Army of Liberty: a Fantasy Revolutionary Warfare Quest

NSchwerte · May 2, 2024

Red Rationalist said:
I think so? And even if he commits to the 20 turns treck of putting artillery there, this is a solvable issue for cavalry charges. Just once, from the right angle, destroys the artillery train.

wtf??????????????? you are talking about how von Trotha can perfectly screen his artillery without actually having his screens physcially in front of his artillery while walking across the open fields, but if von Trotha walks his artillery through very rough terrain he somehow lacks the ability to do it??????

Red Rationalist said:
That takes 20 turns to start shooting. I think there is a decent enough chance we could occupy the hill position before and set up supporting fire, seeing as we have open ground towards the area.

occupy the hills with what? set up supporting fire against where? Your plan to the unexpected attack is to put a defense in his way where our infantry is entirely without cover?

The Laurent said:
I literally have not the least clue what plan you have for anything unexpected happening because you keep on hinting that you'd just... stay in place?

Like, you literally just fearmongered about, "What if we forget we have cavalry and artillery" in that, "This is how he'll win" setup, and it just... confuses me?

That position you set up (as the enemy's Winning Position) literally relies on the two artillery that could shoot at it doing nothing as the cavalry just sit there for a dozen turns??

You cant plan for something unexpected happening, because its something unexpected?

If the 148th gets instakilled and we lose the 5th, whats the plan? You say my plan is bad because it doesnt account for something unexpected, while i have accounted for everything expected. I am sorry, if a meteor hits the Schloss we lose, guess i didnt plan for that!

And our cavalry and artillery doesnt help against his winning formation?

Your saving artilllery is firing at -80 against the troops setting up until they get out of the forest, where they get into position in three turns and start shelling the southern position with far superior artillery.

and what exactly is the cavalry doing against the units siting in a forest, where cavalry can literally move one tile per turn and can only attack units they start adjecent with? i guess they bodyblock

The Laurent said:
Also just in general, whether I agree with it or not, @NSchwerte , you might want to vote for your plan. You have at least one supporter, maybe/probably more, and it kinda needs to be out there so people can decide.

I dont care about putting up my plan because my goal is to get the best plan possible for the quest, not somehow make sure my personal quest wins. farming votes preemptively is useless for that purpose when i still could get more feedback

Red Rationalist said:
Additionally, the idea of him willing to commit munitions for -80 shots still has to be proven. Some opponents have a limit for the effects of shots they are willing to take.

If he were unwilling to even shoot the breastworks, what exactly would be the reason for him to openly assault them then??????

Red Rationalist said:
On his side, I would be worried about a push from the forest into the hill range, considering the lack of cover. You really want some firepower directed there, without the cavalry just being free to climb the hill range Additionally, this particular set-up means forgoing fire for 4 turns, which might become an issue for him. It would allow 4 artillery units, at the cost of flank security.

Fire is literally useless to him when directed against west rotholz

Chimeraguard said:
If anything, Fortress Kinzberg looks like it'd be a lot more vulnerable to the artillery advantage, because the majority of our primary infantry line are in breastworks on the open plains, which is just a -40 to Attack rolls.

If the enemy artillery actually does the stupid thing and does the long trek of moving into medium range, the breastworks on open plains would still be -60 cover.

The Laurent said:
That said, I do actually have another comment now that I actually dug back to look at the proposed map:

Like, @NSchwerte , you were emphasizing the importance of XP, and while I would not doubt agree with you that winning is more important than XP, it doesn't seem like any of the Infantry will get any XP (beyond 2 XP for winning the battle, which would be trivially eaten by the losses) and will instead just stand there taking casualties during the long-range bombardment? Or are you planning on moving them? Like it'd be great if you were, but you seemed kinda committed to getting everything in the perfect place and stopping.

How many times do i have to repeat that i expect the enemy to actually assault our position, as is described in his personality and would be his best course of action? A long range bombardment from him would be laughable, he would be shooting at -60 for his best units, worse than the -50 he would be getting while shooting at the rotholz forts.

Once he is exhausted enough and doesnt decide to retreat i would obviously charge him myself with our still fresh units, if just to capture all these juicy troops we could get.

but tbh, getting infantry experience is not that important, they arent really the greatest at holding it.

Dutch said:
I'm going to admit that I kinda zoned during most of the discussion.

But from what I can somewhat gather, everyone agrees that it'll be a long battle in which artillery is going to be vital. So my question. If we do set up our horse artillery at Rotholz, how are we going to keep it supplied with munitions? Horse artillery already has less ammo than normal artillery after all.

