The Military Discussion Thread. (Full Spoilers)

[Guest The Thin Inn Keeper]

I agree with everything you've said, and this isn't a criticism, merely an observation:

Given this lack of clarity, a lot of channeling battles would consist of trying to scout out the oppositions' forces and discover where exactly they were. Complicated.

That's no different from any form of battle, fluid or not.

 

Throughout Medieval history, the closest we've got to Randland, there are stories about armies literally "bumping into each other" as they manouvered around.

 

The same thing happened all the time during WW2, the largest "fluid" example of warfare. Normandy, for example, was more, or less, pure chaos.

[Majsju]

 

At the end of the day, Rand has far more (documented) channelers than the DO. He also has Mat, Bashere and Ituralde onside as of right now. If those three can’t come up with a way to use channelers in an innovative way, then I’ll eat my hat.

 

Not saying that the various methods of moving men will dictate the outcome of the war, merely that RJ saying “there are ways to disrupt it” is a bit of a woolly response. At least not in my mind.

 

 

 

Well, RJ was adressing a question about the War of power, where both sides had thousands of channelers available. Team Dark and Team ight where more or less equal in numbers of channelers, at least initially.

 

With TG, we get a completely different game.

[Sharaman]

I agree with everything you've said, and this isn't a criticism, merely an observation:

Given this lack of clarity, a lot of channeling battles would consist of trying to scout out the oppositions' forces and discover where exactly they were. Complicated.

That's no different from any form of battle, fluid or not.

Throughout Medieval history, the closest we've got to Randland, there are stories about armies literally "bumping into each other" as they manouvered around.

The same thing happened all the time during WW2, the largest "fluid" example of warfare. Normandy, for example, was more, or less, pure chaos.

 

Yes - but given that both sides can also move around at extreme speed, it's even more complicated.

The value of strategic strong points is less. In war, both sides try to grab major water crossings, main roads, rail stations, airports. That gives both sides benchmarks to try and seek out the opposition.  With Travel, the need is less.

The biggest fluid post WWII battles (Ussuri river 1967-8 and Sinai-Golan Heights 1973) were ultimately determined by the need to control communication channels (roads and water-crossings).

I can't really see the classic sort of set-piece encounter developing, assuming serious numbers of channelers on each side.

And sieges would be near-madness - the usual mine-counter-mine thing would turn into gate-counter-gate :)

[BladeDancer]

Maybe Shadowspawn can't Travel, but they should at least be able to use Portal Stones to move armies, no?

 

As for the forces of Light, if I were Rand I'd work on finding a way to make moving gateways, to forcibly Travel enemy armies. Or otherwise, Rand and some Ashaman could create gateways and push enemy armies through them with weaves of Air.  At this point, a good tactic would be to engage Seanchan armies and forcibly Travel them into the Blasted Lands, where they have no choice but to fight Trolloc hordes. This would be a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone manuever.

 

As of the end of TGS, Rand's biggest strategic problem is having his forces sandwiches between Seanchan invaders and the Dark One's armies in the Blight. Am I right that getting them to fight each other is the best solution?

 

A good point about the Seanchan being able to take Rand's forces from the South. I suspect that the Seanchan will be allied with Rand though by the time of the Last Battle.

 

We don't actually know the objectives of the Last Battle. Yes it is a showdown between The Dark One and the Dragon Reborn but why exactly. I can see two scenarios for it -

a) The Dark One breaks free/seals fail and he sends his Shadowspawn Armies south similar to the Trolloc Wars. The Shadow objective is conquer the World.

b) The Dark One is close to breaking free/the seals are almost failing and Rand attacks Shayol Ghul in a bid to close the Bore before this happens. This would be similar to LTT's strike at Shayol Ghul. The Light objective would be battle their way through to Shayol Ghul or create a diversion so Rand can sneak in behind enemy lines like Frodo in LOTR.

 

If it the first scenario - ie the Shadow invading then why don't they invade now? Do they need to wait for the Seals to fail to do this? They invaded during the Trolloc Wars. It seems a good time to invade now. The Seanchan are still at war with Rand and the White Tower (and have their homeland in civil war). The Black Tower is still (possibly) full of Darkfriends. The Borderlanders Armies are out of position. The longer the Shadow awaits the stronger Rand will become - he will Purge and unite the Black Tower, Moraine will be rescued (OK no-one predicts that in Randland), the Seanchan will ally with Rand, Egwene will ally the White Tower with Rand, the Kin and the Aiel Wise Ones, Rand will keep on reducing the number of Forsaken, the Borderlanders will ally with Rand and move their armies back into position. Rand seems to have overcome his madness/Dark Rand phase and regained a reason to live.

 

All the Shadow needs to invade is to organise their hordes of Trollocs etc. What else are the Shadowspawn doing? They surely have been doing little except building up their numbers since the Trolloc Wars. Yes they have lost numbers during Tarwins Gap and various battles such as in the Two Rivers/Stone of Tear/attacking General Tylee/the Ways/attacking Rand in a few other places. But surely these tens of thousands are only a fraction of available Shadowspawn if not then the Shadow is screwed during the Last Battle. From the Shadow perspective they will gain little by waiting an extra year building up their forces but in a year's or 6 months time the Light should be much more united and cohesive. Maybe the Shadow is waiting for starvation to hit Randland and weaken it.

[Guest The Thin Inn Keeper]

Well, RJ was adressing a question about the War of power, where both sides had thousands of channelers available. Team Dark and Team ight where more or less equal in numbers of channelers, at least initially.

 

With TG, we get a completely different game.

Good point.

 

Which means that, given how the situation stands re. the numbers of channelers and therefore the widespread (or not if you’re the DO) use of Gateways, it can’t change the game too much…. Otherwise TG will end up something like this:

 

Bashere, Ituralde and Cauthon sitting back drinking their Appletinis having mangled eleventy-million Shadowspawn while Rand goes head-to-head with Moridin.

 

That’d be a little dull, wouldn’t it?

Yes - but given that both sides can also move around at extreme speed, it's even more complicated.

Hmmm.

 

Not in my opinion. Consider the advance of the Wehrmacht during the early stages of Barbarossa. I don’t think that we can expect to see that large scale, speedy advance in Randland. Not without hundreds of channelers dropping dead from fatigue.

 

Under heavy combat conditions the Germans were exceptional. Consider Rommel’s advance through France, the “Ghost Division”, very impressive.

 

No less complicated than what we can expect in Randland. Esp. considering that we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of men, machines etc. The paraphernalia of war in the C20th is much more complex than that of Randland.

