Replaying WotR with all the DLC, I forgot how full of shit Regill is about the rest of the Crusades.
What prompted this is his nonsense about Irabeth. He acts as if she had no achievements to her name so he can pretend that she's unqualified when she has a PTSD breakdown before Drezen - as if she had not gone through Kenabres, or hadn't rebuilt the Eagle Watch from scratch to the point where it's one of the most competent forces (more competent than the Hellknights, TBH: at least the Eagle Watch doesn't have to threaten every soldier with execution for the slightest infraction)
I mean look at it - 'her first serious challenge'? Is Hellknight intelligence so incompetent that you don't even know her career before returning to Mendev? Did you forget that she and Anevia rebuilt the Eagle Watch from scratch after uncovering Baphomet's infiltration? Or do you not know that Kenabres survived because Irabeth managed to weld together a cohesive fighting force at the Defender's Heart and that the plan to take back the Grey Garrison was entirely hers?
Irabeth is no wet-behind-the-ears recruit thrown into high command without being tested: she's a veteran commander who's been fighting the Worldwound longer than anyone in the tent besides Anevia and Queen Galfrey (whom the narrative also maligns, I'll get to that in a minute). Irabeth has been fighting for high stakes: Mendev dies if they fail. If the Hellknights' token expeditions die? They lose some lances, but none of their core territories are threatened and they can easily shrug it off because the Crusades are basically Avistan's dumping ground for undesirables anyways.
This is a perfect example of the sheer arrogance of the Hellknights. Especially since Regill admits that just a glimpse of what happens in the Lost Chapel is almost enough to make him puke. Irabeth lived it and watched good people die in a horrible manner and be transformed into monsters against their will.
Irabeth isn't a coward. She's dealing with unrecognzied PTSD given how fast the march on Drezen usually occurs after Lost Chapel, and it picked the absolute worst moment to manifest... especially if the KC is an incompetent leader who constantly berates her and makes her a scapegoat for other people's failures.
It's not like Irabeth is asking to be dismissed - if you warn her that you'll bench her, she's terrified of being left behind to be the one who gets to mourn everyone that dies. She's still in the fight, she's just conscious that the odds are against them after how badly the gargoyle ambush went.
Galfrey, as an aside, acts as a leader should: she works to reassure Irabeth and console her. Galfrey has suffered immensely under the pressure of defending Golarion from the Worldwound with basically no support (Avistan's nations more or less uses the Crusades as a way to dispose of undesirables) - she knows what Irabeth is feeling. And the narrative did Galfrey so dirty by not giving her more moments like this - Galfrey's presence should have been an auto-success for reassuring Irabeth even if the KC still got to do a reassurance option even if only to give Irabeth an extra and much-needed verbal hug.
It's telling how much the narrative had to bend over backwards to make the Hellknights seem competent rather than a bunch of arrogant pricks who are trying to take credit for holding back the Worldwound while offering little actually useful. I think the most useful thing they do in Act II is give you another option to get at the giants at Drezen, everything else is them either being counterproductive, needing the crusaders they sneer at to save their asses, or volunteering to be vescavor fodder because their egos wouldn't let them stay behind while those best equipped to tackle the threat deal with it... and get the credit.
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"What's the matter, Knight Dragunov? The weight of duty heavier than you thought? Now think of how the rest of our unit feels when you don't shoulder your share of the burden."
Maralictor Arangeir has always been a bit more... creative... with the corporal punishment she levies upon her subordinates. Whether or not Emery will learn to mind his tongue for once remains to be seen--his commander is really heavy.
[Commission of my Minovae and @knight-commander 's Emery! Disaster Hellknight mentor and mentee duo. From @naumin :3]
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I made a previous post calling out how Regill's spiel against Irabeth was complete nonsense, and two things were brought up in reblogs: wondering what achievements the Hellknights have to their names without the Knight-Commander or crusaders helping them, and interest in looking at their tactics further.
To summarize the first one: as far as I am aware, the only achievement the Hellknights make on their own is taking that outpost near the Gloomy Gorge, which was described as an abandoned ruin. Everything else they succeed at - even escaping from the Lost Chapel - is either done with the Knight-Commander or with the help of other crusaders like Sosiel. And even then, sometimes with the KC's help they're counter-productive, not to mention hypocrisy that I didn't realize until digging through my screenshots for this.
So, let's actually go down what the Hellknights contribute. I will be focusing specifically on Act II as this is where the "Hellknights are uber competent" nonsense is at full blast.
This is a long post, so the most of it will be under a 'Read More' for the sake of scrolling. TLDR, the Hellknights aren't actually that useful, especially when looking at these four sections:
The Siege of Drezen - Another Way In?
