Deployment of non humans in armies in the age of gunpowder

How in your setting would you deploy various non humans(mythological creatures/monstergirls or whatever have you) in your armies, what roles and strategies.

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Fairies get used for reconnaissance and sabotage. Their small size and propensity for magic allow them to sneak behind enemy lines, report troop locations to headquarters, and then cause havoc. Also they make cute companions for our soldiers, boosting morale.

Much like in warhammer fantasy, your ogres and similarly sized humanoids would be in charge of carrying some seriously heavy guns

Necromancers form a key part of the military, making sure that every soldier who dies will serve his country once more as a walking corpse. Depending on the intelligence of the undead in the setting, these necromancers will either spend all their time resurrecting the dead and forming them up into their own squads where undead officers command undead enlisted, or they will be leading the undead themselves in order to make sure they can accomplish the task at hand.

In my current collaborative project, one of the players basically brought Charr to the table. While several human nations had arquebuses and cannon, this player just went nuts with the tech. His people were much larger than normal humans so a lot of them used personal mortars, flamethrowers, rockets, and bronze abus guns. His people were so resistant to magic that they could not cast magic (except a few who were possessed by outsiders). His general strategy was to sit back and throw as many projectiles at the enemy as possible from behind a line of traps and troops with great weapons and pikes.
By shell, shot, and pike, they became the most powerful army in the west. Too bad everyone tended to gang up on them.

Magic would have a huge influence upon military matters. With the idea that someone can shoot flames or lighting from their hands comes the idea that maybe operatives that strongly believe in The Cause can be sent on one way assassination and demolition missions. Akin to a modern day suicide bomber. For something crazy like kancolle, the idea that a single soldier could wield the weapons of a battleship and posses the Armour of one makes them the ultimate tank hunter and pillbox buster. And megumeme is just op

Minotaurs often found good work in battlefield support, putting their strong muscles to work digging trenches and erecting barricades to protect armies. They also made good loaders for field guns, easily hefting shells that would take cranes otherwise.

In front-line combat, they wore especially heavy armor that protected them from most small arms, and wielded heavy weapons to suppress and punch through enemy hardpoints.

It was a poor use of their abilities, though - the steel plates couldn't cover every square inch, and shrapnel could easily find the gaps, when the concussion of a shell blast didn't ignore it entirely. What's worse, due to their size, they couldn't make good use of cover, and were slower than humans when wearing all that armor; easy prey for mortars and field guns.

Sadly, many generals made the mistake of thinking the biggest, most warrior-like soldiers they had should be right in the thick of it, and sent their minotaur auxiliaries into meat-grinder battles where a few dozen sappers could do the same job.

Casualties among Mintoaur auxiliary companies allocated to combat duties was near-total. Not a single one retained combat effectiveness across an entire battle.

-From 'The Great War: The Fire That Burned All Races', by Luthandriel Eradon, c.1933

>And megumeme is just op

In one of the campaigns that me and my players are collaboratively running, we've got what is essentially the beginning of the Industrial Revolution mixed with various races from fantasy(the typical DnD races, plus some more). Due to the rise of technology, magic is slightly phased out. Why train a mage for years when you can give a man a gun and train him for a month? Thus, infantry make the bulk of the war's front.

However, that's not to say magic is useless. It is in fact, an incredibly powerful force. Magi and Sorcerers are used like living artillery, and their creations(golems, demons, etc.) are handy shock troops. Divine magic is slightly less common nowadays, but only because arcane magic and firearms are easy enough to work with.

Dragons are a rarity nowadays, but they're pretty damn amazing since they can tear up entire armies on their own. With the rise of technology and magic however, their scales aren't as "impenetrable" as before. They're mostly used to sow disarray in enemy ranks, finish off a fleeing army, or set up surprise attacks. Pretty handy, since you could move a disguised dragon pretty close(as they can switch to humanoid form) before unleashing their full force.

With the rise of magic, Necromancy has become frowned upon. However, that does not stop some of the more unscrupulous contenders from utilizing them. It's an army that doesn't need to eat, drink, sleep, or rest. Perfect for hounding enemies on long campaigns. Their diminished intelligence leaves something to be desired, though.

"Big" races such as giants, dragonborn, minotaurs, or goliaths are excellent shock troops. Give them tools and training to attack at close range, and they'll decimate regular infantry.

The use of magical cavalry is pretty important in wars. Griffins, wyverns, hippogriffs, dragonhawks, etc are used to harass enemies from long distance, or to bypass fortifications.