We just have a infantry carry munitions

Chimeraguard · May 2, 2024

Dutch said:
I'm going to admit that I kinda zoned during most of the discussion.

But from what I can somewhat gather, everyone agrees that it'll be a long battle in which artillery is going to be vital. So my question. If we do set up our horse artillery at Rotholz, how are we going to keep it supplied with munitions? Horse artillery already has less ammo than normal artillery after all.

Well, horse artillery doesn't specifically have less ammo than normal artillery, it's just that our horse artillery CO is Careless (-2 to max Munitions.)

Red Rationalist · May 2, 2024

Pinniped said:
Hmm. I think my only real objection for @Red Rationalist plan, is that we are sending half our army into a forward position on the Eastern flank, while leaving the other half in a passive position in the center. I think this is kind of the risk @NSchwerte is also worried about here

I'll look at the suggestion tomorrow, it's pretty late. I can certainly wargame my general response to the enemy setting positions up east.

natruska · May 2, 2024

The Laurent said:
Like, @NSchwerte , you were emphasizing the importance of XP, and while I would not doubt agree with you that winning is more important than XP, it doesn't seem like any of the Infantry will get any XP (beyond 2 XP for winning the battle, which would be trivially eaten by the losses) and will instead just stand there taking casualties during the long-range bombardment? Or are you planning on moving them? Like it'd be great if you were, but you seemed kinda committed to getting everything in the perfect place and stopping.

Being bombarded by artillery counts as spending a turn in combat for the sake of XP, or at least it has in the past. Jumped back to Mauvais Plain to check and yeah, the 148th went up 1 XP from that long range shot that did 0 damage in the first turn.

edit: honestly regardless of which Fortress plan we go with this is probably gonna be an obscenely efficient battle for XP grinding, considering how many low- or no- hits attacks are gonna be spread around.

Chimeraguard said:
That's a net -80 to Attack rolls. Von Trotha's Artillery park consists of 2 Experienced (1 Horse Art, +30), 1 Professional (+20), 3 Regular(+10), and 1 Trained.

This would put all of Von Trotha's artillery of having at least a 50% chance of inflicting 0 hits in their attacks, with half of them having a ~3/4ths chance of doing nothing when bombarding those positions.

If anything, Fortress Kinzberg looks like it'd be a lot more vulnerable to the artillery advantage, because the majority of our primary infantry line are in breastworks on the open plains, which is just a -40 to Ranged Attack rolls (-60 with range.) Which is still significant, but more theoretically surpasseble by sheer volume of fire and/or experienced crews.

Yeah, I get the numbers, but if von Trotha can actually afford to spend those munitions it'll still be a problem. Six batteries (i suspect the Trained unit won't even try

) each firing at a fraction of their effectiveness will still outweigh a single unit of horse artillery, probably even taking halfling disadvantage into account. And again, we can't bring the other guns up because screening them in the plain would be a death sentence for our infantry. The Kinzberg plan has less cover for our infantry, true, but it also has all of our batteries concentrated together and (likely) firing on enemies that have no cover at all, which I think is a good trade generally.

NSchwerte · May 2, 2024

Nerdorama said:
Okay. The present discussion is going in circles. The way I see it, we want to occupy both forts on the flanks of the main road, one for our own firing position, the other to deny it to the enemy, with both being points we should be prepared to fall back from eventually to draw the enemy into our main line. Picking one side and ignoring the other is a bad idea because both forts can fire on the other, and he has more horse guns.

The only other option is to take neither, barricade the road with breastworks, and dare him to try an approach. ("Turtling").

Of the three options there, I think that taking Rotholz Turm as our firing position is a better choice because it has fewer incoming firing lines from the enemy side, as well as more forest cover. We need to be amenable to skirmishing and harassing enemies moving into Sarnscheid, though, which means a cavalry and/or Pathfinder push into the forests on the left side of the map. To that end, I'm voting for:

-[X] Plan Fortress Rotholz

With the expectation that we're going to be sending the halflings and the cavalry west to skirmish if Trotha aims for Sarnscheid in spite of our putting a rampart there as a spoiler (and I think he will, because one space south of the Schloss is still a decent firing position, just not quite as covered.)

No, we both have 1 horse guns.

