NationStates Jolt Archive

the Angerman army was deployed and ready on the southern side of the field.

Pi had had a platform set up useing the unit's banners, as was the normal arangement, and a palisade fort built around it... it was very small, designed to be defended by any random troops who got back to it if they were losing.

on the left flank were 500 lightning troops, each with 30 javilins and a lance. to the right were another 500 in the same arangement.

the thunder cannons, loaded but with bungs in the muzzles to prevent the shot comeing out if they had to be moved before use, were parked directly in front of the fort, with 125 rock troops imidiately to either side of them, for a total of 250.

the Eels were betwen the left most lightning troops and the leftmost rock troops, and the wheel troops were in the same position on the right.

the Incognitian army was also arraying it's self for battle.

The tercio deployed.
Three thousand men, under Brigadier John Bradley, they were in six blocks of five hundred men. Each was composed of a hundred halberdiers, two hundred pikemen, and two hundred arquebusiers; these were arrayed in a line of four, each separated a little from the next for ease of movement, with a line of two behind.
Bradley was to be found a little way behind the centre of the first line, surveying the field from horseback; one of only thirty-odd mounted men in the formation.

as the Incognitians apeared to be ready and deployed, Pi lit her battons and began her dance, giveing orders to all units.

the rock troops were to move to in front of the guns and form a line, the wheel troops were to split in half, with each half forming colom behind one end of the rock line, and the eels were to form line at the back. this formed a box with the cannon in the center, the entirity of which began slowly to advance toward the enemy.

in the mean time, each unit of the Lightning troops split in three and set off at various paces. the inner pair keeping pace with the infantry, the outer rideing fast to get around the enemy and behind them, and the middle cruseing along at a nice pace in a straight line that would pass the enemy's flanks.

this would be interesting.

It was clear that the "Lightning" troops were really only going to be a nuisance. The battle would be lost and won, as ever, by the infantry.
The men were ordered to hold firm.
Thus far, the enemy were only doing what had been expected; the line was steady, and it would remain so until ordered otherwise.
The front line looked likely to overlap the opposing front line on both sides - this would give an opportunity for envelopment.

the guns reached the desired position, just a little outside their own range of the enemy troops. if any enemy guns had fired, their shot Might have hit the rock troops interlocking shields. mabey.

Pi adjusted her orders. the eel troops formed up in a single line behind that made by the rock troops, and the wheel troops formed a line behind that. for the moment they were blocking their own guns, but that was ok. they were focusing on the center left enemy unit, from their point of view, and so the thunder cannon were turned so they would line up on the center right unit, should it decided to come forward in an attempt at flanking.

the rock and eel lines began to move forward, and once the correct spaceing was achived, so did the wheel troops.

The enemy were focussing on the second company in the line (counting from my right). For this reason the third company prepared to move, and the fourth company began marching round in an arc, bringing them closer to the enemy main body. When they were the same distance as everyone else, they halted.
Meanwhile the fifth company moved a little closer to the second, ready to support them. The sixth company stayed put.

The order was then passed out to make ready to fire. The arquebusiers were in three ranks in each company; the front rank would fire first, followed by the middle rank. The rear rank would not fire unless and until the enemy advanced.
"Make ready!"
"Fire!"
"Centre rank! Make ready!"
"Fire!"

at this range, even bullets cracked harmlessly off the Angerman shields, for the most part, with only a few digging in. some lucky shots hit some unlucky men with their heads above the shield wall, however, which killed them imidiately. the designe of the sheild kept it in place if only one man went down, but if two or three in one place died, it would be nessisary to replace them, or suffer a gap in the formation.

the enemy unit currently being forcused on had one rank of gunners not currently loading now, and combined with the movement of the enemy's left flank, was as good an opertunity as they were going to get. signals went out, and the infantry moved forward at a run, while the lightning troops swung in and threw their javilins into the midst of the Incognitian infantry.

for such a weight of weaponary, javilins didn't make a lot of noise.

Angerman infantry were charging at the 2nd Company. The pikemen braced for impact; the single rank with loaded arquebuses would fire when they were ten yards away, giving the maximum impact before they hit the pikes.

Meanwhile both flanks were coming under fire from the "lightning" troops. A few men were falling, mostly to javelins through the neck, between helmet and shoulder-plate; they were the unlucky ones. Most hunkered down; dodged anything that didn't look like it was moving; and waited.

