Military tactics vs. high-level spellcasters

[Hussar]

Actually, heads on at speed has some things that work for it.

Use steel covered wagons to move your troops in. Basically a low tech version of an APC. Cover means that a great deal of the damage of those fireballs is negated. Place the horse within the wagon as well to give them cover.

Sure, it won't be as fast as a running man, but, if you force the wizzies to blow off most of their spells, then you take them out of the battle.

But, this is a very close thing nonetheless.

I could also see specialized siege weapons - multi-bank ballistae aimed very high as anti-aircraft weapons. I would also be loading a LOT of thunderstones into a trebuchet as well.

 

[Quartz]

Assaulting this fortress with an army is a non-starter. Why? Because it's on a peninsula. The fortress can be resupplied and reinforced by sea (Teleport's not good enough due to the weight restrictions).

You need high-level spellcasters with Storm of Vengeance, Gate, et al.

 

[Slife]

Wizards eh?

Marching an army won't work: Scry, Fly, Invisibility, Fireball, etc.
Flying could work, especially on griffins. But beware the mage who can control winds or weather. (not a wizard spell, but theres bound to be an oddball among them)

The SRD says that it is.

 

[LostSoul]

Take your 10,000 guys and do tests to find the ones with the highest stats. Then start training them. Have them kill the losers in your army until they are a nice, meaty level. Then send those 4 guys against the castle and watch it fall.

In other words, treat your army like an experience point mill.

 

[Dragonblade]

Frontal assualt is simply not a winnable option and no seasoned high level commander would even consider it. Without magical support of their own, the enemy army simply doesn't stand a chance in a direct siege.

How big is this town? If I was the enemy commander and had no magical support of my own, I'd slowly filter in troops over the course of the month. Set up some faux caravans with some modest goods to seem legitimate. All of the merchants and caravan guards would of course be my soldiers in disguise. Once you have gotten enough troops into the city, you can spring the attack, seize control of the gates, and have the rest of the army (conveniently hidden in the surrounding countryside) come running in.

If you do have magical support, I'd try the previous option but have mages of my own summoning monsters or elementals and send them rampaging through the streets. Just enough to keep the high level people and mages busy while you seize the gates and let the rest of the army in.

Or if you can get creative with non-book magic items, have the army carry standards magically enchanted to radiate an anti-magic shell effect. With enough coverage flying wizards are taken out of the picture. Piratecat's strategy with the archers is a very good one and should not be dismissed. I have punctured the puffed up overconfidence of many a high level PC by simply having 20 or more low-level opponents focus all their attacks on one character. Odds are 1 in 20 is a hit so don't even bother rolling. They will take guaranteed damage every round.

 

[Polydamas]

Assuming these are 3.x edition wizards...

a wizard's most vital possession is expensive, takes a long time to replace, and is highly flammable. When it is removed many options are open, and time becomes an ally not a foe.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

With an army of 10 000 mostly melee types, I think it is very doable. You will probably suffer 90 to 98% casualties, but it could be done.

You would need to use smoke sticks in extraordinary quantities to give yourself visual cover. You would also need to have seige engines in mass numbers, and loads of Alchemists fire.

Once you breach the fortress, the strategy boils down to "Every body dogpile the Wizards".

Now, this is a far from perfect plan. For one, it makes the assumption that the wizards need to keep the attacking army out of the fortress. For another, it assumes that the wizards wont simply retreat, recharge, and return later.

The one thing that has me thinking that the army has a chance is simply that ranged weapons can indeed go quite a long way if you simply choose to eat the range penalty, and that a volly of even 1000 arrows is something that becomes more of an area attack, even at extreme range.

A wizard of that level hardly needs to stick around and get killed though, so I consider the question to be a flawed hyphothetical scenario.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Wolfwood2]

Take a lesson from the real world - Vietnam.

Break up into small guerrilla forces. Don't siege the castle. Rather, use hit and run tactics. Disrupt the supply chain. Win over the hearts and minds of the citizenry (We're regular people, just like you, not some super-powered, greedy, corrupt wizards!) Focus on injuring the mooks, forcing them to retreat to heal, rather than facing them in a direct battle. Etc.

