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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StalkingBlue" data-source="post: 1632998" data-attributes="member: 645">[EDIT]:  Yup, now open to everyone to read. Including my Midnight players.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> [/EDIT] ---Other tactical minds here?  Yay.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> So here's the setup.  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.  Magic support is scarce.  In fact, for now let's assume you don't have any (except for feeding your troops, so we can forget about supplies for now).  Flying or swimming monsters might be available, if rare.  Assume your troops are well disciplined.  If the concept of orcs-cum-discipline ties knots into your brain, pretend they are hobgoblins instead.  Your people command the plains but are fighting the elves who - sneaky cowards they are! - are hiding away in their huge forest lands, making sorties, providing shelter for renegades and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  Summer after summer, square miles of forest are burnt.  Yet it is not enough.  The war keeps being carried into the forest itself.  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.  The initial assault has failed, not unexpectedly.  You currently have a large portion of your troops entrenched just beneath the keep, besieging. Troop transports, supplies (some), patrols and messages are going up and down the river, often intercepted or attacked by hit-and-run forces.  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.   You have: - superior numbers;  - troops that are superior in melee against elves or humans, man for man;  - a foe reluctant to give up lives fighting you:  elves breed too slowly to keep up a war that costs as many lives on their side as on yours.They have: - familiarity with the terrain, which favours archery and hit-and-run tactics;    - very occasionally, magic support (assume no direct-damage spells); - a forest that in itself helps defend your enemy, by subtly shifting paths, confusing your troops once they move out of sight of known landmarks (like camp or the river), betraying (it is believed) the very presence of your troops to elven spies with its ghostly whisper.  What do you do?  Tactics, equipment, special forces?  Assume reinforcements trickle in at irregular intervals.  Monstrous humanoids other than orcs may be available, as may be flying or swimming monsters, but as I've said, no magic support on your side (although your troops may be facing the occasional enemy spellcaster or spellcasting cadre).</blockquote>

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