Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Nerdasaurus Rex · Jul 18, 2023

Okay, so in the specific scenario where:

A) Mathilde is stuck in combat,
B) and she can't teleport because she is protecting someone,
C) and she can't summon a shadowsteed,
D) and she has a teleporting fogbank spell, either as an independently developed spell or as a freebie as part of the binding process,
E) and she has enough freedom to cast the fogbank spell and summon the red rider without being ganked,

Then yes, I concede that a Red Rider performing a one man cavalry charge will probably save Mathilde's life.

Chlof · Jul 18, 2023

[X] Plan Redshirt v4 (Sevirscope)
[X] Plan Roadmap to Success

Redshirt Army · Jul 18, 2023

What if... we use the Whispering Darkness to make the "fogbank" spell that we then can use in combination with the Rider In Red????????

reignonyrparade · Jul 18, 2023

[X] Plan Bring Running Shoes
[X] Plan Roadmap to Success
[X] Plan Redshirt v3.14159265 w/Riders and Busy Eike

Not too concerned about the exact details for most of this so uh, mostly just voting to expand the lead of whatever does win over the "bring in the damsels" plan.

Guisarme · Jul 18, 2023

[X] Plan Redshirt v4.53236

Retrueno · Jul 18, 2023

By what I see The Whispering Darkeness is made of Mist right? Then, would it be possible to combine multiple Whispering Darkness into one goliat sized eldritch Whispering Darkness???

Valmond · Jul 18, 2023

GrimTheMad said:
I can't think of any circumstance where she could summon an apparition but couldn't summon her shadow steed or just teleport out.

The Red Rider has its uses, but in this case its entirely redundant- Mathilde has existing, better options to extract herself from a melee. If none of them are viable, the Red Rider wouldn't be either.

[x] Plan Redshirt v4.53236
[X] Plan Redshirt v4 (Sevirscope)
[x] Plan Redshirt v3.14159

I think you are hitting pretty much on target on why the Red Rider's usefulness is exaggerated.
I have no doubts about it being useful, but i just don't see it being all that useful as an oh shit button, and as damage spells acid fog (that is pre approved spell to create), or pit, would probably be superrior.
Useful? Absolutely.
To a point where it would be clearly superrior to other suggested apparitions? No.

Tobtorp · Jul 18, 2023

Valmond said:
I think you are hitting pretty much on target on why the Red Rider's usefulness is exaggerated.
I have no doubts about it being useful, but i just don't see it being all that useful as an oh shit button, and as damage spells acid fog (that is pre approved spell to create), or pit, would probably be superrior.
Useful? Absolutely.
To a point where it would be clearly superrior to other suggested apparitions? No.

Ok then the same does apply to the other apparation? Because everything the whispering shadow can do Mathilde is better at?
Like the Argument isn't that this will revolutionize Mathilde's way of fighting but that's it's a independent actor we can send to do things.
And I'm sorry but we are better at clandestine assassination and terror tactics then we are at traditional close quarter fighting or even battlefield situations.

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jul 18, 2023

[X] Plan Roadmap to Success

Retrueno · Jul 18, 2023

While I am voting for almost all the apparition plans I feel the Riders in Red would be more useful.

Like, I imagine Mathilde vs a Champion of Khorne/Nurgle/The horny god whose name I can't remember, who would I prefer Mathilde to have by her side, 2 Riders in Red or 2 Whispering Darkeness, I would choose the Riders in Red each time.

Valmond · Jul 18, 2023

Tobtorp said:
Ok then the same does apply to the other apparation? Because everything the whispering shadow can do Mathilde is better at?
Like the Argument isn't that this will revolutionize Mathilde's way of fighting but that's it's a independent actor we can send to do things.
And I'm sorry but we are better at clandestine assassination and terror tactics then we are at traditional close quarter fighting or even battlefield situations.

Yes?
Each apparition is useful in their own way, and none of them is going to be obviously superrior to others to a point where they would be the "right" choice.
Even the highly unlikely and specialized situation where Red Rider would be super useful, is not actually a situation where the same thing could not probably be handled via acid fog, pit, or most other apparrition spells.

