976 replies to this topic

[some_weirdGuy]

Might be fun to have Zhar start using some of his tricks to stir things up a bit. He could commandeer command of the maugholds magical defense and start doing things not everyone agrees with. Cause some chaos among the paladins ranks, with things eventually turning to a game of strategy between Zhar and Vayu on the magical end of things.

What do you think? should i do it? or have Zhar keep out of things? or what?

[Vortigern]

I think Zhar would want to take full advantage of a situation wherein he can make mayhem. It's kind of his thing.

[Taralom]

And Varin?

I think it would be best, both story and real-life wise to keep him out of the spotlight for the time being. It gives me time for my exams and is more interesting for potential readers.

[Vortigern]

Absolutely. Varin's part in this story will not be on the front lines. Which does seem to coincide nicely with exam season.

Anyway, dudes! Post! I already said I don't have time right now, which means I would like one of you guys to take the initiative and get the ball rolling. (In this case the ball is a siege and rolling means fighting. I'm sure you could figure that out, but I want to make abundantly clear that I would like you to do something interesting now.)

[{IRS}Athos]

I might do something tomorrow...

[Copaman]

I'm not really sure where to start. Maybe a huge wall of paladins come rushing at the big walls, and start their ladders up the walls, but big boiling pots of tar stop them? That is, after the archers and mages on the wall take care of a bunch. Plus. The bigass battering ram can be magically enchanted to get through gates easier...

[Vortigern]

In a siege you start with the catapults/trebuchets (or magic here), then once you've opened up a few gaps in the defences you send up the ladders and towers, and then once you've got a few sections of the wall around the gate covered, or at least kept busy, you send in the ram. And the initial wave of troops sent will almost certainly be some of the mercenaries. Does that make it easier?

[mike_]

Righto, I'll start this soon since noone else wants to

[{IRS}Athos]

I guess I'll start the battle proper, if nobody minds.

[mike_]

For the sake of continuity, I'll post up which radios aides are with whom Max's lads are in bold, Harald's in italics, and Murad's are underlined.

Morion- Pier, Anton, Steapa.
Harald- Gregor, Vladad, Olaf.
Maximilian- Rolf, Mahmud, Bluetooth.
Murad- Wilhelm, Chaptul, Ragnar.

So, if any of your characters wants to communicate with the rest of the party or one of the NPCs, and not gang up like usual (), I suggest you meet up and fight alongside one of the Captains. Feel free to elaborate on each of their appearances, fighting styles, etc. Have fun with it

[some_weirdGuy]

Vort, i must that that after re-reading some of david gemmel's books, that this siege thing could have been done better. It needed much more buildup and setting of the scene before we got to this point. It feels like what has happened is 'and from out of nowhere a whole lot of paladins came, and suddenly the castle is under siege'.

If you haven't read them in a while i suggest you do, just to get a feel for this type of stuff so that it can be executed better should you do it again later on, or even now as the siege takes place.

I don't mean to be over negative or critical, but you must admit that this could have been done better. Also, we will need a clear sense of progression and key events for this to work well, otherwise it will just be ages of 'and so we fought the paladins on the walls' and it will stagnate and become a problem.

Also, perhaps you should post some figures up here, just for easy reference so we know what we have.

Stuff like the maugholds basic layout(so people know what its like where we are fighting), the number of soldiers and stuff we and vayu have, what forces are out our disposal.

So far i think it was:
Vayu's army:

number eight thousand Paladins, four thousand mercenaries and two thousand melds

So 12000 fighting men against us, and some 2000 melds who are trickling in from around the local area.

His magi are all paladins, and thus use white magic, although he may have other magi with him?

Maugholds army:

The professional soldiers in the Maughold numbered no more than five thousand, including the mercenaries

Add to this the citizens that have been called to arms, plus the various mage groups i mentioned in my post, and I'd say the maughold numbers around anywhere from 5200-6000 defenders.

On the magic side of things Vayu has the advantage of greater numbers, But both sides hold each other at bay, Vayu's paladins have the maughold surrounded meaning the magi cannot see outside the walls, but equally one of the mage clans within the maughold holds the paladins at bay outside, while others take up various posts, the white magi on the little 'hubs' on the walls, strengthening the physical barriers that protect the walls from being smashed by the projectiles. Some 'fire magi' who are also with them, and the magi who were with the mercenaries.

So thats four groups of mages for the defenders, I'm thinking they should number no more that a hundred or so, depending on the size of the mercenary's mages.
Keeping the numbers low like that keeps this as a nice battle of manpower, rather than a battle of magic. Which i think is better.

But yeah, so vort, what do you think? and yeah, post up the details and such so we have a frame to work with.

[Copaman]

I just realized I've put myself in a position where I'm not much use until after the secong ring falls. :/

Someone break the first ring and encroach on the second!

[Vortigern]

The mercenaries do not employ any mages. That's not what mercenary life is about. Anyway, herein I shall give you some easy reference numbers:

The Attackers
8000 Paladins, including 600 heavy cavalry and approx. 2000 auxiliaries/archers.
4000 mercenaries: 1500 Variag (see earlier fight scene for more details on them), 1000 Valentine Pikemen (well-drilled, well-armoured pikemen, each carrying a short sword as well), 900-1000 Drow and Deathknelf (Drow fight with minor black magic and swords, and do not wear armour; Deathknelf are all Shadowblade or Deathbringer, largely Fighters, Behemoths and Whisperblades) and a few various stragglers not associated with any of the major warbands.
2000 Melds.
50ish siege towers, each capable of holding up to 150 foot soldiers.
Hundreds of ladders, built to fit the walls of the Maughold exactly (Vayu used to live there, he knows the blueprints inside out.)
18 trebuchets, well-stocked with boulders, chunks of masonry and whatever else they can hurl.
30 ballistae, designed to clear the walls with massive bolts.
A few little rams and one gigantic ram, brought specifically to break down the mighty gates of the Maughold. Think Grond, but with a demon face.

