Re: NomadBattle from Roderick and Ellen Robertson on 2001-02-22 (HeroQuest RPG)

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 10:52:09 -0800

From: Gianfranco Geroldi <janjero_at_...>
> In my campaign, the heroes are leading an army of Morokanth at the moment
(roughly 1200 warriors) and they are moving to Devil's Knob to reenact rites which will bring back (they think) Jaldon. They are assisted by merely three or four score zebra riders.
>
> The Impala Riders, lead by Morgwaha Mockhand, have learnt about their plan
and have gathered a strong army of about 2,000 mounted skirmishers. They are determined to defend the knob or at least to toll a heavy fee from the advancing Morokanth.
>
> What kind of tactics and of outcome do you guess?

Skirmishers have trouble defending anything except with a very "forward" strategy - they need to attack/harass the Moros and Zebras as far away from the Knob as possible. If the moros get withing striking range of the knob, the impalas will pretty much have to give it up - mounted troops are notoriuosly bad at holding ground, and the impalas ca *not* get into hand to hand with the moros.

The impala's can swamp the zebras if they can get them away from the moros, so the zebras will probably stay close to the moros and try *not* to follow a retreating enemy. The Zebras are the only real missile troops that the allies have, so they will be a main target of the impalas. It will take a concerted effort by the impalas to eliminate the zebras unless the zebra commander is a complete idiot - the zebras are better at hand to hand combat than the impalas, and they have slightly better armor. In a missile exchange the zebras have better ability, but with such a disparity of numbers the impalas can lose 200 men to take out the 80 or so zebras.

Once the zebras are removed (not if, when) the moros will be at the mercy of the impala bowmen - they will have little to counter them with except magic since moros have little in the way of missle power and are much slower than the impalas, who can simple dance out of the way.

On the other hand, the moros can travel at night, and lay up in the day after digging trenches and pits to keep away or funnle the impalas into killing grounds (someone wrote about that in the Glorantha Digest a few years ago). Once the moros get on the knob, the impalas won't really have a chance to dislodge them, even with the numerical and missle superiority.

If the Impalas have plenty of time to engage the allies, I'd lay odds that the moros would not reach the nob. It will take a canny and lucky moro chief to take the hill.

If you have Nomad Gods (or Dieux Nomads), I'd give the zebras one counter, the moros ~12-15, and the impalas ~20-25. For a tactical game (rather than the strategic level of NG) I'd probably double the Impala move rate, and reduce the Moros by ~1-2.