Short term actions leading to short term success.. not really doing much of an impact to long term strategy. F.E. Hannibal was a great tactical genius, he has slaughtered Romans for 20 years in multiple battles over and over again.. but never kinda really took Rome and then years later was betrayed by Cartage(capital of his country) and then Romans killed him. Dude simply did not plan how hes gonna take over the Italy and Rome.. also did not ensure support from Cartage politicians.. Similar to Cheat Thread, but perhaps we could combine a few tactics here into something
Short term they definitely have to take advantage of the barracks upgrade and try to gain more War Leaders and specialized troops, both to combat the stronger monsters around and prepare for enemies. Once fighting prowess is reasonably improved and access to Power Level (skill) is gained then more non-combat villagers can be leveled up without risking them in the Dungeon. Fundamentally everything comes down to levelling the people. Also, I suppose if there are any things that can be done w,Richter's help, to level the village.
War Leader: Yoshi I don't think he and the HM will be able or want to leave before the Bugbears make their plays. Yoshi will again be able to use his war badges to MV purposes, whatever they are. He will be training new advanced squads that will only enhance his tactics. A squad of meidon sprites might have even gone through sprite special forces training, furthering their base add nature. Yoshi better strike out into the forest where they are best at instead of waiting behind walls.
This depends on how soon and in what circumstances the Bugbears attack. Worst case scenario is they attack soon, while Ritcher is absent, and unexpectedly. The gaurds at the wall will be overwhelmed quickly but hopefully still able to give warning. Then everyone will retreat back behind the second wall protecting the meadow, special tree, and core buildings, while others will retreat behind the walls of the barracks. A split army will then defend and hold. Communication between the two groups will be difficult, but not impossible using special Heart Tree magic and maybe some stealth skills by Randy. Unfortunately the rest of the village, the house of scholarship, healing, loghouses, fancy townhall and bat building will all destroyed. The destruction of the rest of the town will buy time, allowing Yoshi to organize some sort of counter attack and drive them off, with some superb leadership by the companions. More likely however, is the people of mist and tree discover the bugbears can see through the mist and prepare a defense at the first wall. This wall offers minimal protection, and many die, but again they win the day with Simon, Terrod, and Yoshi heroically battle leading, and the Heart Mother defending holes in the defense with Randy. That Ritcher is not there is not so important. He is powerful but not OP yet; acting more like a powerful champion than an army unto himself. In either case, the current training end of book 7 (or 6) is how they fight. For how long it takes to level, minimal training will occur at the barracks or from dungeon diving between now and the attack. The special advantages these give will only matter long term. Lastly, we don't know about the Heart Tree's other resources. Surely there are more soldiers and a second army, and this could come upon the bugbears rear as they attack. There won't be any allies like dwarfs in the short term, and no one know about the skellies but absent Ritcher so they won't play a factor either.
If the buildings have defensive fortifications, then they will probably be used in the fight (storywise). So it should eventually lead to the first situation, where people are defending inside against those inside the village.
Doubt anyone gets OP enough to be an army on their own, too many restrictions. The outermost defense is a staked trench and some watch towers. Its way too long to defend though, its more of an antimonster defense to keep the farmlands safeish. Still, it will buy time, as the bugbears have to either attack one of the passages or somehow create a crossing of their own. Either way this will provide warning even if the villagers haven't noticed the approach of an entire army. I find that unlikely, scouts making their way close to the village completely unnoticd is one thing, its quite another for an army of hundreds to manage the same feat. Still, its not impossible. With that in mind I think we have to expect to react to what the enemy does. If they target one or more passages that's where the mist forces need to counterattack to buy time, if they settle for building bridges across the outer trench a few volleys of sprite arrows might just help lower their numbers a bit. In either case, fall back to the village wall once the buggies have been given a bloody nose and the sprite archers have expended their magic. Would be wise to torch the fields, a lot of fire and smoke should make the bugbear advance towards the village harder and give the villagers cover for their retreat. Denying the bugbears whatever remains of the village harvest is another advantage of such a tactic. As others have pointed out, the dungeon defences gives them a unique battlefield advantage, that of ground the enemy cannot enter without death thereas they are safe. A mobile, ranged force could attack with impunity, striking at the bugbear flank. If they try to counter with archers of their own, they have a safe path of retreat. Harrass them, make them waste disproportionate numbers as a counterforce. A cavalry attack from within the dungeon defences could be devastating to a pure archerforce and might land unexpectedly. Again, they have a safe retreat route. I doubt the enemy will send more than a few into said defences to test them, but that's not too much of an issue. The ability to strike and run as you please is already a huge advantage.
