OOC Thread: For This Mission

I won't mind Iskar

I was actually thinking would you accept to control him for a bit

Keep in mind, all, that I'm usually asleep until this time of day.

Pretty much, I overrode part of Marcus's post (If he told the commander to take her helmet off) and currently warped things so that MM's post did not happen.

As for the challenge to a duel, it can be assumed she ignored it in favor of focusing on her job. She is a general in the Veccavian army, and not likely one to lose her head.

OOC: Very well. Then I'll help whatever Iskar is doing with the oil.

I would like to hear of the eventide before continuing... We will need your knights, azlanek.

btw, has every order mobilised their knights? It would be nice if not only the grandmasters and us rangers played this out...

Iskar, I'd like to point out that your map there isn't entirely correct.

This is more like what I was talking about:



With the Blue boxes essentially being meat shields, and the red being the Veccavian's women, or "elite" troops. Consisting of Royal Archers, Knights, and other assorted warriors.

With the black, orange, grey, and yellow being a rough detailing of where the Pendor army is.

I thought that there was kind of a mountain pass with a road going up to it, with hills surrounding the place.

Ah, I see. Was a bit confused by the L-thing. Well, that doesn't change much.

The road runs on higher ground than the beach is and the cliffs form a (relatively) narrow pass from the beach to the hinterland.

EDIT: I updated my map according to your information.

I'd also like to point out that the Veccavians are marching three paces north, and one pace east (Not literally, that's just the proportion) as if they are uncertain where they want to attack.

I'm off for a few hours. Basically our plan is ready to be put into action, but we need the eventide to be present to go on. So please don't have the veccavi do anything else until they are there.

Sorry guys, bad timing. I was out all day, visiting my brother and playing P&P. Thank you for waiting!

About mobilizing my other knights: I only have 2 left, Relation unfortunately had to resign due to a new job. Malificar and Sajuuk don't visit daily as far as I can tell, so I will decide on the course of action for the eventide, but tell them that they are welcome to start conversations among the Eventide forces or approach the commander with ideas.

Concerning my last post (to prevent complaints it being too MacGyver-like)

Availability of the stuff we used: Cloth, poles and the carriage are there without question. Oil is also there because it is used to light the campfires in the humid weather we had the last few days and fire arrows are made by wrapping arrowheads in oil soaked cloth. Stones are unquestionably present on a cliff.

Ability to build the makeshift catapult: The Silvermist rangers live (according to Mordred) in a fortified camp in the Laria woods and are therefore well able to build things out of wood and ropes.

Sufficient quality of the catapult: Honestly we cannot aim for anything with this thing, but after all it's only purpose is to hurl the projectiles down the cliff and hit the large Veccavi army anywhere.

Effects: Oil by itself will only burn, but when in a barrel with fixed volume pressure will quickly build up and cause the whole thing to explode.

There are several problems with the catapult.

Setting aside that while they have been living in the woods, the Silvermists are not siege engineers by a long shot, and should have no experience with building makeshift siege engines.

Setting aside that the oil being used in Pendor would likely be something very much akin to whale oil, and suited more for lighting lamps and lacking the properties to explode even if there was a pressure/whatever that could cause it to explode.

Setting aside that they would be able to even get the correct trajectory from a clifftop to be able to hit the Veccavian forces with a catapult that would likely change the strength of its shot every time it fired, due to its makeshift nature.

And setting aside other factors that are just me being nitpicky: All of this takes more time than has taken place in the RP.

The time it would take to build the catapult, gather the supplies, test to see if it even worked, and relay orders to and from everyone working on this project is far greater than the span of time that has passed.

The Veccavians are at a steady march, they aren't pausing in the sun for half an hour. And they don't have that great of a distance to cross to engage with the stationed knights.


- That being said, I will actually allow the catapult, but by the time it comes into play, circumstances may have changed greatly. I do not agree however, with the exploding barrels. Flammable, yes, exploding... I just can't see.

