Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[SuperSonicSound]

@BoneyM

What's your take on rituals like the impossible march of the damned soldier? It's an empire Magic ritual used to essentially teleport soldiers in times of dire need in RoS, there's no limit on what lore of magic is used to cast it.

Speed of light doesn't make you run faster @veekie, that's Bironas time warp sadly.

 

[Mopman43]

The dwarves sees no problem in recruiting manling female soldiers. Let it be know that they will welcome questing knight(-dette) with limited time offer of letter of recomendation from Belegar.

Britonians have good relation with dwarves?

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As far as I'm aware, not as close as the Empire overall, but pretty good. They trade with the holds in the Grey Mountains and the Vaults.

To my understanding, Dwarf opinion of the Bretonnians is something like "They're a bit too Elgi to be healthy, but they certainly kill Grobi."

 

[Boney]

-Body - Ulgu only while casting, otherwise can temporarily contain other Winds. As Ulgu has few effects affecting the body(I think its just Substance of Shadow), this can be considered an open slot. Presumably if we pick up the Insubstantial Arcane Mark this might be more complicated?

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Non-Ulgu internal spells would likely be weakened or slowed if you picked up an arcane mark that had a constant effect on your body, as part of the magic would mix and burn away as it turns into Dhar and gets pinged by the belt.

@BoneyM

What's your take on rituals like the impossible march of the damned soldier? It's an empire Magic ritual used to essentially teleport soldiers in times of dire need in RoS, there's no limit on what lore of magic is used to cast it.

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It exists, but as per RAW it takes the contribution of a lot of wizards to make it move significant amounts of troops and any of them that mess up end up arriving with their portion of the soldiers somewhere at random in the entire world. Rituals tend to be solutions that only become palatable when the problems are existential threats to the entire Empire.

 

[Alratan]

In the hands of the high elves, who per lore have an awful lot more wizards (even if they're apprentices by their standards) per capita, rituals like Impossible March of the Doomed Soldier would probably be much more reliable.

It would certainly explain how they can play world police. They may even have items, skills, or traits that help.

 

[Karugus]

I mean, there's something to be said for backlash against the cycle for fixating on combat (multiple speed of lights is definitely pushing it- one is +5 boots hilarity) and then advocating combat as a result but I do feel there's a tendency for the thread to assume that 'Mathilde an assassin, she is a scalpel she is a precision instrument that needs to be applied appropriately or be ineffective' is a fairly hard rule. But conventional combat is just another arrow in our quiver, one that Mathilde's actually pretty useful for even if you ignore 90% of her capabilities.

I'm going to lean on TT rules because it's an easy way to make a point- I'm sure Boney will treat it with a bit more nuance but if he didn't consider Mathilde's TT sheet somewhat representative he never would have given us one in the first place. Stubborn and Take No Heed for instance means the Undumgi would have done an admirable job of trying to fight to the last man had Mathilde fought among them and would have been almost impossible to break and killing Mathilde would have been pretty damn difficult. Fear and Terror make her unit immune to the same. She can potentially be a colossal pain in the ass to deal with that either requires obscene amounts of area of effect to put down, incredible luck in breaking her unit, or simply wearing her unit down to death.

I'm not going to present examples of where this might be 'necessary' because I know myself and other members of the killy crowd have made that sort of argument before but I think it's important to keep in mind even if you took away Mathilde's awesome sword she'd still be making major contributions in a melee engagement because despite us mostly seeing her capability as an individual operating deep behind enemy lines she's absolutely capable of making a unit into an anvil that needs to be broken down entirely and in turn being able to gank a lot of the sort of things that might be able to break said anvil. We see the accomplishments of the assassin and the wizard and it's so easy to forget the deed that put us on the map was simply being someone capable of exhorting men into a potential meatgrinder they were definitely starting to balk at. And I don't think her demonstrated ability there was a one time thing. So if the possibility of fighting at the front of the battle is on the table don't just look at it as a mistaken urge to try and be something we're not, but an option that would have us backstopping the morale of our front, attacking the enemy's morale, and being on hand to smack down any target that's causing too much while essentially hiding in the press of bodies.

