Defend the Land!

[exnihilo]

Are you suggesting that accusing someone of masturbatory irrelevance is inflammatory?

[iQuestor]

hey, whatever you do at the tollbooth while you are waiting on your change is your business....

[Avatar]

It's always a pleasure to see people discussing and dealing with differences of opinion in a rational and civilised manner, and a touch of humour is always pleasant too.

As has been mentioned, the very point of this thread is to ignore the guy behind the typewriter.

The intent of the author, nay, the imaginary nature of the story, is completely irrelevant. This is, as Duchess said, simply a what if. We're pretending that the situation was real, and that the circumstances were prevailing, and playing with our own ideas of what was possible and not.

The relevance or irrelevance of it is...well...irrelevant.

So let's keep that in mind.

--A

[iQuestor]

OHMYGOD:
We have broken the Law of Masturbatorial Irrelevance!
My skin, it's, its ... I am turning into a tre--
[Error 404: Site down or connection lost. thanks for playing.]

[Holsety]

Sorry about the bump, I just became aware of this topic. I wanted to address an old point which I thought might reform the collective view on this topic, assuming it is still remembered...sorry if this is unwanted.

The Staff of Law should be able to counteract any Evil storms or other nastiness that Fleshharrower tries to whip up with the Illearth stone.

Not so sure about this...even if the staff of law was with the lords, we find out shortly after Covenant's summoning to Revelstone in TiW that the Lords have not mastered the Staff of Law (or, still, the first or second ward), and they believe that the Illearth Stone will surpass anything they can do with the staff. The fact that it is a giant-raver, and not Foul, may change things, also it's a smaller shard of the stone, but basically I think that lord-lore vs raver-lore is up-in-the-air.

[wayfriend]

I agree. The new Lords could not weild the Staff sufficiently well at that time. And even Kevin couldn't defeat Foul armed with it. A fact which I think that the new Lords took into account.

[ninjaboy]

As I mentioned in another topic tonight, I've recently been reading a book in which the main character is a tactical genius, and it prompted me to reinstate an old topic of Hierachy's.

Many of us lament and deride Hile Troy's appalling "plan" in The Illearth War - but can we do better? How would you have defended the Land? Can it even be done?

Wait, wait wait..
WHAAAT?

I haven't been on here for a little bit, so if there was a discussion about that I totally missed it..

But seriously. His strategy, given what he had, given the people of the Land and their additudes, his strategy was the best chance that they had..

Had their scouts got to Revelstone quicker the Lords' army might have had a chance of actually being in position for the attack.. So obviously a few things went wrong, if they didn't who knows how it may have turned out?

[Welcome]

An idea whose time has come? Here's a 2005 analysis of war strategy on my SRD tribute web site 'Welcome to the Land'.

Sandor Szabo

theland.antgear.com/war.html

theland.antgear.com/warward.gif

"I'm not going to waste time apologizing for this mess I've gotten us into. I built my strategy on the idea that we would get word of where Foul was marching in fifteen days. Now we're five days short. That's all there is to it."
-- The Illearth War

No, that's not quite all there is to it. Since the first time I read The Illearth War, something about Hile Troy's alleged strategy for defeating Lord Foul's army bugged me. It was too simplistic, too restrictive, and didn't exploit the vast range of military history and knowledge available to Hile Troy. Why didn't he capitalize on the strengths of the various martial societies of our ancient world and blend them with his modern strategic, operational and tactical knowledge base to forge a truly deadly weapon of Law against Fleshharrower's army? And why did he keep his troops bottled up at Revelstone if he planned to fight the battle much further east and south, necessitating days of punishing marching even if he got his fifteen days of warning? If anyone did some fleshharrowing in the Illearth War it was Hile Troy to his own poor troops, whose standard issue swords and shields weren't up to the challenge of Stone-deformed humans, Cavewights, griffons and ur-viles. Playing armchair general, here's a few things that could have been done differently.

First the High Lord could have started recruiting more soldiers (and especially mounts) from the various parts of the Land as soon as the Staff of Law was regained. They needed to mobilize all of the free peoples of the Land onto a war footing and mindset to raise, arm, supply, train and preposition the Warward. It needed to be deadly, combining the best strengths of all its constituent peoples, thus the soldiers recruited from each race could have been focused toward one specialty, perhaps like this:
Lords. This is a tough one, because you can't just rush a bunch of cattle herders through the Loresraat and end up with a hundred Mhorams. They did get several new Lords in the 40 years since the Staff of Law was recovered, but there should have been an even stronger attempt to train larger numbers; and the prospective recruiting pool included the Woodhelvennin, Stonedownors as well as Plainsmen and folk from the Northron Climbs and other remote locations. As they demonstrated time and again throughout the First Chronicles, each Lord was worth a thousand soldiers in battle.


