My plans for the next game involves my group going against a small army (~130) mostly armed with primitive melee weapons and flintlock rifles, perhaps with a cannon or two.

2 cavalry squadrons (12 riders each, some armed with imperium-tech explosive/melta spears, which should be a surprise and hook for future adventures), 7 musketeer groups (14 soldiers each), and an artilhary group (2-4 cannons

The group has a massive bonus to Stealth (+30 when moving / +40 stationary) and is comprised of 2 snipers and a medic (6 squad members in total). Needle rifles, synskin and cameoline being their main differential from a normal guardsmen squad.

Terrain is a mountain pass, snowy and counting as "extreme environment" (Tundra planet), their poor weather gear should suffice for 3 days at most - the army itself has tents, lots of campfires and some weather protection which could last longer than the players.

Their mission is to block that army's passage to a nearby loyalist town which has its garrison occupied with riots and a minor rebellion - and would easily fall even if attacked by such small force. They don't have explosive charges but I imagine they will try to concoct some from gunpowder gathered in a destroyed loyalist camp they will find on the way there.

If they hide between the rocks on the hills around the 4 roads that serve as passages, the riders won't pose a serious threat, but any mistakes there could be fatal.

The flintlock rifles can only fire every other turn, so they would be able to snipe 2-4 enemy soldiers per turn until these affix bayonets and come after them.

If they destroy/block some of the roads in ambushes, this would already help speed up a lot the combats. Also, I imagine they would prioritize sabotaging the cannons and gunpowder supplies, right? Which would be good to decrease the enemy threat level.

Once the enemy has been reduced to 20% of their original numbers, the remaining soldiers will flee from the field and the day will be won.

Capturing or destroying all of the the hitech spears will get them commended afterward and create some plot hooks.

So....

This is my fourth OW game, but I am an experienced RT GM (in RT this would be a ridiculously easy scenario as my players always bring a bunch of elite guardsmen with them) and right now I am worried if I screwed up with the scales too badly or if the combat will take too long.

I'd like to hear your thoughts and suggestions on how to keep this challenging, massive, fun and yet not too long/exhausting for the players.

Well, this depends on just how tactically adept your players are, and how much of the above information they can acquire.

And the specific details of the terrain, for example, long straight stretches with clear, or mostly clear, lines of fire will play to the advantages of superior weaponry and sniping abilities for a time, wide areas give an advantage to the enemy, narrow or constricted passable areas give advantages to defenders, etc.

Also, just what their orders are, ie, "slow the enemy force down/stall them for x days/keep them from passing point y before z amount of time" so that reinforcements can arrive and dig in field fortifications to hold the line, is going to be approached much differently than "kill them all".

Plus, of course, what, if anything, they manage to requisition before being dispatched on this forlorn hope of a mission. For example, if they get their hands on some land mines/claymores, or the equivalent, well, the enemy will be slowed down

If I were going into this situation, I'd want to set up several roadblocks - blocks that will take a while to clear, and then pick off one or two guys working on the clearing every 10% of clearing progress - balancing making the grunts unhappy, while keeping the officers pushing them, thus reducing morale and threat every time they run into a block, but slowly enough where it won't trip alarms in the officers' minds until it's too late.

Shoot the cavalry mounts - the cavalry always hates that, though the infantry won't mind too much. It reduces the enemy's ability to scout, to pursue, or to split up.

Shoot the beasts of burden hauling the cannon and the supply wagons - the enemy will not advance without its supply train. If this is done before the cavalry mounts get shot, some of the cavalry mounts might get drafted to help haul things, thus taking them out of action for the journey. Otherwise, the enemy has to improvise a way for the infantry to haul the wagon, which will tire them out, and slow their response times when the column gets attacked.

Taking out the officers and disrupting the chain of command will likely get the enemy to withdraw sooner.

Taking out the supply wagons - food, tents, poor weather gear, etc, not just the gunpowder and cannon, is of significant value. Though, a well placed grenade throw could probably set off the gunpowder stocks, which would make for a rather sizeable boom, and take out a fair amount of anything nearby.