The value of strategic strong points is less. In war, both sides try to grab major water crossings, main roads, rail stations, airports. That gives both sides benchmarks to try and seek out the opposition.  With Travel, the need is less.

Yes and no.

 

Up to now you and I have been talking about strike forces of elite troops (or at least that’s the impression I had). We haven’t talked about masses of men.

 

The only examples of that, off the top of my head, are Perrin’s troops and Egwene’s rebels. Now, Perrin moves in fits and starts, his small number of Ashaman are continually exhausted. Egwene’s army marches most of the way to the WT on foot and makes the final jump into position by Travelling.

 

I dunno. We’ll have to see if they dedicate a lot (and I do a lot) of Channelers to transport, rather than combat.

The biggest fluid post WWII battles (Ussuri river 1967-8 and Sinai-Golan Heights 1973) were ultimately determined by the need to control communication channels (roads and water-crossings).

The Golan Heights was hardly large scale and certainly wasn’t fluid. The IDF sat in pre-prepared positions and pumped shell after shell at the Syrians. Both Gulf War I and II contained more mobile warfare than 1967.

 

Ussuri River, or Kursk on a smaller scale, is the better example.

 

But the idea that Tarmon Gai’don will revolve around communication and resupply channels doesn’t fly for me. Why fight over a bridge or a road if you can resupply via Gateway?

I can't really see the classic sort of set-piece encounter developing, assuming serious numbers of channelers on each side.

The only set pieces I can see evolving are around major population centres. Which is perverse… I’ll explain my thinking…

 

Givens (I think):

1. The Light (or at least the Light and the Neutrals) hold all the major cities

2. The major industries are within close distance of cities. (We haven’t seen factories dotting the countryside – or rather we’ve only seen the Seanchan manufactory, which stood out so much I laughed over seeing the word).

3. The local leadership is, despite Rand being a dictator, still located within the walls of cities.

 

Therefore, I believe that, despite the nature of Travelling meaning you don’t have to fight set pieces, the Shadow will certainly aim to take major cities. This in turn will result in the Light having to fight set pieces.

 

Which is, as I said, perverse, because the whole point of fluid warfare, using tanks or Gateways, is to avoid that kind of thing.

 

However, as we’ve recently seen in Iraq, some of the fiercest fighting takes place in towns and cities. The open countryside was relatively easy to conquer (if not hold). This has been the case since humans started killing each other.

 

It’ll be interesting.

 

Plus, we don’t know the DO’s objectives. Yes, he wants to win TG, but is he willing to completely depopulate Randland in order to do so? If the answer’s yes, the easy answer to that is to drop thousands of Trollocs inside / near a city. If the answer’s no, then it becomes more complicated.

And sieges would be near-madness - the usual mine-counter-mine thing would turn into gate-counter-gate :)

I can’t wait, it’s going to be crazy.

 

Even more intense than the raid on the Tower.

[BladeDancer]

Talking about the need for reconnaissance and the importance of being able to locate the enemies armies - do we know how the Dark One uses Rats and Ravens? Many people think the Dark One uses these creatures in order to spy and scout out for his forces, so I am assuming they are correct. But how does this work exactly? By the behaviour of the various characters it seems that the Ravens need to go back and report - the Dark One does not actually see what they see in real-time. Presuming that this is still the case when/if the Dark One breaks free, do we know how this reporting works? Do these ravens have to fly to Shayol Ghul? Or to a particular (or any) Myrdraal? Or can they report to any DreadLords/Forsaken or Black Ajah members? And how do they report exactly? Can they speak? Do they have some sort of mind-meld? Is there some sort of Channelling that enables them to upload what they have seen/heard? Do they have to submit a written report in suitable-font and all spell-checked? Similarly with rats - who do they report to? The local Darkfriend/ratspeaker? How does that work exactly?

 

I assume Draghkar could also be used as Scouts but again no-one knows how numerous they are or how far they can fly in a day/night.

 

It seems a minor issue but scouting using Ravens could be extremely useful for the Dark One. The Dark One does not seem to be all-seeing so he needs his minions to report.

 

The Seanchan will be using their Raken as Scouts - I am not sure how numerous they are but I assume hundreds at least are in Randland. Also their riders are fully trained as Scouts so they can be used for this role very effectively. Presumably the Seanchan will be allied with Rand by the time of the Last Battle.

[Sharaman]

Yes - but given that both sides can also move around at extreme speed, it's even more complicated.

Hmmm.

Not in my opinion. Consider the advance of the Wehrmacht during the early stages of Barbarossa. I don’t think that we can expect to see that large scale, speedy advance in Randland. Not without hundreds of channelers dropping dead from fatigue.

 

Under heavy combat conditions the Germans were exceptional. Consider Rommel’s advance through France, the “Ghost Division”, very impressive.

 

No less complicated than what we can expect in Randland. Esp. considering that we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of men, machines etc. The paraphernalia of war in the C20th is much more complex than that of Randland.

 

The value of strategic strong points is less. In war, both sides try to grab major water crossings, main roads, rail stations, airports. That gives both sides benchmarks to try and seek out the opposition.  With Travel, the need is less.

Yes and no.

 

Up to now you and I have been talking about strike forces of elite troops (or at least that’s the impression I had). We haven’t talked about masses of men.

I was thinking that you need both - special forces to cause damage, win specific objectives, and large conventional forces to dig and hold the bits you need.

 

The only examples of that, off the top of my head, are Perrin’s troops and Egwene’s rebels. Now, Perrin moves in fits and starts, his small number of Ashaman are continually exhausted. Egwene’s army marches most of the way to the WT on foot and makes the final jump into position by Travelling.

I dunno. We’ll have to see if they dedicate a lot (and I do a lot) of Channelers to transport, rather than combat.

 

Take Rand's allocation of 100 channelers to Rodel's force of 50K as a rule of thumb. The dynamics change if they can safely open and tie off Gates when the whole thing becomes much simpler.

 

 

The biggest fluid post WWII battles (Ussuri river 1967-8 and Sinai-Golan Heights 1973) were ultimately determined by the need to control communication channels (roads and water-crossings).

The Golan Heights was hardly large scale and certainly wasn’t fluid. The IDF sat in pre-prepared positions and pumped shell after shell at the Syrians. Both Gulf War I and II contained more mobile warfare than 1967.

 

 

Ussuri River, or Kursk on a smaller scale, is the better example.

