LibriumArcana.Games

The Forgotten Realms are a fairly magic heavy place. It can be assumed with near 100% certainly that any organized body of troops will met in combat a hostile magic user in a standard tour of duty (let us say 4 to 6 years) at least once.

It rises the question, how do you train solders to fight against magical oppotents? How do you train them to fight with magic users?

Currently the nature of the armies of the Forgotten Realms are feudal in nature. Sooner or later the nature of these armies will change.

Can a conscirpt army be trained to deal with medium and high level mages and other magical beings or priests?

How does a professional volunteer force?

There are a number of non-feudal armies in the Realms. Lets take a look:

Thay: A professional officer class leads armies mostly compossed of conscript arrow fodder. They don't deal with magic well, although the powerful wizards and priests that are in leadership positions just try to protect the valuable elites and minimize the losses by the expendables.

Zhentarim: Professional, volunteer army (currently) with arrow fodder humanoids. Lots of wizards and clerics. Quite good at dealing with magic, though counter magic or good tactics. Officers more interested in winning in advancing their career than force preservation.

Dales: volunteer militia. Guerrilla war tactics tend to minimize large scale exposure to blasting magic.

Dwarves: Highly skilled and well equipped militia commanded by professional warriors. They suck down magic, which they are resistant to, and keep coming.

Orcs: Barbarian horde. Die in droves.

Cormyr: Classic feudal force backed up by the War Wizards.

Cat there are many forms of fuedal armies, the idea of cannon fodder hordes with professional officers is an example of Persian fuedal tactics.

I'll specify a bit more, a conscirpt army like the US army of WWII, or the current day ISD, how would they train to deal with this?

frigidmagi wrote:Cat there are many forms of fuedal armies, the idea of cannon fodder hordes with professional officers is an example of Persian fuedal tactics.

I'll specify a bit more, a conscirpt army like the US army of WWII, or the current day ISD, how would they train to deal with this?

And my reply is that there are many different types of armies in the Realms already. The Flaming Fist, for example, is a professional volunteer army with its own clerics and even an arch-mage as one of its leaders. The Zhentarim army is no way feudal, being the army of an emerging empire. Medieval European feudal armies have all sorts of problems, including limited amount of time they could be kept in the field and patchwork nature, which is why they were gradually phased out by mercenaries professional armies.

Thay has a classic conscript army, with undead and gnolls being most of the conscripts. The Red Wizards are willing to throw them into the meat grinder and spare little attention to the casualties that ensue, prefering to use their magic to kill the enemy and protect their own asses.

The Flaming Fist, on the other hand, places a high value on the lives of their own soldiers. Their officers are familiar with magic and how to minimize the effects on their own troops as well as having access to magic of their own.

I the question needs to be more focused. The Realms already has the armies that you're asking about. The real question is how does a professional army handle hostile magic, since their is a limit to the amount of training one can give to a semi-medieval conscript (barring elven and dwarven every adult is trained and fights militias for the moment.

With that in mind, concentration of force, especially in a shock attack arm, is how most hand to hand battles were one in the west. Other arms contribute, sometimes devestatingly (Ajincourt, I'm looking at you), but battle is most often decided in close quarters combat. But those same high value, concentrated shock troopers whether heavy infantry or knight, are prime targets to area effect magic.

Besides counter magic and sending guys with knives after the wizards after dark and having bowmen pick them off if they can, I imagine the better units would train to move in dispersed formations, only coming together to concentrate just before engaging the enemy.

And I didn't say a thing about the Zhent army did I. I told you rather bluntly that the Thayian army was not in the sytle of a modern conscirpt army but an example of the army sylte used by fuedal Persia. The tactics used by Thay and Persia are not tactics that the draft armies of the US or Israel would use. There is more than one sylte of Fuedal Army.

frigidmagi wrote:And I didn't say a thing about the Zhent army did I. I told you rather bluntly that the Thayian army was not in the sytle of a modern conscirpt army but an example of the army sylte used by fuedal Persia. The tactics used by Thay and Persia are not tactics that the draft armies of the US or Israel would use. There is more than one sylte of Fuedal Army.

You didn't mention Thay at all. Read your own post. And while I wouldn't compare it to a Western conscript army, their are more conscript armies than just those in the west and in some of those places the value of a soldier's life is pretty low.

If you meant to limit your draft and professional army models merely to those by the west, amend your question. The best known armies of the Realms are mostly those run by complete and utter bastards, who are willing to send as many men as it takes to their deaths to win. Modern western armies, whether draft or conscript, aren't so cavalier with the lives of their soldiers.

Not to get between the two of you, but what exactly are we talking about here? A modern day style conscript/volunteer army but with Faerunian equipment, same but actually raised in Faerun (i.e. with access to magic users both arcane and divine), or an actual modern day army with all the materiel that entails? Because if it's the latter the way to deal with magic users is artillery and/or air power.

