3 smartest tacticians in the lore of Warhammer?

[Roger the Shrubber]

.

[Hyen《A》 ♧]

Originally posted by Tier:

How did they use the bodies?

Skarsnik skinned the skavens and wear them over.

[DecayWolf]

Originally posted by the Spanish Inquisition:

Originally posted by DecayWolf:

Actually you can deal with multiple fronts if you've the autority, resources and intelligence to do so. Empires did it in real life.
For instance old China with the mongols, generally they bribed the leaders to fight each other, so none would ever be abled to climb in power. Rome, 'adopted' some barbarian tribes to fight each other, they are also known for it's political intrigues, which also extends to war outside the battlefield. WW2 Japan declared war on U.S.A because they blocked their supply lines, etc.

Beastman for instance, they could've made a agreement with other factions, hired mercenaries and specialists combatants and trackers, to do the following.
1 - Clean the mutating corruption with sacred rituals. All that can be done, can also be undone.
2 - Track their nests, if it's a florest set it ablaze while making ambushes into the 'safe' unflorested area, they could even block some exit paths so they'll all burn all together.
If they're in a cave, bring a awful loads of explosives (from the dwarfs, but empire can also produce their own powder) combinated with some nasty magic and simply make the cave's entrace succumb, cutting their food supply, entrace of air and the exit.
3 - Poison their water and food, kill anything that they could use to feed themselves or arm themselves.
4 - Others.

"Being on edge from being constatly attacked" is not a excuse.

Vampires, clean their corruption, witch hunt their leaders, siege their towns, destroy their towns, parley with some of them promising civil rights and riches in exchange of their loyalt as a empire agent, talking of which, spy their ever move, line work of intelligence is the first step of warfire, knowing what your enemy is going to do, while I like vamps, they don't look military organizated folks to me.
Fortified defenses, cutting the advances, weakening their magic, between other things when combined could turn the war.

"Weakening" the enemies could be as simply as destroying the food crops from where they are to where they're going to, so they'll starve and die, no engagement needed, that's the first basic rule of attrition, a army has to feed.
No guerrila tactics could be useful against any sort of enemy.

As for skavens, well... There's few2 things that could be done.
Pick the deadliest poison in the world, mix with an pretty much endless amount of water and keep flooding all the roles they're coming from. Eventually they'll all end dead. If the posion also has corrosive proprieties, mutagenic, carcinogenic, sterile between other useful proprieties, even better, so their offsprings would all be contamined and faded to die.

Another solution, but perhaps outside the lore, would be mutate their genes, so they cant reproduce anymore, done, fixed. You could take Mass Effect series with the Krogan dillema as an good example of it, certainly we do it in real world against insects plagues for instance.

Y know, only because they come from the ground, doesn't mean their whole specie couldn't suffer genocide.

I could go further own, but my point is quite simple, in strategy warfare there's always strategy.
That's one of my grips with the lore of this game, it's simply weak writting, and it's not only end times.
Also it's not only skaven nor undead which has endless army, even Wood Elvens also have access to an infinite army, because the writter said so, it's pathetic.
I love the concept of this IP, the concept, but the writting, meh.

Beastmen don't use gold, they are the hounds of chaos, only following the wills of their gods or trying to tear down civilization.
You are clearly not in the picture of just how things work in warhammer, beastmen don't have nests, but are mutaded humans. They do not have any form of infrastructure and if you burn down your own stuff to beat them, at some point you'll be running out of things to burn.
Also not everything cna be undone, especialy when chaos is involved.

Vampires are mostly nobles and deffinitly have military training and they have time to gain experience beyond mortals.And they will not serve anyone, but themselves.

Witch hunters spend alot of time keeping such threats in check and the empire is a testamony of just how good they are at the job, without them the empire wouldn't be their.

The empire isn't invading enemy territory it is defending it's own land and needs to keep it going for as long as possible or else the situation only gets worse.

Your skaven solutions are stupid, have you played the game as skaven?
They have a unit called plague monks, these guys are living with diseases only slightly less bad then followers of nurgle. And also while they have sewer bases they have alot of bases elsewere.Including their own massive cities outside of the empires reach.

And genemutation, might I remind you this is a fantasy setting, where the only ones that can do such things are chaos and the very skaven you want to eradicate.