Once the enemy infantry were engaged by the 2nd, the 1st and 3rd would move in.
They were ready.

as the lightning troops continued to harrass the enemy's flank, the thunder cannons were nudged forward just that little bit nessisary to bring htem into range. as soon as the infantry were out of the way, they'd fire.

the infantry ran in. at 10 yards, the rock troops came under fire. they made it another two before haveing to stop. not many of them died, their armour being mostly lether padding and their shields haveing been reinforced with Austian Iron, but they weren't going to be going forward anytime soon. infact, as soon as possible, a good half of them would be headed back to the palisade.

there were some gaps in the line now. those capable of doing so closed up. meanwhile, the eels, useing their run up to increase momentem, had throwen grenades over their the rock troops heads and into the enemy formation. acid, sulpher, fire... every one would do a bit to cause disruption.

after throwing a single grenade each, they turned to face behind them, where the wheel troops, still running full speed and with many just about lost to their rage already. the eel troops knelt. if they screwed this up, their shield wall would be broken from behind by their own troops. once the wheels got going, they Never stopped untill the battle was won or they died. it was what they did.

all the enemy gunners were reloading now. the timeing was as close to perfect as it was going to get. as the wheel troops reached them, the eels made a stirup with their hands, and then boosted the wheels intot he air, over the rocks, and down almost on top of the enemy formation. some didn't make the launch, and of those enough either used their taiahu or the rock troops sholders to vault the line that those who didn't make it weren't enough to break it. the rock troops were on the smart side, and opend up for these men once they knew they were their, closeing behind them.

and as the wheel troops vaulted into the air the thundercannons all fired, near simultaniously, into the 3rd Incognitian unit. 100 barrels of death.

of course, the reload would take a while, but not too long, yet.

The halberds stood from their position in front of the arquebusier of the 2nd Company, to face the incoming rock troops.
When the rock troops turned and withdrew, and wheels came spinning over the top, they charged in.
To come flying over a rank of your own men, you couldn't wear much armour. Disadvantage one. To think you were landing between the two lines, only to face a man swinging a halberd as you landed...that was disadvantage two. And no man could do much wielding of a weapon as he flew through the air....
Of course, once they landed, they would merely face a rank of disciplined halberdiers.
A slightly ragged rank - a few unlucky men had been hit by acid bombs - but generally intact.

The 3rd Company was hit by the thunder cannon; the effect was less than that of a volley from a counterpart company would have been; a company would have had twice as many barrels. However, the fire was slightly more focussed, taking several men together rather than one here or one there.
Nonetheless, the formation closed up swfitly, then dashed forwards a few yards, before letting rip an answering volley. The arquebusiers then cast down their guns, drew swords, and the Company charged in as a body at the thunder cannon.

The 6th moved in behind them, to cover against a flanking attack; the 4th moved across, covering the other flank, and ready to support if necessary.

On the other side the 5th remained aloof for the moment; however the 1st moved in on the right flank of the 2nd to support them.

ooc: the rock troops didn't turn, incidently.. well, no more than they needed to to not run accross teh cannon's line of fire. the marched backwards. slow, but it keeps the sheilds up. you know, i'm reasonably sure you underestimate the effect of the grenades.. especially considering there were Fire bombs in there too.

IC: as soon as the cannon had fired and the wheel troops were in combat, the rock troopers fell back to guard the cannon, then both retreated towards teh palisade fort. not too many of the gunners had died, as most of them were behind the guns, however brarrels had cracked from impacts, some gunners were dead or wounded, and the whole battery needed time to reorganize, as did the rocks.

the eels, on the other hand, spread out into what could really only be called a "skirmish blob" and advanced on the thrid company at speed, intending to throw their greneades and then use their blades. some would die, but the loseness of the formation ensured a lot would survive.

the wheel troops had had some problems when landing. the first few had been met by halbard blades. the rest, however, had landed, recovered, and begun to prove their name. their taiahu were spining, and they didn't stop. they too spread out a bit, if only so they didn't hit each other. running in towards the enemy halbardeirs, they would first slam the halbard's tip to one side or the other as hard as they could, and then spin their body around, while stepping in, to bring the 'blade' of the taiahu crashing into the side of the unfortunate man's neck, or between his legs. of course, sometimes this wouldn't work, one of the men next to the one targeted would intercept the strike, or hack or stab the attacker as he knocked the weapon, or even sometimes the halbarder he was attacking would hold the weapon steady enough that it wasn't knocked away.

sheer momentum and rage, however, carried many of the wheels through the first line of halbardeirs, and into the gunmen beyond.

ooc: due to the massive casulatlys they took while doing this, doing it twice would result in my haveing ... not enough wheel troops to make an affective.. err.. anything, really. once they get into the formation, though, there's not really room for your pikes to swing around to deal with them.