DiabloDude wrote:

That being said, I will actually allow the catapult, but by the time it comes into play, circumstances may have changed greatly. I do not agree however, with the exploding barrels. Flammable, yes, exploding... I just can't see.

Aww, that's to bad. I found the scene quite compelling and was actually going to refer to it in my next post. Because I don't want it to go to waste, here is it anyway:

[...]
In that very moment a second projectile bolted down from the Silvermist's position, too fast though for Jukas to determine its exact nature. This time however, it did not simply smash into the Veccavi ranks, but exploded with a deafening bang shortly before hitting the ground. The sudden noise frightened their horses. Most just nervously moved on the spot, restrained by their seasoned riders, but the mount of one of the youngest squires reared and he had to struggle for a moment to stay in the saddle.

''Holy mother of justice!'' exclaimed Sir Jugas, baffled as he calmed his own horse. ''What was that?''

''A change in tactics, I suppose,'' answered Relation without any humour, looking up towards the Silvermist's position.

''A change in tactics!? I did not even know we had any siege engines.''

''Indeed. We do...did not.''

Jugas shook his head. All of a sudden he began to laugh.

''Well, we do know apparently! It seems, my dear brother, that the Silvermists are always good for a surprise.''

Relation had no choice but to agree. ''Amen to that, brother. Amen to that.''

I didn't think of a catapult, i actually just thought of oiling the fields and then setting them afire when the Veccavi would march on them.

My post doesn't mean that you can't oil the fields while the Veccavian infantry advance.

However, don't expect the results to be as good as if you had the time to set things up perfectly.

Yeah, my post above yours states that the fields are oiled indeed.

Also, when the fire begins, what is the current wind? Is it blowing towards the Veccavi or towards the Legion. Can i just say it blows to the Veccavi, and the fire is spreading towards them?

Of course, the field is ignited only when they come closer, for example when they can already smell the oil.

Who said there was wind?

Also, I must say ahead of time these events are not meant to be tailored towards a victory for the player. Some, are meant to very challenging, with consequences for failure, but none save for special ones like the Veccavian Liberation are predetermined for the players to win (And I have some nasty surprises in store for them over in Veccavia too.)

So, you will see casualties from the Veccavian archers as they find their range.

As for wind, there are occasional gusts blowing in from the sea, but nothing significant.

You guys got seated with the hardest event of the three, and if you aren't quick on your feet, your Orders could have very bloody noses by the end of it.


I'm afraid I'm also a stickler for realism, so I may be a bit harder on you than MM or Mordred would be. That being said, I'm not going to be unfair either and make every plan fail or anything like that.

Of course


Just have to hold for Pendor's other forces to arrive.

Maybe we should let the Clarion Call Knights do what they do best, approach the advancing knights, emptying their quivers (maybe focusing on the horses) and retreating before they can be attacked at close range. The Silvermists can accompany them in that endeavour. Maybe we can unmount enough riders to stall their charge.

And damn you diablodude! I thought I had finally found something useful to do for the auxiliaries.

DiabloDude wrote:

There are several problems with the catapult.
And setting aside other factors that are just me being nitpicky: All of this takes more time than has taken place in the RP.

The time it would take to build the catapult, gather the supplies, test to see if it even worked, and relay orders to and from everyone working on this project is far greater than the span of time that has passed.

The Veccavians are at a steady march, they aren't pausing in the sun for half an hour. And they don't have that great of a distance to cross to engage with the stationed knights.

My men started building it just when the Veccavi commander ended the parley. After that the Veccavi reorganised their troops. You can't reorganise 5000 men and women some of which are still slightly injured in some minutes. It takes at least half an hour if not more.

EDIT: At the same time the legion started to oil the ground in front of their lines and that can surely be done within half an hour.

DiabloDude wrote:

- That being said, I will actually allow the catapult, but by the time it comes into play, circumstances may have changed greatly. I do not agree however, with the exploding barrels. Flammable, yes, exploding... I just can't see.

