Military tactics vs. high-level spellcasters

[Solarious]

I won't put any bets on the attackers without some fairly significant magical support. Mostly because high level spellcasters can utterly dominate everything else. First thing is first, Wizards will have Planar Binding. Assuming evil Wizards and lowest rank of Planar Binding, you've got serious problems already.

Take the Imp for example: with Inivsibility at will and Polymorph into innocent forms, they make excellent spies. They also make great poisoners: invisibily add some 'flavouring' to the water supplies; Suggestion on the apparent leader to take a fast water break; about 5 minutes later everyone is retching on the ground. And that's only half the HD limit of Lesser Planar Binding.

Succubuses make stupidly powerful infiltrators, through the virtues of Change Shape, high social skills, Charm Monster, Energy-drain+Suggestion kisses, and plain 'ole Suggestion. Those combined makes it absurdly simple to sow havoc and destruction throughout the ranks, decimating the commanders of the army in short order. They also have Greater Teleport at will as well as Etheral Jaunt and natural flying capabilities to make them superb scouts.

Bearded Devils also make great soldiers if you can afford to spend the resources to retain their services for a while. Damage Reduction and AC 19 combine to make them tough to injure, especially if you equip them up as part of the bargain. Battle Frenzy ups their damage potential, and See in Darkness can be exploited by the canny Wizards with access to Deeper Darkness. Summoning 2d10 Lemures can cause confusion and fear as ill-equiped low-level soldiers find themselves unable to harm the moving blobs of wax, and again Greater Teleport at will gives a decided advantage in mobility.

Moving from offense to defense, Seige Engines will have a difficult time staying in one piece due to Fireballs and Improved Invisibility. Even if they were able to lob ammunition without being blasted to pieces in retailiation, any breach can be easily patched up with a Wall of Stone overlaping the breach for the 1-round miracle repair. Boiling oil or other exotic ammunition can be defeated easily with the proper divinations and precasts with Protection From Energy. Better yet, assume a Wall of Force is going to appear over your seige engines to bounce ammunition back onto the firing crew. Assume your supplies are going to go up in smoke from a Wall of Fire in ring formation focused inward. Count on troops being clumped up together with a Rainbow Pattern before being strangled to death with a high level Evard's Black Tentacles. The terrain is never going to be your ally, simply because illusions will make good terrain seem bad and bad terrain seem good, and when you figure out what is good and what is bad, they'll change it with magic. All your underlings will be suspect, as Dominate Person and Magic Jar (seed the surrounding area with gems and disguise them with illusions/seal them in with Shape Stone) makes them all liabilities and unwitting sabotaurs.

It is very difficult to protect an army from assult from high level Wizards, or even mid-level ones, as the countermeasures are too expensive to protect all but the most important people (namely your unscry-fryable leader). Keep in mind I'm intentionally restricting myself to 5'th level spells. With the addition of even one spell level, you'll have to deal with Mass Suggestion, Guards and Wards, Mislead, Circle of Death, Move Earth, Contol Water, Legend Lore, Wall of Iron, and the big one, Planar Binding (with a HD limit of 12, giving us Large Earth Elementals with Earth Glide, Erinyes sentinels with persistant True Seeing, Bone Devils with at will Wall of Ice, Glebrezu with at will Reverse Gravity, Hezrou with Blasphemy 3/day, Vrocks with Stunning Screech/Dance of Ruin, Retriver artillary with 4 eyebeams). This is really scratching at the surface of a Wizard's capabilities, only looking at evil outsiders/elementals for Binding, and not expanding beyond the SRD for spells. There are tons of tactics you can use, limited only by the creativity of said Wizards.

 

[NilesB]

Why will it take a month for your army to reach attack position?

If it is because your objective is 500 miles away from your available staging area, you don't want to assault it this immediately. If the fortress is near the border with your land you need a reasonably secure staging area (a castle or fortified city is ideal) near to the border from which you can sally forth to intercept enemy raids, raid the enemies' less secure holdings, and begin the attack later with less warning and shorter more defensible supply lines when the time comes. If the fortress is far from your border, look towards creating a buffer zone to protect your holdings out of the enemies' more vulnerable border regions.

If you need the time to gather your forces, stop and think about what kind of force mix you should bring on the attack.

In either case a policy of counter raids may be able to force the enemy to disperse their forces where some part of it can be attacked while it is alone and vulnerable.

Look into faster more secure means of communication than riders and runners. the faster you learn about developments the better you can exploit the opportunities and mitigate the disasters.

{edit} this post is more about strategy than tactics, but I'm not sure that this attack is waranted by the situation.{/edit}

 

[GuardianLurker]

You've got it backwards. We're supposed to be an army attacking the wizards (and defending against them), not the wizards attacking the army.

 

[Slife]

You've got it backwards. We're supposed to be an army attacking the wizards (and defending against them), not the wizards attacking the army.