Rotholz absoluetely cannot fall back from rotholz, falling back means losing

the forts tbh dont really matter, Rotholz is just a convenient firing position cause its on a hill and surrounded by non hill cover

harassing enemies moving into sarnscheid is useless, because sarnsheid is useless.

natruska said:
Yeah, I get the numbers, but if von Trotha can actually afford to spend those munitions it'll still be a problem. Six batteries (i suspect the Trained unit won't even try ) each firing at a fraction of their effectiveness will still outweigh a single unit of horse artillery, probably even taking halfling disadvantage into account. And again, we can't bring the other guns up because screening them in the plain would be a death sentence for our infantry. The Kinzberg plan has less cover for our infantry, true, but it also has all of our batteries concentrated together and (likely) firing on enemies that have no cover at all, which I think is a good trade generally.

Yes, it will outweight the 5th, his artillery hits on for like 3.2, ours for 2,4 i think

Red Rationalist · May 2, 2024

Dutch said:
I'm going to admit that I kinda zoned during most of the discussion.

But from what I can somewhat gather, everyone agrees that it'll be a long battle in which artillery is going to be vital. So my question. If we do set up our horse artillery at Rotholz, how are we going to keep it supplied with munitions? Horse artillery already has less ammo than normal artillery after all.

I have the 42nd as an ammo carrier, providing 9+10 shots. Solves the issues for the foreseeable future.

NSchwerte · May 2, 2024

[X] Plan Fortress Kinzberg
-[X] this plan: Army of Liberty: a Fantasy Revolutionary Warfare Quest Fantasy - Historic

Nerdorama · May 2, 2024

NSchwerte said:
No, we both have 1 horse guns.

Rotholz absoluetely cannot fall back from rotholz, falling back means losing

the forts tbh dont really matter, Rotholz is just a convenient firing position cause its on a hill and surrounded by non hill cover

harassing enemies moving into sarnscheid is useless, because sarnsheid is useless.

Clearly, I've completely misunderstood what you've been arguing with RR about. And Schloss isn't useless because it can be used to contest both the road and the other fort. It's just that neither of them have very good firing lines pointing south.

EDIT: oh actually posting your plan made it clearer it was a sitting in Kinzberg vs. moving forward at all question.

Honestly, I'm just not confident that letting Trotha maneuver freely is gonna be a winning strategy even with our prepared defenses. Especially since he can in fact get very close coming down the right side without being exposed to any cannon fire.

The Laurent · May 2, 2024

NSchwerte said:
[X] Plan Fortress Kinzberg
-[X] place the troops like in this map:

Okay, I decided to take a breath. My question is basically. What if events actually do necessitate doing something with the infantry besides keeping them exactly in place and bracing? How would you deploy them? It feels like you're kinda just sitting down the infantry there and locking them in place thanks to spending all of the Defense points on them being in that one particular location. Again, maybe you aren't? I might just vote for both plans out of an uncertainty of which strawman is actually true?

natruska · May 2, 2024

[X] Plan Fortress Kinzberg
[X] Plan Valley Outpost

NSchwerte · May 2, 2024

Nerdorama said:
Clearly, I've completely misunderstood what you've been arguing with RR about. And Schloss isn't useless because it can be used to contest both the road and the other fort. It's just that neither of them have very good firing lines pointing south.

The problem is how is contesting the road useful? neither of us actually want to use it, von Trotha either assaults rotholz or bypasses it completely, while we dont want to walk into the road and his set up artillery lines anyway.

And he doesnt need spaces to contest the rotholz turm, he can just set them up north in his deployment zone and has the same effect against Rotholz, being in Sarnscheid makes his Horse guns more threatened cause they cant be supported by his field artillery

The Laurent said:
Okay, I decided to take a breath. My question is basically. What if events actually do necessitate doing something with the infantry besides keeping them exactly in place and bracing? How would you deploy them? It feels like you're kinda just sitting down the infantry there and locking them in place thanks to spending all of the Defense points on them being in that one particular location. Again, maybe you aren't? I might just vote for both plans out of an uncertainty of which strawman is actually true?

What kind of event is this? the plan is to have them there to screen against enemy cavalry. If something unexpected happens we react to that, but i cant just plan for something that cannot be planned for by definition.

If a meteor lands on Kinzberg i will move the Infantry north. If he loses most of his infantry and cavalry i will charge forward and kill him. If there is a instakill i charge in cavalry to prevent a breakthrough. what is your unexpected scenario and i will tell you how i answer, and even more elaborate than "the artillery will shoot it and everything will be ok" or "the cavalry will charge them and kill 10 infantry divisions

Nerdorama · May 2, 2024

NSchwerte said:
The problem is how is contesting the road useful? neither of us actually want to use it, von Trotha either assaults rotholz or bypasses it completely, while we dont want to walk into the road and his set up artillery lines anyway.