Tobtorp · Jul 18, 2023

Retrueno said:
While I am voting for almost all the apparition plans I feel the Riders in Red would be more useful.

Like, I imagine Mathilde vs a Champion of Khorne/Nurgle/The horny god whose name I can't remember, who would I prefer Mathilde to have by her side, 2 Riders in Red or 2 Whispering Darkeness, I would choose the Riders in Red each time.

Tbf the champion of khorne would also love the riders more... Actual combatants to fight with!

Abhorsen · Jul 18, 2023

Tobtorp said:
Ok then the same does apply to the other apparation? Because everything the whispering shadow can do Mathilde is better at?
Like the Argument isn't that this will revolutionize Mathilde's way of fighting but that's it's a independent actor we can send to do things.
And I'm sorry but we are better at clandestine assassination and terror tactics then we are at traditional close quarter fighting or even battlefield situations.

I think it has a very good application for ambushing groups of people. Right now we can assassinate, but we have an issue when assassinating a single person in a group, knowing we are going to be stuck with the rest. This is where almost all of our problems come from as we get stuck in melee, with the one exception of the Khornate, where it wouldn't matter as we couldn't cast any magic.

Also, the whispering darkness has the nice additive of being anti-dhar and anti-chaos, 2 things I'm rather worried by

Retrueno said:
While I am voting for almost all the apparition plans I feel the Riders in Red would be more useful.

Like, I imagine Mathilde vs a Champion of Khorne/Nurgle/The horny god whose name I can't remember, who would I prefer Mathilde to have by her side, 2 Riders in Red or 2 Whispering Darkeness, I would choose the Riders in Red each time.

Vs Khorne, we couldn't cast. But vs Chaos, the whispering darkness naturally targets that.

Valmond · Jul 18, 2023

If we really want a spell to just kill someone and not haveto melee rest of their group.
We probably would do better with the Pit or Pendulum.

Imugi · Jul 18, 2023

Is Mathilde the most Khorne-y Wizard?

Tobtorp · Jul 18, 2023

Abhorsen said:
Also, the whispering darkness has the nice additive of being anti-dhar and anti-chaos, 2 things I'm rather worried by

We do not actually know the anti Dhar stuff will survive the binding. Credible points have been brought up that we will be wrapping the apparation in Ulgu and contact between Ulgu and Dhar would erode that wrapping while strengthening the whispering darkness. This is a bad thing.
Like we cannot use apparation binding on a Ulgu eating apparation because it would eat the chains. I could see Dhar eating having a similar problem because of how winds and Dhar interact.

Deathbybunnies · Jul 18, 2023

Am I going mad, or does Roadmap to Success have 1 too many actions? It uses 2 WEB-MAT actions, not 3.

Nerdasaurus Rex · Jul 18, 2023

Deathbybunnies said:
Am I going mad, or does Roadmap to Success have 1 too many actions? It uses 2 WEB-MAT actions, not 3.

The mapping action is also a webmat action because it only has Johann on it, it's just not marked as a webmat action.

Retrueno · Jul 18, 2023

Abhorsen said:
Vs Khorne, we couldn't cast. But vs Chaos, the whispering darkness naturally targets that.

Sure maybe chaos magic would be less useful vs the whispering darkness, but I think a champion of Nurgle or of Slaanesh wouldn't really need to use magic against it, at most it would provide a malus to the Champion but meanwhile the Riders in Red would be there dealing damage and also being a distraction for the champion.

That said I feel the Whispering Darkness has quite more utility in the sense that it would be quite harder for it to die (and us needing to spend 1 AP catching more), meanwhile I find it very likely that the Riders in Red would do so when we deploy them to any situation.

Angelform · Jul 18, 2023

Tally seems to be having a bit of trouble. Both Redshirt v4 (Sevirscope) and Bring Running Shoes with Seviroscope show up twice in the top ten.

[X] Plan Roadmap to Success
-[X] Waystone: Mapping (Tilea, Estalia) (Johann)
[X] Plan Roadmap to Success + Ranald Liminal
-[X] Waystone: Mapping (Tilea, Estalia) (Johann)

I hated this absolute waste of an action last turn and I hate it even more this turn. Can we really find nothing better to do with Johann's time than mapping a pair of utterly irrelevant chunks of geography?
If you are that obsessed with meeting the imaginary '3 per turn' quota on waystone actions then at least do something potentially productive.