 

Golan involved two Israeli armoured brigades taking on two Syrian armoured divisions. That's maybe 200 tanks Vs 1000 tanks.

Plus two Israeli infantry brigades, which were dug in versus some 2+ Syrian mechanised divisions.

The Northern Israeli armoured brigade fought a completely fluid battle.

Anyway, it is one of the biggest examples of battle of movement post WWII.

Suez was even more fluid of course - you had the crazy situation where there were two Egyptian armies (realistically Army Corps) sitting in Sinai with an Israeli bridgehead behind their lines cutting off one lot totally.

 

The Gulf War I and II were both jokes because of the total disparity of forces and the complete air superiority of the US. Golan / Suez were both saturation defended by Sam-6 and ZS-23 batteries. Israel lost close to 100 planes to missile/AA fire. In fact, the major thing Sharon's crossing did was knock out Sam batteries on the West side of the canal, opening a hole in air cover.

 

Ussuri was huge -- bigger than Golan and Suez combined but under-reported unless you have access to USSR Military Review.

 

But the idea that Tarmon Gai’don will revolve around communication and resupply channels doesn’t fly for me. Why fight over a bridge or a road if you can resupply via Gateway?

Eventually you want to deny territory, if nothing else. So you do need grunts (large non-channeling forces) to back your channelers. Especially on the side of the Light where you know that Shadowspawn has to move normally / via ways, there is some value to controlling communication points.

 

I can't really see the classic sort of set-piece encounter developing, assuming serious numbers of channelers on each side.

The only set pieces I can see evolving are around major population centres. Which is perverse… I’ll explain my thinking…

 

Givens (I think):

1. The Light (or at least the Light and the Neutrals) hold all the major cities

2. The major industries are within close distance of cities. (We haven’t seen factories dotting the countryside – or rather we’ve only seen the Seanchan manufactory, which stood out so much I laughed over seeing the word).

3. The local leadership is, despite Rand being a dictator, still located within the walls of cities.

 

Therefore, I believe that, despite the nature of Travelling meaning you don’t have to fight set pieces, the Shadow will certainly aim to take major cities. This in turn will result in the Light having to fight set pieces.

Which is, as I said, perverse, because the whole point of fluid warfare, using tanks or Gateways, is to avoid that kind of thing.

 

I agree - the other problem for the Light is that it "cares" about civilian casualties while the GLoD doesn't recognise the concept of civilians. So yes, there could well be sieges.

This is where having a staging post in Murandy (assuming Dem is controlling it) well behind enemey lines could be devastatingly effective. GLoD can push trollocs through the Ways into Murandy and hit population centres in Andor, Altara, Tear, Ilian. He doesn't care if the forces get slaughtered while the Light would have to pull its forces back to prevent genocide.

It could be one literary justification for the Borderlanders to have pulled so far out of position. As and when Dark forces explode out of Murandy, they can react.  

 

However, as we’ve recently seen in Iraq, some of the fiercest fighting takes place in towns and cities. The open countryside was relatively easy to conquer (if not hold). This has been the case since humans started killing each other.

It’ll be interesting.

Plus, we don’t know the DO’s objectives. Yes, he wants to win TG, but is he willing to completely depopulate Randland in order to do so? If the answer’s yes, the easy answer to that is to drop thousands of Trollocs inside / near a city. If the answer’s no, then it becomes more complicated.

 

 

And sieges would be near-madness - the usual mine-counter-mine thing would turn into gate-counter-gate :)

I can’t wait, it’s going to be crazy.

 

Even more intense than the raid on the Tower.

 

That I agree - this is where I think RJ's training and background may have made a key difference, rather than his writing skills versus BS.  I hope he did sketch out the contours carefully.

Weird isn't it - combining technology which is 15th-16th century, with teleportation? If Mat gets his mortars, then we'll be at around Thirty Years War levels.

(Pleasure arguing with you BTW - nice to see some DMtneers know their onions)

 

 

[BladeDancer]

 

I agree - the other problem for the Light is that it "cares" about civilian casualties while the GLoD doesn't recognise the concept of civilians. So yes, there could well be sieges.

 

On the issue of sieges - Most of the Cities and major towns are walled in Randland. So taking them swiftly could be difficult without using treachery or Gateways. So Darkfriend sleepers could really be of value in such a scenario. A siege itself that relies on starvation rather than taking the walls/gates could not really work anymore. The besieged town could easily evacuate the civilians, bring in food/ammo/armour/supplies and reinforcements using Gateways. OK it would take a while to evacuate the civilians of a big city like Tar Valon but 10 days should be enough. A long-term siege could last for months so 10 days would be a mere fraction of that time.

 

Of course Shadow Channelers would be key in an effective storming of a settlement by either opening Gateways into the besieged settlement and then opening the gates using transported Channellers and Darkfriends or just using the OP to blow the gates or walls down.

 

However it plays out the Last battle will contain some spectacular set-piece confrontations.

[Majsju]

Well, RJ was adressing a question about the War of power, where both sides had thousands of channelers available. Team Dark and Team ight where more or less equal in numbers of channelers, at least initially.

 

With TG, we get a completely different game.

Good point.

 

Which means that, given how the situation stands re. the numbers of channelers and therefore the widespread (or not if you’re the DO) use of Gateways, it can’t change the game too much…. Otherwise TG will end up something like this:

 

Bashere, Ituralde and Cauthon sitting back drinking their Appletinis having mangled eleventy-million Shadowspawn while Rand goes head-to-head with Moridin.

 

That’d be a little dull, wouldn’t it?

 

Well, for starters, we do not know how many channelers the Shadow has at their disposal. We know a few things, like Taim training his private army inside the BT, like a rough estimate of how many of the BA that survived Egwenes purge. (And yes, I am using the word 'know' here regarding Taim, even though it has not been officially confirmed which team he plays for). But I think it would be quite naive to not expect the Shadow to have quite a few things up the sleeves.

So, expect the Shadow to have a good deal more channelers than what we have actually seen so far. And not only channelers, we have had hints that there are some pretty nasty creepycrawlies up in the blight.

Now, keep those things in mind, and then look back at the batle at the mansion in KOD. Over 20 channelers, including Rand, Nynaeve, Logain and Alivia, ie the strongest channelers with battle experience the Light has, vs 100000 trollocs. And it was a close call. Change the numbers to a million trollocs, backed up by a number of BA and Dark Asha'man, and you will need every channeler available participating in the fighting, not making gateways.

 

The greatest difference between TG and the War of Power would be the Shadows objective (and the Lights objective as well). The War of Power was more or less a rather conventional war, two sides fighting over control of territories.

