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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Andres110 said:
We're doing none of it. This is for Johann to deal with.
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Then why are we bothering?

undead frog said:
Ya know depending on the Snake Juice I wonder if making 'small' Ulugu incarnates actually is a possibility, or all the incarnated Ulugu does seem like the one that would have a 'lesser' incarnate be something of potential worth given it's focus on stealth.
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This is pedantic of me, but it's Ulgu, not Ulugu.
 
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I bet we can run into our not-friend never-see assassin mouse again if we go down into the tunnels.
 
Mopman43 said:
Then why are we bothering?
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Aside from the memes?

Asset denial. This means we're going to knock over most of their most valuable treasures and deny them to Clan Mors when they take over.

Sabotage denies infrastructure, Treasure Hunt is going to deny them any special relics and artifacts or research notes or resources they have access to here.
 
BoneyM said:
IIRC the general vibe of what I said is once it's less all-hands-on-decks active warzone-y, you'll start presenting a buffet of long-term plans instead of being pointed at the weirdest current emergency.
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Hmm, I could see a few options there:
-Having a rock solid front. That means the Underway secured for reinforcement and probably control of both Gates. Major crux of this is control of the Caldera Underway nexus, along with Kvynn-Wyr, Under-Mhonar and Under-Rhyn if we want to actually be able to hold the nexus, as well as full control of Rhyn and Yar if we want to say the West Gate is controlled.
--Down this path, we let the Skaven fight each other while we clean up the rest of the peaks individually, with our sole Skaven exposure being Mors right until we reach Rhyn. Don't interrupt someone when they're making a mistake after all.

-Having the Skaven pushed out, Karagril Underway sealed from Karak Drazh, and the Death Pass approach secured. The Skaven are the main factor against declaring it as done save for pest removal, and as we've seen last turn, they're the most likely to pounce on opportunities, the other factions are very unlikely to unite against us, and any one peak probably can't take us.
--Not sure HOW we'd begin to accomplish this, other than taking Upper Zilfin as the next step. Do we want to split the Skaven apart so that they can't coordinate when they finally decide to work together or do we want to clean sweep them with multiple simultaneous deep strikes(with what men?)

-Take ALL the Underways, reducing the peaks to isolated groups that we can focus on one at a time.
DiceOfStupidity said:
You have a point about imcompletness of task - but another part of Dwarven mentality is "fortify". Belgar didn't want to attack Karagil just yet. It was only information of skaven infighting that made him move. Otherwise he would be content to delay further move of retaking K8P until dwarven colony is better established, however long it would take.

I would not be surprised if Belgar decided to wait few years before moving against Kvynn-Wyr.
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Belegar was probably more aware of the need for the Silver Tarn than we were, it was probably going to be the next target regardless. Strategically it was crucial, but Belegar's options were to wait until he was forced to attack by the water shortage or he had as much forces as he could gather for a relatively easy peak to take. The information meant that he KNEW it was easier, that he didn't need enough manpower to overwhelm Orc and Skaven alike in one go.

That said, Belegar is already being remarkably restrained, we have Word of Boney that the normal dwarf approach is to try to take the whole thing at one go, THEN fortify it.

Kvynn-Wyr, I don't actually expect to be a conventional campaign. Regular Throngs are effectively a liability, so they can and should stay on normal duties. This is a job for Slayers, Irondrakes, Bright Wizards and Handgunners.

Preferably we lure out large numbers of trolls first. A giant pile of Illusion'ed meat?
IronFist said:
She's learning from probably the most skilled sword wizard of the empire... of course she's getting better at swording. We're a great role model.
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I actually wonder if her low martial might be because her stint attached to the Imperial Army had her being used as a conventional Bright Wizard: Fire support, which her poor aim sucked at.

BoneyM said:
I phrased that ambiguously. It taps into Mathilde's understandings to work out what to melt or what not to. She could set it to 'melt the wood' and even if she wasn't looking, it'd melt anything that could be identified as made of wood by visual examination.

So you could set it to 'all insects', or even 'all insects except bees'. But if you want to set it to 'all leaves infected by the Estalian Goat Ergot', Mathilde would have to know how to identify such a leaf.
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Ah hah! Library expansion!
Though in the present situation All Fungi could work.
thamuzz said:
The Agricultural Applications of Burning Shadows, by M. Mathilde Webber (Grey), J. Panoramia (Jade)
1-3 point paper I'd hazard? I'd guess uncommon/confirming, might be familiar?
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Subject: Specific Wind applications, Uncommon(+0)
Insight: This has probably been theorized, but never been practical to use, on account of how large a shadow would be needed. Confirming(+1)
Delivery: Max can consistently produce Compelling(+1)
Miscelleneous:
-Familiar is likely not applicable. It can't be found in the Empire, on the basis of nobody doing the same thing.
-Thorough(+1) is easily enough achieved, we can experiment with different types of filters at leisure.
-Varied is a no, we only likely have the one.

