Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Gotdamnmiracle]

Count getting ambushed by "street thugs" one night?

Generally a good idea, though. A secret cache of arms in that city, quietly hidden, could have uses at any point down the road. And during the turmoil of a foreign invasion, a supply of weapons and armour going to Curbiston is not strange, and easy to lose sight of.

Yep.

Plus, let's also try to get those things sent to the dukes lands. He needs those now. The future caches will be a project for a later date.

[Gervassen]

Also, let's pull Alan back from the Abbey. With Curbiston secure, it appears these incursions were merely bored beseigers raiding upriver past some nearsighted nitwits. He can escort the women that wish to return to their husbands and to help with the harvesting and threshing of the wheat, then he can ride to join us. He's itching for some action, I can palpably feel it. Marna can stay in the Abbey and rest, while perusing their excellent libraries.

Also, I'll gather up the military advice from before the new developments that still pertains now, and put it together in a more readable and actionable state for scouting southward.

Preparations

First, we gather our usual mounted retinue, bolstered by whatever recruits from the battle proved adequate with horses, and ride to Curbiston. This might be 68 men. Meanwhile we put Fin--if he wishes command--aboard our new Navy with a strong crew comprised mostly of good levy archers and a few halberdiers to repel boarders. This means we take about 60 men from among the peasant levies as crew.

Convince Denton and Percival to send their foot soldiers duly to Curbiston, but help us scout southward with their light cavalry while waiting for other lords to muster the remainder of this month. Scouting is a good excuse, and they are more apt to follow our lead than remain with Foles, whom they also dislike. Many of the other lords haven't been planning for this, so it will take them time to respond during such an important season. This means our land force will be about 115 armed mounted men, plus messengers and scouts.

Land Forces:
3 Knights, 3 squires -- including Alan!
Retinue: 35 halberdier dragoons, 23 archer and 10 ranger dragoons
Allies: 50 light cavalry

Naval Forces:
3 Longboats, 50 archer levies, 10 Halberd levies, stock of fire arrows, and towed fire rafts


Establishing a Base

Everything goes like before in a different direction. We can ask locals and refugees about where the enemy has been and travel faster through relatively safe areas. Find the farthest river-thown untouched by raiders, and make that place the base for our scouts and navy to coordinate our probing downstream. If none, then find a safe place to hide some supplies offloaded from the boat, and make this a rendezvous point. Ideally, it would be up a minor tributary river. Then we take our advance slower from there.

Open the Way

On land, scouts on fast horses go a few hours ahead of our main body to find where the enemy scouts are posted, and draw them into pursuit. These appear to aggressively have pursued our earlier messenger, so plan a good ambush along a roadside copse or hedgerow or abandoned village. We ambush them with our dismounted dragoons and our cavalry allies mop up. Then with better knowledge of the lands up ahead, the scouts can give us even closer ambush points to repeat this. We creep closer this way and open the land approaches to deeper scouting.

On sea, Finn sails downstream under enemy colors, and pinpoints the nearest enemy naval outpost on the river. He ought not to engage unless its smaller than three boats, but turn back and seek us out. Use his towed rafts, if pursued. We can coordinate another land-water assault like last time on any medium-sized outpost. We want to open the riverway to deeper scouting.

Scouting the Main Strength

Some well-planned ambushes will put the fear-of-god in their outriders that hunted down our earlier messenger so aggressively, and they'll become more passive to direct scouting of their main encampment. Then we get detailed information on them. We want force strengths and dispositions, where their baggage camp is, how it is supplied, whether they've build siege engines, and of course the status of the city itself.

I have hopes for also scouting their naval strength, and main landing sites, but feel that they are very strong in that aspect. Finn must first and above all seek to remain upstream of strong threats. Unless... someone else suggests going 100% undercover and "counting coup" among the enemy fleet disguised as a raider?

Also, if we should ever need to sail into the Duke's City in enemy longboats... Have the local sailmakers dye an entire sail with our heraldry and save it for later. No chance of friendly fire at all can be taken when you're actually in an enemy craft.


Special Note: Lastly, all of this is to be done in haste. It's a bit vexing that we sit around the first week or two of the month while Denton trotted off to the Count, when we did suggest that we all go in readiness. Our father-in-law is in dire peril! Even though nothing was really there, we could have swung south much faster.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think that the general consensus was that, while it would be good to help, it would also be unlikely with under 200 men,most untrained in even basics of stealth.

[Gervassen]

We're not using stealth in any real sense. We're actively being unstealthy on purpose in our scouting. We draw them into a trap where our men are hidden near the roadside, where the extent of their "stealth" skills need to be an ability to stay behind a hedgerow without waving their arms wildly at people intent on running down a different quary. We already did this at the river ambush fine.

