OOC Thread: For This Mission

From that i gather they'd have to charge uphill to the silvermists to escape.

Actually no, if they wanted to escape they could just keep heading north.

Or perhaps turn and head east instead.

Your information on the rangers is outdated. We have regrouped while building the catapults and are now divided in two groups of 50 rangers each on the northern and southern cliffs near the road, the latter numbers modified by my last post.

The southern auxiliaries are closer to the southern rangers.

The position of the Legion relative to our cavalry and the charging Veccavi cavalry is rather such that they would just have to move straight north to crash into the right flank of the Veccavi cavalry after they engage fighting with the Eventide.

Iskar wrote:

Going off of this map from a couple of days ago (I see now the newly grouped Silvermists, by the way) It seems like the Legion would have to march north a bit first, and then west if they wanted to hit the Veccavian cavalry.

Which, wouldn't take long granted, but would still take another post or two worth of action before they're into the fight. Probably about the same time (A bit sooner) that the Krom and Kral forces arrive at the point.

I see. By the way, the basic map I drew in the beginning and which I always use to depicture troop movements and positions is found here. Feel free to use it, so you wont have to do these stiff paint drawings anymore. (I only added the details to the maps, the credit for the background goes to Andreas Blicher, who published them on his webpage for public use.)

OOC: I'll be out for some days too. DiabloDude can RP my character at will, although I command only 5 rangers. My character's goal is to make the commanders agree giving only one more massive strike to the Veccavians (crippling their immediate danger to the kingdom), then retreating Southeast (to pinch them with the Ravenstern forces, if they follow us that long).

saerossaeros wrote:

Seeing the high officials of the Legion and the Eventide preparing to charge blindly to certain death, Theo ordered his squad to protect the commanders. They should aim at the cavalry vanguard and shoot all horses that showed braced spears and were riding in the direction of the commanders. "The point is to allow them to survive the first line of horsemen", Theo said.

OOC: Just to be clear, I was in the flank of the Legion, near Marcus.

Hmm, according to what you said earlier (cf. below) I thought your character would help taking the barrels to the southern cliffs and actually used him in my catapult post.

saerossaeros wrote:

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

Anyway, if you want to shoot Veccavi your position with the Legion behind the wall of fire is the worst possible as you will not see much with all the smoke and flames around. Therefore I should think it would be more useful and fitting better into the course of events, if your character was currently present at the southern rangers' position.

Oh yeah, right. I forgot about that. Well, then I'll just pray for them and go back my stuff.

I would like to put out a quick reminder before I post again: You all realize this battle hasn't actually started yet, right?

It's about to, extremely soon, but right now has just been harassment tactics from the Silvermists, and maneuvering of BOTH armies. (If you've ever played the Total War games, you know what I'm talking about. When both armies are trying to out-position one another before the clash.) So if it's boring right now, that's because the clash is just about to happen.

Also why casualties are minimal. The battle hasn't started yet. It's hard to dent a 5,000 man army significantly with a hundred or so archers. Even very good archers.


EDIT concerning my most recent post: You may have noticed I said only the Northern Silvermists are firing upon the Veccavian cavalry. This is because of distance between the southern cliffs and the bottleneck, any sort of accurate shooting would be impossible, and pointless. If not for limitations of the archers' skills, then because of limitations on bows.

Yeah, we may be the best human archers in the world and can shoot the furthest with our longbows, but we still have limits.

Only two dozens were dehorsed? There are fifty of the best human archers of Pendor aiming directly (not firing volley, we discussed that earlier) at the horses. In reference to the English longbowmen, a rate of fire of at least 6 arrows per minute can be assumed for the Silvermist rangers if they really go for it.
In your earlier post you said it was about one and a half minute before the cavalry groups would meet. Taking half a minute for commands, this gives 6 * 50 = 300 aimed arrows flying at the horses. Of course not all of them will hit their targets, but there will be more than two dozens of dead or wounded horses (and/or riders).

Yeah, maybe about 50-75 or so, since only super-accurate shots can take down a warhorse in 1 shot, some miss, and some horses will get more arrows than necessary

Yeah, that would be sensible.

On another topic:

MitchyMatt wrote:

A letter arrives with a messenger to each of the three camps from Sir Mitchell the Herald...

Fellow Knights,

I am only hours away from returning to the landing location of the Veccavia and your camps. I have been able to amass reinforcements from he Clarion Call, Windriders, and the Raven Spear. My Immortals also will aid us along with the Eventide that have accompanied me. I hope I do not arrive to late and wish you the greatest hope in this dark time.

