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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Alratan said:
She piloted a giant magical tower where no one on the battlefield could see her during Birdmuncha's Waaagh and didn't cast any very flashy spells during the Karak Vlag expedition. She used RoW a lot, but not on the battlefield. She wasn't throwing out Penumbral Pendulums or Pits of Shade, and Melkoth's Miasma is relatively subtle battle magic.
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A lot of Grey Wizard BM spells are 'subtle' magic (i.e buffs or debuffs) and for the people watching a large portion of a Waaagh get instantly incinerated by a shadow or daemons suddenly being revealed as corrupted slayers by a suddenly appearing mist is going to seem very impressive.

Then again:

Alratan said:
People who something would probably know she's a wizard who prefers to kill her enemies with a sword rather than spells. The Rider can do a very good impression of that.
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It is entirely plausible that Mathilde would use Shadowsteed and Aethyric Armour and then cut someone down rather than using a direct damage spell.

Boney said:
If Avatar was applicable to Apparitions, Mathilde would be committing some super hardcore blasphemy right about now.
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I was thinking more from the other side: Mathilde trying to replicate Gazul possessing her or the Widow editing her perception of Gotrek's widow to control the Apparition better.

Which may still be a bit blasphemous but from a different angle.


Redshirt Army said:
It doesn't take detailed knowledge of Mathilde's spell masteries to notice that one Mathilde causes supernatural fear, and the other Mathilde doesn't.

If Mathilde was causing supernatural fear earlier in the fight when she was fighting alone, then that alone is pretty indicative of which one is the fake.
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On the flip side Mathilde is pretty scary already.
 
Boney said:
That would be viable too. Multiple of them would be a really good counter for big monsters. Possibly even more so than actual Winter Wolves, if the rider can't fall off then there's no reason to hold back from the leaping attacks.
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And fighting monsters is something Mathilde doesn't have any particular advantage towards. I think this makes a wolf mount or something a bit better than a horse, because it closes a gap in her own capabilities.
 
Rafin said:
@Boney Is the mist obscuring distinct features a viable option? The idea would be that a Grey Wizard could summon a Decoy Rider while using Smoke & Mirrors. It's not a real decoy under any kind of close scrutiny but it should be more than enough on the battlefield or from any kind of distance, even if the enemy has seen the caster's face before. Yet the actual coating is always the same, just a human in Grey robes riding a standard Shadowsteed, with their face and other parts of their body obscured by roiling mists, the face itself being the kind of uncanny that just makes you think even more that you didn't see it correctly through the fog and the distance.
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This also has neat vibes, since Boney confirmed this is fine. For people who don't want Literally Mathilde Clones running around on the battlefield for some reason, having it be Mathilde's Mystically Murderous Mistriders and summon a rider in robes and a witch hunter hat on a shadowsteed with their face perpetually obscured by mist seems good IMO. It has properly intimidating vibes and is more clearly distinguishable from Mathilde. If I'm understanding the mechanics of our options here then having it trail a cloak of mists or something as a purely cosmetic effect should be viable too. Hmm, maybe something like having the rider itself appear to be formed of shadow so it's even more clearly distinguishable for IFF purposes for allies while still having the same rough outline as a "normal" combatant for Warrior of Fog purposes? So something like:

[ ] Other (write in)
-[ ] A rider formed of shadows wearing robes and a Witch Hunter's hat on a Shadowsteed, with their face perpetually obscured by mists and a cloak of mist trailing from their shoulders.
 
kingreaper said:
On the seviroscope, I'm leaning towards the auditory one for the general utility it provides for things like early-warning-systems - but I'm not convinced it will help Kragg at all. Kragg has a windsense - it's less precise than our visual windsense, but the descriptions we've had of it make it sound slightly more precise than the auditory-seviroscope.

I could easily be wrong, or the fact that the auditory-seviroscope can be outside of his runic protections might be incredibly useful, but for the most part I feel like the choice is "help a small number of specialist magical researchers" vs. "help non-magical people en masse".
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This vote is for what Sevirscope we do right now, on this action, but we can spend 1AP to do the other one.

