LpDND: Reunions

[Blackferne]

The captain reads the letter mumbling silently to himself as he reads.

"Well you must have made quite the impression on the Earl. He has appointed you as lieutenants in the Royal army." He hands the letter back to Tony. "At any rate the barbarians are amassing about a two hour march out into the east. When we first sent word to the Earl they only numbered maybe 20 or so, but they are apparently the tip of the Barbarian scouting party. They know we are here and are headed our way."

The Letter:

Captain Thrain,

I have received your word about a scouting party, and am sending some highly qualified individuals who can assist you until a proper regiment can fortify your position. For their acts of valor and heroism in the face of danger against the crown they are to be treated as lieutenants under your command until such time that they deem necessary to leave. I know you are a new to the post, and don't have any battle testing to you, so you'd be wise to take their counsel. That said all final decisions will fall on your shoulders.

Earl Karlkyns under Duke Rausten's banner in service of King Gavin

Stavis: The bulk of the men are a mix of enlisted soldiers and some older soldiers. They have no immediate health concerns beside too much red meat in their diet and probably liver scarring from excess ale consumption. They each have a long bow, 30 arrows in their supply, a long sword, a long shield, and a horse.

[Jimer Lins]

"Ha! I didn't know I'd been promoted!" Trinal laughs.

"What is your counsel, Captain? It seems we must move quickly to prepare."

[Whiteness]

Slightly emboldened by his field commision stands a bit straighter than usual after he dismounts his horse. He briefly wonders if his father was ever an officer in any official capacity before shaking off that thought and putting his mind to the task at hand.

"Captain, what is the terrain like where you think the barbarians are now? I want to know if there is any way to circle around them unnoticed."

[Blackferne]

The captain takes Syric to the gate and open to show the prairie.



"Flanking would be tricky. The advantage and the disadvantage of these grasslands is that you see everything and everything sees you. I suppose if you were insistent you could try a night time maneuver. Or go out 30 miles and circle back around."

[Blackferne]

@Trinal "And to answer your question, the fort is a multilevel wood structure which has turrets by which to launch arrow attacks. We have the stream at our back with provides some protection. But as you can see in the distance, we are looking at base don those fires quite a few men."

[Furiel]

"You say they only numbered 20 at first, so they are massing then? Do you have a rough count of how many we are talking total? What scouting assets do you have in place and if it comes to a seige how many days of food and supplies do we have to hold out with?"

[Whiteness]

[ooc] I misread and thought it was a 2 hour ride, so they're probably less than 10 miles away?

[Blackferne]

basically you guys are in this type of structure:

[Blackferne]

[ooc] I misread and thought it was a 2 hour ride, so they're probably less than 10 miles away?

They are about 10-15 miles out. You can see a tent city out that way.

[Whiteness]

"Well, at least they can't sneak up on us."

[Blackferne]

"You say they only numbered 20 at first, so they are massing then? Do you have a rough count of how many we are talking total? What scouting assets do you have in place and if it comes to a seige how many days of food and supplies do we have to hold out with?"

"We estimate they are 200 strong in soldiers, they have some servants or slaves being a support train numbering 50, but as a military threat that seems inconsequential. As for our scouting we send a couple boys out on horses periodically to see where they were until they got to this place. The best we can figure is they break into teams to do some scouting, reconvene, decide where to go, move as a huge group, then break out again. And as for our provisions, we can sustain about a two months as long as we have access to that water. If they divert the stream we'd be done in maybe 7 days."

[Jimer Lins]

[ooc- "Yeah, but it's a dry heat." "Shut up, Hudson."]

"So, what's the plan, friends? We could in theory hide outside the fort and attack from behind when they do, but that would be hard to manage. We'll be limited in here if they're besieging. Should we set ourselves up as a sallying party?"

[Blackferne]

Victae speaks "If you are right, they are 200 strong and we are 50. We have the fort, they can surround us. Do we have a retreat strategy?"

The Captain says "I'm new here, and to be honest this is supposed to be a boring post. Those kind of measures have never been considered before because this is a glorified lookout tower."

[Whiteness]

"Are they holding where they are now or are the advancing as we speak?"

[Whiteness]

Syric takes a deep, cleansing breath and lets it out slowly as he marshalls his thoughts.

"Let's review our options. We could try to plan a night raid, bring the fight to them, we could try to circle around them, but that may takt too long....how easily does the local grass burn?"

[Blackferne]

"They've been camped there for 2 nights while their support column is closing in. As for the grass, we've had a light rain the other day, but beyond that it has been pretty dry. I'd imagine that fire would spread if you tossed a torch out there."

[Jimer Lins]

And probably burn down the fort.

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[Furiel]

"The answer is obvious...we attack their supplies and destroy them. 200 men is far too many to live off the land effectively long term. If we destroy their supplies then they will be forced to either retreat or attack the fort en-masse. If they retreat, problem solved for now. If they attack en-masse then we have the advantage of the walls and range along with generally eliminating the manueverability advantage they have since they are said to be excellent horseman."

[Blackferne]

"There is no honor in killing slaves." Gobo grunts.

"And on a more tactical note, their soldiers are between us and the lingering supply line. to get to them we'd need to get around the soldiers to the supply line, and even then we would still have the 200 soldiers not that far away chasing us." Victae says.

[Furiel]

"Tony Plush never said we would kill the slaves. Slaves aren't supplies, food, water and wagons, those are supplies. To defeat a foe you do not need to kill him, you just need to remove his ability to fight. Often times that does involve killing them true, but in this case not necessarily. We would have to go around the soldiers true, and perhaps Tony Plush has misinterpreted the Captain's statement that the supply train has not yet caught up to the soldiers. If it has then that would make this plan much riskier, if it has not then we would just need to swing wide of the current camp, likely under the cover of darkness, then find the supply train, destroy it, then we fade into the wilderness before pursuit can catch up and again circle back to the fort. Even if they give pursuit it would be limited some merely by them leaving people back to try to salvage when they can of the supplies. Tony Plush admits it is not a perfect plan, but we have that idea, or we try to survive a seige are the two options he has heard so far and it's almost always better to be on the offensive than the defensive."

[Jimer Lins]

Trinal agrees that if they can be reached, the supply lines are an excellent way to maintain initiative. What is the current best known status of their supply train?

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[Blackferne]

"Our most recent report shows that the supply train stretches about 8 miles behind the main camp now." The Captain says.

[Whiteness]

I think attacking the supplies would be a wasted effort. These barbarians are demon worshipping monsters, I don't think the loss of supplies will cause them to retreat but attack like Tony said and I think that is their next course of action anyway. Are there any reports of their horses, do they seem to have more horses then men and are they kept together or does each man seem to stay with their own steed?"

[Whiteness]

Syric continues, "My thought is to see if there is a way to sneak in at night and take out their horses. If we can get in and hit enough at once with great speed we could greatly impact the next battle. If they are kept together we could let them loose, perhaps start a fire to cause confusion in the camp and scare the horses away."

[Blackferne]

"We estimate each soldier has 3 horses at his disposal. Slaves and servants have 5, though usually those are just pack animals." The Captain says.