How does Thrane actually fight?

Originally posted by Ogiwan:

Greetings, all Eberron fans. So, according to Forges of War (Juums, try not to vomit), Thranish doctrine features large masses of poorly-armed, religious infantry engaging the enemy front while divine casters do their thing, and heavy Thranish cavalry make a breakthrough.

However, something that's always bothered me is that the very symbol of the Silver Flame is an arrowhead, and the favored weapon is the longbow.

So, why wouldn't Thrane be akin to England? Boasting large masses of (trained!) longbow-equipped infantry? 

Les Grognards....LE GRUMBLE! 

Originally posted by Madfox11:

I recall that when reading Forges of War that I got the impression that the large masses of poorly-armed religious and unfortunately hard to control fanatics was a somewhat unplanned side-effect. Since they are unplanned side-effect of religious fanaticism, they are likely ill-trained and the longbow does require a lot of training. The Silver Flame preaches that each should oppose evil to the best of their capability and profession. The Church does not expect simple farmers to be able to use weapons and take up physical arms against evil. Of course, now that the Church has taken a central in government and a much more physical presence in war at large as opposed to the good fight against evil, it is certainly possible those farmers have taken up archery as a religious exercise and duty, meaning that over time these mobs of religious fanatics are becoming better at archery and during the next war Thrane might have a new weapon to use

Originally posted by Hellcow:

Frankly, I completely ignore Forge of War on this matter. It doesn't fit my image of Thrane during the war at all.

The Church of the Silver Flame isn't a nation of insane fanatics. Among other things, the larger portion of SF zealots is actually in Aundair. The CotSF teaches people to be prepared to fight the evil that DOES exist in the world. At any time, aberrations COULD burst out of Khyber. The Silver Crusade against the lycanthropes is an example of the fact that Thrane and the church COULD assemble a militant force capable of mounting a foreign campaign on short notice.

In any case, in the early design of the world, my concept of the strengths of each nation in the Last War were as follows:

Aundair. Small population, kept afloat by its strong edge in arcane magic.

Breland. Edge in population, industry, and espionage. Overall military discipline inferior to many other nations, but forces include a number of highly charismatic and clever commanders willing to take personal initiative. So trouble with Karrnath overall, but often wins battles against all odds or by cheating (with assassins and spies).

Cyre. Relies heavily on mercenary forces to make up for a lack of combat strength. Reasonable magical support, in part due to heavy purchasing from House Cannith.

Karrnath. Best military discipline; excellent heavy infantry; decent arcane support; necromancy as a tool.

Thrane. Excellent peasant militia; morale; archery; divine magic. Small but capable force in the Knights of Thrane. The key here is that Thrane's peasant population includes a high percentage of trained archers and the faith teaches people to be ready to fight. It lacks the full military strategy/discipline you get from a Karrnathi force, but they have access to vast numbers of peasant archers with high morale due to their shared faith. So yes, I have always seen Thrane vs Karrnath as an Agincourt situation: Karrnath has superior heavy armor, Thrane has the best archers in the land.

Overall, I think Thrane's depiction in Forge of War misses a lot of what the Silver Flame is about, and IIRC James Wyatt agrees with me.

But as always, it's up to you to decide what your Eberron looks like...


Originally posted by Hellcow:

The Silver Flame preaches that each should oppose evil to the best of their capability and profession. The Church does not expact simple farmers to be able to use weapons and take up physical arms against evil.

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Yes and no. The church doesn't EXPECT it, but as it acknowledges the dangers out there, it's good to be prepared if you can. Looking to this Dragonshard, it's said "Priests also encourage archery as a form of meditation, and in many communities the faithful can come to train at the local church of the Flame. This can result in an unusually high number of 1st-level warriors or commoners with Martial Weapon Proficiency (longbow) in areas devoted to the Flame."


Originally posted by Hellcow:

As a side note, to the degree that I accept FoW's Thranish mobs, I agree with Madfox11 that it was an unplanned side effect that was largely due to an influx of immigrants. The CotSF is spread across Khorvaire. When Thrane became a theocracy, the faithful of other nations had to choose whether to remain loyal to their country or to Thrane. IMO, many stood their ground on the premise that the temporal Last War had nothing to do with the mission of the church; many of the foreign faithful maintain that the theocracy distracts the church from its mission and encourages corruption due to the lure of political power. However, you would have had an influx of those who were drawn by the appeal of a new Kingdom of the Flame... and these would be people coming from all nations and backgrounds, not necessarily sharing the traditions of the Thranish faithful. So the THRANES might have an established tradition of archery and peasant militia easily directed by village priests... but the mob of a hundred Brelish drawn by the vision might be a rabble with no particular connection to the local commanders.

Originally posted by Ogiwan:

Keith, if I haven't mentioned this before...you're my hero.

