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Total Members Voted: 10

[Beneviento]

This is a medieval-ish suggestion game set in a land that will vaguely resemble medieval-ish Europe, though the time period will be very negotiable. Some fantasy elements may or may not be included, but there will be no magic, nor mages. You are a the commander of a mercenary band, and that's about all that I'm going to set in stone.

You wake up in your tent, and jolt to a seated position at the sound of a horn, though you relax when you realize it is only some prancing idiot of a knight, hunting boar. You feel contemplative, and you look back on your life. You grew up in a small village, and joined a band of young men who set out to make their fortunes, led by the third son of some lord or other. He was killed trying to be a hero in the first battle you fought, and you were raised up on a shield and given the leadership of the warband. You've led your men from fight to fight, employer to employer since then. It's a hard life, but a good one.

Who are you(age, name, etc), and why were you chosen as leader?
What kind of men do you lead?
What will you do now?

[Harbingerjm]

Who are you(age, name, etc), and why were you chosen as leader?
We are Cedric Stoneye, 32, and we were chosen as leader for our combination of vicious creativity when it comes to combat tactics, concern for keeping our troops alive and in good condition, and emphasis on training and discipline.

What kind of men do you lead?
Our force is a small-to-medium group of skilled scouts, ambushers and marksmen, primarily using crossbows, traps and stealth to keep alive and out of trouble while performing reconnaissance and guide roles for employers.

What will you do now?
Get dressed and take a leak.

[Beneviento]

You are Cedric Stoneye, leader of the Aldornian Foresters, a mercenary company of scouts and crossbowmen held in high regard for your skill, stealth, and cunning. You have walked the earth for 32 years, and have been fighting for the last fifteen or so. You get out of your bedroll and pull on your tunic, trousers, and the wide feathered hat that is the mark of the Foresters.
Suddenly feeling a need to relieve yourself, you step outside and see Jeg Castle, a small castle with a garrison of no more than 30 men. It is this castle that your employer, the Count of Dorven, seeks to "take", as the lord of Jeg had previously run off with the Count's wife. It seems however that "take" to the Count means "camp just short of the enemy and take various amusements without offering battle or laying siege." You chuckle at this thought and make your way to the latrine at the other end of your Foresters' camp.
You nod at your men as you pass them dicing, talking, and cooking their morning meals. You reach the latrine and have just finished your business when your second-in-command, an older man named Tolver who is missing half an ear, walks over to you and salutes before beginning to speak.
"Sir, the Count wants to see you. He's holding some kind of council of war!" Tolver sounds excited. You thank him for the news and think on this new development.
What will you do?

Spoiler: Cedric Stoneye (click to show/hide)

Name: Cedric Stoneye
Age: 32, born Spring, Year 1213 (Currently Summer, Year 1245)
Possessions: Average Crossbow, Forester's hat, Average Clothes, Mail hauberk, 150 Crowns(currency)
Health: Excellent
Skills: Good Crossbowman, Good Leader, Above Average Tactician

Spoiler: The Aldornian Foresters (click to show/hide)

50 Crossbowmen, 2 officers
Good Crossbowmen
Good Scouts
Above Average Ambushers
Fresh
Morale: Good

[Playergamer]

Go.

(This isn't our battle. We've foresters, not heavy infantry.)

[ShadowHammer]

Attend the Council. Also take stock of the landscape surrounding the castle.

[Beneviento]

Accompanied by Tolver and two of your men, you walk the quarter-mile or so to the Count's camp, and are quickly ushered to the Count's command tent. You step inside and see the Count, a somewhat overweight man of about 40 with a square jaw and a set of long drooping moustaches, breaking his fast on quail and various other foods. He nods when he notices your approach, and gestures for you to sit at the long table where the Count and three other men are seated. The man to the left of you, a tall slender man in priest's robes, offers you a cup of wine, but you politely decline.
After clearing his throat, the Count speaks. "Alright then, let's get down to it. I've come here to get my wife back, and teach both her and the bastard what stole her a lesson or two. I want to get back home before... the harvest, right, the harvest, so we're going to do this quickly. Here's the plan. You, mercenary, Lazy-eye or whatever your name is, I want you and your men to move against them first and get the gates open. Fire them, ram them, I don't really care. We'll attack at midday, three days from now, so get something figured out. Then I want you to clear the curtain wall. After you've finished that, Sir Duncan and I will move up and finish whatever of them remain in the keep. Clear?" He asks, and you agree.
After the council, you make the walk back to you camp, fuming to yourself at the Count's plan. He would have you thrown against the walls first, do the hardest jobs, and take the most casualties while you were at it, while the Count's men, 50 or so heavy sergeants and about 200 levied peasants and guardsmen, sat back and enjoyed the show. You have a good amount of faith in your men, but even you doubt that they can do this. You are also puzzled at why the Count is so adamant to take the castle so quickly, while a siege would be relatively bloodless and short besides, with the lack of food Jeg's men could have stored.
Walking back, you look at Jeg Castle, and notice that the land around is quite hilly, and well forested besides, though the hundred yards around the castle are cleared. A river runs at the base of the hill the castle sits upon, and you imagine they are well placed in the situation of water, with wells probably inside the walls. That is all you see for the moment.