 

[forlornhope]

is the vote still open

 

[BeepSmile]

There's "older men" and then there's "older than your civilization".
What next, Mathilde X Settra?

In any case I ship Kragg and Arsanil.

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Anton: [frowns slightly in @TalonofAnathrax's direction]

You do recall, Talon, that Anton has been getting rather well practiced with those guns he's been having made?

ANTON X DRAGON CHAP otp 4eva!

Edit: I wonder how the powerstone class would pan out for eventually stuff that leads to runes that can automate the production - a clean room, and then a volume of Snek blood and then a bit of each wind to prod the blood from various runes and then a collector/condenser for each seperate wind?

I mean, dwarven runes are all about removing the vaguries of wind direction.

 

[10ebbor10]

On the other hand, overfocusing on combat is real.

We've spend like 40 favors mostly on combat gear, maybe 10-15 on everything else?

 

[Quest]

On the other hand, overfocusing on combat is real.

We've spend like 40 favors mostly on combat gear, maybe 10-15 on everything else?

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Maybe it's because failure in combat means death or injury?

Mathilde puts it best.

I spent every scrap of Wizardly goodwill that my campaign in Sylvania and my Magisterial graduation earned me on a little something from Panoramia's colleagues, and I'd have died somewhere between once and thrice over these past few years if I hadn't."

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[10ebbor10]

Maybe it's because failure in combat means death?

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This argument does not work because any increase of Mathilde's combat capabilities is just used to increase the danger of combat missions.
Spending favors on combat items therefore does not reduce risk of death.

Meanwhile, if we were to spend favors on non-combat stuff, then we would be doing that non-combat stuff, and thus have no risk of dying in combat at all.

 

[Quest]

This argument does not work because any increase of Mathilde's combat capabilities is just used to increase the danger of combat missions.
Spending favors on combat items therefore does not reduce risk of death.

Meanwhile, if we were to spend favors on non-combat stuff, then we would be doing that non-combat stuff, and thus have no risk of dying in combat at all.

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That argument works incredibly well I think. The one thing we've devoted ourselves to since Abelheim died was making sure that it could never happen again.

EDIT: To be less dramatic, we got a stark reminder on the dangers of combat in the Drackenhoff campaign and how it could completely destroy all forms of non-combat plans. We either have to get good enough to protect what we have or we lose it.

 

[Rotekian]

What is the endgame for the voters who are arguing to improve our stats as a priority? This goes for the voters who are mainly interested in just pure research as well. Is it just power for powers sake and knowledge for knowledges sake or is there a purpose to it? I kind of feel that if we as a thread had wanted to do that we should have avoided taking any position in K8P and instead just built a wizard tower here.

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I would fit under the Research side of the question. An example of a boon gained by research is the spider silk which can contribute to greater protection of VIPs against assassination. It is also true though that I am advocating for the pursuit of internal magic via Aethyric Vitae and the consequence of internal magic is often going to be stat improvements and trait gains due to its very nature. I'm interested in it because it is an area that Warhammer doesn't go into a lot of detail on. It has dhar reliant Vampires and individuals who become godlike entities but we rarely see a more in-depth view of the stages of magical research and effort that lead up to that kind of transcendent narrative.

I find a lot of the research actions we have taken to be interesting to read and to serve to break up the combat, management and intrigue that make up our other actions. I'm sympathetic to the idea that we want to pursue a balance of interests, but I also think that 7 years was too long a gap to wait for Aethyric Vitae research and don't want to wait for another 7 for the next one. In that sense, I feel like we have built up a fair amount of Research debt in the degree we haven't pursued Research. We did choose to take the position of loremaster and that should bring with it a commitment to do research.

Learning type actions are frequently about improving the longer-term situation and I worry we do far too much shorter-term problem solving rather than looking ahead to what we will need in the future. For example, my view of Sylvania is largely that we've gotten the ball rolling and we should trust the forces now operating in Sylvania to finish the job. Further actions there feel wasteful and distrusting of the efforts of our fellow wizards. Likewise in K8P we have dwarf rangers to do the work of scouting, we should only be involved in that to the extent of the finer details and understanding what is going on over knowing that things are going on.
Our job now is to maximise the positive outcomes from K8P by protecting dwarf lives and mixing human innovation with dwarven wisdom. As part of the engine of that innovation that means doing the research and/or ensuring that it is done. Aethyric Vitae research serves both to potentially aid K8P by powering up Runes and to aid ourselves by making us a better wizard.

