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

[StalkingBlue]

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.

True in our case anyway. Orc crews row.

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?).

Yup, as I've said (and as my Story Hour sig confirms ), it's Midnight.

Well, sort of. Don't draw hasty conclusions from those books, I'm making tons of modifications to the published material.

Floating fortresses: Would be nice to have, without any doubt. Unfortunately would take more prep time to build than my orcs had when they started out on this keep-assault mission. Right now they are hard pressed to replace lost craft with new ones requisitioned downriver or built in a hurry.

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Nice. And quick and easy to forge, which means it won't be an additional burden on shipbuilders. We've got steel and forges galore. I don't see it cutting obstacles or keeping convoys from being stopped and muddled if moving in close formation, but it'll protect rudders and prevent barges from being easily crippled that way.

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.

That's the strategy, yup.

 

[StalkingBlue]

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?

LOL. More mundane area effect thingies, please!

 

[StalkingBlue]

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. ...

Three main problems with road-building:
Disorientation within the forest.
Constant barrage of ambushes from the forest.
Scarcity of supplies in stone slabs. (Seeing that dirt roads would be likely to vanish without a trace when no one's looking...)

Not that I can see how stone slabs would stop trees moving actually. If it's the actual trees moving through the ground, surely they'll do what non-mobile trees do (only much faster) and lever stone slabs up with their roots?

If we get a good grip on the keep side, we may be able to secure a riverbank enbough to gradually build a road along it. A road through the forest just isn't going to work.

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.

Clarification: Dead elves' spirits are bound to trees to make one layer of defence. Most of those died in the longstanding war against the orcs, so success negotiating with them or intimidating them into not fighting is, shall we say, unlikely? Their only reason for still being there is their willingness to be bound to the forest to help defend it. If they are destroyed, *shrug*. All the more reason for the next tree down the line to keep it up and grind its branches, so to speak.

As if this weren't enough, there's a second layer of defence overlaying the spirits: a powerful spell laid over the entire forest keeping the location of the elves' capital hidden from foes and causing enemies to become more and more disoriented as they move deeper in.

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.

Pretty much got that along the river, yup.

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.

I agree of course. The orc units my PCs have encountered in the forest have been moving during the day. Weirdly enough the players still expect orcs to be night-active.

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).

Here we think alike.
(Cavalry unfortunately is of limited use because of the disorientation problems. If we have to move fast and far, the river is the way to go. )

 

[StalkingBlue]

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.

Yup, the orcs of course do it anyway. Not that it helps much.

Has anyone yet mentioned salting the earth?

-- N

Yum. Salt on the earth...

 

[StalkingBlue]

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.

You'd have to tunnel deep to avoid those nasty trees' roots I'd say, but it's a nice addition for the overall strategy. Cheers for that. Burrowing down in a forest of course is even harder than cutting down all the trees. Everyone who's ever tried digging out a trunk of a bush or tree in an old garden knows what I'm talking about.

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.

Hm, interesting... I like that thought, thanks. Not that it's helping my orcs exactly, but it might add flavour or a tactical twist where I (asa DM) need it...

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.

Yup. Elf jerky, anyone? Too bad there isn't even enough fresh elf to go around in the plains where the supplies come from. But we can do rotted meat, maggoty bread ...

...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.

That bit comes natural, like.

 

[StalkingBlue]

It's an ancient forest. Many huge, ancient trees among the younger ones.

Oh, and did I mention that in this setting elves have +4 on Climb checks in trees? Elves in leather armor travel lightly through the branches while orcs in scale mail and breastplate mostly bark up the wrong tree.

 

[ironmani]

Ok lets see if we can fix the boat problem. First, lest assume that vines/ropes/chains are just under the water out of sight. So with that in mind, mount poles of about 10-15 feet with a wieghted rope hanging off the end. It catches anything it begins to pull. Orc begin to row in reverse to come to a stop ebfore crashing. Mount blades on ships too to slice ropes or vines. Also begin sending escort ship with the barges. Small ships armored up on each side of the barge. Thier whole job is to shoot anything that moves. Send "Forrest clearers" out ahead of the barge. These are ships mounted with catapults that just fling rocks and the such into the woods at random intervals. Your bound to hit something and you also are leveling trees as you go. Also have them fling burning pitch into the woods. Any elves you capture, mount them, still living mind you, on the barges and use them as shield. Want to shoot me, then you might hit your fellow elf. And if they die, fire the heads and stuff back into the forrest. Elves arent freeing human slaves? Then you free them. Get them all dieseased up and turn them loose in the forrest. The Human renagades will most likely take them in and from there the sickness will multiply. (We humans are such good diesease carriers!) Fling poisoned meat into the woods. Forrest animals eat it and die. They begin to rot and such making a diesease minefield. I'll see if I can think of some more.
Enjoy!

