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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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SuperSonicSound said:
Because that Quantity is relegated to being in front of enemy lines, so they're almost certainly never going to the chance to peek under the covers and find that Green skin warboss making deals with the skaven, or that shaman performing a magical ritual, or that warplock engineer working on some kind of massive warp bomb.

The Rangers can give the lay of the land up to the enemies and show us tunnels would lead deep into enemy territory, what they can't do is range into those tunnels and come out the other side. Mathilde can. Do you really not see how being able to throw an illusion on top of your self making you look like a member of people being scouted changes literally everything?
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We do know they can do at least some infiltration, since they were able to get into Grobitown to set the fires in from of the Citadel. But I agree Mathilde is a qualitative improvement.
 
To be honest SSS, while you're not strictly wrong--a lot of your position depends on "Every threat is at least as bad as the most dangerous one we've witnessed, and thus is impervious to conventional forces and also a single one detonating can render our position potentially untenable and every last one of these is on the cusp of firing".

And that's... Not really something we can do anything about? Awareness of six additional catastrophe level threats doesn't give us the ability to stop them, or even mitigate them to be perfectly honest. If our situation is that tenuous, the best we'd be able to do is disarm one, maybe two of them before the other four fire and destroy us.

Like, not every one of these plots is aimed at us, because until we charged in, their rivals were each other and the occasional dwarfen adventurer crew sneaking in to get salvage. I admit, scouting out will help tremendously, but I would hardly claim it to be the difference between survival and "You didn't take this one option that only you had the ability to succeed in, and so now you're on the back foot and will struggle to regain it".

It feels like you've got the assumption going that everyone can easily pivot their plot to turn it on us, and they will all do it at the same time, and not a single one of these will interfere with one another because they'll take turns kicking us with their ultimate monsters/rituals/weapons. And that all of these plots are as potentially devastating as the Rogue Idol would have been.

Your position isn't impossible, but we've not really been given any indication that they'll aim those plots at us as opposed to each other--like, why would the Skaven target us when we're an unknown, unplanned for vector when the greenskins they've traditionally rivaled for dominance of this area have taken a punch on the nose--and those greenskins are who their plots were aimed to wreck anyway. Why would the greenskins detonate their plots on us when they'll trip over the Skaven who are taking advantage of their weakness first?

I'd say Karagril is the plot most likely to give us a headache, as it's right next to our territories and also a place we have to seize if we're going to begin extracting additional currency. But just because it'll give us a headache doesn't mean Mathilde is the only one who can possibly counter it, we're not literally the only person in this organization who can take meaningful action.
 
Alectai said:
To be honest SSS, while you're not strictly wrong--a lot of your position depends on "Every threat is at least as bad as the most dangerous one we've witnessed, and thus is impervious to conventional forces and also a single one detonating can render our position potentially untenable and every last one of these is on the cusp of firing".

And that's... Not really something we can do anything about? Awareness of six additional catastrophe level threats doesn't give us the ability to stop them, or even mitigate them to be perfectly honest. If our situation is that tenuous, the best we'd be able to do is disarm one, maybe two of them before the other four fire and destroy us.

Like, not every one of these plots is aimed at us, because until we charged in, their rivals were each other and the occasional dwarfen adventurer crew sneaking in to get salvage. I admit, scouting out will help tremendously, but I would hardly claim it to be the difference between survival and "You didn't take this one option that only you had the ability to succeed in, and so now you're on the back foot and will struggle to regain it".

It feels like you've got the assumption going that everyone can easily pivot their plot to turn it on us, and they will all do it at the same time, and not a single one of these will interfere with one another because they'll take turns kicking us with their ultimate monsters/rituals/weapons. And that all of these plots are as potentially devastating as the Rogue Idol would have been.

Your position isn't impossible, but we've not really been given any indication that they'll aim those plots at us as opposed to each other--like, why would the Skaven target us when we're an unknown, unplanned for vector when the greenskins they've traditionally rivaled for dominance of this area have taken a punch on the nose--and those greenskins are who their plots were aimed to wreck anyway. Why would the greenskins detonate their plots on us when they'll trip over the Skaven who are taking advantage of their weakness first?

I'd say Karagril is the plot most likely to give us a headache, as it's right next to our territories and also a place we have to seize if we're going to begin extracting additional currency. But just because it'll give us a headache doesn't mean Mathilde is the only one who can possibly counter it, we're not literally the only person in this organization who can take meaningful action.
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Interesting chain of suppositions. Reassuring if true. Where's your scouting report to back it up?
 
A bunch of votes for both options... and we are still tied.

Man, this three-highest, tally by line kind of votes seem to be designed for creating knife-fights for the third place.
 
I would presume the Rangers and the Karag Azul force will have it, and that it is not our sole responsibility to identify threats.

Certainly, Mathilde is the best at improvising when a problem is about to fire off right this second, but to say that nobody else can identify threats--and that all threats are primed and ready to fire immediately is a... Rather aggressive supposition.

