Igelfeld Family/Von Igelfeld family Memoirs/The Wisdom of Moritz/Unit Tactics

"Oh, we cannot forget about unit tactics!"

"Indeed not cousin! For without a proper understanding I would surely be lost."

"Agreed, but since it is a highly complicated subject that one can spend years studying and still have more to learn today we shall cover just the basics." Replied Moritz.

"But I want to know it all, please help me understand all you know." I begged.

"Are you prepared to spend the next month with me?"

After a slight pause I replied simply, "no."

"Then what I have to tell you shall suffice, but I shall also give you my copy of Aristoi Military Studies to look over, quality work from which I have learned much. But for now lets get to the basics for now all you need to know is how to properly follow your marshals orders, and to do that you only need to attend to four aspects of your unit settings: position, formation, withdrawal percentage, and behavior."

Unit position determines where you stand in relation to the army and is instrumental in ensuring both success of the army and your unit. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen an army undone by improper positioning, or a unit completely annihilated because of it. There are four different positions from which you can begin, and in order from nearest to farthest from the enemy they go: front, middle, back, and rearguard.

"Your formation is a little more complex and the details about it can be found in that book I gave you. Again, there are four formations: line, box, wedge, and skirmish, but you primarily have to be concerned only with your marshals orders. Now withdrawal percentage is where I sometimes choose to differ from orders because after all, I am the person paying for these men and if I have invested a considerable amount in them I don't want any harm to befall them beyond what I deem necessary. But I always order the men under my command to sacrifice their unit for the good of Caerwyn."

"Doesn't retreating early make you seem cowardly?"

"Rarely does anyone pay enough attention to the battle reports to notice, so you can get away with very few people thinking any less of you. But be warned, I notice. In some cases I understand, say you have well trained special forces or elite archers, but infantry is always expected to sacrifice for the protection of archers."

"So I shouldn't recruit infantry then." I said with a smile.

"At the early stage infantry helps considerably with your reputation so you definitely should. But after a good number of battles archers are a good long term investment. The last setting you have to be concerned with is unit behavior which can be set to evasive, defensive, normal, aggressive, or murderous. Behaviour primarily effects only when you enter a battle and rarely determines how you act once the battle has begun. Be sure to pay careful attention to this setting as wars have been caused by units behaving improperly." Moritz laughs, "I once witnessed a murderous unit attempting to travel through a peaceful city, the guards surrounded them killing them to the last man and severely wounding their 'noble' leader." He laughed again and continued with a whisper and a smile, "quite a joy it was indeed my sword nearly cut off the arm of the foolish fellow."

"The noble?" I asked.

"Indeed, he yelled surrender just before my sword entered his flesh. Do not think me strange but it is always a superior joy to better a noble than a simple faceless drone." he smiled.

Slightly alarmed I asked, "is there anything else I should be aware of?"

"Yes, after my sword slices through a fool I always shout a ridiculously high number in order to instill fear in those around me, and I thoroughly enjoy entering battle in nothing but my belt and a loin cloth."

"Oh ... I actually meant about unit tactics."

"Ah! Yes! I just get a little excited when discussing battle. The only thing you need to understand is ordered unit settings. My last ordered appeared thusly" he handed me a slip of paper:

Infantry:defensive - Middle - box - withdraw: 75%
Archers/Mixed Infantry:defensive - front - line - withdraw: 30%
Cavalry:defensive - rear - wedge - withdraw: 30%

"Now, after what was just explained I believe you can figure our what these orders mean, the order is behavior, position, formation, and withdraw percentage. Simple and easily understood. This formation is often refered to as 'archer opening' and is quite often employed in Dwilight as our primary foe is monsters."