Exploding is a question of pressure primarily. In fact this is inspired by the oil barrel throwing catapults seen in "Medieval 2: Teutonic". The "Total War" games tend to be very realistic and there the barrels explode (well not like things explode in James Bond movies, rather bursting and spreading patches of burning oil everywhere around). If you concede that we can still have Azlanek's nice post in. I liked it

But well, I will follow what you decide in this matter. We just needed something to make this behemoth of an army abandon formation and cause confusion.

DiabloDude wrote:

You guys got seated with the hardest event of the three, and if you aren't quick on your feet, your Orders could have very bloody noses by the end of it.

Don't be too hard on us. After all this is meant to be fun. Defeating any enemy that is outnumbering us 10 to 1 is not about being quick on our feet, but about having some damn good aces up our sleeve. Otherwise it's a bloody defeat and not only a bloody nose in the end.

Quote :

We just needed something to make this behemoth of an army abandon formation and cause confusion.

Hey, I may have the right thing for you, good sir

This is what I mentioned on the other thread.

We are vastly outnumbered. If they were cannon fodder, we could handle it, but those royal guards really turn the scales agaist us. Thinking realistically, most of our men will die, and we might even lose. This is bad, because most our men are elite troops and had decades of training. To replace them all would take too long, which dangerous, including politically.

Besides, who knows what will happen next? If a war between the orders pops out, we (silvermists, shadow legion and eventide) will need all soldiers we can have, for the sake of our own order's survival.

So this is basically what I think: save our men, avoid direct combat, kill veccavians little by litte. The strategy is making them spread out and divide their forces. For that, this is my plan:


1) Legion and knights, including Eventide, pull back, and to different directions. (A) Legion E, SE or S; (B) Eventide NE; (C) horse archer-knights go N. (D) Silvermists stay where they are and keep shooting.

Veccavians will have to choose one target. (B) and (C) are safe, since they have horses and ride fast. If they attack (D) on melee, the rangers can simply scatter and fight guerrilla. They are rangers and know how to run, they won't be caught. The weak part is only (C), since they are mostly on foot and too close to the enemy. Therefore:

As soon as the Veccavians pick a target, horse archers will ride past them and shoot them from their backs and flanks. Mounted knights will charge the corners of their formation, picking few man at a time. This will support the (C)'s retreat.

2) The whole point is to make them scatter and to buy us some time. The oil will burn them, the arrows will kill them bit by bit, and they will have to keep running after us. I mean, come on, they are still humans: at least the cannon fodder will eventually get tired and lose combat efficiency.

Feel free to change the idea at will. But I would strongly counsel against continuously fighting them directly.

If DiabloDude doesn't change his mind the Veccavi are charging at us at this very moment. According to your plan we have to divide our forces, too. Being severely outnumbered this is more of a problem for us than for the Veccavi as they can pursue all parts of our army at the same time and do not have to pick a single target. I suggest we wait for DiabloDude to rethink the matter with the catapult (Caranthir has one up his cliff, too, in this case).

Yeah, but we run faster on horses, and they can't follow us at our pace and keep their huge formation at the same time. Anyway, the catapults will keep firing, as will the Silvermists with their infinite arrows.

If we manage to separate the royal guards from the cannon fodder, I'm pretty sure we can win this thing. This is possible by forcing them to do things only their elite troops can handle, since they have more endurance, speed, discipline and etc.

Once the royal guard is dead, the rest should be demoralized enough to rout.

EDIT: just thinking: this battle will make us all bankrupt! Tnfinite bodkin arrows, tons of oil, dead elite troops. How much does that all cost? Man, this is a financial disaster.

It looks as though this is getting quite interesting! A good challenge is just what was needed to keep you on your toes, and I am impressed with your creativity.

You forgot that DiabloDude made them have 1000 knights! With this layout they could crush our forces even without any fodder...