Lessons in Combat Leadership and Tactics, Vol. 1

As you enter the great library, several tomes catch your attention.  Bound in a now-faded crimson leather, the gold etching on the spine and cover indicates them as a full set of volumes explaining, in detail, the art of making war both at home and abroad.

Opening the first book, you read a small bit of a passage on defense of a city from Goblin or Orc attacks.

“A Commander must never allow himself to be brought into combat, lest he focus all his attention on a singular foe and lose sight of the men beneath his charge.  Should a commander or General find himself facing a foe, it is best he retreat and move away, allowing his household troops and bodyguards to deal with the threat.  The loss of a commander on the field can crush the morale of an army faster than the loss of half it’s men-at-arms.”

As you continue to read, there are several passages indicating the finer points of piercing Goblin and Orc armors with various weapon types, but another passage quickly catches your eye.

“Focusing one’s attention on protecting the army’s triage location is a sound strategem, as healing the fighters is preferential to the need to resurrect them.  But this effort should not contradict the effort to protect, seal, and otherwise reinforce the city’s gates.  A city can break a siege far easier than a city can defend itself, street to street.  If attackers breach the walls, all efforts should be to force them bodily from within them.”

Thumbing through, there are various hand drawn images of battlefields, formations, Xs and Os and dotted lines indicating movement behind train, and all sorts of sundry other entries about an army on the move.  Coming to the last chapter, you skim over an entry detailing the use of archers from a city’s walls.

“It is often said that arrows (and other ammunition) are an expense that could be forgone.  In defense of a city, before the attackers sally forth, every effort should be made to expend the entire supply of ammunition by archers stationed along the city’s walls.  Each shot fired into the mass gathered below removes, or potentially removes, an enemy who could lay low a defender.

Firing from the walls, crenelations, and embrasures affords protection from those who would, otherwise, lose themselves in the melee below, and allows even the lesser skilled to participate in the defense of their homes.”