Quote Originally Posted by druid91 View Post
It's always been both in equal measure. Even in the first few books Black is weaving a narrative. It's why he Chose Catherine at all.

Also, because dwarves are themselves ludicrously OP? Or have you forgotten the whole 'dwarves will destroy all of Callow over one drop of dwarvish blood being spilled'? Or the siege engines that shot volcano-balls? Or the lanterns that literally burn gold?

The dwarves are basically an insanely advanced magitech civilization.
Its not really explained, just handwaved and it doesn't add up. I don't mind, its well written. If Hanno can take a few riders and kill troops in the thousands, what is the meaning of troops and preparation anyway. There are too many points where its not equal measure. Namely in that fight it is explicitly stated that without Named, procer would have lost all troops and the legions none. So organization did not count one bit. Named were there in equal strength for both sides and it wasnt a clear victory but a phyrric one for the legions. Hannos charge was beyond stupid from a military point of view and worked nontheless, despite previous assertions that stupid actions from named still get them killed. So, organization is useless.

The real reason is of course that story takes precedence over details like these for the author. And thats okay.

As for the dwarves, yes they are strong as a community, but the expedition force had only so many priests/mages to do hax. And even upper-tier mighty can solo mundane armies. They should have been reasonably weak to a coordinated ambush to their mage lines, something that sve nocs cabal was more than capable of. The drow were really only loosing because Cat needed a new flavor of powers.