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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Alratan said:
This discussion started with people making the claim that it was literally impossible for anyone not a Hysh using Emperor dragon to counter-spell the Tower, that it was a unique counter.
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I don't think that's quite right. I believe it started with people saying that a group of unprepared Orc Shamans would not be able to effectively keep it countered.
 
You know, random thought. If we do diplomance the dragon, can you imagine how much knowledge he could share with us? Like, not even just Hysh magic, I wouldn't be surprised if it knew a good chunk of runes and other lords as well, not to mention the normal historical knowledge and stuff. It might even know the answer to Kragg's axe dilemma, if we were really lucky.
 
Ericwinter said:
You know, random thought. If we do diplomance the dragon, can you imagine how much knowledge he could share with us? Like, not even just Hysh magic, I wouldn't be surprised if it knew a good chunk of runes and other lords as well, not to mention the normal historical knowledge and stuff. It might even know the answer to Kragg's axe dilemma, if we were really lucky.
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True but that would require convincing it to tell us, although it would certainly be a massive draw for Hysh wizards and I can totally see being treated as the wise old master being a nice ego boost for the Dragon.
 
Mopman43 said:
I don't think that's quite right. I believe it started with people saying that a group of unprepared Orc Shamans would not be able to effectively keep it countered.
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Yeah.

Basically, I consider the idea that we should be doing what we're already doing because its a good strategic move out of fear that our fancy tower will be broken by shamans to be a negative addition that isn't needed. And its a negative addition because it encourages us to fear that our tower is weaker than we expected, when we have enough information to look at it and make evaluations that don't involve a bunch of tangents and speculation on enemy numbers that we don't know much about.
 
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BungieONI said:
I disagreed with your reasoning for arriving at the sensible idea of Mathilde at the helm, not her being at the helm.
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My reasoning being that 'Orcs are capable of counter-spelling the Tower'. Very large numbers of people objected in the strongest of terms to that idea, and, from what I can tell are still trying to, despite BoneyM directly saying that it wasn't hugely harder to counterspell than the base spell.

Mopman43 said:
I don't think that's quite right. I believe it started with people saying that a group of unprepared Orc Shamans would not be able to effectively keep it countered.
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There were definitely claims that only this dragon was swole enough to manage it, whether because of Hysh type advantage over Ulgu, its vast experience, its resistance to damage, or whatever.

BungieONI said:
Yeah.

Basically, I consider the idea that we should be doing what we're already doing because its a good strategic move out of fear that our fancy tower will be broken by shamans to be a negative addition that isn't needed. And its a negative addition because it encourages us to fear that our tower is weaker than we expected, when we have enough information to look at it and make evaluations that don't involve a bunch of tangents and speculation on enemy numbers that we don't know much about.
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I'm not sure we were already going to be keeping Thorek in reserve, and we certainly hadn't committed to sending Mathilde to run the tower when the time came. I do think the degree of piling on that I had to endure before BoneyM responded and confirmed the core of my point, that the Tower could be counterspelled, was unnecessary and very unpleasant.

On a slightly different subject, @BoneyM, do we know if it's possible for a counter-speller to damage or temporarily disable the tower, analogously to how a miscast is induced in human spellcasting? I know that on the tabletop this is what happens to bound spells like this that 'miscast', but we all know that the tabletop is hardly a reliable guide to what should happen with this grade of magic...
 
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@BoneyM possibly a dumb question, when you said that Belegar and co are out of the fight was it meant only in the 24 hours sense where tommrow they will manage to return before Red Fang Waaagh would enter K8P, or did you mean that until the mini-turn ends Belegar won't appear?

I am not sure if the roll that nobody was in the Kragg means that the battle would have to be concluded without him or is he close enough to K8P that 24 hours mean that there's a chance he will make it back in time.
 
BoneyM said:
More, but not hugely so. Low Battle Magic levels.
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So yea, Alratan is right. Low battle magic levels is the stuff that casts with one dice in the TT. That's usually trivial to counterspell each magic phase.


Mopman43 said:
I don't think that's quite right. I believe it started with people saying that a group of unprepared Orc Shamans would not be able to effectively keep it countered.
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There were posters claiming the tower would be immune to dispel from anything less than an Emperor dragon or its peers. Instead we're being told that entry level battle mages will be able to dispel it which basically all orc shaman are by nature of the fact they don't do less than battle magic.
 
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Hopefully the dragon is done with Skryre soon and comes back to his mountain to see a giant horde coming his way.

Hilariously this is all his fault, had he taken the pain of the Skaven murder gas like a champ instead of screaming none of this would have happened.
 
Sinsystems said:
Belegar becomes the Dwarven Hero with a flying mount option, a Dragon.
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It's more like the Dragon has Belegor as a rider option. Though clearly that's only when Mathilde is too busy sneaking around.

