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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Surely the option mostly likely to result in Mathlide's death is to ignore Drycha until she's ready to attack us first?
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She's unlikely to attack us unless we attack her, I think. We aren't her target, we are visibly dangerous to engage with directly, and we don't become a priority taking out one of her big units any faster than we do by hunting her.

Honestly Drycha knows that if she dies she loses, and she's been fighting elves who do the same things we do but better for thousands of years. I suspect that if the battle turns bad from reinforcements showing up before an opening presents itself, she might not even engage.

It's not like she's going to fight to the death for anything in Kislev.
 
primemountain said:
WOG me please. I seem to recall the delay after using it was for one round of combat to recover, not several minutes of wait time while silenced.
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Boney said:
"Any residual Aqshy?" you ask, turning it over in your hands.

"As long as you give it a few minutes before doing any verbal spellcasting, none to speak of. Oh, but do refrain from drinking anything magically-active for at least twelve hours after using it."
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From when we got it.
 
Here's the section where it was tested. I think there was further WOG that Mathilde is alright to cast lower level stuff without speaking pretty easily, but a quick search didn't find anything saying that, so I might have remembered incorrectly.

Boney said:
"Any residual Aqshy?" you ask, turning it over in your hands.

"As long as you give it a few minutes before doing any verbal spellcasting, none to speak of. Oh, but do refrain from drinking anything magically-active for at least twelve hours after using it."

You look up at him, and the angry red scar marring what would otherwise be a handsome face. "Is that burn from the enchantment?" you ask.

"The process of creating it, yes," he says breezily. "It's of no matter, normal hazard of the Wind, and a small price to pay for the opportunities that so much goodwill will afford me."

You take it out to a cratered clearing almost entirely free of vegetation near Altdorf that the Colleges own collectively to put it through its paces, brace yourself, hold the arm that has the Seed in it behind your back just in case, and drink. The taste is both painful and confusing, as if your tongue can't decide if it's unbearably spicy or more conventionally boiling but does know it doesn't like it, but it seems to evaporate before it hits your stomach. You stand confused for a moment until a sensation very like an oncoming sneeze starts to build, and you do your best to aim your face as the charred tree stump you'd decided on as a target before you unleash whatever's trying to happen. With a sound like a reverberating bark, Aqshy explodes from your mouth and nostrils, and you're momentarily blinded as the world before you transforms into fire.

After you collect yourself, you examine the site of the former stump as best you can as you wipe your streaming eyes and brush pieces of ash from your scorched eyebrows. Everything above the ground and several inches below it was apparently transformed into splinters and sent directly away from you at a substantial speed, and the field beyond is peppered with small, smouldering craters. A crunch underfoot reveals that wood wasn't the only victim, as some of the soil surrounding the stump was apparently vitrified and shattered by the heat and force of the blast. It's certainly effective, but as you blow your nose and consider the soot it leaves in your handkerchief, you think you might have been better served if you had specified something more self-contained.
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VoiceOfTheRiders said:
Fair enough. I was more thinking of once the army is gathered. Pretty sure Drycha doesn't have an auto-win if she is not immediately focused down by an Ulgu user. Which means that this choice isn't face Drycha or lose.
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That… depends a lot on what you consider losing. Sure, her army is probably going to get wrecked regardless when our reinforcements show up. But there are still several very valuable targets we don't want her killing or capturing, one of which is explicitly her goal here. Is it losing if your opponent still wins?
Glau said:
We are? That's a very generous interpretation of the following statement:
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…No. that's a literal reading. We are catching glimpses of something that Is trying to hide and getting rejected by the forest. Which is what I said. Now, you could try to argue that it's not Drycha and is something else she's hiding, or that Mathilde focusing her Windsight won't let her see better, but we're definitely seeing something already.

Unless you're trying to say it's not actually visual yet? Because technically nothing on Windsight is, even if Mathilde interprets it that way.
 
Drycha has survived thousands of year skirmishing and fighting against people that were more prepared to fight her and generally more specialised in forest battles than Kislev in all that time. If she was the type of person to jump at every opportunity and never withdraw from hopeless situations than she would not have survived for as long as she has.
Mopman43 said:
I think the first one is a fair assumption.

He's certainly her target.
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There is the possibility of capturing him so she can sacrifice him in a ritual. There are several instances where you need the target alive for a ritual to be performed. Killing him in the battle straight up isn't a guarantee.
 
Codex said:
There is the possibility of capturing him so she can sacrifice him in a ritual. There are several instances where you need the target alive for a ritual to be performed. Killing him in the battle straight up isn't a guarantee.
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Even if it's kidnapping, that does leave us in the same position- where we have to pursue her if we want Boris to continue to live.

I suppose it'd be easier to fight her if she's lugging Boris around, but she'd also be aiming to disengage instead of fight. Which could leave her rather tricky to follow.
 
Ericwinter said:
That… depends a lot on what you consider losing. Sure, her army is probably going to get wrecked regardless when our reinforcements show up. But there are still several very valuable targets we don't want her killing or capturing, one of which is explicitly her goal here. Is it losing if your opponent still wins
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Sorry for not being clear. I was referring to in general as in Drycha has in her long life lost battles where her opponent didn't have an Ulgu user to counter her. Thus it is not essential that we counter her or risk automatically losing.
 
