Now in our series on the militaries of Gal Hadre we come to the Delosian City States, which are technically not part of Gal Hadre, but the westernmost peninsula of the continent to the east of Gal Hadre. A narrow sea, filled with islands and occasionally brutal storms, separates the peninsula from Gal Hadre. Delos is kind of a human land, but is ruled by a “non-noble” ruling class of lycanthropes, below them in the hierarchy are the High then Low Shifters, who have enough were-blood to partially shift. The overall commanders of Delosian armies are nearly always purebloods, but might occasionally be commanded by a skilled and experienced High Shifter.
The core of the army of any of the city states is their pikemen, citizen levies that are better trained then the peasant levies of most of the human armies, but less well trained than professional troops. The state gives each citizen their 12 foot pike, but any other equipment is the citizen’s responsibility. Because of the very mountainous terrain of the Peninsula, it was entirely possible for pike formations to block a pass along a route between city states. Most of the citizens can afford a buckler, helmet and some kind of secondary weapon, often an axe; the richest added a breastplate and greaves. Units are organised by district within the cities and villages outside the cities themselves, those units are then broken into companies of approximately 100 citizens. Units would deploy together in the line of battle, so if a specific part of the army was savaged in a battle, it could impact that village or district for years. Each pike block is at least 5 ranks deep, often 10, and with the length of the pikes is not terribly manoeuvrable. Normally the armies try to leave gaps between every couple of companies for more specialist forces to move up and back. Units of pikemen are usually commanded by shifters that are not full time warriors.
The main support to the pike line is the archers and slingers that are the next largest grouping within the army. But the bows used within the city states are relatively cheap and have low draw strengths; between that and slingers needing a direct line of fire, ranged units are mainly used for skirmishing before and after the main battle.
The mountainous terrain of the peninsula has caused them to not focus on using cavalry in any significant way. The peninsula lacks the open plains and fields that make a cavalry charge dangerous in many other regions. What few mounts they do have are used by scouts and messengers. It is unfortunate for the Delosians that there are no flying species suitable as mounts native to their peninsula; since the arrival of the wereblooded to Delos there has been no interest in developing military power not based on that the lycanthropes and shifters despite many of the city states having the revenue to buy flying creatures from somewhere else.
The real hitting power of the Delosian armies is their shock units made up of pureblooded lycanthropes and shifters. These smaller groups of a half dozen to dozen warriors are professional, full time fighters that use the weapons they want to. Axes, great-axes, maces, larger shields and short range thrown weapons such as javelins are all common. Unlike the pike units which fight in tight regimented ranks, these are loose groups of fighters that are used to break the enemy’s tight ranks and disrupt their formation. The citizen levies become way less effective the moment their ranks are broken as their pikes are most effective when it is a wall of stabbing spearheads. The average citizen levy is much weaker when using the hand-axe they brought along.
Mages are usually embedded within the shock units of shifters, partially because for some reason, mages are about ten times more common per capita among low shifters than humans, or high shifters for that matter. Unlike many other lands, mages within armies of the city states are at least semi-professional warriors. Thus their spells are more tailored to combat than many mages who might only know one or two combat spells, or spells developed for other uses that have combat applications. Delosian combat mages focus on spells that either deal damage over large areas or augment a small number of warriors. The mages use their magics to smash into a formation, disrupting it a moment before the rest of their shock unit hammers into the formation.
Battles between the city states are usually fairly quick events, two city states are squabbling over some border villages, mines or other outlying assets. They both deploy their armies and fight a battle, but the citizen levies will withdraw when it is clear that their side is losing. Thus the casualties in the battles are usually fairly low unless the tide doesn’t shift one way or the other quickly. The few instances of grinding battles where neither side broke and ran quickly usually resulted in bad things long term for both city states, as their other neighbours pick on the weakened rivals.
Delosian siege craft is not well developed as their wars rarely result in a city state being besieged. Catapults are the main style they use. Unlike many Gal Hadre nations that have well built siege weapons in towers on the walls of their fortresses and cities, the Delosians don’t have standing defenses of that style, the city states do have walls, but they rely on troops with ranged weapons to defend them in the very rare instances they are attacked. The walls are mainly useful in allowing the government to tax and control access into and out of the city.
What do you think of the Delosian armies? Are there any weaknesses that I didn’t highlight that you think they would have? Or strengths that I underplayed? Come back next time as we look at the second last path of dragon magic.
Comments
Post a Comment