>Story so far http://pastebin.com/i9pe83mY> World Background http://pastebin.com/K4qkgxXr>Past Archives http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Napoleonic%20Commander%20QuestWith the news that fresh units are on their way to your location within a day or two, you're loath to actually restart your raiding of the Brontic until they arrive. As a result, your captains just keep on training the new recruits into the lifestyle of a military man, and you can do little else but stare at the maps of the region and take sips of looted wine until they get here. You also take up your Aide-de-camp Varfjall's offer to learn chess, but after losing handily both attempts you put it aside for later. After a good day and a half of drilling when the sun's out and carousing when it's not, Garrison Captain Finn knocks on your door in the early evening. "Looks like your reinforcements are coming from the west to meet you."
>>19641071Taking a position on the walls of the garrison, it's hard to make out shapes with the setting sun in your eye, but you'd recognize marching formations anywhere. Three units, from the looks of things, but you can't make out what exactly they are.>Responses?>Also, fuck competing with Generation A. Never running on Tuesdays again so I can focus over there.
>Bump with provincial raiding map
send them a sigh to halt and have rider go out and meet them and have two more riders on standby in case its not who we think it is
>>19641211>They're too far away to give them a reliable sign, but sending a few riders out is easy enough.You call over Razin, and have him send a few riders out to confirm their status as friendlies. He nods to you and yells for a couple of "bastards" to go out there and check them out.From your position on the wall, you can see the hussars ride out then pause a few yards from the lines. After a few moments of both groups being stopped, the hussars turn and lead them back to Finnsfjord. Looks like they're friendlies after all.As they approach, you ensure that your greatcoat is spotless and your facial hair perfect as always, and you stride out in front of the gate to meet them. In front of you is around 180 men, between three units. Three men step out and salute you."Captain Fjerstad, 21st Line Regiment!""Captain Eklund, 14th Dragoon Regiment""Captain Kristensen, 36th Artillery Regiment!"You give the cursory greetings to the men, and Captain Finn takes the men off their hands and shows them where they'll be bunking. In the mean time, you've got three new captains you've just met and the night is young.
Invite our new captains,over to our place for a night of ale and whores,its what every good man needs after a march!
>>19641317Invite our new captains over, we should have a talk with them, get to know them, drink some with them. About the same procedure we did with our first group, a group thing, let them interact with the rest of the captains and then talk to them individually and get their impressions of everyone else.
>>19641383Ale and whores, dinner of champions! You invite the new captains to a night on the town, ensuring that the barkeeps and madams of the town remember your name. While your head hurts in the morning, you are able to remember a few things about your new captains. Fjerstad is a man of the march, and he claims that his men can get to a point on the battlefield and be set up before another regiment was halfway there. There was probably an element of drunken boasting in there, but you don't get the sense he was outright lying.Eklund, on the other hand, likes to move more cautiously. He'll be where you need him to be, but he'll likely spend some time making sure that his position is sound before he commits. There are benefits and drawbacks to this in a dragoon unit.Lastly, Kristensen is undoubtedly a man defined by patience. He will likely not be able to get the absolute best rate of fire on the field, but you feel confident that every shot will be perfectly placed to ensure the most amount of destruction.In the morning, you introduce them to your other captains, and let them be to plan for the days ahead.With that, it's been two weeks into your four week raiding stint. You have yet to sack Tarwood, and siege Dobren if you wish. You ARE required to be in the region with some activity until the four week stint is up, so there is no real rush. On the other hand, If you want to siege and then hold Dobren, the longer you can hold it the better.
Oh, and to be sure, everyone here knows what I mean when I say Dragoons right? Ignoring the British definition, because to them apparently everything was a dragoon.
>>19641492They're cavalry, heavier than Hussars, lighter than Cuirassiers. >>19641492We should probably sack Tarwood, just for completeness sake, and this could even draw forces out of Dobren meaning we could meet them in the field instead of behind walls. Then we'll siege Dobren, we've got two artillery units which means we can siege like a madman.
>>19641568Yep, though we're also using the definition where they have guns and can hop off their horses and form another line. It's a cool force multiplier trick, since it's way easier to get a decent flank with cav than infantry, though it does leave them open to other cavalry.
>>19641503I say we sack Tarwood, first that flood Dobren with more refuges, then we should start marching back home, then make A bee line for Dobren, open to other ideas thoughts or votes.