And we, like any sane member of the army would do, have defected.

 

[BRP2]

This reminds me how much I despise high-level magic.

I'd go with Antimagic fields... and giants and/or snipers on flying mounts.

 

[Warren Okuma]

Contact the druids. The druids do a controlled culling of animals to level up, and then assist your attack.

 

[Slife]

Contact the druids. The druids do a controlled culling of animals to level up, and then assist your attack.

The main problem with strategies like this is that the wizards can do them just as well, if not better.

 

[Warren Okuma]

The main problem with strategies like this is that the wizards can do them just as well, if not better.

Yup. They are leveling up by doing hit and run raids on a 10,000 strong army. Might as well level up as well.

But, they get more swag. *Snif* (I guess you could sell hides and meat, but...) But added to the whatever's left of the 10,000 strong army at the last minute may make a difference. Or not.

Probably not if the wizards are played competently (they do have a high int) however let's hope wisdom is their dump stat. However I suspect it is charisma... i.e. Mialee.

You got to tap every ally you can get your hands on. Wizards are nasty.

 

[kigmatzomat]

With the redefined goal of "destroy value of training facility/fortress" you have several options.

Option 1: extensive blockade. Go nowhere near the fortress and raze the mainland around the peninsula. Use small units of 20-50 men, giving you between 200-500 squads. Make it a no-man's land. How much good can it do when the area it "protects" is occupied? To add insult to injury, leave on your own. Wait until reconstruction is about done, return and flatten it again just to prove you can.

Option 2: Treachery: The army is a feint. Hijack/purchase a ship scheduled to arrive at the fortress and load your primary assault there. I recommend swarms, spawning undead, diseased supplies, etc.

Option 3: Treachery: Trojan ship. Main army is a feint. coop several ships and get troops to the city. Wait until the wizards go to maim the main army and then gut the facility, paying particular attention to their labs, spellbooks, etc.

Option 4: Da bomb. All you really need is one big Earthquake spell to turn the fortress to rubble.

Option 5: mercenaries. It's a peninsula, see what kind of amphibious creatures you can hire to either harass shipping or launch a direct attack on the fortress.

 

[Baron Opal]

IMC there is a standard protocol when two armed forces engage in conflict. Both sides summon many air elementals and air elemental creatures. Air elementals are naturally invisible and yet are able to interact. Having a swarm of small air elementals with a couple of large elemental "enforcers" allows them to detect and eliminate any flying invisible magician with a wand of fireballs. Since neither side wants to have that tactic used against them both sides have air elementals.

It isn't precisely RAW, but it is in the spirit of it, I think.

I also have an extrapolation from the book Occult Lore from Atlas Games. Therein are mentioned geomancers who can shape ley lines and other magical currents. The teleport spell in Arcana Evolved uses a ley-line style of special effect. With the two, there are also geomancers in the army that struggle with bending the magical currents to prevent / allow teleportation, depending on their side.

This is, of course, far from the RAW.

If I was the general of an invading army, I would have magicians in my army to summon creatures with unusual senses and movement capabilities. This would be regardless of the target, having magical support is vital. Given that the target is a collection of magicians, I would first send small animals, ravens and rats, that have been controlled by my druid and wizard allies. These would discover for me the layout of the building, water supplies, location of the chapel and the location of the magician's sleeping quarters and spellbooks. The location of any other campaign related special item stockpiles would be an important secondary target. (q.v. dragonshards)

The army would be split into two divisions. The first would be bands of skirmishers as mentioned above. The second would be the heavy infantry, seige equipment and other massive and slow materials. The skirmishers would scout and screen the heavy troops and apply pressure to the fortress so that the magicians inside would not be able to concentrate on the slow moving force. Air elementals screens are a must for invisibilty defense.

The skirmishers would do their best to penetrate the fortress to destroy the spellbooks, desecrate the chapel's altar and befoul the well. The only thing that makes the wizards a renewable resource is their spellbooks. Simply capturing spellbooks and familiars could be useful to force turncoats or have the wizards simply leave the conflict. Given the OP, teleport may be limited to a single magician or what is in their scroll library. I would ensure a clear battle plan and clear lines of succession as officers will be heavily targeted. Still, it may be a limited option for the target, saved for a decisive blow or last-ditch opportunity.

Methods of disrupting concentration, perhaps by a discordant bardic song or a wretched incense, must be researched. Artifacts that impede spellcasting must be researched and acquired. It is key that the magician's magical reach not extend beyond that of a spellcaster on the walls. They must be reduced to a versatile and powerful archer. They want to throw fireballs? Fine. We've go 10,000 guys. But they can only do it from their castle. Research and funds must go to this. Wands of dispel magic may become necesary.

That's what I can think of off the top of my head. Give me some concrete info and access to the DM for questions, and I will eliminate your magical infestation. If the general has no access to magicians, however, it will be very difficult depending on the resources the target magicians have.