Is the valley to the left or right of Rotholz? I think we may be talking about different areas.
Army of Liberty: a Fantasy Revolutionary Warfare Quest
- Thread starter Photomajig
- Start date
- Fantasy Historic
- Pronouns
- She/They
To be completely honest, after your edits I think the only meaningful differences between our plans are you've got a longer static line and are deploying the cavalry more aggressively. The latter of which is fine but the former of which feels unnecessary.
I can't argue with the benefits of effective forward firepower in a vacuum, but I'm curious how you concluded your last point. Why ISN'T running out the clock desirable?
Are these statements not kind of contradictory? To me, it still feels like both your plans have the same weakness: long range attritional bombardment. Which is a tactic that is very much in character for Von Trotha.
I mean, in order to counter that tactic, we need to either just accept it and take the damage, maybe keeping halflings in the most exposed positions. Or we can try to setup somewhere behind hills where his artillery cannot reach us efficiently, which all my plans have tried to do, although that does create other problems.
Please don't tempt faith (and the QM) like this...
But seriously, I do not agree at all with your assesment here. He has superior artillery and arguably better cavalry than us, we have the infantry advantage. His army is quite formidable, especially with the reinforcements he got. This is far from over, we can still lose this. Given the strengths of our respective armies, an infantry slugging match with no artillery support would absolutely be desireable.
At least respect his artillery, right? That amount of elite artillery can basically delete one of our units in one round if we are caught out of cover. If we allow him to set his artillery up, he can basically freeze us in place, since any movement out of our cover can be punished harshly. This is why I am still nervous with your plan, which involves setting up in open ground in the center.
And I do not see a scenario where this turns into a Brutet-like slaughter, unless he does something seriously stupid. He has enough cavalry and artillery to easily cover his retreat, if it comes to that.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- She/They
To the right. The Rotholz forest valley.
To the left of Rotholz Turm is the main road which is a thoroughly covered death zone.
I think you accidentally placed NSchwerte's plan in your vote instead of RedRationalist's.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
To be fair I don't think we can rely on it? Like, actually, fuck, @Photomajig , what time is it? God, if the exact hour of the day becomes relevant and he has to invent Night Fighting rules or something that'd admittedly be fucking hilarious.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
No? I was voting for NSwerte's vote and now also Nerdoroma's.
Known as approval voting.
Oh, I misread read what you wrote. Didn't see approval there, my bad.
- Pronouns
- She/They
My main point is that we're defending prepared ground and have reinforcements within 2 days march and a fallback position in a town on the other side of a river within about the same. We're sitting between the enemy and his border and a town we (nominally) control. He has to dislodge us, that's his objective. Our objective is to hold ground. If the sun sets while we're still on the field, we win and he loses. Unless I'm missing something that RR can explain.
Red Rationalist
Spinning in eternity
- Location
- Andro-Orlando Hair Saloon
- Pronouns
- They/Them
We don't fail, but we also don't gain anything from the victory. Ultimately, we're interested in damaging the enemy to exhaust Norn strategically, winning influence (capturing units), gaining xp while preserving supplies and munitions. Sitting in one place and relying on long-range bombardment to acheive anything runs counter to our broader interests.
So, to explain the reasoning behind this: Trotha wants to secure Rotholz, because he can't move forward otherwise. Rotholz faces a certain amount of flanking fire from the artillery, but it's reachable (3 tiles-> 1 turn of movement) and you can assume the infantry at least takes arrives there without routing. The opponent could come to conclusion an infantry assault is practical.
Assaulting Klinzberg has little to no chance of the infantry even arriving. This wouldn't cross his mind, hence he wouldn't try it.
The major difference is that Rotholz can shoot back, reducing his desire to solely rely on artillery. The artillery focussed general wants to save some munition, if he has other alternatives. I don't think he commits to putting everything against our first line of defense.
I don't see the need to cover the forest valley? And placing our horse artillery there doesn't really allow us to support the rest of our units.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Please explain where i miscounted?
I am assuming that if our enemies thinks that a charge has a 1% chance of working then he will not charge.
Maybe i am just getting ground down by RR here, I am just getting sick of people claiming my position has a problem, me explaining how thats not a problem, someone claiming theres a different problem and once i explained why its not a problem they claim the first one is a problem again.
The point of the longer static line is that if we need to move the 5th back into the center, we would need to put a unit into a village and without breastworks they would be vulnerable to enemy artillery.
Yes, they are. the assumption is that because von Trotha has a 1% chance to win a frontal assault against Rotholz he will take it, but if he has a 0,5% chance to win a frontal assault against Kinzberg he wont.
Please don't tempt faith (and the QM) like this...
But seriously, I do not agree at all with your assesment here. He has superior artillery and arguably better cavalry than us, we have the infantry advantage. His army is quite formidable, especially with the reinforcements he got. This is far from over, we can still lose this. Given the strengths of our respective armies, an infantry slugging match with no artillery support would absolutely be desireable.
At least respect his artillery, right? That amount of elite artillery can basically delete one of our units in one round if we are caught out of cover. If we allow him to set his artillery up, he can basically freeze us in place, since any movement out of our cover can be punished harshly. This is why I am still nervous with your plan, which involves setting up in open ground in the center.
