How Would You Defend A Mountain Fortress? (Volume II)

[NewbyDM]

I haven't followed this thread... so, maybe my ideas are already mentioned... but,
take the 600 vampires... and make with the 100,000 humans and x hobgoblins, 100,000 + x + 600 vampires
hit the anti-undead squads first... with so many vampires who can multipy themselfs, use globes of continual darkness (a lot of them) to keep it dark (advantage for undeads, fighting in darkness vs blinded opponents) and LET'S MAKE MORE VAMPIRES .

Also nice to see your friend turning in a vampire. It destroys morale.

Im also a fan of fireworks and summoning... everyone must love the large area of effect spells and the maralith (animate dead at will)

And if nothing works pray and run away!

im out... to think of more

 

[mmadsen]

I haven't followed this thread... so, maybe my ideas are already mentioned... but, take the 600 vampires... and make with the 100,000 humans and x hobgoblins, 100,000 + x + 600 vampires

I can understand not reading the entire original thread -- it was unwieldly, and that's why we started this thread -- but the third post of this new thread mentions that exact strategy:

The Vampires have many stengths and at least a few obvious weaknesses. Vampires and their spawn are, of course, vulnerable to sunlight and to Clerical magic, but they have an amazing capacity for spawning more of their kind -- particularly in the short term, since they "spawn" quickly and won't run out of "food" in the time frame of this military campaign. The two nearby cities might find their "noncombatants" (women and old men) quickly conscripted into the Midnight Legions. Also, Vampires don't have to advertise their nature. Armed as soldiers, adult, male Vampires should blend in fine (during a night attack).

I don't mean to get snippy, but what's the point of starting a new thread and summarizing the old thread's key points if people aren't even going to read the short summary?

 

[NewbyDM]

i did read it... it slipped my mind i guess, sorry for it, can i go now?

 

[Maldur]

mmmm, i only now noticed! Sharks starts a new thread and mmadsen recaps like mad!

You guys are teaming up on the rest of the world, are you?

 

[mmadsen]

i did read it... it slipped my mind i guess, sorry for it, can i go now?

I apologize for getting snippy, NewbyDM -- and I did get snippy -- but I recapped for a reason. Indeed, I "recapped like mad" so new posters wouldn't have to dredge through the old thread, and so we could keep the signal-to-noise as high as possible in this new thread. (Even this clarification is dropping the value of our thread...)

I want you to post here, and I understand that people will bring up ideas I've seen before. Just try to skim the recap posts and add to them.

 

[mmadsen]

To further recap some good ideas from the old thread:

Our Vampires make excellent night-time recon forces. They can summon wolves and rats to harrass the legions. Perhaps we can seed the rats with plague? As animals, they're Neutral, and the legions Lawful Good defenses probably won't stop them. If the Vampires can Dominate Vallorean Centurions, they can conceal this fact, and exercise their dominance at a critical moment; it works at any distance, once established. And, of course, our Vampires can spawn a Vampire army in less than a week.

Our Werewolves make excellent recon forces and ideal baggage-train harriers. Further, they can work with the Vampire's summoned wolves, perhaps blending in.

Our illusions and invisibility can't fool specialist sentries, but they can confuse rank-and-file troops. An ambush of invisible Wang-Liang shows up on "radar", but an attack by Ogres, Fire Giants, and Wang-Liang magically disguised as Ogres and Fire Giants might keep the spellcasters from targeting the Wang-Liang's weakness to fire (and acid).

Since we're evil, and many of our troops can operate well behind enemy lines, we should attack the troops' loved ones back home. Then we can present illusions of those loved ones in pain, becoming Vampires or Werewolves, etc. That could weaken morale, particularly if the loved ones plead with the soldiers to come home.

If our undead armies go beyond Vampires, we can bury Zombies, Ghouls, etc. along the path between Them and Us. At the right moment, our armies strike -- from below! Or we can spawn a Shadow army almost instantly, if we can get to the legions at night.

Of course, the legions themselves seem to be the least of our worries. A handful of Champions can bring the fight to us in a bad way.

 

[NewbyDM]

retry...

1- make an undead army (as mentioned before) with the vampires.
2- use a darkness generating spell that does allow darkvision, maybe something epic with a very large area of effect.
(The MM doesn't say under the heading vampire that these creatures have darkvision, but it does under the heading undead, so i assume the "creatures of the night" can see in the dark (60ft).
3- Make them go in melee (the undead) use cold and electrical damage (not heavy damage but moderate damage spells) to weaken the enemy troops (makes it easier to add vamps to the lot) and also eliminating the enemies archers and such (if they don't want to fire in the dark amids their own troops) and the vampires are largely immune to the spells.
4- Fighting in winter when its very cold is an advantage for the undeads not to be underestimated (see WW2)

For the high level bunch,... try to let them make a surprise move... (high level assault squat) and try to cut them off (don't let them go)...
Hit them with anti magic area's (spells like that) and create a large slap of stone above their head and let it drop. If im not mistaking, this slap of stone isn't magical anymore when the spell is done.or... use something like the spell (turn pebble to boulder, the reverse of it boulder to pebble (tome of magic, long ago)) when these pebbles hit the antimagic field they ... KABOOM!... anyway, i don't have all the books to see if the spell is still there...

Make a epic level dispelling spell with a large area of effect only for low levels spells... to disable these magical communication helmets, magical waterskins, and magical MRE (food ration) packs... i think they don't expect to bring along more food and water...

Make a pact with a demon(s) for more resources, these Vallorean's have planetar and aasimon help, why we not demon/devil (one of the 2) help (little thought: maybe demons and devils on each of the sides of the Vallorean's troops, maybe they fight harder to get to eachother). and use the fastness of abysses/hell forces to keep the Vallorean's busy... Think there demons/devils always wanted to pick a fight with some big goodies on neutral ground.
And if you can't use tactics like these, i think to Vallorean's superior numbers, superior combat-power, superior quantity of high level troops, better morale, better training and superior communication/logistic would rip us apart...

We have one advantage... we fight on our ground.

Hope this did contribute to this tread mr. snippy

 

[Leopold]

i still say disease and poison will be the greatest tool here. Poisoning the supply traing that holds the valloreans foodstuffs will put a halt to the whole march. Without supplies the food would remain useless and inedible.

 

[mmadsen]

i still say disease and poison will be the greatest tool here.

How useful is disease against an army full of high-level Clerics, Paladins, and assorted Half-Celestials? (Notice that Half-Celestials are immune to disease, get +4 Fort vs. poison, can neutralize poison at 5th level, and can remove disease at 7th level.)

Poisoning the supply traing that holds the valloreans foodstuffs will put a halt to the whole march. Without supplies the food would remain useless and inedible.

We've already established that the Valloreans carry magical MRE (Meals, Ready-to-Eat) packs and waterskins.

 

[Cergorach]

Why not 'upgrade' some of your own troops to vampires? Think about it, a Vampiric 20th level Fighter Firegiant is a very scarry proposition...