Defy elven forest-fighting tactics! (Now open to my players)

[mythago]

A long-standing dam? Perfect. Breach it. The people further upstream have been relying on the river-as-it-is-now for fifty years; take out the dam and suddenly their nice, slow river, their pools and their oxbow lakes start rushing down away from them. The land will stay marshy for a long time.

Half a continent of forest? Well, the elves can't hit you from half a continent away, can they? They'll be near enough to hassle you, and that's all you need to worry about.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

OK, so I have a possible solution for the river boats when it comes to being blocked by chains or vines. You will probably need the help of those gnomes to help construct this, so I don't know if it will be practical...

You would need to add a set of rails onto the front of the riverboat. One rail on each side. The rails extend straight out forward of the bow, then curl back dropping down into the water at a somewhat shallow angle until they are just a little lower than the rudder and keel of the boat. As the boat encounters a chain or vine strung below the waterline, the rails push it down lower into the water, rather than it getting hung up on the keel or rudder. If it is very tight rather than being a little slack and pulling tight as you continue, it may still slow or stop the boat, but with some creative shifting of weight, you can probably work over it. Ideally these rails should also have a sharpened front edge so that vines will be sliced as they slide along the rails. Won't help with chains, but I personally have my doubts that the elves are using much of their precious metals forging chains rather than weapons.

 

[MonsterMash]

My 2p worth

For supply make convoys as large as possible - the majority will get through and the loss of a proportion will have to be soaked up.

Use 'Q' ships - dummy convoys with the boats filled with troops to try and go after the ambushers, really this means being able to try and land up and down river to the ambush site and try a pincer movement. Tricky though given Elven mobility in the woods.

Enlarge the landing places and try to burn back the forest away from the river banks in between to make the ambushes of convoys harder and less likely to inflict serious damage. Disadvantage is numbers of troops needed to occupy the landing places.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I supose a few siege engines on those 'Q ships' could be fun for the elves. No need to land. Just catapult naptha filled barrels in the general vicinity of the incoming fire. Or anything with a large area of effect... Fiendish Dire Sheep with gas?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

So let me get this straight, you're sending convoys UP-river? No wonder you're getting slaughtered. Unless it's an extraordinarily slow river, you'll have a lot of trouble getting supply barges upriver and it'll be very slow moving. (IRL, I believe most upriver traffic was actually pulled by animals on the side or rivers or canals and that's obviously not an option in this situation--you'd just get the animals shot). About the only thing to recommend this is that you shouldn't be hitting the chains or vines very hard (considering you're going against the current and aren't going very quickly to begin with) and should be able to get unstuck just by stopping poling, reefing the sails, or otherwise removing the energy pushing you forward. The current should carry the boat downstream away from the obstruction rather quickly.

In this situation, you'e going to have to bite the bullet and settle in for the long hard work of building up an overland supply route. Unfortunately, you'll have to be almost as predictable and easy to find as the river since the forest is moving around in service to the elves. You'll need to make a road. How long is the journey from the edge of the swamp you control to your siege works?

Now the advantage of making a road is that you can steer it away from natural ambush points. If the river goes between two cliffs or rounds a high promontory, there's nothing you can do about it. When building a road through guerilla infested territory, however, you can avoid such natural ambush locations. (The other advantage is that you're able to travel more quickly with carts or on foot than poling a barge upstream or being pulled by animals). So, how to go about it? We know that the forest moves around and though I think it's worth trying to intimidate and negotiate with the spirits of the forest, I wouldn't be particularly optimistic about winning them over. About the best you'd be likely to do--since the spirits appear tied to individual trees--is make it clear that it's unhealthy for any of them to come next to your road--especially when there's an ambush. (So, after any ambush, make it a policy to ring or cut down the nearest 100 trees and announce that policy to the forest--pretty soon, while the forest as a whole may want to move around to hurt you, very few trees will be interested in being the individual trees to move and help set up an ambush. This might even be a better tactic against trees than against people. People can hope to run away and escape. Trees aren't going to be getting away so any trees coordinating in an ambush or who are just near the area of an elvish ambush will know that there is not just a risk of their dying, it's a certainty).

