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Army of Liberty: a Fantasy Revolutionary Warfare Quest

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I would guess that Trotha may have seen the additional hussars coming up, and is smart enough to guess that significant reinforcements of infantry, if not an entire army (as there actually is) may be coming up the way and is close. If he doesn't have a good idea of exactly how close that infantry is, he may well conclude that he's already missed his chance to hit us before reinforcements can come up mid-battle and really ruin his day. Just about the worst possible thing you can do is be mid-battle when significant enemy forces show up able to be committed against you while you're still locked in combat and unable to maneuver.

Frankly, he might be a couple days off in his estimate, but if he hadn't been able to carry the field in one day of battle, which could be unlikely given the terrain and our intention to sit there dug in, he would be caught. And if he's savaged, of the four/five armies Norn and satellite states have committed, three here and one or two further south, all three in this theater would have been destroyed. The Grand Duchy's already been hurt badly enough they are likely negotiate separately an end to the war on favorable terms to Arne no matter what Norn does now, if not capitulate entirely given an army is still driving on their capitol and has taken their second city.

Trotha's going to not only have to guard against us, but also possibly Montilivet finishing her campaign to defeat the Grand Duchy and then putting in a second expedition from the east... behind the second river line guarding into the heart of Norn, using plunder from the Grand Duchy to fund and feed her force.

[X] Let him withdraw

Let Durand go fight the other theater and defeat them likewise.
 
Strategy wise, is such an obvious trap is not even funny, he wants to "bait us" BEFORE we get "reinforcements" and make us lose the terrain advantage

Politicaly wise. We are holding the frontier. And we already streched the line a bit more than intended/planned.

Seriously let the enemy waste time with bait, wait for our numerical edge. And do some driling/planing with the 2 full ARMIES.



[X] Let him withdraw. You're safely sitting on prepared ground. You lose nothing by remaining here and letting him run.
 
RamiroGalletti said:
Strategy wise, is such an obvious trap is not even funny, he wants to "bait us" BEFORE we get "reinforcements" and make us lose the terrain advantage
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Yeah it'd be a little less obvious if we didn't have a good idea of what his army composition was. But even then he must think we're idiots. Whether it's racism or him trying to take advantage of our relative inexperience in command I don't know.

[X] Let him withdraw
 
[X] Let him withdraw

Trotha made the mistake of making the bait look way too appealing. An army with only 1 or 2 missing field artillery out of his 5 is something we might have bought, especially if we didn't spy early on. But having no field artillery in play at the battlefield is unlikely for me even the dumbest Norm commander. There is just no plausible explanation for that other "they are hidden, this is a trap". Trotha is new to deception, it seems.
 
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wabbitking said:
Yeah it'd be a little less obvious if we didn't have a good idea of what his army composition was. But even then he must think we're idiots. Whether it's racism or him trying to take advantage of our relative inexperience in command I don't know.
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Actually, come to think of it, I believe Von Trotha has some reason to believe a false retreat might work. If you look at Brutet from the Nornish perspective, what happened is that Durand remained on the defensive for most of the battle but launched an all-out charge as soon as Wahhenheim started retreating. From his perspective, he is only trying to bait us into doing the exact same thing we did in our previous battle!
 
It probably doesn't help that we captured all of Wachenheim's staff when we took the HQ, which means that von Trotha only has the more limited POV of the individual unit commanders rather than the broader view the army command staff would have had.
 
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Chimeraguard said:
It probably doesn't help that we captured all of Wachenheim's staff when we took the HQ, which means that von Trotha only has the more limited POV of the individual unit commanders rather than the broader view the army command staff would have had.
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True. If this is the case, it does mean that Trotha and Norn in general is still underestimating us. Rather than going "huh, this hobgoblin is actually a very good commander", they went "huh, this hobgoblin is clever enough to resist her natural inclination to attack, until a moment where the enemy appears weak". Then they came up with this feigned weakness tactic to punish this strategy.

In any case, us not attacking here is likely to dispell any notions of us being unusually aggressive. It's a shame, since we could make use of that reputation. I am honestly a bit tempted to try to spread the word afterwards that Durand was frothing at the mouth to attack, but that Guillory was more hesitant and talked her down.
 
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