[HQ Ignorance] Scene 54: The Battle of Seshnela; The First Three Hours

[Nic Hughes]

Sam Elliot wrote:
> On Feb 16, 2008 1:52 PM, Nic Hughes <nicolas.h at virgin.net> wrote:
>   
>> The figure of Baros skipping along behind Icthya have become so familiar
>> that he was hardly noticed, then with a strange distant look in his eyes
>> he began to sing "Sticks and stones may break my bones, sticks and
>> stones may break my bones"
>>
>> He stopped, seemingly surprised at his own voice then spoke to the elf
>> "My lady, I think Aalmon was trying to remind me of something. The
>> ancient bones of the long dead are brittle - hard to destroy with arrows
>> or spears but easily done by a branch with the smashing force of a
>> flood. Could the trees spare a few branches?"
>>     
>
> Icthya smiles at the satyr. "You haven`t seen an elf fight with a
> spear, have you? You think we fight in a line like humans, prodding at
> the enemy from behind a shield. In a forest," 

"No my lady but I have seen a river in flood with branches so big that 
they brought down even quite sturdy bridges. Very powerful."

> I honestly cannot Gloranthan elves, if equipped with spears and
> fighting in a forest, not being adept at using the things as staves
> and, if there are skeletons about, breaking some bones, dragging them
> about. Pointy things don`t hurt undead just seems so basic, so DnD...
>
> I like Loran's idea of the trees whipping the enemy into shape,
> but...I think that slowing the bulk of the skeleton/zombie force is
> more important than destroying them and if guiding the waters to the
> elite is possible, then that too. So, I'd rather the shaman
> concentrate on making the ground treacherous as hell (via undergrowth,
> with Icthya's Tangled Bank spirit too) and guiding the flow of the
> waters if possible. Slapping the enemy about is of course, a viable
> option too.
>
>   

Tactically I'm mostly with you. The key thing is to turn a few military 
units of 3000 undead into lots of gaggles of 100 undead or less, that 
seems to be largely the situation right now. Then while they are 
dispersed your combined elf units (originally 3000, I guess you are down 
a few runners now) can go through in formation and wipe those gaggles 
out as fast as you can march through them. Its a basic rule of 
pre-gunpowder combat that a massed formation has a momentary numerical 
advantage so great it can can wipe out disorganised gaggles fast and 
finish off many times their own number for as long as the enemy don't 
get organised. To all intents and purposes the lesser undead are sitting 
ready to be routed by a flood and the post-rout follow-up needs to be 
made nasty.

In a perfect world enough of the wizards and vampires will try to flee 
with covering skeletons/zombies that they can be routed into the rest of 
Theoblanc's army and mess that up to. What you need to achieve that is a 
really good pursuit. Failing that take the lesser undead out as a 
credible military threat for the next day or so and your elves can 
threaten the flanks of the remaining army. If in doubt give your 
opponent lots of nasty things to worry about.

Nic

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