I don't know where you take the idea of bribing Beastmans, but I meant specialists and factions with common minded goal to assist against them.
You're incorrect, they might be hard to track yes, but as any physical being it requires a place to exist. They also share living daily necessities, such as needing to sleep and feed.
In the lore they're often hidden in forest and caves which can be called as NEST, that's their favourite camping places to gather a big horde until they've good numbers to start sacking, pillaging and destroying. Their numbers doesn't magically raise over 10 billion thousands in a single night at Aldorf capital front gate, doesn't matter how retarded the writting is.

Burning entire forests would reduce the wood resources, increase the importation for these materials, increase the infrastructure, ships production, palisades, between several other thing wood dependant, but then let me ask you something.
How costly it is to hire multiple generals, captains, a bannerman to recruit a army, pay the their wages, weaponry such as armour, ammunition and weapons, travel marching cost, repair the building damage, wait until the settlement growth again in order to start being monetary productive, the amount of pesantry lifes wasted which were previously a work force that generated income that no longer exist, the lack and deficiency of food due their hordes burning everything including croops from their path, which will result into food prices raising, plebs starving and starting revolts and refusing to work... And so on and so fort.
Now tell me, which one would be economically more problematic in a long run? Won't it be better to get ride of these pesky problem once for all?
The price for wood will raise? Yes, but if they commit into GENOCIDE tactics, with good planning, global cooperation with other factions, good planning, competent specialists with their due area, between other things, they'll get ride of beastman.

Put one thing in your mind, only because the WRITTER said beastman are a force that could not be defeated, does not equal to it being true.
The writters did a retarded job almost the entire time, they never toke in account logistics, tactics, politics, depression, economics, military organization, nor anything at all. It's all about convenience to create an epic battle scenario and absolutely nothing else. Beastman CAN be exctinct.

So you're telling me, that in the lore a lizard can destroy a mountain in a blink of a eye, but in the entire lore universe, with the aid of Gods that fought Chaos for milleniums, from the most knowledge wizards, from the most nonsensical OP artefacts, there isn't anywhere anytrhing that could revert the corruption? Well, let me tell you this, I don't believe it, the universe is way too 'magical' to something like this doesn't exist.
Even if that's the case, which isn't, due convenience for the writters, since they needed the beastmans for epic battles, to create the edgeness for empire and to SELL beastman models, obviously they won't create a solution to the problem, since it won't make any monetary sense for their company, since they would lose money. However even if it's the case and there is no way to cleanse the corruption, then let's back the my previously solutions, cleasing corruption was just ONE of them, not all. Kill their entire specie and be done with it, even if they eventually respawn would give time for the empire to prepare the lands and train troops better waiting for them to come, but as I said cleasing the corruption shold also be an solution.
In lore if Nagash had succed with his ritual, the Chaos would be pretty much defeated, how cool is that?

Just a side note: If you know anything about our specie, you'll know that we're very good at killing things.

__

As for vamps.
Doesn't matter how trained they're, they cannot win a war by themselves, they're not only too few, but their bloodlines weakness as their generations extend.
A lot of vampires prefer to life in human society rather than living around the dead or hidding, the Lahmias are the best example of it, but many VCs also would prefer this as well.
It all comes to the quality of the offer, if it's promised free access to the city, a personal small human cattle, money, a place to live and a office, why not? It all depends whom it is, how good the offer is, what is required of him, and how found/loyal/well treated he's to/from his faction.
Have you never heard the phase that everything has a price? I mean seriously? Are you telling me that a vamp would never ever work as agent to humans, because they're humans and vamps are vamps? That's stupid and totally not how the world works, it's all about capitalism and how much one has to gain from it, make the right offer and it's yours.

Witch hunters are one of many necessary steps to win the war.

Empire is defending because the writter said this is the only thing they could ever do.
If one country is being attacked by all sides, encounter new enemies every single day, gets
impoverished as a consequence (though not the 'lore' consequence, cuz ♥♥♥♥ realism), then either this country will be destroyed as a natural course of action, or will be conquered or will have to resort to diplomatic relations with exterior nations.
Now are you telling me that every single faction that is not aligned to chaos are all in danger and risk of destruction as well? That absolutely no one would share the same interests against the Empire assailants? That absolutely no agreement could ever be made? That no coperation coordination could exist?

