Is it really so bad?

[DemandredFO]

Is it really so bad that the borderlanders aren't in the borderlands?  I mean 1-2 million Trollocs are even now getting closer to Tarwin's Gap or already through and maybe some dreadloads.  The borderlanders have 350,000 total or so and the trollocs will have 1 million or so, not good odds.  Consider the borderlanders have a strong force in Andor that will be joined to Rand soon.  Now if they were in the borderlands all they would do is die probably before messages could be sent anywhere.  Alot of men will die anyway but less than otherwise I think.

 

Thoughts?

[RAND AL THOR]

Is it really so bad that the borderlanders aren't in the borderlands?

 

Yes it is. Assuming that TG will commence with a huge surge of trollocs/mydraal from the Blight, the Borderlands will be attacked first. They need to hold until Rand does whatever he intends to do. If the borderlands give way, then it would be very difficult to hold the rest of Randland. Stemming the flow early is the best tactic.

 

As Gandalf advises is LOTR, if Minas Tirith falls, then the strength of mordor would cover all of middle-earth.

 

Consider the defence of Emond's Field in Book 4. It was necessary to hold the fence at all cost. If the trollocs broke in anywhere, then they would quickly have overrun the village. This is similar but on a much larger scale. Steming the flow at the various places where trollocs may emerge from the Blight is likely the best tactic. For that the Borderlands need the maximum strength.

 

Remember that Malkier fell due to the weaking of the defensive forces. Trollocs were able to capture Malkier's outposts because they were under-manned, which in turn resulted from problems within the royal family.

[Cockta]

But if you would put all soldiers in the entire Randland, and the soldiers of the Seanchan empire, and all aiel warriors, I don't htink they would be able to hold the line,b ecause the line itslef stretches so long, and then the forsaken could just pick where to attack, because there is no chance that the thinned forces that guard the entire length would manage to hold back the entire trolloc army.

 

If you didn't understand what I was saying, you really need to play more strategy games, and read books on chess.

 

Anyways, here is a more simple explanation.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

This is the borderlands. All soldiers and warriors are there, near the border to the blight. Because of the length of the border, they have to thin out their forces to manage to have soldiers everywhere on the border. Because of that, the forces will be thinned. That is when the forskane take the entire trolloc army, and launches it at one place, like this:

 

                                       IIIIII

                                       IIIIII

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The "I" is the trolloc army, and if you are a good tactician, you would concentrate your forces at one place, to brake through the line, like this:

 

 

 

--------------------------------    II II      ------------------------------

                                  IIIIIIIIII

                                    II     II

 

This is a standard hole in a defence, which is NOT good. This could lead to this scenario:

 

 

III  III  III  III  III  III                     III  III  III  III  III

-------------------------------                ------------------------------

       III         IIIIIII                          IIIIIII      III

 

 

If you are the defender, you are essentially teabagged. The forces north of the line, is the left-overs from the main trolloc force that penetrated the line. They attack head-on, as seen, while the main force split into two groups, and attack from the rear. As said before, you are teabagged, if you are the defender.

 

I hope this little scenario, of what might happen, help a lot of people.

 

 

Edit: That particular word is not allowed on DM.

/Maj

[Darkholme]

But at the same time Rands army can 'travel' to locations that are being the hardest hit to help out while the trollocs and other shadowspawn cannot.

[RAND AL THOR]

If you didn't understand what I was saying, you really need to play more strategy games, and read books on chess.

 

The only kind of game I play is strategy. ;D

 

I know exactly what you are saying and it makes perfect sense but there is a small error there.

 

The Blightborder cannot be crossed at all points. It is heavily mountainous and only a specific few points (such as Tarwin's Gap) allow the rapid passage of a large army. I'm not 100% sure on this but I think it is so. A quick look at the map would show you how rough the terrain can be. Incidentally, my favourite map type in games is where the enemy can only come at you at particular points. :D

 

Also, Tarmon Gaidon will be fought on a massive scale. Pushing armies through any number of gateways to regions of fighting may not be fast enough. And remember that armies do need some time to gather themselves after passing through the gateway so I don't think that would tactically work.