Cat my reply to your first post I said

Cat there are many forms of fuedal armies, the idea of cannon fodder hordes with professional officers is an example of Persian fuedal tactics.

That was damn well in reference to Thay.

Also there is more than one type of fuedal army, there are quite a damn few variations in there and you damn well know it.

Well, I think more than anything else, the issues with magic would make tactics a hell of a lot more interesting. Even a neophyte wizard can make infantry break or stop a cavalry charge in it's tracks through the use of cause fear, or sleep spells.

Look, how the army is raised is irrelevant. The vasty majority of realms armies are comprised of peasant infantry. Infantry is needed to capture and hold territory. This takes training because no matter how you raise the troops, they will eventually face magic.

The question is, how the hell do you train infantry to deal with the fact that their very minds can be taken from them at any moment, or that a demon could be summoned onto the battlefield by either their own mages, or the enemy's? It is more than battlefield tactics used by generals. It is how you keep the troops from breaking.

frigidmagi wrote:Cat my reply to your first post I said

Cat there are many forms of fuedal armies, the idea of cannon fodder hordes with professional officers is an example of Persian fuedal tactics.

That was damn well in reference to Thay.

Also there is more than one type of fuedal army, there are quite a damn few variations in there and you damn well know it.

Yes and there is far more than one style of cannon fodder army in Faerun and I also mentioned orcs. Don't get snippy for my lack of mind reading and not making blind assumptions what you mean when you aren't specific. If you mean Thay, say it, because we're talking about the armies of a huge fucking subcontinent with wildly mixed societies and governments.

I won't go into it, because its a whole nother arguement, but the word feudal is often over broadly used and when I use it, I use it in a vary narrow sense.

I won't go into it, because its a whole nother arguement, but the word feudal is often over broadly used and when I use it, I use it in a vary narrow sense.

And you're going after me for expecting you to mindread?

frigidmagi wrote:

I won't go into it, because its a whole nother arguement, but the word feudal is often over broadly used and when I use it, I use it in a vary narrow sense.

And you're going after me for expecting you to mindread?

You're the one who is getting touchy when they don't assume Thay after a post that doesn't mention Thay or brings up the Zhentarim latter in the same post where I mentioned multiple different armies. Just relax. Let's stick to the matter at hand.

I have to say I disagree with Comrade Tortoise. Neophyte wizards have short ranged spells and are prime targets. Unless the terrain favors it (repelling stormers, underdark, woods) a low level wizard is likely to be sprouting arrows or bolts before he or she can do anything.

Low level clerics, on the other hand, are tougher, can wear armour just like the troops and dispense healing and morale restoring spells. Mid level wizards or lower level ones equiped with potent wands can provide heavy firepower support while exposing themselves to less danger.

And the raising of the army is very relevant. Shade, the Flaming Fist, and the Zhentarim doen't use peasnant infantry. They're all professional forces, well equiped and supported by magic. Peasant infantry would be lucky to make it close enough to them to be ground to pieces in hand to hand.

You train troops to handle magic the same way you do to handle the thunder of artillery: Exposure. And having some on your side. When cannon first rolled out, armies could and did break from the noise. The shock factor drops when it's in your training.

And the raising of the army is very relevant. Shade, the Flaming Fist, and the Zhentarim doen't use peasnant infantry. They're all professional forces, well equiped and supported by magic. Peasant infantry would be lucky to make it close enough to them to be ground to pieces in hand to hand.

Those professional forces still have to be trained. And that brings about the same problems as would arise with peasant conscripts, people are people regardless of whether they are volunteering, or are being press-ganged into service. I suppose 'live fire excercises' with wizards tossing fireballs into their general directions would work for getting them used to the sounds and sights of combat. But there are things that is unsuited for. Integrating the army's mages into the unit so the men trust them would also work. But there are some spells, like fear effects, symbols of pain etc, which you just cant train for.

You can train for fear and whatever you want to say about the spell in question... Fear doesn't work that way.

The simple fact is that with the exception of the Fey'Ri Legion and Shade's exceptionally mobile, all-Shade-Templated army, the average magically aided Army will use most of it's magic in Lightning Bolt, Fireball, and similarly area-effect, fortification-annihilating spells, and in the hands of mages. Almost eveything else will never effect enough people, or be too much effort for too little gain.

The big effect fear spells are mid level or higher. Symbol of pain is 8th. Not even in the Realms are arch-mages common enough to be typical magical opposition. The fact that the Zhentarim has enough mages on flying monsters that they have a dedicated prestige class to it is scary. An 8th level caster on a manticore with a wand collection is nothing to snear at and far more typical of the usual level of magical support an army might recieve.