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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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spiritualatheist said:
Yeah, It's basically "Do you want to use Dread Aspect or Universal Confusion?"
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Personally, I support the Universal Confusion, just because this day is going to end up in song without a doubt. What do you think would fit Mathilde's narrative better, being a nameless, faceless terror that blew in with the wind and left nothing but destruction and chaos in her wake, or being the dark and terrible figure at the head of an army of avenging dwarves? Both work well enough, but the former appeals to my personal aesthetics better.
 
Ericwinter said:
Personally, I support the Universal Confusion, just because this day is going to end up in song without a doubt. What do you think would fit Mathilde's narrative better, being a nameless, faceless terror that blew in with the wind and left nothing but destruction and chaos in her wake, or being the dark and terrible figure at the head of an army of avenging dwarves? Both work well enough, but the former appeals to my personal aesthetics better.
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Mine too! But either one is totally metal, so I'm content whichever wins.
 
Awetduck said:
Our weird cat with dead mouse thing just got...intense.
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Mathilde, /weirdly intense: "I killed them. I killed them all."
Belegar: "... Oh?"
Mathilde: "Their corpses lie from the Citadel to Yar like a carpet of dead vermin. It got hard to step over, but luckily Kazador taught his Throng to climb."
Belegar: "That... is good news. Great news! It was just a little weird, the way you delivered it, is all."
Mathilde: "Welcome home!"
 
Ericwinter said:
Personally, I support the Universal Confusion, just because this day is going to end up in song without a doubt. What do you think would fit Mathilde's narrative better, being a nameless, faceless terror that blew in with the wind and left nothing but destruction and chaos in her wake, or being the dark and terrible figure at the head of an army of avenging dwarves? Both work well enough, but the former appeals to my personal aesthetics better.
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I mean, when you put it like that, definitely the latter. We weren't just a hero unit today, we were the Thane of Karak Eight Peaks. Our narrative had damn well better include the army of avenging dwarves.
 
I would not let up on the scouting of Yar if the Skaven do enough damage to each other and we go from the front with dread aspect supported by the rune of scorn we may just get them to run right out of the Karak and out into Kragg. That would be one hell of a show.
 
picklepikkl said:
I mean, when you put it like that, definitely the latter. We weren't just a hero unit today, we were the Thane of Karak Eight Peaks. Our narrative had damn well better include the army of avenging dwarves.
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Honestly, like I said. Max casualties for them and minimum for us, that's my requirements. I like Dwarf favor but not at the expense of more lives, if that is a cost.
 
chocolote12 said:
It's a pretty great answer to our tendency to hare off by ourselves, though; can't swarm us with numbers if the numbers are also our numbers, and all that.
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Come to think of it, pretty much all our arcane marks follow that theme; We can't get fatigued from constant battle, our weapon is always on, we can't get tired from riding our horse, or fail to control it, our shadow is a powerful warrior so we're never really fighting alone, and enemies are just as likely to be fighting for us as against us, or curling up and doing nothing.
 
EVA-Saiyajin said:
Honestly, like I said. Max casualties for them and minimum for us, that's my requirements. I like Dwarf favor but not at the expense of more lives, if that is a cost.
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Definitely! It's just not clear to me whether we prevent more casualties by assassinating in backlines (a thing we are obviously very good at) or by sharing our understanding of skaven tactics and strategy with Kazador and being guaranteed to be nearby any time the army faces a roadblock. After all, Smoke and Mirrors means never having to say "I really hate that guy, but he's all the way over there."
 
picklepikkl said:
I mean, when you put it like that, definitely the latter. We weren't just a hero unit today, we were the Thane of Karak Eight Peaks. Our narrative had damn well better include the army of avenging dwarves.
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Fair enough, but do we have to be at the head of it? Mathilde can command, but she is much better as an avenging angel, the guardian spirit clearing a path for those dwarves. Everything about Mathilde makes her a ghost, from her spells to her traits, to even her main weapon. She can certainly be a tangible presence, but it shouldn't be an obvious one, in my opinion. Hell, we've already built a tower powered by Gazul, and are pretty good friends with a major cleric of his. I wouldn't say no to more alignment with that.
 
Ericwinter said:
Fair enough, but do we have to be at the head of it? Mathilde can command, but she is much better as an avenging angel, the guardian spirit clearing a path for those dwarves. Everything about Mathilde makes her a ghost, from her spells to her traits, to even her main weapon. She can certainly be a tangible presence, but it shouldn't be an obvious one, in my opinion. Hell, we've already built a tower powered by Gazul, and are pretty good friends with a major cleric of his. I wouldn't say no to more alignment with that.
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You mean like an avenging spirit, but actually the exact opposite of an avenging spirit? :V
 
picklepikkl said:
Definitely! It's just not clear to me whether we prevent more casualties by assassinating in backlines (a thing we are obviously very good at) or by sharing our understanding of skaven tactics and strategy with Kazador and being guaranteed to be nearby any time the army faces a roadblock. After all, Smoke and Mirrors means never having to say "I really hate that guy, but he's all the way over there."
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I'm reasonably sure that even Kazador can't pick up our several years worth of unique perspective understanding of Skaven tactics in a matter of minutes. Moreover, I do not think that this will be a singular path battle. If that was the case we could just 300 them off the cliff to get a drink. And we can't be at each tunnel fight.
 