TG however, that will be more along the lines of the Shadow trying to cause as much mayhem as possible, engaging the lights forces long enough for the DO to defeat Rand and break free completely. If the Shadow during the War of Power could be compared with a typical WW2 army, lets say the Red Army, TG will see a Shadow looking more like the talibans.

[Impressive Bosom]

Obviously it won't happen, but I could see the great war about to take place as literally taking a half-dozen books if they wanted it to. Think about the countless volumes that have been written on WWII. Individuals battles and massive campaigns, advances in technology and rediscovering of weaves, shifting alliances and betrayals... but more and more I believe what will happen will be more of a proxy war, a distraction or a metaphorical conflict to the more significant showdown between Rand and the DO.

 

Remember, as Verin said - this war is not bing fought/going to be fought the way Rand thinks it is. I believe that the DO has been trying a variety of ploys, from the weather to driving Rand insane enough to break the Wheel himself... and now that his greatest gambit has failed, its time to - quite literally - get it on.

 

One thing is for certain. The outcome of this war will not be decided by how many trollocs one side has or who can Travel and who can not. The survival of individuals and even nations may be determined by such pedestrian logistics, but the Final Battle itself will be between Rand and the DO with Morridan and possibly Fain playing their parts.

[Muad Cheade]

However, we’re also seeing unprecedented numbers of channelers in the world at the world at the moment. What are all those new Novices and Accepted going to do? One possible use is batteries for Circles for the express purpose of creating Gateways.

That is very unlikely. They will most likely be used in Healing.

 

So, Gateways are not the be all and end all of combat.

 

Did anyone expect them to be?

Your argument implies them to be.

 

So, like any other military strategy, there are countermoves that can be made, and moves that, in turn, can be made to react to those moves.

Yes, so your belief that 100 Asha'man can just ride through and destroy an army at will is not as easy as you assume.

 

At the end of the day, Rand has far more (documented) channelers than the DO. He also has Mat, Bashere and Ituralde onside as of right now. If those three can’t come up with a way to use channelers in an innovative way, then I’ll eat my hat.

In the two major wars previous to Tarmon Gai'don, the Light had a superiority in numbers to the Shdow. Yet in both the fought a losing war for most of their entirity? Why? Because the number of the Trolloc forces outnumbered humans greatly, they had enough channelers to counter the Light, and in the cases of the War of Power and Tarmon Gai'don, the Dark One will have greater control over events.

 

Demandred also has more experience using/facing channelers (Bashere is the only one) in warfare so he has outmatched those three in that regard while also being their equal.

 

Not saying that the various methods of moving men will dictate the outcome of the war, merely that RJ saying “there are ways to disrupt it” is a bit of a woolly response. At least not in my mind.

People in the Age of Legends were capable of wondrous things. Blocking Gateways is not as amazing as the majority of abilities form that Age.

 

Verin said the war will not be fought in a way Rand is thinking. She is right. The Shadow will not be attempting to conquer the Westlnds. They will be trying to annihilate it. The Dark One breaking free means the end of all things so why would he try to fight a conventional war?

[Sharaman]

GLoD has one major thing in his favour - time.

If Rand & Co. don't find a way of taking Him out, the seals will eventually all break.

Then he can enlarge the Bore and finally, given enough time, He'll be free.

He would be perfectly happy to keep the Light occupied with politicking, skirmishes, or full-scale wars until such time. This is why GLoD is in no particular hurry to precipitate a crisis.

The Light has to attack GLoD directly before that happens.

 

However, GLoD isn't conducting the campaign - the Chosen are.

And, with the exception of Moridin, the Chosen are self-seeking, power loving characters.

They would like to fight and win decisively in military conflicts or however, so that they can enjoy their dominions and indulge in the high life.

 

This divergence in objectives may be a weakness.  

If the Chosen can be stampeded or tempted into premature action, it might give the Light some edge.

But Rand has to know what he can do at Shayol Ghul. Killing GLoD is apparently impossible. Sealing him off with a new set of seals is not a permanent solution if it's even possible.

 

 

[Impressive Bosom]

GLoD has one major thing in his favour - time.

If Rand & Co. don't find a way of taking Him out, the seals will eventually all break.

Then he can enlarge the Bore and finally, given enough time, He'll be free.

He would be perfectly happy to keep the Light occupied with politicking, skirmishes, or full-scale wars until such time. This is why GLoD is in no particular hurry to precipitate a crisis.

The Light has to attack GLoD directly before that happens.

 

However, GLoD isn't conducting the campaign - the Chosen are.

And, with the exception of Moridin, the Chosen are self-seeking, power loving characters.

They would like to fight and win decisively in military conflicts or however, so that they can enjoy their dominions and indulge in the high life.

 

This divergence in objectives may be a weakness.  

If the Chosen can be stampeded or tempted into premature action, it might give the Light some edge.

But Rand has to know what he can do at Shayol Ghul. Killing GLoD is apparently impossible. Sealing him off with a new set of seals is not a permanent solution if it's even possible.

 

 

 

This begs a question... if the DO wants the destruction of all things and the Chosen want dominion to rule, power and hedonistic pleasures... aren't those goals in conflict? Is the stage set for some great betrayal by the Chosen or even some of them (Morridin) when they get 'buyers remorse' at realizing that if the DO has his way, there will be nothing left to rule?

[Sharaman]

@impressive. Indeed "divergent objective" = "goals in conflict".

I don't think Moridin has a problem, he wants an end to it.

The others will probably scream very loudly as and when they figure out what GLoD intends. What can they do about it though? At one end lies the end of the pattern and extinction for all, at the other lies stilling and execution. Same difference as far as a Chosen is concerned.

It's upto Rand to find a way to exploit the dichotomy.

BTW have you spelt Nyn's name correctly in your signature line?

 

 

[Nethran Thaimal]

I don't think they're meant to find out what's going on with the Dark One.  The Father of Lies gives them false promises of eternal rule specifically to keep them from finding out that they won't rule at all when he wins.

 

As to there not being a difference in the eyes of the Chosen as to which side they fight on... On one side, they stand the chance that they die forever.  On the other, they die for a while.  Pretty big difference.

[Majsju]

As I said earlier, I strongly doubt the Shadows forces will go for the "destruction of everything". That is not exactly an objective that inspires your troops to go out and fight nail and tooth, is it?