Also, conviniently you choose to ignore some extremely basic warfare principles as I've posted earlier. Tell me, where is the Empire attempting to cut the supply lines from the enemy forces? Are you telling me, that by 'defending' themselves, why aren't them forticating their existing towns and creating advanced fortress, transforming the field into a death trap to any army marching into it, changing the landscape in order to boost their defenses, creating towers and walls, destroying/blocking alternatives passages in order to force the enemy to march into their well positioned and defended fortress head on, how any of this isn't a viable strategy, because otherwise they won't be 'defending' as they writter said they were. Then what is defending? What are they even doing? Sitting by themselves waiting the enemy to come, so they can have this epic duel while between generals, while both armies lose thousands of units? Is that what you call defense? Is that what you call doing a good job? Is that what you say it's all they could do?

_

Stupid is to think a mortal being cannot be killed. More stupid is to assume that monks are immune to all sort of diseases and poisons even more stupid to assume one would randomly throw any posion without picking an alive subject from their specie and injecting the said poison until find something good enough to completely eradicate their species, I mean holy ♥♥♥♥, how do expect to create a virus/poison/disease or whatever without even testing? Come on!
Even more stupid it to believe 100% of the skaven population is made of plague monks which makes as much sense as what you've writte.
Even more stupid is to assume that killing hundread of thousands would have no effect on their assault campaign.

No, I never said their invasion would cease on dedetization from one first role, if you know the lore, you'll know their underground net work is vast, however if one know where the pest is, where it's located, then by applying the 'remedy' thousands will die. Also if you know anything about underground passages, you'll know that a lot of things are connected, further more the water will destroy thier infrastructure, their food, will drown the rats, will colapse many weak passages where the weight is poorly divided or the sand is weaker to water and the posion will further add to the pain.
One hole won't fix the problem, but one hole will kill thousands, not locate the nests and repeat the stategy, until they're all done.
Be smart, don't believe what the writter said, only because he's the writter, wanted to stagnate the unvierse and sell you unit models.

As I said, gene modifications was a little outside the lore, although we can easily find this sort of stuff from Chaos corruption, Nurgle blessings, and a few genetic alterations, such as skaven's abomination. In terms of intelligence, judging the warfare invetions from some factions, I would say some factions are smart enough to gather scientists and attempt small gene modifications with warp stones, nothing crazy in a short period of time, but giving a few generations of work, they might come to a solution to complete genocide of one specie.
I know it's oustide of the scope, but it's not 100% outside of the realm of possibilities, they just needed to start researching and put some effort into it. That would also be a great solution against the Green Skins.

[Ysthrall]

This is a long and interesting digression, but the actual strategies of the wars and battles are often below the abstraction layer of the fluff written.

The army books don't go into great detail about these things, the novels are rarely following the actual faction leaders (although the Sigmar and Nagash trilogies do so....), and so more often than not, we are left with the result that "X is an excellent general because it says so in the book."

The fluff and lore was always there to support the game, not the other way round.

Yes, we can think up ideas, suggest strategies, and so on. Suggest ways and explain methods by which these generals won their great campaigns. But at that point, we've left lore for fanfiction.

And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, that's not the question being asked here...

[Toby Larone]

Originally posted by DecayWolf:

I don't know where you take the idea of bribing Beastmans, but I meant specialists and factions with common minded goal to assist against them.
You're incorrect, they might be hard to track yes, but as any physical being it requires a place to exist. They also share living daily necessities, such as needing to sleep and feed.
In the lore they're often hidden in forest and caves which can be called as NEST, that's their favourite camping places to gather a big horde until they've good numbers to start sacking, pillaging and destroying. Their numbers doesn't magically raise over 10 billion thousands in a single night at Aldorf capital front gate, doesn't matter how retarded the writting is.

