secret. This does seem to be the case, as the information is hidden even from Grey Magisters. But now Mathilde is just casually saying it to Johann and to the Ice Witches?
I think I've misunderstood one of these two updates.
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I think the ice witches are guessing that it has something to do with time, and Mathy is purposely muddy the water and confusing things in the conversation.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
I just went to reread the update where we learned Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma, because I was under the impression that the "it's actually time-fuckery and nobody is ready for that" was a secret. This does seem to be the case, as the information is hidden even from Grey Magisters. But now Mathilde is just casually saying it to Johann and to the Ice Witches?
I think I've misunderstood one of these two updates.
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Yeah, that surprised me too. I didn't think that was information just shared with other mages.
 
Boney said:
We're used to thinking of forests as limited and shrinking patches of land that need careful protection from the infinite hunger of logging companies. But the forests of the Old World are not in danger, they are the danger, and need conservation about as little as the Chaos Wastes do. Every farmer in the Empire part-times as a lumberjack just to keep the forest from reclaiming their fields, and every peasant child learns nursery rhymes that tell them which ones you don't go anywhere near and instead go find a Priest of Taal or Rhya to deal with.
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Yeah. Its very easy for us to forget that a huge amount of the world used to be covered in trees. And it isn't now, which is sad in a lot of ways.

As for WHF, yeah you could set the Drackenwald on fire probably not make a real dent in the number of trees and then die to all the gribbles that rampage out looking for revenge.

And those trees ain't even sentient.

IIRC Brettonia is very proud of how many trees they've cleared and one of the big ooofs of the black plague and era of the three emperors was that centuries of progress spent in curbing the extent of the empire's forest was lost.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Remember in the Hedgewise update Johann helped the villagers by dragging away logs with just one hand?

I think it makes sense to ask him to help those clearing the forest, and that puts him in a good spot to defend them if the forest spirits try to attack there.
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None of the wizard/witches are going to be doing grunt work regardless of who they are sent with.

They are on blasting duties: no one what's the person on blasting duties distracted with something else. Even the people that they would be helping.
 
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TalonofAnathrax said:
I just went to reread the update where we learned Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma, because I was under the impression that the "it's actually time-fuckery and nobody is ready for that" was a secret. This does seem to be the case, as the information is hidden even from Grey Magisters. But now Mathilde is just casually saying it to Johann and to the Ice Witches?
I think I've misunderstood one of these two updates.
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A little-known but important part of Grey Order diplomacy:


View: https://youtu.be/QdjHxr5i1mA?t=3

(don't judge me, everyone watched it in the nineties)


Part of being a Grey Wizard is not just holding secrets, but using secrets: weighing the likelihood of a person you tell a secret to spreading the information and the potential danger if they do so against the utility of achieving a greater level of trust and familiarity with that person. Three senior Ice Witches are a fairly safe audience, and the mechanism behind the Miasma stopped being a very guardable secret once it started getting used on battlefields where enemy wizards were present.
 
Doomed Wombat said:
IIRC Brettonia is very proud of how many trees they've cleared and one of the big ooofs of the black plague and era of the three emperors was that centuries of progress spent in curbing the extent of the empire's forest was lost.
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I don't remember this being a thing in 2E or 6th Edition. Bretonnia is naturally far less forested than the Empire. Their lands are greatly fertile and arable with only three major forests, one of them belonging to Wood Elves and another being largely avoided (Forest of Chalons has very few if any inhabitants). Forest of Arden has a bunch of neighbouring dukedoms and Artois is smack dab in the middle, but they're no better at Woodsmanship than Imperials. I'm pretty sure that the entirety of the Forest of Arden doesn't even compare to just the Great Forest in the Empire.
 
mathymancer said:
So you're saying we should leave one of our wizards with the Tzar as an anti assassination measure? Which one? The Ice Witches are out as far as I'm concerned because they aren't fast enough to respond with the Tzar and his forces if the attack happens inside the forest, so that leaves Johann and Mathilde. And if those two are out patrolling and scouting any would-be assassins would have to get past their Windsight anyway. Are we concerned about teleporting assassins? And if so, why couldn't they teleport past Mathilde and/or Johann even if they are close to the Tzar?