The Defenders
1000 Sons of Man.
4500ish mercenaries. (2000 Landsknecht, Maximilian's pikemen; 1500 Janizar, Murad's scimitar-wielding moustachioed easterners; 1000 Variag, under Harald Hardrada.)
100 Deathknelve.
2500 gnomes, when they wake up.
3/4000 militia, armed with whatever they could find, be that pitchfork, axe, hammer, bow or sword.


SWG, I appreciate that the approach to the siege could have been done better, but it would all have been done by me and, frankly, I didn't have the time. Anyway, I made mention of the approaching Paladins way back towards the start of the chapter and this has all been about Winter Vayu. What did you think he was going to do, sit around in the woods staring at fungus?

And don't fret Copa, I'm sure the first wall won't last that long. Variag are ferocious and melds are (literally) inhuman in battle.

EDIT: Oh, apparently Murad has some mages. Well, never mind.

[mike_]

Yeah, Murad's magi are more like less evil Umbar - they focus on Fire magic, following one of two paths: subtle (or not so subtle) illusions, or the generic throwing-fireballs-around approach. There aren't that many of them, no more than three hundred in all of Murad's force. To my mind his lads are mainly highly professional archers wielding composite bows.

[{IRS}Athos]

So he has trebs and ballistae, but no catapults? Cripes... I screwed up my post.

[Vortigern]

Meh, throw in some catapults. I figured trebuchets would be better given the scale of the Maughold as their range is so much greater, as is the weight of their projectiles.

Anyway, I'm done working this week, and tomorrow I head back up north to my university city, whereupon I shall endeavour to contribute to the storyline in a manner most literary and military. Might not be until Sunday, though. I don't know how long everything I have to do tomorrow is going to take.

[{IRS}Athos]

Well, I had both trebs and catapults in my post, so I guess all that changes is that they had some extra siege weapons.

[some_weirdGuy]

Ok, the number of defenders is higher then i expected. Considering its a massive fortress (Which gives defenders a big advantage over the attacking force) i would have thought defenders would have had less. 9000 against 12000, given how amazing you've made the maughold out to be seems to me that it is actually vayu's army who would be at the disadvantage.

I just realized I've put myself in a position where I'm not much use until after the secong ring falls. :/

Tom can always move to the action. Who says he has to stay with his people? or that his people have to stay put?

but yes, you did kinda trap yourself there.

EDIT: Oh, apparently Murad has some mages. Well, never mind.

Yes, indeed.

I still think its kinda silly that 'black magic' is fire magic now. From your descriptions and stuff that you have given it seems as though you really only put that association in to fit with a 'four elements only'(earth, air, water, fire) style(infact, i know this to be true, as you invented the umbar back when you had it as only four elements), then later changed the elements to include more (earth, air, water, fire, light, darkness and 'seventh element'), thus rendering that association unnecessary and wholly unfitting.

As such it now makes more sense for black magic to actually be black(as in, about the element of darkness), instead of being 'just fire magic'(with absolutely no association with the darkness element, because the darkness element didn't exsist when you made them, and you haven't updated them since) . I mean, when you hear 'black magic' you think of darkness, dark arts like necromancy, or other evil type magic, more based in darkness and deceit and corruption. You do not think of Fire(and its associated colour red, not black).

Also, the sort of stuff the umbar do seems to have nothing to do with fire, admittedly we haven't seen much of them, but what little we have has had nothing to do with fire.

I say you could change black magic to be the darkness element magic, and then add fire magic as its own thing, then just say that the umbar use both fire and black magic. Easy, and then everything makes sense.

Anyway, i'm getting off track, so what i was going to say is:
seen as those mercenary magi are fire mages, Theres no need to double up, so the fire magi group i spoke of can be changed to something else, leaving the mercenary magi as the only fire mages.

SWG, I appreciate that the approach to the siege could have been done better, but it would all have been done by me and, frankly, I didn't have the time. Anyway, I made mention of the approaching Paladins way back towards the start of the chapter and this has all been about Winter Vayu. What did you think he was going to do, sit around in the woods staring at fungus?

Please don't take any offense or anything, i don't want it to be taken as an insult or anything. Just after seeing the setting up/execution of multiple sieges done really well in those books, it made me realise how this could have been done better here. It just doesn't quite sit right with me when things aren't done as well as they could have been, for whatever reason, and indeed with anything. But oh well, thats in the past, so we can move on and just do this

[Vortigern]

If I had spent as long as David Gemmell setting up this siege we wouldn't have started yet and everyone would be massively bored. That's the problem with writing it in RPG form instead of as a novel.

And yes, I appreciate the numbers might not seem enough to give Vayu an advantage, but you must remember that not only are nearly half the defenders untrained militiamen, but Vayu has some very clever tricks up his sleeve. More on that story later.

[Fire Ze Missiles!]

Yeah, in support of Vort there, the Maughold's citizen levy would be absolutely no match for Vayu's well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened Palatinate warriors, so if they do make the walls the militia will get the shit beat out of them They're only really there to fill space so our important troops (aka us, mercs and Deathknleve) don't all get shanked by giant Ballista bolts.