How to deal with powerful stealth army?

[PvK]

Which era of Ulm are you?

(PD 10+ can catch an army though, especially because there is a modifier for the size of the sneaking army.)

[Saulot]

PvK said:
Which era of Ulm are you?

(PD 10+ can catch an army though, especially because there is a modifier for the size of the sneaking army.)

Not likely since that only counts units that have less than 10 stealth, which the vans don't. So the vans should be plenty difficult to catch with patrollers.

And PD below 25 (what he's likely to have in most provinces) is highly unlikely to catch the vans since it would require getting a high roll on the patrol (2d25), with at least one reroll, while the stealth roll was a total bust.

If you can't catch the raiders without just a lucky positioning of your army, and you're not yet ready to throw artillery magic at it, I'd recommend ignoring the raiders, and fight fire with fire, if he's focusing so much of his fighting resources on raiding, go send your army into his lands, and take provinces faster than he does. Invading Van is usually unpleasant because you never know when you'll bump into a large army defending one of his provinces due to the glamour, and not being properly scripted to deal with it, but since you know exactly where his army is, you also know where it isn't.

Meanwhile, focus on building more forts where you don't expect an attack during the construction.

[Innocence]

PvK said:
Which era of Ulm are you?

This is MA (Forges of Ulm). Not worth much against those Vanherses unless in very superiour numbers

[Gandalf Parker]

You might have to change your thinking from what will win the battle, to what will wittle down the enemy army. Batches of archers on fire and flee, assassins, arial attacks on attack rearmost, gas bladders, disease causers, starvation, etc.

[Baalz]

Also, when being raided by powerful squads like that it's a good idea to spread mages around to supplement your PD. He might waltz through 40 PD, but how about 40 PD and 2 smiths casting magma eruption? MA Ulm has great cheap combat mages, script them appropriately and sprinkle them around where you think he'll attack. You might not be able to kill them on the firs try, but you'll definitely inflict casualties and hopefully wear them down pretty quickly to a managable size. Bonus is your mages will often be able to retreat while the raiders finish off your PD.

PS take one of your smiths with a fire random phoenix power, flaming arrows, retreat. 40 flaming arbalests are going to definitely make him pay for the victory and your mage is now just moving to the next province. Other useful spells to supplement your PD against vans are are bonds of fire, destruction, earth meld, blade wind (knocks out their glamour), gifts from heaven (with an astral random), legions of steel. You can also sprinkle indy commanders with some nice cheap ulmsih forged items like lightning bows, etc.

[Innocence]

Gandalf Parker said:
You might have to change your thinking from what will win the battle, to what will wittle down the enemy army

You're right (all of you) Instead of wasting my army trying to catch an elusive army, I should wear it down gradually with the help of a few mages as you suggest [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Peace.gif[/img]