Of course, if we want to continue the conversation about the ways in which orcs are a blight on the land, I'm happy with that too. I brought up this idea of having this run parallel to the d-n-dblog, so that out-of-order conversations or other OOS comments can be put here and not interrupt the main storyline. If you guys think that's a good idea, let me know. I have everyone's address except John's, so I can invite the other folks if I can get his email.

I'll bet Strae the Red Avenger and Spade, the Badger from the Ninth Circle of Hell go out and have epic adventures while the rest of us are sleeping or sitting around on watch.

Hm. I reckon this is probably plenty of "learning how to do the orcs extra damage" to justify the notion that Linnam's learning some of the ways of the Stone Brothers from Barik. I'm happy to continue the discussion of tactics -- maybe we should have this blog as a kind of "idle conversation" section for the characters, where we can discuss how we want to arrange and fight and stuff in general terms. Inserting that kind of discussion in the main line can be either time-consuming or confusing (since there are important events, like encounters, that take precedence). But since we've had a few days of riding around together, we can assume we've had some "chats", and put the less significant ones here.

"Hm. Bishop, you raise interesting points. Though it may seem that in killing one leader another always rises to take his place, this cannot continue for long -- the vast majority of orcs, thankfully, are brutes with no mind for leadership or courage of their own. We have noticed the leaders because it is they who have been the most dangerous, and for this reason, I think we should concentrate our efforts on them. Like you say, they are hard to kill; in addition, they are more capable of fearsome blows. I think we would be wise to neutralize them first, because they pose the greatest threat.

"A typical orc can only give trouble to someone of our stature if he's lucky, while Grell, for example, can lay waste to many such orcs in a trice. I myself can often kill several before they have a chance to strike a blow. If we could attack them freely without running afoul of one of their overseers, that would be ideal, but generally one must deal with some of both.

"Another consideration, especially since our goal is not just to kill orcs but to proceed with the mission, is that often we may not be able to obliterate the entire opposing side. We may have to be happy with setting them to flight and continuing onward. In this, we should concentrate on the leaders, because when the leader falls, the troops may falter, but the leader, lost in the rage of battle, cares not a whit for losing half or more of his troops.

"Only rarely will we really have much choice in this: if the leaders are mounted and charge ahead, we have little choice but to face them first, and shooting arrows at the troops behind them is folly. If, on the other hand, the orcs are besieging us with missile fire, we probably won't be able to pick out leaders as targets. Given the opportunity, I would like to sneak up behind a body of troops, and decimate the main body before the leaders can react, but this would be a lucky circumstance indeed.

"When they are in our midst, and one may strike at either a grunt or a leader, I would think that the leader is more of a threat to our party and our cause. An exception may be if the leader is so well armored that nothing seems to do any damage, but perhaps then we should be running away, not fighting any of them.

"It is an interesting question. Do you have other thoughts on the subject?"