We can't prepare for every eventuality, and this is not a likely one. I stand by my proposed plan.
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I think any wizard will do, they can literally stand on his shoulder, for that matter we can even split up the ice witches to leave him one, though he probably will not like that so I have a preference for Johann. As for why they could not teleport past the wizard, leave the wizard right next to him at all times as a bodyguard and advisor in strange fey doings so he can have some perspective on that when the messages start flying back.
 
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Codex said:
I don't remember this being a thing in 2E or 6th Edition. Bretonnia is naturally far less forested than the Empire. Their lands are greatly fertile and arable with only three major forests, one of them belonging to Wood Elves and another being largely avoided (Forest of Chalons has very few if any inhabitants). Forest of Arden has a bunch of neighbouring dukedoms and Artois is smack dab in the middle, but they're no better at Woodsmanship than Imperials. I'm pretty sure that the entirety of the Forest of Arden doesn't even compare to just the Great Forest in the Empire.
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Shrug. I recall being told it somewhere, but I could be wrong of course.
 
Codex said:
My mind can't really grasp the logistics. I thought the clear cutting was a far bigger deal than it seems to be? I was under the impression it was going to run through the territory of five villages, which I painted in my mind as an incredibly major thoroughfare that would economically destabliise all of them. It seems like it's a much smaller thing than I made it out to be.
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Take a sandpit that is one metre wide and one metre long and then take your finger and drag it diagonally from one end to another. How much area did your finger touch? :V

Except i assume Shirokij forest is like, football field sized in this case.

Its an immense undertaking but its drop in an ocean.

Doomed Wombat said:
Shrug. I recall being told it somewhere, but I could be wrong of course.
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It was mentioned either here or in DoDA, i remember reading that too.

The part about Black Plague resulting in Empire getting reforested i mean.
 
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DragonParadox said:
I think any wizard will do, they can literally stand on his shoulder, for that matter we can even split up the ice witches to leave him one, though he probably will not like that so I have a preference for Johann. As for why they could not teleport past the wizard, leave the wizard right next to him at all times as a bodyguard and advisor in strange fey doings so he can have some perspective on that when the messages start flying back.
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When the message comes back there is exactly one response: ride as fast as you can in the direction of the enemy. The Tzar is not going to be taking advice from an Ice Witch and he's not going to be taking advice from some foreign mage who doesn't even speak the language, and none of them have any experience with the fey anyway. He's also not going to let any of them "stand on his shoulder". It's one thing to have a wizard in the general vicinity of his forces, but actually rubbing shoulders with them? Taking one as a bodyguard, as if his own men aren't good enough guards? Why would he agree to that?
Leaving Johann on bodyguard duty is a waste of a good wizard, and it's not even going to be very effective. He should be in the forest where the enemy is most likely to actually attack us, and while my personal preference is placing him in the patrols any other placement is still better than being with the Tzar.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
None of the wizard/witches are going to be doing grunt work regardless of who they are sent with.

They are on blasting duties: no one what's the person on blasting duties distracted with something else. Even the people that they would be helping.
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Johann might be on overwatch, but I doubt he'll just sit there doing nothing when he could instead be shirtless and flexing his golden muscles.
 
That is a fair point we do not know how much the Tzar would appreciate the use of mage sight. This is the man who thinks horse and lance can fix everything. Eh... if he dies he die, hopefully Boris would be able to hold that together
 
Saving the life of the leader of a foreign nation—especially an allied one—is a good thing.

It's also not our job. He's a soldier and a general. He knows the risks, and has either taken adequate protections, or he hasn't, in which case evolution is going to do it's thing anyway.

Like, this guy is trained to fight chaos armies. I don't think this is the first time he's expecting hostile magics to come flying at his face, and he's presumably got a way of dealing with it—and if he hasn't, again, it's not our job to fill gaps in Kislev's military doctrine.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Saving the life of the leader of a foreign nation—especially an allied one—is a good thing.