Woodhelvennin. The Warward needed archers -- good ones and a lot of them -- to break charges, take out sentries and spies, shoot down griffons, and generally whittle away Fleshharrower's strength. This is where Troy could bring his knowledge of the horse-mounted Mongol archer and the English longbow and clothyard shaft into play. Mounted Woodhelvennin archers would absolutely decimate kresh packs while constantly retreating and fading away. Unmounted archers with longbows could make regular kills at five hundred meters in Fleshharrower's ranks, just like the British at Agincourt.


Stonedownors. These folks are physically powerful and naturally disciplined, the perfect raw material to forge into iron legionnaires just like Roman farmboys. If Troy could equip them with two pilum, a gladius, a good shield and some disciplined training, they'd've stomped as much ass as Marius' best iron legions.


Plainsmen. While these normal humans may have lacked a Stonedownor's brute strength or Woodhelvennin's skill with a bow, they would've made a hell of a pike-toting phalanx. If Troy stacked them several rows deep with eighteen-foot ashwood pikes, no enemy charge could break that horizontal forest, not if it was covered from ur-viles by Lord's fire and protected from outflanking by competent legions. In chokepoints of the Andelainian Hills, Doom's Retreat or Doriendor Corishev they'd've cost Fleshharrower more troops than even he could afford.


Giants. Troy could really have used ten or twenty strong Giants as commandos. Unlike Saltheart Foamfollower, these bad boys would've carried swords -- big swords -- into battle. In situations where Cavewight formations overpowered other forces these Giants could swing the tide of battle back in favor of the Land's defenders. Plus they sing and tell stories ... perfect for morale. They would've been happy to give up their Gildenlode keels for use in fashioning arrowtips to be used against griffon, ur-viles and other special targets.


Haruchai. These mountainous folk love to fight and were good at it ... it wouldn't have been hard to recruit about five to ten thousand of them to serve as elite troops to handle especially dangerous tasks and shore up the defenses wherever they started to sag. And nobody could go under the pike phalanx with these guys waiting for them.


Waynhim. One of the better Lords needed to engage these eyeless folks to find out what they know, borrowed a little of that old Demondim-spawn magic and maybe even recruited a rhysh of them into the army to oppose the ur-vile wedges. This could've yielded big dividends ... it did during Revelstone's siege.

Weapons Researchers. Troy should've set up a special area at the Loresraat for these guys ... and should have taught them to think dirty. We're talking camoflauged pits filled with poisoned punji-sticks to give way under the weight of thousands of enemies, caltrops for cavalry troops to toss behind them and skewer kresh paddy-paws (with resultant disruption of ranks and pain-maddened fratricide), field medical kits, signals and warning flares, and especially nasty magical explosives. The rhadhamaerl, lillianrill and Lords should all have put their heads together and cooked up some badass boobytraps to counteract those pesky ur-vile wedges. Who knows, maybe even an Unfettered One could've helped produce something useful for the cause.
Second, the Warmark could have kept at least ten scouting parties continuously patrolling east of Landsdrop to determine where Fleshharrower's army was assembling for attack. Sufficient lead time on Foul's intent and avenue of approach were the missing ingredients to Troy's initial battle plan. Each party might consist of ten Ranyhyn-mounted Bloodguard and at least one accompanying Lord with a lomillialor communication rod. Four parties patrolling north of Mount Thunder and another six south of it would have sufficed, given the size of Fleshharrower's army. Foul's minions wiped out scattered Ramen and Bloodguard scouting parties but wouldn't have overcome an alert Ranyhyn-mounted party of Bloodguard with a couple of Lords.

