Questions on medieval armies!

[S'mon]

Just a couple of comments on Voobaha's reply.

Peasants would rarely if ever wield crossbows, to my knowledge - the crossbow was a specialised military weapon without a day-to-day application, so even though it was easy to use, it was typically only used by professionals, most famously the Genoese. It could also be used by free yeomen - who would be rich enough to keep their own equipment - eg in the Swiss cantons, I think.

The English longbowmen were not peasants but yeomen, free commoners. This class were required to train heavily in use of the (originally Welsh) longbow and formed the backbone of late-medieval English armies.

Mercenaries - the bulk of medieval mercenaries were actually mounted heavy cavalry, often knights themselves, not much different from regular nobles' retinues. However it's the more unusual infantry forces that stand out in history. The reason for this, as Machiavelli points out, is that mercenary cavalry always have the option of running away if things aren't going well, and frequently did so. Battles between mercenary cavalry units tended to involve a lot of maneuvering and very little actual bloodshed.
By contrast the Swiss infantry pikemen, or German landsknechte pike, had to actually win or die in bloody hand-to-hand combat, making them *much* more useful on the battlefield to their employer.

 

[Tonguez]

IMHO Magic and Classed Adventurers would change the nature of Warfare from that of 'massed units' to one of skirmish-raiders making quick raids on supply lines/camps, Spellcaster Artilery attacking strategic targets and specilist striketeams (ie PC adventurers) targeting Spellcasters.

Only after these forces had removed obstacles would occupation forces move in en masse

ie Warfare would take on a much more modern form

 

[Wippit Guud]

Best series ever writen for warfare: Forgotten Realms, Horselords Trilogy: Horselords, Dragonwall, Crusade.

Details the concepts, troop types, and strategies of many armies: Mongol horse riders (well, mongols in our time) Shou armies (far-east stuff), Very magically enhanced armies (as demonstrated by 200 simultaneous fireballs from the Cormyr battle mages), and some unorthodx demi-human stuff (dwarven 'battle squares' are psycho)

 

[jgbrowning]

If WotC or some other company manages to bring to market a game that supports the type of warfare/combat rules that we're discussing, perhaps you and I will get a chance to put into practice some of the theories we are bandying about here in this thread. Would you be game to playing out some of these scenarios should some rule set come along that allows us to do so?

What if I bring out the game... I've been looking at this for quite a while and have so far steared away from it because it is very difficult to formulate and perhaps even more difficult to create a paradigm for. The main problems i've seen are.

1. basic assumptions on magic prevalance and power differ. The book would have to have very good scaleability.
2. mindset. this is the big one. just because you can have flying improved invised wizard helicopters doesn't mean it's in the mindset of the "soldier" to do so. ie. are PCs truly unique because the players have a modern mindset vrs. the mindset the PCs would have in a fantasy world? (something ususally medieval, imperial, or renisance)
3. it would be killing the product. People want knights in shining armor charging. if i come out and say, "sorry, thats a stupid allocation of resources and the first time your 500 knights meets that flying invised mage they're toast" that's not going to give most people what they want. Which, IMHO, is basically a mass combat system that ignores most of the effects of magic.

I've got quite a bit written up already, but i'm waiting on it. Going to take some time and see what happens.

joe b.

 

[S'mon]

Best series ever writen for warfare: Forgotten Realms, Horselords Trilogy: Horselords, Dragonwall, Crusade.

Details the concepts, troop types, and strategies of many armies: Mongol horse riders (well, mongols in our time) Shou armies (far-east stuff), Very magically enhanced armies (as demonstrated by 200 simultaneous fireballs from the Cormyr battle mages), and some unorthodx demi-human stuff (dwarven 'battle squares' are psycho)

I got the impression from that series that the writers had very different ideas about the incidence of magic in FR - the 'Shou ' armies in book 2 had virtually no magic AIR, just lots of luckless conscripts in padded armour. The book centred on a military genius defending this apparently almost-no-magic oriental empire. The enemy Tuigan Horde (Mongols) had almost no magic either, their highest spellcaster (detailed in the Horde boxed set) was 9th level, and never did much either, unsurprising with armies of 100,000+. By contrast Book 3's Cormyran army of 30,000 resembled something out of 3rd edition, as has been mentioned, what with its 300 Wizards all level 5+ (fireball), the magic-poor Tuigan seemingly didn't have a chance.

 

[S'mon]

Comment on magic in mass battles.

In my own core world Ea, magic is fairly rare but there are some high-level spellcasters. Most soldiers are 1st level. This kind of set up is probably the one which makes magic the most powerful, because common troops have no defences against it.

Level 1: small battle
Magic, when deployed, is typically the deciding factor in small battles with dozens or hundreds of combatants per side. A single high-level Wizard can destroy a small army single-handed, given enough time.