Leper's Smile - Vescavor Fodder
Lost Chapel - Hypocritical Murder is the Best Dumbest Solution
Reliable Redoubt - Regill's Folly
===
The Siege of Drezen - Another Way In?
During the Siege of Drezen at the climax of Act II, if you saved him at the Reliable Redoubt, Regill offers another way into the city to target the giants manning the artillery. He wants the Knight-Commander to accompany him in taking out the artillery to clear the way for the rest of the army, just in case they run into a mythic demon again. And to be entirely fair, on paper and as presented this is an entirely reasonable recommendation! Taking out the artillery quickly is a good way to mitigate casualties, and this is exactly the kind of task that the Knight-Commander and their lance is best at doing. Leper's Smile was overcome exactly through this tactic.
However, in practice... what it actually does is let you skip one skill check to get to past the first gate (crossing the gap to the barracks) or the dungeon path that Nurah could send you down (which you probably want to go down anyways to recruit Arueshalae). Otherwise, you still have to either skill check your way up the walls or fight through the cathedral... and you probably want to clear those anyways just for the loot and XP.
All while costing you morale if you don't have Galfrey and Irabeth to provide leadership to the main army, and locking you to hauling Regill around the entire siege. Quite frankly, I'd rather have Seelah and her noble steed Iomeneigh.
Either way, Regill's "big tactic" at Drezen is basically a wash, all things considered. It lets you skip one skill check at a potentially very high cost, a cost that Regill sneers at not understanding the value of morale in a siege assault. While some of this could be chalked up to level design not lining up with the narrative (would not be the first time - take a look at the stats of units in Crusade Mode), I can't help but wonder if Regill was hoping to swipe a lot of credit for the liberation of Drezen with this.
And this is the most positive contribution the Hellknights offer to the campaign.
===
Leper's Smile - Vescavor Fodder
Leper's Smile is the first 'big' challenge that you face, by this point having either abandoned the Hellknights to their fate or taken the time to rescue them. Faced with the challenge, you need a unit to act as bait to pull the swarm out so the Knight-Commander can take a lance and drive it through the Vescavor Queen's thorax. You get five options of who to pick, the best being Sosiel where his troops hold their ground so he can quickly heal anyone who is overwhelmed - otherwise anyone who scatters too far can't be healed in time.
To focus on the Hellknights, first of all we should remember why Regill is volunteering his forces: "My superiority over the crusaders will not permit me to cower behind them."
Yep. Mister "emotions are a useless distraction" himself wants to feed his own men to vescavors because his ego won't let him allow others to do it. And if they hold their ground, this gets a lot of Hellknights killed. Better them than crusaders, but that's the kind of thing that you expect out of a gentleman officer in Sharpe, not someone who prides himself on pragmatism. His alternative tactic is actually pretty sound - his best protected troops draw aggro, then the rest of the Hellknights hurl acid and fire into the swarm. It costs him some of his best troops, though. Even adamantine doesn't make you invulnerable, whether it's to a vesvacor who gets through one poor sod's visor, or the acid hurled at them.
Either way though, Regill is specifically putting his own troops forward without any of the support that could open up other options because his ego won't allow him to stay behind while others distract the swarm.
The grand irony? The "ideal" solution in this situation is probably to have Sosiel's contingent consist of Hellknights: the Hellknights are a disciplined force who are most likely to hold their nerve and among the most well-armored of the troops on hand. That heavy protection and discipline would merge with Shelyn's miracle through Sosiel to completely minimize casualties - even more so than Sosiel alone and a KC who doesn't delay going after the queen.
Then again, the Hellknights will throw away a perfectly fine Armiger if they can't actually make it to Hellknight, wasting all the resources that went into their training and losing a competent warrior or spellcaster in the process. Why are we surprised?
===
Lost Chapel - Hypocritical Murder is the Best Dumbest Solution
So first of all, the Hellknights get more or less completely captured during this. Even though they presumably would have had their own men on watch due to not considering the crusaders competent. Now, the Hellknights do manage to break out on their own, but they are far from the only ones - other crusaders are able to as well such as one Iomedean paladin who CPEs an entire squad of ghouls or the guy who might lose more than his tooth you can rescue along the way.
Of course, we inevitably meet Yaker at a mixed lance of Armigers and Crusaders, and after some bantering if you comment on the fight in the Hellknights, Yaker will want to execute one of the Mendevan soldiers for panicking. The dialogue in the fight prior does show the Mendevan men-at-arms are at the breaking point, but none of them actually flee the engagement despite escape being the primary goal at the time. And Yaker wants to execute them because Chelaxian law demands an example be made of those who flee when none of them actually have.
