Magic-enhanced armies in literature

[gerryq]

From the #919 thread:



I find it to be pretty interesting to think about how the existence of magic/high level characters would impact warfare in a fantasy world. The way that a typical D&D setting is constructed, it seems to me that a well-prepared army would have a combination of large numbers, soldiers trained and equipped to deal with a variety of enemy classes, and officers with a variety of classes, including casters. Alchemical "weapons" like tanglefoot bags and thunderstones can really put a crimp in a high-level character's ability to wreak havoc, and I'd expect specialists a level or two higher than the rank-and-file to be distributed through the ranks, ready to use them when needed. A well-trained army would be able to shift formations quickly and efficiently, moving from tight ranks to loose ranks and back depending on what sort of threat is currently the most immediate. Lower-level caster officers might be issued scrolls to help deal with uncommon, but highly threatening, situations, such as flying invisible evokers (Glitterdust, Dispel Magic). Armies would likely have standard lists of spells that all casters would be expected to prepare if capable, and good intel on how your enemies are preparing would be invaluable.

It IS a bit off topic, but it's something that rarely seems to be tackled in literature.

I was wondering what examples people can provide of literature with interesting and credible military tactics in a DnD or other magically enhanced environment?

Jack Vance's _The Miracle Workers_ is one (armies have lots of mooks who are boosted by psionic mages into aspects of a demon - they die after). But mostly even when Vance describes battles, he doesn't have much magic in them. In _Lyonesse_ for example, the wizards are basically forbidden to interfere with warfare, although there is some minor cheating going on.

Anyway, can people provide other examples? (Preferably of stuff that's also worth reading for its own sake!)

[Trillium]

Harry Potta and dem Deathly Hallows =P

(although the wizards actually got pwned by non-caster centaur mooks in the end)

[Topus]

If I remember correctly there was magic during the battles in the Videssos cycle, by Harry Turtledove, but it was treated as an obscure art and not as a common issue. Ok the settings is all but D&D fantasy, i know :P

[Diadem]

Wheel of Time is probably the most extensive example in modern literature.

Magic is pretty rare in the world, most people probably go their entire live without meeting one. Of course the series itself contains a lot more magic, because it's in large part about magic users.

The series starts out with magic pretty limited. Male magic users do not exist (any male using magic is cursed to go insane and die), female wizards (called Aes Sedai) take an oath not to use their power to forge weapons, or to use their power as a weapon, except in self defence, or against darkspawn.

Most Aes Sedai are actually pretty limited in their abilities, and seem to use fireballs and lightning, as well as healing, in combat. Later in the series more powerful Aes Sedai figure out some more effective tactics. And later in the series women not bound by these oaths, and male wizards, are introduced, and they are a lot more effective in combat as well.

Some magic in combat varies from "not at all" to pretty limited effects (a single caster in an army of thousands doesn't have much influence) to pretty dominating. At one point the main character is captured by a group of hostile Aes Sedai. Several dozen highly trained ones, with a few thousand soldiers. They are then attacked by a third group, who have an army of about 200,000 with a few hundred casters, but far less experienced ones. The army is still winning though, by sheer numbers.

Then a large group of male casters (whose entire training is basically combat, combat, combat) allied to the main character come to the rescue. They teleport in, overwhelm the losing side in seconds, then form an energy barrier around the entire camp site. Then they form a ring of fire and explosions around the barrier, and start expanding it outward. It's only a few seconds of that before the entire army of 200,00 highly trained veterans starts running in a blind panic.

The series strikes an interesting balance. Most casters are pretty vulnerable (there's not much they can do against arrows), and incapable of turning the tides of large battles on their own. But more powerful casters, especially in larger groups, or carrying artifacts, can definitely turn the tide of a battle.

The series is set against a background of a cataclysmic war thousands of years ago that destroyed civilization, and nearly destroyed all of humanity. The art of using magic to make weapons has pretty much entirely been lost, but legend speaks of weapons like 'shock lances' that are basically magical laser cannons that can be used by anyone, so that in that time even mooks were extremely powerful. There's a reason they came pretty close to undoing reality itself in that war.