>The Great Skellington War, 1914-1918

>trench wars fought by two necromancers and their legions of undead
A WWI style setting could be neat because that was the war that made people question the indiscriminate use of powerful technologies, where everyone decides that they went too far and to draw a line, and it's easy to find magical equivalents like Necromancers

>tfw the main reason people don't consider undead armies a viable option is the preconceived notion that a corpse is either sacred or that animating one is objectively an evil thing to do
I feel like it would almost make small-scale weaponry obsolete on the battlefield if the body can be sent back out with little damage other than a few bullet holes.

Undead rule the battlefield even more than they did before!

I actually think the weapons tech around the franco-prussian war would be most ideal, or a world whos tech is staganated (weapons wise) no later than 1886 pre smokeless, you have just enough tech to prevent anything species wise from being OP while they can still actively participate.Plus unis from that time still had style and a cataclysmic war where you are limited to black powder and magic could yield some interesting stuff.

>airdropped halfling clerics send your entire undead army stampeding back through your trench

The problem with undead is the same problem with using conscripts, they rout pretty easily if this is a world where necromancers can be raised en masse. Not like holy water and clerics are hard to get.

Warforged, though.

>airdropped halfling clerics
seems funny until you realize russia has paratrooper priests and even mini airdropable chapels with little onion domes on them, so, you know, undead army got tou down, drop a mini cathedral on em

till someone blows up the calcium mines

or bound demons. Unlike undeadwho would be walking gun turrets demons got sickass hell magic. Give them a gun and they'll kill all the necromancers.

And golems or constructs out of steel would basically be tanks.

The important thing about the undead in such a setting is that they cost almost nothing to create except dead soldiers and a couple necromancers, so while no army is going to rely primarily on the undead given their weaknesses, almost every army is going to have some undead in it, and this amount will only increase as the war drags on and casualties grow larger.

youtube.com/watch?v=kMaxrryH0es

yeah but you'd need to pull corpse recovery, hard to do when being shelled

Also broken bones and flesh don't heal.

I'd imagine then that flamethrowers as a weapon would be considered fair game, to stop corpses from coming back.

Or clerics, going around blessing the dead. Making them unraisable.

I'd imagine long living fantasy races would find long warfare very difficult. If I remember right, in D&D orcs become mature at age 14 but therefore die earlier. However elves need 50 years to become mature. I imagine that Orcs reproduce faster and elves slower since it seems their populations aren't going extinct or exploding. But in this age, where any stray bullet can kill you, having your 50 year old soldiers die would be a terrible loss to your country, since you know you are going to have to wait years for your population to recover. Where an orc population would be back up to speed in no time and ready for another war.

>Where an orc population would be back up to speed in no time and ready for another war.
until someone invents the gatling gun

Still, a loss of a 100 elves is more devastating than a 100 orcs.

The elves have an unnatural aiming ability and even more terrifying ability to hide in forests and shrubbery.

They're the perfect guerilla soldiers.

Snipers would be more widely deployed to counter wizards. Your wizard may be able to cast a fireball to destroy a platoon, but a single bullet can stop him.

and thats why you deploy elves as sharpshooter, cooks, medics/etc, not first over the top infantry, and even orks are gonna feel the hurt if they are running into things like pic related

Would halflings or dwarves make the best, optimal artillery crew or what?
And what about humans, where does endurance and ability to adapt come in?

>Would halflings or dwarves make the best, optimal artillery crew or what?
i see them as optimal tunnelers, sappers, and trench raiders, i see minotaur as optimal artillery crews or manning gatlings, gardners, biras and the like, more defense oriented

I mean, how. Minotaurs are dumb, smelly and animalistic. They'd be only good guards and maneuvering trough trenches. Not even that since they're more likely go charging off at the nearest thing that looks hostile, into a trap.

At least dwarves are small and have technical knowhow and halflings got small, nimble, but strong arms and hands. Perfect artillery and heavy machinery handling.

I can't imagine centaurs being very useful if it's at least industrial level tech. They are large targets unlike other large large races can't carry heavier weapons. They however would be good for scouting and transport.

>dwarves are small
which is an issue as this limits them to things like field guns and short range mortars, and in some cases you need guns that can drop a big shell a long ways away and at a steep angle

Scouting is better done by so many other "not a fucking huge target" races, especially since if they break a leg, they don't have to be put down because they'd be immensely depressed from never being able to move again.

They really are just a stupid race to have altogether.

Loading and dialing artillery doesn't take intellect. Just set the elevation to the number your CO just told you, insert she'll and charge, and fire. A Minotaur would be great for this as he could lift heavy shells with ease.
You wouldn't want a Minotaur behind a machine gun. A machine gun nest is small, fortified, and has just enough space to get a man behind the gun. A Minotaur would just provide an easier target to rifleman trying to disable the gun.

