Hile Troy's Strategic Mistakes

[Variol Farseer]

It was pretty obvious after Flesharrower had beat back Quaan's army at the pass that it wasn't enough for him to simply "avoid" the Warward, he wanted their destruction. He could have simply went straight to Revelstone from the pass instead of following Quaan South, but that wasn't enough for him. That is why he wouldn't have just blocked the Warward from coming back through Doom's retreat, he had wanted to destroy them right from the outset. The first time I read it I had the same thoughts about him just moving North after the Warward had gone through Doom's Retreat, but after I thought about it it went totally against Flesharrower's "tactics" (if you can even call them that) that he had imposed right from the start.

The thing is, the Warward had no supplies, and they were marching out into the middle of a trackless, foodless, waterless desert. All Fleshharrower had to do was let them die of thirst: two weeks, tops.

[Usivius]

variol, your point is correct about 'tactically' the situation was perfect for the Raver and his army, but as was stated before briefly, It's a RAVER! and he is in 'control' of a 'raving' army (sorry for all the little quote marks). Flesharrower wants blood as does his army. He wants to crush them, his army wants to rend them. It is a forced march feeding, destruction, massacre feast that the bad guys crave and desire. Even taking in to concideration that the Raver knew it was a pretty good bottleneck, what is to stop him form sacrificing a few thousand of his number to force their way through. Pah, as long as he gets through and the massacre of blood can occur, its all good. The deal Troy makes with the Unfettered one is nearly inconceivable (no Princess Bride jokes...), and the blood lust was upon them...

[Variol Farseer]

That's a good point, Usivius. But even if I were a Raver, I suspect the idea of pillaging and burning and desecrating the whole Upper Land to my heart's content would probably win out over the opportunity to crush a few thousand humans and two puny little Lords. Destroying Revelwood while it was undefended would be a particularly intense pleasure, I should think.

[Usivius]

...and you are totally right ... in a logical manner. But I think we have to consider the Raver. As cold and intelligent as they are, they are also the embodiment of corruption, strife, and all that other 'good' evil stuff. Why force march your army again in another direction when you have a nice large juicy enemy in front of you. The raver doesn't care how many he loses, as long as he can bring about the destruction of them. And Revelstone, relatively undefended as it was, would still not be any pushover one could knock-over and pillage immediately.

I dunno, I guess I am more considering the base, evil, hunger insticts of the Raver and his army rather than cold, rational logic that would have been better for the Raver to follow. It's just the way I saw the situation and why it did not give me pause. <shrug>

[Variol Farseer]

Well, Lord Foul generally kept the Ravers on a pretty short leash, and he, at least, was very cold-bloodedly rational about taking advantage of his enemies' weaknesses and shredding them to bits.

[bossk]

Well, Lord Foul generally kept the Ravers on a pretty short leash, and he, at least, was very cold-bloodedly rational about taking advantage of his enemies' weaknesses and shredding them to bits.

One problem with leaving the army of the land in the field and going to attack Revelstone is that that army can then come upon your rear and trap you against the castle walls. I think it would have been a mistake.

[Avatar]

With an army of over 400,000, I don't think he would have worried much about being pincered between Revelstone and the Warward. Quite apart from the fact that Revelstone was pretty stripped of defenders.

Anyway, a quarter of the Raver's army would have more than sufficed to harry the Warward so that they couldn't turn, and even if they had, any direct assault would have been like spitting in the ocean.

The numbers are just too great. When that army entered the upper land, Foul owned it. A bit of judicious commanding, and there was no way in hell that anything could have withstood that force.

If I'd had the info that troy lacked about size and disposition, I would have stripped Revelstone and the surrounding country, and made straight for the mountains, leaving behind nothing they could use.

Would have had to be a scorched earth type of thing, and a long guerrilla campaign, hoping to whittle away at the army, until eventually it collapsed because of lack of food, a slackening of command, whatever.

There is no way on earth that 20,000 can get into any sort of confrontation with 420,000 and hope for any sort of survival, let alone victory, under battle conditions. Troy's situation was hopeless from the start. He just didn't know it. The forestal was the only reason he managed to save even a fifth of his force.

--Avatar

[Usivius]

and i guess that was the point SRD was making, that Troy was over confident in his static abilities of planning, that fell through with reality. His play utterly collapsed when he learned just what a huge force Foul had coming after him when he spotted them on Kevin's Watch. So Troy was forced to improvise a terrible and deadly plan of The Deep...
I still stand by the reasoning why the Raver army would have persued the human army...