Depending on just how much demo the players have access to, and how coldblooded they are, they may be able to rig a spread out landslide/avalanche to hit the enemy column as it passes below. Depending on how spread out the column is, they may be able to take out a large chunk of it, as well as cause a significant disruption, possibly splitting the column in two, but definitely putting a halt to its advance while they clear a path and dig out any surviving troops and supplies. If they get really lucky, they could take out most, if not all, of the column. Combined with an attack to commence just after the slide hits (prioritizing anybody on their side of the collapse), they could stop, or at least significantly weaken the enemy right there; between the distance and the terrible footing, it would give the players quite a bit of time before any enemies managed to get close, and unless there were enemies on the player side of the collapse, none with half a brain would even bother trying to close to melee range, since they'd be in the open and under sniper fire the whole time.

Short version, it heavily depends on your players, the terrain details, the resources they get, and just how broad/specific their orders are.

As far as the orders go, I'd advise going for the "keep them from reaching point z before x time passes so reinforcements can arrive and dig in" option. That way, if the players manage to break the enemy force, they get praised/rewarded, but if it wound up being more difficult, you've left yourself a way to give them an out if they need it; if they don't stop the enemy on their own, preferably they buy the reinforcing force time to dig in and set up some field fortifications in the defensible position (probably a choke point in the pass) that command prefers, being further advanced up the pass, but if not, and the players are in full retreat past that point too early, they can encounter the reinforcing troops to save their skins if they need to. As for the reinforcing troops, the exact makeup depends, but for Guard forces, I'd say no more than a platoon of line infantry, perhaps just a few squads of line infantry, reinforced with some local experts/guides and maybe some specialists for the fortifications. So, mostly small arms, but a few squad support/heavy weapons, probably on the lighter end of such things, depending on native regiment. Or maybe mostly locals, but just a squad of Guard infantry to stiffen them up. Whatever makes more sense for the situation.

Needle riflles use a potent neurotoxin cocktail. Use it to poison the enemy water/food supply and watch them die.

I’d like to go the other way here.

As the GM, you probably shouldn’t be fretting too much over what the players can do or not or if your opposing force was too strong. Their intel informs them they are facing a small army. So it’s up to them to come up with a good plan that won’t get them killed. And if they do get “killed”, well that’s why they have fate points.

I’d even argue that if they manage this without burning a fate point or 2, the entire adventure will have been a dud and certainly not very memorable.

So focus on what the army would do. Plan their logical reactions to enemy activity and just take it from there. And if that means the players get overwhelmed, try to capture the survivors (players never surrender until 1-2 die) and have the army win narratively.

In this case, unless it’s incompetently led and/or has unwilling conscripts, the army will have scouts out. So most of the encounters will be between small groups of scouts and your players.

There are numerous books on the use of scouts screening columns but in general terms it will consist of vedettes (single troopers) within sight or sound of a small guard (half squad) with the main guard (full squad) within close support distance, followed by the advance guard (usually a quarter of the full column) and the rest of the column with a rear guard (assuming a Napoleonic style force).

So you could plan encounters with the scouts with the knowledge that the players will be overwhelmed once the advance guard arrives.

Logically, scouts will use overwatch and bounding movement when facing opposition. Think what you (or your players) would do if faced with sniper fire….The scouts certainly will try to get good vantage points to look for you. Maybe the scout screen will be strengthened with additional troops from the main column. Maybe they will try to increase the tempo of operations to force you into a mistake or get you fatigued. There are many options without “cheating” the players because you know their plans. Just focus on your own.

What's the penalty for a mob of 14 flintlock armed soldiers to shoot at a sniper 150m+ away, in the dark of night, using cameoline (and synskin under it)?
What are the odds of a napoleonic cannon crew hitting them in the same situation?

