Strategy: 1d6 + 7 rolled: 5. Total: 12.
Sir Bradley's Ambush: 1d6 + ??? Rolled 4. Total: Above 4.
Troop Discipline: 1d6 + ??? Rolled 6. Total: Critical Success.
Enemy Reaction: 1d6 + ??? Rolled 5. Total: Around 5.
Alright, fuck. Welcome to Sir Bradley's POV for this update.
[X] Sir Bradley wants to disguise men and sneak them into the castle to keep the gates open allowing you to march right in.
"Sir Bradley, you will command the squires and implement your plan of action. I will trust you with this mission to sneak into the castle and open the gates for our army to storm in." Your ridiculous looking leader in her floppy hat commanded you. Not that you were complaining, in fact you were pretty proud that your plan got picked above the others and that she trusted you to do it. A very crude map was brought in, almost illegible to you and you've seen some pretty horrid maps before on campaign... But Yukihime didn't even blink, able to parse the information available "Sir Bradley, you are to ride along the western road towards the village of Snowbush while our main force... Skirmishes here, and here before we will disengage back up the mountain." Yukihime placed down silver coins to mark her strategy, showing her intentions to draw attention to the town of Warren and threatening a military outpost. After making sure everyone was following along she continued "Using the chaos of our sudden show of force, you will take out one of the reinforcing groups from the small garrison of Snowbush and insert yourself into Castle... What was the name again?" She squinted at the nearly illegible map before finishing "Castle Scarwood." She then sat back into her seat allowing others to begin speaking.
"So what if they mobilize and chase us up the mountain? There is only one reliable way up and down that isn't extremely dangerous you know." Master Hillwick commented absentmindedly pulling at his absurd mustache. "We would have to adapt our strategy entirely. However, it would be a complete bloodbath for them to attempt it. I also assume it'd take months to gather the appropriate amount of soldiers and engineers barring anything unexpected such as having a supernatural asset. Worst comes to worst, I will command William to topple the mountain on top of them." Yukihime's voice was detached, but authoritative on the topic of the casual murder of potentially hundreds if not thousands of people... Perhaps the anticipation in her voice was your imagination. Hearing someone so young say something like that shocked Hillwick into silence for a moment before he nodded "Yes, I would have done the same personally. It's why they haven't sent a great host to destroy me yet, as the terrain here is very advantageous to use as a weapon against attackers. You might have noticed, but the path up is directly designed as a trap to accommodate artificial rock slides. Unfortunately that's pretty well known so I doubt that they will attempt to follow us up." Hillwick leaned his face on his hand after explaining... "Anymore objections to the plan presented? No? Fine, I'll be off then." You finally spoke up, it was time to get a move on. Everyone else remained in their seats to continue planning the skirmish action.
You knew exactly where your guys were, they would be eating. You don't blame them, you woke up early just to get some extra food in you just in case you were sent out. Field rations weren't something you want to eat for long and most commanders knew that doing something as simple as spicing up their diet or giving them good alcohol would do much for morale. So when you spotted them relaxing and eating you waited until they were all finished eating before approaching them, since you knew due to their loyalty they'd stop everything just to ride out with you even disadvantaging themselves. "Renault, Vince, grab your subordinates we're going on a mission. It's pretty fucking vital... Vince come back here and grab your fucking weapon!" Both of them scampered off to do their assigned task of wrangling all the men to their horses. Renault and Vince were capable men you met in the small war of succession between Duke Cent's two inbred sons while you were still a mercenary. Renault was bulky and apparently from some far ass land across the sea or something, you won his loyalty by saving his ass after his knight fucked up and died. Vince was a local former bandit who lost his entire band after joining the wrong side, you let him join you after you saw him break out of his bindings and would've escaped if you weren't there and convinced your inbred lord at the time to spare him.
You were pretty fucking impressed with Yukihime teaching them how to properly ambush a target. You've been meaning to teach it to them, as only Renault and Vince really knew how but most of the guys here Sir Gregory's and not yours. Not that Sir Gregory's men were bad or anything, they just prioritized combat skill over tactical skill. You walked to the stables and started to ready your horse, waiting for your men to come out and form up. You didn't need to wait long, Renault and Vince were capable small scale leaders and it was their job to know where their guys were. "Alright, now that you're all here allow me to explain the situation. We're riding towards the village of Snowbush, from there we are expected to hide and wait for the small garrison to ride out after our army here fucks some shit up, we will kill them, wear their shit and then sneak into their shitty castle. Got that?... Good." You didn't get any objections or needless heckling from the peanut gallery so you assume they all got the info. For now you'll let them talk among themselves to stave off the nervousness of going into combat, needlessly fucking with them will just lower morale at this point but when you see Snowbush you'll command them to be as silent as possible. Snowbush was around half a day's travel from this mountain and it was surrounded by swamp... You were expected to camp out in the fucking swamp, good. Fuck, you should've kept your mouth shut.
