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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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chocolote12 said:
It's a lot of good physical attributes to have on call.

Like, the first thought that went into my mind at the prospect was how hard it is for especially small people to catch a walking adult. Size is just such a huge factor in speed. And horses are more than that much bigger than an adult. And speed is strength, too, in a lot of ways.

If we're looking to take our fighting skills up into the supernatural, it'd be hard to beat figuring out how to add a sometimes horse into the equation.
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Mathilde can teleport and speed doesn't matter for how hard Branulhune hits. Like, it could be very cool for Mathilde to integrate shadowsteed into her fighting style, but the way she's kitted out makes almost all the traditional advantages of cavalry moot.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
Mathilde can teleport and speed doesn't matter for how hard Branulhune hits. Like, it could be very cool for Mathilde to integrate shadowsteed into her fighting style, but the way she's kitted out makes almost all the traditional advantages of cavalry moot.
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We're not good enough at teleporting to emulate phase-shift levitation like they do in Harry Potter. Until that day comes, a movement method that lasts for more than an instant and doesn't require us to belt out a Fiendishly Complex spell with every use is going to be better in some pretty compelling ways.

Popping around is a neat trick, but it's really really hard and it doesn't change what we are when we get there.
 
chocolote12 said:
We're not good enough at teleporting to emulate phase-shift levitation like they do in Harry Potter. Until that day comes, a movement method that lasts for more than an instant and doesn't require us to belt out a Fiendishly Complex spell with every use is going to be better in some pretty compelling ways.

Popping around is a neat trick, but it's really really hard and it doesn't change what we are when we get there.
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First, WTF is "phase shift levitation". Second, sure, Shadowsteed is better for actually covering ground, but in a fight covering ground is very rarely the point (I can't think of a time when it would be the point, but it's possible there is one), and if you're worried about someone escaping teleporting in front of them is just flat out better than trying to run them down. Meanwhile, the fact it's FC is pretty much irrelevant, as Mathidle casts those without rolling anyway.

Godwinson said:
Learn acrobatics, enchant boots with Skywalk, incorporate Skywalk into acrobatics, incorporate aerial acrobatics into greatswording.
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Skywalk enchants are a bad idea. Enchants are easier to counterspell and the ground is hard and unforgiving.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
Johan has metal hands and can thus use his hands as bludgeoning weapons. Mathilde cannot meaningfully hurt someone wearing armour with her bare hands.
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Yes, for the offense Johann obviously doesn't have much to offer us.The target of this would be to mix stuff like unarmed foodwork into the style.
Though learning when he sees am opportunity to punch would still be useful. Mathilde spent her martial journey in a style that forces the entire body to fully focus on maneuvering a fuckton of steel. After such a long time with a jealous weapon like that she might not fully seeing the moments where she can weave in the smaller things in her repertoire. Where he punches, she can throw knifes and teleport.
 
Honestly, I feel like all of this is solutions in search of problems.

Fact is, none of this seems to have bothered Mathilde's thoughts that much.
She's an expert warrior and a master swordswoman, who's blended multiple styles into her own and then straight up developed multiple new sword techniques.
I don't remember her once lamenting lack of acrobatics holding her back. And there is always an opportunity cost to these things even in the heat of the moment: Time spent on flipping around or behind enemy is time not spent on straight up just murderizing them.
It also makes her style dependent on an easily dispelled enchanted item. EDIT: What I mean by this is that operating on the assumption that you can do acrobatics in the middle of combat due to an enchanted item and having that item suddenly dispelled, is substantially speaking no less deadly than using that same enchanted item to speed accrossthe sky and suddenly plummeting down. A surprise dispel still leads to danger.

Instead of getting mired too deep into what we as amateurs think her fighting style should be on a detailed level, we should just decide if we want to sword better and let the QM work out the details in a way that fits the character and the world.
 
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SakSak said:
Instead of getting mired too deep into what we as amateurs think her fighting style should be on a detailed level, we should just decide if we want to sword better and let the QM work out the details in a way that fits the character and the world.
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In my opinion, I think we're good at enough on swordplay and should focus on something else. There's always room to improve, there is never a "perfect" sword style, and the better we get the more diminishing returns we get as we struggle to find measurable improvements with more effort and time we put in. And despite all of that, we are never going to surpass those who dedicate their life to the sword. We aren't going to be spending day in and day out training our Three Sword Style like we're Zoro from One Piece. We can instead focus on different aspects of Mathilde's toolbox so we can become better at being a versatile killing machine.