 

Rather, the DO, through Moridin will order the troops to 1. Keep the forces of the Light engaged, 2. spread as much chaos as possible (remember Herid Fels note...), and keep that going until the DO has broken free completely, and dealt with Rand.

 

The DO is a god, he does not need a bunch of channelers and some trollocs to destroy the world. What he needs is to get out of his prison, and get that pesky Dragon out of the way. If that can be accomplished, he can pick up the task of annihilation himself.

[Nethran Thaimal]

The DO is a god, he does not need a bunch of channelers and some trollocs to destroy the world. What he needs is to get out of his prison, and get that pesky Dragon out of the way. If that can be accomplished, he can pick up the task of annihilation himself.

 

Aye. I just meant that he wouldn't tell them about the annihilation part anyway.  No one would fight for him.  So, instead, he'll promise eternal power and life.  Because lying is how he operates.

[Majsju]

The DO is a god, he does not need a bunch of channelers and some trollocs to destroy the world. What he needs is to get out of his prison, and get that pesky Dragon out of the way. If that can be accomplished, he can pick up the task of annihilation himself.

 

Aye. I just meant that he wouldn't tell them about the annihilation part anyway.  No one would fight for him.  So, instead, he'll promise eternal power and life.  Because lying is how he operates.

 

Exactly, he is a lying liar who lies. So his orders would be of a kind that makes his minions believe that they can get their hands on all this power they have been "promised". In other words, not 'Go out and destroy the world'.

[BladeDancer]

Do we actually know what the Dark One's final objective is though? It is to break free but we don't know the consequences of that. It might just be that the World continues but with the Dark One as God. In such a scenario - the Dark One would be able to determine reality. We do not yet know whether he intends to wipe out everything or if he intends to reward those who served him. If it seemed likely that the Dark One was going to betray them then the Forsaken could just help the Light forces win - a reversal of the situation when most Forsaken originally defected to the Shadow via a surprise betrayal. Ok - the Forsaken might not be forgiven by the victorious Light forces but they could probably go into hiding and live undetected - after all they can disguise themselves and Travel great distances. It is possible Moridin switches sides as he is supposed to be the smartest one - although he is also a little crazy!

[Sharaman]

Do we actually know what the Dark One's final objective is though? It is to break free but we don't know the consequences of that. It might just be that the World continues but with the Dark One as God. In such a scenario - the Dark One would be able to determine reality. We do not yet know whether he intends to wipe out everything or if he intends to reward those who served him. If it seemed likely that the Dark One was going to betray them then the Forsaken could just help the Light forces win - a reversal of the situation when most Forsaken originally defected to the Shadow via a surprise betrayal. Ok - the Forsaken might not be forgiven by the victorious Light forces but they could probably go into hiding and live undetected - after all they can disguise themselves and Travel great distances. It is possible Moridin switches sides as he is supposed to be the smartest one - although he is also a little crazy!

The one Chosen Rand can surely find is Moridin due to the link between them.

 

[Agitel]

I don't think the Dark One is trying to break free. I think the idea that he's imprisoned may be a false one. I don't think the bore is a hole that needs to be big enough to break free from, I think it's something that if it grows large enough will cause a chain reaction that tears the Pattern apart. The Bore is a hole in the Pattern, sort of, but it's exists all over the Pattern. The 'wider' it is, the more tenuously the Pattern holds together, and I think the Dark One is the force that's eating away at it.

 

The Dark One can touch specific parts of the Pattern if he chooses, but I think ultimately the Bore 'widening' is just the Pattern coming unraveled. If this is true, then the Seals might be a bit different than what we thought. Perhaps while they serve to keep the Dark One at bay, what they're really doing is holding the Pattern together itself, to prevent the damage from worsening. That's not to say that when they're destroyed the Pattern falls apart, but to say that they're reinforcements.

[Agitel]

We don't actually know the objectives of the Last Battle. Yes it is a showdown between The Dark One and the Dragon Reborn but why exactly. I can see two scenarios for it -

a) The Dark One breaks free/seals fail and he sends his Shadowspawn Armies south similar to the Trolloc Wars. The Shadow objective is conquer the World.

b) The Dark One is close to breaking free/the seals are almost failing and Rand attacks Shayol Ghul in a bid to close the Bore before this happens. This would be similar to LTT's strike at Shayol Ghul. The Light objective would be battle their way through to Shayol Ghul or create a diversion so Rand can sneak in behind enemy lines like Frodo in LOTR.

 

If it the first scenario - ie the Shadow invading then why don't they invade now? Do they need to wait for the Seals to fail to do this? They invaded during the Trolloc Wars. It seems a good time to invade now. The Seanchan are still at war with Rand and the White Tower (and have their homeland in civil war). The Black Tower is still (possibly) full of Darkfriends. The Borderlanders Armies are out of position. The longer the Shadow awaits the stronger Rand will become - he will Purge and unite the Black Tower, Moraine will be rescued (OK no-one predicts that in Randland), the Seanchan will ally with Rand, Egwene will ally the White Tower with Rand, the Kin and the Aiel Wise Ones, Rand will keep on reducing the number of Forsaken, the Borderlanders will ally with Rand and move their armies back into position. Rand seems to have overcome his madness/Dark Rand phase and regained a reason to live.

 

All the Shadow needs to invade is to organise their hordes of Trollocs etc. What else are the Shadowspawn doing? They surely have been doing little except building up their numbers since the Trolloc Wars. Yes they have lost numbers during Tarwins Gap and various battles such as in the Two Rivers/Stone of Tear/attacking General Tylee/the Ways/attacking Rand in a few other places. But surely these tens of thousands are only a fraction of available Shadowspawn if not then the Shadow is screwed during the Last Battle. From the Shadow perspective they will gain little by waiting an extra year building up their forces but in a year's or 6 months time the Light should be much more united and cohesive. Maybe the Shadow is waiting for starvation to hit Randland and weaken it.

 

It's sha'rah. The Light holds the Fisher, but the Shadow can win by manipulating his moves. They've been doing what they can to create chaos in Randland and around the world to keep everyone busy, to keep everyone distracted, and to control the Dragon. Graendal's orders from Moridin show what the Shadow's move is. Drive the Dragon insane. Make him give up hope. Make him hate the world, the Pattern. Make him, though definitely don't let Graendal know this last part, do the Dark One's deed FOR him. The Shadow nearly won when Rand stood atop Dragonmount, they very... VERY nearly forced Rand into the spot that granted the Dark One victory.