And I do not see a scenario where this turns into a Brutet-like slaughter, unless he does something seriously stupid. He has enough cavalry and artillery to easily cover his retreat, if it comes to that.
I did it in Brutet and i will do it again!
his superior artillery doesnt help when we dont give him a good target to shoot at. Are you aware that the weakest cover we would have in my plan is -40? I do not set up in open plains, i am setting up in breastworks.
The thing is that he either charges forward with the infantry, in which case the artillery is not in position to support them or he moves forward with his artillery, in which case his artillery needs to move like 15 tiles to retreat. Though pursuit is probably not that important and super dependend on what he does of course.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
No, we cannot shoot back in rotholz, because he can just move his artillery out of the way.
At least i can use my explanations again!
Red Rationalist
Spinning in eternity
- Location
- Andro-Orlando Hair Saloon
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yeah, that is precisely the problem. You assign a chance of 1% of it working, assume the enemy does the same and would instead resort to expending as much munition as feasible if another option existed. You're not engaging with how Trotha considers the situation. You're not consider any of a myriad factors, like wanting to preserve munitions for the second line OR a desire to defeat us in a timely manner OR dedicating artillery to protect the flanks. There are multiple ways to view battles.
He has two artillery units with a +30 bonus, almost negating that cover. With time, he will be able to make a dent in our units, this will be bloody no matter how we play this. That said, I do think you have the right idea, I would just prefer to place our line somewhere else than in the center.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
No, I LITERALLY DO NOT THINK VON TROTHA WANTS TO BOMBARD US! I repeated that multiple times already! I am simply explaining that your claim that he couldnt do it is false!
And that 1% chance of the plan working is very generous, as you yourself admitted. I am saying that instead of doing a suicidal flanking assault or a useless long range bombardment, he would try to flank us
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
His artillery units will also shoot at at least medium range, if he actaully dragst them 8 tiles across the battlefield while under heavy fire, so his strongest artillery units will be shooting that cover with -30.
And keep in mind that by the time he reaches medium range we will be ready to countercharge him in a few more turns because his army is so devestated from our own fire
Red Rationalist
Spinning in eternity
- Location
- Andro-Orlando Hair Saloon
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I said nothing of the sort. I vaguely remember saying "Let's be generous here, the plan had a higher succcess chance". You came up with 1%. In Trotha's mind, I would probably give it a 35%, especially since he wants to have munitions left for the main event.
And again this mystical flanking operation you've yet to explain to anybody else. The wargames didn't go further than "what if he decides to deploy his entire force behind the hills for no reason?".
- Pronouns
- She/They
Only true if we set up the 5th exactly in line with the field arty, which while optimal won't be necessary by the time he's trying an assault.
Why not? It's an easy route to get within charge distance of our position without taking fire coming down the main road. All three plans actually agree on that we're just going about it in different ways (Schwerte and I setting up at the sound end of the valley and RR taking Rotholz Turm which can fire east if needed).
We don't gain anything by winning? We don't gain by minimizing casualties? We don't gain anything by reducing the warmaking ability of the only enemy army active in this theater when we're about to have 3? We don't gain by gaining the ability to pursue the enemy to the Raoille when he withdraws for real? Why are we even fighting this battle, then? We may as well have stayed in Martelnac and drilled.
Yes, so a + 30 unit shooting a medium range (-30) is shooting at the cover with an effective malus of -40. It's far from ideal, but not useless, especially with 7 units firing.
If he is not in medium range, neither are we. I don't consider it likely that we can devastate his army with our long-range artillery fire, especially if he uses the terrain to cover his movements.
Red Rationalist
Spinning in eternity
- Location
- Andro-Orlando Hair Saloon
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That assumes he's willing to subject his infantry to our artillery without conceivably gaining something from it. What reason does he have to go into range of Klinzburg? There is no scenario where he seizes something that could justify the danger. Holding a static position in Klizburg would amount to running out the clock because an artillery commander isn't putting infantry anywhere near a position where our artillery can fire.
There is no reduction of his warfighting ability if he reacts to Klinzberg by not ordering a sucidal attack. We will be in the same position when more could be achieved.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
This is once again you assuming that von Trotha is an absolute idiot, not only a bad commander but an utter incompetent who is not even able to understand the outcome of an incredible simple assault operation.
Yes, if von Trotha is incredible dumb we easily win.
The wargames didnt go further because you saw what i was doing and said that von Trotha would never do that, I presume because you realised that it would win.
He would not be deploying behind the hills in my plan btw, he would just move his troops behind them once he sees what we want to do when seeing the breastworks. I skipped the first 4 turns in the wargame because nothing happened there
- Pronouns
- She/They
Assuming for a moment that Trotha just forgets that the VI Army exists or is willing to let us be reinforced by them, that just means we can attack him later with overwhelming numeric advantage.
Since he's not going to do that, he's gonna have to try SOME KIND of an assault before that happens.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
The thing is that 5 of these units are not +30 artillery and they deal like 10 average damage per turn. So his whole artillery park is killing 100 of our guys per turn, while we would be killing 400 in the return salvo because his troops are in the open.
Why would his troops be in the open? He has no reason to place them in the open, unless he is afraid of a sudden charge by us.