[Amphiox]

The Fables comic series has several depictions, though the details are usually not provided. But things like combat sorcerers and dragon-based airforces are shown.

[MasterGhandalf]

Jim Butcher's Codex Alera books have some very strong examples against. The main civilization has a pseudo-Roman military structure (the backstory actually explains that they're the distant descendants of a Roman legion that got sucked into another world), and all humans in this setting have access to at least one "fury" (elemental spirit) that they can use to perform magic (the most powerful Citizens can access many furies). Tavi, the main character, spends most of the series from book 3 on in a position of military leadership, and he's extremely clever, so the reader is often treated to his creative uses of tactics in coordination with his soldiers' magical abilities to great effect.

The primary enemies of the Aleran civilization are the Canim, 7-8 foot wolfmen who also more than know their way around the battlefield. Most Canim can't do magic (though being, again, 7-8 foot wolfmen who are each as strong as several humans, they don't really need it), but the Canim ritualists are a specialized caste of priests and sorcerers who perform creepy ritual blood magic. It's a bit more unwieldy and more elaborate to invoke than Aleran furycrafting, but the Canim make excellent use of it on the battlefield as well. Other civilizations include the Marat (think "barbarian wood elves" and you'll come fairly close), Icemen (essentially yetis, though they're sadly underused in the series), and Vord (who bear a more than passing resemblance to StarCraft's zerg), all of whom have and make use of their own variation of magical power when going to war.

[snowblizz]

Re: Wheel of Time, it should also be pointed out that magic users can cancel each other out. If both sides have roughly equal power in that department then they won't have as much an effect, in effect counter-spelling each other. In Diadem's example that's how the outnumbered Aes Sedai hold their positions for some time. If one side has access to magic in battle, and there's examples from outside the main story area (Seanchan), then the battle can be horribly one sided unless you have a good strategy for dealing with it.

Steven Erikson's ‎Malazan Book of the Fallen series also have plenty of battle magic (I seem to recall battle mage cadres at one point or something like it), and again having what your opponent doesn't is a nice bonus.

Both examples also run on premises where the amount of magic each person can use is in the end limited so eventually in a large battle and over time magic suers "ran out". And that's often when they start running into problems.

[F.Harr]

Huh. If I'm not wrong, most stories with magic are about the individual overcoming great odds. Not making those odds greater. That's really interesting.

I think some of the old Arthur stories and at least a few Chinese old legends have their wizards creating strategically-important mists and things. But that's a great observation.

And yes, I understand about Fables etc., but I rather think that this has only been going on in the last few decades or so.

[happycrow]

The Black Company and following books, by Glen Cook.

[NerdyKris]

The Elder Scrolls series has battle mages sprinkled amongst the rank and file. Many of the books in the game describe armies being supported by magic. For some reason, this never really occurs in the last two games, which depict large battles, despite being in the established lore.

Dragon Age also has mages fighting in battles, although the lore of the series means they're dangerous and can easily lose control on a battle field and become an abomination.

[Jay R]

Saruman expected to defeat the hitherto impregnable fortress of Helm's Deep By breaking through the walls with his sorcery. It almost worked, until Gandalf managed to find Erkenbrand and his forces, and the Huorns finally defeated the orcs.

Sauron successfully demoralized the armies of Ithilien and Osgiliath with the power of the Nazgul. He attempted to do the same thing at Pelennor Fields, but Gandalf was able to counter their effects of people's minds, and Eowyn was able to fulfill the prophecy about the Witch-King, and thus defeat the Lord of the Nazguls.

Sauron held an army of cantankerous orcs together by his own magical powers, but during the battle at the Black Gates, the Ring was destroyed, breaking Sauron's control over his army.

