A young ensign officer leads the attack against the party in absence of his superior officer (likely killed by the...

A young ensign officer leads the attack against the party in absence of his superior officer (likely killed by the part). He commands 40 men. How do you deal with the situation?

kill them all

What's there to handle? Sounds like the kid has it under control.

Call his parents on my astral cell phone and tell on him.

Seal that area of the ship and then start shutteling in beastmen from the underdeck.

The party is likely in some deep shit, but they brought it on themselves.

Depending on the rest of the situation he might bring them in if the men win the fight against the party, so there'll be the challenge of escaping and so on.

try and turn the crew to mutiny against him since he lacks leadership and experience. Maybe the party should have planted the seeds of treachery before landing themselves in such deep shit.

The party hides innawoods and shoots back with their own muskets. Two can play at this game, lobstertail.

Slaughter the men, take the officer prisoner and then return it to the enemy in the most humiliating way possible destroying his career and future prospects.

Power Attack!

If the soldiers are vets it's probably easier to deal with the officer than kill him. If they're not then we totally kill the kid and aim to break them.

I am not aware of any system in which a fight against 41 enemies wouldn't be a tedious slog.

The 40k RPG horde system works fairly well, though it's somewhat generalized.

How strong are these men relative to the character/party?

Send the bard in to seduce them.

Bribe the cook to poison them.

Teleport to a different kingdom.

Send in the doppelganger to replace him.

Selective orbital bombardment.

Fireball early and often. Laugh maniacally if they are in a wooden ship.

obliterate their front line and kill the ensign. this should be enough to break the rest of the attacking force and scatter them. can't really go further without more information about the scenario.

>How do you deal with the situation?

Kill the NCOs and the rest will break.

No survivors.

Depends on a lot of factors. War or not? What rough time-period this is cribbing off of- I assume 18th/19th by the pic. What is our current mission?

Ideally, defeat, rout and overwhelm the unit. Capture the boy, ransom him back to his family. Other survivors would be brought to a penal camp, until they can be turned out after the war.

If its not ideal? Kill them all. Record the boy's info. Send a letter to his commanding officer after we complete our mission and have time. Its the gentlemanly thing to do.

Exactly the young man is clearly driven and intelligent enough to lead these men into battle. Surely he could be of some value.

I play up and play the game.

>ensign officer
The 'officer' part is redundant, you can just say 'young ensign'

Depends on his performance. If he does poorly, slaughter them to the last. If he does well, then spare him.

It would be a sin to rob young talent from the world.

Leave. Brash young officers are shit at logistics and his men will move slow compared to a small party of adventurers.

If I’m opposition, hit and run tactics and night raids, especially if it’s just me and the party. If we’re on the same side orders are probably to assist.

Sigh as two other partly members are already in full sprint towards the opposition, one calling for blood and the other dibs on the kid, then proceed to get myself some comfy spot for sharpshooting.

>Exactly the young man is clearly driven and intelligent enough to lead these men into battle.

Score a laugh point, you historically illiterate fuckwit.

The boy is an officer because of his social class and nothing more. He was commissioned or, more likely, had one bought for him as a way of providing him with a socially acceptable career. As an ensign, he's there to hobnob with others of his social class while learning a little about being an officer. With the death of the older officer, the NCOs actually lead the unit. If he's smart, he allows those NCOs to make "suggestions" which he then repeats as "orders". If he's stupid, he ignores his NCOs while his orders are in turn ignored to various degrees.

>>Surely he could be of some value.

He has some value to his family and/or social caste who will ransom him. He has no value as a military leader or tactician.

Knock off the unit's NCOs, meaning the veterans, and the rest will break no matter how much Ensign Shavetail waves his pretty sword around.

Yeah, and he's about to kill you.

I feel like you are making assumptions we cannot know.
The young man could be a highly competent tactician wise beyond his years, or he could be a childish arrogant brat, but we don't have that information.

It seems unlikely that the young ensign is the critical lynchpin for the morale of our enemies.
The enlisted men are likely to consider him inexperienced and defer more to his lieutenants than to him, even if he is a skilled commander.

I would say knock off the lieutenants, rout the enemies and make a concerted effort to take the ensign alive, although between his life and a PC, he def. dies.

I agree with this guy.