OOC: You've always been ridiculously attached to the eels' grenades. It's yet another thing that was nevr used much IRL, suggesting that either it was ineffective, or a liability to your own troops.

IC: As the wheels were incoming the gunners knew one rank of halberds couldn't hold all of them; so they cast down their guns, drew swords, and prepared to meet the onslaught. Most of the halberdiers had faced a 'kill or be killed', with many killing one wheel then falling to another; the remainder were still attempting to wreak carnage amongst the wheels as they passed.

Seeing the advancing eels, the 3rd Company's Captain ordered a full charge; the eels would be hit by the advancing men but a moment or two after they threw their grenades.

The time had come to use other companies. The 1st Company moved past the 2nd, heading for the thunder cannon. Their Captain watched the wheels, but didn't think them disciplined enough to peel off and attack anoter body of troops. The 5th remained static. The 4th came in, more slowly, behind and to the left of the 3rd. They still had arquebuses ready to fire. The 6th moved behind the 3rd, and went a little right. The gap in the line from the 2nd would thus soon be filled, as part of a general advance.

ooc: well, i'll admit the acid and sulpher are more "haha!" than actually useful. but fire attacks were used rediculously often in this era. the art of war lists 4 different types, includeing launching fire directly at enemy troops. admitedly, it's generaly fire arrows or fire pits rather than grenades, but still...

edit: it may simply be because glass was expencive and the troops would tend to drink the alchole, while the other chemicals were not well knowen or used at the time. that's a more likely explination, i think, for why they were not used.

IC:

Now came the opertunity for the eels to show where their name came from.

as the Incognitian company rushed them, they pulled the short threads within their sleeves, those who were not still holding grenades released their blades from the cords holding them to the inside of their arms, dropping one into each hand. those still holding grenades simply kept right about the business of throwing them.

the third company hit home. or, more to the point, mostly failed to hit home. the eels proved their nameing to be accurate, twisting and ducking and jumping, and generaly not being where the pikes were at any one moment in time. those who could dumped their grenade harneses, those who couldn't mearly hoped for the best, or failing that hoped to take as meny enemys with them if they died as possible.

dodgeing in past the halbards and pikes, an eel would strike at any exposed or partially exposed joint with the single continuous 9 inch blade on the part of their sword above the thumb guard, or stab with all their might at flatter pieces of plate, or other weaker points, with the 4 inch spike below the finger guard.

the eel blade was a strange weapon. a slash could become a stab and vice versa with deceptive ease, and haveing one in each hand made it even more tricky to follow what they were doing. and then their combat style... "don't be where the enemy expects you to be" seemed to sum it up nicely.

of course, there was no way they would come out of this unscathed, but due to their lose and scattered formation, they flowed around the flanks and rear of the charging unit and attacked it from there as well. any who managed to stay out of the way and weren't close enough to get in with their blades kept right on throwing their grenades. the sulpher bombs had been writen off as worthless, but fire and, to a lesser extent, acid would still be effective. at least untill the melee became so mixed they had no hope of missing their own men.


the wheels, meanwhile, were makeing full use of their momentum in the useual style. they would not stop. if they could not move forward, they simply attacked untill whatever was in the way wasn't there anymore, or vaulted it if it were not possible to kill. ultimately, their goal would be to punch right out the other side and then either reform or head for the nearest enemy, leaveing a broken and scattered formation behind them.

mostly ignored, the Lightning troops had, after makeing a single pass, got behind the enemy infantry, and formed up in 4 collums, one to each of the non-engaged incognitian units. they were faceing diretly towards the rear of the advanceing infantry. Pi, from her position on her platform, watched the batle, and at a precisely judged moment, ordered them to charge in. and in they charged, flinging javalins from the moment there was any hope of them hitting the infantry ahead of them.

at the same time the canon, with the remaining rock troops guarding them, were 'advanceing to the rear' as rapidly as they could, hopeing to attain the safty of the palisad before the enemy got to them.

ooc edit: the orginal post had the wrong numbers for the eel's weapons. fixed now.