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>if they break a leg, they don't have to be put down

Actually, not every break requires euthanasia. The type of break makes a big difference in determining whether a horse will be able to recover successfully. Horses suffer fractures along a wide spectrum of severity.

For instance, having an incomplete fracture involves the bone cracking, but not entirely breaking. This is way easier to deal with than a complete fracture, which can result in the bone shattering. Many horses with incomplete fractures can recover just fine, so I imagine it'd be the same for a centaur.

Extensive damage and multiple breaks are more closely linked with the need for euthanasia. Whether or not the bone fragments protrude through the skin is also a consideration because exposed bone can increase the chance of complications like infection.

Younger horses generally stand a better chance at recovering from a broken leg as well, plus breaks/fractures in different areas of the leg have different degrees of success when it comes to healing.

Then there's the biggest contributing factor for this statement, which is that horses tend to want to stand (even when sleeping) due to the way their evolution has informed their survival instincts and this can hinder the recovery process in large ways, whereas centaurs understand language and would be more capable of understanding the intent of a doctor and actively cooperating with medical professionals to help recover if it's a possibility.

You're still on point that they shouldn't be on a gunpowder-era battlefield, though. Way too big and too fragile of a target to field in any way re: modern military ops.

Lizardmen are the ultimate Napoléon to WW1 era soldiers.
Unfeeling, never Run away, regenerate After beeing hit and can remain motionless for hours on end.

>Loading and dialing artillery doesn't take intellect
No but setting up complex artillery or machinery does also dwarves and halflings are both strong for their size. The hoof hands or whatever the got wouldn't make for good finesse either. Also neither will charge away from their post when seeing something red.
Dumb bovine people.
Stepladders and teamwork.

And also the reason they lost in every cold climate battle.
Having your soldiers fall asleep during battle isn't good.

When you are a lizard, dont invade russia

There is a way to allow Centaurs to carry heavy weapons, and that is with saddle harnesses. Strap two gatling guns to the side of a Centaur and give them a way to fire the weapons, like extended triggers of a sort. Same can be done with missile pods, and other weapons. They could also carry small arms for lighter targets, or when they're acting as scouting units.

What do you think "setting up" artillery entails? You think minotaurs couldn't manage to pull a trailer off a hitch and unfold some legs? What, in your own mind and words, does it take to "set up" artillery?

There are a few things very wrong with that. If the guns are set far enough back that they are balanced over the centaur's back, the barrels with be roughly level with their ears. RIP centaur hearing. Another problem is how do they load them? How do the assistant gunners load them? Are there other centaurs keeping pace with your mobile platform and reloading, clearing jams, and replacing barrels?
The second problem arises if you move the gun far enough forward that the centaur can reach it with their hands, the weight is now entirely in front of their front legs. Try holding something 1/6 your body weight out in front of you for an extended amount of time and try running while you're doing it.

Another fun tidbit I missed, how the fuck does a centaur crank a Gatling gun when it's located on their fucking back?

>how the fuck does a centaur crank a Gatling gun when it's located on their fucking back?

So on top of the weight of two crew served wapons that were archaic around the time that smokeless gunpowder was common, you want to also strap a generator to a centaur's back? So that's TWO 200 pound Gatling guns which are manually fed through a fucking hopper hooked up to a gasoline engine. We're talking ballpark 500 pounds of gun, 100 pounds of gear, and the 100 pounds of ammo to feed the fucking thing all on a creature the size of a pony? In what era do you imagine this being viable? there's a reason we never strapped machine guns to horses.

I imagine shapeshifters would be pretty good at sabotage and guerilla warfare.

nO NON HUMN ALL HIUMN KILL NOHUMAN SHOOT DEAD BANG BANG GUNPOWDER BETTER MAGICNON HUMERN DIE DIE DIE ALWAYS HUMA WKNI ALL MAGIC NOTHING GUNPOWDER BETTER BETTER BETTER KILL NON HUMN KILL DIE

Having autism makes me clearly identify with a robot because just as they, I have no emotions and run purely on logic. This is why I play robots mostly.

Whats that, you don't like what I like, oh I am so angry at you reeeeee! Oh I'd feel happy just killing you!

The leshi and rusalkas would be cool spetsnaz for operations in forest environment.

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We can always use more cannon fodder to make sure the humans get home.
Minimally equip them, encourage mass infantry charge, and ensure they're given essential training in front-line weaponry. That will suffice.

What's next? Batter down nails with a microscope?

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could they be any more droopy?

why do they all look like they have foetal alcohol syndrome?

Brian?

They're not human, they're clearly elves. And it was one of those art styles that existed over 20 years ago.