Also, as a commander for that napoleonic army, what would be your orders if all your officials starts getting sniped from such distance? Charge the nearby mountain with bayonets affixed? Round the mountain with the cavalry for cutting off a retreat?

Need ideas for tactics that an experienced commander would use. For instance, I really liked Ranoncles for moving a column thrown a mountain pass, but what about defending the camp?

Assuming they're moving in firing lines, they don't necessarily aim. They cover a large portion of ground with fire which is, essentially, the equivalent of a pinning test for the snipers. Given the ridiculous ranges of 40k weapons, I'm not entirely sure if the snipers even have an advantage here. They're basically shooting at what most people would consider short or standard range today.

I'd honestly just slap sand bags around my cannons and barrage fire the mountainside, before the infantry charges them. 150 meters is -nothing-.

'course, this has literally nothing to do with the rules. As per rules, the enemy would be moving in slow motion and take literally forever til they reached the snipers' position, and collectively be unable to hit them, despite literally saturating the air around them with bullets.

Assuming the enemy has around 60 horses (24 mounts for cavalry, 2 horses per gun, 4 guns makes 8, plus another 32 for spare mounts, supplies, etc)

With a needle rifle, you can engage targets up to 360 meters away with no range penalty.

Assuming a base TN of 30, you’d need a 70 to hit a horse. (30 BS +10 aiming +10 accurate +10 standard attack +10 horse size).

It takes 30 seconds to empty a needle rifle magazine and 10 seconds to reload. Firing a whole magazine will, on the average, kill 4.2 horses

So, night 1:

PCs set up roughly 300 to 320 meters away from enemy camp, in two groups of 2 100 or more meters apart.

Total elapsed time:

30 seconds: 16.8 dead horses

40 seconds: reloading complete

70 seconds 33.2 dead horses

80 seconds: reloading complete

110 seconds: 50.4 dead horses

120 seconds: reloading complete

150 seconds: 67.2 dead horses (have to allow for some unexpected survivals…)

151+ seconds: PCs exiting the engagement area.

There’s no way the enemy is getting something useful organized in 2 minutes and 30 seconds, especially in the dark, chasing ghosts.

That’s most of the mission done. The enemy can no longer move their cannon. They don’t have cavalry anymore, and they can’t move their supplies, either.

Alternate engagement plan:

Shoot all the sentries but one. When he gives the alarm, see who starts giving orders. Shoot them. With the same 2:30 engagement envelope, you can expect to only be able to hit around 20-30 guys, but if even half of them are officers/NCOs you’ve pretty much shot everyone important.

If the enemy self organizes to continue on, do it again the next night. Of course, later nights would present more problems, since the enemy will be aware that people are out there. That’s why I recommend killing all the horses first. Plus you can’t dig ranger graves (hasty fighting positions) for horses, so they are trivial to gun down, there’s no protection for them.

----------------

But really, infantry with night vision gear (and silenced weapons) and near magic stealth gear engaging a force that doesn’t have any of these things is not much of a contest. If the enemy were more modern, they might have defensive mines (but you aren’t close enough to worry about them) and maybe light mortars to fire flares, which would at least negate your advantage of night vision vs night blindness… But even then, the enemy can’t save the horses.

Assuming the enemy has around 60 horses (24 mounts for cavalry, 2 horses per gun, 4 guns makes 8, plus another 32 for spare mounts, supplies, etc)

With a needle rifle, you can engage targets up to 360 meters away with no range penalty.

Assuming a base TN of 30, you’d need a 70 to hit a horse. (30 BS +10 aiming +10 accurate +10 standard attack +10 horse size).

It takes 30 seconds to empty a needle rifle magazine and 10 seconds to reload. Firing a whole magazine will, on the average, kill 4.2 horses

So, night 1:

PCs set up roughly 300 to 320 meters away from enemy camp, in two groups of 2 100 or more meters apart.