Third, the Warward could have been stationed in two equal formations east of the Andelainian Hills, one just northwest of Mount Thunder, the other just north of Morinmoss Forest. A five-thousand pikeman phalanx would anchor the center, flanked by a five-thousand soldier legion on each side, backed up by as many thousands of unmounted archers as possible each with a bushel of arrows at hand, a couple of five-Giant commando units, between three and six Lords, and detachments of Haruchai to throw into whatever breaches developed. Each force would have a detached cavalry regiment of Woodhelvennin archers backed up by a Lord or two and Ranyhyn-mounted Bloodguard. These regiments would patrol just west of Landsdrop to harass Fleshharrower's army as it attempted the ascent and then every step of the way to Andelain. These troop formation numbers are easily attainable given what Hile Troy was able to drum up in the few short years since his summoning, assuming the Lords started organizing right after the Second Ward came to Revelstone. There are tremendous strategic, operational and tactical advantages to this general troop deployment.
Distance. It eliminates a damaging amount of savage marching to get all the way from Revelstone to where the fighting takes place. Why the heck did Hile Troy want to start the war with a guaranteed hellish forced-march?


Supply. Napoleon was right ... an army travels on its stomach. It'd be a hell of a lot easier to feed an army in the Andelainian hills region where everything is fertile and plentiful and supplies can be cached. Carting supplies all the way from Revelstone is an exercise in logistical stupidity, just considering the number of horses required.


Attrition. The two mounted cavalry regiments would reap a terrible toll on Fleshharrower's army over the long miles from Landsdrop to the initial engagement (ambush) site, particularly on the compact kresh and mounted ur-vile wedges. Conducted properly with support from Ranyhyn-mounted Lords, using hit and run tactics, compound bows with steel-tipped arrows, caltrops and booby-traps these Mongol-type riders could eventually eliminate the enemy's scouts and the entire kresh/ur-vile vanguard. Then instead of them triggering the Word of Warning, the main body of Fleshharrower's army could enjoy the experience.


Operational flexibility.

If Fleshharrower attacked north towards Revelstone, both cavalry regiments would harry him nonstop while the northern force could easily march back to Revelstone ahead of Fleshharrower's army, arriving tanned, rested and ready to defend Lord's Keep. The second force would stay mobile, disrupting the supply chain and mounting harrassing attacks. The Germans learned the effect of this kind of partisan warfare -- to their grief -- during WWII.


If Fleshharrower attacked toward the central or south plains in pursuit of the Warward, both forces would converge on him at a suitable ambush site in the eastern Andelainian Hills. As Fleshharrower's army concentrated on one enemy holding a chosen defensive position (complete with catapults and mangonels) the other could surprise attack from the rear cutting off avenues of escape and wreaking tremendous havoc, possibly winning the war with one decisive hammer blow. This tried-and-true "pincer" tactic really works ... the Soviets lost millions of soldiers, sometimes several hundred thousand at a time, to vastly smaller German units during the Second World War because of it.


In the event a full-scale retreat became necessary, both forces could dash through the Andelainian Hills (which Thomas Covenant discovered was mystically easier for good creatures than normal travel) through routes of their own choosing which naturally would be stocked with supplies and chock full of well-camoflauged and booby-trapped ambush sites. If Fleshharrower's army were too powerful, the Warward would retreat to Revelstone, if not they would draw it after them towards the successive ambush sites of Mithil Valley, Doom's Retreat and finally Doriendor Corishev. Remember Leonidas. In either scenario the cavalry regiments would snipe the enemy unmercifully, avoiding the Giant-Raver and scattering before an effective counterattack could be made.


If any of Fleshharrower's initially large army managed to survive the Andelainian Hills their supply lines would be dangerously overextended and vulnerable to the cavalry regiments and partisans like the Ramen. It certainly wouldn't be strong enough to lay a convincing siege against mighty Revelstone, and would be defeated in stages if it pursued the combined Warward through the well-prepared death traps of the Mithil Valley, Doom's Retreat and Doriendor Corishev.

Fourth, and the single most important element of the entire battle strategy, would be to keep High Lord Elena and the Staff of Law with the Warward. It would be imperative to retain the only person capable of counteracting Fleshharrower's fragment of the Illearth Stone ... because Elena's prime mission would be to kill the bastard, sneakily. The High Lord wouldn't show herself at all, not in the first or even the second engagement when the Warward would be fighting with everything else it had. She'd hide her power and bide her time until after Fleshharrower exhausted himself controlling his army and fighting the lesser Lords for a couple days and nights. Then a commando unit of Giants would lure him into confrontation, covered by a Lord to ward them from immediate annihalation. Once the Giant-Raver sprang for the bait and was focused entirely on his prey, Elena would strike from his blind side with every atom of Lord's fire she could channel through the Staff of Law. No way he could survive that, not to mention the other Lords, Giants and Haruchai in the area who would converge to finish him off. Sure it'd be underhanded and low, but if Hyrim and a handful of Bloodguard could polish off Kinslaughterer in Coercri, and Mhoram could slay Satansfist with the krill, Elena could definitely off him with the Staff of Law. After that, the game's over. That's my strategy. Once the boss goes down the rest of the army would have a contest with Sauron's boys to see who could go to pieces the fastest. Chalk up another loss for Lord Foul.