Burning entire forests would reduce the wood resources, increase the importation for these materials, increase the infrastructure, ships production, palisades, between several other thing wood dependant, but then let me ask you something.
How costly it is to hire multiple generals, captains, a bannerman to recruit a army, pay the their wages, weaponry such as armour, ammunition and weapons, travel marching cost, repair the building damage, wait until the settlement growth again in order to start being monetary productive, the amount of pesantry lifes wasted which were previously a work force that generated income that no longer exist, the lack and deficiency of food due their hordes burning everything including croops from their path, which will result into food prices raising, plebs starving and starting revolts and refusing to work... And so on and so fort.
Now tell me, which one would be economically more problematic in a long run? Won't it be better to get ride of these pesky problem once for all?
The price for wood will raise? Yes, but if they commit into GENOCIDE tactics, with good planning, global cooperation with other factions, good planning, competent specialists with their due area, between other things, they'll get ride of beastman.

Put one thing in your mind, only because the WRITTER said beastman are a force that could not be defeated, does not equal to it being true.
The writters did a retarded job almost the entire time, they never toke in account logistics, tactics, politics, depression, economics, military organization, nor anything at all. It's all about convenience to create an epic battle scenario and absolutely nothing else. Beastman CAN be exctinct.

So you're telling me, that in the lore a lizard can destroy a mountain in a blink of a eye, but in the entire lore universe, with the aid of Gods that fought Chaos for milleniums, from the most knowledge wizards, from the most nonsensical OP artefacts, there isn't anywhere anytrhing that could revert the corruption? Well, let me tell you this, I don't believe it, the universe is way too 'magical' to something like this doesn't exist.
Even if that's the case, which isn't, due convenience for the writters, since they needed the beastmans for epic battles, to create the edgeness for empire and to SELL beastman models, obviously they won't create a solution to the problem, since it won't make any monetary sense for their company, since they would lose money. However even if it's the case and there is no way to cleanse the corruption, then let's back the my previously solutions, cleasing corruption was just ONE of them, not all. Kill their entire specie and be done with it, even if they eventually respawn would give time for the empire to prepare the lands and train troops better waiting for them to come, but as I said cleasing the corruption shold also be an solution.
In lore if Nagash had succed with his ritual, the Chaos would be pretty much defeated, how cool is that?

Just a side note: If you know anything about our specie, you'll know that we're very good at killing things.

__

As for vamps.
Doesn't matter how trained they're, they cannot win a war by themselves, they're not only too few, but their bloodlines weakness as their generations extend.
A lot of vampires prefer to life in human society rather than living around the dead or hidding, the Lahmias are the best example of it, but many VCs also would prefer this as well.
It all comes to the quality of the offer, if it's promised free access to the city, a personal small human cattle, money, a place to live and a office, why not? It all depends whom it is, how good the offer is, what is required of him, and how found/loyal/well treated he's to/from his faction.
Have you never heard the phase that everything has a price? I mean seriously? Are you telling me that a vamp would never ever work as agent to humans, because they're humans and vamps are vamps? That's stupid and totally not how the world works, it's all about capitalism and how much one has to gain from it, make the right offer and it's yours.

Witch hunters are one of many necessary steps to win the war.

Empire is defending because the writter said this is the only thing they could ever do.
If one country is being attacked by all sides, encounter new enemies every single day, gets
impoverished as a consequence (though not the 'lore' consequence, cuz ♥♥♥♥ realism), then either this country will be destroyed as a natural course of action, or will be conquered or will have to resort to diplomatic relations with exterior nations.
Now are you telling me that every single faction that is not aligned to chaos are all in danger and risk of destruction as well? That absolutely no one would share the same interests against the Empire assailants? That absolutely no agreement could ever be made? That no coperation coordination could exist?

Also, conviniently you choose to ignore some extremely basic warfare principles as I've posted earlier. Tell me, where is the Empire attempting to cut the supply lines from the enemy forces? Are you telling me, that by 'defending' themselves, why aren't them forticating their existing towns and creating advanced fortress, transforming the field into a death trap to any army marching into it, changing the landscape in order to boost their defenses, creating towers and walls, destroying/blocking alternatives passages in order to force the enemy to march into their well positioned and defended fortress head on, how any of this isn't a viable strategy, because otherwise they won't be 'defending' as they writter said they were. Then what is defending? What are they even doing? Sitting by themselves waiting the enemy to come, so they can have this epic duel while between generals, while both armies lose thousands of units? Is that what you call defense? Is that what you call doing a good job? Is that what you say it's all they could do?