Total elapsed time:

30 seconds: 16.8 dead horses

40 seconds: reloading complete

70 seconds 33.2 dead horses

80 seconds: reloading complete

110 seconds: 50.4 dead horses

120 seconds: reloading complete

150 seconds: 67.2 dead horses (have to allow for some unexpected survivals…)

151+ seconds: PCs exiting the engagement area.

There’s no way the enemy is getting something useful organized in 2 minutes and 30 seconds, especially in the dark, chasing ghosts.

That’s most of the mission done. The enemy can no longer move their cannon. They don’t have cavalry anymore, and they can’t move their supplies, either.

Alternate engagement plan:

Shoot all the sentries but one. When he gives the alarm, see who starts giving orders. Shoot them. With the same 2:30 engagement envelope, you can expect to only be able to hit around 20-30 guys, but if even half of them are officers/NCOs you’ve pretty much shot everyone important.

If the enemy self organizes to continue on, do it again the next night. Of course, later nights would present more problems, since the enemy will be aware that people are out there. That’s why I recommend killing all the horses first. Plus you can’t dig ranger graves (hasty fighting positions) for horses, so they are trivial to gun down, there’s no protection for them.

----------------

But really, infantry with night vision gear (and silenced weapons) and near magic stealth gear engaging a force that doesn’t have any of these things is not much of a contest. If the enemy were more modern, they might have defensive mines (but you aren’t close enough to worry about them) and maybe light mortars to fire flares, which would at least negate your advantage of night vision vs night blindness… But even then, the enemy can’t save the horses.

This reads like an advert for a weapon system acquired by the pentagon. Too good to be true but some people may fall for it.

More importantly, it makes for a boring game.

The thing is to think like an actual commander in those circumstances would do. And realise as a GM that not every situation is (adequately) covered by the rules. If there is an 'exploit', you as GM can and should adjust the rules. It's an RPG, not a computer game and common sense should always prevail.

Camps have been under attack since the dawn of warfare. There must be numerous ways of dealing with such attacks. You can have a roman style encampment with wooden palisades. Or just pickets and roving patrols forcing snipers out of easy range. Maybe the column has guard animals? A few dogs or exotic alien animals would make live difficult for attackers. But not impossible.

My point is that as a GM, you should try to make things interesting. Sniping from a distance without fear of retaliation is not a game IMO. Its a mathematical exercise. Allowing the sniper to shoot a few horses and then be chased by a patrol makes for a more thrilling encounter IMO.

What's the penalty for a mob of 14 flintlock armed soldiers to shoot at a sniper 150m+ away, in the dark of night, using cameoline (and synskin under it)?

What are the odds of a napoleonic cannon crew hitting them in the same situation?

Also, as a commander for that napoleonic army, what would be your orders if all your officials starts getting sniped from such distance? Charge the nearby mountain with bayonets affixed? Round the mountain with the cavalry for cutting off a retreat?

Need ideas for tactics that an experienced commander would use. For instance, I really liked Ranoncles for moving a column thrown a mountain pass, but what about defending the camp?

Historically, musketeers had to fire massed volleys to hit opposing musketeers. In 40k, a flintlock is inaccurate which only means you can't use the aim action. You can still shoot normally....Which in your example means 14 npc's shooting a single shot at their BS (plus/minus modifiers). Or you can form 4 firing units of 1 musketeer assisted by 2 others for a +20 bonus +10 for single shot. Or you could rule that it is a mini-horde, and assign it bonus to BS and ROF.

Just saying, a 40k musket is not a useless weapon. It can still sting.

A night engagement is obviously not ideal but that works for both sides unless one side has night goggles. But at the very least, engagement ranges would be significantly less, which would benefit the musketeers.

Sniping was quite common in the napoleonic period. As a rule, officers became a bit less conspicious as the wars went on and perhaps most significantly, most units evolved its own skirmishers, often consisting of their best shots. They would form a screen in front of the regular troops and keep enemy skirmishers/snipers away.