I'll have to come back to this thread in a couple days once I'm done researching and writing this paper. My initial reaction, though, is satisfaction that two other notable people agree with me.

As for my paper, its on the logistics of the European Theater of Operations, and if you really want to know why I'm here, I'm waiting for The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas to load. Its one of the "The US Army in World War II" books, otherwise known as the Green Books.

Originally posted by Hellcow:

Looking again to strengths of Thrane: Karrnath is the seat of Rekkenmark, and this is where the officers of Galifar learned their trade. It's a culture that has always celebrated martial discipline and strength.

By contrast, Thrane's military tradition isn't concerned with conquering nations or fighting other humans. Nonetheless, the fundamental principle of the church is to defend the innocent against the very real, often physical threat of supernatural evil. When the war began, the templars of the church likely had the most hands-on recent experience with combat, because they'd been fighting undead, outbreaks from Khyber, raids from the Demon Wastes, and what have you. Meanwhile, you have peasant militias trained to defend the helpless when the darkness rises, and in Eberron that could happen any day.

This is why I give Thrane the edge in morale. Karrnath has the edge in discipline and mass tactics. Breland the edge in industry. But the people of Thrane have had drilled into them that terrible things could happen any day and that they need to be ready to stand together and defend the weak from harm. They didn't expect that threat to be other humans, and that's a tragic waste - but they still knew that you had to be ready to string your bow and fight on a moment's notice. Essentially, think of the way some people have a Zombie Apocalypse Survival Plan. That everyone in Thrane - they just had to convert their tactics to dealing with humans.

So Thrane began with a small standing army in the templars... but a force with considerable experience ("Hey, Brelish! What have you been doing for training? Me, I've been hunting ghouls."). This was then supplemented by Minuteman-style peasant militias.

HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT... The Flame is spread across Khorvaire. You'd have Flame militias in Cyre, too. The issue is simply than in Thrane you're more likely to have an entire village who shares the faith, dedicates space to an archery range, and trains together... while in Breland, you might have two families in a village who follow the faith.

Originally posted by DoctorBadWolf:

So, Cyre stays relevant mostly through mercs and magical tech, with some of their own magic?

I would have guessed some small sabotage/black ops units, as well.


Originally posted by Hellcow:

So, Cyre stays relevant mostly through mercs and magical tech, with some of their own magic? I would have guessed some small sabatoge/black ops units, as well.

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It's mainly a matter of looking at the facilities the nations possessed prior to the war.

Karrnath was home to Rekkenmark and was the center of Galifar's military leadership. Hence, best military discipline and strategists, with a culture that produced determined soldiers.

Aundair was home to the Arcane Congress and thus possessed the edge in arcane firepower and research, and its people largely considered magic to be a better solution to problems than physical force.

Thrane had Flamekeep, with the bulk of the templars, devout peasant populace, and the greatest number of militant divine casters (Sovereign casters generally being disorganized and not for the most part warlike).

Aside from its industrial complex, Breland had the King's Citadel, which was originally the KING OF GALIFAR'S Citadel - thus, Breland has always had the edge in espionage and intelligence. This is further advanced by its ties to both Zilargo and House Medani.

Meanwhile, Cyre was the cultural and administrative center of the kingdom. On the plus side, this meant they had the bulk of the treasury and thus greater resources for hiring all those mercenaries. On the minus side, having the finest art gallery in the land isn't quite as helpful in wartime as having the college of war or the finest magical research facilities.

Bear in mind: EVERY nation employed arcane and divine magic, mercenaries, spies, etc. Cyre may have used mercenaries extensively, but they still had their citizen soldiers too. And in the start of the war, every nation had some number of Citadel-trained spies, Rekkenmark-trained officers, etc, because the facility belonged to GALIFAR. The first Royal Eyes of Aundair were King's Dark Lanterns from Aundair who changed their name when the Citadel was subsumed by the Brelish crown. It's simply the case that the nations that housed those facilities both had the facilities themselves and had more of a cultural disposition to that sort of thing.

With that said, I agree that Cyre would have some decent black ops groups, and the proof (that I think this) is that we see one of those units in The Fading Dream. 

Originally posted by DoctorBadWolf:

This. This is why Eberron is best setting.

I could go for Eberron and Dragonlance being the two main settings in Next. Almost complete opposites, and both really awesome.

Anyway, I think the superior financial resources thing could lead to black ops with some really shiny toys. I mean, PC types with all the right gear, sort of thing.

Doesn't hurt to be able to purchase the loyalty of the best monster and civilized mercs around, either.

Makes me want to play during the war. Possibly toward the beginning. I really hope you get to do some supplements for different eras in Next, Keith.