You made it to Snowbush pretty fucking easily, there wasn't anybody on the road simply because it was a place very few people wanted to go to. You waved Renault to come closer to yourself "We're setting up here. No fires, no unnecessary movement, no talking. Spread it to the men, quietly." You whispered to him, and he nodded back with a near silent 'you got it boss!' from the guy. You hope the horses will be silent enough, but you doubt they'd attract attention this deep in the swamp especially with all the cicadas making all that bloody noise. So you waited silently for the unwitting fuckers to arrive.
You waited quite some fucking time, around a full day until you started hearing the gallop of horses. Before you needed to even order it your men were quickly on their saddles, and you all quietly trod on over to the side of the road. You waited for them to come into sight, before signalling a full charge at their front before they could discover you. To their credit the shock and surprise faded quickly and they really tried to counter your charge... But that was almost impossible, most of them getting cut down in the initial attack, with sporadic fighting... You threw your spear and impaled a man that managed to dismount Renault, and in your peripheral you see Vince behead a man with his axe. You then started the messy process of collecting all the bodies, removing their clothing and armor and then wearing ill fitting garbage you looted off a deadman, stuffing your actual equipment into bags. You also had to wash the blood off in the swamp, usually that's a bad idea but they lived in Snowbush, so nobody is going to question the swamp smell on the clothes. Nor will most people question the damaged equipment, as that's pretty standard for soldiers and levy outside of cushy positions. The thing that will get you into the castle and really convince everyone you're who you say you are is the orders you found on one of the poor schmucks that died in the ambush. Pretty standard shit, 'report to X location to link up with Y army, under Commander Z for further instruction'. Considering that these guys were all under the local Count, it's a pretty safe bet that you were going to the castle you needed to infiltrate. So you followed the directions of the orders you were so graciously given by their previous owner, and surprise, surprise you arrived with a thoroughly battered army of Count Rey. They didn't even bother looking you over, one look at the stamped orders to mobilize they simply explained they were going back to the castle to regroup and reorganize the hastily mustered army. You were surprised to see that the army was lacking in levies to supplement their forces... Meaning that Count Rey was using mostly trained troops, likely implementing some sort of Scutage on the peasantry to support the large almost thousand strong army he had fielded. It wasn't that impressive of an army on its own, but for a Count? Perhaps Count Rey wasn't as inbred as his peers.
You kept up pace with the army you attached yourself to, taking up the name 'Vernon of Snowbush', the dead cavalry commander you killed. Soon you all managed to reach the castle itself, a small quaint thing that looked like it could barely hold five hundred men inside, and you were correct. Half the army was in tents surrounding the castle itself, luckily as cavalry you were privileged enough to enter the castle itself. Your men didn't even flinch being this deep in enemy lines, and acted completely unnervingly unsuspicious as possible. Unfortunately because your disguise was a mere horseman and not any sort of knight or squire you weren't given quarters within the castle itself and instead in the small tent city in the courtyard. Fortunately this did put you very close to the gatehouse. So all you had to do was wait for the army to arrive...
Within a few days, some more men came and left with Count Rey mostly keeping cavalry for rapid responses against any more incursions down the mountain keeping only a small retinue of infantry and archers. He seemed to be planning some sort of defense line against the mountain itself, rumors of debates around fort construction and moving population centers to be more protected... Only for all that to be interrupted by the sound of a large horn from one of the towers "We're under attack!" You hear it the distance as Yukihime and Master Hillwick made their move to boldly attack Count Rey directly. That was your que... You and your men grabbed your weapons and assaulted the gate house effortlessly in the brief confusion and panic, and you were able to seal yourselves inside mostly... Now you just have to defend the entire building from a army that desperately wants it closed... Great.
Master Hillwick handed you a spyglass commenting on your plan's success "Sir Bradley performed flawlessly, I was afraid that they would discover him and this entire operation would be forgive me for this, fucked." You looked down the spyglass, humming a noncommittal sound. Your soldiers are already moving towards the castle in a rush, the time limit to save Sir Bradley and his men from certain doom approaching. There is some scattered resistance around the Castle itself, but the infantry is no match for your own. The only potential problem is the cavalry, which you hope to cut down before they can regroup from your unexpected assault.
How should you take advantage of this situation?
[X] Lead from the front!
[X] Personally hunt down and challenge Count Francis Rey.
[X] You will begin the preparations to attend to the wounded.
[X] You will personally command the men.
[X] You are here not as a conqueror, but as liberator! You will personally free the slaves, the mistresses and the indentured servants.
on that last one, maybe.)
