Battle in the Freylands

[Pericles of Athens]

1st Army of the North
Commanders: Rickard Stark Ice Eyes (+11 Duel Ice and Duel Trait, +3 Survival), Torrhen Stark The Old Man of the North (+3 Battle, +3 Survival, +3 Duels), Gerold Tallhart (+3 Survival, +3 Duels, +3 Battle), Jeor Mormont (+4 Battle, +8 Duel Longclaw)
Light Infantry: 11,709
Polearms: 3,213
Archers: 7,250
Heavy Infantry: 1,205
Light Cavalry: 1,205
Heavy Cavalry: 488
Elite Cavalry: 150
Total: 25,220

VS

2nd Host of the Vale
Commanders: Ser Denys Arryn (Survival +2, Duel +2, Battles +3), Ser Ilyn Corbray (+2 Field Battles, +2 Duels, +1 Joust), Ser Artys Waxley (Capture: +2, Battle: +2, Logistician: +1, Survival: +1)
450 Heavy Infantry
17,000 Light Infantry
1000 Polearms
6000 Archers
450 Light Cavalry
350 Heavy Cavalry
Total 25,250 men

The Northmen march to face the Arryn host, their scouts found assembled on the border between the lands of rivers and the lands of mountains.

OOC: From what I understand there's some secret plans involved in this that the mods are in on, I don't know the numbers or commanders in that plot so I'll let that be handle by the plotter.

OOC2: I'll send orders to the mod that takes this.

OOC3: If you want to speak this would be the place LD.

[Poach]

Need orders, gents.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Frey Forces POST BATTLE

Frey Levy - 5,500 Levy Points 6,439 Light Infantry 3,002 Archers Frey Militia - 250 Militia Points Polearms: 210 Archers: 120 Heavy Infantry: 110 Light Cavalry: 60 Heavy Cavalry: 45 Commanders void

[Pontifex Maximus]

ooc: Mind letting us know when all the orders are in so we can do a bit of rp here?

[Lord Dread]

OOC: I'll do orders later, as I want to see the results of the Riverrun battle at some point and they have most priority. This is probably a battle, I can barely win.

With the road being partly turned into a prepared camp, offering a small bullwark against anyone who dares to trespass from all sides, Ser Denys eyed the approaching Northmen with scepsis.
After the Frey boy has been brought to the Eyrie, the Arryn host had marched north up the Kingsroad to fortify the place against the approaching Northmen, presumeing them to be loyal towards the King. If there was reason to battle them, it was merely to postpone them from actions within the Riverlands.
He decided therefore to send an ambassador towards the approaching host, while prepareing his men to ready themselves. It would be foolish to underestimate the Northmen, as they probably might have figured out, what Arryn intended. He read the lines wrote in the first place, which he send towards the North, he had no doubts that his raven might have been send another time to the Starks. All he could hope for was that they would remember their third-born son - should Denys die there was no hope that Aurane might leave the boy unharmed, once he gets told what decision he made.
And unlike him I chose the honorful path, even if I have to fight for an ursurper. May my enemies betray me, may I find a grateful death upon the battlefield - it's my deeds that matter after all.

[Pontifex Maximus]

ooc: LD...please send Poach your orders now. This is delaying a huge part of the war so if you have the time, please just do it. I don't want to wait on RIverrun before you even submit orders for this. Especially since you're pretty obviously metagaming this already.

[Pericles of Athens]

OOC: Yeah.. Not really fair to hold up the entire Northern advance by refusing to send orders. Also the North arrived like literally a single hex after yours, and you put no money into making "fortifications" so they shouldn't have an effect outside RP.

[Lord Dread]

OOC: Neither did PM put money into any fortifications back in Blackfyre setting, so I assume it's okay. If it costs money, I'm willing to pay the prize, as I assumed it to work like siege weapons.

And no, I won't hold stuff back to be fair. I just don't know whether HB send my orders to LM or not for the Riverrun battle, so I want this to get calculated. I wait for nearly a week on the Riverrun results, already regret that I have accepted hostages for mercy, because I go fair play and had in general a ed up week in RL. Just give me some time and we can do this, but annoys me that you both want to rush me into a battle I obviously will lose, while all my important stuff, currently going on in the Riverlands just barely gets moderated.

If I find time, I will do the Freylands thing, but right now I will already try to re-word what I wrote PM while getting more into details of the siege.

[Pontifex Maximus]

ooc: forget what happened in past games, that isn't at all relevant. You made the decisions here that you made. Poach is moderating this one so send orders to him. Nobody is rushing you, you've had 48 hours from when our RP ended and the north started marching to figure out what to do in your current spot. This is the point where we all send in orders, delaying this point isn't going to give you an advantage. This battle is happening no matter what happens anywhere else.

[Lucius Malfoy]

OOC: I will make sure HB sends me your orders, LD. Last night, he was too tired to do anything and is probably working again today. I will handle whats going in with Riverrun.

[Lord Dread]

OOC: Alright. I'll work on orders.
But give me some time as well - the main reason why I gave HB my orders was because I had no time yesterday, if you haven't realized. Of course I have to do this battle, but I just get annoyed when you guys are like "Hey our movements are so important, you have to do stuff immidiately", while I patiently wait for days on my stuff to get rolling. Just saying.

[Pericles of Athens]

Tell messenger is allowed to advance toward the Northmen lines. There he finds a quite host trapped in a bygone era. Tribesmen covered in tattoos, men holding arms and armor forged with bronze, beastly clans men with ancient battle axes alongside knights of White Harbor. There were many banners amongst the host, the bear of Mormont, the flayed man of Bolton, the sun burst of Karstark, even the Merman of Manderly - but prominent above them all wastage direwolf of the ancient house Stark. The messenger is disarmed and brought before Lord Stark. Say your piece. Came the coarse voice of Rickard, his frozen eyes investigating the man before him.