Personally I feel going for the Visual one right now and later get a wizard with actual auditive Windsight makes the most sense.

Because for the auditive one we have no one who can tell us if what we are building properly translates magic to sound (which will most likely be translated to a malus when building it).
 
I think people are seriously over-estimating the chances of a miscast with the Apparitions causing problems for Mathilde. Communications aren't that good, and there are no cameras to record the event. It would be very easy for the Grey College to deny it ever happened. I think this is catastrophising.

Another factor in favour of a mundane appearing apparition is that it doesn't look at all like daemon summoning. People might not like that very occasionally an Apparition goes rogue, but I think it's overall more corrosive to the reputation of the Colleges to be obviously summoning blatently supernatural creatures from nowhere that sometimes go rogue.

It's something they can get away with, but it should still be something that encourages fear and distrust of wizards.

Also, we can just bind a second Red Rider and have that assume a generic appearance and share that if people are so concerned, one AP isn't so much as to be out of the realms of possibility. Two riders are almost twice as good as one in many contexts, and a generic rider is almost as useful as a Mathilde one to the Colleges

LawsOfRobotics said:
For the form of the Rider, I really think we should consider how the form of the mount can be weaponized. The Demigryph Knight or Winter Wolves form would have powerful biting and clawing attacks in addition to the sword of the rider. For those hoping the Winged Lancer form would have the same unsettling magical effect as the real thing, I just want to point something out:
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Don't underestimate how good a weapon that a warhorse is itself. It's already pretty weaponised thanks to its mass and potential speed.
 
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Boney said:
That would be viable too. Multiple of them would be a really good counter for big monsters. Possibly even more so than actual Winter Wolves, if the rider can't fall off then there's no reason to hold back from the leaping attacks.
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Something effective against big monsters/enemies would be really good because our Guard Bypass doesn't work on them.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
And fighting monsters is something Mathilde doesn't have any particular advantage towards. I think this makes a wolf mount or something a bit better than a horse, because it closes a gap in her own capabilities.
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If we go this route I'd personally prefer a rider on a big cat for Ranald reasons.

...Hmm. We could name it Mathilde's Crepuscular Clowder Cavalry. Crepuscular meaning shadowy and clowder being the plural noun for a group of cats, for those who don't recognize the words and don't feel like pulling up a dictionary.
 
Horium said:
Honestly, putting Mathilde's heraldry (let alone her face) on the Rider feels a bit cringe.

Also potentially problematic from the PR standpoint should Mathilde (or any other Gray down the line) have a mishap while casting or lose control in any way.
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Everyone has their own measure, of course, but putting her heraldry on the Rider feels like just the right amount of cringe for the woman who named her map spell MAP. As for PR, our heraldry is not known enough for it to become a problem, I'd say.
 
Just a friendly reminder to everyone who is contemplating write-in Apparition appearances: make sure to put [RIDER] in front of it, otherwise the tally will not tally by task correctly.

I foresee this vote being a clusterfuck of competing extremely-similar write-ins, but we can at least avoid making the problem worse.
 
Redshirt Army said:
It doesn't take detailed knowledge of Mathilde's spell masteries to notice that one Mathilde causes supernatural fear, and the other Mathilde doesn't.

If Mathilde was causing supernatural fear earlier in the fight when she was fighting alone, then that alone is pretty indicative of which one is the fake.
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Only if they know the duration of the terror inducing spell, which is information that I wouldn't expect to be consistent between wizards or for Mathilde to ever share.

And the suggestion isn't that you ever have two Mathildes' visible to people at once. That defies the entire point of creating a decoy. You'd weave Smoke and Mirrors into the Summoning spell, leaving the Mathilde Rider behind and visible, or cast it while you were out of view and then cast invisibility or just mundanely sneak away while Rider Mathilde attracts all the attention.

Glau said:
I'm not interested in using this as a decoy or clever ploy sort of thing: we've got illusion, invisibility, take no heed, sounds, all sorts of magic that does that. If we want a duplicate, we can just make an illusion of one already.
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Illusion requires concentrating on (and so line of sight to) and can't interact with objects. The Rider is autonomous and solid. They do totally different things and Illusion is not a substitute for a sold clone in almost any way. Illusion isn't a useful decoy while you run away or do something else. A Mathidle Rider is.