[Bob T Dwarf]

The defender has to be strong everywhere.  But, if the defender tries to cover every vulnerability, he just insures that he's weak everywhere. 

 

That's the classic problem of defensive warfare.

 

The attacker is free to concentrate his forces where he thinks the defense is weakest and hit with maximum force there. 

 

Rand needs to be the actor.  He can't afford to allow the Dark to take the initiative.  If he becomes a reactor, he just ends up chasing his own tail.  He's gonna hafta sacrifice quite a few pawns in order to get the enemy into positions where his forces can do maximum damage.  That list of names is likely to get very long.

[Cockta]

So there is a good number of strategy players here? Anyone tried Starcraft, or Total Annihilation? All of them are great strategy games!! But back to topic

 

Also, when the enemy gives you two options, you choose a third. That was straight from WoT, but it is a good strategy to use, and it is applicable to all scenarios.

 

Anyways, Sun Tsu was a great man, and his book called The art of warfare, or something was about strategist principles. I wonder if I can buy that book, because I heard even the US military use it when they train new officers.

 

And because of that, I fear that they don't have that book in stores, because the US military wnat to have that book all by themselves, and not share :(

[DemandredFO]

Audible has it.  You may also able to order it online.  It's called the Art of War by Sun Tsu

[Cockta]

Ahh, thank you!

 

Now I can finally read the great work of a great man, and I am only 15 years old, so it will be a blast!

[RAND AL THOR]

Rand needs to be the actor.  He can't afford to allow the Dark to take the initiative.

 

If Rand intended to do so, I think he already would have. He is just biting his nails and waiting for Tarmon Gaidon to descend on him instead of deciding to begin it himself.

 

I have a sneaky suspicion that the reason for a small number of Rand POV chapters in the last 2 books is to prevent too much of his mind from being revealed to us. Ovbiously he has SOME intent regarding TG and the more the books if from his view, the greater the chance of revealing one or another of his plans to us. Sneaky RJ. :'(

[Bob T Dwarf]

Mot sure about that.

 

He has troops ( that we haven't seen in quite awhile ) in Arad Domon.  He's ordered the Sea Folk to bring massive supplies for an army of about a million.  At minimum he's aimed strongly at Graendal.  Meantime he's personally working the Seanchan problem.

 

That tells me he has plans we haven't seen yet to put all those troops and supplies to some active use.

[Razor]

The defense I would use is o have ashaman go to the places Trollocs can pass through the border and invert a weave for a ward triggered by Trollocs that send gateways of death streaming out into the area just north of the blight.  Ande a few blossoms to follow, lol

[trakand_01]

Rand needs to be the actor.  He can't afford to allow the Dark to take the initiative.

 

If Rand intended to do so, I think he already would have. He is just biting his nails and waiting for Tarmon Gaidon to descend on him instead of deciding to begin it himself.

 

 

Yep, and who can blame him? And he's not, really. He's concentrating on the 'West and South / East and North' prophecies, along with several others. There's a distinction between 'urgent' and 'important' and at present, Rand is having to deal with the 'urgent' monsters which sit on his doorstep, before he can wander down the drive and fight the 'important' one which waits at the end.

[DemandredFO]

Yep, you only fight one battle at a time, that's the mistake Hitler made in 1941.  He might have been able to defeat Britain and the U.S. but he started Barbarossa without finishing his other business

[RAND AL THOR]

Well the only useful thing he did towards TG in KOD is attempt the Seanchan truce. Considering that it didn't work out anyway, you could almost say that he did very little in KOD that would help him in TG.

 

Once again, too little Rand in KOD.

 

Obviously Rand or someone else close to him (Min perhaps) is going to understand the cryptic message in Fel's note and he is going to say "AHA ! So THATS what I have to do!" etc

 

I am truly looking forward to that and I am already skeptical about how this is going to play out since I expected someone to understand the note already. The only realistic possibility is having someone else see the note and understand.

 

The Finns told Rand how to cleanse saidin. I doubt they gave a clear set of instructions so Rand isn't totally dense since he worked those out to a grand scheme. Surely he should have noticed this note business by now?