theland.antgear.com/war.html

[Orlion]

Just a couple points since I'm short on time:

Isn't assuming Fleshharrower's army would react like our mortal armies kinda not the whole story? Unlike Hile Troy's army or any army we are familiar with, Fleshharrower's army didn't need much in the way of supplies. Sure, the Cavewights would probably need sustenance, but living under Mount Thunder for millenia probably made them hardy. Everyone else doesn't seem to need much in the way of supplies.

As far as recruitment, there seems to be a couple objections as well. First, no one is ever conscripted to do anything. That's a basic philosophy of the Lords of this time: serve the Land willingly, or not at all. This applies specifically to some of their stronger types: Giants, Bloodguard, and Ranyhyn. The Giants appear to be very centric on their community. There was some interaction, but for a Giant to be away from the community of the Unhomed would be strange... in fact, I can only think of one example of this. The Haruchai had all ready put into service the Bloodguard, who according to their views, "suffice". To attempt to get more would be met with outright refusal, if not insult and/or withdrawal of what Haruchai were serving the Lords. And the Ranyhyn? They do what they wilt... which happened to be fulfilling Covenant's command to them at the time. Seeking more Ranyhyn to pervert to war horses would have met with refusal on the part of the Ranyhyn and insult to the Ramen who would probably turn hostile on behalf of their horses.

This ultimately points out the huge difficulty Hile had in preparing an assault: The Land is not a unified political entity. It consists of various groups of people that carry out the goal of service to the Land in different ways. The Warward and Revelstone are just one part, and not even the ruling parts.

[Vraith]

Yea, O, points.
some more:
to be picky...a longbow with 500meter range? Dreamland. Even the best can't hit a person more than 1 in 4 or 5 at 150 unless they're standing still if they're moving faster than a walk it's more like 1 in 20...and the m16 only has about that 500 meters for actual targets...a bit longer if you're just spraying metal into an area...and the m16 fires per second more than a longbow per minute even in semi mode....and you can't move and shoot with longbow at the same time either.
And the real longbows were so difficult to draw and use that archers skeletons are physically deformed from use and training to use.
and...where is he gonna get all those people for this army?
And if IIRC, Rue didn't get back cuz she was the only scout...she was just the only one who survived...and had to go through hell to even manage that.
Elena can't be with the army, she's got other crap to do...or do you want to read a different story entirely?
Every time I see this stuff, I can only fall back on: no strategy, none whatsoever, no matter how perfect, would have worked any better against LF's forces, and most of them [including this one] would have been worse.

[Orlion]

Exactly. We are looking at a force that is capable of fielding a ridiculously large force... just because. It got slaughtered? Terrific! Served its purpose. I seriously doubt Foul would be phased if they somehow managed to develop nukes.

[Nekrimah]

There is one rather good point in that article: the Haruchai.

Why not ask them, in addition to the 500 Bloodguard?

Why didn't more Haruchai come forth?

[Orlion]

To get more specific:

Haruchai. These mountainous folk love to fight and were good at it ... it wouldn't have been hard to recruit about five to ten thousand of them to serve as elite troops to handle especially dangerous tasks and shore up the defenses wherever they started to sag. And nobody could go under the pike phalanx with these guys waiting for them.

There are a few erroneous assumptions (in my view, anyway). One: it is assumed that there is five to ten thousand of combat ready Haruchai available to send. As near as I can tell, they were having trouble fielding 500 Bloodguard... I mean, they required a body first and foremost. That doesn't sound like a culture that has men to spare.

Two: Haruchai mind set is not such that simply saying, 'hey, we gots ourselves a problem with the embodiment of despite over here' would get them more help. They probably all ready knew, and probably figured that the Bloodguard would suffice or none would suffice.

