Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Voting is open
Reader mode
Zero Gravitas said:
It will at best be a FC Magic 5 minimum spell - it is likely that the Grey College will also be fairly sensitive in regards to who exactly can learn this spell (I'd expect Magisters and BWs to be the minimum).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Magic 5 is still much more common than Magic 7, and those with M7 would be able to cast (read: control) a FC spell reliably (ish), which itself is nothing to sneeze at. Magisters tend to have Magic 4-6, so you aren't going to have anyone below that even try, and a more difficult spell wouldn't have any less security issues (that is, only some of the people theoretically able to learn it are allowed to: a percentage of a smaller pool would be, well, smaller).

I'm not saying a FC Rider will be for everyone - I'm saying that a BM Rider would be for too few for my liking. But that's just a personal opinion; every option has pros and cons there.
 
I think the biggest roadblock with the apparition spell is catching one. I can imagine the Grey Order locking the spell down simply to prevent the more foolhardy wizards from even attempting it before they have the strength to do so.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I think the biggest roadblock with the apparition spell is catching one. I can imagine the Grey Order locking the spell down simply to prevent the more foolhardy wizards from even attempting it before they have the strength to do so.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They'll likely limit it somewhat IMO, but there's wizards in the grey order tend toward the reliable (cause all others are killed). It will be for wizards who have normal power and little melee ability.


The Bodyguard is especially useful here. Having a way to deal with a swarm of enemies after you are stuck in post-assassination is huge, and a horse bodyguard is designed for crowd control, doing little mini-charges to herd stuff, along with also potentially clearing a way forward.

A BM charge spell is not very useful: spells that attack a group of units already exist at the battle magic level, namely Penumbral Pendulum and Pit of Shades. Duel at least provides utility (there's not really BM for 'go kill that person')
 
Last edited:
Abhorsen said:
A BM charge spell is not very useful: spells that attack a group of units already exist at the battle magic level, namely Penumbral Pendulum and Pit of Shades. Duel at least provides utility (there's not really BM for 'go kill that person')
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'd refute that, it's very useful because it's fire and forget. You give the riders a target and they do they best to get it off the field, without you having to supervise much.
There are very few direct damage spells that don't need the attention of the caster for the whole duration.

Edit: it's also a hunting spell, it stays on the target. Pendulum can be dodge and pit can miss. But a rider will just readjust and keep going.
 
Last edited:
Honestly, if people really don't want to learn pit of shades, I wanna round up some Whispers and make our own Dweller Below from them. High level Battle Magic when we really need to kill someone.
 
Tobtorp said:
I'd refute that, it's very useful because it's fire and forget. You give the riders a target and they do they best to get it off the field, without you having to supervise much.
There are very few direct damage spells that don't need the attention of the caster for the whole duration.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That may be a benefit, we don't know, because we don't know how Penumbral Pendulum exactly works. But it's also a really, really small benefit relative to coming up with a new tool. It's like buying a slightly more ergonomic screwdriver when you've not bought a saw yet. Priorities.

Tobtorp said:
Edit: it's also a hunting spell, it stays on the target. Pendulum can be dodge and pit can miss. But a rider will just readjust and keep going.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Eh, this is different, but a charge spell has its own drawbacks: it can be dodged, withstood, killed, etc. Again, it's a slightly more ergonomic screwdriver, but we are missing a saw and a hammer.

Duel? Duel makes sense, I even voted for Duel as well as Bodyguard: single target ranged attacks aren't something we have much in Ulgu (other than shadow knives). But Charge at battlemagic doesn't provide much use at all.
 
Abhorsen said:
Duel? Duel makes sense, I even voted for Duel as well as Bodyguard: single target ranged attacks aren't something we have much in Ulgu (other than shadow knives). But Charge at battlemagic doesn't provide much use at all.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Duel has the way higher chance that whatever priority target we choose it got a way to deal magic damage. The big thing our riders can do is not care about any nonmagical attack. If we send some to break a formation they have virtual no way to deal with it aside from calling in magical support.

Also no, being able to affect two completely different parts of the battlefield at once is not "a small benefit."
In a world where orders are send by message rider to be shouted at the troops being able to intervene across the field is worth it's weight in gold.
 
Aliya said:
Honestly, if people really don't want to learn pit of shades, I wanna round up some Whispers and make our own Dweller Below from them. High level Battle Magic when we really need to kill someone.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Honestly I want to do that anyways. I am incredibly tempted to spring for the band version of that to press the advantage of our staff as hard as possible. Even if that means risking it requiring a storm of magic or an expenditure of AV to cast, on the off chance that it's still BM our combat ability would shoot into the stratosphere.

And if not, it'd still occupy its own niche!
 
Aliya said:
Honestly, if people really don't want to learn pit of shades, I wanna round up some Whispers and make our own Dweller Below from them. High level Battle Magic when we really need to kill someone.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Tell you what: if we know we are actually going to be sent to a war where we will be on the battlefield as a war mage at the side of an army, then I'll vote to learn battle magic.

But that hasn't happened since the assault on the East Gate, and I don't see it happening again for quite a while.