_

Stupid is to think a mortal being cannot be killed. More stupid is to assume that monks are immune to all sort of diseases and poisons even more stupid to assume one would randomly throw any posion without picking an alive subject from their specie and injecting the said poison until find something good enough to completely eradicate their species, I mean holy ♥♥♥♥, how do expect to create a virus/poison/disease or whatever without even testing? Come on!
Even more stupid it to believe 100% of the skaven population is made of plague monks which makes as much sense as what you've writte.
Even more stupid is to assume that killing hundread of thousands would have no effect on their assault campaign.

No, I never said their invasion would cease on dedetization from one first role, if you know the lore, you'll know their underground net work is vast, however if one know where the pest is, where it's located, then by applying the 'remedy' thousands will die. Also if you know anything about underground passages, you'll know that a lot of things are connected, further more the water will destroy thier infrastructure, their food, will drown the rats, will colapse many weak passages where the weight is poorly divided or the sand is weaker to water and the posion will further add to the pain.
One hole won't fix the problem, but one hole will kill thousands, not locate the nests and repeat the stategy, until they're all done.
Be smart, don't believe what the writter said, only because he's the writter, wanted to stagnate the unvierse and sell you unit models.

As I said, gene modifications was a little outside the lore, although we can easily find this sort of stuff from Chaos corruption, Nurgle blessings, and a few genetic alterations, such as skaven's abomination. In terms of intelligence, judging the warfare invetions from some factions, I would say some factions are smart enough to gather scientists and attempt small gene modifications with warp stones, nothing crazy in a short period of time, but giving a few generations of work, they might come to a solution to complete genocide of one specie.
I know it's oustide of the scope, but it's not 100% outside of the realm of possibilities, they just needed to start researching and put some effort into it. That would also be a great solution against the Green Skins.

Any faction that could help the empire with this, bretonnia, kislev and the dwarfs have their own homes ot worry about and can't rely spare the forces. Both Boris and Karl franz have scoured the drakwald multiple times, trying to get the beastmen threat under controle but the beastmen are smart enough to avoid them.

And the empire needs ressources everywhere, be it ork, norscan or beastmen raiders and whatever else the universe throws at them, they do not have time to handle a single threat before the next on pops up. And while their lands might be save compared to bretonnia, they aren't safe enough.

As for the writher saying the beastmen can't be defeated, they can be beaten, the problem is eradicating them isn't happening. We have multiple occasion were beastmen are born to human parents. They are a chaos mutation caused by the winds of magic. Intire towns can be turned into them from one moment to another.

You bringing up the Lizardmen, which at the moment are robots that try to make sense out of broken instructions, while trying to keep chaos from sapping their minds. Lord Mazdamundi is having a hole ethical debate about which race to exterminate and the only ones he is sure of are Skaven and the more mutatated beastmen. Problem is beastmen and Skaven are near humans meaning he can't just nuke them and be done with it. The slann do not belive in winging things in the slightest, they have to get it right the first time or else it's pointless.

Vampires do need blood to survive Vlad is the perfedct example of a Vampire ruling over human, but in the end a Vampire makes an army of undead, he is fine by himself and only needs a few peasents around to feed from.But have you looked at the stregoi not exactly the best of friends with people. Vamps do belive it their right to rule and are superior to humans in every way, why would they work for inferior beings.

Their is cooperation with order factions, problem is the bad guys have bigger numbers. Most of them do not have the logistical problems and have a very warfocused idology. The empire has good relations with the dwarf, bretonnia and kislev. Problem is each of those has its own problem to deal with and can't help the empire out agaisnt everyday problems. Who else is their, the high elves? they have little intersst besides the court of ulthuan. The dark elves forget it. The ogers, they live to far away and are to wild to be of any help. The boarder princes? they fight amongst eachother like children.

You mentioned supply lines, which is something I put under logistic, something that the empire can't cut for their enemies. A horde of orks doesn't have a base, it is a moving tide of violence that sets up camp to rest before moving on.

Again you are severly overestimating the ability of the empire to create poison and underestimating the toughness of the plague monks. While also ignoring the far better experience of the skaven when it comes to viruses and plagues. And you are also forgetting that the skaven are willing to kill hole clans if they have to stop soemthing bad.

[TheAlmightyProo]

Originally posted by the Spanish Inquisition:

Also what have political views to do with making a good general?