Glau said:
Much like the dammerlichter, which was a thing for a few months a decade and some ago and now is just a back country rumor, this isn't really an applicable situation any more. We've solved that problem, and we've already got the spells for decoys and exfiltrations. Fighting the last war is how you lose the next one.
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We haven't solved it. We just haven't ended up in that situation recently. There are many other scenarios where a credible clone decoy of Mathilde would be useful, like the battle in Kislev.
 
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Personal favorite name so far was Knight of the Unseen Order.

Its not trying to be an anagram or an alliteration, which I feel is a bit overdone at this point, its just a good name for a spell with an oblique reference to Mathilde's own knighthood (Unseen, Not Unfelt).
 
Been a while since I had the time to do one of these breakdowns but here's an attempt at giving each a fair shake under three considerations(there is no personal stategic as the spell simply can't have a strategic impact if only Mathilde uses it):
-Tactical(General) - The per-battle impact, as used by any Grey Wizard
-Strategic(General) - The per-battle impact, if usage is proliferated
-Tactical(Personal) - Mathilde-specific tactical advantages over and above the general one. Note that Boney specifically mentions that apparitions can/must be trained to do their jobs, meaning Mathilde's personal relevant skills matter here.


[ ] [RIDER] Mounted Wraiths

-Tactical(General) - The appearance is a standard issue binding for Necromancers, and we can expect the associated morale effect of common infantry fearing it. It may be valuable for baiting out the wrong counters, since they appear undead but are not...but it only works on non-wizards, since Windsight will have the gig be up rather quickly.
-Strategic(General) - This is rather PR unfriendly, since it makes you look like a necromancer. While those with Windsight will soon realize that they aren't actually undead, it will raise rather uncomfortable questions if keeping the Apparition nature of the spell secret is a priority, and even more so for the lady who owns the original Liber Mortis.
-Tactical(Personal) - Ironically the Liber Mortis bonus to commanding undead armies SHOULD apply here, because Hexwraiths are a common Necromancer minion.

[ ] [RIDER] Mathilde on a Shadowsteed

-Tactical(General) - The apperance of a Wizard Lord on the field forces the opponent to deal with it, and so unlike other summon options, this would cause enemies to run towards it. They cannot afford to assume it is not Mathilde - because Mathilde has a bit of a reputation for appearing out of nowhere, ruining your day and then vanishing. They can't see through the deception with Windsight because it'd be a beacon of Ulgu...which is exactly what Mathilde would look like to Windsight anyway. By the time they're close enough to check her gear its too late.
-Strategic(General) - This further expands our urban legend for good and ill, since theres already a seed story in Stirland. Now, for the most part Grey Wizards would tend to be doing things we generally approve of, so it should be a benefit in general, but both miscasts and enemies who got their day ruined by Suddenly Mathilde Weber might catch up to us later.
-Tactical(Personal) - As this is exactly Mathilde, she has the additional option of using it as a personally specific decoy. In addition she can train it to fight like she does, though actually getting her full sword style would be challenging, she does have both a lot of sword traits and mounted combat traits that would be applicable to getting it to the right skill level.

[ ] [RIDER] Generic Sword Wielding Grey Wizard on a Shadowsteed

-Tactical(General) - An extra grey wizard on the field doesn't demand attention like an extra Wizard Lord on the field, but can't really be ignored either because thats how you get Pendulum'd. They can't see through the deception with Windsight because it'd be a beacon of Ulgu...which is exactly what a Grey Wizard would look like to Windsight anyway.
-Strategic(General) - An extra Grey Wizard showing up to a battlefield that already had one Grey Wizard on it isn't very notable, other than possibly inflating estimates of College manpower.
-Tactical(Personal) - As this is ALMOST Mathilde, she has the additional option of using it as a personally specific decoy if she slaps on a Doppleganger or other disguise first. In addition she can train it to fight like she does, though actually getting her full sword style imported would be challenging, she does have both a lot of sword traits and mounted combat traits that would be applicable to getting it to the right skill level.

