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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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[X] The mercenaries should not fight Skaven at all.

[X] Treasure Hunt

[X] Sabotage

[X] Flanking
 
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Walliseatscheese said:
Late commentary on my end, but I could see us spending 250 dwarven gold coins on a small armory then.
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god i know i'm sick because I spent ten seconds trying to divide 250 by 5 to figure out how many weapons that would be and got the wrong answer.

Anyway, I agree that trying to read them in on the Conspiracy feels like the wrong way to do things. Just play it off as "it's a kind of mutant rat beastman you get in the south," and treat the subject as unremarkable. Making a big deal of it to a crowd we cannot actually police is going to inspire them to start treating it like a big deal, which is the opposite of what the Conspiracy of Silence hopes to achieve.
 
I don't really know about the mercs. The posters on the thread make several good points on why the Conspiracy of Silence is not such a big thing, and to be honest it never really made all that much sense to me.

On the other hand, we have to accept that in this quest the Conspiracy of Silence is important enough that the Grey College performs deep mind magic to implant knowledge of Skaven into journeymen that is only released when needed. I would rather err on the side of caution.

[X] The mercenaries should stay in reserve.
[X] Sabotage
[X] Remain in reserve
 
Alectai said:
It's not quite that.

The Empire needs to do it because they are the human superpower. Skaven aren't super concerned about Tilea and Estalia because they're mostly fighting each other, and not super concerned about Bretonnia because Bretonnia combat doctrine is fucking garbage against Skaven (Cavalry is awful in the tunnel fighting that you need to worry about if you actually want to threaten Skaven, and Bretonnia without cavalry is a laughable joke because they minmaxed so hard on cavalry that their infantry are weaker than clanrats. Literally weaker in a fight than the garbage horde army)

The Empire could be dangerous, because it's a large, militarily powerful group that at least on paper gets along and can coordinate defense, and have doctrine that can challenge Skaven in their own homelands--so the Empire needs to pretend to have a crippling defect that prevents the Skaven from freaking out and detonating a bunch of warpstone nukes underneath all the major cities and then pouring out in a major tide of pain to wipe the Empire from the map. They won't do that though unless they actually feel in genuine danger, which a coordinated response by a Great Power would qualify as.
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The Empire is not the premiere human superpower of the Old World. Bretonnia, for all its faults, is a very strong country and matches the Empire in military might. Furthermore, unlike the Empire they regularly fight the skaven and so would have definitely figured out ways to fight them, a rather more reasonable thing to expect than flailing at them ineffectually as you suggest they do. As a result of their long experience, Bretonnia is better at fighting skaven than the Empire would be.

The reason why Bretonnia still stands despite their long history of fighting the skaven is the same reason the Empire would survive if the Conspiracy of Silence were broken: they aren't actually that powerful compared to the skaven. What you need to get the skaven to bring out those warpstone nukes is to become extremely terrifying to the entire race, and to do that you need to get the level of power that Nagash had in his prime. The Empire doesn't have that kind of power. What the Empire could do is the kind of thing that would see a single Emperor dead, not cities levelled.

And this is assuming the Empire did indeed think that full-scale pan-Imperial mobilisation against the skaven was a good idea, which it wouldn't. Greenskins, beastmen, Norscan marauders, and undead are constant sources of attrition and often invade in force, turning into major threats. The Empire doesn't have the resources or inclination to fight a giant war of annihilation against new, underground enemies in their home terrain for no gain whatsoever. It would rather shed their blood thinning the hordes that constantly assail their homes and cause actually appreciable damage to the Empire, or else if that's not available kill each other in political feuds.

So in short, Bretonnia isn't some weak noodle against the skaven; they're good against them and are still standing regardless. The kind of pan-Imperial military response that gets you named Skavenslayer results in your assassination, rather than mass destruction and full-scale invasion, and the Empire would be better off doing literally anything else than it would be going total war on the skaven.
 
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I think the main drawback of holding them in reserve is that we get less time to prep them into not breaking the Conspiracy. If we hold them in reserve, we're basically only telling them at the last moment.
 
This is a rather bleh Black Swan vote, where the immediate needs of our current Dwarven loyalties carry a small, but real risk of future catastrophe in ways that go far beyond the scope of Karak Eight Peaks. Either keep them in the dark out of paranoia at the cost of Dwarven lives, or expand the selective Conspiracy of Silence to entire mercenary companies. Both bitter pills to swallow, and I don't love it.

To what extent can there be any future mercenary hires if we can't let them anywhere near our primary enemy? I had assumed that Belegar definitely intended to continue hiring mercenaries. It's really weird that Mathilde is responsible for where the mercenaries are getting directed anyways.
 
[X] The mercenaries should not fight Skaven at all.
[X] The mercenaries should stay in reserve.

Even if the Tileans fight Skaven a lot, the hordes of mercs Anton dredged up from the Border Princes don't. My preference is to not have them fight Skaven at all, in case they use their earnings to buy land in the Empire proper the way the Stirlanders did; but keeping them in reserve is acceptable since at least it doesn't involve giving them as much information if the situation goes bad.

