HFQ Official Snippet #16

fallsfromtrees wrote:

Tonto Silerheels wrote:EdThomas wrote:

4. We don't know how much Hanth knows other than a honking big Army went west to the retake Ft Tairys.

I'm working from memory here, so please forgive me if I make even more mistakes than usual.

I'm going to assume that you meant east, rather than west, since Ft. Tairys is east-northeast of Thesmar.

I believe that Hanth has sources of information of which we are not aware. He certainly broke out of Thesmar at an ideal time. That suggests that he either has sources of information, an excellent sense of military timing, or the luck of the...well people who have excellent luck. His enemies concluded that he should have good information predicated on Charis's control of the seas. It wouldn't take much for someone to travel south Ft. Sandfish (or to Ft. Darymahn) to give information to someone on a galleon, and for that information to travel from there to Thesmar.

~Tonto

IIRC, both Eastshare and Hanth are in semaphore communication with the capital. It would be surprising indeed if summary copies of Eastshare's reports hadn't found their way into Hanth's hands via perfectly normal means.

Slight nit. I think that Hanth's communications are a bit more tenuous/slow than that - ship/semaphore I think.

I'm not sure where the nearest working semaphore line to Siddar starts, but there is text ev that Temple Loyalists had been in control of the lines in South March lands e.g. Fort Darymahn - where they were tricked, by a dummy seige, into sending messages to somewhere else [can't remember who].

Of course that may have changed, but I'd suspect that the South March line towers would be in a poor state + probably unmanned. Hanth's couriers might have to sail as far as Eralth in Trokanos to find the nearest line - so several thousand miles to cover!

So message time would be days/weeks for Hanth as opposed to hours for Eastshare.

Hi Ed Thomas,

Congratulations on some excellent analysis!

Regarding point #1, adding the ~200 miles on the Ft. Sandfish road you have the600 miles mentioned in the text with the 300 mile midpoint being around the top of the 'o' in South March Lands.

Ahlverez would probably prefer to stay out of sight, ie skirt Thesmar to get to the Seridahn ASAP because that's TL territory, so his food needs will be met fairly quickly, NTM being safely on the other side of the river from Hanth etc.

I've suggested he might overwhelm one or more of Hanth's road convoys, possibly even Cheryk before crossing at either a bridge or ford since the river booms block Hanth's supply barges.

#2 Yup, which way is the question, and this snippet is happening at Yairdyn, but rafting across the river with all those trees seems an option.

#3. The road seems a more direct route to Everytyn while the river's without a connecting road except at Yairdyn, so I'd bet more supplies over the land route.

#4. I think we may rely Hanth knows far more than that.

#5. A very excellent point.

#6. Oh ye of little faith.

Hanth doesn't have that many men, so any patrols or guards won't slow Ahlverez down.

Time wise, if Hanth is at or near Everytyn or even Yairdyn, he's too far away to stop Ahlverez near Cheryk.

Given the series dwell time on Ahlverez, I suspect he's going to make it somehow.

L

EdThomas wrote:Allow me to stick an oar in here.
1. Using the LAMA map, it's a little under 400 straight-line miles from the southern edge of the Forest to the Seridahn. Which coincidently is just north of Thesmar which might not be the best place to try to cross the river.
2. It's a little under 500 miles if he goes through Cheryk, From Cheryk he has two roads to the river, to Somyr and to Yairdyn which presumably have bridges or established ferries.
3. Hanth apparently is somewhere up towards Evertyn on the west bank of the river and presumably is moving supplies up the river which will be patrolled and defended.
4. We don't know how much Hanth knows other than a honking big Army went west to the retake Ft Tairys.
5. We don't know how much Ahlverez knows about Hanth's activities.
I'm not optimistic Ahlverez is going to get his army back to Dohlar because he's got that big, heavily trafficked and patrolled river to cross.
It's not likely A will be able to sneak up on Hanth because of the supply line patrols.
It's highly unlikely, IMHO, A is carrying bridging material for his engineers to put a bridge across the river.
There may be bridges at the Somyr-Cheryk rd crossing and at Yairdyn. The bridges will be guarded by relatively small entrenched forces which will have to be removed before A can move his troops across across the bridges. Any attempts to take the bridges by assaults will be costly and time-consuming which will allow Hanth to move against him.
So, unless A has come across a large deposit of handwavium it doesn't look like he's gonna get his men across that river.

Hi Randomiser,

Don't forget the 13,000 Desnarian infantry that joined Ahlverez.

We don't know how well either set of infantry is armed, but I'd expect by this time most have a rifle of some sort.

Keep in mind Hanth may have something barely over 20,000 men with only half armed with Mahndrayns, so any battle is not an obvious victory for Hanth, even if he were able to avoid being simultaneously attacked by Rychtyr in the rear etc.