It's also not our job. He's a soldier and a general. He knows the risks, and has either taken adequate protections, or he hasn't, in which case evolution is going to do it's thing anyway.

Like, this guy is trained to fight chaos armies. I don't think this is the first time he's expecting hostile magics to come flying at his face, and he's presumably got a way of dealing with it—and if he hasn't, again, it's not our job to fill gaps in Kislev's military doctrine.
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He is also well known for disdaining a part of the traditional war doctrine that kept Kislev alive for its long history, ice magic, so it could well be that he is less well protected than he might otherwise be. On the other hand I do not care that much about his survival and we know his heir is good so eh... protect the better one.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Saving the life of the leader of a foreign nation—especially an allied one—is a good thing.

It's also not our job. He's a soldier and a general. He knows the risks, and has either taken adequate protections, or he hasn't, in which case evolution is going to do it's thing anyway.

Like, this guy is trained to fight chaos armies. I don't think this is the first time he's expecting hostile magics to come flying at his face, and he's presumably got a way of dealing with it—and if he hasn't, again, it's not our job to fill gaps in Kislev's military doctrine.
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In general you're right, but we're on the field with them right now, so to a certain extent their problems are our problems.

"evolution doing it's thing" would be inconvenient if we get caught in the splash zone. At least one caster going with them seems like a good idea, even if the Tzar doesn't listen. Just being there gives them an opportunity to intervene and stop a decapitation strike. He can't snub the ice witches too badly, so I think we have good odds of getting him to tolerate having one hanging around while he goes to work.
 
I'm absolutely not interested in metagaming against hypothetical Ulgu assassins here, and I also don't really mind if the Tsar gets assassinated, so long as it doesn't blow back onto us somehow.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
I'm absolutely not interested in metagaming against hypothetical Ulgu assassins here, and I also don't really mind if the Tsar gets assassinated, so long as it doesn't blow back onto us somehow.
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I do agree that I'm somewhat uncomfortable with metagaming the situation, but I do think that it's not out of the realm of possibility for Mathilde to consider that the enemy has access to Ulgu considering that she desribed what she saw in the scrying to be "shrouded in Ulgu". It's not enough to push me to vote for the option in fear of assassination, but at least it's not completely meta.
 
Boney said:
You share the most relevant of the capabilities of Johann and yourself, and spark a brief and confusing debate over whether the Mystifying Miasma actually interferes with the flow of time or just mortal perception of it, which then evolves into an even more abstract argument over whether there is a meaningful distinction between the two. Ljiljana looks quite relieved when the debate she'd had to translate every word of is interrupted by the approach of Kovnik Loza, who is doing a fair job of masking how intimidated he is.
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Nerds will be nerds.

"The path to Ryazan is a narrow cart-path along the Shirokij River," he relays to you. "The Kreml Guard and the rotas of Resvynhaf, Rakhov, Volstara, and Resov will clear-cut the trees alongside it to enlarge the path, and will use the logs to build fortified positions along it. The krugs will scout in force through the forest within horn's blow of the path. The other rotas will patrol the expanded path and stand ready to respond to any contact with the enemy along it."
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Decent plan. Although I will note that clear-cutting is by no means fast. The advance will be slowed to a snail's pace.

You begin to discuss it with them, and though they don't come right out and say so, it quickly becomes apparent that the Ice Witches are holding off on making any decision until you give your own perspective. Considering the enemy and the terrain, you suppose that makes sense - if you were about to go into a battle against Norscans on the steppes and had an Ice Witch on hand to advise you, you'd definitely listen.
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The warm glow of being an acknowledged expert.

Although once again Mathilde is in the position of having to bluff about something she knows almost nothing about.
 
Well I hope those fortifications are solid, because marching alongside a river brings to mind the battle of Trasimene.

Well we can freeze the rivers so that should solve the biggest hazard should they ambush the army.
 
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