But seriously, the new Karag Eight Peaks army list is just so weird. It only has a single traditional named lord in Belegar, Kragg the Grim (but no Runepriest options), a human wizard lord (who's really a normal Lord with counterspell and some weird traits, since she doesn't have any real battle magic), and a wizard dragon. You can make the wizard carry one of the two lords. It has Gyrocopters, but none of the elite dwarf units like Ironbreakers or flame canons. Instead, it has cheap but sturdy human infantry, and halfings (of course the first major appearance of halfings would be in a dwarf army, that just makes total sense), plus some limited wolf cavalry. GW has done many strange things, but surely this mess has been the strangest. And from some hints dropped, the next units added will be skaven inspired artillery. And one interview mentioned halfling spider cavalery as a core unit, which I can't even begin to have words for.
 
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Alratan said:
On a slightly different subject, @BoneyM, do we know if it's possible for a counter-speller to damage or temporarily disable the tower, analogously to how a miscast is induced in human spellcasting? I know that on the tabletop this is what happens to bound spells that 'miscast', but we all know that the tableop is hardly a reliable guide to what should happen with this grade of magic...
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While you can't predict the entire range of abilities of every spellcaster on the continent, counterspelling a bound spell does not damage the item under normal circumstances. If Mathilde is firing it manually, it'd be more difficult to counter and she could react to whoever's trying it, but it could lead to miscasts for her if she is badly defeated by enemy spellcasters.

SITB said:
@BoneyM possibly a dumb question, when you said that Belegar and co are out of the fight was it meant only in the 24 hours sense where tommrow they will manage to return before Red Fang Waaagh would enter K8P, or did you mean that until the mini-turn ends Belegar won't appear?

I am not sure if the roll that nobody was in the Kragg means that the battle would have to be concluded without him or is he close enough to K8P that 24 hours mean that there's a chance he will make it back in time.
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You have no idea where exactly he is exactly, nor how long it would take the gyrocopter that's been dispatched to find him.

SuperSonicSound said:
So yea, Alratan is right. Low battle magic levels is the stuff that casts with one dice in the TT. That's usually trivial to counterspell each magic phase.
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This is not the TT.
 
Alratan said:
My reasoning being that 'Orcs are capable of counter-spelling the Tower'. Very large numbers of people objected in the strongest of terms to that idea, and, from what I can tell are still trying to, despite BoneyM directly saying that it wasn't hugely harder to counterspell than the base spell.
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I never suggested it couldn't be countered, my only question is: Can it be counterspelled before the effects are felt? That is, for Shamans in the target area, can they counterspell it before getting burned to ash?
 
BoneyM said:
This is not the TT.
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Fair enough, but based on the fact that Shaman don't seem to do less than battle magic they're all going to be able to counter spell it to some degree it's not like you need to be peer to an emperor dragon like has been claimed earlier in the thread.

Axel Fones said:
Are Orc Shamans even capable of counter spelling low tier Battle Magic? Honest question, because I legitimately don't know.
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Yes? All races casters can counter-spell.
 
BurnNote said:
It's more like the Dragon has Belegor as a rider option. Though clearly that's only when Mathilde is too busy sneaking around.

But seriously, the new Karag Eight Peaks army list is just so weird. It only has a single traditional named lord in Belegar, Kragg the Grim (but no Runepriest options), a human wizard lord (who's really a normal Lord with counterspell and some weird traits, since she doesn't have any real battle magic), and a wizard dragon. You can make the wizard carry one of the two lords. It has Gyrocopters, but none of the elite dwarf units like Ironbreakers or flame canons. Instead, it has cheap but sturdy human infantry, and halfings (of course the first major appearance of halfings would be in a dwarf army, that just makes total sense), plus some limited wolf cavalry. GW has done many strange things, but surely this mess has been the strangest. And from some hints dropped, the next units added will be skaven inspired artillery. And one interview mentioned halfling spider cavalery as a core unit, which I can't even begin to have words for.
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You know this makes me really want someone to make an omake that is basically a Karag Eight Peaks army list with the various HQ, Infantry, Elite, etc options.
 
Mopman43 said:
I never suggested it couldn't be countered, my only question is: Can it be counterspelled before the effects are felt? That is, for Shamans in the target area, can they counterspell it before getting burned to ash?
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From what I understand, counter-spelling happens before the spell starts taking effect. It interrupts the casting. As a result, it's inherent in the fact that it can be counterspelled that if you can do so it stops the spell happening at all:

BoneyM said:
While Dispel can counter a spell that is already cast, to counter a spell as it is being cast is a more involved process. One can use raw power to try to snuff it out, but this is often dangerous and the enemies of the Empire usually have better access to raw power than sanctioned Imperial mages do. As such, the preferred method involves subtlety, attention, and efficiency.