Originally posted by Ogiwan:

So, doing the thinking. I can see Thranish forces unleashing hailstorms of arrows from their trained archers. The rest of their forces, though, probably consists of spearmen.

Think about it! Thrane doesn't have any major centers of industry, nor do they have access to large amounts of iron ore. They do have a few forests, which would be ideal to make spears from. Plus, a forest of spears would protect the longbowmen from direct assault, and those spearmen would probably stick around because of high morale. On the attack, Thrane would have to rely on the Knights to punch a hole for the spearmen to flood through.

This means that Thraneish forces would be pretty good on defense, but would kinda suck at taking ground. Offensively, they'd rely on fire superiority to smash the enemy before committing to an offensive with their infantry.

Branching out, though, I kinda think that Breland would have the forces with the highest morale, because a lot of their people would be volunteers doing their civic duty. Look at the American Civil War; units from both sides took brutal casualties, but still stayed and fought together (I remember some of the units from the Iron Brigade took casualties as high as 80% and kept on trucking).

Originally posted by areleth:

So, doing the thinking. I can see Thranish forces unleashing hailstorms of arrows from their trained archers. The rest of their forces, though, probably consists of spearmen.

Think about it! Thrane doesn't have any major centers of industry, nor do they have access to large amounts of iron ore. They do have a few forests, which would be ideal to make spears from. Plus, a forest of spears would protect the longbowmen from direct assault, and those spearmen would probably stick around because of high morale. On the attack, Thrane would have to rely on the Knights to punch a hole for the spearmen to flood through.

This means that Thraneish forces would be pretty good on defense, but would kinda suck at taking ground. Offensively, they'd rely on fire superiority to smash the enemy before committing to an offensive with their infantry.

Branching out, though, I kinda think that Breland would have the forces with the highest morale, because a lot of their people would be volunteers doing their civic duty. Look at the American Civil War; units from both sides took brutal casualties, but still stayed and fought together (I remember some of the units from the Iron Brigade took casualties as high as 80% and kept on trucking).

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I like the concept of Thrane being a force with great endurance, but they're slow to move and take opportunities. Once they've taken a piece of important ground (Thaliost) its hard to force them out.

Aundair could be something of the opposite, with a great offensive edge in their arcane magic and prizing mobility over endurance. Since they had lots of access to the Reaches and Vadalis, they could have fielded the most cavalry out of the nations. They don't have any great access to iron, like Thrane, so maybe they made use of Magewright Light Cavalry to hit really hard and clear the way for their militias to take the field. Considering the big 'boom' potential of arcane magic, I think it'd make sense that their lack of heavy units would be a big issue with them really holding onto their gains.

And I agree that Breland would probably have the highest morale, but I think the fact that they'd probably be the best supplied is a big factor in that. Karrnathi soldiers go into battle on the edge of starvation, the Aundairian and Thranish soldiers have rather poor and beaten equipment, and the Cyrans are everyone's favorite punching bags. The Brelish might not be living in luxury, but they go into battle better fed and probably better rested.

One other thing, I'd like to suggest that Cyre had the strongest navy. Both because its a nation of waterways and ports, and because they have nothing else.

Originally posted by Ogiwan:

The thing about saying that Thrane has endurance, well...I don't know. Frankly, I think that they would defend most effectively by fire, not by steel. I don't see Thranes closing for the decision, because their front-line infantry are low quality. Similarly, I don't see them standing like a stone wall either. Ward off an isolated cavalry charge or two once they schiltrom up? Sure. But, if a Thranish front line takes a hard enough shock, I don't think they're coming back.

Essentially, I see Thrane relying on massive, English-like volleys of longbow fire to degrade, slow, and demoralize attackers. If the attack comes to a halt, then I can see the Thranes launching a countercharge. Without that sort of fire support, a Thranish front-line unit cannot survive against other nations. Only by literal divine intervention can Thranish infantry approach parity with other infantry from the Five Nations.

I absolutely agree with your ideas about Aundair. If you look at their notable unit (the Knights Phantom, of the Knights Arcane), you see...dragoons. Infantry who move about the battlefield with the alacrity of cavalry, only to dismount and fight on foot. With company (or platoon?)-sized units having access to arcane magic in the form of eternal wands and whatnot, Aundair can put out a surprising amount of pain. However, on the defense....yeah, not so much. They might be able to use hordes of summoned monsters, but.....

Concerning Cyre, I think you're forgetting the wealth of the Purple Jewel. Cyre had crazy amounts of wealth, and so, they could hire lots of mercenaries. Sure, some of these mercenaries include the Darguul and Valenar forces that would eventually stab them in the back....but other mercenary forces also include the Warforged legions of Cannith, which are flat-out terrifying forces.

Areleth, have you looked at any of the other threads on this board? There's a small group of us who overthink things about Eberron....and make wonderful, wonderful ideas.