What kind of tactics/strategies/military doctrines would orcs most likely use? For the sake of clarification, D&D style orcs: big, muscular and agressive green men that aren't too clever. You're allowed to assume these orcs have access to fantasy beasts of burden including trolls and ogres, but also plain ol' elephants.
>Inb4 depends on the setting
I'm making the setting, that's why I want to know what would make sense.
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Skirmishers and cav charges. Basically everything but a phalanx
I imagine Orcs probably have REALLY stupid tactics to work amazing due to brute forcing it. For instance, l could see them launching Goblins at settlements using Catapults in a weird, twisted suicide bombing.
Don't do barbarian orcs, that's fucking lame.
Just steal the dnd hobgoblin template, rigidly militarized and organized with heavy emphasis on squad-level tactics.
...
Fishermen, farmers, rarely sea raiders.
Orcs are just Polynesians not living up to their full potential.
Your tactics, strategy, and military doctrine are going to depend far more on cultural and socio-economic factors rather than your physical build or the animals you have access to.
Not all horse-riding cultures developed a tradition of heavy cavalry, for example - that requires cultural and socioeconomic factors either. The use of elephants in war also requires a certain level of infrastructure to support the care and feeding of such beasts.
Give us details on your orcs and better answers can be derived - right now all you've got is "they're orcs, they have trolls, they have elephants". You could do anything with that mix that makes sense if the socioeconomic factors line up.
I think he just wanted to post that pic.
Well, I haven't really thought them out in too much depth yet (which isn't really a problem for now as the orcs aren't really significant in the campaign yet) but the way I see it they're mostly tribal, as likely to infight as fight among themselves, until a strong leader unites them. This is the first time at least as far as written history is concerned, there was a big Happening in the past and almost no written sources of that era remain the orcs are united under one leader, and they're getting pretty agressive because of that.
So yeah, tribal and not too technologically advanced. As for the rest I can't answer that mostly because I haven't figured it out yet. On the bright side, that means all options are still available.
>as likely to infight as fight among themselves
Herp derp I'm a faggot. I meant as likely to infight as fight the other races.
>You will never rape a fantastically hot elf with your giant barbed cock and turn her into a sex slave
Time travels terribly and trivially!
>As for the rest I can't answer that mostly because I haven't figured it out yet
In that case, why even bother for asking what makes sense? Just do whatever you want and fix up the socioeconomic factors later.
Just because the average Orc is stupid doesn't mean there can't have been a few of above average-human intelligence across history that have revolutionized Orcish warfare.
Scare tactics, extortions, and if it really came down to a fight, hit and run undefended targets. Since they're tribals, they cannot fight a real army straight up, unless they have a absolutely massive numbers advantage.
They'd be more on the intimidation rather than actually fighting.
This.
We'll help make believable Orcs economically, socially, militarily, but be specific in what holes you want filled.
Constantly on the move.
No quarter.
Pillaging and salvaging.
Liberal use of ambushes and guerilla warfare.
Bulk of the army is skirmishers but there's couple heavy linebreaker units.
How does the strong leader unite them? Power politics? Secret magic? Secret technology?
If you want to get inspiration though, look at the history and culture of the asiatic steppe tribes.
I was about to ask why humans and Elves don't just conquer savage Orcs, civilize them somewhat over a few generations, and make them fight other Orcs like the Romans did to European barbarians. But then I realized that's what TES did.
Well, if I can explain what I want to have as my end goal, I want this strong leader to strongarm some reforms that allows the orcs to do more than just petty raiding and actually turn them into a military entity that can hold its own on the field of battle. Of course pillaging and ambushes aren't entirely abandoned, I just want to know what it takes to turn these backwards tribal warriors into a (semi-)legitimate fighting force.
Legitimacy of the leaders and heirs
Melting tribal identities into a larger entity
Promise of booty
>How does the strong leader unite them?
