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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Ericwinter said:
Because that's generally how the plan was described. But, I have noticed another big misconception you seem to have. We're not pinning four hundred thousand orcs and twice that number of snotlings, we're pinning whatever's left after we kill most of that number with the Tower. The highest general estimate I saw for what would survive that was something like fourty or fifty thousand, maybe? At absolute worst, I would say a hundred thousand. That puts us at a two to one disadvantage, even before you factor in all the artillery and runelords.
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WTF?
Ok, are these assumptions working from the idea that we somehow manage to get all of the WAAGH in the killing area and then roll a 100?
Because it seems to me we are assuming that.
 
Valmond said:
Not the same amount of time, but it takes sometime to move 400.000 orcs inside, especially if they are shoving 800.000 snotlings inside first.
The entries will be fortified, just not as heavily, and the tunnels will have more fortifications inside with the defenders constantly withdrawing before being over run.
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Why are you assuming that the whole waagh will be hitting the second line? The whole purpose of the first line is the fry a good chunk. Then the artillery will take another big chunk out of them. Whatever fraction is left of the waagh will get inside the mountain much much faster than if there is something trying to keep them out.

The thing I keep seeing over and over with this argument is the belief that the second line will fail. I don't agree with that at all. With heroes at the front lines of the karag, artillery scything them down from the rear I expect the orcs to have a morale collapse partway into the battle for the second line and start fighting each other trying to escape.

The withdraw option trades our current advantage of heroes, artillery, and morale for the hope that a reconquest will cost less in the long run. I just don't buy that hope.
 
uju32 said:
That pocket of Mors must have a very good commander.

Might actually be interesting to see Mors hold long enough that the Orks break at the same time as the Orks in the Caldera, and this pocket of Mors gets out and vanishes into the Underway.
And no one knows if they survived or not.
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I wonder if their leader is a young Queek who was never picked up by Gnawdwell. This sort of holding battle sounds like it would fit his strengths, namely insane courage and personal fighting skills for Skaven. As well as leading from the front.

Not sure if the timeline fits, though.
 
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Valmond said:
It is as realistic an assumption the the idea that we manage to take out over 90% of them with the doomtower.
Like, maybe we take out half, i'd find third a much safer bet, and even that is not a safe assumption.
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Where did I say we would take out 90%? That was someone else. I don't agree with that. I was very specific in saying we would take out a chunk and did not give any hard numbers.
 
mastigos said:
If this IS Snorri, wouldn't that make him still the reigning High King? Which results in a complicated knot of "what does that make Thorgrimm" and "how could a Dawi abandon his responsibilities like that?"
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I don't think so, since technically Snorri did die and was properly entombed, it's just that at a later date he got better due to his so called best friend breaking a sacred death bed oath in the worst possible way.
 
mastigos said:
If this IS Snorri, wouldn't that make him still the reigning High King? Which results in a complicated knot of "what does that make Thorgrimm" and "how could a Dawi abandon his responsibilities like that?"
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Not really, he really did die, so he wasn't high king anymore. He just happened to get better-
Sinsystems said:
I don't think so, since technically Snorri did die and was properly entombed, it's just that at a later date he got better due to his so called best friend breaking a sacred death bed oath in the worst possible way.
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I'm kind of annoyed by how many people manage to think the exact same thing I did and make a post about it like two posts before I could, but in a thread with hundreds of people I suppose it's statistically likely. I just wish I wasn't always the slow one.
 
Neshuakadal said:
Where did I say we would take out 90%? That was someone else. I don't agree with that. I was very specific in saying we would take out a chunk and did not give any hard numbers.
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You didn't, the earlier person i was talking with above your post did.
Yes, we take out a chunk, how big of a chunk? enough to stop the WAAGH from breaking through?
Why do you assume the 2nd line holds? Belegar does not assume that and i suspect he is more informed than us.

Again, withdraval is not about winning, but minimizing losses while also making the enemy bleed while doing so in preparation for the third and final round.
Hold tries to maximize enemy losses, but also weakens us in the process, and if it goes wrong has, i think, potential to screw us over more heavily than the withdraval option does.
 
Valmond said:
You didn't, the earlier person i was talking with above your post did.
Yes, we take out a chunk, how big of a chunk? enough to stop the WAAGH from breaking through?
Why do you assume the 2nd line holds? Belegar does not assume that and i suspect he is more informed than us.
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Yeah, people should remember the Broken Tooth YOLO-ing on Karagril managed to kill 500 Dwarves before retreating. And that was a mountain we had held and fortified for one and a half year. We can't realistically fortify it more than we already have and we only have one day for Mhonar. We will get many, many more Orcs marching on Karagril and Mhonar than the Broken Tooth had during their attacks. I think stopping the Waaagh on the second line is unrealistic considering the Broken Tooth precedent.
 
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Kornet said:
It's even worse in Khazalid. The word "Skaven" - thaggoraki - also means "cunning murderous traitor"
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... Oh. I can literally hear the sentence rolling off his tongue:

"We thank the thaggoraki for their unexpected contribution."

It has three meanings- one for Skaven, one for Thorgrim, one for both.
It's... fitting, that Belegar is the one to wield Dawi language like a true elf would wield their own.
 
Valmond said:
You didn't, the earlier person i was talking with above your post did.
Yes, we take out a chunk, how big of a chunk? enough to stop the WAAGH from breaking through?
Why do you assume the 2nd line holds? Belegar does not assume that and i suspect he is more informed than us.

