I'd say there are questions of timing and scale. The Patriarch snuffed out the spell contemptuously, then the dwarves levelled the building. Mathilde, being less experienced, would probably have taken longer to unravel it- she was preparing to remember apprentice lessons. Couple that with a higher power enemy caster in the castle... I can see how the artillery could arrive in the middle of a fraught dispel attempt- especially if that is their assigned role.
Counterspelling is basically identifying how their spell work and then using your magic to take a slice out of it such that it fails to work rather than explode into random magic. Which, as with any magic, has a chance of exploding the counterspelling wizard if it goes wrong.
Per Boney- unless she is otherwise occupied, and can take the time, then yes.
Is taking longer even an option? I mean once the doombolt hits it's target in the face you can't really dispel melted flesh and ruinned artillery. And as far as I understood no Warhammer spells are really channeled after they have started taking effect, except maybe for the odd ritual or something.
Well, those green bolts were in the air before the Patriach dispelled them. IDK, really. It's probably very narrative and contextual.
Counterbattery phases:
I would assume it's a 'leave not one rock upon another as a tribute to Van Hal dying for this fucking war' vote, since Boney is saying stuff like 'it's not how much ammo you have, as how much the rest of the empire has and how much Wilhelmina can send up the baggage train.' We'll be at it a while.
Hmm. True. But it means he still only had as much time as they took to fly. Or in other words, someone who is much slower than the Patriarch still eats it with his face. And that counter-artillery can't really manage to stop at least the first magic missile from hitting. Or at least I think that shooting magic out of the sky is near impossible.
Mathilde mentioned a known and set Speed of Magic through Air in that passage, too.
It's a symbol. Drakenhof vampires rule Sylvania, every one of them. It's legitimacy. Killing a person, even a vampire, is easy, compared to killing a symbol. But you know what's even harder than that? Creating a symbol.
Article: [X] The complete destruction of the entirety of Castle Drakenhof.
[X] Leave it to the dwarven professionals.
[X] Use him to counter any non-trivial sally attempt or any other counterattack.
[X] Treat it as enemy artillery and counter-battery accordingly.
Also the catacombs go propably deep into the mountain and are full of starved and sleeping Vampires and other monsters and maybe some reservoirs of Warpstone the last inhabiting Necromancers have gathered.
Then we might as well take down the mountain itself while we're at it!