And where do you get that their cavalry screen is going to field more than we can handle, in pursuit of what appears to them to be a few travellers on the road? These people came by ship, and while horses can bear that ordeal in short trips as at Hastings, they are unlikely to have brought many. We can strip all that away and blind them, while enabling us to scout at leisure.

Even if they sent all their outriders at once against a few scouts on the horizon, and those were even 100,000 frigging riders, we still have fresh horses in our ambush spot and they have ridden theirs into a lather to reach us. We easily retreat against a bad scenario that doesn't favor us. This is called skirmishing and scouting. Light forces do it all the time. We aren't looking to destroy or even really dent the enemy, only blind its scouting ability and establish our own. You really don't understand the goals here. At worst, we return to the Count and report, "They got lots of cavalry."

Finally, where was this general consensus? Or are you speaking for "those that don't post as often" again?

[Gervassen]

And let's be clear here, everyone likes lots of debate, and I'm glad to have my suggestion inspected because it can be a real lifesaver, but when we outfitted these troops long ago and decided their purpose, we said 'skirmishers and scouts."

This is what those groups do. General concensus can chew on that for a while.

[GreatWyrmGold]

My biggest problem is that our forces probably won't make a meaningful impact on the army at this time. At best, we trick a few dozen outriders or whatever into an ambush a few times before they wise up. If we discover some weakness we can exploit or a chokepoint for their supply train or something,  by all means exploit it, but until then we're risking our lives for little real benefit.

[10ebbor10]

My biggest problem is that our forces probably won't make a meaningful impact on the army at this time. At best, we trick a few dozen outriders or whatever into an ambush a few times before they wise up. If we discover some weakness we can exploit or a chokepoint for their supply train or something,  by all means exploit it, but until then we're risking our lives for little real benefit.

We're not attempting to attack their main force. Just their outriders, which will be limited in number anyway. Even if they wisen up, that'll hamper their scouting effort, as they become paranoid of ambushes.

[Gervassen]

My biggest problem is that our forces probably won't make a meaningful impact on the army at this time. At best, we trick a few dozen outriders or whatever into an ambush a few times before they wise up. If we discover some weakness we can exploit or a chokepoint for their supply train or something,  by all means exploit it, but until then we're risking our lives for little real benefit.

We're not attempting to attack their main force. Just their outriders, which will be limited in number anyway. Even if they wisen up, that'll hamper their scouting effort, as they become paranoid of ambushes.

Exactly! 

You don't get oportunities to exploit weaknesses. You make them. This is the process of wearing down their scouts and making those opportunities possible. And if a weakness doesn't show, we just go back to the Count with a lot of information and look like really good scouts that are too valuable to be battle-line fodder.

[tryrar]

My biggest problem is that our forces probably won't make a meaningful impact on the army at this time. At best, we trick a few dozen outriders or whatever into an ambush a few times before they wise up. If we discover some weakness we can exploit or a chokepoint for their supply train or something,  by all means exploit it, but until then we're risking our lives for little real benefit.

We're not attempting to attack their main force. Just their outriders, which will be limited in number anyway. Even if they wisen up, that'll hamper their scouting effort, as they become paranoid of ambushes.

Exactly! 

You don't get oportunities to exploit weaknesses. You make them. This is the process of wearing down their scouts and making those opportunities possible. And if a weakness doesn't show, we just go back to the Count with a lot of information and look like really good scouts that are too valuable to be battle-line fodder.

Edit: woops put my +1 IN the quotes

[GreatWyrmGold]

Ah.

Well, if possible, go for it.

[Gotdamnmiracle]

So much text.

[LordSlowpoke]

So much text.

Lordship: serious business

But hell, I'll +1 Gervassen but the debate club needs to agree to pull off some silliness later.

[Gotdamnmiracle]

Yes. We are utilizing our troops well, creating a group of quality recon troops, able to kill large numbers of off guard or shoddily armored enemies, moving quickly and offensively retreating when possible. We do not have numbers, so we will use tactics.

[Origami_Psycho]

I would like to put forward that when(if) we meet with the count we thank him for dealing with the wool merchant so quickly.

Also, let's take all of our halberdmen and a half our archers, alternatively we can take only a third of our halberdmen and all our archers in our little navy, so as to allow us to raid the raiders.

[Gervassen]

Lordship: serious business

You think you're funny? You think this is all joke? Those men are dying out there for us, because of our commands, and you haven't heard their mothers and wives wailing in grief as a result. I have. And it seared my soul for all thirty minutes that it wasn't retconned. I made a promise then and there that our boys were coming home together in one piece to their wives and mothers; and I will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, and type any number of pages of tactical doctrine to see them home safely. You think this is just a game? Well, it is. That's why it's serious. You need to get your mind right, son.