Military tactics vs. high-level spellcasters
- Thread starter RangerWickett
- Start date
Black_Swan
First Post
Spread out and charge...
I'd keep the pressure on for as long as possible, try to move the fight inside the fortress where the spell casters won't be able to use their area effect spells to full effect.
Keep siege items portable; items like battering rams and ladders. That way many units can have them and they won't be a huge target to the casters, like a catapult or ballista would be.
Use your numbers to try and overwhelm them.
Carry nets and rope so when the casters summon a creature your troops can't harm, they can net/grapple them and hold them in place until the spell wears off.
If you have any casters..focus on getting troops inside the fortress. Don't worry about the flying casters...if they come into range..hit them with arrows..if not then you'll have to deal.
True strike is your friend when trying to hit someone at extreme range.
I'd keep the pressure on for as long as possible, try to move the fight inside the fortress where the spell casters won't be able to use their area effect spells to full effect.
Keep siege items portable; items like battering rams and ladders. That way many units can have them and they won't be a huge target to the casters, like a catapult or ballista would be.
Use your numbers to try and overwhelm them.
Carry nets and rope so when the casters summon a creature your troops can't harm, they can net/grapple them and hold them in place until the spell wears off.
If you have any casters..focus on getting troops inside the fortress. Don't worry about the flying casters...if they come into range..hit them with arrows..if not then you'll have to deal.
True strike is your friend when trying to hit someone at extreme range.
TheYeti1775
Adventurer
Slaying Arrows (Wizard) 
Morrus said:
That's right. I've run dozens of these battles, the high level wizards with air superiority nearly always win. The one time he didn't, it was 2e and the high level wizard was a Conjurer with no Invocation or Abjuration magic, vs Mongol cavalry archers.
There's no way to disperse 10,000 men to the extent necessary and keep them combat effective with medieval weaponry.
Argus Decimus Mokira
First Post
Agree ... come up with a non-magical (ie non-dispelable) way of breaching the walls, reproduce it en masse, and batter them down. After that, swarm the breach. The numerical superiority is enough such that, if even half the grunts make it, they'll likely carry the day.
-Matt
-Matt
Celebrim
Legend
RangerWickett said:
First of all, back in the real world, the castle if its a modern (post-crusades) type has a significant chance of surviving this sort of assault even without throwing the spellcasters into the mix. A one month journey time, plus muster and such, means that the army is going to be pushing it to last through campaign season. Plus, you camp 10,000 men in a small area and thier will be serious disease and food shortage problems by the beseiging army. (Often besiegers suffered as badly as those they were seiging.) Generally speaking, a well designed castle could hold off numbers of about 20:1 and that's what you've got here.
So, understand that if we are talking realism, this is a hard problem even before we throw magic into the equation.
Harrassment. Instead of marching 10,000 men over to a castle and camping them on an indefensible plain in full view of the enemy, I'd disperse much of my forces into bands of 10-20 each and I'd give them orders to raze the enemy country side for at least 20 or so miles around, taking whatever they could, driving off or enslaving the peasantry, and burning whatever they couldn't take. The idea here is to destroy the economy of the region, and thereby make sticking around in that castle untenable in the long run, while making the distances involved and the difficulties in tracking down any significant band of my people enough to render individual sorties by Wizards problamatic except for the most high level casters. If you send some individual 7th-8th level wizards out to kill bands of 2nd-4th level fighters, sooner or later those wizards are going to fail spot checks, or going to be fatigued by the travel, or be found sleeping, or get intercepted twice in the same day, or otherwise loose initiative and then the low AC's and low hit points are going to be a big problem. Multiple archers with ready actions are very good counters to low level wizards in these conditions.
I'd leave back a reserve force of 4000-5000 of my best cavalry and archers to meet any sorte by the enemies forces, and I'd be doing my best to recruit some high level firepower to counter individual sorties by the higher level spell casters (which at this point are barring some good fortune or mistakes on thier part I can't do anything about). I would do anything I could to avoid giving battle to a massed group of high level wizards who had the ability to retreat to safety. This probably means keeping my camp mobile and sufficiently dispersed that I'm never in danger of losing a large force to a single spell. As long as the enemy spell casters don't exceed about 13th level, this might work.
What I really would need as the commander is some counter punching ability, which I'm desparately lacking according to your description. I either need friendly spell casters of level 5+, or CR equivalent rogues/scouts/rangers, or CR equivalent allied monsters (hill giants, gargoyles, griffons, dragons, whatever) in enough numbers that spell casters can't take them out with a daily alotment of spells.
RangerWickett
Legend
Okay. Let's say teleportation is unavailable. The army has the means to keep people from teleporting nearby it.
Also, let's give the army a chance to recruit some allies. What would they want to get? Monsters, high-level spellcasters, devils?
Also, let's give the army a chance to recruit some allies. What would they want to get? Monsters, high-level spellcasters, devils?