Remember that Mathilde's first choice in a magic duel during her Magister graduation test was to pull out a pistol and gun the opposing Wizard down, as opposed to going for a conventional magical duel. Her solution to dealing with the Shaman in Eight Peaks who was building a huge spell was to poke a hole in it and watch it crumble into itself. Her solution to the war between the Skaven and Greenskins was to cut off their communications and let them tear each other apart, going in to pick up the pieces and clean up. Her solution to dealing with Cython was not to go in guns blazing, but to negotiate and compromise.

I fully understand I have supported the notion of becoming better at swordplay because we are going to get into situations where we're scrambling for our life and could benefit from swordplay. The Khornate Champion is a recent and deadly reminder. But we really only need to be able to hold our own enough for an escape into a more advantageous position. Our current trajectory of using the Red Rider benefits us in that regard. I don't expect these guys to match up to anywhere near Mathilde's level, but if they can serve as a distraction for Mathilde to abscond, then they are successful in their job. Certainly, the ability to cast the spell beforehand and release them at a moment's notice alleviates one of the biggest disadvantages of fighting in close quarters, which is that casting spells under duress is likely to create mistakes and miscasts.

No wonder Gehenna specialises in those Hounds. Johann inherited a lot from his teacher, and his solution to problems being to cast spells beforehand and just charge in seems in line with a Wizard who precasts Golden Hounds and then lets them rip.
 
Codex said:
The Khornate Champion is a recent and deadly reminder. But we really only need to be able to hold our own enough for an escape into a more advantageous position.
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Personally, I agree.
While we were cracking Queekish, the Khornates were training sword.
While we were building a fully operational battle-mountain, the Khornates were training sword.
While we are solving the mysteries of the Waystones, Khornates are training sword.

So thinking that we can do all we want to do and still sword harder and better than a Khornate Champion - who also comes with Divine backing rending magical tricks useless or unreliable - is a foolish idea. Being the best at sword is not what we are uniquely suited for and comparing our fighting abilities to people who are, is not a useful milestone.

Personally I think we have already achieved what we need to achieve on that front and have better uses for our limited number of action points.
 
But have you considered, more sword? :V
Also, yes, less swords, we are never going to be competitive at swords against the actual heavy hitters, let's do something else.
 
With the confirmation that we can do Staff of Mistery things with the Whispering Darkness, I'm down for catching one. Or several.

Probably not next turn, cause our schedule is pretty packed, but soon.
 
Codex said:
In my opinion, I think we're good at enough on swordplay and should focus on something else. There's always room to improve, there is never a "perfect" sword style, and the better we get the more diminishing returns we get as we struggle to find measurable improvements with more effort and time we put in. And despite all of that, we are never going to surpass those who dedicate their life to the sword. We aren't going to be spending day in and day out training our Three Sword Style like we're Zoro from One Piece. We can instead focus on different aspects of Mathilde's toolbox so we can become better at being a versatile killing machine.

Remember that Mathilde's first choice in a magic duel during her Magister graduation test was to pull out a pistol and gun the opposing Wizard down, as opposed to going for a conventional magical duel. Her solution to dealing with the Shaman in Eight Peaks who was building a huge spell was to poke a hole in it and watch it crumble into itself. Her solution to the war between the Skaven and Greenskins was to cut off their communications and let them tear each other apart, going in to pick up the pieces and clean up. Her solution to dealing with Cython was not to go in guns blazing, but to negotiate and compromise.

I fully understand I have supported the notion of becoming better at swordplay because we are going to get into situations where we're scrambling for our life and could benefit from swordplay. The Khornate Champion is a recent and deadly reminder. But we really only need to be able to hold our own enough for an escape into a more advantageous position. Our current trajectory of using the Red Rider benefits us in that regard. I don't expect these guys to match up to anywhere near Mathilde's level, but if they can serve as a distraction for Mathilde to abscond, then they are successful in their job. Certainly, the ability to cast the spell beforehand and release them at a moment's notice alleviates one of the biggest disadvantages of fighting in close quarters, which is that casting spells under duress is likely to create mistakes and miscasts.