Fyguera won't sortie from Thesmar with a force outnumbered 6-1 or more.

The Thesmar-Somyr bridge is probably too easily controlled by the ICN etc for Ahlverez to try or consider it.

If Hanth is so far north, near Everytyn, then Ahlverez crossing around Yairdyn might possible, with some supplies reaching him across the river from the TL's, if there aren't some road convoys providing Hanth with some supplies he can raid.

L

Randomiser wrote:

EdThomas wrote:Allow me to stick an oar in here.
1. Using the LAMA map, it's a little under 400 straight-line miles from the southern edge of the Forest to the Seridahn. Which coincidently is just north of Thesmar which might not be the best place to try to cross the river.
2. It's a little under 500 miles if he goes through Cheryk, From Cheryk he has two roads to the river, to Somyr and to Yairdyn which presumably have bridges or established ferries.
3. Hanth apparently is somewhere up towards Evertyn on the west bank of the river and presumably is moving supplies up the river which will be patrolled and defended.
4. We don't know how much Hanth knows other than a honking big Army went west to the retake Ft Tairys.
5. We don't know how much Ahlverez knows about Hanth's activities.
I'm not optimistic Ahlverez is going to get his army back to Dohlar because he's got that big, heavily trafficked and patrolled river to cross.
It's not likely A will be able to sneak up on Hanth because of the supply line patrols.
It's highly unlikely, IMHO, A is carrying bridging material for his engineers to put a bridge across the river.
There may be bridges at the Somyr-Cheryk rd crossing and at Yairdyn. The bridges will be guarded by relatively small entrenched forces which will have to be removed before A can move his troops across across the bridges. Any attempts to take the bridges by assaults will be costly and time-consuming which will allow Hanth to move against him.
So, unless A has come across a large deposit of handwavium it doesn't look like he's gonna get his men across that river.

Ahlvarez certainly doesn't have his problems to look for. But maybe things aren't so black for him as you paint. Just to play devil's advocate, you understand.

He has an army of about 35,000. That takes a fair while to get over a river, but it also means you need a pretty large force to tangle with him. Maybe it gives him enough force to take the bridge on the Cheryk to Somyr road pretty quickly and hold it for long enough to get across. You could see it if most of Hanth's mobile forces are up near Evrytyn so it would take him a while to get back and the 2nd rank forces in Thesmar find they can't sally in enough strength without putting the town in danger

OR There is a whole forest of bridging material just waiting to be cut down outside Cheryk. Hanth can't be strong enough to ward off a 35K man army at every point along the river from Thesmar to Yairdyn while still focusing on attacking Evrytyn in order to destroy the Dohlaran bridgehead and supply route into South March. If Ahlvarez can find a nice flat plain without large pre-built defences where he can manoeuvre, and cross the river there ....

OR If Ahlvarez is up to a long hike, maybe he can go around north via the Fort Sheldon to Alykberg Road. That has the advantage that he isn't threatening Hanth's supply line so it might be decided it was strategically more valuable to concentrate on Evrytyn than on him.

Of course, Ahlvarez might consider it his duty to threaten said supply line so that he tries one of the first two, which might turn into quite a fight on the right terrain.

I could see RFC being able to put up a reasonable case for quite a few options.

Hi Isaac_Newton,

Quite right.

While alliance 'spies' can apparently get messages to Hanth far faster than anything short of a pony express, their quality is excellent and highly trusted, and as I've noted a couple of times, I strongly doubt Merlin or Cayleb are going to let Hanth be ambushed.

So if it even looks like Ahlverez is coming up behind him they're going to tell him.

L

isaac_newton wrote:*quote="fallsfromtrees"*[quote="Tonto Silerheels"]EdThomas wrote:

4. We don't know how much Hanth knows other than a honking big Army went west to the retake Ft Tairys.

I'm working from memory here, so please forgive me if I make even more mistakes than usual.

I'm going to assume that you meant east, rather than west, since Ft. Tairys is east-northeast of Thesmar.

I believe that Hanth has sources of information of which we are not aware. He certainly broke out of Thesmar at an ideal time. That suggests that he either has sources of information, an excellent sense of military timing, or the luck of the...well people who have excellent luck. His enemies concluded that he should have good information predicated on Charis's control of the seas. It wouldn't take much for someone to travel south Ft. Sandfish (or to Ft. Darymahn) to give information to someone on a galleon, and for that information to travel from there to Thesmar.

~Tonto*quote*
IIRC, both Eastshare and Hanth are in semaphore communication with the capital. It would be surprising indeed if summary copies of Eastshare's reports hadn't found their way into Hanth's hands via perfectly normal means.

Slight nit. I think that Hanth's communications are a bit more tenuous/slow than that - ship/semaphore I think.

