Wrote a background piece for one of my characters today...

[G]

New battle plans.

The CS would not charge into melee. They would use their advantage which is kinetic distance weapons, and since this is a surprise attack stealth. That meaning the dogpacks may have neutralized the guards and the everyone simply sniper fires from behind cover, while the arty does its work (every unit should have some artillery, I might have started with arty if you hadn't said you didnt want the CS to have too much). Forcing the mages and refugees to come to them or be blown to bits. As for the magic defenses/traps..dogboys and stalkers can sense them, psi stalkers may even eat them. Dont forget the supersamas which give the CS air superiority. I cant see a 250 grunt unit wandering around on its own - no matter how dumb the commander is. The CS is also more likely to attack at night, because they ALL have optics, and the defenders won't. Any massed groups would likely be hit be the supersams grenade volleys. Anyone who looked like they knew what they were doing or was doing too well would be picked off by sniper fire/the CS bigger guns. I expect a lot of these Tolkeen forces are severly hurt by poison gas/plasma area of effect attacks.

If you are looking for SOT/CS tactics, you can find some not so good ones in the books (sorry), and some decent ones floating around people's websites.. (I have some, other people may have done better).

Other thoughts - That and one in 200 stalkers is born a nullifier (five times that of normal nullifiers), however the mortality rates of non nullifier psi stalkers increases that number significantly...as does the CS being able to train nullifiers.