Hello team! go team!

just thought id stick a thread on to discuss us getting our arses kicked a lot recently, although in the second round i think hanse, ryddin and myself managed to scrape a victory against GRD, we got smashed about it the round before that. If you feel this thread is pointless then just dont post ! and dont say just numbers, i know its massive factor, but hey this is something to talk about... *whilst were all at work *

Got to give credit where its due, I think Tig was being a hardcore !!!!!!! and taking down loads of GRD at the end too. if ive missed anyone, apoligies. and before daerus says what about me, i know you wasnt there, so in advance.... shut up!

And what about my wonderful self, hm?! I killed atleast ten yewlings in one blow... Why you ungreatful mage! *Struts off*

While I am questionable about the claim that we are often being defeated the prime problem is that we continue to engage in combat without any reasonable plan in mind.

Now a plan is not always required. But the few cannot compete with the many without employing some method of breaking down that many into manageable chunks. The method of doing this is traditionally termed "Skirmishing" which, due to the advantages of sorcery in such a medium of war, is a great advantage of Vespers. The prime problem we face however is that skirmishing is a "tactic" not a "strategy".

Skimishing tends to involve small-group tactics against other small groups slowly killing the weak or isolated while taking no losses. In such a way 5 people can kill 15, if it is 5 vs 3, 5 vs 3, 5 vs 3 and so on. I believe the battle of Vespenia was a good example of this where the Black Caps were fighting fit and despite a nigh-disasterous initial engagement with LB, Kaldor and a host of others (KoV, some Drow? Maybe others) we were over the course of an hour, due to their incapability of coming to grips with us, kill them all.

A tactic is a tool employed to gain a paticular goal in the short term. A strategy is a plan employed across the entire feild of battle to yeild victory and so has a "higher" purpose.

Since we lack a strategy how do most of our fights play out?

We engage the enemy, often without information or preparation. We begin skirmishing. We win or we lose.

Many times this is successful because our opponents have no strategy except try to out-skirmish us. If however they have established defensive positions, try to refuse skimishing by keeping the bulk of their force out of sight before launching columns at our lines (formed after failing to come to grips with the foe) and so on then "just skirmishing" is often disadvantageous. We have to think up a plan on the fly to deal with these strategies. The plan then needs to be communicated quickly. This has a tendency to lead to confusion.

Now in the old days (and we still do) we used to employ the strategy of seize a building, fortify it as much as possible and defend it. This is a reasonable strategy since it forces the opposition to not-skirmish (since you cannot very well skirmish through a doorway) but instead try to charge the defences in the face of massed arrow and magical fire and the stout-melee forces at the fore. Meanwhile Vesperians can withdraw within the building, effectively skirmishing, to avoid damage and heal themselves. An example of this working was the battle of Minoc, some time in.. oh.. late 2002.. where 20-25 Vesper, Kaldor and a handful of surviving Kha, Docklanders and Clawlings managed to defeat a loyalist force numbering a fairly solid 50-60. More recent examples are most fights in the Swaggers or the fight in the Mines against Cove. A morally strong defensive line is very difficult to break down without massed-ranged firepower.

It seems reasonable to me that just skirmishing against a superior force is a risky action to take. Skirmishing relies on a few highly potent individuals able to lay-waste to alot of less potent individuals untill an advantage in numbers or power is attained. Under such the loss of a few key individuals (while the bulk of Vesper is trained to a high standard this remains the case) can quickly lead to our skirmishing force collapsing. An example of this is Hanse.

Thus it is my view that Vesper should endeavour to always bring boxes to battles and to build battlefields to our strategic vision as the Yewish are increasingly prone to do so. Movement is a key feature of modern warfare and it needs to be learned at an army level not just an individual or skimishing level. In this way we can provide sharp thrusts to the Yewish when their morale is weak, inspiring a rout which allows us to get several cheap kills. After a while of such cheap kills any number advantage is lost and a general slaughter can begin. If they take the offensive we can establish defensive lines to hold any columnal charge meanwhile they will take losses. It also prevents them enveloping us, which is in many ways the reason for our defeat in the second engagement. Multiple opponents coming from multiple angles are a great threat since they cannot easilly be fled from without risking damage, this can often lead to deaths.

should have told thaur to shut up too. The battles im referring to are : when we get beaten by cove at one of there outposts, the mauling to GRD at SK. and the battle last night where i got well and truly ravaged both times within seconds on Baraz. I dont know what tactics we should employ, but we should use this thread to discuss them and then we should train the ideas IC. we are strong at defending as we have a good range attack, and we are good at standing still and fighting. but im lost as to what we need to do when attacking. last night was a good example, we went running in, and within seconds we were running all over town. suddenly we were all individuals looking out for only ourselves. Vesper easily have the best pvpers, cove are good at x healing and grd are good at running. looking at that, we need to hit our enemies at there weaknesses, when fighting cove there has to be more mortals, i dont see enough mortal capable weapons and its a real shame. and against grd our mages need to para, and then work as a unit to take them down whilst there para'd (myself and hanse showed a greay example of that last night, hanse parad, cast explo, i gave him 2 secs to get f strike underway and then i attacked with an armour ignore. it all hit and the same time and he dropped..) Lets all think outside the box though, throw some ideas into the pot, our defending is ok, but its our attacking, hitting a prepared army... thats what we lack...

all ideas welcome!

*Blinks*
*walks away hurt*

We are on a bit of a slump at the moment! When i first joined we would routinely kick everyones !!!.

Its all about organisation. When we attacked Grd at Sk the last time i fought, our objective was to take & hold the keep with the cannons that were firing at us. However, when i fell Me & baraz were the only ones in the bloody thing!

We need to listen to orders and not chase people off! We are the best fighting force in Sosaria, but we just want to chase people around and kill them!

When we are outnumbered, we have to seperate the enemy force and take them down.

When we outnumber we need to stay together and rely on our mages & archers to kill people who come close!

Maybe lets ask magicina for some wargames?

Gnomy can crossheal
with magic and bandies

*feels slightly bad for daerus..... then realises its dearus and gets on with his reply*

Good old gnomy!!!! Gnomys temp is great for x healing! we need to stick together in tight nit groups and x heal. warrios are the best for healing, but the problem we have is that we only heal ourselves which is slow and doesnt tend to keep us alive for long. we need to get into groups of 4 or 5 and move in that group. everyone x healing with 2 mages max per group. and the mortals are a must! the idea of having war games with mgc is great. we need to get this militia into shape, cos as it stands, were losing when we shouldnt be....

The problem most likely is that Vesper has always relied on their mages too much, so training crosshealing with the warriors has been pointless really. I mean when we charge into Trinsic like we did alot before, one mage was set to heal others, then the warriors pretty much just looked after themselves while charging through the city.

My crosshealing has gotten bad lately, cause it hasn't really been necessary in Vesper, but warriors should really be those that heal, and mages should be the ones that kill. Worked great in LB.. But if you mages run.. I will backstab you like a crazy person!!!