 

That is why the Shadow has been waiting. This whole Last Battle thing is something the Dark One would rather avoid, as it's a bloody melee with no guarantee of victory, a melee which merely exists to buy time for the DO to unravel the Pattern. The advantage for the Shadow is that the Light has no idea what kind of game they're playing.

[Guest The Thin Inn Keeper]

I was thinking that you need both - special forces to cause damage, win specific objectives, and large conventional forces to dig and hold the bits you need.

True, but mechanics and logistics of the two are very different.

 

Strike forces = Easy

Mass troop movements = Impossible (?) / Very difficult

Take Rand's allocation of 100 channelers to Rodel's force of 50K as a rule of thumb. The dynamics change if they can safely open and tie off Gates when the whole thing becomes much simpler.

Agreed.

 

But, doesn’t the idea of tying off the Gateway, which I think is completely valid, kind of screw up RJ’s quote about the problems of resupply?

 

Which, again, leads me to think that he didn’t fully consider how it was going to work…

Golan involved two Israeli armoured brigades taking on two Syrian armoured divisions. That's maybe 200 tanks Vs 1000 tanks.

Plus two Israeli infantry brigades, which were dug in versus some 2+ Syrian mechanised divisions.

The Northern Israeli armoured brigade fought a completely fluid battle.

Anyway, it is one of the biggest examples of battle of movement post WWII.

Right. Which is small scale compared to anything in WW2 and, as whole, smaller than both Gulf Wars.

 

Syrian armoured tactics can hardly be referred to as “fluid”. They were essentially a front on charge with no innovation from junior officers and NCOs. Hence their complete failure despite overwhelming odds. Added to that, as you state, only one of the Israeli brigades fought with anything like a fluid approach. So, what, we’ve got one brigade fighting fluently?

Suez was even more fluid of course - you had the crazy situation where there were two Egyptian armies (realistically Army Corps) sitting in Sinai with an Israeli bridgehead behind their lines cutting off one lot totally.

Suez was fluid up to a point. After crossing the canal and enveloping the Israeli chain of forts, the Egyptians went firm, relied on their Saggers and SAMs and were eventually beaten, and beaten very badly. Indeed, the reason why the Israeli armour was initially almost entirely annihilated (so much so that replacements were rushed to the battlefields without any paint being applied to the bear metal and Israeli reservists all over the world were booking flights to Tel Aviv, getting off the aircraft and running to their regiments), was precisely because the Egyptians refused to participate in a fluid battle.

 

Sharon’s breakthrough was lucky to say the least, the crossing could easily (and almost did) have ended in disaster. But, then, what would one expect from a former airborne officer? Sharon’s movement was by far the most dynamic action of the entire conflict.

Eventually you want to deny territory, if nothing else. So you do need grunts (large non-channeling forces) to back your channelers. Especially on the side of the Light where you know that Shadowspawn has to move normally / via ways, there is some value to controlling communication points.

But the Shadow doesn’t need to occupy the world. It needs to kill / turn Rand. The Light obviously needs to hold. The Shadow doesn’t. The Shadow will, a least at the start, dictate the way the war is fought…. Unless Rand’s Great Captains can come up with something … well, great…

I agree - the other problem for the Light is that it "cares" about civilian casualties while the GLoD doesn't recognise the concept of civilians. So yes, there could well be sieges.

Undoubtedly, the Light cares.

But… and we don’t know the answer to this … does the fact the DO is, well, evil, necessarily mean that he wants to destroy the population of the world? I’m not sure.

 

Does he care less than the Light, almost certainly, does he not care at all? No idea.

On the issue of sieges - Most of the Cities and major towns are walled in Randland. So taking them swiftly could be difficult without using treachery or Gateways. So Darkfriend sleepers could really be of value in such a scenario. A siege itself that relies on starvation rather than taking the walls/gates could not really work anymore. The besieged town could easily evacuate the civilians, bring in food/ammo/armour/supplies and reinforcements using Gateways. OK it would take a while to evacuate the civilians of a big city like Tar Valon but 10 days should be enough. A long-term siege could last for months so 10 days would be a mere fraction of that time.

 

Of course Shadow Channelers would be key in an effective storming of a settlement by either opening Gateways into the besieged settlement and then opening the gates using transported Channellers and Darkfriends or just using the OP to blow the gates or walls down.

 

However it plays out the Last battle will contain some spectacular set-piece confrontations.

Agreed.

 

I think the “sieges”, or rather the taking of the cities, will resemble more of a close quarter bloodbath, like the final assault stage of a traditional siege, than anything we’ve seen through history.

 

I’m sure there’ll be some interesting stratagems cooked up.

This is where having a staging post in Murandy (assuming Dem is controlling it) well behind enemey lines could be devastatingly effective. GLoD can push trollocs through the Ways into Murandy and hit population centres in Andor, Altara, Tear, Ilian. He doesn't care if the forces get slaughtered while the Light would have to pull its forces back to prevent genocide.

It could be one literary justification for the Borderlanders to have pulled so far out of position. As and when Dark forces explode out of Murandy, they can react.  

Agreed.

That I agree - this is where I think RJ's training and background may have made a key difference, rather than his writing skills versus BS.  I hope he did sketch out the contours carefully.

Weird isn't it - combining technology which is 15th-16th century, with teleportation? If Mat gets his mortars, then we'll be at around Thirty Years War levels.

I know, it’s a bit strange.

 

The closest (historical) idea of rapidly deploying mortars, or crossbowmen with the rapid fire boxes – to me that’s the British Royal Horse Artillery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Horse_Artillery

 

Majsju (not that I believe anything he says, he’s somewhat senile *Grins at Maj*) said that the idea originated in Sweden, but the idea of fast-moving artillery is the same. Substitute those for Ashaman and it becomes pretty interesting.

 

In any case, that’s how I see Mat’s people being used. Obviously, with Gateways, you can add infantry / all-arms support to the “guns”.

(Pleasure arguing with you BTW - nice to see some DMtneers know their onions)

Thanks, I agree, it’s good to spitball with someone who knows their stuff.

 

 

So, expect the Shadow to have a good deal more channelers than what we have actually seen so far. And not only channelers, we have had hints that there are some pretty nasty creepycrawlies up in the blight.

I’m fairly certain that there’ll be plenty of DF channelers. If there weren’t, then it’d be a, relatively, easy time for the Light.

Now, keep those things in mind, and then look back at the batle at the mansion in KOD. Over 20 channelers, including Rand, Nynaeve, Logain and Alivia, ie the strongest channelers with battle experience the Light has, vs 100000 trollocs. And it was a close call. Change the numbers to a million trollocs, backed up by a number of BA and Dark Asha'man, and you will need every channeler available participating in the fighting, not making gateways.