So around 2-3 points maybe. Its more of a curiosity than anything else
Reynal said:
What is and is not evolutionarily stable depends on the entirety of the environment in which the selection takes place. While losing two out of three males born prior to them reproducing due to war casualties won't itself change the genetic advantage gained by having more female offspring for an individual, that does not mean that it would be a net advantage. For instance, I could see female dwarves with more brothers being more likely to land a higher-quality mate, and families with a higher proportion of male offspring having a greater chance of their own male offspring surviving to reach reproductive ages (from things like having more potential trainers willing to help them for free and cooperative actions).

There can be other reasons for a not-1:1 ratio being evolutionarily stable. For instance, if the resource cost of birthing and raising a male offspring is significantly lower than raising a female one, then at a 1:1 ratio having more male births is advantageous as you get the same genetic impact with a lower resource cost.

Even if circumstances are such that the net evolutionary pressure should have them trend closer towards a 1:1 ratio, though, that in no way means they are doomed. It just means that in an evolutionarily relevant timescale their birth ratio might edge up to 2:1 rather than 3:1. The only reason the race is 'doomed' as things stand is because they're not willing to stop spending lives above their replacement rate. Hell, outside of all the Skaven rising up or other major catastrophes I could see their tech reaching the point where they aren't spending lives above the replacement rate without changing anything fundamental about them, even culturally.
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Don't forget dwarf lifespans, and as far as we know, no age based cessation of reproduction.

Morale might be a bigger factor, as we can see from Kazador's...enthusiastic conjugal life.
BoneyM said:
"Clan Moulder was definitely moving to try to invade the Karag proper before Mors and the Red Fangs got involved," you say, trying to reshape the issue so it fits better in the Dwarven mind. "A decisive counterstrike would discourage other factions from trying the same."

King Belegar looks up at the Karag towering above the two of you, lost in thought. "No," he says finally. "Comforting, but false. I'll spread the lie for everyone else but won't swallow it myself. We do this to empower Clan Mors, and draw out the Skaven stalemate as long as possible."
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Its important for a leader to be able to differentiate the two.
A heavy thought for a dwarf to give Skaven any advantage at all.
BoneyM said:
Properly purging every greenskin from the nooks and crannies of Karagril will be a project of months, but purging enough to be mostly safe turning your backs to it is a matter of mere hours, especially with you pointing King Kazador and his enthusiastic cohort towards any concentration of Orcs large and confident enough to sprout a Waaagh field. You've read more than a few College accounts of the Waaagh field and even a third-hand description from a Bretonnian Damsel, but though most describe it as something halfway between heat haze and a thundercloud, none of them speak of being able to spot it without line of sight, nor do they describe the semi-metallic tang on your tongue that you use to dowse out the direction of the Orcs. Perhaps this is a manifestation of your growing magical acuity, but you suspect it owes at least part of its existence to Mork using your soul as a hand-puppet.
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Hmm, might be that the Waagh field is considered partly arcane, partly divine?

Also I'm kind of curious if this ability could be made into an item.
Would be interesting to have a MAP item hooked up to a Waagh-field sensor updating its display, even if the range is not very large.

Something on the bucket list after we improve our Enchantment
 
[X] The mercenaries should join the fight against Skaven.
[X] Treasure Hunt


- if i recall correctly, the Conspiracy of Silence is a grey wizard college's brainchild and sponsored project. Do we want to give our colleagues more work? Yes, absolutely.
 
Alectai said:
Asset denial. This means we're going to knock over most of their most valuable treasures and deny them to Clan Mors when they take over.
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Treasure hunting isn't the same as asset denial. One is focused on getting stuff for yourself, the other on destroying stuff so others can't get it. Stealing the note book from the lab is treasure hunting, setting the lab on fire is asset denial.

While it certainly could be combined, among the vote options Sabotage seems to be at least as good if you want to keep things out of the hands of Clan Mors.
 
I'm mostly going with Treasure Hunt less cause of the treasure and more on I wanna hang out with Johann.