Not every toolbox needs every tool. Cabinetry doesn't need jackhammers, for example.
 
Echoing the sentiment others have expressed, our main hope for an apparition was an 'oh shit' button that gets mathilde out of sticky situations, and a single reliably castable beatstick fulfils that role nicely, it does it for no extra investment of AP, and as others have mentioned as well, an immortal swordsman that is glued to its immortal horse overcomes the main weakness of cavalry that is caught standing still (you cant drag him off the horse, you cant kill the horse and throw him to the ground, you cant frighten the horse, and the horse and rider are perfectly in sync (kicking horse hooves fucking hurt)

Both charge and bodyguard fulfil the 'oh shit' requirement imo.

I will say im not expressly opposed to the utility of multiple riders, i just think that a fiendishly complex spell enriches both mathilde and the grey order with a far more versatile spell than just adding to the already offensively potent battle magic spell list, and if we want to put more feathers in our cap there we can always come back to more riders or other apparitions

[x] [BEHAVIOUR] Charge
[x] [NUMBER] One
[x] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
 
Last edited:
Glau said:
Tell you what: if we know we are actually going to be sent to a war where we will be on the battlefield as a war mage at the side of an army, then I'll vote to learn battle magic.

But that hasn't happened since the assault on the East Gate, and I don't see it happening again for quite a while.

Not every toolbox needs every tool. Cabinetry doesn't need jackhammers, for example.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ok, but when we keep going into abandoned houses looking to fix things then having more tools is certainly useful.
And we have the habit of going to some really weird places deciding to intervene I mean "repair stuff"

For example, when we went to ostermark we certainly didn't expect to fight a asrai tree infestation with the kislevites.
 
Since we're talking about the Whispering Darkness again I want to reiterate what I've been saying every time this topic comes up: The Whispering Darkness is a very Ulgu-y apparition. I would argue that it is, by College terms, Cardinally aligned with Ulgu, as both its form and its effects are very Ulgu. This actually makes it pretty unique, because while some apparitions arguably align with certain Winds I would argue that none align with a Wind as well as the Whispering Darkness aligns with Ulgu, and those that do align with Winds tend to eat them and so can't be bound by them.

Furthermore, our current foray into apparition binding gives me hope that we could use the Whispering Darkness to create a selective AoE spell:
Boney said:
[ ] [BEHAVIOUR] Directed
You will be able to give the Rider moment-to-moment instructions to do just about anything, but you will need to focus most of your attention on it while it is summoned.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It would require Mathilde's concetration, but it might allow us tell our cloud of madness to kill/madden only specific targets. If that works, we'll not only develop a Battle Magic spell that is extremely useful to Mathilde (because Staff of Mistery makes it safer) but that also gives the Grey Order a capability they don't currently have - calling down extreme devastation on an area even if said area contains allied forces.
 
Tobtorp said:
Ok, but when we keep going into abandoned houses looking to fix things then having more tools is certainly useful.
And we have the habit of going to some really weird places deciding to intervene I mean "repair stuff"

For example, when we went to ostermark we certainly didn't expect to fight a asrai tree infestation with the kislevites.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We kinda did. We knew that there was something weird and scary in the woods, and we knew that we were probably going to have to fight it. We just didn't know which flavor of weird and scary it would be.

Altom said:
The Everchosen is coming. We know that both IC and OOC. And there is no way we are sitting that one out.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Ok. When is he coming, and where are they going to be attacking?

We don't know when or if we are going to be on that battlefield yet, IC or OOC.

Tobtorp said:
Also the dwarfs are gearing up to a new reconquest and quite a few posters have shown interest in that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Sure. Are we going to be with the army, fighting another army?

Or are we going to be in the back field, taking out high values units and casters individually?
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I think the biggest roadblock with the apparition spell is catching one. I can imagine the Grey Order locking the spell down simply to prevent the more foolhardy wizards from even attempting it before they have the strength to do so.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Red Riders in the university dorms were mentioned as routine nuisances, and the default way of dealing with Riders that appear in the collages is leaving them alone until they slowly dissipate. That means that your average magister should has time to get a posse of experienced Rider-Wranglers before they try and take them on. If Dammerlichtritter become fashionable, you might get a shortage that leads people to seek them out in the wild, but then we'd be suffering from success.
 
Glau said:
Ok. When is he coming, and where are they going to be attacking?

We don't know when or if we are going to be on that battlefield yet, IC or OOC.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We don't. However, that is a poor argument for delaying because once that information becomes known, the Empire is going into full mobilization mode. We are extremly unlikely to have the AP for training and even we could scrounge the AP we would have subpar training chances as Melkoth would be busy with his duties as Provost.

As for the latter, assuming we live till then what reasons Mathilde would have to not join the fight?
 
Glau said:
Sure. Are we going to be with the army, fighting another army?

Or are we going to be in the back field, taking out high values units and casters individually?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't know, did we expect to suddenly lead the combined dwarf expedition against literally all remaining foes in k8p? Because I certainly didn't.
So let's do it the other way around, can you guarantee us that we never will fight in a big army battle? Come one that one should be easy, it's what your whole premise is build upon!
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open
Remove ads
Back
Top