We've got a few probable scenarios to deal with based on this prompt. We'll presumably have two objectives:
- Defeat or drive off any attacking enemies
- The two non-combatants and the cart MUST be fine at the end of combat. We do not know, and ideally do not want to find out the hard way, how much damage the noncombatants can take before falling; we can safely assume that if the cart takes significant damage, our journey WILL get delayed while it gets repaired (Deedee logically can't heal the cart with healing hands, as funny as that image is in my mind!)
The basic scenarios are "Being attacked from one direction" or "Multiple directions"; each must be dealt with in a different way. I'm also making an assumption we're not up against an overwhelming force; from a meta standpoint, we've got a six-person party. Assuming enemies of equal level (in Valor, you should generally assume that - just +1 or -1 level is vastly larger than in most D&D editions), an average level-appropriate force is a combination that adds up to the party's size:
- One Master enemy counts as four
- One Elite enemy counts as two
- One Soldier enemy counts as one
- One Minion enemy counts as one-half
Masters are usually reserved for major boss fights, which doesn't seem to be the case here. So, we've got a force of anywhere from something like three bandits who each fight as good as a PC, to twelve idiots that get KO'd in one hit apiece. All this is meta-knowledge, though it's not entirely out of realm Alesha could spot a vaguely similar pattern based on gameplay norms and put them to bear when crafting the baseline tactic.
A similar base pair of tactics applies regardless within this range:
- Focus on keeping enemies away from the cart, where we place our noncombatants; place our archer friend and Hikaru on the cart, where they can see in multiple directions and focus on punishing those trying to slip up to the cart away from our main press.
- Alesha in front, Deeds and Ace to either side, and Sekhmet starting in the back in a basic diamond formation, form the start of a straight up press on the main wave of enemies, Alesha's shield up to cover initial strikes. Deeds prioritizes healing Alesha over Sekh or Ace - when the straight-up fight starts, there's a nonzero chance Sekh will be out of range to get the right angle for sneak attacks, while Ace is a Berserker and wants at least some damage to get to full force. Deeds also strikes as she can, but conserves stamina - keeping the team, or if things start turning bad, noncombatants, up is more important than bringing enemies down.
All of this assumes the archer is Known to be friendly; if there's any risk of not trusting them, then we want to leave one person on backline near the archer and Hikaru - Ace is probably the most logical pick, being armored and, especially if we get that conversation, thoroughly capable of a punishing maneuver.
We may also want to split Ace off if we expect a two-pronged attack where the enemies will first show up near the cart; in that situation, we also have to fight near it, which is decidedly not optimal, but necessary for Deeds to be in a position to get in healing range of all involved.
If we're up against a force well larger than what I'm describing, we either need to find and quickly take advantage of an opportunity such as a chokepoint to reduce their ability to leverage those numbers on us - or we need to do an active flee, everyone on the cart, blast our enemies while we retreat. Presumably, this will involve enemies jumping onto the cart and us cooly punching them off of it, because that's just the standard for this type of fiction if you actively flee while on a horse-drawn cart.