Finally, you are assuming that having more Haruchai would result in something other than more dead Haruchai. The scale of Foul's operations seems to imply that wave after wave of forces could be thrown at whatever. That seems to be something else that is forgotten, Foul's method was one of attrition because in such a case, he would win. With the Illearth stone, if nothing else, infinite troops could be formed from the dead of millennia. That's something we seem to keep forgetting and that Hile could never wrap his mind around. The only way for them to actually 'win' would be to defeat Foul and the Giant Ravers. Only Covenant could defeat Foul.

[Holsety]

We're talking camoflauged pits filled with poisoned punji-sticks

Umm, I think that the poison pits might fly in the face of the oath of peace, the honor of the lords and the people of the land might not allow it. We also have no knowledge of whether such poisons are available in the land outisde of the Sarangrave, which is too far at the point you suggest this strategy (when Foul's army is already marching).

Who knows, maybe even an Unfettered One could've helped produce something useful for the cause.

Indeed. Who knows. Strategy is not at its best when its based on hopeful conjecture - this is what we call a last resort.

Sufficient lead time on Foul's intent and avenue of approach were the missing ingredients to Troy's initial battle plan. Each party might consist of ten Ranyhyn-mounted Bloodguard and at least one accompanying Lord with a lomillialor communication rod.

I agree that a ranyhyn-mounted scouting party would probably have been the best of all possible ways to ensure an understanding of Foul's forces. However, the lomillalor communcation rods where only unveiled to the lords by the loresraat on the march to meet Foul's army and thus can't be factored in to the scouting party like you intend.

Also, north of Mt Thunder is probably dangerous terrain as the mountain itself is inhabited by the cavewights, meaning that it might not be safe north and the scouting parties could be met by ambush. (remember what happened to Mhoram and the bloodguard?)

Why the heck did Hile Troy want to start the war with a guaranteed hellish forced-march?

Because he was outnumberd by a tremendous amount and wanted a terrain situation where he could fight Foul's army in waves with alternation of troops so that the troops had time to rest, instead of trying to deal with its mass on open ground. I'm pretty sure it was something like 20,000 Eoward and 500 bloodguard and a few lords against 500,000 kresh, ur viles, cavewights, twisted creatures, griffins (only in the 100s), and a giant raver with an illearth stone. Getting the picture? Your strategy of open terrain fighting is suicide.

Attrition. The two mounted cavalry regiments would reap a terrible toll on Fleshharrower's army over the long miles from Landsdrop to the initial engagement (ambush) site, particularly on the compact kresh and mounted ur-vile wedges. Conducted properly with support from Ranyhyn-mounted Lords, using hit and run tactics, compound bows with steel-tipped arrows, caltrops and booby-traps these Mongol-type riders could eventually eliminate the enemy's scouts and the entire kresh/ur-vile vanguard. Then instead of them triggering the Word of Warning, the main body of Fleshharrower's army could enjoy the experience.

Did you notice how depleted the eoward and blooguard were when they attempted to fight the vanguard of foul's army? They went from something like 12 to 3 eoward by the time the word of warning was triggered and the bloodguard lost a half to two thirds (don't remember) of their numbers. They also almost got caught by the Kresh, and some of the horses "would never run again" according to HT's estimate, meaning that they wouldn't have made it much longer. This is just fantasy. To actually take out the vanguard of foul's army in open ground would probably result in most or all of the land's army being wiped out.

Hit and run bow tactics on a horse is not the easiest thing either. You might not get that many troops actually capable of doing it.

Also, what steel? Hile Troy isn't an inventor, he doesn't know how to do that. Do you? And why assume that the resources necessary are even in the land?

I wanna address the rest but I have to go.

[Lord Verement]

Havent read the entire thread, intend on doing so, but as for the Giants, they were finalizing their ships to return Home, I believe this was discussed, they could not be relied on because they were planning on leaving hte land.

[Holsety]

Havent read the entire thread, intend on doing so, but as for the Giants, they were finalizing their ships to return Home, I believe this was discussed, they could not be relied on because they were planning on leaving hte land.

I think the Lords thought they could get the giants help if they got in touch with them, otherwise they wouldn't have sent missions to seareach. The real issue was Kinslaughterer.

[Nekrimah]

High Lord Elena shut in Revelstone in a siege...

I get the impression she is more than capable of a Ritual of Desecration.

Hellfire! She might even open the gate herself and let the enemy in. Just to tap the extreme emotions of despair and see if she can blast everything away and win single handedly.

