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

[Nifft]

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.

Strong arm tactics against trees. D&D rocks.

Given the nature of the tree-spirits, it's unlikely that you'll ever convince them to do anything besides help the elves. Still, for sheer demoralizing effect, this is a great idea.

Has anyone yet mentioned salting the earth?

-- N

 

[Gort]

you can kill their forest without ever showing your face.

Maybe, but it'll take centuries! If slashing and burning is too slow, you think tunnelling under every single tree is acceptable?

 

[mythago]

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.

They can fill in the holes, or send friendly underground critters to tear you out. Orcs are not natural burrowers.

 

[NilesB]

They have:
- familiarity with the terrain, which favours archery and hit-and-run tactics;

Actualy forest terrain disfavors archery by reducing the intitial range of engagements to about the range of an easy charge. If they hide in trees all the better! Those silly elves have voluntarily placed themselves where they cannot break off the engagement, the cardinal sin of Guerrila warfare. Your main trouble is if you can't trust your troops on detached duty or in a dispersed formation; then you're in trouble.

 

[nikolai]

You command an orcish legion - 1,500 Ftr2 orcs with higher-level officers plus auxiliaries, including a couple of hundred goblins, a bunch of ogres etc...

A while ago, to your chagrin you received orders to ship up a main river and take a keep that controls that river, roughly 50 miles inside the current border of the forest... You are trying to:

• keep the river clear for traffic and move convoys of ships so they'll get through safely;
• control landing places along the river if you can;
• keep your siege going.

I think the best strategy has been mentioned. Deforest a strip around the river. Build a road. Build dykes to protect the road and river. And fortify everything. I don't think this will work though. Just some loose calculations:

There are (1,600 * 50 = 80,000) meters of river. If 1 orc can destroy 1 tree an hour. In 1 day 1,500 orcs can destroy (1,500 * 8 = 12,000 trees). Assuming one tree per square meter of forest, in a year your legion can clear a strip 25 meters on each side of the river ((360 * 12,000)/80,000 = 54). And that's doing nothing else.

I made the above figures up. But I don't think they're too out of line, so the estimate is likely in the right region.

More information on the geography of the river would be nice. My provisional suggestion would be to build watch towers to watch the river and its banks. At 10 meters up the horizon's 11km away. Eight of these might be enough to monitor the whole length of the river. Together with sending lots of craft up and down the river in regular patrols, you should be able to get a good picture of what is happening along the 50 miles pretty well. Selectively burn out the forest at vulnerable points along the river, and have large group of well armoured foot patrol the banks. With deforesting not being possible, that's my best suggestion.

P.S. As far as the SRD goes, a tower shield can protect you from all attacks regardless of direction. This would - in rules terms - negate the advantage of any ambush.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Hmm, my comments may be misguided due to my plains dwelling experience, but the primary thing with navigation is that the trees appear to be changing paths to hinder orcs and help elves so following and navigating by paths is a bad idea. Whereas ignoring the path and going by bushwhacking orienteering seems like it avoids a lot of the problem.

Orcs, in this setting at least, are a very succesful underground/burrowing race. And tunneling doesn't take that long compared to the length of the engagement.

Elves can put nasty creatures in your holes but you're in their first and that's a tremendous advantage. Tunnelling is just a good idea if you've got the numbers, the will, and the expertise. The history channel has convinced of that much at least.

Fortifying the river strikes me as very expensive. That ties up a lot of men, stretches them out, and makes them vulnerable. Plus you have to put up a lot of infrastructure in enemy terrain. And if they capture your fortifications you are in a whole mess of trouble. Burrows are easy to make and abandon or destroy, and they are there primarily to protect and hide your men, a fortress is a whole other problem.

Plus it's a river, do you really need to do more than be able to get people up and down it? If you've got the chokepoint fortress neutralized and control the other end then it seems as though every other effort you make is going to cost you and only hurt the elves a little. It's not like you can seriously challenge them for control of the forest, and it's not like they can do anything at this point other than run supplies and men across it.