I favour lead from the front- that is the way we can be an unholy terror to the Skaven, be at the point of the conflict, and get credit for it.
[ ] LEAD: Lead from the Front

Plus it's the best end to the song, when Thane Mathilde fights side by side with her new father in law King Kazador to crush the Skaven clan.
 
EVA-Saiyajin said:
I'm reasonably sure that even Kazador can't pick up our several years worth of unique perspective understanding of Skaven tactics in a matter of minutes. Moreover, I do not think that this will be a singular path battle. If that was the case we could just 300 them off the cliff to get a drink.
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Right, but what I mean is, like -- if he's considering doing thing A or thing B, and we know that skaven doctrine has a good understanding of thing A but a worse one of B, we can give him advice. We don't need to teach him the things we know, we just need to give him the benefit of that knowledge by having us on hand seeing the same things he is.

It's true that this will not be a single battle with the army all grouped together.
Alliterate said:
Plus it's the best end to the song when Thane Mathilde fought side by side with her new father in law King Kazador to crush the Skaven clan.
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Yeah, this gets at something I've been feeling but didn't know how to put into words: it's important to me that the story of today be about how "Mathilde Weber helped the dwarves take back Karak Eight Peaks," not "Mathilde Weber took back Karak Eight Peaks for the dwarves." Dwarf and human together, not dawi as a client race of umgi.

If we weren't in command, I would be all in favor of going backlines murderblender. But we are. So let's act like a dwarf general: a frontlines murderblender.
 
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picklepikkl said:
After thinking about it, I think I want to Lead From The Front. We have useful insights and bonuses that Kazador, for all his Thunderhorn prowess, cannot replicate -- our knowledge of skaven tactics should at the very least help out narratively, even if numberswise he still beats us. Fighting alone, we can cause devastation, but as part of a spearpoint with an army behind us, we can open the door for a complete dominance of the enemy. Substance of Shadow+Smoke&Mirrors->Universal Confusion+Smoke&Mirrors back will let Azul's crossbows just dunk all over the skaven forces, and with Branalhune we can help Kazador double-team any skaven heroes that show up. We're the invading force, which means that the fight is wherever our army is, and so that's where we want to be helping the most.

Also, we're gonna get a shitload of Dwarf Favour. Leading From The Front is, like, their thing.
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I'm all for "Sow Terror", our knowledge also gets to shine by dismantling their defense, and as much as i want favor, i prefer living dwarves.
As the update says, this is what we are here for, our perfect battlefield, remember how much we influenced the outcome of the original expedition, you saw the damage the warp lightning gun caused above? they likely have more down here.
 
BoneyM said:
But they don't realize that you're just as aware of the discrepancy as they are, and instead of accelerating to a charge as they near the defences, they open ranks, and from where they were sheltered by the shields and bodies of the Karak Izor Dwarves, Clan Angrund emerges at a run., a rainbow of light from ten thousand runes or more activating in an instant causing the Skaven to flinch back for just a second, and it's at that second that Clan Angrund strikes.
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Even here we see Mathilde doing here best at information warfare. I have been really impressed about how BoneyM has weaved that trait into everything that has happened.
 
picklepikkl said:
Right, but what I mean is, like -- if he's considering doing thing A or thing B, and we know that skaven doctrine has a good understanding of thing A but a worse one of B, we can give him advice. We don't need to teach him the things we know, we just need to give him the benefit of that knowledge by having us on hand seeing the same things he is.

It's true that this will not be a single battle with the army all grouped together.
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That would be a good way of doing it too, but what if there was never any problem in the first place? I mean, think about it. For the first parts of this battle we had barely any difficulty, because there were no defenses left to stop us and what few remained were ragged and broken easily. The moment we came up against a real solid defense, however, even Mathilde's knowledge couldn't do much. If we went for Sow Terror though? She could turn this entire battle into another stroll through barely defended posts and checkpoints by sweeping past them ahead of the Throng and using her many, many forms of chaos generation and stealthy killing to either remove or at the very least severely weaken them.
 
This is going to be a though battle, this is The Skaven hold in the Karak, if Gnawdwell is not in Skavenblight golfing running damage control or dead, he is here.
The hardest parts of the fight above? That is going to be all of it down here, choke points, barricades, guns, lightning machines.
Do not waste dwarf lives because of honor or songs or whatever, that is precisely the kind of attitude we are trying to beat out of them.
 
picklepikkl said:
I mean, when you put it like that, definitely the latter. We weren't just a hero unit today, we were the Thane of Karak Eight Peaks. Our narrative had damn well better include the army of avenging dwarves.
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Ok but..."a nameless, faceless terror that blew in with the wind and left nothing but destruction and chaos" is literally the House Weber family motto. Unseen but not unfelt.
 
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