[Sherman Landlearner]

I may have missed this point earlier. Sorry if this is the case.
However, was in a "hell" of a spot. Lore-wise, trumps the Lords. Even the trump the Lords. Add in an ancient and ineffable source of ill might, thousands of evil troops...
Individually, the Lords might defeat a , even a Giant-:E. Or survive . Or contain the Illearth Stone. The Warward might beat just the kresh. Or the ur-viles. Or the warped, corrupted... things. Together, all at once, and expertly planned by (a master strategist with centuries of experience and reference material), it wasn't gonna happen without desperate acts(Hence, Garroting Deep). And a few dozen miracles.
And as for turning the , in #3 of 1st chron, Power That Preserves*, Covenant tries to get through to the about how will eventually betray . The makes it clear that he's on a tight leash, and couldn't defy if wanted to. Plus, also seems to believe that really will save when destroys Creation. (Even though are technically part of Creation, so logic seems to suggest 'd be destroyed with it, and thus, not saved.)
So the won't turn against . And even if was told did, why would believe it? Even if couldn't ask the themselves, 'd just have to think. Hmm... that the Lords have never been able to beat... served me for centuries... Lords are wimps... May be trying to save their skins by divide and conquer... Yeah, I'd bet they're lying. Guess they're already corrupted. My work here is done. (Yeah, right.)

can't be beat, just delayed. Since you can't kill , or restrain , it'll be a repeated thing. Like a dentist appointment. You may hate it, but it's goota be done every year or so. So every year or so, the Lords root out, beat up again, and "rinse and repeat." Keep down, and can't plot revenge. A man who is busy struggling for breath can't stand back up and kick you, can he? Same idea, just with evil lore.


*Exact quote appreciated.
**I may have gone overboard with emoticons. Sorry.

[Sherman Landlearner]

Havent read the entire thread, intend on doing so, but as for the Giants, they were finalizing their ships to return Home, I believe this was discussed, they could not be relied on because they were planning on leaving hte land.

I think the Lords thought they could get the giants help if they got in touch with them, otherwise they wouldn't have sent missions to seareach. The real issue was Kinslaughterer.

And they kinda gave up...
That might've been an issue.

[Holsety]

I may have missed this point earlier. Sorry if this is the case.
However, was in a "hell" of a spot. Lore-wise, trumps the Lords. Even the trump the Lords. Add in an ancient and ineffable source of ill might, thousands of evil troops...
Individually, the Lords might defeat a , even a Giant-:E. Or survive . Or contain the Illearth Stone. The Warward might beat just the kresh. Or the ur-viles. Or the warped, corrupted... things. Together, all at once, and expertly planned by (a master strategist with centuries of experience and reference material), it wasn't gonna happen without desperate acts(Hence, Garroting Deep). And a few dozen miracles.
And as for turning the , in #3 of 1st chron, Power That Preserves*, Covenant tries to get through to the about how will eventually betray . The makes it clear that he's on a tight leash, and couldn't defy if wanted to. Plus, also seems to believe that really will save when destroys Creation. (Even though are technically part of Creation, so logic seems to suggest 'd be destroyed with it, and thus, not saved.)
So the won't turn against . And even if was told did, why would believe it? Even if couldn't ask the themselves, 'd just have to think. Hmm... that the Lords have never been able to beat... served me for centuries... Lords are wimps... May be trying to save their skins by divide and conquer... Yeah, I'd bet they're lying. Guess they're already corrupted. My work here is done. (Yeah, right.)

can't be beat, just delayed. Since you can't kill , or restrain , it'll be a repeated thing. Like a dentist appointment. You may hate it, but it's goota be done every year or so. So every year or so, the Lords root out, beat up again, and "rinse and repeat." Keep down, and can't plot revenge. A man who is busy struggling for breath can't stand back up and kick you, can he? Same idea, just with evil lore.


*Exact quote appreciated.
**I may have gone overboard with emoticons. Sorry.

....
....
....
*slow clap, accelerating into a tumultuous applause*

Havent read the entire thread, intend on doing so, but as for the Giants, they were finalizing their ships to return Home, I believe this was discussed, they could not be relied on because they were planning on leaving hte land.

I think the Lords thought they could get the giants help if they got in touch with them, otherwise they wouldn't have sent missions to seareach. The real issue was Kinslaughterer.

And they kinda gave up...
That might've been an issue.

Point taken. It's possible that the giants wouldn't have been able to take on the power of the stone as a group...but it seems unlikely.