With promising hope,

Sir Mitchell the Royal Herald, Grandmaster of the Immortals

This letter arrived at our camp before the first part of the battle was fought in which we repelled the first wave of the Veccavi. (Yes, this battle has started earlier, we only had a pause.) With the time taken by this fighting, and all that has happened since DD took over, these few hours should be likely to soon be over

Iskar wrote:

Only two dozens were dehorsed? There are fifty of the best human archers of Pendor aiming directly (not firing volley, we discussed that earlier) at the horses. In reference to the English longbowmen, a rate of fire of at least 6 arrows per minute can be assumed for the Silvermist rangers if they really go for it.
In your earlier post you said it was about one and a half minute before the cavalry groups would meet. Taking half a minute for commands, this gives 6 * 50 = 300 aimed arrows flying at the horses. Of course not all of them will hit their targets, but there will be more than two dozens of dead or wounded horses (and/or riders).

One must take into account that that "Minute and a half" was for the cavalry to reach the stationary riders. It was reduced by half when the Eventide charged, as then the two groups were both moving towards each other.

You must shave off the seconds for the orders to be given and processed too. (EDIT: Missed that part of your post) On top of that, I only Gave casualties for the first couple of volleys, not the entire attack as a whole. That is not a "Final casualty account" for the decision to fire upon the horses.

On top of this, I believe the order was to fill up the gaps in the fire with dead horses to make it harder for the Veccavians to move through?

So, if that's the case, why would the minute and a half matter anyway? You'd be holding fire until the horses reach parts of the gap.

EDIT: I mus be off for work now, I'll be around later to respond. Also, I know I said "Volley" in this post, I'm not using it as technical terminology.

The fallen horses would also block the way for the rest. Imagine, if one horse falls a few more fall on top of it since it's quite hard to dodge so quickly on full speed...

In the map referenced here

Spoiler:

What are the light grey troops at the bottom? Once I have this I should be able to work out the next phase which will be the long-awaited clash.

EDIT : Nevermind, got it. Writing it up now.

State of affairs before the post;

Spoiler:

State of affairs when the reinforcements arrive;

Spoiler:

State of affairs after the post;

Spoiler:

Yellow = Silvermists
Blue = Veccavian Women
Cyan = Kral / Krom
Red = Fire
Orange = Shadow Legion (with the small clump of Centurians by the Eventides)
Dark Grey = Knights of Eventide
Light Grey = Auxiliaries of Eventide
Green = Clarion Call and Windriders
Teal = Immortals
Purple = Raven Spear

Hmm, it seems you decided to ignore my last ruse and the Immortals putting out the fire renders my preparations for the arrival of the reinforcements abundant. Well, it's alright as long as we win.

Things don't always happen as you expect, besides this meant that the Raven Spears and Immortals were able to attack the Veccavians in the rear, the flamewall having given them a false sense of security.

That was exactly what I had planned. I intended the southern auxiliaries to put out the fire in the south as soon as I would get report of the arrival of the reinforcements. But that's idle chatter now, there are Veccavi to slaughter!

I am a bit confused, saeros. Notwithstanding I ordered my rangers to form up and shoot and not to charge, you first say we attack the krom crap, then that we kill the archers, yet, the archers are further north while the remaining krom slaves are (from our point of view) behind the lines of the Legion.
I don't really mind going in close combat, but in that case we would likely advance behind the testudo of the auxiliaries, then slaughter the archers.

PS: sorry for double posting

So I understood it wrong. What I thought was: you have two groups. One charges the archers in testudo, and the other gives them cover until they get there. I thought the target was the Cyan cloud in Mordred's last map.

Since at the moment I was at your company, I told me men to follow the first group. Feel free to change my post in whichever way you want.

The testudo was formed by the (formerly) southern group of the Eventide auxiliaries with their heavy rectangular board shields. Our round Noldor infantry shields would be useless for that. Sorry if I did not make that sufficiently clear. You are free to take some rangers and support the auxiliaries. Them being mainly defensive units several Silvermists with their more offensive style of sword fighting would make the charge more effective. I cannot change your post myself unfortunately...

EDIT: the archers we are attacking are among the scattered dark blue troops on mordreds map.

EDIT #2: How about you take half of the rangers with you to charge while the other half stays with me, killing Veccavi from afar?

Working on this at the moment, should be out soon.

Hey, nice to hear.