[King of Nowhere]

The aforementioned wheel of time is even more extensive, as in the last book, which is all about the last battle between the forces of humankind andd the dark lord, the humans have enough magic users to use them creatively and not just for fireballing.
The main use is logistics: teleporting troops, supplies, scouts and messages. that way they kept highly mobile armies with very little camp followers and their support camps were safely away from the battle (conveniently, shadowspawn cannot teleport). Instant communications and fast exploration are also very important.
The second main use was healing. In was, you get three wounded for every dead. without advanced medicine, most of those wounded are doomed to die by infection, or will remain crippled or disabled. magical healing ensures all three of them will likely return on the battlefield in a matter of days.
when used in battlefield, their job was to break formations. there's an awesome scene where a gateway hundreds of meters large is made for the chivalry to charge. the enemy set pikes, which would make charging a suicide, but channelers break the line of pikes, allowing the horses to crash through the formation practically unmolested.
There were also some more exotical uses made on occasions, especcially by androl's creative use of gateways like the time he opened a gateway in the core of a volcano to spray molten rock on the enemy army

the use of channelers in battle was, however, restricted to countering other channelers. while one channeler could do little to turn the tide of a battle and could be overwhelmed and killed by regular troops, an organized team of channelers could wipe out armies, and teleport away once they were starting to get tired. the only way to defend from them was with other channelers.

I think that is quite ssimilar to how it would work in D&D, as the power of a trained channeler is comparable to that of a high level D&D adventurer.


Another work that explores the effect of magic on armies is the sixth book of the sword of truth. although I don't like much the series, as the magic don't have clear rules on what it can and cannot do, and so it feels like a huge deus ex machina that arbitrarily does whatever the plot requires. The first wizard says that in magical warfare the efforts of both sides tend to cancel each other out, with brief moments of despair when the enemy concocted a new superweapon and you are about to be destroied by it and haven't yet found out how to counter it.


the mistborn world do not have much for magical warfare, because magic users are so rare, but it shows adaptation of the mooks to fight magic users. For example, since the magic of that world allow to push or pull on metals, archers keep some stone-tipped arrows, armors are designed to be quickly removable, and some troops are equipped with wooden canes instead of swords. "hazekillers" in particular are trained to fight "allomancers", they carry no metal and are armed with a wooden cane and big wooden shields to protect from thrown metal projectiles. they are reasonably effective against everyone, except the main hero of the series.
the fourth book, with an industrial technology, shows even more adaptation.
However, the magic of mistborn is very specific in what it can and cannot do, so it cannot be confronted to D&D.

In warbreaker we see armies of lifeless (sort of technological zombies), but aside from using those instead of regular humans, there wasn't much influence of magic on warfare.

[Nilan8888]

Actually for some reason the fiction I've tended to run across has magic-aided armies getting tripped up by TECHNOLOGY:

Back in the day I read Wies and Hickman's first foray out of the DragonLance matrix with the "Darksword" trilogy, which was quite a lot of fun. In that series army battles were very regimented with tight rules of war on a set battlefield with civilian spectators... imagine First Manassas but as a set tradition... and there'd be spells and counter-spells with generals moving around their air mages and fire mages of all the active 7 or so schools (there's 9 in total but 2 got shut down... or was it 3? The Necormancy school was gone, as was the... time school? I forget now).

Anyway, this gets blown to crud when suddenly tanks and modern infantry crash the party with tech that's still a bit beyond what we have. Lasers and the like. They lack finesse, but they murder en masse.


This wound up being similar in feel to the Amber Chronicles, by Roger Zelazny, which I read much later but were written a good 10-15 years prior. Here you have two seperate battles in book 1 and 2. The armies being gathered and trained "in shadow" pulled from a myriad of alternate realities and trained in a seperate reality from each, and then transported to amber to lay seige. But since gunpowder doesn't work, they're all these sword and sorcery types.

In the second book, the main character figures how to get gunpowder working. So instead of raising a massive army with his brother like before (against his OTHER brother), he trains just a couple hundred or so guys, fits them with automatic weapons, and storms the countryside like a modern military takedown (only to find there's already a much bigger battle going on).