If faced with sniper fire, a napoleonic officer would thus send his own skirmishers forward. They would move from cover to cover, in pairs, with one musket ready to fire at all times. And the entire force of skirmishers would also be moving in leaps, with half advancing and the other half looking for an enemy reaction.

And try to flush out the enemy sniper. Basically force the sniper to either retreat or fire at the advancing skirmishers and thus give away his position. He may be camouflaged etc. but with multiple men out to find him, especially with their own lives at stake, sooner or later he will be spotted. And the tables are turned.

If you have cavalry, they can cover ground much faster trying to locate and pin down the sniper and will use mobility to make a succesful hit more difficult (consider them running -20BS to hit).

Also don't forget that larger units tend to cycle their men. Combat is fatigueing. Fresh troops don't suffer from a -10....a small unit which has to fight at night and move during the day soon is too fatigued to do much.

Players are very good at adding all the modifiers which benefit them. As a GM, you have to keep these in mind as well for your npcs. It makes them far more effective!

Thanks a lot for the insight.

I will have them headed to a troop massing planetside when they are diverted to this mission. I wanted to give them time for planning but I didn't want to allow for logistics at this first point (as this will already be easy enough it seems).

This is the handout for the message they will receive mid-flight (ignore data on loyalist army, it will be destroyed by the time they get there).

+++++++++++++ Priority message +++++++++++++
+Thought of the Day : Heresy grows from Idleness +
Date: 5.362.824.M41
From: Captain Giacinto de Palategui, 57th Mole Raiders, Eagle Company (Recon & Special Ops)
To: Squad E104 "Irregulars", 57th Mole Raiders
Subject: Major rebel offensive in progress

Content:
Corporal Mordinian,

You are being diverted to the following coordinates in the attached orders cascaded from Lieutenant-Comissar Anton, our acting CO for the Mole Raiders and folded regiments.

Intel on Frostbite Passage indicates inclement weather and an estimated ~200 opposing army, mainly armed with flintlock rifles – although rough riders are to be expected. Ullrtown is under riots and open rebellion and has responded with only ~130 riflemen.

Your Aquilla Lander has been instructed to drop the Irregulars at Ullrtown on the other side of the planet and then resume troop transport activities to the “Forbidden City”. The local nobility in Ullrtown has already been informed of your coming by a messenger sent by the loyalist capital city.

The travel time between Ullrtown and Frostbite Passage is of half an Skadian day.

Frostbite Passage is a day's travel by land, the region has multiple cliffs and hills and the enemy army should be bottlenecked between 4 possible passages.

You should have 5 skadian days before it returns to Ullrtown for pickup. That's the expected time we should take until the regiment is massed and ready to push into the forbidden city, if you are not at the rendezvous point at that moment, your squad will be considered MIA and a small ordinatus device will obliterate Ullrtown in order to deny valuable economical/demographic assets to enemy forces. Don't let this happen, have these rebels pay for their heresy against the greater Imperium.

May Imperial justice account in all balance,
The Emperor Protects.



+++ Attachment : Original orders +++
From the office of Lieutenant-Comissar Anton, Commanding Officer of the 57th Mole Raiders, remnants of the 309th Death Korps Artillery regiment and 41st Malfian Armoured Fists.

Skadian loyalists are informing a major coordinated offensive by rebel “White Queen” forces. The Swift Retribution sensors were able to pick large troop movements but orbital bombardment has proven ineffective due to Skadi's topography and collateral damage expected. Skadian loyalists are responding to the threat but have reported heavy losses as reports indicate rebels possess imperial technology. It's unknown how they have acquired imperial small arms and attained such level of coordination.

Divert to special ops squads to strategic hot zones on coordinates:
++++DELETED++++
++++DELETED++++
++++DELETED++++
0.733576, -79.798570 Skadian loyalist settlement "Ullrtown".
++++DELETED++++
++++DELETED++++
++++DELETED++++
++++DELETED++++
++++DELETED++++

Primary Objective:
Assist loyalist “King's Armies” and assure Imperial victory.