[X] Treasure Hunt

If only to keep the bad stuff out of the paws of Clan Mors. And investigating weird awful stuff is sort of our job.
Better to have examples of the stuff Mors is about to get as loot, to find some kind of tactics or countermeasures against them ahead of time.
 
[x] The mercenaries should stay in reserve.

[x] Sabotage
[x] Remain in reserve

Preventing mercenaries from fighting during an active battle sounds like an extremely suspicious act. No need to cause any concern. Also, let's work on either sabotaging everything we can find, or just staying in reserve. I have zero desire to go out and head hunt and we don't particularly belong in the front line.
 
[X] The mercenaries should join the fight against Skaven.
[X] Line of Battle
-[X] With King Belegar
 
[X] The mercenaries should join the fight against Skaven.
[X] Treasure Hunt
 
Mercenaries and Skaven wise...we're going to need to deploy mercenaries against Skaven eventually, unless you think dwarf forces are sufficient for all the underground fights, if if we can stick to only Tilean mercenaries.

So:
[ ] The mercenaries should not fight Skaven at all.
They'll not see any Skaven, but will be on hand to fight against the Red Fangs if it becomes necessary.

Best for the Conspiracy of Silence.

[ ] The mercenaries should join the fight against Skaven.
You'll give them Skaven 101 beforehand, and swear them to secrecy and give some suitably dire threats afterwards.

Tactically best. Will need to see how many circulate back into the Empire and be believed, but I don't think they're numerous enough to make a dent?

[ ] The mercenaries should stay in reserve.
If the battle against Clan Moulder starts going bad, the mercenaries will be brought in. If they're not needed, they'll never see any Skaven.

This is not a good idea. Deploying mercenaries only if things go pear shaped, with no briefing on Skaven, is basically going to get a lot of dudes killed AND spread the Conspiracy.


[ ] Assassination
See if you can bag a fourth general before the day draws to a close.

Not sure how vulnerable Skaven are to decapitation.
In the present situation they might blame Eshin.

[ ] Sabotage
There's sure to be plenty of beasts to rile up or let loose, and possibly powder stores or warptech weapons as well.

Significantly safer to do. Skaven are very reliant on their infrastructure, so it'd have disproportionate damage. And they'd probably blame Eshin.

[ ] Interference
Interfere with the Red Fang assault, so they can't beat Clan Mors to moving into Clan Moulder's territory.

A little eh on it.

[ ] Treasure Hunt
Last call. Grab Johann and see if you can steal, capture, stash, kidnap, or otherwise acquire anything interesting before Clan Moulder is removed from Eight Peaks.

Grab Moulder samples before they're gone. Moulder is focused more on organic crimes against nature, but they probably have the lab equipment they use to PRODUCE said crimes against nature, which might be useful and difficult to obtain in the future.

Its not just warmachines after all, knowing how the warbeasts are made by studying the vats may help in deriving what resources to starve Skaven of.

[ ] Line of Battle
- [ ] With King Kazador
Likely to be where the fighting is thickest.
- [ ] With Dreng
Likely to be in the center of things.
- [ ] With King Belegar
Likely to be where most needed.
- [ ] With the mercenaries.
- [ ] With your Ducklings.
If you do not escort them, the Journeymen will not take part in this battle.

Belegar, if we chose to be in the line of battle.

[ ] Flanking
Lurk near the battlefield and seek a place where a sudden terrifying sword-wizard will cause the most havoc.

Probably healthiest overall for allied casualties.

[ ] Remain in reserve
You'll be in place to react quickly to anything unexpected as soon as news reaches you.

Given the general clusterfuckyness of this brawl I'd rate Reserve above Sabotage/Assassination/Interference. In a three way fight its too easy to overcompensate with your interference, if you want to ensure a specific outcome.

So vote:

[X] The mercenaries should not fight Skaven at all.
[X] The mercenaries should join the fight against Skaven.
[X] Treasure Hunt
[X] Remain in reserve

E: trimmed, Treasure Hunt doubling as light sabotage swayed me
 
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[X] The mercenaries should stay in reserve.
[X] Sabotage
[X] Line of Battle
-[X] With King Belegar
 
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[X] The mercenaries should stay in reserve.

No point in straining the conspiracy more than it needs to be, and the mercenaries are a sub-optimal force against the Skaven anyway as they are heavy specc'd into anti-Ork fighting and likely are at least a bit light on subterranean fighting experience. They'll be available if things go bad and discretion is probably a favorable trait in a Wizard Lord candidate.

[X] Sabotage

Useful, a skill we want to pick up, and Mad Scientist Eaten By His Own Monster is a trope for a reason. I honestly see no point in capturing shit for reverse engineering from them as it's all a horrible combination of Warp-stone, biology, and bad ideas—of which biology is the only one we don't really want to avoid, and even then it's well out of our comfort zone.
 
[X] The mercenaries should join the fight against Skaven.

[X] Line of Battle
- [X] With King Kazador


Codex said:
Not interested in further treasures when we already have a ton of stuff on our plate.
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Agreed. I think we can trust Johann to get what's interesting: we've proven we can handle anything he doesn't want, and he knows we'll look favorably on him grabbing something for us. :) We can help *his* research backlog.

Srsly though, let's take a social action with him to get the classified lowdown.
 
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