But don't engage them head-on! Just like in Vietnam, that would be a recipe for disaster.

Not doable with an invading army. Keeping discipline in an army is difficult enough when you've got them all tightly organized. Break them up into small units, and you'll probably end up losing control of them entirely.

Only a highly disciplined force with strong loyalties to their overall command, something like a modern first world army, could manage that as invaders. And even then I wouldn't place any bets on them.

 

[monboesen]

I agree with the majority of the posters here. There is no feasable winning strategy for the attackers. So far no one has even mentioned the wizards easy solution to running out of spells. Wands and Scrolls.

Knowing they will be attacked they produce some wands of fireball, scrolls of cloudkills and so forth during the month the army approaches.

They will be able to use hundreds of fireballs in a very short time if needed.


The attacking commander should disband his army and spend the wages on an elite group of high level adventures/monsters to deal with the fortress.


The concept of large armies isn't really effective in a D&D world.

 

[Power_Munchkin]

hm

I normally lurk, but this thread is being so unfair to wizards, that I feel compelled to throw my two cents in.

There is an unspoken assumption here that wizards will engage the actual troops. That's nonsense, they have no reason to do so. Defeating an army by inflicting 98% casualty rate (as some poster suggested) is a lot of wasted effort.

If the objective is to kill a bunch of high-level wizards and take their castle, an army of 10,000 is completely superfluous. It's like trying to hammer a nail with a pillow.

Wizards have an unbeatable advantage when it comes to underhanded tactics - invisibility, polymorphing, and illusions. They have supreme mobility thanks to teleport, shadow walk, and overland flight. They have an excellent intelligence capability - scrying, detect thoughts, contact other plane, discern location (this doesn't even cover their superhuman intelligence score). Their defenses are in fact impenetrable - the army has no way of entering a magnificent mansion, finding the location of a ropetrick spell, or jumping to another plane. The army can never find a hideout that's only accessible by teleportation. The army has no way of dealing with contingency spells.

If the wizards lack certain skills they can use planar binding or gate spells (the contract version) to get other beasties to do their bidding. Even if somehow the army manages to kill a wizard, he's likely to have a clone stashed away somewhere.

Wizards would attack the army's weak points - supplies and commanders.

1. An army marches on its stomach. Destroy the supply wagons. An army of 10,000 will either disperse or starve. Poisoning the water supply and spreading disease are also good options.

2. Assassinate or dominate the top commanders. Kill them and make simulacrums. Kidnap their family members. Hit them with an insanity spell. Undermine their authority by casting Otto's dance. Preferably in the middle of a "brave heart" speech.

Here is a plan off the top of my head.

1. Find out who is leading the army. This is relatively easy, since it's likely to be a prominent person. Teleport (or shadow walk if teleportation is not allowed) several wizards to his home. Using invisibility and flight, infiltrate his house to aquire a personal item like a comb. Bonus points if you can find a stray hair (that'll provide a -10 on general's will save vs scrying instead of -5). If an opportunity presents itself, kidnap a family member. Even if the house is heavily guarded, it should be fairly easy - charm, dominate, sleep, or a nonlethal-substituted "boom" spell will do the trick. Get back to base and pet your white cat familiar.

2. Use greater scrying to locate the general. Success is virtually guaranteed since you have an item of his. Greater scrying lasts for hours per level, and thus the wizards should be aware of all plans made against them. A couple of wizards could maintain a 24 hour surveillance with just two greater scrying spells a day. The wizards have pretty much won at this point.

Think of it this way - could a medieval army defeat a dozen apache helicopters? Not really. Their best bet would be some sort of a trojan horse/sabotage scenario. Something you really shouldn't use an army for. Hire a wizard to infiltrate the fortress and kill off the occupants one by one.

Even if you give the army the mob template, a contingency spell will still give the wizards an upper hand.