User:Minionman/Forsaken military

Though small in size, the forsaken military has over time become a dangerous fighting force in what was once Lordaeran, conquering the Tirisfal glades, and fighting wars successfully against the scourge, scarlet crusade, and towns of Hillsbrad and Southshore. Without any starting advantages in magical skill or strength, the forsaken have had to improvise, and use fighting methods not considered by other forces in Azeroth.

The forsaken military has a relatively simple structure. Sylvanas and Varimathras, at the top, choose people to have overall control of certain sections of fighting, and decide where to send their fighters. These "area controllers" than divide their fighters into individual groupsas needed, and these groups do the fighting. The lower level fighters are considered mostly equal, though some will of course tend to be in charge more than others. The forsaken can effectively use such a simple structure thanks to the extensive training of all fighters, fighting style using mostly small groups, and overall small numbers of fighters.

Types of fighters
The forsaken are on average among the physically weakest of the races on azeroth. To overcome this, they rely on poisons and other alchemy, magic, and training. They also equip almost all their forces with Zeppelin Weapons

Forsaken do not need to sleep, so will train almost full time. It is common for forsaken fighters to train every hour of every day, except for occasional eating.

Deathguards
Deathguards are the main melee fighters of the forsaken. They learn to use shields, one hand weapons (Usually swords or long knives), smaller knives or other assisination weapons, and some sort of ranged weapon (throwing knives, blowguns are the most common). Deathguards have two main fighting roles: protecting mages and potion throwers in battles, and assasinations. Deathguards also, more often than not, lead the small forsaken fighting groups in battle.

Battle Mages
Magic is an obvious method to compensate for the forsaken's weakness physically. They are helped magically by records left in the old Lordaeran capital city libraries, and by their blood elf allies. Forasaken use a wide variety of magic types, from the usual frost and arcane based abilities, to healing, to magic like necromancy and demonology that other races avoid for fear of corruption. (Those outside the forsaken often wonder how so many can practice such magic without becoming corrupted or insane. Some say that the forsaken's strong willpower and lack of emotion protects them, others say that the forsaken are already so insane that soime extra magic has little effect.)

Mages are mostly used in open battles. Against enemies that outnumber the forsaken, they will unleash powerful spells to kill or otherwise hurt large numbers of enemies, against particularly dangerous enemies, they will assist in killing those enemies as quickly as possible. Healers are highly useful for preserving the limited number of fighters. Forsaken mages overall prefer to use frost magic, and other slowing magic. This allows potions throwers to be more effective, and makes capturing ghouls easier.

Alchemists
The forsaken are considered to have the world's best alchemists, and they make full use of this advantage in battle. Almost all groups of forsaken travel with a potions master, who outside of battle prepares potions for the fights ahead, and in battle throws throwing potions. Larger groups of fighters will bring extra potion throwers, who assist the potions master in their tasks. A wide variety of potions have been discovered by alchemists, and potions masters must choose their mixtures based on enemies that will be fought, and raw potion materials in the area.

Potions generally fall into 2 types: Those used on weapons, and those thrown. Thrown potions tend to produce clouds of fumes that damage the enemy groups, while weapon potions tend to be stickier. Thrown potions are dangerous to use in close fighting, so mages and other thrown potions are used to slow enemies to force them to walk through the clouds longer, and keep enemies farther away from the deathguards for longer.

By far the most commonly used potion is the so called "Sylvanas Concoction", a mixture used on weapons that, even in very small amounts, paralyzes undead. the original version was used by Sylvanas to paralyze Arthas on his trip to Northrend. The mixture has been constantly improved, and any forsaken group fighting the scourge will coat their weapons with this material.

Other
A number of banshees followed Sylvanas when she was first freed, but most of them have been used to posses enemy fighters, and few remain today.Most of these remaining banshees have learned to fight as mages.

The forsaken have also created a few abominations. Early on, Sylvanas and Varimathras had planned to use far more abominations, but early on did not have enough material to do so. Abomination work poorly with other forsaken fighters, they are slow, noisy, clumsy, and not very smart, and take a long time to produce. The forsaken do maintain some abominations as guards in the undercity and Brill, during sieges they can block large numbers of enemies if doors or walls break.

Tactics
The forsaken prefer hit and run fighting to large battles in open terrain, and generally will try to weaken their enemies beforehand and draw them into fights to the forsaken's advantage.

