Iolar could do some recon 
cast a non-invasive spont spell and see if it "pings" off anyone.
PINK DOTS!!! 
You wanna go there? We could do that indeed, and cover all of our guys in Parma.
That sounds like a sensible tactical suggestion made by someone who isn't confused and on the verge on panicking . It's just not something she would think of.
I would have whispered it to you when you came down and perched by us. 
Why is Iolar panicking? She has no Flaw I know of that causes panic. It is good for role playing flavor, but your character should totally be able to overcome it in order to act sensibly. If it is a Flaw, then you can overcome it by spending a Confidence point.
There is no specific flaw it's personality. She does not like confrontation and even worse see's no good outcome here.
If a fight breaks out she is scared that she will either have to kill some people or will let everyone else down.
Then she is scared that the place she has finally started to think of as home may get destroyed and she is inclined to be paranoid about sudden risks to her home.
Then if there is a fight there is a good chance that there will be a Quasitor here looking around and generally spying on people and there are things she would prefer Quasitors do not now.
Every other time some crisis has come up she had either had a clear good outcome in mind or it started so quickly that she didn't have time to worry .
I can’t seem to find any Personality Traits on Iolar, but the Personality Flaws you have are Reckless, Covenant Upbringing, and Vow. Reckless means you should do anything but panic, and I don’t see any conflict with your Vow at all. You should be brave, and though without care or patience, you can act in a wise and cunning manner.
how do I log on to our wiki? Anyone who knws, please pm me the information
thanx
Good info for nobles in Flanders
Just look at the map you just laid out. it is right there 
Schore is a actual town in Holland that is up river from where we would be. I'm just going with the flow.
Parley from strength ( or apparent strength) and not weakness. You want to appear strong and just trying to avoid unnecessary deaths by them. Some strange looking fellows who just show up in the village to talk or some fellows that appear to have an equal/greater number of troops behind some walls.
Remember the hedgehog. Think prickly. Or appear that we are not worth the effort. I think that time is long past sense two nobles are making an effort.
Oh yeah, we get our defenses in order first. Then we take the ten toughest looking guys we can find, dress them in scale armour, and call them the elite guard of our diplomatic entourage.
What is the cover story we are going with again? Roberto was just improvising earlier. I think we would want to leave Aelianus at the covenant, have Iolar circle back and forth etween the entourage and home, kep Havlard at the bulwarks, send Roberto and Marcello (and maybe Dragor) to Schore with the "elite guards". The elite will include Jan Axel and Pedro Hererro. Carlos and Kilica will attend the magi at the covenant.
As a player I am curious what the planned long term solution to the problem is. I haven't got a clue what you are al planning except preparing to fight and as far as I can tell that just won't work in the long run particualry as we don't have enougth force.
Iolar made some of these arguements but really isn't going to push it any further as she lacks the confidence or knowledge of the mundane world to push it any further.
And I have nothing to do with running this plot
Do we have any scale armour?
Also if they are not trained they won't look very impressive as warriors so it may turn on us. PArticualry guys on foot are very low prestige in this period we would do better with a few cavalry unfortunatly they really need to be trained
Andrew,
Let's put out this fire first before we worry about the future. I have ideas, but they are not worth discussing until we solve this situation. And no, I don't like any of the solutions Iolar has proposed so far. Becoming the item making lackeys of mundanes is not an option. A better idea would be to get some Hermetic Architecture in here and shroud ourselves with our regio. I would rather owe favors to other magi than to mundanes. But again, it is not worth discussing until this is taken care of.
Jebrick,
The covenant stores have 10 suits of full scale armour, 10 round shields, 10 long spears, and some other stuff. We don't have the horses for cavalry. But the few people I pointed out are indeed trained. Pedro Herrero is a veteran soldier. Jan Axel, well the armour won't fit him and he is as large as a horse. I declined Carlos, even though he is trained, because he is too small. But I see your point. We need to have most of our defenses and defensive imagry here at home. What can we do to make our parley entourage seem more dignified and impressive? Or should we wait for them to come here?
Havlard is preparing to scare them off without a fight. Or make our position seem stronger than it is ( to help with negotiations). He would rather not see a fight since someone might lose and that loser could be us.
Yes we have weapons and armor in the store room.
Armored foes would be scary for them because most soldiers have no armor (at this time). Part of my plan for my spell is to have a muto requirement to make the weapons shiny and perhaps the armor. All the more scary for whomever comes.
Excellent. I am down with Operation Hedgehog 100% 
Loud trumpets 
Ostentatious display of perceived power.
Remember the hedgehog. We are small and you could eat us but it might really hurt. perhaps you could go over there if you want something.
Enemy commander: Hey maybe they will talk and I can get something out of this rather than risk losing all of my men and get nothing.
the threat of a fight might just be enough of an edge. I do not think they are desperate. If they are coming here to sack us then we are fighting no matter what.
That's why we need intelligence and recon! Who are they? Who do they work for? What are their intentions? How can the be placated or discouraged? If we had this information, maybe we can have Dragor try Entrancement again.
Killing a lot of people in the short term will complicate the long term. And that isn't wuite what I suggested. I suggested selling the senior nobles magical toys which a lot of verditius do, which would also solve our finacnial problems as we can get a lot of silver for even a simple item and so help us in the long term and make us too valuable to attack even as we take peoples money.
In canon pretty much every covenant blends into the mundane world by paying taxes etc as if it was just a fishing village, castle, whatever OR is located somewhere mundanes do not go.
We are located near the coast of one one the most heavily populated areas of Europe , next to a major road in some of the flatest and least forested land around and everyone already knows there is a settlement here which makes hiding hard. Shrouded glen would be useless.
So either we deal , fight and eventlually lose to the church or the order, or we do somethign very mythic and move into a regio, or underwater . We cannot do the mythical options we don't have enougth power that means getting the help of a more powerful magus or magus's we ahve no good books , little vis, no silver and few skills to trade to them. Looking at the local covenants I can only think of 3 which may be able to help us
- Wormhout from lands of Fire and Ice, masters of hermeitc arhotecture they live in a magicla regio . They are a settled autumn winter covenant who don't need much if anything from the outside world. Not sure what we could bribe them with.
- Shadows of the past. They are hidden inside regios and lethal magical defenses , we hae no idea how they did it or what price they would ask. (Well I can probably think of something if I have too)
3)Lapis Crudus. They got themselves trapped in a faerie aura, they may be able to do the same for us . It went horribly wrong for them. They cannot leaqve their home without another magus taking their place , guess what they would want? They are also ancient and largely insane.
The only scheme we may be able to pull off (by ourselves)is retreating underwater. A ring spell could probably keep us dry and a summer storm would give an excuse for the flooding of our lands
If we go forward with the commune then we might need to be more active because we are swearing to help protect each other or exact revenge.
As members of the order, can we swear an oath of commune?