Too lazy to even argue, but this post simply triggers me way too much.. It is super easy to defend a city if you know what you are doing.. for even 8 weeks in a row. You can always stop the enemy at any or all breaches, MV has more than enough dudes to do that. And with this tactic they will not be able to break through even in multiple spots at the same time. Think of movie 300. And you stop a breach in the wall By a wall of spears and shields. You make a semi-circle and when the enemies run into it you just poke them. Understandably you need to have reserves but with this tactic any major breaches will be plugged easily and wall will hold. There is no need to retreat anywhere, and that is a wrong approach. You hold the wall, and reinforce the weak points. And when Bugbears ability to see in the mists vanish.. you counter attack. If the outer wall is lost you can always retreat to the inner one and repeat the same tactic. But it should never come to that. Bears have around 500-600 solders for now maybe max 1500. MV has 1k citizens, and ~200 sprites. Thats 1k spears. MV could easily win in a open field battle in the first case. With some defenses, now being a marble stone wall that gives you +38 to defense. I just don't see then being able to lose it. MV has to fail in multiple places multiple times to have 50% of villagers die. So you say guards will see nothing. I say they have the advantage of line of sight and mist lights.. also we have Meidon Sprites. And Alma for scouting. And pixies on bats. I'd add random patrols, rotation, some sort of beast defense mechanism like war hounds.. being able to seance and smell the enemy. training of assaulting our own walls, and training to defend them. +38 defense form the walls, is an insane advantage for defense, They have towers. So its impossible to breach and kinda impossible to take. not without a unacceptable loss for close to no value. What does it mean overwhelm the walls? can you overwhelm a mountain of stone? Bears have two strategies attack along whole front, with ladders.. into the line of fire of our archers.. Or try to sneak and open the gates.. With number of MV villagers and Sprite army.. not an issue. Stone walls is not something that you can overwhelm. You can only assault the gates. and I'd argue that MV guys will get to walls sooner than bears will. @Johan go argue better vs this "Skellies" will be at MV, because Richter has ordered for the Kindr to send 50% of skellies to MV and keep the other half for themselfs. "I expect you to show up at my village within the week to clarify with my Chamberlain exactly what taxation there will be. You will also be responsible for spawning skeletons to serve us. Half will stay here to guard your hamlet and the other half will be sent to supplement the forces of my village. It’s very important that you don’t share too many details about this with my village healer, Sumiko. There’s a good chance she’ll punch you in the nose if she finds out about what we’re going to be doing." 5. Its likely the kindr will spot the bugbears in the forest of one of the other tribes will. and Inform MV.
Stone walls are crossed with ladders. Five foot stone walls are crossed with ramps. Sure the defenders have a definite advantage, but numbers can and will press them back, especially as the bugbears are probably not that particular about hitting a few of their own with arrow volleys as long as the majority hit the enemies. Cold, calculating and evil. You are also putting up gnomes, pixies, the elderly and children in a physical meele if you put the seven hundred some people they have now (not 1k) in as wall defenders. Those are only going to be a liability - no offence to gnomes, they just don't stand a chance in a contest of brute strength with a two meter bugbear (probably a bit of an exaggeration. I hope so ). Call it 250 melee fighters and maybe 400 ranged when you count the sprites and pixies. The remainder will be better off in the meadow, awaiting the outcome, preparing for a last stand in case they breach the town wall. Edit: The walls have 38 defense, they do not give +38 defense to defenders.
Now 70% of the wood spike wall is a normal strong, marble stone wall, like in Rome.. you can't break that, not without siege towers, trebuchets or exquisite battering rams. And archers will most likely kill way too many ladder bearers even before they will reach the walls.. And sprites have explosive arrows.. The main risks here are the farms and the Ship.. I still think we should either attack them first in the forest, or their base, supply lines, food stashes, steal their gold.. Lure them to the dungeon traps, or other traps, waiting is not a great option
Well for a gnome, 5 feet wooden or 10 feet stone wall is a perfect place to be.. We already had a number of great battles in the open field, when gnomes, dwarfs and sprites were fighting Trolls.. Yeah that did not end well. You can imagine why. Now imagine this, a 2 meter Bugbear is climbing the latter to the wall, I assume we do have walls on which we can stand.. at least for the marble walls. Say a bug bear raises his head over the wall, gnome being 3.5 feet is above bugbears 0.3 feet head, gnome smash. Also gnomes should go out at night and just place a few traps.. It all depends what wall have we got if its only wooden spikes.. well that sucks.. Or we have a stone wall with parapet and towers in it.. Either way.. even if we dont bugbears have to climb over the wall, they are defenseless on the wall, and when they climb down its like they will come one by one.. so even 3 gnomes with spears can hold back a bugbear. Probably even kill him. You just have to manage the flow. But when I think rationally its hard to believe that MV will have anything more then a simple wood spike wall.. However.. this might be our solution!!! Do you remember the initial attack.. ? They went through the gates or tried to.. easy way in Lets make a trap.. invite them.. and yeah.. when 50-60 of them will get through the gates attack them from all sides they will be surrounded. from 3 sides.. a nice massacre.
