Battle Elves

[Rowan]

Kgauck, I like much of what you said, but disagree that wizards shouldn't be any more effective against a fortress than fighters. Just like you pointed out later about different roles, wizards are artillery. Just like artillery, they are weak when attacked directly, but if left to attack, just like artillery they specialize in pounding strong military formations--whether massed troops or stone walls.

The rarity of wizards and powerful magic keeps strongholds low-tech; they don't need to counter much magic. Most energy spells will, indeed, be poor in the short term. Specialty spells, like Transmutations, Disentigrate, and so forth will be more effective. However, a wizard even in Long Range to cast a spell exposes himself within 400-800 feet--well within bowshot for archers who fire clouds of arrows into the sky. Protection from Missiles or Stoneskin are only going to protect against a couple of volleys, because each volley is likely to cause hits against that wizard.

Still, high level wizards are very rare and very feared precisely because they can defeat the greatest collective strength of man: fortresses and armies. Aelies can almost single-handedly turn back armies.

I very much agree that elves are in their most defensible places now. When the text says that Queen Isaelie doesn't think elves can hold out for long against humans, I think she's seeing that Anuire will either reunite as an empire or fall under the Gorgon, and the ensuing strength can, over a thousand years or more, whittle down the forest little by little through determined settlement. I think she worries about it because she's not yet sure how to gain the edge long term on humans, and isn't willing to bet elven futures yet on whatever strategies have been devised (such as expanding half-elven populations to cope, keeping the humans disorganized and disunited, even rebuilding elven strength).

The simple and lasting problem is that elves cannot hold plains against humans--and humans are adept at turning forests into plains; as long as humans control so much of the land and renew their strength so quickly, elves cannot recover enough land and numbers to expand much again. However, it may well be possible for them to retake and hold all forests all over Cerilia; I expect many elves have long range plans to do just that.

[geeman]

Let me ask a follow up question to the issue regarding how elves
might use magic in war: What standard, 1st-9th level spells do you
think could be used against units of soldiers at the company
(warcard) level? What effects might they have? I`m looking for
things other than the obvious, destructive spells like Fireball or
Meteor Swarm (which the Sidhe avoid anyway.)

For instance, the Magic Jar spell could be used by an elf wizard to
take over the body of an average human soldier as the unit is
encamped, perform as many murders as possible before he is eventually
struck down, inhabit another body, etc. until the company is
destroyed, the spell is magically countered, or until either the jar
or the wizard`s body is found. (Any wizard worth the name would be
able to hide the jar and his body, but those are the conditions to
end the spell.)

Spells like Ghost Sound, Message, Unseen Servant and Ventriloquism
could be cast to harass soldiers. It`d only take a few Ghost Sound
spells, for instance, to replicate the screams of a few humans dying
in agony to ruin any chance of rest the company might get.

What other uses of standard spells do you guys see? How might their
effects be accounted at the company (warcard) level?

Gary

[Autarkis]

So not to sound antagonistic, but I assume this site disregards source material printed for the BR setting in place of a new version based on the direction of the BRCS and the source authors of said document?

PSoTh gives plenty of examples of how they would deal with war and explanations of use of fortresses/strongholds as well as an example of historical warlike tendencies (against the goblins, kobolds, dwarves and themselves during their civil war.) Also, in Player Secrets of Tournen the general of the army is a sidhe who has been in that position for at least 100+ years. Brecht campaign setting also has some interesting information as well as the Khinasi campaign setting.

I keep seeing statements similar to 'humans build castles' or 'time is how elves wage war' when there is canonical evidence that yes they do build castles and yes they are at war (Ghaellie Sidhe).

[DanMcSorley]

On 2/2/08, Autarkis <brnetboard@birthright.net> wrote:
> So not to sound antagonistic, but I assume this site disregards source material
> printed for the BR setting in place of a new version based on the direction of the
> BRCS and the source authors of said document?

You do sound antagonistic, so try harder.

> PSoTh gives plenty of examples of how they would deal with war and
> explanations of use of fortresses/strongholds as well as an example of
> historical warlike tendencies (against the goblins, kobolds, dwarves and
> themselves during their civil war.) Also, in Player Secrets of Tournen the general
> of the army is a sidhe who has been in that position for at least 100+ years.
> Brecht campaign setting also has some interesting information as well as the
> Khinasi campaign setting.

You can safely assume that the people discussing this here know the
content of the various books. We`ve been discussing them for
something like 10 years now.