And he doesnt need spaces to contest the rotholz turm, he can just set them up north in his deployment zone and has the same effect against Rotholz, being in Sarnscheid makes his Horse guns more threatened cause they cant be supported by his field artillery

You know, I think I've thought about it, and my problems with your plan would be resolved if we sent the 5th and a couple screening infantry to the south end of that eastern valley to do some attrition to people coming down that way. Trotha has to approach us somehow, and if he's not using the road, that's his best option, and I want to make it worse for him.

I'll make a plan after I pick my kid up from school I think.

The Laurent · May 2, 2024

NSchwerte said:
The problem is how is contesting the road useful? neither of us actually want to use it, von Trotha either assaults rotholz or bypasses it completely, while we dont want to walk into the road and his set up artillery lines anyway.

And he doesnt need spaces to contest the rotholz turm, he can just set them up north in his deployment zone and has the same effect against Rotholz, being in Sarnscheid makes his Horse guns more threatened cause they cant be supported by his field artillery

What kind of event is this? the plan is to have them there to screen against enemy cavalry. If something unexpected happens we react to that, but i cant just plan for something that cannot be planned for by definition.

If a meteor lands on Kinzberg i will move the Infantry north. If he loses most of his infantry and cavalry i will charge forward and kill him. If there is a instakill i charge in cavalry to prevent a breakthrough. what is your unexpected scenario and i will tell you how i answer, and even more elaborate than "the artillery will shoot it and everything will be ok" or "the cavalry will charge them and kill 10 infantry divisions

Well, I know I was about to ask about the infantry but actually... why is the left wing of cavalry more extensive than the right wing of it? It seems as if the enemy could literally get into trivial hidden charging position more easily on the right than left?

Also it feels like having the Horse Artillery being static kinda makes it less useful than another Field Artillery, whereas I think we should expect von Trotha to... not use his Horse Artillery like Field Artillery?

However, as promised since I hate both plans (though yours also had the misfortune of reminding me of the thankfully defeated Hedgehog plan you had in early Mauvais that would have been a disaster), I'll do this:

-[X] Plan Fortress Rotholz:

[X] Plan Fortress Kinzberg

NSchwerte · May 2, 2024

Nerdorama said:
You know, I think I've thought about it, and my problems with your plan would be resolved if we sent the 5th and a couple screening infantry to the south end of that eastern valley to do some attrition to people coming down that way. Trotha has to approach us somehow, and if he's not using the road, that's his best option, and I want to make it worse for him.

I did already think about this a bit when RR brought this up and I don't have a problem with it, mostly because I think we can smoothly move from shooting in the east or shooting at central anyway.

Well have great intel of what he does anyway so we can just move the 5th between the east and center depending on from where he approaches.

The Laurent said:
Well, I know I was about to ask about the infantry but actually... why is the left wing of cavalry more extensive than the right wing of it? It seems as if the enemy could literally get into trivial hidden charging position more easily on the right than left?

Also it feels like having the Horse Artillery being static kinda makes it less useful than another Field Artillery, whereas I think we should expect von Trotha to... not use his Horse Artillery like Field Artillery?

However, as promised since I hate both plans (though yours also had the misfortune of reminding me of the thankfully defeated Hedgehog plan you had in early Mauvais that would have been a disaster), I'll do this:

-[X] Plan Fortress Rotholz:

[X] Plan Fortress Kinzberg

Tbh I just consider the +20 108th equal to two of guillornys cavalry and just want his cavalry to walk past his troops and be a threat in their backs they need to watch out for

That's an assignment where their independent nature makes sense, where it cannot screw up us when we need these cavalry and where guillory can feels good at striking fear in them and running them down.

I could shift one of guillornys cavalry east too if that's something people want. Or just have our 3 cavalry start east and react to how the enemy acts maybe? In combination with nerdos proposal to start the 5th in the east(which takes bigger advantage of their HArtillery nature too)

Red Rationalist · May 2, 2024

The Laurent said:
However, as promised since I hate both plans (though yours also had the misfortune of reminding me of the thankfully defeated Hedgehog plan you had in early Mauvais that would have been a disaster), I'll do this

Expect a trio of ghosts of politics to warn about the evils of centrism the coming days.

natruska · May 2, 2024

Nerdorama said:
You know, I think I've thought about it, and my problems with your plan would be resolved if we sent the 5th and a couple screening infantry to the south end of that eastern valley to do some attrition to people coming down that way. Trotha has to approach us somehow, and if he's not using the road, that's his best option, and I want to make it worse for him.