 

[Sejs]

On the other hand, it would be shockingly easy for the elves to jsut cut off the bunkers and starve them out.

If your bunkers are partially (or fully) below ground, keep a tunneler and when the elves try to bottle you up, just dig yourself a new tunnel out. When they finally decide that you -must- have starved by now and go on, let them find an empty bunker, stripped of gear, with an escape tunnel that you collapsed behind you.

Three main problems with road-building:
Disorientation within the forest.
Constant barrage of ambushes from the forest.
Scarcity of supplies in stone slabs. (Seeing that dirt roads would be likely to vanish without a trace when no one's looking...)

Not that I can see how stone slabs would stop trees moving actually. If it's the actual trees moving through the ground, surely they'll do what non-mobile trees do (only much faster) and lever stone slabs up with their roots?

Heh, now combine it with the other suggestion...

Has anyone yet mentioned salting the earth?

While you're clearing vegitation for your road, salt the ever-loving bejebus out of the earth as its being turned and pounded flat. Salt your roads. LET the trees move in over them to conceal the path - your roads wont be marked by stone slabs, they'll be marked by the long strips of dead and fallen vegitation that run along them.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I'm not certain how difficult it would be to tunnel effectively in that terrain. Not saying there wouldn't be problems, but forests combined with rivers tend to have some nice clays and other soft but non-crumbley soils. It's why so many large burrowing animals come from forests.

The roots are an interesting problem. I would sort of assume that even supernatural trees would be careful about moving around their roots much and pretty insensate towards them regardless.

You might look up the tunneling strategies for the viet con. There should be plenty of stuff around on the internet.

I still like the idea of vast numbers of cheaply built and cheaply put together river boats convoying up the river. If you put good cover on them you can probably do well in an exchange of missile fire, and if they board you...

...well, that just brought them into axe range.

You might design the ships with protection for the rowers and lots of modular components for the decks so that the crew can easily adjust protection and dock the boats together for escape and reinforcements.

The Elf climbing bonus is nasty. You sure they couldn't find something like a thorny kudzu to grow up into the top branches and really punish 'em?

Plus, trapping tree tops is just a nasty idea. Can't you imagine how much it would frustrate the elves to know that a false move will cause their dear departed uncles head and hair to go up in flames?

 

[Fieari]

Kudzu! I'd completely forgotten about that! I hadn't given my thoughts to this thread yet, because lack of magic means lack of druid growing magic, but kudzu might very well suffice in its stead.

I've heard it said that the reason we have such horrible nasty dangerous devestating forest fires in America these days is because we're too good at stopping the little ones. Little natural forest fires sweep away the underbrush but merely scroch the bark off the old growth trees, which heal rapidly and persevere. But when the brush piles up, forest fires become too hot, and even the old ancient trees burn. Rain doesn't stop this fire, rivers don't stop this fire, a torrential onslaught of pumped water doesn't do a thing. Only thing that works are back fires to starve fuel out.

Start growing kudzu in the woods. Around the fortress, around the river, around the road you want. Keep planting kudzu. It'll spread for you, and it's nearly impossible to get rid of kudzu when it's really gotten headway. Besides, these hippie elves might not even consider it dangerous.

But after a few months of letting the kudzu grow, you torch it. You create a modern day forest fire, the likes of which your world has never seen before. Because naturally, little fires clear out the fuel and so nothing really hurts the forest at large. In this manner, you'll start a sweeping flashfire that will be utterly out of control. The elves will have to learn modern day large scale fire fighting techniques FAST, and even if they do, they'll lose more forest than they've ever lost before. And the orcs will have gained ground. And because you're targeting strategically vital places for kudzu growth and fire starting (you will, of course, start the fire in many places at once) once the fires are gone, you don't have to worry about trees anymore.

With lack of cover for the nancy boys in green to hide in, your superior numbers will surely win the day, at least in the cleared area.