But back to the road. It'll take some time but you'll probably want to pave it with stones like the Romans did. You won't lose a stone road just because trees are moving around and trees may not be able to cross over it. Cut down or ring the trees for a fair distance on both sides of the road. Depending upon the distance, you may want to build a series of forts one day's travel apart. That would give your supply train somewhere safe to spend each night and would give your forces secure bases from which to patrol the forest and route out the elves. If that doesn't work (there are risks I'll discuss in a moment), you'll probably want to have each orc in your supply train and a wagon or two carry a log and build a palisade fort every night (again, like the Romans did). That should help your defense. (Contrary to some belief, low-light vision is actually BETTER than your darkvision at night since your orcs can only see 60 feet, but the elves can see just like it was day on moonlit nights--which is a lot further than 60 feet so your disadvantages are actually at a minimum during the day. Your troops won't like it but you've got to live with that).

So, what were those disadvantages of the fort thing? The main disadvantage is that you are splitting your forces. You outnumber the elvish guerillas in the grand scheme of things but what matters is who outnumbers who in any particular engagement. If there are 500 elves and you have a bunch of forts with 50 men in each, you're looking at being outnumbered 10 to 1 in any particular engagement at the forts should the elves coordinate together. While you might want to create the appearance of such weakness in order to lure the elves into gathering together, it's not a good idea unless you can be sure to catch them before they fade into the forest. So, I would recommend that your roadside forts have a minimum of eighty to one hundred orcs in them. (80 orcs is enough to send out patrols of 30-40 orcs into the forest and still have a significant garisson in the fort; you might be able to get away with 40-60 but that doesn't leave as much force for patrols). You'll need to keep a significant portion of your force at the Keep of the Cataracts in order to maintain the siege and you'll want to have a large force ready to relieve any keep that comes under attack (preferably cavalry or mounted infantry so that you can travel quickly and reach the battle before it's over). So, if your supply chain is longer than eight days' travel or so, this may not work. (8 forts with 80 soldiers=640 soldiers on garrison and patrol duty in the forts which leaves you 860 for both the siege and your relief cavalry patrols. I would want at least one cavarly force of 200-300 orcs--maybe two. (In that case, you might station one at a larger fort halfway along the road). That would only leave 400-500 orcs to maintain the siege which should be sufficient (I imagine that the forces in the keep don't have any easy way to assault you directly but there is a danger of the guerillas and the defenders of the keep attacking the besiegers in concert and lifting the siege if you thin your siege troops too much). While they're there, set them to building trebuchets with longer ranges than whatever catapults the defenders of the keep have. Make sure to toss boulders and flaming pitch at the keep every day. (Barrels filled with sawdust and fire could be good too). Even if you only kill one defender every two days, you should decimate the force within a year. While you're catapulting things at the keep, make sure to catapult any rotten animal corpses or feces at the keep too. The defenders will burn them or toss them outside, but they can't really dispose of them without leaving the keep and getting picked off by your archers. In fact, it might almost be better to have them land at the base of the walls outside the keep than inside. That way, they'll still fester and attract flies and vermin and they'll still stink but the defenders won't be able to do anything about it without getting shot.

 

[argo]

* Make hundreds of camps all along the river. They only have to be tiny; a spiked palisade wall, a few tents, towers for javlineers and archers. This means your barges will be able to sprint from safe harbour to safe harbour, minimising the attacks form elven guerillas. Also, they elves will have to keep away from each of the camps, redcing the area they can operate in.

Bad idea. There is no way you can possibly control all that real estate so don't even try. Tiny picket posts are nothing but snacks waiting to be gobbled up. If you did have enough troops to effectievly guard 50 miles of winding river front then you wouldn't be in the position of being unable to storm the keep in the first place. 2 or 3 medium sized border forts along the length of the river should do it.

So let me get this straight, you're sending convoys UP-river? No wonder you're getting slaughtered. Unless it's an extraordinarily slow river, you'll have a lot of trouble getting supply barges upriver and it'll be very slow moving. (IRL, I believe most upriver traffic was actually pulled by animals on the side or rivers or canals and that's obviously not an option in this situation...

...In this situation, you'e going to have to bite the bullet and settle in for the long hard work of building up an overland supply route.

I think you're just a little bit off base here. Although draft animals were often used for river travel (the famous Erie canal) they were not always avaliable or practical. Matter of fact I would venture to guess that for the majority of human history river travel has been by sail, oar or pole (think the ohio, missouri or mississippi rivers). And travel upriver, assuming you don't have to worry about a lot of cataracts etc, will almost always still be easier than travel overland.

Espically when you have to build a road out of a dense forest.

