Print

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

[Kassire]

"Wouldn't be exactly easy to have our troops pretend to be their's if these caravan's are heavily guarded and we're sneaking in. Though if their soldiers are hungry, they wouldn't fight well if we attempt to forcibly take the fortress, do the attack at night and they wouldn't know if their being attacked from dragons, orcs, or even our army."

[Nerjin]

"We should siege them I think. Why risk our lives heading into enemy territory when we can force them to come to us."

Is there a time constraint we are working under? What do we have in the way of resources (Soldiers [and general equipment], Supplies, building materiels etc.)? Can we see an actual map of the castle in general? How large is it?

[Tawa]

Is there a time constraint we are working under? What do we have in the way of resources (Soldiers [and general equipment], Supplies, building materiels etc.)? Can we see an actual map of the castle in general? How large is it?

You have twenty soldiers, but fifteen of them are conscripts with spears and studded leather. You have roughly 500 gold pieces' worth of general supplies. The sketch is extremely rough, but the castle is shown to be square, wide enough that it would take a man running at full speed a good eighteen seconds to get from one side to the other, and has three guard towers to a side in addition to one on each corner.

[tryrar]

Kellendra looks at the map again. "Send out the scouts again and tell them we need more detail, such as defenses like moats, and rough positions of visible guards on the walls, and any details on the keep. Also see if they can discretely observe people coming in and out and procedures for challenging approaching people. We aren't going to have much success sneaking in if we don't know these things, and I'd rather not chance a fight if we don't have to."

Kellendra instructs the scouts in these things and sends them on their way

[Flying Dice]

"We don't have the men for a proper siege. What we should do is smash those damned supply trains until they're eating their boots. The bastards'll have no choice but to sortie against us, and we can whittle them down from there. As long as we stop them from getting food or reinforcements, it'll only be a matter of time." Norward grins with a hint of wry amusement, "Mayhap Lady Luck'll even flash us her teats wiv' a chance to batter through a postern gate if they get slow and tired enough. I'm always up for a solid scrap in place of this bandit rot, effective though it is, and there's naught tricky about this one save the rutting walls of that brick."

Two Checks:

Know: History. What do I know about this castle in particular? Any secrets that might not be on the local rumor mill?
Martial Lore: How are supply caravans to a castle in a situation like this typically arranged? How many men, what sort of outriders (if any), &c?

[Tawa]

History: [23] You remember something about this place. Back in 476, a siege in it during the last border squabble was crushed when the invading army sent an elite group of shock troopers into a secret passage in the wall opposite the main gates.

You also remember that the castle is moat-free.

Martial Lore: [6] You have inadvertently neglected supply caravans in your studies.

[Flying Dice]

After standing in quiet thought for several minutes Norward looks up, glancing around warily. In a lower tone than before, he speaks to the others, "I've just had an old memory come to mind, a passage from a text I read in my youth. Around a century and a bit ago some bastard of a mercenary captain broke a siege on this same bloody castle with a strike through a secret passage. The account mentioned the general location of the entrance, and mayhap we could find it ourselves."

[tryrar]

Kellendra smiles at that. "Much better than sneaking in or attacking caravans! Where was this passage located?"

[Flying Dice]

"It has been quite some time, but by my recollection it was on the side opposite the main gate. Can't speak to the exact placement, and it's been a damned long time, so it may be trouble finding the entrance. Might do to have some of the scouts focus their efforts there, glass it out in daylight hours to avoid being seen paying unusual attention to that side."

[Nerjin]

"It would likely be best though finding supply caravans might grant us several benefits. They lose supplies while we gain them. Still, I wouldn't mind ending this quickly if the entrance can be found."

[Harbingerjm]

"A tunnel is good, but it does still leave the problem of launching an attack on a larger, more professional force with little idea of where our exact target is. We should try to observe where the enemy leadership is headquartered in the castle, and at the very least arrange a distraction to pull away forces. Perhaps arrange an attack through the tunnel at the same time the survivors from an attack on one of their supply trains return, or an attack with fire arrows and oil. Also, consider that the enemy may well know of the tunnel as well, whether from discovering it in their time occupying or through the same source your knowledge came from."

[Flying Dice]

Norward chuckles, "Aye, and that's assuming the bloody thing hasn't been sealed off in the long years since that battle. I'd not like to split our forces, though; we've naught but twenty-odd men, half of whom are peasant conscripts. Our best chance, if the tunnel is open and undiscovered, would be to leave our scouts to their work for some days to gather all they can. In the meantime, we can give them impression that we intend to play the long game."

Plan:
+Give the scouts as much time as they need to (but no more than ~10 days, something like that):
  -Confirm the location of the tunnel entrance, and that it is both open and not obviously guarded or trapped.
  -Establish a better estimate of the enemy garrison, both in terms of their numbers and their quality.
  -Work out a projection of their watch rotations, when the guard changes, &c.
  -Build a description of their commander, as well as his daily routine.
+Party & some of the conscripts raid supply caravans. Leave our skilled NPCs for the raid.

[tryrar]

Kellendra agrees to this plan

[Harbingerjm]

"Agreed. Ideally, we'll also be able to set up a distraction with minimal manpower needed to set it off when we do strike; captured troops we can "accidentally" let escape, a pre-prepared seige weapon that only needs one person to trigger it, something like that. We may be able to find something that will assist in that goal in their supply train."

[Flying Dice]

"The issue is... what? We're operating with severely limited resources, and any siege engine worth the effort would require more than a single man to operate. All that comes to mind would be building a false siege camp on the gate side, out of sight of the walls. Set up many fires in places they cannot see, and when the time comes, have a couple runners with torches ignite them. We'll likely need to wait for further reports, but if they've run up wooden structures inside for barracks and the like, perhaps we could ignite the blasted things, were we to find enough bows and archers."

Norward pauses for a moment, "But in either case, we'd want to start setting the fires several nights in advance, lest they simply alert the bastards to our intent. Give them time to become accustomed to it."