Secondary Objective:
Stabilize referred regions/settlements.

Tertiary Objective:
Capture imperial technology in rebels' possession for future investigation.

+++ End of Attachment +++

+++++++++++++ End of message +++++++++++++

Most o

Assuming the enemy has around 60 horses (24 mounts for cavalry, 2 horses per gun, 4 guns makes 8, plus another 32 for spare mounts, supplies, etc)

With a needle rifle, you can engage targets up to 360 meters away with no range penalty.

Assuming a base TN of 30, you’d need a 70 to hit a horse. (30 BS +10 aiming +10 accurate +10 standard attack +10 horse size).

It takes 30 seconds to empty a needle rifle magazine and 10 seconds to reload. Firing a whole magazine will, on the average, kill 4.2 horses

So, night 1:

PCs set up roughly 300 to 320 meters away from enemy camp, in two groups of 2 100 or more meters apart.

Total elapsed time:

30 seconds: 16.8 dead horses

40 seconds: reloading complete

70 seconds 33.2 dead horses

80 seconds: reloading complete

110 seconds: 50.4 dead horses

120 seconds: reloading complete

150 seconds: 67.2 dead horses (have to allow for some unexpected survivals…)

151+ seconds: PCs exiting the engagement area.

There’s no way the enemy is getting something useful organized in 2 minutes and 30 seconds, especially in the dark, chasing ghosts.

That’s most of the mission done. The enemy can no longer move their cannon. They don’t have cavalry anymore, and they can’t move their supplies, either.

Alternate engagement plan:

Shoot all the sentries but one. When he gives the alarm, see who starts giving orders. Shoot them. With the same 2:30 engagement envelope, you can expect to only be able to hit around 20-30 guys, but if even half of them are officers/NCOs you’ve pretty much shot everyone important.

If the enemy self organizes to continue on, do it again the next night. Of course, later nights would present more problems, since the enemy will be aware that people are out there. That’s why I recommend killing all the horses first. Plus you can’t dig ranger graves (hasty fighting positions) for horses, so they are trivial to gun down, there’s no protection for them.

----------------

But really, infantry with night vision gear (and silenced weapons) and near magic stealth gear engaging a force that doesn’t have any of these things is not much of a contest. If the enemy were more modern, they might have defensive mines (but you aren’t close enough to worry about them) and maybe light mortars to fire flares, which would at least negate your advantage of night vision vs night blindness… But even then, the enemy can’t save the horses.

This reads like an advert for a weapon system acquired by the pentagon. Too good to be true but some people may fall for it.

More importantly, it makes for a boring game.

The thing is to think like an actual commander in those circumstances would do. And realise as a GM that not every situation is (adequately) covered by the rules. If there is an 'exploit', you as GM can and should adjust the rules. It's an RPG, not a computer game and common sense should always prevail.

Camps have been under attack since the dawn of warfare. There must be numerous ways of dealing with such attacks. You can have a roman style encampment with wooden palisades. Or just pickets and roving patrols forcing snipers out of easy range. Maybe the column has guard animals? A few dogs or exotic alien animals would make live difficult for attackers. But not impossible.

My point is that as a GM, you should try to make things interesting. Sniping from a distance without fear of retaliation is not a game IMO. Its a mathematical exercise. Allowing the sniper to shoot a few horses and then be chased by a patrol makes for a more thrilling encounter IMO.

The whole point of infantry tactics is to make the encounter as safe and as boring for you as possible. You are deliberately trying to cheese the other side to death in whatever way you can think of because you want to win. Of course, it's unusual for sides to be extremely unbalanced, because if they were, one side would have cheesed the other to death already. ou have to stop 200 men with around 8 or so. A non-cheesy solution just isn't going to work.

Of course, the obvious solution form the imperial side is to have a gunship come visit for 15 or so minutes and kill all of the enemy, since that's something a gunship could trivially do. And the enemy as described couldn't do anything about it. At night, the wouldn't even see the gunship.