Spam iron golems. My army is now pretty much invincible until modern artillery shows up. At which point I will swap to spamming air elementals.

If pushed, I would hire some high-end magic users (Titans, Celestials) to Wish the enemy army out of existence as the ultimate "fuck you".

Dwarves would be optimal tankers.

One of the biggest factors in determining the size of a tank is crew space. Dwarves, being shorter and more compact, require less space.

However, they are better than halflings or gnomes in this role because despite being smaller they are as physically strong and robust as taller humanoids, so size of gun and projectile would not be limited by the crew race's strength.

Additionally, dwarves are only very rarely claustrophobic, and are resistant to magic that might bypass tank armor.

Why would humans be deployed?

But seriously though, depends on how much warfare is akin to ours, and can the roles be filled with optimal candinates.
There is also matter of training etc., and design of gear.

Little surprised no one has mentioned The Saga of Tanya the Evil, yet.

Mage girl fighting in anachronistic WWI. The manga version is funny because the artist doors things like pitting Renoult tanks against Panthers in the backgrounds.

Does, not doors.
Gotta remember to read my posts before actually posting them.

Because that story has no idea what the fuck it's doing and is just wasted oppurtunity because the author couldn't keep his late war wad in his balls for when it was time, so it's just an inconsistent mess.

Also apparently while jacking off to Cannae the author forgot about the Battle of Sedan and Tannenberg.

What the fuck is even happening in this picture

I feel like if nations consisted of this kind of fantasy multicultural melting pot that it would be really difficult to have the kind of seething nationalism that led to WW1 and WW2.

War is the child of Pride and Greed was the saying, wasn't it?
How do you go about convincing the French elves of the Black Forest that they need to kill the German elves of the Black Forest?
How do you convince the Italian Dwarves on the Alps to attack the Austrian Dwarves that live on the other side of their mountain hold?

While I don't really think this would be enough to stop wars from happening, in a human-majority planet the most realistic position of fantasy races on the battlefield would be civilian casualties.

Kidnapping?

Nation states are already made up of different subgroups.

Bavarian Elves and Norman elves aren't going to think of themselves as the same any more than Bavarian and Norman humans do.

fucking italian and german american citizen all signed up to fight against nazi germany.

Why is it so hard to see that race isn't your tribe? And its not like that stops anything, people of the same "tribes" have gone and killed eachother for simply being on the wrong side of an argument for millions of years.

> Elven separatists start a revolution to declare the Independant Kingdom of Black Forest.
> This leads to Germans declaring elves evil and starting a campaign against them instead of Jews.
> Dwarves declare some parts of the Alps to be sovereign enclaves and create a neutral territory where elven refugees life in mountain forests, and dwarves underground, in huge, dark, but comfy cities.
> Russian commies treat the leshy and domovoi as the oppressed ethnicities and include them in the Soviet everyday life. Then realize they're not progressive enough, and remove them to new settlements in Siberia.
> American governmen is stuck in a guerilla war against nunnecs and manitu.
> Ukrainian and Romanian vampires create a fascist regimme that treats humans like basically living cattle and vampires as a superior class - the best humans get turned into vampires when they prove themselves worthy. Regimme is overthrown.
> Japan is creating an army of youkai together with the Dragon Emperor's sea army. They attack China.
> They nearly destroy all apefolk of China. Chinese necromancers revive the vengeful spirits and summon Xi Van Mu herself. She brings the army of sky dragons with her. In exchange she wants power over China. Chinese communists agree but plan on killing her.

You're assuming that fantasy races think the same way as humans and are as prone to the same kind of nationalistic fervor as humans.

Every successful war in history runs on engendering enough percentage of the population to continue supporting it; this is already difficult circa WW2 with just humans, with groups as diverse and fundamentally different as fantasy races it would be even more difficult.

Centaurs operate in pairs, each with a heavy weapon like a Gatling gun firing across the back of the other. They fire one gun until empty, swap positions, fire the other gun, then both centaurs use their speed to retreat and reload in a concealed position.

The niche of "mobile heavy weapon" is still available, but anatomy means it can't be done alone.

>2 great big stationary targets taking turns at eating stray shots
Not even that guy but come on man.

Generalist infantry roles
They've got some of the strength and endurance of the tough races, without reductions to intelligence, hand dexterity, aiming ability, or making themselves large targets.

>LAMIREZ TAKE OUT THAT HARPY NEST
>LAMIREZ CONSTRICT THAT AC130
>LAMIREZ SEAL THE PORTAL WITH YOUR E-TOOL
>LAMIREZ REVERSE POLARITIES
>LAMIREZ PULL THE KA-BAR FROM THE STONE
>LAMIREZ ASSUME COMMAND

They don't have to think like humans, no, but whenever they aren't based on human traits they tend to be fake and alien and fucking shitty.