But Chanelers can also cancel one another out to a certain degree. If you recall Dumai’s Wells, the Aes Sedai were doing a good job of holding off the Aiel Wise Ones. The battle only shifted once the Ashaman rocked up.

 

For that to hold true, that presumes, and I think we’re in agreement here, that the DO will have considerable numbers of channelers.

 

Plus, the easiest way for the DO to win is to dump large numbers of Shadowspawn into the big cities of Randland. He kills the city and its inhabitants, he wins. That’ll necessitate lots of people to create Gateways.

TG however, that will be more along the lines of the Shadow trying to cause as much mayhem as possible, engaging the lights forces long enough for the DO to defeat Rand and break free completely. If the Shadow during the War of Power could be compared with a typical WW2 army, lets say the Red Army, TG will see a Shadow looking more like the talibans.

Right.

 

And the easiest way for the DO to do that is to bounce armies of Shadowspawn around, never letting the Light settle. Which, in turn, will require substantial numbers of channelers.

Your argument implies them to be.

No, it doesn’t. It merely states that RJ’s comments don’t really clear up the questions.

 

As I, repeatedly, stated, Travelling is merely another strategy, one that can be, and will be countered.

Yes, so your belief that 100 Asha'man can just ride through and destroy an army at will is not as easy as you assume.

Really?

 

To quote Majusu:

Now, keep those things in mind, and then look back at the batle at the mansion in KOD. Over 20 channelers, including Rand, Nynaeve, Logain and Alivia, ie the strongest channelers with battle experience the Light has, vs 100,000 trollocs.

20 channelers vs. 100,000.

 

Strong channelers, no doubt. But 100 channelers, i.e. 5 times the number, all trained for combat (i.e. Ashaman) will achieve spectacular results. Especially if they’re under the direction of a Great Captain and supported by conventional troops – and there’s no reason to think either of those 2 additions is unlikely.

 

In more conventional terms, as Sharaman points out here:

Take Rand's allocation of 100 channelers to Rodel's force of 50K as a rule of thumb.

That’s 100 channelers, plus 50,000 men, plus a Great Captain.

In the two major wars previous to Tarmon Gai'don, the Light had a superiority in numbers to the Shdow. Yet in both the fought a losing war for most of their entirity? Why? Because the number of the Trolloc forces outnumbered humans greatly, they had enough channelers to counter the Light, and in the cases of the War of Power and Tarmon Gai'don, the Dark One will have greater control over events.

Where did I ever say it was going to be easy? – The “appletinis” comment was sarcastic, hence the choice of appletini as the drink and the mention of “eleventy million” Trollocs.

Demandred also has more experience using/facing channelers (Bashere is the only one) in warfare so he has outmatched those three in that regard while also being their equal.

They’re called “great” for a reason: they are the best of the best. They will adapt, they will learn.

 

Besides, again, I never said it would be easy.

People in the Age of Legends were capable of wondrous things. Blocking Gateways is not as amazing as the majority of abilities form that Age.

Right. And there are how many people from that Age currently alive? And, are the channelers of this age idiots? No. They’ve discovered abilities/powers that even people from the AoL didn’t have/understand.

Verin said the war will not be fought in a way Rand is thinking. She is right. The Shadow will not be attempting to conquer the Westlnds. They will be trying to annihilate it. The Dark One breaking free means the end of all things so why would he try to fight a conventional war?

Which is precisely why I’m not claiming that it’ll be conventional in any way shape or form. Hence my, repeated, comments about the fact that they won’t be interested in holding lands. The only caveat I’ve added is “we don’t know”, which is true.

 

However, the first step in annihilating the planet will be defeating the Light. And, unless they kill/turn Rand at the outset – which can’t happen, given that we know RJ was planning outriggers and therefore the world still exists - they’ll have to fight (not necessarily completely destroy) the armed forces.

As I said earlier, I strongly doubt the Shadows forces will go for the "destruction of everything". That is not exactly an objective that inspires your troops to go out and fight nail and tooth, is it?

 

Rather, the DO, through Moridin will order the troops to 1. Keep the forces of the Light engaged, 2. spread as much chaos as possible (remember Herid Fels note...), and keep that going until the DO has broken free completely, and dealt with Rand.

 

The DO is a god, he does not need a bunch of channelers and some trollocs to destroy the world. What he needs is to get out of his prison, and get that pesky Dragon out of the way. If that can be accomplished, he can pick up the task of annihilation himself.

My thoughts exactly.

 

The only question is how they spread that chaos. Bouncing Shadowspawn all over the world sounds like as good a plan as any.

[Majsju]

 

 

The only question is how they spread that chaos. Bouncing Shadowspawn all over the world sounds like as good a plan as any.

 

Ok, now you have mentioned moving Shadowspawn around so many times I think I need to remind you about one little detail- Shadowspawn can not Travel, they die if they go through a Gateway. Which means the onle relatively easy means of moving around is the Ways, and that means other problems, even if Machin Shin seems to be less of a threat these days.

[Sharaman]

Running quotes together in several places. 

 

True, but mechanics and logistics of the two are very different.

Strike forces = Easy

Mass troop movements = Impossible (?) / Very difficult

Take Rand's allocation of 100 channelers to Rodel's force of 50K as a rule of thumb. The dynamics change if they can safely open and tie off Gates when the whole thing becomes much simpler.

Agreed.

But, doesn’t the idea of tying off the Gateway, which I think is completely valid, kind of screw up RJ’s quote about the problems of resupply?

Which, again, leads me to think that he didn’t fully consider how it was going to work…

 

It's been a puzzle to me since PoD when I first thought of it. Rand didn't do it in that campaign.

See, using that 50K- 100 Channelers equation, assume (very rough estimates) each channeler can open a Gate where 30 guys can wander through every minute. The 50K takes around an half-hour to redeploy assuming slippages.

If you can tie off the gates with reasonable safety - you could have one channeler opening a series of gates and either speed the process up or deploy fewer channelers.

We have a few examples. Grady could open a gate that put two men through together.

Verin managed to pass 7K men to Caemlyn in a few hours (which suggests that she was weaving smaller gates even with her angreal). 

Obviously from Grady's conversation, tying off wasn't an option. As we both feel, RJ probably didn't think this through and you'll have to retcon finding reasons why it isn't possible. 