OOC: Hang on, thought the palisade was a little thing, big enough for Pi and a command team, making them visible and safe from opportunist attack...not army sized. Thus fitting with the idea of an open field battle, like you asked for...

Will respond substantively to the IC stuff later.

The eels were trying to slip through the 3rd Company. Unfortunately for them, though the halberdiers were relatively easy, having taken the brunt of the grenades, there were three dense ranks of arquebusiers, now carrying swords.
Not quite so easy.
The pikes on the flanks had more problems, as there the eels struck and moved away. The halberds who had survived the initial onslaught split in two, and moved around each side to aid the pikes, in two dense knots of men.

The 2nd was still holding up against the wheels; they had the traditional advantage of still being (largely) formed infantry, against an enemy with a wildly swung weapon.
Much like Roman soldiers against barbarians, whenever a swing went for one man, his mates would get in and stab the wielder of the weapon. Men still went down; but mostly when a man went down, so did the wheel for his trouble; no man could cover against four swords and pikes at once.
(OOC: If the taiahu is 5 foot long, wheels need about 15 foot between them; so 4 to one is possibly generous to you.)

The 5th, till now unengaged, turned about to face the "lightning" troops. It would act as a rock against them while the rest marched on against the enemy infantry.

The 1st, 4th and 6th advanced past the heart of the battle. Taking losses from the javelins, they ignored them and marched on, towards the rock troops and cannon.

ooc: probibly closer to two - three to one, as much from actual numbers as from concentration, as the taiahu is mostly worked from the center.

IC:

when the fifth leveld it's pikes, the collem charged with attacking it simply split in two and flowed around it, staying out of range of the guns as much as possible, and flinging javalins all the while, before heading back to the palisade for more, as they were running low.

the rest of the lightning troops, however, presented with an exposed rear by the other infantry units despite their attacks, lowered their lances, and the rear of them split slightly to form a narrow wedge. Pi, directing things from her platform, grinned at this. it would be interesting to see the effects of a light cavelry charge to the rear upon these dense and unwealdly formations. she wasn't entirely sure how many of the lightning troops would survive such a manouver, but it was more than likely they'd do a lot of damage in the process.

the eels were dealing with the third company in impressive style. when the halbards tried to close on them, they'd move closer to the enemy's pikemen, and vice versa. strikes from those swordsmen within the formation over their own men were easy to block, and when a gap oppend to let a swordsman through, it generaly let an eel In instead, and the eel blade's wiked spike was often the death of the pikemen on either side before the swordsman could deal to teh eel, if he managed it at all.

those eels at the front of the formation were haveing a harder time of it, now faceing unobscured swordsmen, but even the sharpest steal will not cut unflawed stone from the simple force exerted by a human body, and the agility of the eels was of a level that few others could match. they landed far fewer blows here than on the flanks, killed fewere foes. but they also took less casualtys than they would be expected to do, a pair of them working togeather could easily tie up 3, 4, or occasionaly even 5 of the Incognitian gunners, who while well trained were not the best swordsmen in the world, and had the guns as their primary weapons training. the eels, on the other hand, had trained with their blades from late childhood or sooner, and had only been introduced to grenades when they joined the army.

meanwhile, the wheels followed the path of least resistance through the enemy they were faceing. if a foe went down, imediatly the wheel soldiers would stab them in the throat to be sure of their demise, while stepping overthem and continuing the motion by strikeing at the next foe with the blade of his Taiahu, and another wheel trooper would come up behind and on either side, or edge in that direction. the goal was not to wipe out the formation imidiatly, that was not what they did, but to disrupt it as much as possible. disolve it into a disordered mass. expose it for whatever interesting ploy Pi came up with next.

as a result, the killing came in intersting paterns. there would be wedges and riverlets of dead into the formation, at irregular sizes and intervals, and then there would be clumps that had been all but left alone, though generaly cut off from those to either side of them

four to one or better odds in favour of the Incognitians were all but garanteed death for a wheel trooper. on the other hand, because of their fighting style, it was likely that of the four, at least one would be dead, and generaly three unable to fight effectivly.