What will you do?

Spoiler: Cedric Stoneye (click to show/hide)

Name: Cedric Stoneye
Age: 32, born Spring, Year 1213 (Currently Summer, Year 1245)
Possessions: Average Crossbow, Forester's hat, Average Clothes, Above Average Observer, Mail hauberk, 150 Crowns(currency)
Health: Excellent
Skills: Good Crossbowman, Good Leader, Above Average Tactician

Spoiler: The Aldornian Foresters (click to show/hide)

50 Crossbowmen, 2 officers
Good Crossbowmen
Good Scouts
Above Average Ambushers
Fresh
Supplies: Excellent
Morale: Good

[FritzPL]

((This game is going to be fun.))

Find Sir Duncan and ask for his opinion.

I'm thinking we somehow lure them out of the castle using half a dozen of our men or so, then use the rest to ambush the attackers, seeing as we are good at stealth and ambushing.
We could always posion the water, three days without it is enough to exhaust them - it's a win-win situation, either they come out to get water from a clean source and risk being ambushed, or we do a fresh-and-eager merc vs thirsty-and-tired peasant battle.

[PewdsRocks]

(( The wells are inside, you can't poison them without finding a way in first. The only way to poison the wells is to poison them directly.. Luring them out is good but how? They're under siege they know your numbers are superior. They're unlikely to come out until they have no choice. ))

Check out the hill tops looking for any with trees tall enough that when climbed would allow you to see inside the enemy castle and are within crossbow range.

[Playergamer]

We need to talk the count out of this somehow. We are not melee soldiers, and this will destroy us. If he wants to continue with this plan, we may have to desert.

(Deserting will destroy our reputation, maybe, but not deserting will kill us all.)

[PewdsRocks]

(( That depends, let's try to gather some intel first. If we find a place to observe over the castle walls we can launch 1-2 feints. We lose nobody but they have to react assuming it's an attack.

Maybe we'll find a weakness we can exploit. ))

[Harbingerjm]

What kind of contract did we sign up with? Surely we didn't agree to be wall-stormers?

[PewdsRocks]

(( Typically you don't get to specify what you do, your hired as soldiers it's up to the commander who hired us how he uses us. But he has left how we accomplish the job up to us. I'm sure we can find a way to play to our strengths.

I have a few ideas but without more information they're just guesses. ))

[FritzPL]

Well the problem is, we were hired by him to do the dirty job, so we can't really openly object what he said... as I said, let's meet up with Sir Duncan and ask him if maybe there's a different way to do this.

[PewdsRocks]

We're new here, that's going to make us look scared, weak or both and we haven't even tried anything yet. Maybe we should actually see if we can do the job before we start asking for help?
Our unit has any of 100 different options if the terrain or layout or enemy behavior is right.
There's no need to make ourselves look scared before we even begin.

For instance, hilly terrain thats covered in trees makes approaching without being seen easy especially for our kind of troops, it makes observation simple and if the terrain is correct would allow us to snipe sentries on the walls by sending men up into trees that are close enough in the dark to fire at dawn. Preferably the easy side so the sentries are blinded by the first light of the day while our men can see perfectly.
Remove sentries on one side of the wall and we can climb it on ladders made of wood which we have plenty of, once on the wall if the sentries die silently our enemy will still be looking for attacks from outside and most of his men will be asleep allowing us to kill off other wall guards and if it works, open a gate from inside. While thats going on our men who are good at stealth, ambushes and long range combat drop as many sentries as they can in silence.

With the gate open our boss has no option but to attack if he wants to keep his mens respect and if he doesn't? Our biggest weakness is in attacking, we hold the wall giving us the high ground and forcing the enemy to send his men into bottlenecks if they want to reach us, our men have weapons designed to go through armor and most of the defenders men are militia. We'll cause mass casualties on an enemy disorganized and half asleep likely causing the militia who generally have weak morale to surrender. Target his professional men officers first when they show up to remove his best units. Worst case scenario? We run out the open gate or climb down the ladders again and have caused our enemy serious losses, badly damaged morale, forced him to double or triple is sentries at night exhausting a limited number of men and it costs us a few crossbow bolts.

[Parsely]

Let's take this one step at a time. PewdsRocks is right, we should check it out before chickening out. We don't even know how big this castle is, and there's only thirty men besides. Let's speak to Sir Duncan about the garrison inside the castle. Any information about their arms or experience?

Once that's done, we ought to head to the edge of the forest with a small armed party and scout the castle. Check fortifications, material and height of the walls. Type and condition of the gate. Secondary fortifications like moats. How fortified is the canal running into the castle? Is it just a simple grate? Also what's the shape of the curtain? Is it an exact square? Are there towers or slits where the enemy can fire from?

Once we know these things then we can decide whether we'll need help or not.

EDIT: And its 100 yards from the forest to the castle. That's quite a piece, even for a crossbow and from atop a good size tree.

Sneaking during the day is right out, but we can always pick off sentries if we shield ourselves somehow. Attacking at night has its other dangers, but I'd like to explore other options before we resort to attrition.

EDIT: EDIT: Did the count specify a time limit?