You resolve that you should still sack Tarwood, just to be sure, then siege Dobren. You're not 100% on how you'll go about the siege just yet, but one thing at a time. For now, you relay orders that you march the next morning to your captains, and return to your quarters.Later in the day, Finn comes to see you again."I heard that you're planning to take Dobren. If you need more men for whatever reason, just send a messenger up here and I'll bring them down myself. All we have up here is a garrison of militia, but men are men.">Anything else you'd like to do before the march?
>>19641682Make sure all of our captains know each other, get a count of how many troops we have and in what condition. Other than that I can't think of anything. To Tarwood, for glory and loot.
>>19641712Your captains seem to get along about as well as you expect them to. Razin and Eklund have philosophical differences, as you likely expected, but with them having different roles on the battlefield you're not really expecting friction as a result. Other than that everything's going great.As for men, you just replenished all of your units to full, so your army looks like this:18th Line: 120/12021st Line: 120/12051st Line: 120/12056th Line: 120/12028th Light: 90/9083rd Hussars: 40/4014th Dragoons: 40/4036th Artillery: 20/2039th Artillery: 20/20for a total of 690 men.
>>19641755Alright send the 28th ahead to check the road for sighs of danger, after that move out!
>>19641755This is a good number of men, and all that artillery makes me a very very happy man. All that cannon. Have the 28 scout ahead, and march towards Tarwood. Plundering time.
>>19641897>>19641881As dawn nears the following morning, you give orders to the 28th to move ahead and watch the roads. While the rest of your force stirs, they're out the gates and heading south. Soon, when the sun breaks over the horizon, you are following them back into enemy territory.---------------------------After an uneventful day-and-a-half march, you are nearing the crossroads. The sun is high in the sky, and you've been forced to shed your greatcoat to favor the double-breasted officer coat underneath. It's shaping up to be a warm spring, even this far north. Good weather to wage war.As you approach, Sorensen and some of the 28th are heading back to meet you. "Commander, there's something you need to see", he states simply, before turning to lead you to a good vantage point.(cont.)
>>19642071As you crest the hill, flanked by Sorensen and a few of the 28th, you can see what he means without even using your spyglass. Long streams of refugees, peasants and serfs, are fleeing the direction of Tarwood toward Dobren. Not that this says for sure that they ARE from Tarwood, since you think it's just as likely they're fleeing one of the western provinces on the front, but the roads are clogged with panicky peasants all the same.
>>19642098Well, this could be interesting. We can make it even worse for Dobren by making them instead of just panicky peasants, they can be panicky peasants, without any food or supplies. This'll eat up their resources faster, if we kill them they'll just be dead, but if we harry them and make them leave everything behind they'll have starving peasants taking up room, requiring more food and attention.
>>19642167agreed lets bring up the 83rd and have them get them to flee more quickly
>>19642167>>19642265>Just for confirmation purposes, if you let Razin loose he'll probably still kill a fair amount, more if you're unlucky. If you're okay with this, confirm and I'll get to writing.
>>19642311Let him and the 14th go to town on them, tell them that they should prioritize scaring, injuries that will need to be treated, and making them leave behind anything of value or any supplies they have, but to try not to kill them. Dead people aren't useful, living injured and starving people tie up their resources.
>>19642167>>19642265>>19642336You return to your main force, which has been waiting your return. Calling forth Razin and Eklund, you give them their orders. Razin huffs at the orders to avoid killing, but nods anyway, while Eklund has no issues. Razin's men quickly depart, with Eklund's behind them as they charge into the crossroads. Eklund's men fire their guns into the air, and Razin's men give battle cries as they approach, and you watch with a satisfied grin as the peasants scatter in all directions, most of them to Dobren. Many of the bigger wagons are simply left behind as the peasants flee. Soon, your cavalry units return, leaving a lot of abandoned loot and a minimum of dead peasants in their wake.
>>19642428Loot time!, Give the 8rd and 14 first picks, then its fair game for everyone from there!
>>19642428Excellent, this is truly excellent. Give Razin a drink to mollify his annoyance and not getting to slaughter, it's a good instinct most of the time.Get the loot, spread it among our men, about how many refugees were there? It may be entirely possible that most of Tarwood already left, not much point pillaging an abandoned town.