[Giscard76]

Tigana by Guy Gavrial Kay has a battle were were both armies are supported by magic. the effect is subtle one might say the wizards are loading the dice for their side then spectacular fireball effects.

Also the Black company books by Glen Cook have armies suported by more D&D style wizards.

[Benthesquid]

Harry Turtledove's Darkness series is World War Two in a fantasy world, with magic taking the place of technology.

[Coat]

Arguably, the most powerful DnD spell at army level is this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mending.htm).

When the boots wear out, when the wheels of the carts carrying the food break, armies stop moving.

Stuff that changes the logistics equation is incredibly powerful. That said, wormholes you can punt an army through are pretty powerful as well - but when it comes to being able to put 1000 troops in the right place instantly, or 100,000 troops in the right place in time, I'd choose the latter*.

There's some very nice applications of magic to 18th C warfare in Strange and Norrell (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jonathan-Strange-Norrell-Susanna-Clarke/dp/0747579881). Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but I loved it.


* On the other hand, putting 1000 picked troops inside someone else's HQ, supply depot... yeah.

[Nilan8888]

Arguably, the most powerful DnD spell at army level is this.

When the boots wear out, when the wheels of the carts carrying the food break, armies stop moving.

That's actually a brilliant observation. Rommel would be proud.

[King of Nowhere]

Arguably, the most powerful DnD spell at army level is this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mending.htm).

When the boots wear out, when the wheels of the carts carrying the food break, armies stop moving.

Stuff that changes the logistics equation is incredibly powerful.

Yes. as was said: support, logistic, movement, communication, scouting.

there's a character from the wheel of time saying that channelers are so useful in all those tasks that "if he could have his way, he would never waste their strength on the battle front"

[Lord Torath]

In The Blue sword, magic can cause firearms not to fire, and cavalry charges to fall down instead of charging, or blow dust into the eyes of all the soldiers at the same time. When both sides have magic, though, it becomes much like in The Sword of Truth books, where you can't tell that the wizards are doing anything, because they're busy neutralizing each other.

In the Sparhawk books by David Eddings, the Church Knights are supposed to be able to use magic. There're not a lot of tactical descriptions of the use of magic on the battlefield, just mentions of the sky raining fire, the earth opening up under enemy formations, and companies and squads just disappearing.

In the 2nd trilogy: The Troll Gods can effectively teleport their army, and the Younger Gods of Styricum do the same thing to for the Church Knights

[Onyavar]

In the Midkemia saga written by Raymond Feist, the character Nakor arguments against battle magic. It goes something like this:

One mage casts a spell. A second mage weaves a counterspell. The third mage tries to help the first. The fourth mage channels his energy to aid the second...
In comes the army and lops all their heads off.
This is the reason, that while magic is wide-spread in the Midkemia universe, battles are fought by soldiers. Dark and corrupted mages happen a lot, but they are secret leaders who mostly follow their own sinister objectives far from the army. The "neutral" or the "good" mages of both sides tend to rather sit together in an ivory tower not able to imagine why their corresponding rulers are waging war - if they are not corrupted, mages in this universe tend to be scientists or enlightened, or both.


Different series: Recluce from L.E. Modesitt features mages who are very rare - but magic also works totally different than in D&D.
Actually, the mages in this universe are loners, who have to cope with their abilities, trying to find themselves a spot to live. However, having a powerful mage on their side improves the chance of any army, so most mages in the Recluce novels are forced into military services - usually against their wishes. The heroes need to succeed against overwhelming odds, including enemy wizards who are ALSO just forced by their own circumstances and whose characters are never really explored.
Victory mostly comes from "creative" use of the heroes magic (logistic, weapon forging, information gathering, secret battle-magic lore discovered in long overnight studies, and shielding their own power so that they are underestimated). And they need to know their own troops, too.
In the Recluce universe, magic wars are not only gritty, but really, really hard on the magician.

[Orm-Embar]

The Black Company and following books, by Glen Cook.