Espically when said forest is holtile enemy controled territory.

Probably the best bet here is to use flat bottomed, shallow draft pole barges. A pole barge can make prety good time even against the current plus they have some major banefits in that they can stop on a dime and have fairly good manuverability. It should be fairly easy to turn these things into floating fortresses, with roofs and palisades to protect the pole-orcs. 10 pole-orcs per barge and another 10 or so archers with flame arrows, pitch catapults and so forth. Have the barges travel in convoys of 6 or 8, maybe with the point barge nothing but a lot of troops, and the convoy should be prety impervious against simple snipers in the trees. And with 120-160 orcs in the convoy they won't be too vulneurable to boarding tactics either. I don't imagine that the pansy elves will be able to haul big siege engines into ambush position so they will have to rely on magic or big creatures to make a dent in the convoys and that sounds like a major expenditure of resources that the tree-hugging elves just don't have (are you playing Midnight?).

I also like the idea of rails that sweep back under the keel to protect the rudder from entanglements but I think an even better (and easier to fashion) idea is a metal rail that slopes forward at an angle with a sharpened trap up above the water line like this:

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this would cut any vines and anything it didn't cut it would lift up out of the water to where a few orcs could run foward (under cover) and hack it up. Plus if you run into any underwater obstructions (sunken boats etc) it will bring you to a stop rather than beaching you on it. In the event a convoy hits an obstruction the response is to immedieatly hold position and hunker down while unloading everything flamiable they have into the surrounding forest (pop smoke too if you got it) while some ple orcs in heavy armor and with shield bearers (the tower shield is your freind) move up front to sound out the river. If nesicarry the convoy can beach itself and while half the orcs set up a defensive perimiter the other half will wade into the river and clear the obstacle. Explosives may be expensive but if you can swing it you may consider equiping each convoy with a few bombs for just such an event. This isn't foolproof but it should protect the orcs against simple sniping tactics meaning that if the elves want to hit them they will have to close to melee. You may still loose some convoys this way but you will make the cowardly elves pay for it and that is good enough in our long-term strategy. Remember, every elven ambush is not an attack on you, it is a chance to do battle with the enemy.

So keeping the supply lines open will be a major pain and require a lot of effort but shouldn't be imposible and if there is anything orcs have an excess of it is numbers and muscle-power.

As for the fortress. It sounds even more well-defended than I origionally thought. I absouetly recomend that you simply contain it and ignore it for now. Assuming you can more or less isolate it from supplies you will do much better to keep a lid on it, starve them, and worry about them after you secure the surrounding contryside. Maybe harass them with flaming catapult attacks or something but otherwise don't worry about it. You have succeded in establishing a base deep in enemy territory and nutralizing an important enemy stronghold's control of the area. Focus on consolidating your gains and slowly encroaching on the forest. If you make enough of a nussicance of yourself and remain resolute in the face of the weak elves' cowardly hit and run tactics they will eventually have no choice but to come at you or abandon the theater. Either way you win.

Remember your Art of War: first place yourself beyond the posibility of defeat and then wait for the enemy to defeat himself. Turtle up and stay strong. You can outlast them.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I also like the idea of rails that sweep back under the keel to protect the rudder from entanglements but I think an even better (and easier to fashion) idea is a metal rail that slopes forward at an angle with a sharpened trap up above the water line like this:

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Yep, that is a better idea, simpler to make and outfit and it also allows the crew to be aware when you hit one, since you'll see it emerge from the water, and be prepared for possible ambush from the riverbanks. Nice refinement!

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Right, I have a new proposal for this thread:

Stop thinking like Romans and start thinking like orcs.

Working against the environment is all fine and nice, but it rarely works out too well for anyone IRL or in fantasy. With the notable exception of recent Iraqi work against the marsh Arabs, draining swamps is the only way to take out a 5,000 year old way of life.

The Orc thing to do is to adapt the environment or create new environments.

Minor tactic: Don't take out the trees, replace them! You have a whole continent of horrible species to work with, the elves just have their silly wood. Send out some brilliant supply officers and begin seeding the nasty parasites. Throw up organic bulwarks of your own. Nasty vines and things that the elves won't recognize as your work or your threats.

Remember the Orc thing to do is not to develop counters to the enemies tactics but to change your own so that the enemy has weirdness to work with. Elves are long lived and rely on an advantage of prior learning. You're always learning everything for the first time, turn that against them.