You seem bent out of shape because we`re ignoring "canon". This is
silly. We`re not ignorant of "canon", but we discuss more than that.
Something having been written by the original employees of TSR does
not make it more useful in a game I`m running than a new idea. And
new ideas are fun to discuss- if we only discussed "canon", we would
have run out of things to say years ago.

"Hey guys, what do you think about..."
"Page 32, RoE"

Boy, that would be an interesting discussion.

--
Daniel McSorley

[ryancaveney]

I assume this site disregards source material printed for the BR setting in place of a new version based on the direction of the BRCS and the source authors of said document?

Hell no!

when there is canonical evidence that

Ah, well. That's a very different issue. Since "canon" can be confusing and often self-contradictory, we spend a lot of time talking about how certain parts of it should be improved or replaced.

[AndrewTall]

So not to sound antagonistic, but I assume this site disregards source material printed for the BR setting in place of a new version based on the direction of the BRCS and the source authors of said document?

Not as far as I can see - but some sources - like PSoT certainly have more detractors than others.

As has been noted elsewhere canon frequently is inconsistent - particularly in PS's - the PSoT casually puts a human girl as queen and states that the king meekly marched off to put his head on the Gorgon's block when the awnsheghlien demanded - both incomprehensible in light of canon elsewhere, and that is amongst several other glaring oddities in the book. That means that interpreting canon - and arguing over differing interpretations will always be rife. As long as the debate is held in good nature and people explain why they think this or that I think that the interpretations are always beneficial even when they don't fit my campaign - I'll use them somewhere even just in defining my own take on thnings.

PSoTh gives plenty of examples of how they would deal with war...

As for war the PSoT suggestions are fine - but far from the be all and end all of the matter. As has been noted standard D&D rules basically make armies useless - a high level character of any class wins against any number of L0 foes every time. As a result in building a campaign setting for me also involves reining in magic heavily - and for that matter any other high level abilities. But then BR does always seem to polarise between epic-glory high level action and 'gritty' story-telling styles of play!

I keep seeing statements similar to 'humans build castles' or 'time is how elves wage war' when there is canonical evidence that yes they do build castles and yes they are at war (Ghaellie Sidhe).

The Gheallie Sidhe as written looks much more like bandit raids by malcontents than outright war - and even then is mostly a political force within the elven realms themselves - even Rhuobhe doesn't seem to be conquering lands around him, just harvesting scions and having a gay old time aslaughtering as the whim takes him. This is a long war from war in which one nation decides to devour/dominate another -unless what we are really debating is the meaning of the term war.

[geeman]

At 12:00 PM 2/3/2008, AndrewTall wrote:

>The Gheallie Sidhe as written looks much more like bandit raids by
>malcontents than outright war - and even then is mostly a political
>force within the elven realms themselves - even Rhuobhe doesn`t seem
>to be conquering lands around him, just harvesting scions and having
>a gay old time aslaughtering as the whim takes him. This is a long
>war from war in which one nation decides to devour/dominate another
>-unless what we are really debating is the meaning of the term war.

The GS appear to exist in subtle and not-so-subtle variations in the
various elven lands throughout Cerilia, and sometimes within elven
lands. In one or two places they seem like the de facto military,
for most they appear to be a kind of unregulated, irregular militia
and in others they are little more than raiders. In one or two cases
the GS seem to be a sort of elven knighthood. Most are more
perverse. In all cases they seem to have a slightly different
mystical component too. Some are a sort of Wild Hunt, others are
more sober. For the most part, I think this is a good reflection of
elven individualism.

I was thinking of handling this chapter in my supplement by having a
1-3 paragraph description of the GS in each of the elven
lands. Maybe a few character write ups for those who have none.

Gary

[kgauck]

The Gheallie Sidhe as written looks much more like bandit raids by malcontents than outright war.

The light style of war often is more raiding than anything else. Light forces (light cavalry, archers) don't want to engage main forces. They want to disrupt the population to lower incomes or induce them to leave, and if they encounter other forces, no more than skirmish if they think they have the advantage. Why risk the deaths of elves on these kinds of missions?

This is a long way from war in which one nation decides to devour/dominate another -unless what we are really debating is the meaning of the term war.

War as conquest is really pretty unusual in the span of human experience. Even in Anuire I think its very unusual for war to achieve the aims of devouring or dominating an opponent, even if the forces are designed to be able to do that.

