Military Strategies

[TheDude51]

[Zanaikin]

[TheDude51]

[TheDude51]

Planning XP events:

Dave:
- Using Crushed, heated glass catapult shots
Operation Mayhem (secondary) (symbols of insanity with earthquakes and nukes, one of the preliminary raids)

Drew:
--Mine the hill, rune fields, spellglyphs, etc
--Initial planning
--Scatterbolt- ballista bolts that explode in midflight into hundreds of smaller bolts
--Train Officers
--Operation Smack-A-Ho: strategy to kill champion with multiple WMCs and immediate action retreats
--Take Control of Balor situation (pre battle)

Marty:
River Earthquakes, used to destroy seige engines on barges
Earthquaking the roads.

Scott:
Training Mages

Karhedros:
Final Raid detailed plans- tactical firestorms

[TheDude51]

And now it seems that the time has come to plan out the details of the actual Battle for Trelling.

Although the enemies conventional forces suffered heavily in our last raid, their elite units remianed virtually untouched, while ours suffered heavy losses.

Overview of remaining forces (dai, please correct this if anything is mistaken):

Basic foot:
Us: 1,700 militia lightfoots
Them: 2,000 goblin lightfoots
These forces are about evenly matched, and the amount of fortifications we have should tip the fight in our favor.

Elite Ground Troops:
Us: Around 600, including shock companies, crusaders, and a banner of heavy cavalry (now lacking pegasi)
Them: 400 bugbears, 110 giants
Our basic elite forces are about even, but the giants are certainly much more powerful than most of our elites, and the bugbears may be a bit more powerful. We are probably at a slight disadvantage here.

Mages
Us: 200 war-wizards, plus 150 or so trained warmages
Them: 200 Draconic Orcs
We have a significant numerical advantage here, outnumbering them nearly two to one. However, the bulk of our mages are nearly untrained Archeron war-wizards, who are probably not nearly a match for the Draconic Orcs.

Dragons:
Us: nothing
Them: 10 White dragonlancers
The enemy now has complete air superiority, and dealing with the dragons should be a high priority of any plan

Characters:
Us: PCs, Garris, Kelmik (Konstantin and Kilar are most likely in no shape to fight)
Them: Shadowmage Commander, 2 Frostmasters, 1 Booster, Champion and Sniper/Bloodstorm Blade
The main threat to our army here is the Frostmasters and Shadow Mage, who could probably destroy most of our army alone given the chance. The champion and his men are mainly a threat to only us and other low-number elites, however they will probably be paired with their frostmaster to defend him, and there is a chance the second frostmaster will join their squad.

Tactical Spells:
Us: Karhedros, Tactical Spell Squad
Them: Unknown
We currently have no idea what the enemy's potential for tactical spells is, but with the number of draconic mages and high-level casters they it is entirely possible.

We also have the airship, which could be a decisive factor, although it has proved rather fragile in the past.

[TheDude51]

I think the first thing we need to do is try to think of what exactly WE would do, given the enemies forces and the need to invade a position such as Trelling.

After thinking of possible enemy strategies, we can think of ways we could counter them.

[Mr_Praetorian]

Overall, when laying siege to enemy holdings, you have three options:

1. Full Circle Siege: Out of the question, they'd need at least 4-6 times as many troups and siege to pull this one off.
2. Into the Breach!: Hammer one area extremely hard and then rush in all available forces into the gap. More effective for there numbers, but it also forces what little they have into a bottleneck, which given the use of magic on both sides, is a bad plan outright.
3. Battle of the Elites: Gather the strongest assets you can muster, and attack the defenders commanders chain. This one can be brutally effective if done right (read: Lessik), but also presents them with considerable risk (the risk of losing the battle on this front).

Also, Judson, we lost all of the dragons. With their Lord vanquished and their riders slain, there is no longer any true reaon for them to remain alongside us. On a lighter note, the Retribution should be returning soon.

[Laharl]

Given the situation and balance of forces, I would imagine they would choose either of the latter two options, particularly Option 3, given how they've slaughtered our high-levels against very low losses on their part (ie, we've barely scratched the Squad, much less the frostmaster, but we've lost Andrei/lots of Phantom Knights). We also have been unable to decisively engage many of their commanders, while those engagements we have forced have generally gone against us.

[Zanaikin]

well you did knock out most of the frostmaster mage squad, except their leader. But the weaver you took down is lvl16, and the six other blaster mages are lvl14.

there are other methods of siege warfare. A few pointers I will give in thirty-six strategies tactics #2, #8, and #15.

all in all, the last attack did indeed damage your elites badly, as losses (post-resurrection) includes 9 pegasi, 6 pegasi cavaliers, and 4 phantom knights. Karhedros' four elven mage squads also took about 25% losses during that battle (most of it from the squad that met the enemy assault squad). With the dragon knights completely lost and the remaining aerial cavalry at half strength, yes there are a few things you must plan contingencies for.

[Mr_Praetorian]

From the 36 Strategies and reposted for convenience:

2.
When the enemy is too strong to be attacked directly, then attack something he holds dear. Know that in all things he cannot be superior. Somewhere there is a gap in the armour, a weakness that can be attacked instead.

8.
Deceive the enemy with an obvious approach that will take a very long time, while surprising him by taking a shortcut and sneak up to him. As the enemy concentrates on the decoy, he will miss you sneaking up to him.

15.
Never directly attack an opponent whose advantage is derived from its position. Instead lure him away from his position thus separating him from his source of strength.

[TheDude51]

Given the way this last raid went, and the nature of our foe, I think that it is extremely unlikely they will launch a frontal assault with their ground forces like we saw at Winchester. We could easily devastate them with another firestorm, and they know it.

If I were the enemy commander, the tactic would go something like this:

First, send a wave of illusionary forces in a frontal assault on the walls, making sure to have them respond appropriately to incoming fire. Lots of mixed illusionary and real Dark Ways set up over the moat, and illusionary troops start pouring over the top. Main objective here is to draw out tactical spells, although making us waste dispels and spell slots in general is, of course, helpful.

Then, form up an attack group made up of all the remaining dragonlancers, The Squad, the Frostmaster, and the enemy Commander. Create 2 or more illusionary duplicates of this group, sending them to attack first, perhaps with a few standard mages in the group to make it able to deal damage. These are to provoke an enemy response and try to get strike teams out of position.

Then the real attack group strikes. Dragons use their breathe weapons to simply blast through any normal troops that they find, while mages can be annihilated with Frostfells or the like. Balors are also summoned to help the group. They simply rampage across the city until our losses are so severe that holding the city is no longer an option. Their men at that point simply walk in.

In addition, they could detach a single frostmaster from that group, and have him simply begin blasting the walls. We would be forced to respond personally: no one else can kill him, and unchecked even a single frostmaster can obliterate multiple companies of our best troops.

Personally, I'm not quite sure what we could do to defeat this kind of tactic. We can arrange troops to minimize losses, but aside from that theres really no option but a head-on confrontation, and that would not be pretty.

[littleangryman]

[Sajuuk]

[TheDude51]

[Mr_Praetorian]