Also the Black company books by Glen Cook have armies suported by more D&D style wizards.

I found Glen Cook's use of magic in military operations quite interesting.

Even lower-level wizards like Silent, Goblin, One-Eye and his brother Tom-Tom (RIP) made a big tactical difference for the Black Company both on the battlefield and more importantly, before they ever reached the battlefield, due to clever use of their admittedly limited talents. Illusions to confuse, intimidate and send enemies off on fruitless chases. Intelligence-gathering, including picking out enemies in hiding. Sleep spells, charms, control of low-level creatures like a swarm of insects. None of this was earthshakingly powerful, but deployed properly they made a relatively small force a lot more effective than it otherwise would have been.

However, the Black Company's leadership also clearly understood that their wizards' effectiveness depended in part on understanding their limitations. They tried to keep a low profile (or at least that was the policy) so that the enemy wouldn't take countermeasures and make the wizards targets.

At the higher levels, wizards in Cook's world tend to cancel each other out. The Black Company's wizards rarely attracted equivalent-level opposition at the company-sized 100-man-or-so operation. The big armies, however, were mostly commanded by sorceror-generals; the Ten Who Were Taken on the Lady's side, and the Rebel Circle, were all in charge of military operations. They laid out some devastating magic against each other. Being a mighty wizard doesn't necessarily make someone a great general though (looking at you, Limper).

For example, in preparation for the battle of the Stair of Tear, one or more of the Ten heated the canyon walls to lava, then dumped a rainstorm into it - dramatic, horrifying, and the enemy soldiers climbing to the attack were of course killed, but it didn't affect the battle's outcome (the Ten lost and had to retreat) because the Rebel wizards were the better generals and they sent their main force to outflank the position. The final battle at Charm turned into a meatgrinder as the wizards neutralized each other, so building siege engines and making sure there was a sufficient supply of arrows turned out to be more important than wizards' infighting which mostly affected other wizards.

At the end of the day, the issues were still being decided by the soldiers on the front lines.

[veti]

The Elder Scrolls series has battle mages sprinkled amongst the rank and file. Many of the books in the game describe armies being supported by magic. For some reason, this never really occurs in the last two games, which depict large battles, despite being in the established lore.

That's true, and particularly odd because in Skyrim everyone knows at least one spell, and every troop of 3 or more random bandits invariably has at least one battlemage. So you'd think the proportion should be quite high.

However, it may be accounted for because magic simply isn't that strong in those games. Big mass-damage spells are pretty weak, protections are limited, and even summonings are too short-lasting to have much effect on a large-scale battle. Basically, it's easier just to hit things. In Oblivion, the only mass battle I can think of is man/mer (all fighters) against daedra (battlemages), and it's far from a walkover for the casters.

In Morrowind magic is stronger (with Levitation, and Chameleon, and daedric weapons are insanely powerful), but also more limited (doesn't regenerate without resting).

[Hamiltonz]

Robert Don Hughes the author of Pelman the Powershaper series had armies and magic in the same universe. He also had a two headed dragon before it became popular (I believe he was the first).

Magic was innate to all things and the Powershapers were people that discovered their innate creative ability.

Armies could be shielded from detection as they marched, but only from magic detection. If you were standing on the side of the road as they passed by, you would see a normal army. Rarely did magic ever play a part in armies battling each other. Also, I don't believe anyone ever imagined a way to teleport so it seems to be a world that has to walk everywhere. In war shapers neutralized each other and the army fought as normal. When shapers fought it was usually in their 'power animal' form, not with spells.

There is a character named Dark that has perfect precognition. It's interesting how he reacts to finding the love of his life (no spoilers).

It has a unique system of magic. It's worth reading the books just for the different way in which magic works.

[Obscure Blade]

As far as logistics goes, in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books the Eastern Empire made heavy use of magical Gates to move troops and supplies. Magic and psychic abilities are also heavily used in war, often in ways more sophisticated than "Fireball!". For example, the Queen of Valdemar has limited precognition that lets her know the exact perfect moment to use a battle plan. Before one battle Animal Mindspeakers undermined a battlefield by controlling moles and the like. And Ancar of Hardorn used mass blood sacrifice to power spells that created entire armies of mind controlled soldiers out of ordinary people.