Here is a bit of historiography from the Origins of Western Warfare: Militarism and Morality in the Ancient World.

One of the many contributions of Hans Delbruck to the history of warfare was to propose that there were two basic forms of warfare, the strategies of annihilation and of exhaustion. Victory Hanson in The Western Way of War argues that the first of these is particularly Western and can be traced back to the ancient Greeks. The idea is now reaching a wide audience through John Keegan's A History of Warfare whose master thesis is to contrast between non-western limited forms of warfare and a Western tradition, derived ultimately from the Greeks, of a face to face battle to the death.

Of course the Cerilian explanation for why humans fight this way should be different. Cerilian humans don't have a Greco-Roman history, and they do have Anduiras and Haelyn. But the notion of a limited form of warfare based on exhaustion for the elves (and the goblins too, BTW) based on raids and strikes, makes sense, and contrasts nicely to a decisive form of warfare based on annihilation through battle for the humans.

The human gods of war, Anduiras, Haelyn, and Cuiraecen provide an explanation for why humans are capable of fighting this way, with its strong reliance on personal courage and honor, with divine support, assistance, and encouragement. The fact that humans are intensive resource consumers (this is my farm, this acre here, that acre over there is not nearly as good for me, it belongs to Bob) provides another explanation. The elves are described as raiders, fighting a guerrilla war against occupation, and lack the ideological template for this kind of war (hey you, sacrifice yourself for the group by charging there). Further this acre and the acre next to it are both as good for elves, so if the one comes easily and the other one comes dearly, take the easy one and we'll get around to the tough one later. So the elves leave the castle alone and attack outlying villages. The humans lay siege to the castle.

I recall this news story from 2004

OUTNUMBERED British soldiers killed 35 Iraqi attackers in the Army’s first bayonet charge since the Falklands War 22 years ago.

The fearless Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders stormed rebel positions after being ambushed and pinned down.

Despite being outnumbered five to one, they suffered only three minor wounds in the hand-to-hand fighting near the city of Amara.

The battle erupted after Land Rovers carrying 20 Argylls came under attack on a highway.

After radioing for back-up, they fixed bayonets and charged at 100 rebels using tactics learned in drills.

This is a classical example of a Western force demonstrating its willingness to fight to the death and in so doing, routing a much larger non-Western force. Western history, from Rome to Iraq is full of these kinds of examples. If we look specifically at times and places where there is not also a huge technological disparity (forget the 19th century, technology will be a confounding factor) we can see why the humans ultimately triumph, but also why it takes as long and isn't as decisive as some examples we might otherwise imagine.

Further when we add arcane magic and immortality to the elves, we further reduce the advantage of humans. But I think the point about how both sights fight is clear.

[Rowan]

Your explanations, Kgauck, continue to show how humans can have driven elves back despite elven supremacy in most military engagements.

Geeman, I disagree that elves would use Magic Jar. It's one of the most perverse necromancy spells; unless you are very much changing the concept of elves, they would consider it a heinous crime and foul act to even know the spell, much less use it. Further, it is a very risky spell to use. The 9th level wizard required to cast the spell needs to keep the possessed body within 90 feet of the gem, and the gem needs to remain within 190 feet of the original body. Burying oneself might work, but could also cause additional problems. For instance, would things that would keep you safe like Otiluke's Resilient Sphere or Rope Trick not prevent the soul from returning? At the least, enemy clerics and spellcasters who recognized the spell (through spellcraft) could cast Locate Animals and Plants or some other detection spell, find the elven body, and destroy it. Very risky, and perverse.

Other spells that elves would be likely to employ (with a group of casters) are large strike groups under Expeditious Retreat; large sections of Greased battlefield; causing distractions with Dancing Lights; using Flare and Color Spray right before contact with an enemy, breaking charges or letting the first ranks be cut down quickly; hiding archers at the edges of Obscuring Mist, retreating into them and escaping if charged; Charming commanders; putting sections of the enemy to Sleep (best on mounted units, dropping horses and riders to be trampled and create holes in the important cavalry wedges); Disguising casters as human soldiers; Enlarging allies and Reducing enemies (talk about a morale impairment when you see your buddy made little).

And that's just the 1st level wizard list. I give my elves access to the Druid list, which brings in other elfy spells like Entangle, Faerie Fire, and Produce Flame at 1st level (a few Entangles can leave an entire unit at the mercy of elven archers, like shooting fish in a barrel).