the rock troops and cannon, at this point, were still backing towards the palisade. it would be only a matter of moments before they reached the gates. there was some hope in the form of the Lightning colum deflected by the 5th that was headed to their aid, but it appeared they would be fighting again very soon.

ooc: those three ineffectives include the dead guy, and may or may not be dead in various numbers themeselves. and, just in case someone's reading this or it's been forgoten: the palisade fort is large enough to hold the cannon and the wounded, and to be defended by those few men who return from broken units. that is to say, the wounded rocks and the cannon will be headed inside. the rest will form up outside the walls. their isn't room and they didn't have time to make it bigger.

on another note: that palisade is really more of a fence. well seccured in the ground, it is a lot of uprights that are far enough appart to get an arm through but no more, with two or three horisontals at any one point, and covered inf flax. it won't stop a cannon shot, or even a close range bullet, but it will obscure any view of what damage ahs been done, and fighting someone on the other side of such a thing is.. a pain, to say the least.

OOC: Ok, gonna do it again. Have an OOC moan, and not post IC. Then again, train to catch...
Actually, no. Just a note that I won't post here til Sunday. Catch ya then dude.

OOC: Ok, gonna do it again. Have an OOC moan, and not post IC. Then again, train to catch...
Actually, no. Just a note that I won't post here til Sunday. Catch ya then dude.

prod prod, proddity prod prod...

OOC: 's been a long time. Can we make the posts a _little_ bit shorter and thus easier to reply to from now on? I know for a fact I've got half way through replying to this at least three times.
IC:
The 2nd were still fighting the wheel troops. Men were falling, some with horrific injuries, some dead; a few merely knocked aside by a poor blow from the taiahu, or with battered armour and bad bruising.
But every time a wheel trooper struck, he left himself exposed to a counter-stroke. Possibly not from the man frantically trying to dodge the mass of his weapon, but certainly from the man next to him. And so while the fight continued, the wheels were being ground down by steady attrition; and the formation held.
The 3rd were facing the eels; here the problem was a little greater, as where the wheels were outnumbered whenever they approached the formation, the eels fought closer together, and looked to slip into the small but inevitable gaps. The pikes were useless against them; so the pikemen cast down their weapons and drew swords to face them. They still faced a challenge, but at minimum could keep the eels occupied for quite a while.

The other companies, being attacked by lightning troops, detached their flanking blocks of pikes. These smartly about turned, and marched in to cover the rear of their comrades. Covered from behind, they resumed the advance on the rock troops.

the wheels were famous for simply not stopping, and it was true even now. when they couldn't go forward, they went sideways, and were giveing more than they got. which was fortunate, as their unit had been the smaller of the two to begin with. if a foe didn't go down the first time, one simply hit him again untill he did, or couldn't attack you, and then moved to the next.

the eels continued their harrasing attack. it was easy enough and what they were traind for. where ever possible the first stroke against a foe was a killing one. the longer a single foe took to defeat, the longer another had to join the fight. they too were causing casualtys and loseing men, but both at a far lower rate.

at one point, an incognitian aquabusier had managed to kill an eel trooper in such a way as to shatter a sulpher grenade, causeing the sulpher dust to spread accross the ground. unfortunatly for the aquabusier, one of the few eels still outside the formation chose that moment to toss a fire grenade basicly on top of his dead comrade. though it was rare that the sulpher would light properly, on this occasion it did, and a noxious gass began to spread.

meanwhile, the wounded rocks and the cannon were inside the palisade, ith those still able to fight formed up outside it's gates, ready for the foes next attack.

the lightning troops kept up their attacks. charging in at unprotected rears and flanks, and then turning to throw javalins as they passed instead as the incognitian pikemen turned to guard that side.

one of the lightning unit's officers got smart, however. he split his troops into 5 groups, 20 men to the group due to divisions and losses.

on the next pass, those men attacked the incognitian 6th from both flanks, the rear, and the rear flank corners of the formation, simultiniously. this wouldn't do much damage even if it did hit home, but had the advantage of makeing it very difficult for the incognitians to effectivly move to counter, and those who were countered could divert to any breaks.

ooc: ack. it's not short. too many different units, too many interesting tactics, too much nessisary information :S sorry. and i had to make the gas work at least once, so no crys of "fowl" if you please :P

OOC: To the gas, don't worry. There won't be much of it :-P And before YOU cry foul to that, think about how much actual chemical you've released.
And the post is short enough. t'will serve.

