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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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People are mistaking Mathilde being in charge with her having operational command. We are explicitly not at all required to lead the Knights in battle, and while this might cut into our actions a little, having the knights trust our leadership when the expedition splinters is going to be crucial for letting us get back in one piece.
 
The best representative for the knights at the decision making table is a knight. The best representative for Asarnil is Asarnil. We have a fairly diverse army composition, and I would like for that army's leadership council to be more representative of that diversity rather than less. If Engineers, Slayers, and Rangers all get a seat each, then I see no reason for Wizards, Knights, and Dragonlords not to.

As for 'acting like a Lady Magister,' that's a collegiate title. The most Lady Magister thing to do would be to lead wizards and cede overall command to secular authorities. That's what Patriarch Hexensohn did at Drakenhof when he didn't dispute the Spymaster's overall command of the army after Van Hal died.
 
ReImagined said:
The best representative for the knights at the decision making table is a knight. The best representative for Asarnil is Asarnil. We have a fairly diverse army composition, and I would like for that army's leadership council to be more representative of that diversity rather than less. If Engineers, Slayers, and Rangers all get a seat each, then I see no reason for Wizards, Knights, and Dragonlords not to.

As for 'acting like a Lady Magister,' that's a collegiate title. The most Lady Magister thing to do would be to lead wizards and cede overall command to secular authorities. That's what Patriarch Hexensohn did at Drakenhof when he didn't dispute the Spymaster's overall command of the army after Van Hal died.
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Point of order but Wizard Lords leading Armies is very normal within the empire. We had seniority as a memeber of the Elector Count's Council but if we hadn't been there or he wanted to take over he would have been well within his rights. he stood back (I imagine since we don't have his internal monolouge) because he felt we had the loyalty of the army so it wasn't worth pushing for his techniqueal powers.

That kind of loyalty of the troops is exactly why I think it is important to set ourselves up as the imperial leader for if a coup is nessessery.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
People are scared of responsibility and having to make decisions.
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Come on. That's just bullshit. No one is worried that what we command the knights to do would fail for any reasons other than bad rolls. At least not afraid enough for it to be anywhere close to enough of a reason to not do it just because of that.

What we are worried about is action economy, war council makeup and narrative concerns.

Also, how would you feel if someone answered the question of "why do people want to be in charge of the knights?" with "self-aggrandizement"?

Willfully misrepresenting the motives of you fellow questers just because you disagree with them is kind of a shitty thing to do.
SuperSonicSound said:
Asarnils thoughts can still be relayed to the decision making table, the same for the knights and the wizards, what it means is that all of those things are filtered by Mathilde before being relayed onwards yes we would have responsibility for those groups on the expedition if we take on all of them but like so what.
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You forget that this quest still has a format. Not only do these decisions affect action economy and word count spent on things, but think back to the previous expedition. How often did Johann's opinions (or those of a different wizard) get relegated to Belegar's war council by us? How often did those of any Wizard get relegated in our time after? We didn't see the opinions of anyone else get up the grapevine through a different councilor either. BoneyM even shot down any attempts to ask our wizards where they'd most like to be on the battlefield.

I'm not saying those choices were wrong on BoneyM's side. Just that they happened and that we can take them as precedent.

All that said, your latter arguments have started to sway me. For me it's pretty much a question between action economy and personal influence, with narrative concerns of what I want to read giving me the final push towards the former. But of course I am tempted by power and control.

Eh. I don't think any of the options are actually bad. Only knights and not Asarnil is just the least sensical, but even that wouldn't be the end of the world.
 
Lupercal said:
Point of order but Wizard Lords leading Armies is very normal within the empire. We had seniority as a memeber of the Elector Count's Council but if we hadn't been there or he wanted to take over he would have been well within his rights. he stood back (I imagine since we don't have his internal monolouge) because he felt we had the loyalty of the army so it wasn't worth pushing for his techniqueal powers.

That kind of loyalty of the troops is exactly why I think it is important to set ourselves up as the imperial leader for if a coup is nessessery.
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I do not think it is quite a coup to steal command from a slayer.

I do not know what it is, but its not a coup.

Sanity by force, maybe?
 
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Hmm. I think the experience of leading the human contingent in totality could be very valuable for Mathilde. We've reached a point in the quest where, after this expedition, we'll see a major pivot in the nature of the quest. In that vein, leading only Wizards is very much already something Mathilde is, as a Loremaster. Leading all three is like being a martial advisor to a Count, where your forces are a foreign force who don't even speak the count's language.

ln terms of this pivot, not taking control of the human forces she recruited shows a lack of ambition, which can be viewed as good or bad, depending on who you ask. If you want to move further away from soft power, and be more free to act as a hero unit, less leadership is probably good. Whereas if you're interested in moving up in the Empire, or gaining more clout with the dwarves, total leadership is much better.
 
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I want to be more free to act as a hero unit.

Seeing Mathlide sneaking and skulking and assassinating are some of the best parts.
 
Lupercal said:
We did that just fine while cammanding an entire *war* remember?
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Because back then, we had to. No doubt Mathilde's commanding bonii were lessened whenever she wasn't around, and its better if soldiers don't have to worry where behind enemy lines their invisible teleporting phantom semi-centaur of a commander is when delivering messages or figuring out the current chain of command.

We could alleviate this if we replicate Alkharad's telepresence thing, but I don't think we have time to pull that off at this point.
 
Omegahugger said:
Because back then, we had to. No doubt Mathilde's commanding bonii were lessened whenever she wasn't around, and its better if soldiers don't have to worry where behind enemy lines their invisible teleporting phantom semi-centaur of a commander is when delivering messages or figuring out the current chain of command.

We could alleviate this if we replicate Alkharad's telepresence thing, but I don't think we have time to pull that off at this point.
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I mean even if we just command the wizards and Asarnil we will still have to split off and delegate. Whether we charge with just Asarnil and Johann or the Knights too doesn't make any difference to us needing to delegate artillery command to someone else.
 
Aranfan said:
I want to be more free to act as a hero unit.

Seeing Mathlide sneaking and skulking and assassinating are some of the best parts.
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She'll definitely still being doing that as a War Leader. Warhammer is very much a lead from the front type of world; if you're aren't powerful enough to fight off the depredations of chaos, no matter how good a strategist you are, you probably won't continue to rise up the ranks.

Focusing on being a Hero Unit means more taking independent action; for example a lot of people we're about doing a Lara Croft Expy experience, where we raid the old world, spy, uncover secrets and investigate the world. That style, small team, independent actions under her own recognizance is what I mean. The soft power side is playing the bigger game; since we won't ever be emperor, we'll always have tasks from above to think about, expanding spy networks, underming chaos plots, organizing trades and expanding the dwarven goodwill we've built, playing politics, and slitting throats and slaughtering chaos worshippers when the time comes.

This is Warhammer. The only difference between War and Politcs is whether the violence happens before the talking, or after.
 
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