I'm a bit on the pessimistic side with people going with "mercenaries should fight skavens" shenanigans
 
[X] The mercenaries should join the fight against Skaven.
[X] Sabotage

In retrospect, I don't know how likely it is that Treasure Hunt will get us a slave rescue. Sabotage, though, pretty much guarantees that Moulder assets won't fall into Mors claws.
 
i am really not a fan of delving in to a warzone with a plan to steal the most useful things.

not only will those things be well guarded, but we are not going to have much time for scouting.

this is a recipe for disaster.

we just decided that we are not prepared to do stuff like this, and then people are trying to jump right back in to it, but even more risky since a lot of the juicy moulder things will fight back when we try to steal them, we (again) do not have time to scout even basic layouts, and we have to watch the back of someone else on top of it all.
 
random_npc said:
I'm assuming the We are a bit weaker than forest spiders, being ambush predators rather than pursuit hunters. So pulling a charriout would not work. I also don't see how a chariout would be better than two spider gunners.
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Wrong way round. You use chariots if one creature isn't strong enough. Its kind of why chariots phased out really fast when true mounted cavalry showed up, the only advantage chariots have is that you don't need a super good beast of burden.
ChronOblivion said:
I definitely don't think that this whole "the Conspiracy is actually useless and it's destruction will have zero consequences" thing is justified. There's enough direct text about why the Conspiracy exists, on top of Mathilde being quite concerned about the word spreading, that I buy it completely and that won't change without actual textual evidence. Theory crafting about it doesn't hold much water.

But again, why is this only coming up on the day of the battle without having ever been mentioned, why does Mathilde have authority over merc deployments suddenly? Does Belegar give a shit about the Conspiracy or not? Borderline sabotaging this battle by diverting the mercs they paid for because of the Empire's strategic-level anti-Skaven strat is a super crappy move if Belegar doesn't approve. I'm missing some information.
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I personally figure its more of "how does Mathilde meet her duty to the Colleges and her duty to the dwarves". She's Belegar's main source of advice for human matters and he trusts us enough that our advice WOULD probably be followed.

In which case:
-Send them in - Mathilde considers her duty to the Conspiracy to be sufficiently met by a stern warning and simple dilution, theres not going to be very large numbers of mercenaries going to the Empire, and those willing to blab in front of the scary Grey Magister amongst those are even fewer.

-Hold them back - Mathilde prioritizes the Conspiracy over her Eight Peaks loyalties, and would advise to either naturalize mercenaries into the Undumgi who can be trusted to stay here or hire outside the Empire(which isn't as big an impediment as it might sound, Tilea and Estalia shit out lots of mercs).

-Reserve - Mathilde waffles between her loyalties and thus doesn't do either well. The mercenaries don't get told, and so she technically didn't weaken the conspiracy, they just get thrown at ratmen without warning instead and come to their own, less reliable conclusions, but they aren't as effective and this would likely hurt recruiting prospects in the future.
Gingganz said:
I get that a treasure hunt can be fun, but shouldn't we rather do our best to help the Dwarves win the battle?

I thought there was a consensus on how important the retaking of Karak Eight Peaks is and how we need to minimize Dwarf casualties. Sure, Clan Moulder will get attacked from three sides, but they are still a major Skaven clan, so I wouldn't expect the fight to be a cakewalk.
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Because the dwarf forces aren't getting stuck in like they normally would. They're being used to hit targets to strategically weaken Moulder enough that hopefully Mors will take over. This means they're mainly focused on securing the connection between the Upper Karagril and Lower Karagril.

The troops are fresh, we're throwing the mercs in.
Help would be nice, but not necessary, and potentially even counterproductive if we wind up winning too hard.
Reynal said:
Gotta say I find the appeal and support for stealing from Clan Moulder baffling. As far as unique or best-in-slot equivalents for the nearby Skaven groups, they have biological abominations that we couldn't make without the inherently mutagenic properties of Warpstone and wouldn't want even if we could make them and some speculative lab supplies and notes used in making them—notes in Queekish that we can't read or get translated and lab supplies that we would need to reverse-engineer to make without Warpstone and would even then be insanely biomanipulation focused. And that's basically it.
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Much the same was said on Mors when we looted them.

But the thing is, lab equipment is important, and we very rarely have a shot at actual Moulder production facilities. Studying how their equipment is made can yield principles useful in broader terms: like their vats for growing crimes against nature are fundamentally nutrient broths which SHOULD also work without warpstone, assuming you were trying to grow a rare and finicky creature in an artificial womb rather than make a crime against nature.
And their surgical tools should be useful regardless for regular surgery.

Much like the guns, we don't know how much of it depends upon warpstone, because the Skaven add Warpstone to everything whether or not its actually necessary.
 
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