Sorry, missed out your post. My idea would be that he does something (no idea what) to make his own tribe so strong that he simply takes over the others by force. If that's not plausible I'm willing to hear out other suggestions.
>I was about to ask why humans and Elves don't just conquer savage Orcs, civilize them somewhat over a few generations, and make them fight other Orcs like the Romans did to European barbarians.
>Implying that's not what they're planning to do
I want to give the elves a significant hurdle they have to go over first.
The hurdle is probably economic.
You need to pay them, set up infastructure. Elf building takes a long time, and their economy may be like the Inca where its largely internal.
They may have a stockpile of gold labeled "Orc Friendship Fund" somewhere.
Give them their Mao Tse Orc - man with strong belief in ideology willing to go any lengths necessary to apply it.
A vision. A great strategist, ruling over a powerful tribe, with a vision that orcs can be more than they are. Those farmlands were ours brothers, until the institutionally capitalist pig-dog humans stole them from us.
Didn't Faerun have that? A neutral Orc king with the aim of his race being equals with the superpowers?
Fast-forward, Jungle Trolls side with mankind over Orcs, Goblins are split between human allies that produce 40% of world culture, and still unadvanced Goblins obsessed with public perception and explosives.
FIRST WE ATTACK WITH OUR MEAT FILLED STARTERS, BRINGING THE ENEMY TO THE TABLE WITH OUR MOUTH WATERING DUMPLINGS AND PANCAKE ROLLS WITH DIPPING SAUCES, THEN WE DECIMATE THEIR HUNGER WITH OUR DELICIOUS VEAL AND NOODLE MAIN COURSES SERVED IN A VARIETY OF HOT PEPPER SAUCES, BEFORE ULTIMATELY RAVAGING THEIR WAIST LINE WITH CREAMY DESSERTS SERVED EITHER HOT OR COLD.
THEY SAY AN ARMY MARCHES ON ITS STOMACH, BUT AT GENERAL ZO-GRO-MAG'S RESTAURANT & TAKE AWAY NO BATTLE PLAN HAS TO YET TO SURVIVE CONTACT WITH OUR AFFORDABLE GROUP DINING DISCOUNTS!
Then they stop being Orcs and are just beefier Hobgoblins.
I think D&D and pre-3e Warhammer are the only settings that bother with Hobgoblins.
Which is always weird because their name is literally "devil goblin" so you'd THINK that hobgoblins would be uniformly either devil-pact based 4e teifling!goblins or half-devil goblins or something.
Instead we get a load of weird "slightly larger goblins? Maybe orange because of spiderman?" stuff.
It's really undignified and makes the other goblins look like clowns.
>You will never raped by a fantastically hot Orc with his giant barbed cock and be turned into his sex slave
I guess I'll always have RP to fill the void..
I would have them do one or two simple, but effective strategies over and over again: and they do it EVERY time the party encounters Orcs.
For example: every squad of Orcs uses Crane-Wing Outflanks (A turtle-ey defensive group attacks headlong, then exactly 3 rounds later, two other squads of orks will outflank the party.
>each orc tribe / warband mastered one strategy to the perfection
>they use it every time even when inappropriate
>seasoned adventurer can easily recognize this by tribal markings and banners
Twist:
>visionary mastermind teachers orc tribes to false-flag
>They may have a stockpile of gold labeled "Orc Friendship Fund" somewhere.
That's a plothook right there.
>pcs steal elven horde of gold
>they aren't even using it and don't value it
>find out it was promised to orc army to help create lasting peace
>wat do?
That and classic Hobgobs look pretty comical.
I'd prefer smart and stupid Goblins rather than the orange yeti goblinoids.
Make your orcs Japanese.
Orcish steel is folded a orcillion times by master hermit smiths that live in mountains to make the sharpest blades known to mankind!
What did Gaul's do against the romans?
Do that.
Or for a more paladin approach,
>PCs are advisors to the monarchy as nobles.
