Alright. Option C3Xc won. Almost everyone wants to try a flanking maneuver; everyone wants to target the leader and his retinue; the other two options were more closely contested, but in the end resting prevailed, and the flanking element will be made of both the 'stone warriors' and the bear friends, to give them more freedom. Let's see how it goes.
The morning was warm but not overly hot, ideal weather for a battle. Our men had a good meal and time for some rest: fighting was a tiring business, an hungry business, coming unprepared would be folly.
Our main line formed on the slope of the hill, made of all our obsidian wielding militia. On the flanks the stone warriors and the bears split, slightly detached from our formation to allow them the freedom to intervene.
Key to our strategy would be the use of javelins, to thin the approaching enemy lines before they could charge in and sweep us aside with their superior numbers.
Downhill the enemy host kept approaching, the hulking man leading them growling and howling, spurring his warriors ever onward. When they spotted us, they stopped and gazed up. A blood chilling howl was emitted at the same moment by more than one hundred throats. The Wielder of Fire stepped forward, followed by his two apprentices, then turned towards our line.
'Obsidian Embers! We stand here to demonstrate the glory of fire to those dirty savages who dare to march towards our home! Let's pray to the spirits for victory – he produced his gem from his skins and put it on the ground. Immediately a small column of flame sprung up and he knelt in front of it.
'Oh spirits of the flame! Your faithful subjects need your help. Allow us to burn our enemies, who even now approach us! Give us the strength to bring death to the unbelievers, to bring pain to the savages, to teach the meaning of fear to those who know no fear!'
The column of flame danced merrily, then a tongue of fire darted towards the Wielder and touched his face, almost caressing him. He stood up again, took up the gem and turned downhill.
He rose his arms to the sky, then gave a great scream, who drowned the feral howling coming from the enemy throng. His body was suddenly wrapped in flame, a huge column raising to several times the height of a man. Then it was extinguished, and he calmly walked back to our battle line.
The beastmen advanced warily, walking uphill. One of the bone club holding men started running forward, but was caught by a huge hand and tossed with a growl back into the main host.
It was apparent that the cornerstone of the enemy host was its leader. Kill him and the battle would be half won. The chief of the militia barked his orders. The obsidian warriors planted their javelins in the ground in front of them and waited.
On the left and right the stone warriors waited in grim silence, flanked themselves by our bears and their tamers.
Minutes passed slowly, the enemy moving ever closer, until they started climbing in a disorderly fashion. Yet they pressed on in a single mass. Whenever one of them started straying forward, a growl or a shove from the leader dropped him in the main formation.
As for the leader himself, he kept gazing warily at our line, apparently appraising our weaponry and position, and obviously not liking what he saw. But he was committed, he could only press forward.
'Hold! Let them draw nearer! Don't waste your javelins! Hold, you curs!' our commander kept shouting.
The Wielder moved forward, a few steps before our line. He screamed 'Grant me power!' and flames suddenly came alive in his hands. He started making tossing motions, and fireballs streaked towards the enemy line. The first came short, but the second struck true. One of the bone club wielding brutes was aflame and started screaming and running, frantically waving his arms before falling to the ground.
An eerie silence falls on the enemy numbers. After a few seconds, the giant howls again and starts charging forward. Immediately the scream is taken up and the whole host starts charging uphill, moving at unbelievable speed.
Our commander raises his arm: 'Javelins.... ready!'. He waits a few more seconds, then suddenly lowers it: 'Javelins.... toss!'
A cloud of javelins arches towards the enemy. Then falls... and havoc erupts in the middle of the enemy. Brutes are run through and fall, while others stumble on the corpses. The charge is severely slowed, but not stopped. Many javelins streak towards the giant in front of the charge, to no avail. He simply stops, turns, grabs a man behind him who yelps and holds it in front of him. Several javelins strike the human shield who dies with a gurgle, but the real target keeps charging on, hardly slowing.
'Javelins... toss! Javelins... TOSS!' the commander yells again, twice. Twice again our javelins rain down on the enemy, twice again their charge is put in disarray. Losses are horrendous, a full third of them lay dead or bleeding on the slopes and great holes open up in their ranks. Yet the giant, holding the corpse in front of him, doesn't stop.
A few more seconds pass, the commander yells: 'Spears... ready!' and a forest of black tipped weapons suddenly springs to life in front of our line... the enemy is near, nearer, they're there!