I'm not sure where the nearest working semaphore line to Siddar starts, but there is text ev that Temple Loyalists had been in control of the lines in South March lands e.g. Fort Darymahn - where they were tricked, by a dummy seige, into sending messages to somewhere else [can't remember who].

Of course that may have changed, but I'd suspect that the South March line towers would be in a poor state + probably unmanned. Hanth's couriers might have to sail as far as Eralth in Trokanos to find the nearest line - so several thousand miles to cover!

So message time would be days/weeks for Hanth as opposed to hours for Eastshare.[/quote]

lyonheart wrote:Hi Isaac_Newton,

Quite right.

While alliance 'spies' can apparently get messages to Hanth far faster than anything short of a pony express, their quality is excellent and highly trusted, and as I've noted a couple of times, I strongly doubt Merlin or Cayleb are going to let Hanth be ambushed.

So if it even looks like Ahlverez is coming up behind him they're going to tell him.

L

isaac_newton wrote:*quote="fallsfromtrees"*[quote="Tonto Silerheels"]EdThomas wrote:

4. We don't know how much Hanth knows other than a honking big Army went west to the retake Ft Tairys.

I'm working from memory here, so please forgive me if I make even more mistakes than usual.

I'm going to assume that you meant east, rather than west, since Ft. Tairys is east-northeast of Thesmar.

I believe that Hanth has sources of information of which we are not aware. He certainly broke out of Thesmar at an ideal time. That suggests that he either has sources of information, an excellent sense of military timing, or the luck of the...well people who have excellent luck. His enemies concluded that he should have good information predicated on Charis's control of the seas. It wouldn't take much for someone to travel south Ft. Sandfish (or to Ft. Darymahn) to give information to someone on a galleon, and for that information to travel from there to Thesmar.

~Tonto*quote*
IIRC, both Eastshare and Hanth are in semaphore communication with the capital. It would be surprising indeed if summary copies of Eastshare's reports hadn't found their way into Hanth's hands via perfectly normal means.

Slight nit. I think that Hanth's communications are a bit more tenuous/slow than that - ship/semaphore I think.

I'm not sure where the nearest working semaphore line to Siddar starts, but there is text ev that Temple Loyalists had been in control of the lines in South March lands e.g. Fort Darymahn - where they were tricked, by a dummy seige, into sending messages to somewhere else [can't remember who].

Of course that may have changed, but I'd suspect that the South March line towers would be in a poor state + probably unmanned. Hanth's couriers might have to sail as far as Eralth in Trokanos to find the nearest line - so several thousand miles to cover!

So message time would be days/weeks for Hanth as opposed to hours for Eastshare.

[/quote]

None of this seems to consider the possibility of drop in visits to Hanth by a certain Mr Zhevons...

Don

n7axw wrote:

None of this seems to consider the possibility of drop in visits to Hanth by a certain Mr Zhevons...

Don

Exactamente! Even with good info, though, the questions are: (1)will Hanth have sufficient time to react; and (2) will he have sufficient forces with which to react.

That's one reason why the actions of Earl High Mount, Eastshare and (perhaps) the ICN may well have a bearing on things. High Mount and Eastshare's forces will need some time to recover, but High Mount's forces, in particular, would have a much shorter way to go to intecept Ahlverez.

n7axw wrote:SNIP

None of this seems to consider the possibility of drop in visits to Hanth by a certain Mr Zhevons...

Don

I was purely addressing the point of standard coms via Semaphore and what was actually available - it had been suggested that both Hanth & Eastshare were in contact with Siddar via that method, and I was suggesting that probably was not fully true for Hanth - that there was a ship stage in between.

- of course, certain other parties may choose to pay a flying visit - flying in all senses of the word

Apologies for the delay in responding.
Further thoughts on how much Hanth knows. THere seems to be a consensus that whatever he hears from DE or Siddar City will come by way of a semaphore-schooner route. His local knowledge is unknown but we have to keep in mind that he does have scout-snipers now which should keep him aware of what's happening locally.

"another column had stormed Cheryk without even slowing." implies they were going somewhere. My SWAG is to link up with Hanth. I lean towards taking the road west because of lack of knowledge as to what's up north in the Fort Sheldyn area. This way H has his whole force for the task of wiping out Rychter at Evertyn.