[X] Plan Bring Running Shoes
[X] Plan Redshirt v4.53236
[X] Plan Redshirt v3.14159265 w/Riders and Busy Eike
[X] Plan Redshirt v4 (Sevirscope)
[X] Plan Bring Running Shoes with Seviroscope
[X] Plan Bring Running Shoes and Ranald

Nerdasaurus Rex · Jul 18, 2023

Retrueno said:
Sure maybe chaos magic would be less useful vs the whispering darkness, but I think a champion of Nurgle or of Slaanesh wouldn't really need to use magic against it, at most it would provide a malus to the Champion but meanwhile the Riders in Red would be there dealing damage and also being a distraction for the champion.

That said I feel the Whispering Darkness has quite more utility in the sense that it would be quite harder for it to die (and us needing to spend 1 AP catching more), meanwhile I find it very likely that the Riders in Red would do so when we deploy them to any situation.

The Whispering Darkness is an immaterial shadow that grapples things and tries to devour them—and unlike our shadow, isn't attached to us at the hip but can roam around and hunt targets down.

I think that'll be very distracting.

Wiggy · Jul 18, 2023

Imugi said:
Is Mathilde the most Khorne-y Wizard?

Nah. Mathilde is good at fighting but she's not especially enthusiastic about it. There's probably a bunch of bright wizards throwing themselves into melee with flaming blades. Hell, there's a quest of exactly that.

Deathbybunnies · Jul 18, 2023

Plans with the Seviroscope, and choosing Riders in Red as our Apparition:
[X] Plan Bring Running Shoes with Seviroscope
[X] Plan Redshirt v3.14159265 w/Riders and Busy Eike & Seviriscope, no speculum

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
The mapping action is also a webmat action because it only has Johann on it, it's just not marked as a webmat action.

Ah, gotcha, it's fine then. Although now that I'm looking, it doesn't seem to have Egrimm on anything, who has spent the last 2 turns as a hanger-on to Waystone actions, rather than doing anything in his own right. Which might be fine, but is worth highlighting.

Angelform said:
I hated this absolute waste of an action last turn and I hate it even more this turn. Can we really find nothing better to do with Johann's time than mapping a pair of utterly irrelevant chunks of geography?
If you are that obsessed with meeting the imaginary "3 per turn" quota on waystone actions then at least do something potentially productive.

What are you talking about? We've done mapping exactly once, on turn 39. It was the basis of our figuring out that the Empire survives entirely due to a single Waystone in Marienburg.

(We've since discovered an alternative that could be activated at the cost of Reikland's fertile soil.)

Nerdasaurus Rex · Jul 18, 2023

Deathbybunnies said:
Ah, gotcha, it's fine then. Although now that I'm looking, it doesn't seem to have Egrimm on anything, who has spent the last 2 turns as a hanger-on to Waystone actions, rather than doing anything in his own right. Which might be fine, but is worth highlighting.

Honestly, I have a lot of problems with that plan, even if we ignore the apparition dispute. Johann on a low priority mapping action. Egrimm doing nothing but writing a paper. Eike studying tradecraft with the Hochlander instead of doing something productive—what do people think she spent her junior apprenticeship doing? She needs practical, real world scenarios, not fobbing off to a perpetual to study more theory.

I have no idea why it's the lead plan, it's all over the place.

Parabola · Jul 18, 2023

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Honestly, I have a lot of problems with that plan, even if we ignore the apparition dispute. Johann on a low priority mapping action. Egrimm doing nothing but writing a paper. Eike studying tradecraft with the Hochlander instead of doing something productive—what do people think she spent her junior apprenticeship doing? She needs practical, real world scenarios, not fobbing off to a perpetual to study more theory.

I have no idea why it's the lead plan, it's all over the place.

Tradecraft could directly boost her Intrigue (which she will use her entire life), and it's been noted that Enchanting is not in any sense a critical or vital skill for a Magister - most don't take it. That's probably why.

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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