A Practical Guide to Evil II: The Last Thread's On Fire, But It's Not Our Fault

[lord_khaine]

The lava golems are explicitly just a piece of Dwarven infrastructure. They use them to power their forges. It's the difference between power that relies on a single Named individual, and power that comes from your society's technical or magical developments. The narrative crutch is an explicit, specific thing. It's relying on a Name or an Aspect or an extravagant ritual to try to turn the tide of a war in one stroke. It's not just "having stuff that is way better than the other guy's stuff".

So far narrative cruch seems mainly defined by "named stuff you dislike" then. Because as such the Drow did not use ANY of those things.

No, it doesn't. If the Dead King relied on overwhelming power, Calernia wouldn't be in the mess it's in, because the nature of Heroes is that overwhelming power doesn't work against them. The Dead King is successful not because of overwhelming power, but overwhelming caution. In the Arcadian echoes, his rise to power was not the swiftest path, or the easiest path, or the strongest path. It was the path that gave the Intercessor absolutely no foothold to intervene. In his talks with Cat, he says that he could drown the continent in corpses if he so choose. But he chooses not to do that, because doing so would only result in his eventual unmaking.

Overwhelming power does work on heroes. We have seen that several times in the comic. They get an edge when the odds are against them.
But Callow is filled with graves that show, that there is a level of power that overwhelms that edge. Some were filled by Cat. Most by Black.

And seriously. You call vomiting out hordes, and hordes and hordes, and hordes of undead caution?
Because thats the reason Calernia is screwed. Not because he is cautious. But because he is powerful.

Cordelia definitely comes the closest to Black. But by her nature, she's a bureaucrat and a diplomat, not a warrior. She ends the Proceran civil war not by fielding a structurally superior army (which is how Black conquered Callow), but by outmaneuvering the other players.

Structurally superior is the sort of stuff you can do when you got peace to build in.
And yes she outmaneuvered the other players. That is my entire point. She showed strategic superiosity, while her uncle displayed tactical superiosity.

That's exactly what Black did. The core of the new legions was forged in the Praesi civil war that lead to his and Malicia's rise.

Yes. That just meant he had a veteran core to build his new legions around.
But Black did not go directly from Civil war to invading.

Their troops are better. Proceran armies are comprised of the house troops of the Princes (I think there's a specific term, but I forget it), fantassin mercenaries, and peasant levies. They lack overall cohesion and centralized leadership. Whereas the Legions are trained in tactics as a unit, including a combined-arms approach to warfare that leverages Praesi mages, crossbowmen, and Goblin siege and explosives to support their infantry. It's emphatically not just "BS explosives". They have an overall approach to war that is more sophisticated and more modern. Plus, in the Vales they were holding a superior defensive position with siege superiority and no logistical concerns. If you take Named out of the equation, Praes wins that 10/10.

Yes. Proccer's armies are build the way your forced to build an army when combining several semi-independent forces. But they showed no signs of lacking cohesion or leadership in the vale fight.
Certainly none that were meaningful.

And well. Yes the combined arms thing is nice. Though not that special. Proccer does the same thing, combining priests, infantry and siege.
So it most definitly is the BS explosives that makes the actual difference. Its very easy being more modern, when you have access to modern tools.
But its those who does the actual difference. Had munition been taken out of the equation as well. Then Praes would be screwed.

So as such. Thats just as much of a cruch as you accused heroic named of being.
Despite both sides having access to named. While its only 1 side who has hand grenades and phosphor bombs.

edit.

The author is overall pretty inconsistent with his story vs organization thing. During the first few books organization is king, now story is.
It was never explained how the dwarves could win against drow, who can basically solo armies. And those werent even top tier drow.
Its never explained how black could win a war against callow when hanno alone can turn a loosing fight into a massacre of a fifth of blacks troops and get away. Cavalry charge through mountainous choke+minefield into prepared infantry and crossbowmen, no less.

The story just isnt very solid in those aspects. It does gloss over too many things.

Well, it seemed like the Dwarfs won though a superior degree of magic. I do agree it really does not make sense the Dwarfs had any chance at all.
When the stronger Drows could give Winter Cat a run. But i guess drow slaying crossbow bolts?

As for why Black could win against Callow. The Calamities. They directly got their fame from the fights there.
Warlock personally killed the Wizard of the West. Captain will shred small armies though attrition in the night.
Assasin, well we have seen how effective it? is. Goodbye officers and mages.
And Black himself has aspects designed to argument an entire army.