Approved Trench Infantry Section

[Dreadheart]

Unit Name: Trench Infantry
Credits: Header art from here, Historical header from here
Consolidation Thread: NA
Unit Description: Dressed in layers of gambeson, mail and plate, these troops are mostly seen as mud-cloaked sappers, due to the very warfare dogma they serve. Meant to face frontal melee engagements, yet without any clear battleline, or cohesion, these troops are the very epitomy of corrupt warfare, trainned and tasked into fighting in trenches, in either sieges, blockades, or pitched battles.

ATTRIBUTES

• Main Stats
  • Armour: High
    • Gear:
      • Kettle Hat
      • Iron breastplate
      • Segmented Iron pauldrons
      • Chainshirt or Hauberk
      • Gambeson Armour
  • Speed: Average
  • Melee: Average
    • Weaponry:
      • Mace, Halbert, or War Axe
      • Shortsword, or Daggers
      • Shovel
      • Pick-axe
  • Ranged: High
    • Weaponry:
      • Ostrian Wheellock Musket or Crossbow
      • Darts
  • Morale: Low
  • Size: Low (12 Members)
  • Number: Global
    • Recruitment & Replenishment: For the most part, these troops are levied people from the domains of the state or nation that goes to war. After 3 months of trainning, these troops are sent to the field, either as engineers and sappers, or by the numbers.
• TvM Requirement:
  • 4v1 For Crossbow Option
  • 5v1 For Musket Option

Strengths
+ Engineers. These trainned levies are very effective in digging trenchworks, repairing or building defenses and running tunnels underground enemy positions, in either battlefield, or sieges.
+ Quick to Deploy. With little to no sophisticated techniques required of them, the Trench troops can be deployed after a rather short trainning period, making them a capable and expendable force.
+ Line Infantry. Although not specialists, these troops can provide screening fire against enemy advances due to their ability to operate weaponry such as crossbows or muskets.

Weaknesses
- Easy to Panic. The Trench Troops are not meant to be brave champions, or stand against high quality troops. In the case they face dire odds, unless otherwise "encouraged", they will succum to panic and flee.
- Pathetic Vanguard. Although these troops may be effective in huge numbers, in any "normal" deployment they are next to useless against any melee capable unit as their trainning is not meant to make them capable fighters, but a horde of rushly drafted troops.
- Not a Professional bunch. Rushly trainned, these troops are drafted from their provinces and brought to bare arms for the war effort. They are not professionals nor do they carry the code of honour, or discipline a professional army does.

Historical Information

Although the archaic fashion of battlefield tactics like the shieldwall and the cavalry charge are the most well-employed traditions of war, the use of trenches is not as modern as some may think...
Made famous by the Iron Cult's invasion of Varania, the trenchworks have always been part of war's deadly strategies. Be it a defensive work of a military camp during mobilization, ditches around cities or forts, siege camps, or tunnels meant to ignite mines, or collapse enemy fortifications, this dark and vile form of warfare had always been there, although there had never been any form of glory, or prestiege for any knight to recite...

The Trench Infantry squads are the ones levied for this exact purpose. To do, what the nobles, or prestigious warriors of their armies wouldn't accept doing. Dig trenches, risk being buried underground in tunnels, and fortify positions in the mud, or sand.
After the Varanian Conflict, many across Erova took notice of the rather impactful role these troops could play in the field, while entire battles could be fought without a single banner flying, or without a single line formed. Dipped in dirt and disgust, these troops managed to hold, or advance, in conditions knightly armies would falter.

With ranged warfare becoming more and more favoured by the Erovan powers, the trench troops became more and more frequent, either as isolated squads, for auxiliary duties, or as very hosts, in massive charges.
Without any proper way to defend themselves, the trench troops were forced to utilize the environment, or the fallen dead, while they kept pushing against the foe either by digging closer and closer, before they spill into the enemy position through chokepoints, or open the way for heavier units, or by blasting their positions through artillery fire, before storming as an endless mob.

 

[Marcus Aumont]

Approved!