> The sort of attack you are describing comes much later in the seige.
> At the start Jorkandros has a small detachment from Fazzur's main
> army which has gone on to conquer Heortland and Esrolia. The troops
> needed for a proper seige are attacking Karse. Fazzur expects Broyan
> to be holed up in some barbarian hill fort and thinks a couple of
> thousand men should have no trouble taking that.
I don't quite think that Jorkandros was charged with taking that hidey-hole, rather than plugging it.
For 1619 Fazzur planned to gain sea access (Karse) and a permanent military base from which to take the Heortland Plateau (by 1620). Esrolia was not (yet) on his schedule.
The Provincial Army doesn't have much use for siegecraft, usually, and what siege (assault) experts Fazzur had he took to Karse, for a decisive victory there. IMO Fazzur's greatest strength was his blitzkrieg movement of cavalry units, and then to consolidate. For him Whitewall was nothing but a cyst that he could allow to fester for a while before lancing it out. His strategy to deal with the besieged was to reorganize the Volsaxi (and Kultain) lands, removing much of the power base of the besieged by supporting their rivals, or importing new rivals. Sartar Rising: Barbarian Adventures and Dragon Pass: Land of Thunder show how much he impacted the region while Broyan still had nominal sovereignty. All "free" Volsaxi were those inside the fortress. Politically, the region was pacified. Taxmen could come and go with less fear than in occupied Sartar. Revenues went to Fazzur's ventures and the Imperial coffers, not to Broyan.
So: who brought the Bat in, and why?
It would have been a convenient end to both the temple and the free Volsaxi (leadership). It should have satisfied Heartland hunger for destruction of Orlanth.
It failed. Who failed?
Jorkandros was declared guilty of the failure. Tatius comes to Sartar, and takes over the siege of Whitewall, making it a magical venture.
Did Tatius' plans require the Bat to fail? Was it sent there to be overcome?
There is some disagreement about who was in charge of Sartar and Heortland between the Batblat and the Fall of Whitewall. Tatius is in charge of the Whitewall operations, while Fazzur has card blanche for the conquest of Heortland and manpower drain to Nochet. He even prepares a "Lunar Temple" there, razing an entire city quarter.
Was he in league with a rival Reaching Moon Temple building association? (Moonboat building is distributed to two associations, too...)
As far as I am concerned, Tatius did not become governor-general until after the Fall of Whitewall. He did take command of the Whitewall operations from Fazzur after the Batblat, and probably started an interservice competition for resource allocation with powerful imperial backing.
I would expect Fazzur to rely on Tarsh-educated (military) magicians for his Nochet temple project, with Tatius claiming all resources available for the provinces for his build-up. Moirades and Fazzur's older brother had started a Tarshite college of magic which did impressive medium scale magics, like e.g. the demise of Terasarin. This victory was claimed by Moirades, not the Imperial College.
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