With political ability too, quite a lot.
Some of the most successful commanders in history have had to be very good at both.

In WFB Karl Franz is probably the prime example. There are others, Tyrion, Archaon aso though the game/rules would be different for them.

[mjfred]

My vote goes to Queek.
He convinces everyone he is totaly mad, utterly unpredictable, but so lucky everything just happens to work out.
Nice bit near the end of Headhunter when the cunning narator realises that they aren't the smartest skaven in the room. Queek gets a tiny bit lucid, and reveals a proper skaven mind lurking in the mad fog.

Not that he isn't mad as a badger. Leading from the front (mad to a Skaven), and chatting with his trophies (mad to everyone), but he plays up to this. Making long term strategy appear to be the random luck of a mad rat, now that is proper smart.

His enemies underestimate him, especially a skavens greatest enemy; his own side.

[Hyen《A》 ♧]

Originally posted by mjfred:

My vote goes to Queek.
He convinces everyone he is totaly mad, utterly unpredictable, but so lucky everything just happens to work out.
Nice bit near the end of Headhunter when the cunning narator realises that they aren't the smartest skaven in the room. Queek gets a tiny bit lucid, and reveals a proper skaven mind lurking in the mad fog.

Not that he isn't mad as a badger. Leading from the front (mad to a Skaven), and chatting with his trophies (mad to everyone), but he plays up to this. Making long term strategy appear to be the random luck of a mad rat, now that is proper smart.

His enemies underestimate him, especially a skavens greatest enemy; his own side.

And that is one example of showing a great strategist.

Another example is Azhag. Many orcs relied on numbers and Waagh their way through. But Azhag did what the Empire least expected. An orc using tactics and sorcery. A greenskin army who are supposed to be dumb but instead outplayed the empire soldiers and outflanking them.

[Roger the Shrubber]

Originally posted by ☆HyenA☆:

Originally posted by mjfred:

My vote goes to Queek.
He convinces everyone he is totaly mad, utterly unpredictable, but so lucky everything just happens to work out.
Nice bit near the end of Headhunter when the cunning narator realises that they aren't the smartest skaven in the room. Queek gets a tiny bit lucid, and reveals a proper skaven mind lurking in the mad fog.

Not that he isn't mad as a badger. Leading from the front (mad to a Skaven), and chatting with his trophies (mad to everyone), but he plays up to this. Making long term strategy appear to be the random luck of a mad rat, now that is proper smart.

His enemies underestimate him, especially a skavens greatest enemy; his own side.

And that is one example of showing a great strategist.

Another example is Azhag. Many orcs relied on numbers and Waagh their way through. But Azhag did what the Empire least expected. An orc using tactics and sorcery. A greenskin army who are supposed to be dumb but instead outplayed the empire soldiers and outflanking them.

So playing stupid. Hm. Did that my whole life and it got me nowhere. XD

[RED /(Weber)\]

1: Burger
2: Butt
3: Burger-Butt

I hope that helped.

Also Tzeentch.

[Toby Larone]

Originally posted by RED Floyd /(Weber)\:

Also Tzeentch.

Tzeentch plays the great game for the sake of playing, he isn't playing to win. That's why his plans work against eachother at the best of time.

[Ysthrall]

Tzeentch as a strategist.... hmmm....

He is change. No, he IS Change. He can't hold onto anything, stable, for any given period of time. He'll concoct some complex and labyrinthine scheme, and then a minute later chuck it out for a different scheme that is able to incorporate chunks of the previous schemes, and the 4 squillion and twelve before that. And then he'll drop that and giggle madly while blessing a champion into spawn. And then invent Rhubarb Gazaroni. And then make another scheme....

Tzeentch as a strategist needs somoene poking him and saying "stick to the plan" every 17.2 femtoseconds.

[Hyen《A》 ♧]

Originally posted by Tier:

So playing stupid. Hm. Did that my whole life and it got me nowhere. XD

Don't worry there mate, Einstein was deemed an idiot back when he was a child. Geniuses aren't recognized until they are dead.

[Maschinengewehr]

Arbaal the Undefeated obviously.

[Hyen《A》 ♧]

Originally posted by Maschinengewehr:

Arbaal the Undefeated obviously.

The one that filled the moat using the corpses at the Battle at Praag?