Double plus, deforesting the river banks is gonna give you nightmares as the rivers course, clarity, and navigability change with the ecological change. You're talking insane bank erosion, unpredictable flooding, and having to put together a massive engineering project to control and/or avoid that.

Smoke from burining, on the other hand, can be nice.

If the river is pretty navigable aside from chains and vines then I think you simply need to convoy large amounts of ships. Since the orcs control the rest of the continent and river boats aren't exactly supremely expensive I think you should just accept that you are going to loose a lot and that you can make taking out a convoy a very very expensive enterprise for the elves.

In terms of supply, you do have the problem of having to bring most of it in and they're being a lot of you. But you are melee infantry with equipment adjusted for endurance not excellence which could also be said of your troops and not at all said of the elves. On a one for one basis you need it less urgently and can be more effective when in poor supply. So more or less a moot point other than to say that you should probably adopt a strategy of bringing more than you need, planning for less than you would want, and making the supplies as horribley unsuited to the Elves as possible.

Chain breakers on the ships is an awesome idea.

And it's not that you would lie to the trees, though that is theoretically possible, it's that you provide with as much confusing information as possible. They are trees, they can't be that discerning no matter how perceptive they are. March in big dispersed groups and make certain that everyone is very aware of how they move above ground. Have long periods of quiet and pattern and when you do move move everyone at once with lots of feints and chaos. Move all of your posts around frequently and try to make your patrols random and very broad and dispersed. And don't be stealthy be loud and confusing. If you convince an elf sniper or ambush to move you've already done a lot of good.

And they will move, it's not as though they can afford suicide missions.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

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


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 always assumed the charging in a blood frenzy is stage two, you certainly never see Elves or Space Marines fighting orcs in pristine barely burned pastoral landscapes.

You're right about the bunkers in a larger sense. I certainly wouldn't recommend sending the orcs into the woods to build a burrow and stay there. I was thinking that that's the way to build your siege works. Your still going to have to run huge convoys up the river to supply your siege works, but there's really no reason to ruin yourself on the castle walls in nasty mass blood frenzy charges. Do it in little ones for the moral impact and to keep your blood ragers happy.

Now, how does the castle control the river? Because you are going to run your supplies around it's zone of control and that will mean a pretty significant overland portage. That's more of a specific tactical problem, but while a competent orc commander should be able to handle it I imagine that's the way most of the elvish sallies will try to take you out.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

There are (1,600 * 50 = 80,000) meters of river. If 1 orc can destroy 1 tree an hour. In 1 day 1,500 orcs can destroy (1,500 * 8 = 12,000 trees). Assuming one tree per square meter of forest, in a year your legion can clear a strip 25 meters on each side of the river ((360 * 12,000)/80,000 = 54). And that's doing nothing else.

I made the above figures up. But I don't think they're too out of line, so the estimate is likely in the right region.

Even in orange orchards, you don't get 1 tree/square meter. It's a lot more like 1/2 of that. (Which would mean you deforest the 25 meter strip along each side of the entire river in 3 months rather than a year). But, most forests have bigger trees than orange orchards do and that means fewer trees/square meter. Redwood forests like you'll find in the Pacific Northwest are even less dense (though massive redwoods take longer than an hour to cut down). Furthermore, you have to think that the river won't be surrounded by forest on both sides along its entire course. Often, there will be beaches, rocky cliffs, meadows, or other terrain features that aren't covered in trees. Clearing trees from the sides of the river probably wouldn't take as long as you think. (Though, you certainly couldn't use the entire force of orcs for it and concerns about changing the flow and navigability of the river are certainly significant).

 

[Goobermunch]

What kind of forest are we talking about? How tall are the trees?

I just had a mean idea!

--G

 

[StalkingBlue]

Don't let Kane here you say that.
[whisper]I think he wants to marry the Fey-Killer[/whisper]

Yay. A wedding! Er...

EDIT: So when are we expecting the first Little Grial?
(Curse that displaced View Post button....)