Need advice/resources for war in my campaign

[Twilightorder]

So I'm running a Lord of the Rings style campaign setting, with very low magic. It's very similar to an older D&D campaign setting, where one of the Gods turns on the others and is banished from heaven. He twists humans, elves and other races into monsters (orcs, goblins, etc.) and sets out to destroy the world. He's stopped, but the other Gods are all dead from the war.

In the aftermath of the war, the land suffered, plague and famine spread. There aren't really any heroes and magic is nearly dead. The creatures that survived the last war have preyed on the other races, so they are all weak and isolated.

Long story short, the Dark One has gathered his armies again in his evil lands and is preparing to try to conquer everything, to shape the world in his image. Standing against him are the pc's and they have been working to unite the remaining, small kingdoms and city-states, which they have done.

So, I'm not very good with war strategy unfortunately and I don't know much about how to command an army. Should they attack as one giant force, attacking the pc's land where they are strong? Or would they split their armies, attacking other kingdoms or locations before the enemy can gather completely, or striking at vulnerable points? How can I make it interesting but not prolong it too greatly. We want to see what happens and have the campaign close up soon, we've been doing it for a long time now. I have a nice streamlined system for big wars or small battles so that works out good. The question is just how to go about it? Any advice would be awesome and much appreciated.

 

[The Black Ferret]

Here is my suggestion. It's a bit of a compromise between a number of factors which should make them enemy force menacing but not draw out the conflict too long. Keep in mind that i don't know how large the army actual is, in terms of warriors. If I were controlling the army as my PC general, I would be a bit nastier and more strategic, but as a DM, I doubt you want to make it too difficult for the players, plus you said that you want this as a final wrap-up battle. It will demonstrate them as a major threat, though, and entice them to act quickly.

Have the enemy split into three smaller armies. Have two of them harass a couple of the local city-states which are close to each other and keep the third close in reserve, and see how the PCs and other local powers react. When they go to defend one place, have that city's unit retreat and have the third unit meet up with the other and assault the more undefended city. If the PCs have their forces split to defend both, then have the reserve aid one and let the other retreat from its region. The retreating unit should either get out completely and harass another region to try and weaken it, or also join the main assault. Provided the combined army can't take the city fast, then the PCs should catch on and be able to join the assault on the second city. The enemy army will be too entrenched in the siege at that point to retreat quick enough past the PCs forces and the PCs can fight them to the end.

This strategy will mean that the PCs will have to do some intel and figure out the deception. Scouts and messengers will need to be sent between the Dark One's units, too, so it's not like they won't have a little time to get info themselves, probably from messengers/fleeing refugees from the assaulted city. This should make it reasonably interesting and challenge them to gather all their forces at the right place for the final fight.

 

[Eltab]

The classic Dark Lord strategy blunder is: attack in every direction at once. In most cases, the Heroes of the various lands will fight your army to a tie. Then you have to decide which front to reinforce. Usually at this point you are informed that one attack truly suffered a catastrophic defeat and you are being counter-attacked by the successful defenders. So now your reserves are busy too.

The better plan: pick one enemy (conveniently, where the PCs are) to smash. Hold a reserve just as big as the attacking force. Use only economy-of-force units (more than frontier guards, big enough that the other Good Peoples will not want to attack them) on the other fronts. Send ambassadors to everybody, explaining your overwhelming power and offering to accept requests of alliance.

Let the PCs be the big heroes who break your ravening hordes (or go down trying). If they only defend themselves to a tie, you can send the reserve in as a second wave against them. If they do defeat the first force, they have to deal with the reserves also.
This gives you as DM a chance to set up a Helm's Deep / Minas Tirith set-piece battle, and a follow-up open field engagement to decide the war. If the heroes win both, send an ambassador with an offer of peace.

But there also should be some 'secret mission' that only a small band of highly-trained and very-experienced individuals (such as the PCs) could hope to pull off, which will greatly weaken and embarrass The Evil One, so he has to spend his time and efforts and resources keeping his overwhelming coalition from falling apart (or turning on him), instead of attacking.

Should you ever decide to go back to that world later, The Evil One (or his successor-lieutenant) still has his fortress-land and is surrounded by suspicious neighbors - just the set-up for another campaign!

Putting this in LotR terms:
Sauron attacks everybody from Gondor to the Lonely Mountain.
- The dwarves sent a call for help and retreated into their fortress, letting the men from Dale take shelter also; the besieging army was trapped in place (based in Dale) when more dwarves arrived, and destroyed in a three-way pincer attack.
- Mirkwood spiders and monsters attacked the Mirkwood Elves. The organized Elves attritted their disorganized foes down to nuisances, in time to send help to the dwarves and men inside Lonely Mountain.
- Moria- and Dol Guldor- based orcs launched a scorched-earth campaign into Lorien. Galadriel used the power of her Elven Ring and counter-attacked across the River Anduin, enlightening and cleansing Dol Goldur. The monsters of Mirkwood could not help defend the fortress. (And this also confused Sauron: is that the power of His Ring or of hers?)
- The movie shows Aragorn's and Gandalf's defense of Minas Tirith. In the book, Aragorn also uses psychological warfare by contacting Sauron through Saruman's palantir and lists off his rightful claims of kingship. (So Sauron is led to think that HE has the Ring and is going crazy from its influence.)
- Unbeknownst to Sauron, the REALLY important operation of the war is Frodo and Sam (bearing the One Ring) sneaking their way towards Mt. Doom.

Sauron SHOULD HAVE picked one foe - Galadriel or Gondor - and sent an overwhelming hammer-blow against it, with an equal follow-up army. Plus fortified his frontiers against infiltration (Gandalf speaks about this briefly to somebody in the book). Capture Frodo and Sam, and present overwhelming force - the war is over, with victory (but not revenge, which has to await another day).

edit: punctuation and spelling

 

[Twilightorder]

This sounds really interesting. I like the idea of them having to use scouts and intel and it not be a straightforward battle exactly. I love the idea of them using more deception like that.

 

[Twilightorder]

This is awesome too. I love the breakdown of the LOTR books too, it's been too long so I don't remember how they played out. I was wondering about that too, just bringing an overwhelming army to shatter the major alliance, which would effectively end the war. All he would have to do then would be to overwhelm the other scattered armies one at a time or so. Both of these ideas are so great. Thanks for the awesome replies, I'm going to think about these and use them.