I'll make a plan after I pick my kid up from school I think.

Yeah I was thinking something like that could be interesting. The Rotholz and the Turm are both still useful as line-of-sight blockers even if we don't want to occupy them directly. A force in those hills (cavalry or infantry + the 5th) is pretty safe from von Trotha's artillery (no LoS except hills at Long Range that he might not even put guns on from the start since they'd be so far from the Kinzberg) and could work to deny him those hills - though even if von Trotha gets them I don't think they're a huge threat, that area of blocked LoS would mostly be useful to either side for staging their cavalry near the front I think.

I do share some of the concerns that the Kinzberg plan could end up being entirely passive and I think some tweaks could be good to contest forward positions on the flanks a little more, but I do think that we should ultimately use the Hochschloss as the centerpiece of our defense.

The Laurent · May 2, 2024

NSchwerte said:
I did already think about this a bit when RR brought this up and I don't have a problem with it, mostly because I think we can smoothly move from shooting in the east or shooting at central anyway.

Well have great intel of what he does anyway so we can just move the 5th between the east and center depending on from where he approaches.

Tbh I just consider the +20 108th equal to two of guillornys cavalry and just want his cavalry to walk past his troops and be a threat in their backs they need to watch out for

That's an assignment where their independent nature makes sense, where it cannot screw up us when we need these cavalry and where guillory can feels good at striking fear in them and running them down.

I could shift one of guillornys cavalry east too if that's something people want. Or just have our 3 cavalry start east and react to how the enemy acts maybe? In combination with nerdos proposal to start the 5th in the east(which takes bigger advantage of their HArtillery nature too)

That... actually could be interesting. After all, if the bulk of things are a waiting game, then the Horse Artillery can just withdraw once it's time for the clash, presuming we're imagining it not going as far north as the Roth? But to do that it'd have to start further up since three movement is three movement.

NSchwerte · May 2, 2024

The Laurent said:
That... actually could be interesting. After all, if the bulk of things are a waiting game, then the Horse Artillery can just withdraw once it's time for the clash, presuming we're imagining it not going as far north as the Roth? But to do that it'd have to start further up since three movement is three movement.

Currently I have it in my head that the 5th would move where the 31st is in RRs plan and we would have the 19th(and another maybe elven for looking?) regiment there to screen, with the cavalry then being able to play in the eastern valley. Yeah, it would start further up

The Laurent · May 2, 2024

NSchwerte said:
Currently I have it in my head that the 5th would move where the 31st is in RRs plan and we would have the 19th(and another maybe elven for looking?) regiment there to screen, with the cavalry then being able to play in the eastern valley. Yeah, it would start further up

About where-ish are you imagining ideally moving the HA? Obviously prior to retreating with it/etc. (If we get to that part relatively unmolested presuambly we'd put it close in to the infantry if we're imagining assault waves/etc.

NSchwerte · May 2, 2024

To visualise, this is how i currently imagine the formation we would assume: If there is nothing in the Rotholz or the center gets threathened the 5th moves back into the Hochschloss to be secure and blast off the enemy assault, while the cavalry is ready to flank from the east.

if there is stuff in the rotholz but the center is threathened we decide tactically

Not sure about the 5th positioning. like in the image has one tile higher medium coverage, but if we put it one SW it could fire at anything getting close to our mainline without moving

The Laurent · May 2, 2024

NSchwerte said:
To visualise, this is how i currently imagine the formation we would assume: If there is nothing in the Rotholz or the center gets threathened the 5th moves back into the Hochschloss to be secure and blast off the enemy assault, while the cavalry is ready to flank from the east.

if there is stuff in the rotholz but the center is threathened we decide tactically

Hmm, why is the HA there in particular as opposed to slightly to the left? I don't necessarily have some clever idea of what it can do to the left two spaces, I'm just asking to figure out, like, thoughts/etc?

Nerdorama · May 2, 2024

I kinda want to make our breastwork line one shorter to put a wolfhole in the east as well. Might make our own positioning overly complicated though.

NSchwerte · May 2, 2024

The Laurent said:
Hmm, why is the HA there in particular as opposed to slightly to the left? I don't necessarily have some clever idea of what it can do to the left two spaces, I'm just asking to figure out, like, thoughts/etc?

It's can't be moved to directly left because thats no hill and two tiles left, the hill above it blocks off some of the western rotholz

Questwolf · May 2, 2024

[X] Plan Fortress Kinzberg

The Laurent · May 2, 2024

[X] Plan Fortress Kinzberg

Contingent on the changes in the plan/etc, yeah.

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