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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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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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Er... she is an Ulgu user, wading it not something she would have to do. Smoke and Mirrors too get to him, Mockery of Death to knock him off his feet and then another smoke and mirrors, probably combined with some kind of offensive battle magic on his guards to get out. Now would also be the best time to do it since everyone is busy and the reinforcements have not gotten here yet.

Now granted Boris could make his save against the spell... while fighting a Manticore, but I would not want to bet on that even accounting for the fact that she might not need him alive and an arm cut off with mind razor will do.
 
Are we just assuming every caster on the battlefield is completely incompetent and incapable of spotting Drycha attempting to knock out Boris and countering Drycha's cast? If we kill the Branchwraith casters, then the number of friendly casters in the fields outnumber the single caster that is Drycha. The idea that she can just casually bamf in and out in a field full of spellcasters is baffling to me. If we're assuming that, then you might as well say that Drycha is apparently so powerful spellcasting wise that she can spot Mathilde coming, teleport behind her, then use Okkam's Mindrazor to slice her head off.

It's about the same degree of usefulness in discussion.
 
I mean, even if Drycha does get a lethal shot on Mathilde, there's the retaliation effect, and unlike most other powerful enemies we've fought, I don't think she can just walk off her own hits. That and the seed makes it a much less dangerous thing to me than the multiple foes who can overwhelm those defenses.
 
Codex said:
Are we just assuming every caster on the battlefield is completely incompetent and incapable of spotting Drycha attempting to knock out Boris and countering Drycha's cast? If we kill the Branchwraith casters, then the number of friendly casters in the fields outnumber the single caster that is Drycha. The idea that she can just casually bamf in and out in a field full of spellcasters is baffling to me. If we're assuming that, then you might as well say that Drycha is apparently so powerful spellcasting wise that she can spot Mathilde coming, teleport behind her, then use Okkam's Mindrazor to slice her head off.

It's about the same degree of usefulness in discussion.
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No I am just assuming they are all busy which they seem to be and if we go for the Dryads we will too.
Spotting other magicians is not Ulgu's forte, hiding is. I do not think we can spot Drycha from ambush and I hope for the reverse.
 
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If Drycha is planning to pick her moment then teleport kill/grab Boris and teleport out, why didn't she do this while Boris was traveling along a road - alot less aware and with less guards, active gear etc.
 
Codex said:
Are we just assuming every caster on the battlefield is completely incompetent and incapable of spotting Drycha attempting to knock out Boris and countering Drycha's cast?
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I'm assuming they're busy. Which they are, that's the whole thing with this.

The future Mrs. Boris is keeping the river frozen, Liljiana is casting in preparation of fighting the Treeman, and Milicja is farther away, from my understanding.

I don't think it's a guarantee that that's what would happen, but I don't like the odds.
 
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Thomasfoolery said:
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.
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I think you're thinking of this:

Boney said:
Rafin said:
@Boney Which spells can Mathilde still cast without a vocal component?
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All of them. Vocalizations and gestures make spells easier because you're doing some of the work with your voice and your hands instead of doing it all with your brain, but they aren't required.
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So the flask doesn't prevent Mathilde from casting any of her spells, in theory. It probably does introduce a roll or increased DC for spells that otherwise wouldn't need them.

With that said, it's probably not worth using in most cases since we didn't coordinate with the Kislevite army in the planning session—it'd be a different story if they were prepared to take a forest fire into account.
 
Codex said:
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.
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If Mathilde's survival is such a high priority then why are we even here.

Any of the options on this battlefield have a chance of pitting us against Drycha.

If we defend Boris, then we are in between her and her prey. If we blow up the Treeman or kill the triad, then Drycha not only knows we're here and a potent threat, but she is also motivated by vengeance. It is likely (not certain) that she will change her target to take out the person who killed her most powerful servants. After all, Boris isn't going anywhere, he can wait.

We either fight Drycha now, on our terms, or we fight her later, on her terms, or we leave. We are sharing a battlefield with an ancient, vengeance driven monster and we need every advantage we have against her. And the biggest advantages we have right now is that the Forest of Shadows is refusing to hide her, and she doesn't know that Mathilde exists yet. If we lose those advantages, we lose. Period. So let's not squander them.
 
VoiceOfTheRiders said:
If Drycha is planning to pick her moment then teleport kill/grab Boris and teleport out, why didn't she do this while Boris was traveling along a road - alot less aware and with less guards, active gear etc.
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Her goal seems to have been capturing/killing Boyar Kalashinivik.

She thinks that that Boris is him, because she has an incomplete reading of the situation.


She seems to have set this up to draw the Boyar in- she was pointed to him by some kind of divination, so it seems like she figured this would be easier than trying to find a single person in an entire country that she knows nothing about.
 
I just consider the threats of Treeman, Manticore and Drycha to be relatively narrow when justapoxed with the amount of people in the army, the Treeman because thats something you can run from relatively well, the Manticore because Manticores are great and powerful but aren't really an equivalent of an army and can be killed and Drycha because she has fairly simple goal and will either focus entirely on it or on withdrawing if the battle proves entirely lost due to forces arrayed against her.