Forget the fact that it's somehow "Lawful" of the 'acceptable for a paladin' variety to murder a Mendevan under Chelaxian law while in territory where Mendevan law has jurisdiction. We're trying to rescue as many soldiers as possible, and you want to execute one for being at the end of their rope and about to panic but not actually running away? And yes, doing this will increase your casualty counter for the entire sequence, potentially costing you quite a few soldiers in a portion of the game where they're hard to get!
It's worth noting that this is after Regill had formed a rearguard further up the mountain to buy time for troops to escape and await reinforcements. So not only do we have the above, Yaker is pissing away the objective here. Of course, Regill also claims he will always strive to preserve allied forces, but we've already seen how much of a lie that is at Reliable Redoubt and Leper's Smile... can't believe I missed this line in my first playthrough.
Funnily enough, Regill also makes a lot of noise about how the standing orders for scouts is to not be taken alive and that it was better to kill the wounded than let them be taken even though he had no idea why the gargoyles wanted prisoners. The only Hellknight who chose to die was Marenta, the Armiger who had Trever's shield. Even then, she was acting as a rearguard to allow allies to escape after breaking out of captivity. So much for "never allow yourself to be taken alive" and "deny the enemy prisoners".
(Thank you @forestdragoncat for pointing that out in your reply to my other post!)
===
Reliable Redoubt - Regill's Folly
I could honestly do an entire post dissecting this for how much of a complete failure it is on part of the Hellknights at every level even as the narrative tries to convince us it was cold, ruthless rationality. In the interest of not dissecting the sequence line by line here, I think there's five points that really sum it up well:
The gargoyles specifically went after the supplies of the Sunrise Sword knights in the earlier engagement, retreating once they had completed that objective. The gargoyles didn't even bother with this kind of harassment against the Hellknights: they just overwhelmed them. And that's with them being reinforced by the now-exhausted Sunrise Sword!
Regill had full warning that the gargoyles were coming thanks to the Sunrise Sword, the Sunrise Sword didn't and were ambushed. Yet Regill's troops still had their asses hanging in an undefendable position that they then retreat from to a more defensible location rather than having prepared for the attack.
Even knowing another attack was coming, he gave the Sunrise Sword no supplies and did nothing to bring them back up to full combat effectiveness in anticipation of the attack. This wasted not only the warning they gave but troops he actually thinks had potential! This is the same Hellknight who later says that he will "always preserve the lives of allied forces" because he is thinking in terms of "efficiency and achieving your goals".
The only way the Hellknights win the encounter is if the Knight-Commander diverts the entire campaign to take Drezen to save them. Without that, the Hellknights are crushed. And the Knight-Commander only knows because Yaker disobeyed orders and fled the battlefield... the exact thing he says warrants execution in Lost Chapel.
On top of that, Regill had others killed to stop them from being taken prisoner despite explicitly admitting he doesn't know why the gargoyles wanted them. He and a number of his troops are quite alive should you not reinforce him and find him in Lost Chapel on the hook next to Irabeth.
In short, Regill had every opportunity to put together a better defense thanks to the Sunrise Sword's efforts getting to him, and he pissed it away. I'm not going to say that he could have won the battle outright without the KC, but at close examination it becomes clear that he had failed beyond "competent but up against something where that isn't enough". And then has the audacity once the battle is won to act as if it was the Sunrise Sword who were weak for their "excess of morality" and needed to be remade into Hellknights.
I wonder if Regill realized in his Reckoning after the Reliable Redoubt that he had fucked up and that's why he's so eager to prove himself at Leper's Smile - to hide his folly from his superiors and his new comrades.
===
In the final tally... in Act II, for all the Hellknights acts superior and say they have to teach the Crusaders everything, they either don't contribute much, are outright counterproductive, or they only succeed because the Knight-Commander bails them out. Regill's suggestions in particular tend to be only "better than the default options", and even then not by much.
At least in the councils he gets his act together and starts making some good suggestions, or at least pragmatic ones if ruthless... along with the expected bad suggestions.
Either way actually digging into this makes the sheer hypocrisy of the Hellknights in Wrath of the Righteous come out even more. And I can't tell if this was intended as a subtle criticism of Lawful Evil that a lot of people - myself included - missed because of how much is going on, or if they had genuinely wanted to write the Hellknights as competent Lawful Evil and ended up making them only good at looking like they were competent for making "hard" decisions.
And the sad thing is? Even with all this, Regill is a fascinating character because he actually seems to believe in what he says for the most part - a few exceptions regarding allied forces aside. He's a different kind of Lawful Evil than the usual corruption of Hell as we see in Aeon->Devil, and that contrast would work really well if they leaned into that more.
Decades may have passed - almost a century, even - but that mote of pride for the way his old friend and subordinate had grown a knack for leadership sparked in him regardless. How far she'd come from arguing against a title she felt she hadn't earned.