Again, withdraval is not about winning, but minimizing losses while also making the enemy bleed while doing so in preparation for the third and final round.
Hold tries to maximize enemy losses, but also weakens us in the process, and if it goes wrong has, i think, potential to screw us over more heavily than the withdraval option does.
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well personally, unless the orcs want to come at us piecemeal we will be getting quite a large amount of them, and while I'm not expecting to make them trivial, even right now they have us outnumbered eight to one, twenty if you want to count the snotlings. Even without the Shadow, even without the cannons and the runelords and the other heroic units, fighting fortified dwarves in a Karak that they just recaptured and is being threatened again? That's not a fight I see them winning, especially since, as people seem to have forgotten, the orcs will be coming off a day-long charge around the mountains, and their numbers advantage will be almost nullified by the chokepoints. They'll have a constant stream of new bodies coming in, but unless the dwarves break immediately under the pressure, that just means they're lining up to die. Yes, it could end up badly if we roll terribly, but with all the advantages we have, I expect it to take rolling really badly.
As for the specific numbers I qouted... ehh, most of those were the ones thrown up previously. I haven't done any math at all there, but even off the top of my head I don't expect Mathilde to get less than half of them unless we rolled poorly, if there's even a roll involved. The Tower was made to kill Waaaghs before they become a threat, and while this is a worst-case scenario for using it, I doubt BoneyM would cheat us too hard on its effectiveness. Besides, all of this is arguing about what happens if we break them, and I doubt even taking half the Waaaaagh would manage that instantaneously. Anything less and they would probably keep heading for the Citadel, which gives us even more firing time.
 
Ericwinter said:
well personally, unless the orcs want to come at us piecemeal we will be getting quite a large amount of them, and while I'm not expecting to make them trivial, even right now they have us outnumbered eight to one, twenty if you want to count the snotlings. Even without the Shadow, even without the cannons and the runelords and the other heroic units, fighting fortified dwarves in a Karak that they just recaptured and is being threatened again? That's not a fight I see them winning, especially since, as people seem to have forgotten, the orcs will be coming off a day-long charge around the mountains, and their numbers advantage will be almost nullified by the chokepoints. They'll have a constant stream of new bodies coming in, but unless the dwarves break immediately under the pressure, that just means they're lining up to die. Yes, it could end up badly if we roll terribly, but with all the advantages we have, I expect it to take rolling really badly.
As for the specific numbers I qouted... ehh, most of those were the ones thrown up previously. I haven't done any math at all there, but even off the top of my head I don't expect Mathilde to get less than half of them unless we rolled poorly, if there's even a roll involved. The Tower was made to kill Waaaghs before they become a threat, and while this is a worst-case scenario for using it, I doubt BoneyM would cheat us too hard on its effectiveness. Besides, all of this is arguing about what happens if we break them, and I doubt even taking half the Waaaaagh would manage that instantaneously. Anything less and they would probably keep heading for the Citadel, which gives us even more firing time.
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The main problem with the doomtower is that the orcs need to squeeze through a rather small entryway to get to the killing area.
But the time we have the tail end of the orcs in area, the first part has already gone past us, and once we hit them, the orcs can scatter and seek to avoid the area we can target.
They won't know the area we can hit them in, but i would not bet on them staying in it after first hit.
 
Chronic said:
Yeah, people should remember the Broken Tooth YOLO-ing on Karagril managed to kill 500 Dwarves before retreating. And that was a mountain we had held and fortified for one and a half year. We can't realistically fortify it more than we already have and we only have one day for Mhonar. We will get many, many more Orcs marching on Karagril and Mhonar than the Broken Tooth had during their attacks. I think stopping the Waaagh on the second line is unrealistic considering the Broken Tooth precedent.
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We were also unprepared, and moving troops around. I can't remember if Boney ever confirmed that they were actually caught outside the walls, but all we got in the threadmark was that htere were some "early complications".
Valmond said:
The main problem with the doomtower is that the orcs need to squeeze through a rather small entryway to get to the killing area.
But the time we have the tail end of the orcs in area, the first part has already gone past us, and once we hit them, the orcs can scatter and seek to avoid the area we can target.
They won't know the area we can hit them in, but i would not bet on them staying in it after first hit.
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That brings us back to the piecemeal situation though. yeah, if all of the orcs just went straight there, no stopping or gathering, at best we could shoot a few thousand at a time. On the other hand, they won't be going for the mountains in that case, and they'll be charging headlong into a wall of guns and potentially Runelords that can easily handle them. Either they die being stupid, or they pause, gather for a proper attack, and then we burn them. Since the Caldera vote was specifically meant to be waiting until the Waaagh can't disengage, we'll probably be waiting for most of them to get through the gates. Everything past that is either cannon territory or Shadow territory, and until we fire the first shot, they won't know the latter, so unless the orcs are really stupid--in which case we don't need to worry--they'll gather in the Shadow territory.
 
Ericwinter said:
We were also unprepared, and moving troops around. I can't remember if Boney ever confirmed that they were actually caught outside the walls, but all we got in the threadmark was that htere were some "early complications".
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We lost Karagril miners. I think it is incredibly unlikely that they were caught outside of the walls, considering they live inside of them. And the Dragons Roar as well as Dwarven Semaphores should have provided more than enough warnings for them. The Broken Tooth somehow punched through our defenses or circumvented them.
 
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