Possession of Cheryk opens up the possibility for a semaphore link between Siddar City and all of the operations west (and north?) of Thesmar-Seridahn River. When the ICN moves into the lower Gulf they should be able to use the semaphore link as well which should do wonders for ICA/ICN operations

We don't know if Highmount is going to swing west to help Hanth clean up the Ft Sheldyn area before he swings north. Sending a brigade down the road from Roymark to clean out the area between Roymark and Cheryk makes sense(but what do I know )

I think I'm more pessimistic about A's being able to get his troops across the Seriddahn than most folks here. RFC described the Dohlarans as " more than a little starved, those Dohlarans, gaunt, with leaky boots and worn uniforms that came perilously close to tatters,...." (p. 557, LAMA) as they went into the battle in the forest. They've since walked hundreds of miles across the Southmarch in the middle of winter (cold and rainy, which is not conducive to robust health) with what was in A's supply column after the battle as their only source of supplies. And lets not forget the 20,000 Desnairians they picked up who started the trip in an even worse state they have to share those supplies with.
Now, they (somewhere between a rabble and starving army) have to seize a bridge held by entrenched infantry with artillery support ( at least mortars), behind minefields. I'd be surprised if they had any artillery or cavalry. The poor animals were in awful condition when they started and probably ended up as the only source of protein for the 50,000 soldiers on their 5-600 mile trek across the Southmarch.
Food from Temple-Loyalist civilians on their route I'm guessing would be little to none. We know there was not a lot farming done last summer so how much food's gonna be availabe for the army after the civilians have passed the same long cold, rainy winter they did.

I don't know if RFC's gonna have them surrender under a white flag but I don't see how he can have this starving army successfully assault anything, much less a fortified position.

I hope the next few snippets will get rid of the little black cloud I'm walking under.

EdThomas wrote:Apologies for the delay in responding.
Further thoughts on how much Hanth knows. THere seems to be a consensus that whatever he hears from DE or Siddar City will come by way of a semaphore-schooner route. His local knowledge is unknown but we have to keep in mind that he does have scout-snipers now which should keep him aware of what's happening locally.

"another column had stormed Cheryk without even slowing." implies they were going somewhere. My SWAG is to link up with Hanth. I lean towards taking the road west because of lack of knowledge as to what's up north in the Fort Sheldyn area. This way H has his whole force for the task of wiping out Rychter at Evertyn.

Possession of Cheryk opens up the possibility for a semaphore link between Siddar City and all of the operations west (and north?) of Thesmar-Seridahn River. When the ICN moves into the lower Gulf they should be able to use the semaphore link as well which should do wonders for ICA/ICN operations

We don't know if Highmount is going to swing west to help Hanth clean up the Ft Sheldyn area before he swings north. Sending a brigade down the road from Roymark to clean out the area between Roymark and Cheryk makes sense(but what do I know )

I think I'm more pessimistic about A's being able to get his troops across the Seriddahn than most folks here. RFC described the Dohlarans as " more than a little starved, those Dohlarans, gaunt, with leaky boots and worn uniforms that came perilously close to tatters,...." (p. 557, LAMA) as they went into the battle in the forest. They've since walked hundreds of miles across the Southmarch in the middle of winter (cold and rainy, which is not conducive to robust health) with what was in A's supply column after the battle as their only source of supplies. And lets not forget the 20,000 Desnairians they picked up who started the trip in an even worse state they have to share those supplies with.
Now, they (somewhere between a rabble and starving army) have to seize a bridge held by entrenched infantry with artillery support ( at least mortars), behind minefields. I'd be surprised if they had any artillery or cavalry. The poor animals were in awful condition when they started and probably ended up as the only source of protein for the 50,000 soldiers on their 5-600 mile trek across the Southmarch.
Food from Temple-Loyalist civilians on their route I'm guessing would be little to none. We know there was not a lot farming done last summer so how much food's gonna be availabe for the army after the civilians have passed the same long cold, rainy winter they did.

I don't know if RFC's gonna have them surrender under a white flag but I don't see how he can have this starving army successfully assault anything, much less a fortified position.

I hope the next few snippets will get rid of the little black cloud I'm walking under.

Probably Ahlvarez's best bet is to continue toward Thesmar and to pass north of Thesmar to the Sherdian just south of that forest Cheryk is in the middle of. Then use the trees from that forest to build rafts to ferry his troops across the river. Once across, he can slip into Silkiah and get to Dohlar that way. Of course, if he has someone like DE in Hot pursuit, this would only get him pinned to the river.

But otherwise there would be no one in easy range to engage him. I agree Ahlvarez is in no shape to be engaging anyone in battle.

Don

n7axw wrote:Probably Ahlvarez's best bet is to continue toward Thesmar and to pass north of Thesmar to the Sherdian just south of that forest Cheryk is in the middle of. Then use the trees from that forest to build rafts to ferry his troops across the river. Once across, he can slip into Silkiah and get to Dohlar that way. Of course, if he has someone like DE in Hot pursuit, this would only get him pinned to the river.

But otherwise there would be no one in easy range to engage him. I agree Ahlvarez is in no shape to be engaging anyone in battle.

Don

Randomiser's suggestion about building rafts was pretty ingenious. With a little luck it might work. I agree that nearer to Thesmar might be the best place to try cuz mosta H's folks'll be up north with him.
I really would like to see A get through. RFC's built a really interesting character here. A Thirsk-Ahlverez duo in Dohlar would be a real plus for the long term plan (IMHO).