On the flanks of our main line the charge stops as if running into a wall. The brutes impale themselves on our spears, then stop, unable to approach. The two apprentices summon their own powers, sending jets of flame amongst the enemy ranks. Where they are, screaming, burning corpses appear. The Wielder stops throwing his fireballs and starts summoning columns of flame from the ground, killing two, three enemies every time he does so.
In the center it's a very different matter... the leader's guards use their clubs to bat aside our spears, then to clobber our soldiers to the ground. But where the leader charges in, our line is swept aside.
He first tossed the corpse he's holding at the first tribesmen, making them fall to the ground under the great weight. Then he gives another blood chilling howl, wields his axes and jumps in the fray. He is a whirlpool of destruction, limbs and heads hacked to pieces, flying around him, blood arching every which way and painting him in red. His axes are sharp, sharper than anything we've ever seen. Obsidian, necks and limbs are cut with equal ease, the half-moon blades cutting through anything they meet.
Our commander, staying in the back, frantically yells 'Wield your axes! Stone warriors and bear friends, now is the time!'
On the flanks, the stone warriors collapse inward, falling on the enemy sides, already in disarray, and start doing their grim work. The enemy flanks are annihilated.
The bears take a longer route and fall on the enemy's rear. They are few in numbers, but they exact a fearsome tolls on the barbarians who, although stronger than a normal man, can do nothing but die when faced with a furious bear.
The enemy cease to fight as a coherent unit. Barbarians start fleeing in all directions, but few make it outside the killing field.
At the center of the battle though the outcome is still uncertain. The leader, surrounded by a retinue of his fiercest warriors, keeps pushing forward, towards the Wielder of Fire. He screams and slavers, killing anyone standing in his path. His warriors, surrounded on all side, die one by one, yet not without exacting their own casualties.
But yet they fall, ran through by spears, their skulls split by axes, until none remain except the leader, who keeps pushing onwards, bleeding from several wounds yet unstoppable. He finally reaches the Wielder of Fire.
They face off, the barbarian grievously wounded but still growling, the Wielder panting heavily from his exertions yet still holding his gem in his hand.
The giant screams: 'KILL YOU!' and jumps forward. From the side, suddenly one of our obsidian warriors charges in... and tosses a small fireball from his hand, that strikes the giant in the side. The barbarian howls in agony and staggers, then the Wielder moves. He pushes his arms forward, fearlessly grabbing the barbarian's head. An inhuman scream erupts from the giant's lips, and suddenly the great chief falls backwards, fire coming from his eyes and mouth. He keeps screaming
and trashing on the ground, then lays still. In place of his head, a blackened skull remains.
The Wielder stopped, turned toward the warrior who just saved him, hissed: 'You fool!' and backhanded him. The warrior whimpered and fell on the ground, groveling at the Wielder's feet.
The battle was won, yet at a grievous cost. A full half of our obsidian warriors lay dead or maimed on the ground. Others were wounded, more or less severely. A runner was dispatched towards camp, to bring zebras and people here to take care of our men and bring supplies. And, perhaps more importantly, to bring back the tale of our victory.
The most immediate concern, though, was what to make of the fleeing barbarians.
A. The chief of the militia said: 'Let them go. They are just a few scant survivors. They'll bring back news of their defeat to their tribe and they will leave us alone from now on.'
B. The Wielder of fire, grimacing, growled: 'Let them go! No! We should pursue them, hunt them down one by one, until none are left alive! That is the only fate they deserve!' After saying this, the Wielder staggered... his eyes rolled upward in their socket and he fell to the ground.
C. His apprentice and several warriors rushed to his side... and found him soundly sleeping. It seemed the great effort sustained during the battle finally had caught up with him.
One of our scouts gave a different proposal: 'We cannot ignore them. Send some of my men on their trail. We need to find out where they come from and if there are more. For all we know, this was an advance scout party.'
Whew. I think this is the longest update I wrote. Took almost two hours. Anyway, my personal commentary on the plan:
I think it was sound. The only risk was thinning out the main line that could have been broken in half if the whole barbarian mass got up there in one piece. But higher ground and, most importantly, the use of javelins (whom the barbarians probably never saw before) stopped the enemy in his tracks. At that point having flanking elements, especially unconventional ones as the bears, completed the rout of an undisciplined throng.
The events surrounding the barbarian leader and the Wielder were of course scripted (unless you came up with an absolutely brilliant plan to put him for sure out of the fight. You didn't, so they all happened. If it's any consolation, I didn't come out myself with any way to 100% kill him before he got in the middle of our guys, when I was planning for the battle's outcome).
Anyway, get voting, and thanks for your patience for the somehow slow nature of this battle update