In any sort of open battle, the side with the night vision, radios, artillery, and air support wins. The other side doesn't even have a chance. Yes there is nothing fair about it. Of course, it's still possible for the side with all the technology and organization and logistics to lose. But they lose because they get tired and go home, or they can't effectively garrison the place, or they can't effectively re-establish a state so it's just warbands all the time.

[edit]

'You' can pretty much kill whoever you want in, for example, Somalia, but you can't win in Somalia by killing people, unless you define winning as making a desert and calling it peace.

So, these guys are out in the field are are identifiably the enemy. They are dead. Find me something interesting to do.

For example: These guys are part of 'our' warlords forces, and they are going around doing stuff we don't like. Sure we would just kill them, but that would give us diplomatic problems with' our' warlord. So why don't we find a warlord who we like more? Well, we are friends with this one already and, anyway, he's one of the best of the lot. really, otherwise we wouldn't be friends with him, right?

Sure we could just kill all the warlords and start shipping in out own scribes, ditch diggers, bureaucrats, etc. But they are all busy doing that stuff on Imperial planets we actually care about. So shipping enough infrastructure from, say, Cadia to this dark end of the universe to properly sort things out would work. But you are an idiot for even suggesting something like that. The smooth functioning of even one little town-garrison on Cadia is more important that all of the piss-ant little planets put together. And it would take a lot more than just a town's worth of ditch diggers and bureaucrats to sort this madness out.

So, no, you don't get to kill all of 'our warlords' guys when they start with the atrocities. You just get to smile and nod and wish you were back on Cadia.

Adding CHEESE CASEUS:
Added-in extreme environment tests (every 4h of deployment, -10 normal / blizzard with -30 on first night, -1d10 temporary toughness per fail, lighting a campfire negates this effect).

Enemy Army camp can be tracked with a successful +10 survival check once the allied camp ruins are found. Added "ambush" to ruins of allied army (enemy soldiers can be found with a +10 test if the sentries don`t notice my synskin clad players). Poweder kegs there can be used to trigger small passage-blocking avalanches (-20 survival check to find where these would need to the put).

2 of the passages are wolfpack territory (real wolfs although the players wouldnt know what this means, would be worth a fortune for a RT), players will be attacked if they travel through these alone. 2 other passages will have scout "picket groups".

Once the first attack happens to the camp, the army will start moving after combat ends (regardless of day-night cycle).

Conditions for retreat (victory, enemy leaves field through the north passage):

- All officers killed.

- Over 50% casualties.

Conditions for Ordinatus Fall. Everyone Dies.
- Enemy leaves field through south passage, reaching open ground with little hiding spots for snipers.

- Enemy is destroyed but the squad can't get back in time: Uninjured squadmembers don't start the travel back to Ullrtown by at morning of the fifth day. Injured squad members need to start by noon fourth day.

If I were to GM such an adventure, I’d (initially) focus on the party’s preparation.

You say you have a squad of 6 men. Let’s assume they have 3 days to prepare before the enemy army starts its march. That gives them 36 time blocks (morning & afternoon to work, evening to sleep) in total.

I would then assign time blocks for certain actions.

preparing a small avalanche = 6 blocks

preparing a major avalanche which would block a gorge/pass = 12 blocks

Scouting for sniper positions (per mountain pass) = 2 blocks

Moving to a pass or from one area to another = 2 blocks

Build entrenchments or protected rifle/sniper pits per location = 10 blocks

Scouting/inflitrating the enemy camp, per attempt = 3 blocks

Etc.

That way, your party can plan their preparations (or suggest different actions themselves) within the time limit they face.

Wait for nightfall, snipe sentries, sneak into the enemy camp, send one man over to the horses coral to make sure the horses can get out once the fun starts. Then locate Blackpowder ammo storage, steal some to help booby trap the mountain passess and then blow up the ammo dump. Use the confusion to snipe at enemy soldiers while they run around, put out the fire and try to catch the horses that have bolted from their coral.