 

[Exmorri]

Maybe it's because failure in combat means death or injury?

Mathilde puts it best.

I spent every scrap of Wizardly goodwill that my campaign in Sylvania and my Magisterial graduation earned me on a little something from Panoramia's colleagues, and I'd have died somewhere between once and thrice over these past few years if I hadn't."

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Mathilde's quote is incomplete, though.
"I spent every scrap of Wizardly goodwill that my campaign in Sylvania and my Magisterial graduation earned me on a little something from Panoramia's colleagues, and I'd have died somewhere between once and thrice over these past few years if I hadn't gotten the items but I still had decided to pick fights with elder necrarchs and the like, notwithstanding the fact that I only picked a fight with an elder necrarch because I was kitted out in a small army's worth of epic gear in the first place".

Upgrading gear to make Fight A safe will almost certainly result in people going "hey, maybe we can take on the more difficult Fight B now", and then there will be a lobby to get the even more epic gear that makes Fight B safe, and then there will almost certainly be people going "hey, with our new gear maybe we can take on the even more difficult Fight C now", and then there will be a lobby to get the even more epic gear that makes Fight C safe, and then -
I think you get the idea.

Or you could stop picking fights with elder necrarchs. It's about as effective at preventing death or injury, and costs much less favor.

 

[Alratan]

I mean, there's something to be said for backlash against the cycle for fixating on combat (multiple speed of lights is definitely pushing it- one is +5 boots hilarity) and then advocating combat as a result but I do feel there's a tendency for the thread to assume that 'Mathilde an assassin, she is a scalpel she is a precision instrument that needs to be applied appropriately or be ineffective' is a fairly hard rule. But conventional combat is just another arrow in our quiver, one that Mathilde's actually pretty useful for even if you ignore 90% of her capabilities.

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This is a very fair point. Mathilde is actually shaping up to be a very competent general and military officer.

She has many strings to her bow. An example of that is how in the last update she was an influential factor in deciding the strategy. She may well have the second highest (or even possibly highest) Martial on the Council, and also has the Strategy skill. If she ever gets the Advanced Strategy skill she may well be one of the best generals in the Empire for fighting skaven and the undead.

 

[NSMS]

I mean, at the end of the day Mathilde is going to get involved in combat. Unless she decides to go full researcher/teacher and spend all her time back at the college, she's inevitably going to get into fights simply due to the nature of the Warhammer world; it's violent, it's dangerous, and if you want to make any kind of positive impact inevitably someone evil is going to try to stop you.

From there it just becomes a question of how much combat she'll be seeing, and Mathilde's chosen to make her home in an active warzone, and as an individual with major responsibilities towards it to boot. Until she leaves or all the Karags are cleared, combat is going to be a constant looming certainty for her.

 

[Quest]

Or you could stop picking fights with elder necrarchs. It's about as effective at preventing death or injury, and costs much less favor.

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It also earns less favor and not picking those fights would have cost us a lot too. Not facing the Necrach meant losing Roswita and likely Sylvania as well. Who knows what the long-term effects of a College of Necromancy would have been?

 

[NSMS]

It also earns less favor and not picking those fights would have cost us a lot too. Not facing the Necrach meant losing Roswita and likely Sylvania as well. Who knows what the long-term effects of a College of Necromancy would have been?

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War of the Vampire Counts 4: Count Me Out

 

[bookworm702]

I feel for the guy who said going in as a ghost and assassinating is getting a little stale, but on the brighter side, a dice roll could go badly, and Mathilde has shown that when traditional stealth fails, she's more than happy to maintain stealth by killing everyone who sees her. So, we could end up in the back lines becoming a terror blender to augment the front line anyway.

 

[10ebbor10]

That argument works incredibly well I think. The one thing we've devoted ourselves to since Abelheim died was making sure that it could never happen again.