Glau said:
I mean, you are assuming, again, that if we go hunting for her we WILL find her and we WILL get first strike. Neither of those two things is reliable. And that changes the odds a lot.
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You realize that is a part of my post I specifically exaggerated to make a point about it not being whataboutism? If feels a little unfair for you to quote that, but OK... I think we have the best chance of anyone on this battlefield of finding her and getting first strike. By the same token I do not think anyone including us has a meaningful chance to avoid an ambush from her since she is a master of Ulgu with all that entails and we are sadly all out of Celestial and Light Wizards who would be a counter in that regard.
 
Codex said:
The assumption is that she's looking to kill him, and that she'll be successful in doing so. You're also moving the goalpost. You went from "Highest chance of Mathilde dying" to "One of Mathilde's friends dying". This isn't the same thing.
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That is not moving the goalposts.

There are two ideas here: one, that Mathilde challenges Drycha first, and the other is that Drycha attacks the army first.

If Mathlide attacks first, we get a chance to take her out. A risky one, yes, but one which we are in control off.

If Drycha attacks first, she will be in control, and will get to pick her target. Maybe it's the "boyar" she came here to hunt. Maybe it's the Ice Monster ripping apart a treeman. Maybe it's the shadowmage that just assassinated a triad of mages. Whatever she picks, it will be bad for us. It is not "moving goalposts" to suggest that Drycha attacking an ally is just as bad as her attacking us.

We should attack her first, which puts her on the defensive, where she is currently lacking several advantages, to deny her the opportunity to deal the most harm as she wants.

If you think that leaving Drycha to act freely is safer than attempting to counter her, you should say why you think so instead of accusing people of arguing in bad faith.
 
Mopman43 said:
Even if it's kidnapping, that does leave us in the same position- where we have to pursue her if we want Boris to continue to live.

I suppose it'd be easier to fight her if she's lugging Boris around, but she'd also be aiming to disengage instead of fight. Which could leave her rather tricky to follow.
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I'll be honest, I view Drycha attempting to wade into the middle of the battlefield to reach Boris who's surrounded by two Ice Witches with Mathilde and Milica close by enough to intervene if they finish up with their respective opponenets to be a far safer environment than Mathilde confronting Drycha in the middle of the forest and expecting to win. Worst case scenario, Drycha kills Mathilde and moves on so she can capture Boris, and Mathilde, being dead, has nothing to contribute to the battle until she gets revived by the Seed.
 
There is a decent chance Drycha will retreat if we do an even okay job countering her long enough for the rest of the army to arrive - she doesn't have the forces for what Kislev has brought and she isn't stupid.
 
Codex said:
I'll be honest, I view Drycha attempting to wade into the middle of the battlefield to reach Boris who's surrounded by two Ice Witches with Mathilde and Milica close by enough to intervene if they finish up with their respective opponenets to be a far safer environment than Mathilde confronting Drycha in the middle of the forest and expecting to win. Worst case scenario, Drycha kills Mathilde and moves on so she can capture Boris, and Mathilde, being dead, has nothing to contribute to the battle until she gets revived by the Seed.
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I mean, she wouldn't be wading, she'd be teleporting.

One cast to get in, one cast to get out. Presumably something to disable Boris.
 
Codex said:
I'll be honest, I view Drycha attempting to wade into the middle of the battlefield to reach Boris
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She won't be wading. She'll teleport in and probably try more or less the same tricks we pull to grab him and cause chaos, then teleport out with him, dead or alive.

If she was restricted to mundane motion I would agree with you, but she can be assumed to have most of our skillset and more ulgu tricks.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
That is not moving the goalposts.

There are two ideas here: one, that Mathilde challenges Drycha first, and the other is that Drycha attacks the army first.

If Mathlide attacks first, we get a chance to take her out. A risky one, yes, but one which we are in control off.

If Drycha attacks first, she will be in control, and will get to pick her target. Maybe it's the "boyar" she came here to hunt. Maybe it's the Ice Monster ripping apart a treeman. Maybe it's the shadowmage that just assassinated a triad of mages. Whatever she picks, it will be bad for us. It is not "moving goalposts" to suggest that Drycha attacking an ally is just as bad as her attacking us.

We should attack her first, which puts her on the defensive, where she is currently lacking several advantages, to deny her the opportunity to deal the most harm as she wants.

If you think that leaving Drycha to act freely is safer than attempting to counter her, you should say why you think so instead of accusing people of arguing in bad faith.
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It is moviing the goalposts because all of us here care about Mathilde far more than we do anyone in Kislev. If I have the choice between all of Kislev or Mathilde, I'm choosing Mathilde.

Mathilde dying permanently is game over. Boris dying, while very tragic and I don't want that, is not game over. It's not the same thing, and I'm not going pretend it's the same thing.
 
Attempting to counter her is no guarantee of actually doing so, and it leads to a worst case scenario pretty easily: Drycha's units all survive, the forest comes awake, we do not find her in time and she launches her alpha on Boris.

IE, if we don't locate her or sneak up on her, then we've wasted our action to no benefit.
 
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