I'd ask where your own evidence in that field would be myself. "All the peaks have something going on" does not equal "All peaks are progressing at the same rate and are the same level of threat to you". If it is, then we were screwed the moment we entered this place because we have six catastrophe level plots that are going to fire at the end of the epilogue, and anything short of "Mathilde does nothing but mitigate Plots" as our epilogue actions was doomed to failure.
 
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Would it be possible to brick in the trolls and let them kill eachother via starving?

literally put up 5+ foot thick walls at each entrance to their mountain and wait a few years?
 
Firstly, I'd be incredibly happy @Alectai if you'd not strawman my position. My position isn't that the plots are catastrophic enough to make Karak 8 Peaks untenable and I don't appreciate you trying to make out that this is what I'm arguing please engage with my actual position thank you. So I'll state my position more plainly, these plots have the potential to do serious damage and claim a lot of lives. An Idol of Gork is conventionally beatable it would still kill hundreds to thousands of people. Again the evidence is on my side regarding whether these plots will be derailed. We're 2-0 regarding the Dwarven rangers pulling it off vs Mathilde.

None of the plots have been aimed at us and yet of the two we're aware of they both would have been a great hindrance to us.

Also once again.

BoneyM said:
As before, dwarvern strategy has no natural place for someone with your abilities, so it is up to you to decide what your role will be.
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if the Rangers could replicate our ability to derail enemy plans then this wouldn't be a thing.
 
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SuperSonicSound said:
Firstly, I'd be incredibly happy @Alectai if you'd not strawman my position. My position isn't that the plots are catastrophic enough to make Karak 8 Peaks untenable and I don't appreciate you trying to make out that this is what I'm arguing please engage with my actual position thank you. So I'll state my position more plainly, these plots have the potential to do serious damage and claim a lot of lives. An Idol of Gork is conventionally beatable it would still kill hundreds to thousands of people. Again the evidence is on my side regarding whether these plots will be derailed. We're 2-0 regarding the Dwarven rangers pulling it off vs Mathilde.

None of the plots have been aimed at us and yet of the two we're aware of they both would have been a great hindrance to us.
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And they were mostly due to luck, at least in the Idol's case, which doesn't point towards Mathilde being the one who stopped the plot, but Ranald. Through Mathilde, aye, but still.
 
Aegon Targaryen said:
And they were mostly due to luck, at least in the Idol's case, which doesn't point towards Mathilde being the one who stopped the plot, but Ranald. Through Mathilde, aye, but still.
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We stopped the original ritual before Ranald got involved. He stopped us eating the equivalent of a ritual miscast and stole power from the Orc god but Mathilde was the one that stopped the orc ritual. The Orc Idol not being created was our work, surviving it after was on Ranald but we had other options there as well.
 
On the subject of the Ranger's skill, I'd like to point out point out that they pretty much handled the Citadel on their own and managed to identify the enemy's exact defensive plan and how to neutralize it. They may not have OP shadow magic, they are fairly competent and honestly better than Mathilde in terms of pure skill.

I'm not saying we shouldn't nip in every now and then, but honestly the situation isn't quite so dire as people seem to be making it out to be.
 
[X] Remain in Karak Eight Peaks, either in the employ of Belegar or pursuing your research.

[X] Give them away...
- [X] To the Amber College

[X] Claim the site where Ranald mugged Mork and build a shrine to Ranald there.
[X] Scout the rest of the Eight Peaks, to find out what other horrors are waiting out there.
[X] Try to follow Johann, to see what he's getting up to.
 
You are making some rather extreme extrapolations of the threat level though.

You're not wrong in that Mathilde is absolutely the best we've got here and sneaking in and getting out unnoticed. But at the same time, you're advocating that Only Mathilde can get meaningful data, or to spoke a wheel in these threats, and so if we don't take that action we're going to be caught blind by a super powered sucker punch.

"Rangers are batting 2-0 in Mathilde's favor" completely dismisses that "This is because they were doing other things that were also important". They certainly managed to get great data on the citadel without us needing to directly scout it, and they certainly did a fine job screening the approach of the Expedition. They managed to get a hefty map of Karag Nar and identified major points of interest for us to focus our efforts in.

To say that the standard for being "Useful" is "Capacity to walk into Mordor with limited intel and bumble your way to Sauron, and then bust a cap in his arse" is setting the standard pretty high. And if you honestly feel that we need to meet that standard, we're more likely to make am mess of things ourselves--because we can't keep rolling like gangbusters forever.
 
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While there's a very strong possibility that scouting might avert disaster, the friends option will sit there till next round no problem.

It's something of a no-brainer. Why risk it?
 
DragonParadox said:
I don't really want to get into this argument, but the above feels a little disingenuous. It's pretty clear from context that @SuperSonicSound means 'the only grey wizard in Karak Eight Peaks'.
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I was joking. Apologies if it seemed otherwise.
SuperSonicSound said:
You know I'd appreciate that argument if we were talking about exchanging one duty for another but we're not. We're talking about an action to have Mathilde blow off steam and one which is a perfect fit for her being a grey wizard.
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And Mathilde is also a human being, not only a grey wizard. She isn't Ulgu made Manifest, she's a person with the ability to wield the Grey Wind of Magic.
 
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