IC: The fight between 2nd Company and the wheel troops was - certainly so far, and probably throughout - the bitterest fight of all. The wheels just kept on fighting...as did the men of 2nd Company. They would keep on doing so, in something approaching formation, until there were too few for a formation to meaningfully exist.
The 3rd still struggled with the eels, but the eels were occupied, and that fight could go either way. A small brush fire was spewing clouds of smoke...noxious smelling...a few men collapsed choking, but the steady breeze blew it away from the bulk of the company, and it would now hold their flank.
The other four companies, on a narrow front as some of the pikes were behind warding the lightning troops, combined into one, facing the rock troops. They would march on until they were in effective range of the rocks, then fire all loaded weapons (about half).
The lightning troops were still a nuisance. For now the flanking pikes warded them off, but the pikes would soon tire if they kept this up. The 6th, assaulted on an arc from behind, had pikes on the corners to ward two groups off; would take the hit from the other three; then hit them when they attempted to disengage. Losses were expected, but if the lightning troops were to have any effect they would have to hit home, not ride off again, opening themselves to a swift counter.

those lightning troops attacking the 6th saw what appeared to be an opertunity. the two groups on the corners came in as a distraction to the pike formations, throwing their javilins, then bringing down their lances as if to charge home. at the same time, the other three groups charged also, one between teh pike blocks, and one into each flank.

if the pikes moved to cover against the three hitting the main unit, they would be hit themselves, if they didn't, the gunners would be ripped appart.

thoes rock troops who had not been injured had tried something interesting. takeing the shields of those who could no longer fight, they had arranged a Second layer of shields, mostly by way of leaning the spare ones against the ones they held. as they were not moveing, they also kept their heads down and ankles covered. the result was far less casualtys from this volly than the last, and fewer still fatalities. meanwhile, within the gates, the thundercannons were being checked and reloaded then hauled into position.

The commander of the 6th knew that this was a crucial point - the lightning troops were finally going to charge home.
He ordered his gunners to drop their weapons and draw swords. The forward-facing pikes did likewise. All then turned to face the oncoming riders. The first impact might be messy, but after that the riders would be torn to shreds.
The rear-facing pikes stood firm.

Companies 1, 4 and 5 had fired their volley into the rock troops. They remained where they were to reload, with the rock troops between them and the thunder cannon.

as the lightning troops came as close as they dared to the pikes, the first of the small groups hit home. so soon after that there was no time to react, so did the next, then the next, and then those who had been attacking the pikes wheeled off, and came in from another angle again.

those lightning troops in the next unit over saw the success, and broke off their attack in favour of joining in, causeing yet more impacts and shocks and adding to the general mess. over time, the rest of the lightning troops, in small numbers, charged into the general melee, lances lowered. the pike men were faced with the option of turning to face the melee, and getting a lance in teh back, or staying focused on those outside, being bypassed, and stabbed in the back with a javalin.

fairly rappidly after entering the fray, lightning troops would lose their lances, and be reduced to stabbing things with the shorter javalins, which werent' really made for the job. however, the constant impacts took their toll on the enemys orginization.

the rock troops, meanwhile, had split in the middle, rotating their lines outward slightly, as the cannon were pushed forward once again. each one was fired into the units infrount of the palisade, before being dragged back to allow the next one to line up through the gap and fire. this made for slower fireing times, but ment the gap required did not need to be as large, and gave the gunners more time and better cover when orginiseing their guns to fire again.

a small group of the lightning troops, however, had other ideas. the battle between the wheels and their chosen foes was grinding both units down. 30 of the lightning troops formed a small line, set javalins in slings, and aranged lances ready to hand, then charged in on this foe, aiming for the point where the wheel's had caused the most disruption to the formation. as close as they could, they released the javalins, then gripped their lances for the impact. they still had the smallest space of time where they could turn if nessisary, but it did not seem it would be.

ooc: next time, the lightning troops get decent melee weapons. heh.