Major tactic: Rivers?! Roads?! An Orc craves not these things. Orcs like swamps and Orcs LOVE tunnels. Don't move around in the woods through nasty arrow infested areas, stay underneath them. Build Barracks that are everywhere and nowhere all at once. Build floodable tunnels that can cause the ground to go swamp when you need it to. Kill roots, don't kill trees.

And remember, always remember, that you are better at night then elves. They still need light. You don't need nothing. Go for the small spaces, the enclosed spaces. Take the fight to the trees. You're stronger than they are and if anyones gonna brachiate it dang sure isn't going to be a pansy elf.

If the trees are speaking to the elves, that's brilliant! You know where all their spies are, start feeding them misinformation.

Also, their using bows in a forest! Sure they can snipe but, they've already lost the range and massed fire that's their major advantage. You're spear chucking, club throwing infantry you're the way forest soldiers were meant to work. Start going German.

Move in dispersed formations through nasty sight reducing terrain, remember cover is your friend more than theirs, and develop real moral reducing battle language. Horrible ulating cries that echo through the woods. Let the woods whisper, you shall howl!!! You are orc. Make certain that when your unit uses it you all use it at once. Confuse them, keep yourself fine, remember it's the only language most of your troops know.

March divided and fight united. Loosing one or two troops to snipers is nothing. Loosing a troop to an ambush is the horror. Coming upon an ambush as you march off the path and then turning on it is the tastiest of dishes. When you camp. Do it underground, in concentrated groups, and make your tunnel systems much larger than they need to be. Let the dire animals dig to find you. And when they do let them find themselves in horrible narrow tunnels with orcish spears on either end. And then there is meat.

And yes, tunnel under and around the keep. Starve them, but also make them bleed. Sortie into the castle. You can afford to send in a suicide mission every night. Can they afford to stop them?

Don't burn the trees, just fill the air with smoke.

Don't assault the walls, bleed them. You are the leech and elves are the ill humour. Don't show yourselves to the enemy. Stay in your orc holes and wait. Let them sorty into your vine filled woods and your trap filled tunnels and your superior forces, and let them die.

Make certain that your supplies are of as little value to the elves as possible and try to make them actively harmful. Trap them. Fill your holds with horrible undead. They won't eat the food, and when poor elfy lets them out




Use q ships at every opportunity. You need less supply then they do, but you have more supply to give. You know they are going to succesfully ambush you from time to time so embrace it and make them choke on their own success.

Get compasses if you can and make certain that your troops know how to navigate from fixed points and can judge their distance travelled perfectly. If the forest lies to you all the time then don't talk to it.

You are Orc!

You are the swamp that gives beneath the feet. You are the tunnel that worms through the might of mountains. Trip them, trap them, choke them, and make them drown in the blackest blood.

I absolutely agree that you must remember your Art of War, but remember not the lesson that you should be resolute, but the lesson that you should be formless.

 

[Dirigible]

The Orc thing to do is to adapt the environment or create new environments.

I thought the orc thing to do was charge the enemy in a blood frenzy?

Build floodable tunnels that can cause the ground to go swamp when you need it to. Kill roots, don't kill trees.

That's a great idea, but awfully long term.

If the trees are speaking to the elves, that's brilliant! You know where all their spies are, start feeding them misinformation.

You can't lie to a tree. The only misinfomation technique that I can think of that might work against them is pretending that your armies are elsewhere, but with so amny trees looking from so many different directions, that's not likely to work.

You need less supply then they do

What???

Get compasses if you can and make certain that your troops know how to navigate from fixed points and can judge their distance travelled perfectly. If the forest lies to you all the time then don't talk to it.

Well, that's not going to work.

Don't assault the walls, bleed them. You are the leech and elves are the ill humour. Don't show yourselves to the enemy. Stay in your orc holes and wait. Let them sorty into your vine filled woods and your trap filled tunnels and your superior forces, and let them die.

Now that's not bad. If the orcs advance, hold and fortify, the elves will have[i/i[ to try and dig them out eventually; there are so many reaons why letting the orcs keep a bunker i the middle of the foreest is a bad idea. On the other hand, it would be shockingly easy for the elves to jsut cut off the bunkers and starve them out.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Tunnelling is a GREAT idea...elves can't see underground, and if they want to root you out, they've gotta go into your holes to get you, while you can kill their forest without ever showing your face.