>>19642485>>19642474You toss Razin one of your looted wine bottles, and he takes a good hit and passes it to his men. He seems better, for now, and you know he'll get to exercise his instincts when it comes time to take Dobren.From your own guesses, probably near a thousand refugees, so probably about right to maybe a little high for what you expect Tarwood to be like.You let the men know to get to taking the stuff that was left behind, though you let the cavalry have the first crack at it. All in all, it's mostly boring stuff like clothes and food, though there's the occasional family treasure that gets quickly snapped up. Now all that remains here is to decide your course of action.
>>19642634It really doesn't seem worth it to go to Tarwood, if I was them I wouldn't have left much in the way of worthwhile loot. To Dobren, scouts scout ahead, make sure the road is safe. We're going to siege the living hell out of Dobren.
>>19642678Concluding that they likely were from Tarwood, and deciding it's not worth it to sack an abandoned town, you order your men to the east, on the road to Dobren.
>>19642922Another day's worth of marching goes by, you occasionally catch a glimpse of what you presume to be refugees, though they always seem to quicken their pace soon after you catch sight of them. It's now midday, the third day of marching. The city of Dobren is in sight, as well as the river it sits on. Your men start getting the siege camp set up, and your captains convene for planning the siege. You can tell just looking at the city that, if the defenders move correctly, this could be very bloody. In addition, there is always the possibility that the local Baron could call in a favor with another noble to try to break the siege, and with the garrison for a city this size and possibly the added garrison from Tarwood, planning actions is a daunting prospect.
>>19643018How much food does it look like this place could hold, do we know if their source of water is the river? Are there any good positions to set up our cannon to shell the place? Are there any noticeable weak spots in their fortifications and defenses?
>>19643192They can probably hold enough food for a couple of weeks of standard use. However, they are likely having refugee issues because of your actions in the towns of the area, as well as refugees fleeing the Esturian front. So how long they can actually hold is anyone's guess. The river is indeed their source of water. It's a very wide, fast-flowing river, and it gets a bit deep in some spots.Cannon positions, there's a good hill near where your camp is setting up that you could fit all 8 guns on. They'll have a good view of the area, and it will help with range issues.As far as defenses go, they've still got old-style medieval walls (tall enough to make climbing difficult, thick enough to fit a good amount of men on them), that have been fitted for stationary cannons (the reason that range is important on your guns). Your familiarity with artillery leads to to believe they're a bit older guns, probably 4 or 5 pounder cannons. Your guns are 6 pounders, and so will have a range advantage on them. In addition, much of the city has expanded beyond the walls, with a poorer district stretching about 100 yards beyond the city itself. Occupying such a position would be good for dealing with a sally by the defenders, but getting there would leave your men vulnerable to the guns.The walls themselves, as mentioned, are medieval style, which makes some things tougher and some more easy. For example, you're not likely to scale the walls with your men, but the walls being very tall means that cannon fire can do more damage if they hit low.
>>19643331Ok, first we're going to want to set up our cannon on the hill, we outrange them so we can fire with impunity. I'd rather not have our men go straight for the poor district, what we do is fire at them, make them hide and focus on taking down their stationary cannon on the walls, when we've done that we can sweep in with our troops and take the poor part where we can't be rooted out. Once that's done we'll consider whether we assault the gate normally, try to bring down the walls with cannon or something else. If we end up with a lot of bodies from the battles we'll want to toss them into their river, for both intimidation and disease purposes, we'll get our water from a higher point in the river.
>>19643427They have guns. Plural. At around 15-20 yard intervals on the wall, so about 6 guns facing you. If you want to take down the guns, you're going to have to bring the entire wall down (which is likely not feasible for a number of reasons).
>>19643523Ok, shame. Can we bombard the gun positions to keep them from firing while our infantry sweeps into the town?We'll of course want to start with some shelling before we do any of that, soften them up, get some fear into them.
>>19643559You're pretty confident that a good extended period of shelling will force the men on the walls to put their heads down, or at the very least force a good amount to lose their heads.It's currently dark out, so you don't think there's much use in starting the shelling...yet. You give the orders for the men to be ready at dawn, and for the cannons to begin firing soon after.>Internet starting to give me fits, so going to have to call it for tonight.>Will be back on Thursday at 9 PM EST.
don't know whatr this thread is abou and I don't care, because I have to go. I'll just leave this here.
Hey OP, I love these threads but just a piece of feedback; could you put some sort of symbol on the different units as well as just the number so we can see at a glance if they're cannon or infantry or whatever? I have trouble keeping track and anyone new would be doubly so