EDIT: To be less dramatic, we got a stark reminder on the dangers of combat in the Drackenhoff campaign and how it could completely destroy all forms of non-combat plans. We either have to get good enough to protect what we have or we lose it.

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The Drackenhoff campaign was an action we never would have undertaken in the same fashion if we didn't have the combat aptitude. We and Abelheim charged in first because he had the combat equipment, not because it was the smart thing to do.

Anyway, pretty much all the examples demonstrate the opposite point. Combat equipment pushes us into danger, not out of it.

Edit: Also, consider what would have happened if we spent just a fraction of massive favor we spent on combat items on, for example, figuring out the SnakeJuice. The possibilities there are tremendous.

 

[Exmorri]

It also earns less favor and not picking those fights would have cost us a lot too. Not facing the Necrach meant losing Roswita and likely Sylvania as well. Who knows what the long-term effects of a College of Necromancy would have been?

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Not facing the Necrarch meant no such thing, because Mathilde is not the only problem-solver in the world, and there are more ways of solving problems than sword to face.

The long-term effects of the 'College' of Necromancy existing would almost certainly have been less bad than the long-term effects of Naggaroth existing. How much epic gear and favor points do you think you'll need before Mathilde is kitted out to take on Naggaroth?

 

[Alratan]

Likewise in K8P we have dwarf rangers to do the work of scouting, we should only be involved in that to the extent of the finer details and understanding what is going on over knowing that things are going on.

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The specific problem is that Mathilde is uniquely competent* at scouting the interior of the peaks as under-peaks, and the Rangers can't substitute for this. Even more than that, Dreng effectively wasn't scouting the other peaks for the first year we were here, which is why we still have no idea who or what it actually inside some of them or any idea of what they're doing even when we know what their species/affiliation is, apart from what Mathilde has learned. The only reason we're attacking Karagril this turn is because Mathilde learned about the skaven inter-clan war, which caused Belegar to accelerate the conquest. If we'd not scouted, then he'd have missed the opportunity.

There are some things that only Mathilde seems capable of doing. Gathering grand strategic intelligence on the enemy seems one of them. The Rangers are good at gathering battlefield intelligence, but they're military scouts, not spies, and seem unable to fill the spy role.

* possibly literally uniquely unless someone else has something like the Night Prowler coin face relic.

 

[NSMS]

The Drackenhoff campaign was an action we never would have undertaken if we didn't have the combat equipment.

Therefore, you demonstrate the opposite point. Combat equipment pushes us into danger, not out of it.

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The Drakenhoff campaign would have happened whether we were equipped for battle or not; what that changed was the role we played on it. And if we hadn't gotten involved in the combat side of things, then chances are we wouldn't have had the credentials or rep (and possibly state of mind) to take over after Abel died.

 

[10ebbor10]

The Drakenhoff campaign would have happened whether we were equipped for battle or not; what that changed was the role we played on it. And if we hadn't gotten involved in the combat side of things, then chances are we wouldn't have had the credentials or rep (and possibly state of mind) to take over after Abel died.

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Or maybe :
1) We would have found another way to do the attack if we had better intrigue
2) Brought up more supplies/troops with a more stewardship focus
3) had more allies with a more diplo focus
and Abelheim would not have died at all.

 

[Aegon Targaryen]

Becoming Settra's bride would be difficult and unwise because I doubt even the most fervent supporters of the immortality faction want us to become immortal by being a Tomb Queen

 

[Rotekian]

In the hands of the high elves, who per lore have an awful lot more wizards (even if they're apprentices by their standards) per capita, rituals like Impossible March of the Doomed Soldier would probably be much more reliable.

It would certainly explain how they can play world police. They may even have items, skills, or traits that help.

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The problem with that line of argument is that for high elves every cost is too expensive. Losing even one mage is going to have a greater impact on elven wizardry over the next 200 years than the loss of a human wizard. For humans, it is about ensuring that the costs produce a profit because they can afford some losses along the way.

More specifically to elves and transport, they have a strong navy and so do not need to take risks to get to most places they want to go.