No wonder Gehenna specialises in those Hounds. Johann inherited a lot from his teacher, and his solution to problems being to cast spells beforehand and just charge in seems in line with a Wizard who precasts Golden Hounds and then lets them rip.
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People were not talking about just training the sword though, but to integrate other rare/unique advantages we possess to even the field between us and opponents that have trained for much longer than us / are more dedicated to martial pursuits than us.

Branalhune is perhaps our single most powerful martial tool, so it makes sense to build much of our whole fighting style around it. In that sense, incorporating our magic (shadowsteed, teleportation, etc.), arcane marks, magic items and other attributes into our sword style is probably the best way to improve our martial abilities and perhaps reach Grandmaster Swordsmanship.

We might not have centuries/millenias of training in the sword, but we have other aces that, if integrated in our sword style, help even the score.

EDIT : Also, considering our last investments in the sword got us a completed sword style which might be one of the singular most important advances in lethality, I don't think the argument about "diminishing returns" is true. If anything, I think that there is an argument that improving our sword style brought us EXPONENTIAL returns rather than diminishing ones or even linear ones.

There is no reason not to believe that Grandmaster Swordsman isn't another gulf compared with Master Swordsman, especially if we attain it by combining all our advantages.
 
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Sparsebeard said:
People were not talking about just training the sword though, but to integrate other rare/unique advantages we possess to even the field between us and opponents that have trained for much longer than us / are more dedicated to martial pursuits than us.

Branalhune is perhaps our single most powerful martial tool, so it makes sense to build much of our whole fighting style around it. In that sense, incorporating our magic (shadowsteed, teleportation, etc.), arcane marks, magic items and other attributes into our sword style is probably the best way to improve our martial abilities and perhaps reach Grandmaster Swordsmanship.

We might not have centuries/millenias of training in the sword, but we have other aces that, if integrated in our sword style, help even the score.

EDIT : Also, considering our last investments in the sword got us a completed sword style which might be one of the singular most important advances in lethality, I don't think the argument about "diminishing returns" is true. If anything, I think that there is an argument that improving our sword style brought us EXPONENTIAL returns rather than diminishing ones or even linear ones.

There is no reason not to believe that Grandmaster Swordsman isn't another gulf compared with Master Swordsman, especially if we attain it by combining all our advantages.
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I do not think the thread is remotely down for putting another half dozen actions into being more deadly with a sword, not when the plan to actually get the last set of sword actions just last turn was 'lets just get this over with already so we can do other stuff'.
 
I like swording, but I don't see more of it happening soon. We're in a good place with it, even if there's always room to improve.

if we get an opportunity to pick more up and don't have anything more pressing going on, I could see it, sure. That might even happen soon, since I imagine that the Shadow Warriors might have some useful tricks for us and we're likely to be putting our new sword style to use on the Elfcation. But it would be an AP here and there as opportunities arise, rather than a dedicated push, since we already have a perfectly good completed style now.
 
Considering fog kill is going to be a multi-ap investment, and we now know that whispering shadows benefits from our staff, I don't really see a reason to prioritize the former over the latter - it's never going to be as killy as a band-equivalent of whispering shadows, and as for giving us battle magic to do afterwards there's still Melkoth's.

Yeah, even one whispering shadows is probably a multi AP affair, but that just sort of underlines that we're spending the big bucks to get either of these things. Why settle for less than the best if we're going to be paying for it?

At any rate, I kind of feel like we should master some of our arcane marks first. They seem like they would help.
 
GrimTheMad said:
With the confirmation that we can do Staff of Mistery things with the Whispering Darkness, I'm down for catching one. Or several.

Probably not next turn, cause our schedule is pretty packed, but soon.
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I don't think that anybody really answered the question of where is Mathilde is supposed to find Whispering Darkness (or Black Essence for that matter either).
 
I don't see anything wrong with some theorizing. Yes, Mathilde is Sufficiently Skilled that she's not going to spend any more AP on studying the sword for a while yet. But coming up with and discussiong ideas can be quite fun, and we might hit upon a good idea or two that'll be worth pursuing eventually.

...

[] Attempt to create a spell: Shadowsteed that can wield a sword in its mouth. :V
 
SITB said:
I don't think that anybody really answered the question of where is Mathilde is supposed to find Whispering Darkness (or Black Essence for that matter either).
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In addition to what others noted, the Whispering Darkness is drawn to some (not all) Ulgu magic, and Mathilde listed it among the apparitions Grey Wizards sometimes summon (though from Mathilde's phrasing it seems less common than the Asp and Child).
 
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