Roles in a (Fantasy) Army

[Solauren]

Hello.

I'm designing a D&D campaign (not adventure, entire campaign) around an adventure seed from one of the books. Specifically 'Vengence from the Grave' from Lost Empires of Faerun.

The basic summary is 'Elven high mage puts followers into stasis, something goes wrong, and now, 12000 years later, they're undead (Wight variants for the most part) and no longer in stasis, and think the war is still going on...

And the Elven High Mage is now a Lich...'

So, I'm designing a fantasy army. And I need a little help.

What are the roles in a traditional military force?

What I have so far are -
Infantry; Skirmishers
Infantry; Heavy Combatants
Infantry; Archers
Calvary; Animal Riders (including flying animals)
Scouts and Sabatuers; Fast moving recon, get in, do damage, get out.

What else am I missing?

[The Romulan Republic]

Siege engines and logistics. Also, you could break cavalry down into a number of catagories, including light cavalry, heavy cavalry, scouts, and mounted archers. Also, for this setting you'll probably want mages in your army. Perhaps some magical artillery support?

Note that I know nothing about DnD, so I'm going off of my knowledge of history alone.

[Stark]

You're doing it wrong. Armies didn't decide 'we need heavy infantry' and design their organisation around that - technology and existent tactics demonstrated a need for them and they emerged. If you are thinking 'need xyz military units like in an RTS' you're going about it backwards.

Instead, think about what level of technology (this includes magic) and equipment they have available, and how this would shape tactics. Think up an army organisation, then defeat it with a more 'suitable' one using the same equipment and tactics/commuication/etc. Continue doing this in thought experiments until it gets hard. Don't go in with pre-conceptions; let the tactics for a given set of abilities emerge naturally.

For instance, in abc fantasy world, heavy infantry is useless becasue everyone has +1 weapons of slicing, rendering heavy armour worthless. Or in jfk world, simple wind magic renders archery difficult to employ effectively, so shields are less necessary. Perhaps tight ranks are ill-advised due to readily available artillery or spells, or the presence of close air support animals. Skirmishers may be very useful due to communication magic or enchanted items, or may be nigh-useless due to long-range detection and accurate artillery magic.

[Samuel]

Hello.

I'm designing a D&D campaign (not adventure, entire campaign) around an adventure seed from one of the books. Specifically 'Vengence from the Grave' from Lost Empires of Faerun.

The basic summary is 'Elven high mage puts followers into stasis, something goes wrong, and now, 12000 years later, they're undead (Wight variants for the most part) and no longer in stasis, and think the war is still going on...

And the Elven High Mage is now a Lich...'

So, I'm designing a fantasy army. And I need a little help.

What are the roles in a traditional military force?

What I have so far are -
Infantry; Skirmishers
Infantry; Heavy Combatants
Infantry; Archers
Calvary; Animal Riders (including flying animals)
Scouts and Sabatuers; Fast moving recon, get in, do damage, get out.

What else am I missing?

Is this the elves or their enemies? An undead elven army would probably be magic heavy and extremely mobile since they don't need logistics. Their mounts would probably be dead, and getting new ones would tie them to food sources, so they will probably mostly be foot soldiers. Of course, the ability to take stab wounds also eliminated alot of the need for armor and along with not tiring, you are looking at an army that can outmarch any enemy force through sheer endurance.

What magic do they have? Are they willing to recruit living allies? Harvest the living for undead recruits? What equipment hasn't rotted away?

[Eleas]

I was about to pointlessly nitpick on Stark's statement about shields (although they are useful against arrows, they really excel in close combat), but really, I think his suggestion is basically the ideal way of doing this. You should definitely construct tactics in an iterative fashion and balance forces against one another.

However, you might want to assume a strategic rather than tactical perspective. For instance, it would be possible to have an army consisting solely of gigantic demons immune to iron. Without a viable support system, however, the usefulness of said army would be limited at best, and actively detrimental at worst. After all, an undefeated army that can never engage opposing armies in battle, or reach the enemy homeland for some retributive slaughter, is an army that has lost.

One iterative method you might want to use is to look at how battles were fought in that world's prehistory, given the additional dimension of magic. For instance, how would one village go about attacking another? Note which tactics and equipment provided the greatest long-term benefits to its people, and then give those tactics preference.

Also, assume there are different viable strategies for different regions. An army optimized for one specific terrain may not be ideally suited to another. Here, too, matters of logistics can be vital; you will have no heavy cavalry if you lack sufficient grain for horses. What about doctrine? The Romans had it down pat, and benefited immensely from it.

As you see, there are a few things to consider.

[Stark]

Heh, amusing brainfart - I'm pretty sure I said that because I was thinking of the 'large shield' bonus in MoM that gave a bonus vs arrows. Of course entire armies used close combat tactics based around shields too... so... embarrassed?

There's definately a whole box of tricks around magical/summoned/wierd creatures being essentially mercenaries (paid in magic crystals/virgins/whatever) but even worse to lose control of; relying on something controlled by magic is just as dangerous as relyign on mercenaries controlled by money.

[Eleas]

Heh, amusing brainfart - I'm pretty sure I said that because I was thinking of the 'large shield' bonus in MoM that gave a bonus vs arrows. Of course entire armies used close combat tactics based around shields too... so... embarrassed?

Don't be. The whole thought of premodern warfare as portrayed by D&D rules is enough to spontaneously generate brain tumours on demand.

There's definately a whole box of tricks around magical/summoned/wierd creatures being essentially mercenaries (paid in magic crystals/virgins/whatever) but even worse to lose control of; relying on something controlled by magic is just as dangerous as relyign on mercenaries controlled by money.

True. I'd venture, though, that precisely because of this there's apt to be a heavy focus on wizards, anti-wizard measures (mage-killer assassins, in other words), and just plain people who know how to blast or tie up the other side's magic users. Which will generate its own kind of arms race; will you be using a divination expert to put your army precisely where it's needed, a blaster who teleports in and fireballs the other side's generals, an elementalist to create insane fortifications at will, a necromancer to poison the enemy's food before battle, an illusionist to chip away at enemy morale, a summoner to bolster your own forces, etc? Wizards, even at low levels, have a great many uses, even though most 1-2 level ones would have good reason to fear those archers. Wizards at higher levels would add to the striking power of an army in ways a fighter could only dream of.

[Solauren]

Um, I think everyone missed the point.

This is not a 'War between two armies' campaign.

This is an army that was buried for 10,000 or so years just woke up (undead), and thinks there is still a war going on. They don't know they are dead, but know they no longer need to eat.

A war that was originally being fought in forested terrain, between members of a race with a high apptitude for magic, agility, nature, and mobility even in moderately weighted armor.

I need help designing the army, not running it.

[Beowulf]

The above points still stand: figure out how the army would have fought their enemies, and then use that to determine how to design it. How the army is run determines how the army is built and vice versa.