>Problem: Orc invasions regularly because they are nomads, winters are scarce and the winter lands are clise to the eastern edge of the kingdom
>Solution: New farming techniques discovered, the previously useless lands of the nomads can now be farmed. Funds set aside to set up a number of Orcish Chieftains as Knights of the kingdom with their own land on the easternmost part of the kingdom farmed by their clans as a buffer between the savage Chieftains that refuse to kneel to the king and the humans. It is believed that over time, the savage Orcs will blend into the superior culture that can now offer them economic advantages, and these Orcs will never be a threat to the men of the kingdom again
>UNFORSEEN DISASTER: Famine, the funds for Orc farmland and elevation into low nobility can save the lives of hundreds of human peasants...the same amount killed each year by Orcish raiders
>DECISION: Feeding the peasants will save the same amount of lives, but will alleviate suffering a great deal by the lucky survivors as well. The peasants, taxed increasingly heavily by their lords, are already nearing the end of their tolerance and several small riots over food have broken out in the larger cities. But spending the money promised to the Chieftains on manfolk will destroy the slowly earned goodwill between the Orcs and mankind, and make the lives lost and money spent earning that trust completely in vain and destroy all chances at peace for a generation, possibly more
Risk total disaster for security and natural territory expansion? Or maintain the status quo?
Orcs were so unable to unite for more than a generation that when they finally got a stable government, they self-isolated to protect it?
Primarily horse-archers, with small, elite contingents of shock cavalry.
Their primarily military advantage is that they and their horses are tough and resourceful enough to move quickly, with limited need for supply lines. By the time anyone knows they're coming, the raid is already over, and now many of your precious women belong to them.
...They lost?
Forget horses, let them ride big boars and wolves.
Ambushes, skirmishes and blitzkrieg tactics. Never let them rest, always pressure them, always charge in, ambush if possible and always ALWAYS hit where it hurts.
Mostly die, win a few forest battles, and be a nuisance?
Until some filthy fucking Cartheginian comes over the alps on his dirty swine-elephants to unite the subhuman vermin against Rome.
Then still die anyway.
Closest and most well-known historical example would probably be Genghis Khan and the Mongols, but there are plenty of other "barbarian unifiers" to model on.
Generally speaking there's some period of civil conflict as one warlord forces other contenders into submission and then re-orients them towards plundering a wealthy settled neighbour.
For this to happen the new unifier probably needs two major things
1) a number of talented or very competent underlings who are good at logistical organization and procuring food supplies. The issue with all armies is essentially logistics - getting the numbers is one thing, but the other big problem is being able to concentrate those numbers in a very tight space geographically without them starving.
The population of orcs may be very large, but gathering an orc army into a single location is going to require some serious logistical work to keep the army fed and supplied.
2) intense motivation. The other factor that tends to shatter pre-modern armies is the commitment level. In real-life at least it generally takes a lot of effort to force people to fight, so a leader that's highly motivational and gets people to endure horrible conditions, death, and disease counts for a lot. Armies with poor morale could fragment at first contact with the enemy - or even on the march, so your leader needs to impart some sort of motivation to his great army - whether it be by charisma or magical effects or otherwise.
If you look at most fiction with Orks in it, correct.
There is a reason they're fodder.
These two things are the main differences that separate a "legitimate fighting force" from "raiders and pillagers", moreso than equipment or tactics.
A band of knights that deserts and become highwaymen still have the same equipment and fighting ability as the band of knights that stays in a lord's service, the reason why the former is a better fighting force has to do more with logistical and motivational factors rather than any differences in equipment.
Chief Many-Arrows
fuck off Frederick the Great
>resolve the problem somehow
>orcs retain tribal bonds despite apparent allegiance to the king
>eventually rebel and carve out their own region in the kingdom's eastern territories when the kingdom is busy with another war
Their name means "domestic goblin", their size and strength meant they helped out a lot at the farm.