There wasn't just 300 Spartans, there was also about 1500 other mixed city state soldiers and about 500 slaves and peasant slingers/archers as well.
Will a partially completed project, where the mist workers are shearing off the side of the hill, be good for the village or a point of weakness to be exploited?
Im thinking th MV and HT soldiers may have their guard down in light of the recent lich battle, but only for a few days, and i don't think its possible for the bugbears to harvest enough mist root to attack that soon. Most likely strategy for the bears would be to send an advance stealth unit to take and hold the main gate/ entrance for the village. That would be bad. Going along that line the best the mist/ tree forces could do would be to harass the bugbears long enough to let the villagers escape to more fortified locations. I think this is pretty reasonable/likely. Next the bugbears will enter the village but they wont be able to take the fortified barracks or the second wall leading to the meadow. At least not quickly or easily. Here's the strategy: Step 1- Meidons and hearth tree forces start hitting them early and often with imbued arrows. Im talking really make it rain, more than a seige defense would call for. Not too concerned about saving arrows. Two reasons for this. A. Prevent the destruction of valuable new buildings. B. Try to get the majority of the bugbears to decide to wait out the hell storm of arrows outside the village walls. Step 2- stealth master Randy and a few spec ops sprites sneak as close to the bugbear army as possible. Randy will be the linch pin of this plan and should be able to get into the key strategic areas of the enemy forces. Step 3- at the agreed upon signal (someone shouts leroy jenkins or something) the stealth forces each activate their scrolls of monster attraction and get back to the village. Step 4- when the bugbears start getting attacked by monsters from the rear, the mv forces mount their counter attack and can hopefully secure the village wall again. At the end, they will have successfully maintained control of the village and hopefully done as much or more damage to the bugbear army than was received. At the very least they will now be fully focused on defending the village.
I think a few people are forgetting that "Dungeons are for adventure, not war", so I'd stay away from thinking of using it as a strategic launching or retreat point. Also, aside from the few (maybe 12/15, I'm unsure) MV professional fighters and whatever sprite professionals, it's likely that the other MV fighters will still be well below level 15, so the level difference between them and the Bugbears will likely be telling. As the Bugbears will be the aggressors most likely, much will depend on what they do first and then see how the MV responds. Based on how they previously attacked, both the first MV attack and the sneak attack in book 3 or 4 as well as the Ranger not attacking Alma outright, it's likely to be a sneak attack. MV has its work cut out.
That was in the original Army, after they got Out Flanked by the Persians the bulk of the Army escaped while the Spartans and the 1500+ fought a delaying action and was eventually destroyed.
They originally sent 10,000 then, pulled back when they saw the massive army, then because the Greeks never really trusted each other each city state sent different amounts of troops totaling 6ish thousand. On the last day of fighting, when they realized they had been outflanked, all but the Spartans and the equivalent of some of the slaves/second class soldiers stayed. The Persians had records not understanding why they were preparing for a party or religious event bathing themselves in oil, fixing their hair etc. They didn't get the Spartans were preparing their bodies to look the best possible for death and welcomed it coming in a glorious manner. One of the worst Spartan insults was "may you live forever" meaning may you never find your glorious death. I could be getting some of this wrong. I studied this a few years back. Also, they were heavily armored like tanks which is nothing like what they showed in 300. The Persian bows (weaker than what the Greeks used) could only wound if they got a lucky shot in the eye socket for example. The Persian army relied on being more mobile and more plains style tactics using light armor (cloth and wicker), multiple lighter spears that could snap easily but then dropped and use another, which couldn't compare to the Spartans in a narrow passage. Which getting back to the MV it is important to make sure they are setting everything up to their advantage. As of right now they seem to be heavily reliant on ranged. If they could set up ways to make the ground muddy around their walls slowing battering rams or soldiers trying to run carrying ladders would be useful. Maybe by setting up an irrigation system or Randy with high level water magic.
Dungeons proper are not for war, especially not through the labyrinth. Its outer defences on the other hand seem to have designed for that very purpose, as has been implied. A sneak attack on a town with an army means minimizing the opponents time to respond. Getting an army far into enemy territory without the locals noticing anything is complicated and there is always a risk of discovery, so I'd assume the bugbears are trying to limit the village to having mere hours worth of preparation time instead of days or weeks, with a small hope of getting into position to attack one of the crossings at the outer trench without being noticed. Should they do that, the path to the farmlands would be open. Finally, the map is not an accurate depiction as I understand the layout, it seems to be missing the second trench.