[ ] [RIDER] Knight
-[ ] Conventional Empire

-Tactical(General) - An extra knight on the battlefield doesn't really force a unique response. However its an apparition. A supernatural murderblender that is largely expendable. Reacting to it like its a regular imperial knight is going to get whatever formation it slams into brutally killed.
-Strategic(General) - Knights appearing out of nowhere and kicking ass is mostly normal and unremarkable, especially if theres no noticable coat of arms.
-Tactical(Personal) - Mathilde has the skills to train a fairly basic mounted sword knight, but it'd be relying more on being a supernatural beast than anything else.

-[ ] Winter Wolves

-Tactical(General) - A Winter Wolf knight should be approximately the right asskicking level, and enemies would likely respond with an appropriate level of force. Right propa intimidating though.
-Strategic(General) - We may be on good terms with the Winter Wolves but I suspect if this version proliferates they'd probably start asking questions like where these winter wolves come from and why are they fighting for causes the Order don't know.
-Tactical(Personal) - Mathilde knows a fair bit about mounted combat and Wolf can probably help with getting the appearance and animations correct, but otherwise not much she can specifically train skills into.

-[ ] Demigryph Knight

-Tactical(General) - A Demigryph knight should be approximately the right asskicking level, and enemies would likely respond with an appropriate level of force. Right propa intimidating though.
-Strategic(General) - Demigryphs don't exactly grow on trees, but the lack of apparent affiliation should keep things confused.
-Tactical(Personal) - No unusual personal advantage.

-[ ] Winged Lancer

-Tactical(General) - Winged Lancers have a decent morale effect that should work fine here, though it takes more than one to really make it work.
-Strategic(General) - I suspect if Kislev was better put together they'd be asking questions about who's doing silly buggers, but from what we know right now, nobody would be in a position to care until its a fiat accompli.
-Tactical(Personal) - No unusual personal advantage.

[ ] [RIDER] Spider
-Tactical(General) - Giant monster spider is pretty scary on general principles, and I believe some of the Goblin tribes make use of Ulgu, so it'd even sort of fit if they had magesight to validate with. Its a decent deniable summon in wilderness areas, though more difficult to use alongside allies. Combat wise...its a big monster and fights like a big monster, so the level of force baited out would be approximately correct, other than not having poison.
-Strategic(General) - Its a giant spider, so what?
-Tactical(Personal) - No unusual personal advantage.

[ ] [RIDER] Centaur

Not familiar enough to give a fair assessment.
 
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Retrueno said:
Because for the auditive one we have no one who can tell us if what we are building properly translates magic to sound (which will most likely be translated to a malus when building it).
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Fair, it would probably annoy anyone with actual auditory windsense if we made Ghyran an A-flat instead of an F-sharp or whatever [assuming there's some standard pattern to how the auditory works as there is with the visual]
 
Hmm. A Nazgul on a wolf is also an ok option. Gonna approval vote that too.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
And fighting monsters is something Mathilde doesn't have any particular advantage towards. I think this makes a wolf mount or something a bit better than a horse, because it closes a gap in her own capabilities.
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Apart from a cannon sword and the ability to teleport into their blind spot? Or teleport behind them and nuke them with dragon breath.

Mathilde has a big advantage fighting monsters. It's just not as big as against humanoid champions.
 
Wasn't there a Light Wizard or something with auditory Windsight? One of Egrimm's minions during the Vlag expedition I think. We could get recruit them for the auditory version later.
 
Welp, with the reveal that any Apparitions that break free will not revert back to their previous form, I'm going for spooky horse wraith or spooky wolf wraith. Cats, while great at taking on things roughly their size or smaller, have a lot of overlap with Mathilde, who is also great at taking on things her size or smaller thanks to her sword style.
 
Ericwinter said:
Wasn't there a Light Wizard or something with auditory Windsight? One of Egrimm's minions during the Vlag expedition I think. We could get recruit them for the auditory version later.
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Yeah, although I'd prefer to get someone with the enchanting trait from another order since it would be one more wind we can make use to create the auditive Sevirscope.
 
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