If you figure that at least 20% of elves in combat can use 1st level spells, just those above are pretty devastating. A single volley of Sleep and Color Spray alone from 20 elves could virtually rout a unit.

With their mobility, fighting in skirmish order, and access to spells, it's a very rare event to pull off a successful charge against elves. Scouts are also likely to be pretty ineffective against them, especially in forests, since they would have a hard time surviving, much less identifying the scattered bands and individuals of elves hiding in the forest and ascertaining "unit" numbers.

Of course, higher level spells are more effective, and have some obvious applications. Here are some good picks:
Protection from Arrows, Fog Cloud, Glitterdust, any Summoning spell, Summon Swarm, Web, Detect Thoughts, Daze Monster, Hideous Laughter, Hypnotic Pattern, Invisibility and Greater and Sphere, Mirror Image, any standard Image illusion spells, Pyrotechnics, Whispering Wind, Magic Circle, Sleet Storm, Stinking Coud, Suggestion, Wind Wall, Flame Arrow, Fly, Haste, Slow, Evard's Black Tentacles, Solid Fog, Arcane Eye, Scrying, Locate Creature, Confusion, Crushing Despair, GEases, Hallucinatory Terrain, Illusory Wall, Rainbow Pattern, Mass Reduce Person (or Enlarge), Cloudkill, Wall of Stone (Walls in general), Prying Eyes, Telepathic Bond, Symbol of Sleep (any Symbol spell), Sending, Dream, Nightmare, Mirage Arcana, Seeming, Transmute Mud to Rock and vice versa, Repulsion, Acid Fog, Mass Suggestion, Veil, Control Water, Move Earth. I'll stop here at 6th level.

Druid spells are almost better: any Nature's Ally, Flaming Sphere, Gust of Wind, Soften Earth and Stone, Tree Shape, Warp Wood, Call Lightning and Lightning Storm, Contagion, Meld into Stone, Plant Growth, Quench, Snare, Spike Growth, Speak with Plants (and animals), Air Walk, Flame Strike, Giant Vermin, Ice Storm, Spike Stones, Animal Growth, Awaken, Control Winds, Insect Plague, Tree Stride, Wall of Thorns, Fire Seeds, Repel Wood, Stone Tell, Transport Via Plants. Again stopping at 6th level.

[geeman]

At 10:22 PM 2/3/2008, Rowan wrote:

>Geeman, I disagree that elves would use Magic Jar. It`s one of the
>most perverse necromancy spells; unless you are very much changing
>the concept of elves, they would consider it a heinous crime and
>foul act to even know the spell, much less use it. Further, it is a
>very risky spell to use. The 9th level wizard required to cast the
>spell needs to keep the possessed body within 90 feet of the gem,
>and the gem needs to remain within 190 feet of the original
>body. Burying oneself might work, but could also cause additional
>problems. For instance, would things that would keep you safe like
>Otiluke`s Resilient Sphere or Rope Trick not prevent the soul from
>returning? At the least, enemy clerics and spellcasters who
>recognized the spell (through spellcraft) could cast Locate Animals
>and Plants or some other detection spell, find the elven body, and
>destroy it. Very risky, and perverse.

I agree that most elves would find such a tactic both risky and
perverse, but doesn`t this show us rather at what extremity elves
would be at to employ that spell rather than that they wouldn`t use
it at all? Elves do shun necromancy, and those who use it "risk
censure of his peers and ostracism from the community" but that`s not
the same as a crime. Only the Khinasi actually make necromancy a
crime, punishable by death. It is also a risk, but I think that`s
again shows us that they`d use the spell only in extreme
circumstances rather than not at all. That said, any 9th level
wizard who can`t hide his comatose body for a period of time and
escape from a unit of soldiers--assuming he has no aid from other
elves--is a pretty sad magic user.... (The spell mentions
specifically how it can be barred, and I don`t think Otiluike`s
Resilient Sphere or Rope Trick do it. At least, it doesn`t read that
way from the MJ spell description, so in the absence of another
reference I`d say no.)

Of course, there are also the occasional elf who exemplify this
extremity and the elven willingness to go that route. Sideath leaps
to mind.... The elven repudiation of necromancy is one of those
important, but flavourful aspects of the original materials, meaning
that it should be taken seriously, but it`s not an absolute.

Thanks for the lists of spells that`d have adventure level
effects. That`ll save me quite a bit of time hunting around.

Gary