[Pericles of Athens]

OOC: Not to be a bother, but have all the orders been sent in to Poach?

[Poach]

Nope. Waiting for LD's. The Northern Army can move from here with a timestamp from whenever they arrived + 6 hours if you win, so don't worry too much about the wait. LD, I'd like those orders though.

[Pontifex Maximus]

ooc: I'm assuming that applies for the Frey army as well. I'll move to Riverrun.

[Poach]

Yes, apologies. A time stamp will be granted to everyone. The losers will retreat to the nearest friendly HL of course, but they can factor the retreating time into the timestamp. LD you've been posting pretty consistently all evening, it doesn't take long to divide an army into 3 groups...

[Lord Dread]

Yes, apologies. A time stamp will be granted to everyone. The losers will retreat to the nearest friendly HL of course, but they can factor the retreating time into the timestamp. LD you've been posting pretty consistently all evening, it doesn't take long to divide an army into 3 groups...

OOC: Since I send you a PM, you might see why I sat around 2 hours upon this thing. It really took me a lot of effort to decide which flank to grant which ammount of soldiers as no matters what composition I choose, it will end in a bath of blood.
RP will follow tomorrow, right now it's 0 pm.

And as I wrote privately: It's fine that you guys want to rush this thing, but I wait for my Riverrun stuff since 4 days... what shall I say about my timestamps?
It would be nice, if we could just stop for the future these rants, as they are in my eyes unnecessary, while kinda makeing me look like a patient fool, who says nothing when his stuff takes a while, but gets all the complaints if he has RL stuff to handle.

[Poach]

Ask for timestamps if you feel you deserve them, I'm sure LM won't be unreasonable.

The Battle

The battle was fairly standard, both armies moved to engage each other. The Arryns stacked their left flank heavily, but the Starks had also stacked their right flank heavily. Arryn had gambled that the Starks would push from the centre and have weaker flanks, but the Starks had actually adopted a hammer and anvil strategy in an effort to envelop the Arryn army. As such, both armies were arrayed such that their strongest sections met each other, allowing neither a decisive tactical advantage.

The Frey forces sallied and proved somewhat successful at disrupting the Arryn efforts, though being comprised only of Light Infantry their impact was minimised by their limited capabilities. Still, their efforts were instrumental in giving the Stark forces, who were slightly outnumbered by themselves, the upper hand.

The result is a victory for the Stark/Frey forces, with Arryn casualties balanced between having a strong reserve (which prevented wholesale rout) but offset by having a weak right flank, having as I mentioned gambling on the Starks having a weak left flank.

The surviving forces are listed as HI-LI-AR-PL-LC-HC-EC

Frey: 4438 LI, 3003 AR
Stark: 856-7572-7250-2307-817-347-107
Arryn: 241-10173-4779-604-555-213

Characters:
Waxly 5 Wounded in the Torso. Cannot duel or command flanks for 3 RL days. He is recovering from a stomache wound and, though he will survive, he is largely bedridden until fully recovered.
Corbray 13 Free
Arryn 15 Free

Stevron Frey 14 Free
Walder Frey 14 Free
Edwyn Frey 5 Wounded in the head. He is alive, but in a coma. He will wake in 1 RL day and will have no memory of the battle taking place.

Mormont 17 Free
Tallhart 16 Free
Torrhen Stark 2 Dead
Rickard Stark 16 Free

Timestamps are in effect, so decide where you're marching and pretend you started SIX HOURS after the battle ends, as armies have to wait for that long before they can move.

[Pontifex Maximus]

The Frey forces had arrayed themselves behind the Vale forces, finding ditches, treelines, and other natural barriers to obscure them from the sight of their enemies. In the distance they spotted the NOrthern army positioning itself, perhaps 800 meters away. The Vale army was tantalizingly close, but they could not spring their trap as of yet.

Stevron and Edwyn awaited the order to advance, Walder himself stood outside the tree line, squinting into the distance. "Blood Arryn bastards. Hopefully we'll give them a shock. I want that depressive Denys in shackles before the day is out." He drew a breath as both armies began to charge. "This is it!" He cried along the line. The Frey Banners of the Twins unfurled in the breeze as nearly twelve thousand men let up a cry and emerged from the trees. Blue and grey clad warriors of the Riverlands, screaming into battle for the first time.

Walder pointed his sword towards the enemy and ordered the charge, "Kill them all!"

Stevron emerged and urged his men forward. "To victory!" He cried as he readied himself for the charge.

Edwyn encouraged his men forward and soon the battle was met. The Vale had ordered an unusual amount of men in the rear, perhaps they expected treachery. Nonetheless the tide of battle soon seemed to be turning. Despite his age, Walder was able to cut down several foes, notably dragging a Knight off horseback for his peasants to skewer with their pitch forks. Soon his beard was tinged with blood. Edywn, hwoever, was grees as grass. If not for his helm which glanced the blow of a cavalryman's sword, he certainly would have died. He collapsed in a heap and was carried out by some household guards. THe day seemed won as the Vale forces withdrew. The Frey army gave some cheers and quickly tended to the wounded, making sure to finish off any foes before they did.

Walder scanned the field for the Stark commander.

[Poach]

+1 Battles awarded to Walder Frey. Also to Torrhen Stark but as he has been killed in action that is a moot point.