The March of the Warward

[Landwaster]

... and the fact they've been a peaceloving people without a heck of a lot of wars to fight for a darn long time.

[Forestal]

kinda makes you wonder just how good the warward were as warriors doesn't it?

[Seafoam Understone]

Forestal wrote: kinda makes you wonder just how good the warward were as warriors doesn't it?

Fighting for their homes, families and their lives... I'd say the Warward were pretty dang good. Nothing motivates a soldier protecting his own. Everyone of the Warward were aware of what was at stake... the march probably brought them close to other villages, woodhelvens, stonedowns and thus they were constantly reminded of what it was they were fighting for.
I kinda now wonder if there were anti-war activist in the Land...you know the ones that walk out in the middle of the road in front of the march carrying signs like "Remember your Oath!" "No War, No Foul" and stuff like that. The Bloodguard must've been hard pressed to run up ahead of the March and bodily pick up these individuals and put them out of the way.
And of course there's the ever present forestal singing "we shall over come!!"

[Michael Giantfriend]

This is all reminiscent of part of the arguement I put forward in the "Hile Troy - what a berk" thread ages ago. Not only did Hile Troy not make as good a use of his available forces as he could have, his positioning was all wrong. IMHO, the bulk of the warward should have been at least 60-80 miles south south-east of Revelstone - close enough that if they were needed back at the Keep they could make it in about three days, but far enough away that they already had 10% of Troy's envisaged march behind them. Preferably, I would have had them about 40 miles due east of Revelwood, about 120-130 miles away from Revelstone.

When Manethrall Rue made her way to Revelstone, the Lords could have set the initial part of Troy's plan in motion, sending the mounted Warward and half the Bloodguard by river, while sending messengers on horseback to the rest of the Warward to start them marching. That way, the warward might have lost one day in marching, but as they would be starting out from a position the equivalent of 4 days march ahead, they would have 3 extra days to make it to Doom's Retreat. That's 10% more time to make 15% less distance - a substantial difference.

As it was, the Warward's march was possible by historical army standards - just! 30 miles a day for 28 days would be insanely punishing, but possible. As Troy said at Doom's Retreat, every member of the Warward who had made it that far was already a hero. And remember, the Warward was marching through friendly territory - villages throughout the central plains were visited by the few mounted men in the Warward and asked to provide supplies, and though no one village could ever have provided enough to supply even a tenth of the warward, the cumulative effect would have meant that they wouldn't have had to carry as many supplies as would otherwise have been the case.

[W.B.]

I've heard about the same estimates of the capabilities of an army as Theo. A Napoleonic Wars-era army, according to a professor I once had, could do about 20 miles a day if it was really being hard-pressed, but you'd lose some people and supplies along the way and you'd exhaust your soldiers pretty fast. Moving so many people all at once was a big problem. A lone person in very good shape may do about 30 miles a day and keep it up over a period of days (as opposed to running a marathon and being totally exhausted). John Miur (an American naturalist) could do as many as 40 miles. All this from the same professor. Of all the things to remember from college...

I personally thought the march of the Warward was somewhat exaggerated, but didn't mind because it made a good story.

[Forestal]

its probably a little exagerated in the fact of how many survived and managed to fight...

but hey, its fantasy, your allowed to exagerate

[Michael Giantfriend]

perhaps the best idea would have been to draw them right up 2 revelstone, and take them there... at least that way foul's army is worn out... but then they wouldn't walk that fast, they had plenty of time... so they could have spent more time workin on the lore and training before they had to fight...

The whole point of taking the army to Doom's Retreat was so that the Centre Plains would be spared the rampage of Foul's army. That bit worked, at least - the Centre Plains had another 7 years to prepare for the final assault.

[Forestal]

yeah but that 7 years didn't do them much good did it? i spose i'm looking at this with the benift of hindsight, but still, the fact remains that those 7 years were actually totally useless...

[Landwaster]

All they had to do when TC first arrived to tell them Foul's threat was, at about the same time, they head over to Landsdrop and start a soldier fortress settlement. They had 40 odd years to build it.