Hence the assumption that they're at least somewhat alike to humans and not just races of robots or navel gazers that are more boring and simplistic than any real human culture.

Any social animal would act mostly like human.
And if they are not social, they're not inteligent enough to follow orders anyway.

>Racial diversity makes national unity difficult
Your words, not mine.

That said, heavy deconstruction of ethnic identities *could* do the trick. Think of something like the Ferry laws on steroids. Every elf is required to speak French on all instances, and a human is legally allowed to beat an elf for speaking any form of elven dialect in public. Elves are forcibly removed from their communities and forced into human communities where these elven families are a total minority, forcing them to adapt or die. Elven schools are forbidden by law and elven children are sent to state funded French schools where they learn to become French (Napoléon created the Lycée system specifically for the purpose of turning peasant schoolboys into proud Frenchmen). Soon they'll be cursing the Eternal Teuton as much as French Jews did.

>you want to also strap a generator to a centaur's back?

No you genius, just a belt drive for the handles...

>However elves need 50 years to become mature
In 5e they reach maturity at the same rate as humans. Long-lived races also tend to have a qualitative advantage in some way, though, and assuming equal starting population a much larger portion of long-lived races will be of fighting age, since both 16 and 50 are a much smaller percentage of 750 than 16 is of 100. So unless the elves/dwarves are really stupid and the orcs/humans play really smart it's not going to be a particularly long war.

I'd expect Halflings to be good sharpshooters, scouts, skirmishers, saboteurs, and light infantry in general

older meme but still kek'd

>I feel like if nations consisted of this kind of fantasy multicultural melting pot that it would be really difficult to have the kind of seething nationalism that led to WW1 and WW2.
Yeah, how could a nation of irish, italians, anglos, germans, russians and jews adopt a cohesive national identity that pushes them to war against a foreign nation?

Also keep in mind that Algerian Spahi, Senegalese Tirailleur, Angolan Askaris, Indian Sikhs, Nepalese Gurkhas and Guyanese all volunteered to support their respective countries in WWI.

>You're assuming that fantasy races think the same way as humans and are as prone to the same kind of nationalistic fervor as humans.
While this is true, it makes the original premise pointless, because it is already assumed nonhumans would agree to submit themselves to a human nation-state in the first place.

If demi and nonhumans feel enough kinship to their human nation to willingly and actively participate in the determination of national policy they are probably interested enough to be affected by natinoalism.

actually a lot of races would likely end up siding with national allegiance as did most colonial troops in WW1

why does it look like their wings are sprouting from their ass? seems like a poor place for a set of wings to be.

>French_officer_refuses_to_cooperate_with_Scottish_Highland_Monstergirl_Division_after_the_incident_of_1912_(colorized).jpg

im stealing this and will not be giving you credit

That cat actually raises a more interesting point: in a war where magic and demihumans are normal you'd better shoot down every fucking animal you see on the battlefield because god knows if that pigeon is acting as an artillery spotter for some gnome, or those rats were sent here by some enemy mage.

thats actually a pretty good point

>Volunteered
As à french, You amused me.

well, it did win you a war, kinda a jerk move tho baguette-chan

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If you get DarkVison, you get double pay as mercenary.

>Elves are all armed with rifles, they obsess over their superior marksmanship but get raped in any field battle because they lack the numbers to defeat other armies, their cannons tend to be very light 3-6 pounder guns so they can be more easily carried around for ambushes
>Dwarves wear extremely heavy breastplates and helmets that can resist musket fire and are armed with carefully made carbine muskets, their cannons tend to be large and few in numbers used for battering down the walls of forts or firing grape shot with each ball being the size of a regular cannonball
>Orcs rely on the bayonet to carry the day although not well drilled their armies tend to be aggressive and will advance quickly upon the enemy, firing a few volleys before charging into the fray, their cannons tend to be fairly heavy dedicated siege guns as they see little point in using cannons for pitched battles when they will only fire one or two shots before the infantry charges into battle

Sure I am a Radical Ordo Xenos inquistor. I got no problem with them aslong as they ain't worshipping chaos or could harm my other troops by there exsistiance. Hell Minotaurs would get along with my extremely chem'd up Guardsman. Skeletons would get along with my chapter since a quarter of them are almost always consumed in fire. Animated armor and such would act as probley a great help for the TAU task force, they need more heavy armor.

Centaurs would probley get along well with are mechanized cav.

In summary they would be extremely useful and I could easily hide them abhumans.