grandmaster z0b wrote:The biggest problem for me is the logistics of feeding and watering the army, 400 000 people needs the same supplies as a city, whereas 40 000 is far closer to a realistic army. I find it hard to believe that the CS even has 400 000 troops being led by one man. I always thought the CS made up for lack troops with skelebots and making soldiers more powerful through power armour and giant robots. The million man army thing I found a bit much, but I could believe it as they were mainly from the burbs and considered cannon fodder. I still thought most of that 1 000 000 man army was support personnel, not troops.
yeah I been rethinking it and rethinking it, its comes down if you think there is food in the area, animal,s crops or wild berrys, now with that said both sides know the books are vague in alot of things and if there was food in any form for 308,000 troops, herds , missed crop fields, grain silos missing the first time the area in the middle of all 6 hivelands might have alot more then we were lead to believe, but you guess is as good as mine.
grandmaster z0b wrote:I also think it's impossible to hide that amount of troops, just the dust and smoke from their marching would be easy to see for miles around and all the forraging parties would be tearing up the landscape to feed them all would be really obvious, just because virtually nobody was living there doesn't change that. There would be soldiers going AWOL, injured mercs fleeing the area, nomadic tribes and d-bees travelling through there, people who refused to leave their homes, scouts from both armies and flyers doing surveillance. No I don't believe that Tolkeen only sent air elementals and never asked them "Did you see any CS forces?". You cannot hide that amount of troops for any length of time.
fleeing people normally dont go looking for trouble
53% of tolkeen's troops are dead, 25 % to 33.3% of the remaining people fightning for tolkeen lefted after SR mostly disgusted how it went down, CS or not, most good natured dont like seeing people buthered as they are running away, abd the other stuff the demons and evil ones were doing, i wouldnt be surprized if they did see holmes and his troops and just went on their way. For the most part they think holmes is dead and his troops, but i might have a reason why the xiticix broke off , remember of the the plots was to lead a large number of Xiticix to chi-town and have the xiticix attack chi-town but that failure, so that large number might have lefted to deal with tolkeen thing that failured. Now for the scout
Tolkeen sent out thier scout and holmes sented his , now i can see tolkeen sending scouts out just not in large numbers, why the only threat coming the north from the CS is "dead", so tolkeen northern army would have been move to reinforce the other army with a small number guarding the north side, Holmes would have sent every scout he had out, along with his troops who were going inside of tolkeen, i see some of the CS scouts going after the tolkeen scout , one scout normally are out in the field for long periods of time so you could wipe the out , and tolkeen might think they took off like the rest or CS troops could have taken their places, so scouts are out , and the main body is parked for the winter, spring and summer , they might have found a pre-rifts city to settle down in and start the task of securing food, one the features of the hivelands is the area between them run a battlion thru the gaps north check for food up in canada, then if some is found start runs back to the new base camp, water could be found near by in the lakes and snow.
grandmaster z0b wrote:Now change that to 40 000, a lot of the problems still exist but it's much easier to believe (or to suspend your disbelief). Here's how I think it should happen:
Holmes retreated from the Sorcerors Revenge with over 50 000 troops, but split them up into various smaller divisions leaving 10 000 in two groups to cover his retreat. They both head for high ground where they can dig in and defend themselves, they call in for CS reinforcements, and Tolkeen forces focus on them.
In the meantime Holmes sends small scouting parties ahead to check for signs of the enemy or Xiticix as well as getting the lay of the land. He takes all of his skelebot troops (say 5 - 10 thousand) and sends them first east towards Tolkeen and then north directly towards the Duluth Hive. This is a diversionary tactic which he hopes will get the attention of both Tolkeen and the Xiticix, drawing the Tolkeen forces towards the hive where both his enemies will kill each other. Tolkeen do send some forces north but only for observation, they aren't fooled into sending their own army into the hivelands.
Holmes splits his forces into smaller groups again and sends some north to light large forrest fires on the border of Xiticix territory. The Xiticx go into swarm mode against the skelebots who are told to defend themselves, but not to go into all out attack unless they are attacked on mass. Their orders are almost the same as the orders Holmes gives his own men, but instead of jabbing and swatting, they are ordered to fire only on any Xiticix that attack them. This gets them into the Hivelands before the Xiticix decide they are a real threat and then the swarm strikes. The Skelebots have a pre-programmed battle plan that invloves a third fortifying themselves at the closest defendable position while the other two thirds divide into two (the front column and back column) and then move north and south respectively, trying to split the swarm into two and away from the third skelebot group that has dug in. The swarm gets a message from a Queen not to break into two and to attack the fortified group, they take heavy damage but then the other two skelebot groups turn around and close in on the swarm in a pincer. Eventually the entire skelebot army is destroyed but the Xiticix have taken heavy losses themselves, however they think they have won a major battle and go back into the hive.
During this time Holmes has many of his men march in hundreds of smaller groups along the southern edge of the hivelands, protected by the wall of smoke created by the forrest fires. Others, including all APCs and Robots, have dug themsleves into trenches far north of Tolkeen and hide there. Tolkeen know something is going on but grossly missunderestimate Holmes' force presuming the main attack was from the skelebots, trying to lure them north, which they know have been defeated.
The CS are aware of Holmes' existance but cannot communicate with them for fear of radio being intercepted, however high flying CS recon planes spot about 20% - 50% of his forces, they are fooled by the measures designed to hide them from Tolkeen recon.
CS drop supplies from the air for the troops (mainly food, water and ammo) as well as some paratroopers, Tolkeen know about the supplies but are on the lookout for SAMAS as they have been given intel that they are going to send armoured flying reinforcements, and don't expect paratroopers so assume it's all supplies.
Nice ,
grandmaster z0b wrote:The rest of the war goes fairly much according to the books except the final assault which is intiated by Holmes, Tolkeen knew he was there but never knew the extent of his ground forces, especially after being reinforced by paratroopers and weren't well prepared for an attack from the North. This is quickly followed up with an attack from the main CS force and finally the CS send Holmes SAMAS reinforcements that have flown around the area and come in from the east.
I would also put more of an emphasis on artillery and air power as reasons for CS victory.
works for me