Assasination
In the forsaken's early days, fighting against the scourge, they realized how effective killing scourge commanders was, and deliberately fought battles in such a way as to quickly kill the undead leaders. When fighting living enemies, the forsaken routinely used the skills they had learned against the scourge. Most assasinations are performed by deathguards, who are trained to move quietly, sneak into buildings or other closed areas, and kill enemies quickly and quietly. Deathguards are given daggers and throwing knives, but will use other available killing methods if any are available. As always, potions are used heavily.

Because forsaken do not need to breathe or sleep, and need little food, they can sneak into areas that would be almost impossible for other races to get into. The scarlet monastery was the site of several such assasinations, when a deathguard swam through some large water pipes to a fountain, hid underwater for four days, killed several leaders when they slept in the fountain room with no awake guards, than hid for another three days in some water pipes until the scarlet crusade gave up the search for him.

Small group fighting
When the forsaken do fight battles, they prefer to either fight sieges, or split the enemy into small groups and fight the groups individually. To encourage enemies to split into small groups, the forsaken will often retreat to forests, large towns, or other such terrain where large groups have difficulty seeing each other and communicating. Retreating also often convinces enemies that they are winning, and they will become complacent about keeping their soldiers together. The forsaken will continuously watch their enemy, and when the enemy sufficiently splits, they will attack. During this time, the forsaken will organize their battle groups, prepare potions, and assasinate leaders if possible.

Forsaken small groups in a battle fight mostly independently. Generally, there are around 10-25 forsaken in a group, depending on the size of the enemy they are fighting. Deathguards will fight in front of the other forsaken to block enemies from reaching the mages and potion throwers behind. Forsaken small groups will kill enemies as quickly as possible, using area effect potions and spells against tightly packed enemies, and using blowuns, throwing weapons, and individual spells against spread out enemies. After a successful fight, the forsaken group will move quickly to find more enemies to kill, or move to a different spot to wait for another opportunity ti fight. If a fight lasts too long, or enemies organize themselves too well, forsaken will use slowing potions and spells to allow themselves to retreat.

This general fighting style varies slightly when fighting scourge vs. living enemies. Against the scourge, the forsaken will sometimes incapacitate rather than kill ghouls, than after the battle, capture the ghouls to be freed from scourge control. Against living enemies, the forsaken will often make small attacks, both during the day and at night, than pick a random time for a full scale attack. This often tires out living enemies for the main battle, or allows the forsaken to fight against smaller sections of their enemy as others sleep.

The militias of Hillsbrad and Southshore have developed methods for fighting the forsaken effectively, but the scourge and scarlet crusade have had much more difficulty adapting to forsaken methods.

Sieges
Most fighting the forsaken do is small group fighting, but occasionally a large army will not split apart, or will travel directly to large forsaken settlements. The undercity has been sieged twice by the scourge, Brill and Deathknell have had smaller scale sieges as well.

The forsaken are well adapted to defending against sieges. Their lack of physical strength matters little when fighting from walls, and the forsaken require few supplies for survival.

In sieges, the deathguards will mainly use thrown weapons, or attempt to sneak outside the sieged area and kill leaders. Mages and potion throwers fill their usual roles. During the second undercity siege, Blood Elves assisted in the fighting with mages and archers.

Weaknesses
The militias in the Hillsbrad foothills are the most successful fighters against the forsaken. "Assasin sentries" on the roofs of buildings watch for forsaken assasins and attacks. Forsaken deathguards on assasination missions are easily killed by militia without mages. Hillsbrad militia members will take small naps throughout the day, allowing them to fight effectively if the forsaken attack at night. Hillsbrad and Southshore militias have learned not to follow forsaken into forests or into Tarren Mill.

Although it rarely happens, if the forsaken are attacked unexpectedly, they are easily beaten in a fight. Apart from the deathguards, most forsaken are weak physical fighters, and when not protected are easily killed. Deathguards themselves, if unprepared with potions, often are not difficult to fight for other well trained or experienced fighters. Forsaken rely heavily on scouting to help choose their battles effectively, but have occasionally been surprised in Hillsbrad or in unfamiliar terrain.

Cavalry and centaurs are also highly effective against forsaken groups. Though mages and potion throwers can slow small groups, deathguards are no match for most equal amounts of charging riders. During day fighting, Hillsbrad militias will use horsemen extensively to chase down and kill forsaken attackers. Centaurs in the barrens have also caused trouble for forsaken adventurers there.