Ambassador

- Ingvar attacks even later.

What was wrong with him? The dwarves don't really trust him with a large army (at least in my cases). Usually, you have to chase after him. Helmar is the main one for meeting him. He always attacks within a 1-day travel distance from the first Castle. Karl has the largest army.

- the dwarves don't run away.

That's good, really good.

To avoid repeating myself.

A ban on using the portal before the siege of Horncrest is needed so that Varens, when he comes to the witch, doesn't quarrel with the renegades prematurely, before they are on our side and haven't besieged the city yet.

I measured the distance from the portal to the witch – it's 6-9 days' travel, depending on the logistics (basic – advanced), how you go, and what you pick up. Varens hangs out at the portal, waiting for the siege of the Castle for 2-3 days. The siege usually starts on days 25-26 out of the 30 allotted. It turns out that it is extremely unlikely that he will reach the witch before the start of the city's assault, unless Varens is rushed (for example, led directly to the teleport, without going into the snowy area), and the siege is delayed until the last moment.
Losing days at the teleport leads to the fact that, upon reaching the main road, Varens gets into a local "rush hour": all the enemy heroes with large armies hang out there. Again, he is forced to wait; he needs all the movement points to go far enough onto a side road so that no one intercepts him. You could say, I need to go to the basement urgently, but I keep getting delayed.