 

Right. Which is small scale compared to anything in WW2 and, as whole, smaller than both Gulf Wars.

Syrian armoured tactics can hardly be referred to as “fluid”. They were essentially a front on charge with no innovation from junior officers and NCOs. Hence their complete failure despite overwhelming odds. Added to that, as you state, only one of the Israeli brigades fought with anything like a fluid approach. So, what, we’ve got one brigade fighting fluently?

Suez was even more fluid of course - you had the crazy situation where there were two Egyptian armies (realistically Army Corps) sitting in Sinai with an Israeli bridgehead behind their lines cutting off one lot totally.

Suez was fluid up to a point. After crossing the canal and enveloping the Israeli chain of forts, the Egyptians went firm, relied on their Saggers and SAMs and were eventually beaten, and beaten very badly. Indeed, the reason why the Israeli armour was initially almost entirely annihilated (so much so that replacements were rushed to the battlefields without any paint being applied to the bear metal and Israeli reservists all over the world were booking flights to Tel Aviv, getting off the aircraft and running to their regiments), was precisely because the Egyptians refused to participate in a fluid battle.

Sharon’s breakthrough was lucky to say the least, the crossing could easily (and almost did) have ended in disaster. But, then, what would one expect from a former airborne officer? Sharon’s movement was by far the most dynamic action of the entire conflict.

 

True Sharon was incredibly lucky and the Egyptians and Syrians obviously had chain of command issues fighting wars of movement. They weren't trained for individual crews to display initiative. Nevertheless it was among the larger such actions post WWII.

The Indo-Pak tank battles in Chhamb and Basantar in 1965 and 1971 were smaller though much better-handled on both sides.

Gulf Wars like I said, don't really consider either edition “serious battles”. Total air cover, huge differences in mobility, absolute lack of Iraqi generalship.

 

At least in Yom Kippur, the Egyptian general staff worked out the first crossing and bridgehead establishment thoroughly. They failed to exploit their success, held back reserves until too late, dug into the Bar Lev line and tried to hold that instead of trying to assault the mountain passes or the coast road to Gaza. The Iraqis showed complete lack of ability. 

 

Eventually you want to deny territory, if nothing else. So you do need grunts (large non-channeling forces) to back your channelers. Especially on the side of the Light where you know that Shadowspawn has to move normally / via ways, there is some value to controlling communication points.

 

But the Shadow doesn’t need to occupy the world. It needs to kill / turn Rand. The Light obviously needs to hold. The Shadow doesn’t. The Shadow will, a least at the start, dictate the way the war is fought…. Unless Rand’s Great Captains can come up with something … well, great…

Undoubtedly, the Light cares (about civilians).

But… and we don’t know the answer to this … does the fact the DO is, well, evil, necessarily mean that he wants to destroy the population of the world? I’m not sure.

 

Does he care less than the Light, almost certainly, does he not care at all? No idea.

 

The Shadow can in strategic terms, play for time and distraction. Given time, GLoD can break free. What He then intends is a different issue.

The Light has to be strategically pro-active while defending as much in the way of civilian populations as it can.

If it can deny the Ways, it can prevent trollocs being brought in, reducing the sheer numbers. 

 

On the issue of sieges - Most of the Cities and major towns are walled in Randland. So taking them swiftly could be difficult without using treachery or Gateways. So Darkfriend sleepers could really be of value in such a scenario. A siege itself that relies on starvation rather than taking the walls/gates could not really work anymore. The besieged town could easily evacuate the civilians, bring in food/ammo/armour/supplies and reinforcements using Gateways. OK it would take a while to evacuate the civilians of a big city like Tar Valon but 10 days should be enough. A long-term siege could last for months so 10 days would be a mere fraction of that time.

 

Of course Shadow Channelers would be key in an effective storming of a settlement by either opening Gateways into the besieged settlement and then opening the gates using transported Channellers and Darkfriends or just using the OP to blow the gates or walls down.

However it plays out the Last battle will contain some spectacular set-piece confrontations.

I think the “sieges”, or rather the taking of the cities, will resemble more of a close quarter bloodbath, like the final assault stage of a traditional siege, than anything we’ve seen through history.

I’m sure there’ll be some interesting stratagems cooked up.

 

It may end up in some sense resembling the Taiping Rebellion, where the Ever-Victorious Army, the Qing and the Taipings were all very mobile (often using waterways) but all the major battles were set-piece bloodbath sieges of cities (often involving coordinated river-land assaults). Here again, the Light has some advantage since trollocs are bad at river-crossings (one reason why Manetheren held out for so long).

 

 

The closest (historical) idea of rapidly deploying mortars, or crossbowmen with the rapid fire boxes – to me that’s the British Royal Horse Artillery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Horse_Artillery

 

Majsju (not that I believe anything he says, he’s somewhat senile *Grins at Maj*) said that the idea originated in Sweden, but the idea of fast-moving artillery is the same. Substitute those for Ashaman and it becomes pretty interesting.

 

In any case, that’s how I see Mat’s people being used. Obviously, with Gateways, you can add infantry / all-arms support to the “guns”.

 

Majsju could be referencing Gustavus Adolphus who did a lot of successful work with mobile arty in the Thirty Years War.

 

 

As I said earlier, I strongly doubt the Shadows forces will go for the "destruction of everything". That is not exactly an objective that inspires your troops to go out and fight nail and tooth, is it?

 

Rather, the DO, through Moridin will order the troops to 1. Keep the forces of the Light engaged, 2. spread as much chaos as possible (remember Herid Fels note...), and keep that going until the DO has broken free completely, and dealt with Rand.

 

The DO is a god, he does not need a bunch of channelers and some trollocs to destroy the world. What he needs is to get out of his prison, and get that pesky Dragon out of the way. If that can be accomplished, he can pick up the task of annihilation himself.

 

I don't think GLoD's forces will be out to destroy everything but they would be prepared to cause massive casualties. Like I said earlier, He can be strategically defensive because He's playing for time. That gives more tactical flexibility. if he can tie down the forces of the Light to defending civvy populations, he wins the time.

 

The Light has to be strategically offensive and somehow repair the Bore/ destroy GLoD's escape prospect while defending civilian populations as far as possible. In terms of conventional warfare, the Light must aim for total annihilation of GloD's forces or somehow create a military stalemate, minimising civilian casualties, while striking directly at GLoD himself.

 

One big plus for the Light is the apparent lack of decent generals amongst the Dark. Of course, if Rhuarc or Bael or Bashere or Galgan are Friends of the Dark, there are problems!