McGuiness wrote:First thing, thank you RFC for another long and very insightful snippet. I hope you and your family are on the road to recovery from the battery of life's ills that have besieged you, and I hope our analysis of and conjecture about your story is worthy of the universe you've created for us to play in.
**Ditto, ditto.**
This is about the condition I expected the surviving Dohlaran army to be in at this point, although they're much farther from Thesmar and moving even more slowly than I'd anticipated once they ran out of highroads. I honestly don't see how they can skirt Thesmar and head for parts north before DE comes howling down the Fort Tairys - Thesmar highroad. Toss in an educational visit from Seijin Zhevons and there's no
way this ragtag excuse of an army is going home again.
Ahlverez looks likely to become the ranking Dohlaran POW, unless Hanth suffers a notable defeat at Evrytyn. Since Hanth will be facing breech loading rifles, rifled artillery, and a few other nasty things the CoGA forces have copied from the ICA weapons list, the butcher's bill to drive the CoGA forces from Evrytyn may be higher than he is willing to pay. It's the first time that church forces will be fighting Charis with equivalent or better weapons in the entire series! Of course Hanth can cut the canal behind the Dohlarans and force them to retreat - and the
Delthak is shrieking its way upriver and Evrytyn
is within cannon range
**Since Ahlverez is senior to Rychtyr, he'd still be the most senior Dohlaran POW.
Keep in mind how little prospect of success Thirsk expects Rychtyr to have.
He still doesn't have mortars or their equivalent, and the number of both breech-loader rifles and artillery is rather limited, so while Rychtyr's may be the best equipped Go4 army yet, that's still not saying very much compared to what they face in the ICA.**
Hanth has done all this as a
marine officer, not an army officer, and without the aid of a seijin or the advantages of being part of the inner circle. Either he's a naturally gifted strategist or he has good aides - which he does
now , since several thousand ICA regulars have joined him.
**Yup, NTM his reinforcements may be larger than we've been led to believe.**
Obviously his "fight with superior weapons on a field of my choosing" style has worked well, as has his "pursue the enemy closely when he's in full retreat" policy. I'm rather fond of his "sail an ironclad up the river to send the Dohlaran's to meet the archangels" strategy as well!
**I really don't expect Hanth's brain to turn into mush anytime soon and assault a heavily fortified position; given the density of troops with muzzle loaders [ie 80-90% of his infantry with firearms] Rychtyr requires to get the firepower downrange, he can't stray too far from his fortifications if Hanth flanks him to threaten his canal lifeline, so he's really stuck if not sunk if he stays put.
Given all the dragoons EHM still has, if DE is busy elsewhere with his ~21,000 mounted troops, simply advancing rapidly beyond Everytyn both north [EHM] and south[ DE] of Everytyn could compel Rychtyr to retreat without offering battle, even if he wasn't outnumbered tremendously.**
I feel a bit less worried about 40,000 (and dwindling) survivors of the Army of Shiloh staggering around behind Hanth's main forces after this snippet. I'd feel even
better if Seijin Zhevons showed up, or if Hanth received some clandestine reports of enemy movements penned by OWL...
