The Tund Shard Cities are not well understood by non-Tund, which the lords of the Tund find perfectly acceptable. This has led to all sorts of legends, rumours and half-truths about the Shard Cities, which the lords of the Tund also find acceptable and maintain by preventing any non-Tund from entering the Shard Cities. However Tund that no longer live in the Shard Cities are still welcome to visit. What is not rumour or legend is the effectiveness of even the most basic units of their military, skills only amplified by the quality of arms and armour the shard cities equipped them with.
Tund live incredibly long lives, and while the Long Walk has caused younger Tund to dabble in many jobs, it has only been tradition among their kind for less than half a Tund’s lifespan. While the range of skills the newest members of their armies possess have their uses, veteran Tund warriors and officers have martial skills honed by many decades and usually centuries of experience, which no other force on Gal Hadre can replicate. A Tund general can make battlefield decisions with the confidence and speed granted by being a veteran of a dozen wars and units move and fight as if directed by a single brain from the long years of training together. Often the reasons why the Tund are redeploying forces on the battlefield is mysterious to less experienced generals at the moment, only to become clear to them minutes later when it is too late to adjust their forces.
Tund infantry come in several flavours, the most basic being their armoured spearmen. They use large oval shields, solid breastplates and spears of about 10 feet in length, a two foot straight blade served as a secondary weapon. Normally operating in blocks of 100 warriors, they could fight just as easily in two or ten ranks. Less common were warriors with halberds or smaller shields and maces, collectively maybe one third of their basic warriors were equipped as such. Veteran infantry had more armour, protecting their forearms and lower legs, along with a compound shortbow, able to punch through plate armour at 150 paces. Veterans also had special helmets that made them look extra tall with horsehair plumes that looked like ponytails, experienced foes would realize the illusion, but most would see what looked like 8 foot tall giants coming to end them.
The newest recruits to the Tund armies were usually first trained as archers. Compound shortbows, lighter armour and a short sword meant that they could move fast, and gain some seasoning before being thrust into the battleline. A tund unit of archers was not considered properly trained until it could put a volley into a 10ft by 10ft target at 200 paces, the concentrated fire of their archers could let Tund generals punch holes in enemy battle lines for cavalry or veterans to exploit. With the hybrid veteran units, a standard tund force could field a third of their infantry as archers. Tund generals are often looking for ways to funnel their foes into situations where the Tund can use their ranged advantages to maximum effect.
If Tund armies could be said to have a weakness, it would be in their cavalry. Not that their cavalry is bad, but it doesn’t stand head and shoulders above the quality of human cavalry. The Tund also did not equip their cavalry for the true shock force of human knights fielding instead mounted scouts and skirmishers with spears, light armour and compound shortbows and armoured mace and shield cavalry. Their horses are the equal of any of the finest bloodlines of warhorses found in the human kingdoms, but bred for speed instead of size. Occasionally small numbers of flying mounts are found in larger armies, but the 4 winged creatures seem rare and are probably difficult to breed in the small bubbles of space that are the shard cities.
The area where the Tund advantages probably shows through the most is their mages, as they have more than anyone else and probably slightly better mages than most. When focused on specific parts of the battlefield or used to support veteran infantry or cavalry units, their mage corps cand decisively shift the course of battles. Most Tund armies, even those planning on besieging something, don’t use actual siege weapons, their mages are their artillery. The Tund have an equal number of mages across all the paths of magic, so their use of magic in battle is not skewed towards one path, if anything the only focus of tund battle magic is more protective than offensive.
Now you are probably asking what weaknesses the Tund armies have if they have excellent equipment, highly experienced troops and commanders and more mages than anyone else and the answer is simple. The Tund are unable and unwilling to take any significant casualties. A Tund generation is 200 to 300 years and while twins are very common and the average Tund has a decently large family, their numbers are low and take centuries to replace any significant losses. If it looks like they are going to take significant casualties they will withdraw to fight another day unless they are forced into a fight they cannot afford to lose at any cost, which would basically only be if mortals somehow found a way to access a shard city. Human, Werd or Peshtar forces routinely take 10% casualties without even considering withdrawing and a force might win a battle but still take 25% casualties; the Tund would have long withdrawn before hitting even the 10%. Even in battles they do fight, the Tund are often outnumbered two to one.
What interests you most about the forces of the shard cities? What Gal Hadre force are you interested in hearing about next? Is there a weakness you think they have that I didn’t mention in the article? Come back next time as we look at another of the paths of dragon magic.
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