Level 2: medium battle
With thousands, it's influential, and can be decisive if used eg to remove enemy leaders and bombard leaderless forces from the air - you can rarely kill 5000 enemy with magic, but you can disrupt and thus defeat them, making offensive operations effectively impossible. A high-level wizard can thus defend a country against the orc horde, but don't expect him to successfully attack them in their lairs & kill them all - sooner or later they'll nail him.

Level 3: big battle
With armies in the tens or hundreds of thousands, magic has relatively little impact. A single high-level caster may kill hundreds of opponents without a discernable dent in their numbers (or getting any xp, in 3e), and thus most high-levellers spend the battle seeking out enemy champions to defeat - which likely affectes enemy morale and command & control (War Machine rules model this well). This can help your own army win the battle, but you still _need_ an army. At this scale, both sides probably have a fair number of casters also, so there's rarely total magical domination by one side.

In short: my experience has been that the bigger the battle, the less difference magic makes. Of course a world where there are enough Wizards that you can field 300 fireballers in your army of 30,000 will be somewhat different. In this kind of world, both sides will need lots of magic defense & offense if they're to have a chance.

 

[Darkon]

I would propose that you would read the BR manual. This setting is especially described to simulated great battles and ruling kingdoms. If you wish a 3rd edition conversion, try the BRCS, on the www.birthright.net

 

[jgbrowning]

Level 3: big battle
With armies in the tens or hundreds of thousands, magic has relatively little impact. A single high-level caster may kill hundreds of opponents without a discernable dent in their numbers (or getting any xp, in 3e), and thus most high-levellers spend the battle seeking out enemy champions to defeat - which likely affectes enemy morale and command & control (War Machine rules model this well). This can help your own army win the battle, but you still _need_ an army. At this scale, both sides probably have a fair number of casters also, so there's rarely total magical domination by one side.

In short: my experience has been that the bigger the battle, the less difference magic makes.

I'd have to disagree with you on this one. IMHO, it doesn't come down to who has the most spellcasters, it comes down to who has the most people who can use items that mimic spells.. (fireball and magic missle wands and scrolls being the most common). Even rogues can do that, though not always and clerics with magic domain are another group. If those few mages spend their time and exp making equipment, their effectiveness is increased beyond their numbers.

Also, even in big combats, a few fireballs towards a troop is going to destroy morale, unless they are very very disciplined. those poor smucks know they're just sitting ducks. A mage doesn't have to kill, or even hurt, a soldier to take him out of combat. historically at least, battles tend to be won when the other side goes "oh crap, i could die out here" and runs away. Magic would make that response even greater.

There are always exceptions, i'm just talking generalities here.

joe b.

 

[S'mon]

I'd have to disagree with you on this one. IMHO, it doesn't come down to who has the most spellcasters, it comes down to who has the most people who can use items that mimic spells.. (fireball and magic missle wands and scrolls being the most common). Even rogues can do that, though not always and clerics with magic domain are another group. If those few mages spend their time and exp making equipment, their effectiveness is increased beyond their numbers.

Also, even in big combats, a few fireballs towards a troop is going to destroy morale, unless they are very very disciplined. those poor smucks know they're just sitting ducks. A mage doesn't have to kill, or even hurt, a soldier to take him out of combat. historically at least, battles tend to be won when the other side goes "oh crap, i could die out here" and runs away. Magic would make that response even greater.

There are always exceptions, i'm just talking generalities here.

joe b.

I was discussing my experience in my own campaign world, not generalities. My world does not have a vast number of spell-mimicking magic items, for instance - a battle with 100,000 men on each side might involve a couple of wands of fireballs and a few area-effect spell scrolls, rarely enough to be decisive unless deployed at a critical point.

Re morale - if you're in an army of 500,000 and it's hit by a couple of fireballs, you're unlikely to notice, much less run away, unless they just happen to go off right beside you. If you're in an army of 500 the effect is very different.

Generally speaking, 20th century warfare provides a good guide as to warfare in a typical D&D world, replacing technology with magic. Most of the attack spells seem oddly similar to modern artillery in AoO, for one thing...
Reading real accounts & dramatised versions of 20th century battles, you can see that eg air superiority is important, but it wasn't uncommon for masses of poorly armed 'spear-carriers' to overwhelm technologically superior enemies - guns run out of bullets, as mages run out of spells (and spell components, if the GM is firm!). And troops could be induced to stand up to aerial bombardment that killed a high percentage of them, either through training & morale or threat of a worse fate from their own side.

 

[S'mon]

Cases from my own campaign where magic has been decisive have tended to be those where the mundane forces have for some reason got to hold a particular position, most notably assaulting or defending a castle wall breach or similar small area. If the Wizard can get his foe to bunch up, he really can go to town on them. This certainly limits the effectiveness of low-level heavy infantry in a D&D setting.
Conversely against horse-mounted archers, even in small numbers, wizards have been astonishingly ineffective, unable to kill significant numbers (2-8 per fireball if he's lucky) or do much to disrupt them. Give the archers a few magic arrows each (eg via Greater Magic Weapon) and the wizards can even be badly injured or killed.