A spell in the process of being cast is sensitive to disruption, especially since by nature it must be projected forward over whatever the target of the spell is. The simplest way to counter these is brute force; it is easier to cut strands than weave them together, after all. Battle wizards of skill and cunning often weave countermeasures into their spells accordingly, creating protective overlays of energy or running magical energies through the half-completed weave to ground on anyone trying to attack it. A more devious counterspell method is to add to the weave with the intent of causing the spell to fail spectacularly upon completion, effectively forcing a miscast onto the caster or causing the spell to go off in the caster's face instead of upon their chosen target. These are the simplest and most common methods; the details vary as wildly as wizards themselves do.

An exception to the above is projectile spells, since they are formed at the caster and then unleashed fully formed. These can still be countered; a web of magical force is used to slow the projectile, giving the wizard time to try to attack the magical energies keeping the projectile together and diffusing it midway. Alternately, a wizard might attempt to sieze control of the projectile's flight, redirecting it to miss the target or even to turn on the caster. Needless to say, most wizards pay careful attention to the flight of their projectile after launching them.
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SuperSonicSound said:
Fair enough, but based on the fact that Shaman don't seem to do less than battle magic they're all going to be able to counter spell it to some degree it's not like you need to be peer to an emperor dragon like has been claimed earlier in the thread.
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They're all going to be able to try, but those trying to fight the Tower are not casting battle magic to buff Orcs or kill Dwarves. And if they fail even once, the death toll will be ruinous.
 
BoneyM said:
They're all going to be able to try, but those trying to fight the Tower are not casting battle magic to buff Orcs or kill Dwarves. And if they fail even once, the death toll will be ruinous.
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We only need to get lucky once, you need to get lucky every time, as some not very nice people once said.
 
Alratan said:
My reasoning being that 'Orcs are capable of counter-spelling the Tower'. Very large numbers of people objected in the strongest of terms to that idea, and, from what I can tell are still trying to, despite BoneyM directly saying that it wasn't hugely harder to counterspell than the base spell.



There were definitely claims that only this dragon was swole enough to manage it, whether because of Hysh type advantage over Ulgu, its vast experience, its resistance to damage, or whatever.



I'm not sure we were already going to be keeping Thorek in reserve, and we certainly hadn't committed to sending Mathilde to run the tower when the time came. I do think the degree of piling on that I had to endure before BoneyM responded and confirmed the core of my point, that the Tower could be counterspelled, was unnecessary and very unpleasant.

On a slightly different subject, @BoneyM, do we know if it's possible for a counter-speller to damage or temporarily disable the tower, analogously to how a miscast is induced in human spellcasting? I know that on the tabletop this is what happens to bound spells like this that 'miscast', but we all know that the tabletop is hardly a reliable guide to what should happen with this grade of magic...
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So, I agree orcs are capable of it. I do not consider it a worthy concern given what we already intended to do with Kragg around to buff our guys in the citadel or whatever else we need him for and I'll just say directly what I've been trying to lay out for you: Your method of bringing this up painted the tower as having a surprise weakness, see everyone's reaction to jumping on you. It did it in a way that to anyone reading the thread casually said that we shouldn't use it because the risk is too great. That may not be your intent but it is extremely easy to read that as your intent, see people responding with that exact objection.

This is what I was objecting to, and what I disagreed with, the prominence you were putting on this concern.
 
I think my main take-away from all of this is that we should have Mathilde in the Eye when the Red Fangs get here. I think we planned on that anyway.
 
BoneyM said:
While you can't predict the entire range of abilities of every spellcaster on the continent, counterspelling a bound spell does not damage the item under normal circumstances.
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Interesting. That means the big question as to how effective the tower is against an army packing halfway decent counterspell support is how long it takes to fire it again after being counterspelled, and how often it can do so. We'd need to seriously tire out the enemies spellcasters to have any chance of getting a spell through...
 
Alratan said:
There were definitely claims that only this dragon was swole enough to manage it, whether because of Hysh type advantage over Ulgu, its vast experience, its resistance to damage, or whatever
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Umm, no. I was the primary one that mentioned the dragon, and i was not saying only the dragon was able to counterspell, but that these factors being present in the first being mentioned with the ability, combined with several other factors, suggested it would take more than a perfectly normal caster to do so, let alone to manage it repeatedly. I may have overestimated just how much so that was, but by no means was I suggesting that it would be otherwise impossible. Only that we shouldn't treat the mere possibility as a reason to refrain from trying. Basically what BungieOni said. Just as you were under the assumption that we were supremely confident, we were under the assumption you were supremely paranoid.
 
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