I have no idea what the Branchwraits are casting, someone mentioned it could just be normal battlemagic (insofar as there is anything normal about threat of battlemagic), but to me, it sounded more like they were about to turn the entire forest against us, which seems like a much more encompassing threat. It could just be Boney being poetic and me misinterpreting but thats why i am voting as i am voting.
 
VoiceOfTheRiders said:
Not as in the past few days but as in the past few months instead of causing such a racket as to cause the Jade Patriach to take an interest.
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She doesn't seem to know much of anything about Kislev.

She knows that the Boyar is in charge of the villages she's besieging, but realistically, how do you pinpoint a single individual in a whole country when you can't even ask people questions because you're a talking tree spirit that doesn't speak Kislevarin?
 
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pucflek said:
I just consider the threats of Treeman, Manticore and Drycha to be relatively narrow when justapoxed with the amount of people in the army, the Treeman because thats something you can run from relatively well, the Manticore because Manticores are great and powerful but aren't really an equivalent of an army and can be killed and Drycha because she has fairly simple goal and will either focus entirely on it or on withdrawing if the battle proves entirely lost due to forces arrayed against her.

I have no idea what the Branchwraits are casting, someone mentioned it could just be normal battlemagic (insofar as there is anything normal about threat of battlemagic), but to me, it sounded more like they were about to turn the entire forest against us, which seems like a much more encompassing threat. It could just be Boney being poetic and me misinterpreting but thats why i am voting as i am voting.
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They are casting Awaken the Wood, it is on the spell-list bookmark.
 
Codex said:
Are we just assuming every caster on the battlefield is completely incompetent and incapable of spotting Drycha attempting to knock out Boris and countering Drycha's cast? If we kill the Branchwraith casters, then the number of friendly casters in the fields outnumber the single caster that is Drycha. The idea that she can just casually bamf in and out in a field full of spellcasters is baffling to me. If we're assuming that, then you might as well say that Drycha is apparently so powerful spellcasting wise that she can spot Mathilde coming, teleport behind her, then use Okkam's Mindrazor to slice her head off.

It's about the same degree of usefulness in discussion.
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Are we assuming that field full of spellcasters who are all very busy and are currently unable to sense her already active magics would be caught off guard? Yes, I suppose we are.

I mean, it's not like Mathilde herself hasn't taken advantage of an enemy spellcaster's distraction to teleport into melee range.
 
Boris dying is L for people in thread that like him and for Kislev because a good heir has died, but as long as Drycha is away from here, we have fulfilled our purpose, and if the army makes it out without ruinous losses, its still a Win.

Its not even Win for Drycha if she does end up killing him because Drycha is after someone else, so whatever doom prophecy she follows is fucked anyway.
 
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Mopman43 said:
Her goal seems to have been capturing/killing Boyar Kalashinivik.

She thinks that that Boris is him, because she has an incomplete reading of the situation.


She seems to have set this up to draw the Boyar in- she was pointed to him by some kind of divination, so it seems like she figured this would be easier than trying to find a single person in an entire country that she knows nothing about.
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Thanks for this. I still think it would have been easier/safer to just scout and wait for the Boyar/Boris to appear and to ambush him (she certainly has a method to detect her target), but you have certainly presented a viable alternative I hadn't thought of.
 
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pucflek said:
Because we can pick the less dangerous option, easily survive and withdraw and still report problem solved to Paranoth.
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I'd assumed that Mathilde sent a message to Paranoth already off-screen when she found out it wasn't going to be the Empire's problem.

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Mopman43 said:
It isn't actually, the spell-list only has Battlemagic for Ulgu, not any of the other Lores.
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There's a second spell-list of battle magic enchantments in the collection of important information.
 
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pucflek said:
I have no idea what the Branchwraits are casting, someone mentioned it could just be normal battlemagic (insofar as there is anything normal about threat of battlemagic), but to me, it sounded more like they were about to turn the entire forest against us, which seems like a much more encompassing threat. It could just be Boney being poetic and me misinterpreting but thats why i am voting as i am voting.
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DragonParadox said:
They are casting Awaken the Wood, it is on the spell-list bookmark.
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Mopman43 said:
It isn't actually, the spell-list only has Battlemagic for Ulgu, not any of the other Lores.
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Battle Magic for other Winds is found in Collection of Important Information informational threadmark, College Rep Heading, Battle Magic Enchantment subheading
Boney said:
Awakening of the Wood (10 favors): Plants damage target squad, more effective in forest.
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We don't know that this is what they're casting, but it seems very likely based on the description. Wholesale "turn the entire forest against my enemies" stuff hitting the Shirokji as a whole would be on the scale of a ritual, not battlefield-scale.
 
Personally, I prefer Treeman or at least Spellcasters tactically ...

... but.

Think of the mad rep Mathilde will get with people who actually know Drycha if she pulls off a 1v1. :V
 
picklepikkl said:
We don't know that this is what they're casting, but it seems very likely based on the description. Wholesale "turn the entire forest against my enemies" stuff hitting the Shirokji as a whole would be on the scale of a ritual, not battlefield-scale.
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There is three of them, they have natural connection to the forests, we have no idea what preparations they have made here because they were here for a year and they only really need to wake up the nearest several miles, not the entire forest from here to Ostland. I am just not going to discount it as the worst possible scenario and act accordingly.
 
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