Panther Claw Academy/Marshal Guide

In General

• Keep your army in shape, if they have nothing to do, let them train and help individual nobles recruit to their maximum, get a higher share from their lord if needed.
• Use the general military protocol in the general bulletin during peace times and occasionally underline and explain the orders it contains.
• During War times, even if you have no specific order for the army besides to wait, update them every day none or the less. This keeps an active focus in your army to respond as quickly as possible and be reminded of the current situation and targets.
• Use your Standing orders wisely for line settings, current orders and other information you wish them to be reminded of.
• Always use formatting to make the standing orders clear just like the orders you give out.
• Pro actively take a stance in your responsibility for the size and quality of the army, those who don’t follow orders should be reported and those who cannot follow orders should be helped or put to a different task, like region maintenance, for repetitively less active nobles a military career might not be the best thing, the life of a Courtier, Diplomat or Trader might be better for them, guide them there. It wise to keep a log, so you get to follow your troop leaders better.
• Every noble in Fallangard is obligated to serve the realm in everyone's career. The careers of nobles, who do not directly or indirectly strive to serve the realm to their best abilities have no place in Fallangard’s armies.

Giving out Orders

• Always make sure you send out your orders as far ahead as possible. This way every individual troop leader can plan their attack on time and will not be hindered by inactivity or longer or delayed travel times.
• Always guide and help in your order these troop leaders to plan on arriving in time by giving examples and a standard explanation.
• Use strong, to the point, format and wording.
• Underline the importance of correct line settings, include the settings and try to include if a Marshal will be using a specific formations if there are no settings needed.
• Occasionally Include a quick motivation, explanation of strategy and if we succeed what we gain.
• Always repeat your order every half day(if you can’t let your vice marshal do it) and update travel times etc.
• Be consequent in using the same terms in all your orders, like half day full day(one or two turns) and make sure everyone understands them.

Your Strategy

Knowledge will gain us Victory.

Strategy will always be actively discussed and or updated in the Military matters council of Fallangard. The General will give the marshals an overall strategy for different situations and underline the most likely situations. Your task is to react as roughly outlined, set out a detailed plan and make sure your army performs these tasks as best as possible. You will have to use the right line settings, formations behaviour and army movement to the right situation which will be outlined below.

Always make sure you understand the mechanics of warfare, every aspect of troop leading and how things work in detail, this includes the layout of the battlefield, with one neutral line between the two sides fronts. Depending on the enemy you face (intelligence gathered by scouting's and or intelligence from the general) you react. Every trait has its strengths and its weakness, use them as best as you can and make sure you understand the effects by using the academies library and guides in a proactive way.

Some outlining of situations depending on army compositions and the best strategies for them:

• Using an infantry heavy army we make sure we use our advantage in close combat as quickly as possible, backed close by our archers.

• Cavalry can be used to break another heavy infantry army before your infantry can come in and deal the overkill thanks to the distorted enemy line and the extra casualties already inflicted by cavalry and archer fire. Cavalry can also charge in even sooner, if you are fighting almost archers alone, cavalry can break through lines and continue quickly onwards to pursue the archers behind the enemy's infantry. Cavalry can travel two lines per round if not engaged in Combat.

• Using a heavy archer based army or being in the minority, you seek to delay close combat as much as possible. A great field strategy is to set up small units of archers and some small units of infantry on the first lines with the rest of your forces in the rearguard and most infantry on the back line. This way the enemy receives the most damage from archers, loses the most morale and fights the least effective thanks to overkill, cavalry will also be stopped every fighting round from travelling two lines per round, preventing them to charge effectively(the first line is already dead that round).

• Overkill is a very important tool to win a battle and should be used to your best abilities. A whole article can and has been written about it which can be read here: Overkill

It is very important that every Marshal understands this concept to its fullest and keeps asking question about the part of doubts that remain. We should be sure about the decisions we make.

When we are out to destroy the enemies regions, we focus on pillage and maurade which is basically as effective as going amok(more on looting here: looting. We use Pillage and Maraude because the extra gain to go amok is not much and only invites unwanted foreign criticism. We must always understand that war will take casualties and that those are but to be seen as numbers and tools to win. We do not let our actions be decided upon moral or ethical values but the pursuit of victory only. For the King.