In L.E. Modesitt's Spellsong Cycle, sorcerers & sorceresses are so powerful that troops are there more for bodyguards than anything else. Significant areas of the world in fact have suffered long lasting, catastrophic damage from wars of sorcery (including one area where an army was turned to stone that is highly radioactive, although no one knows what radiation is). Massive damage occurs in the series itself, with destroyed cities and an group of islands nearly destroyed by sorcery induced volcanism. And that was without anyone using the fusion-bomb spell that Lady Anna invented...

In Rick Cook's Wiz Zumwalt series, magic's used heavily in war. For example, they have flying dragon cavalry that used magical arrows that cause instant death to what they hit. In one book a pocket universe is created where magic and technology both work (but not as well), so you have crazy stuff like magically controlled jet fighter drones fighting dragons who are armed with air to air missiles.

[SinsI]

"Dragon" book from Steven Brust's "Vlad Taltos" cycle features combat between very D&D-like armies (i.e. they have Resurrect spells, so to kill permanently you need either to destroy the brain - or to use special soul-devouring weapon).
Due to battle magic development, they have passed through numerous phases where mass destruction was stronger, but defense eventually outstripped offense.
They also heavily experimented with magic weapons (like wands) for common soldiers - until some sorcerer created a spell that blew them all up in their faces.

At the moment almost every soldier knows some form of magic attack - and magic defense, so it is mostly a stalemate (but concentration needed to defend against magic hinders ability to defend against pointy sticks flying at them).

Except when fighting against humans, who are helpless against sorcery.

[endiku]

The Warlock series by Christopher Stasheff has some interesting ideas about using a small cadre of high value adepts to significantly improve the basic medieval army's capabilities...

There's a bunch of books in the series. I'm sorry but I don't remember which featured the large scale war fighting...

[Orm-Embar]

"Dragon" book from Steven Brust's "Vlad Taltos" cycle

Good book. Amusingly enough, the footsoldiers (all of them capable of spellcasting in their own right) spend a lot of the campaign slogging through mud and dust. Some of the best wizards in the Empire are engaged but apparently they are spending their efforts on foiling the wizards on the other side. No teleports allowed, let alone simple weather control spells.

[TheFool]

Juliet McKenna's Lescari Revolution series had an interesting take on magic used in warfare. In the setting there's a pretty much a universal ban on magic for warfare, that's enforced by an archmage and his network of enforcers.

However, the revolutionaries in the book seize on a recently discovered supernatural power that's explicitly NOT magic (magic users can't use it), which constitutes telepathy and psychic-like powers. They use the power to communicate across long distances, coercively extract information from people, alleviate the pain and create illusions.

Both sides in the war also employ illegal mages, whose tactics range from scry-and-fry to teleportation of leaders to a strategically placed fireball. These tactics work well because no one is expecting them.

As others said -- communication, scouting, assassination with a touch of surgical strikes.

[also, just registered to post to this topic!]

[Driderman]

Steven Erikson's "Malazan Book of the Fallen" series has some of it's books revolve around the "Bridgeburners", a gritty commando-type squad in a high-level-magic army in an epic-level-magic setting. The legions of the "evil empire" (which may actually be the good guys, or so I remember it at least) have spellcasters specifically trained in war magics and most squads have one or more spellcasters assigned to it.

[Torrasque]

Malazan Book of the Fallen is the best fantasy series if you want to focus on the soldier/army life. It has a really enthralling and realistic view of the life of the soldiers in an army in a fantasy setting (with magic and heroes and gods and what have you). It is also a superb fantasy series overall, and my personal favorite :)
I heartily recommend it.

[Zombimode]

Arguably, the most powerful DnD spell at army level is this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mending.htm).

When the boots wear out, when the wheels of the carts carrying the food break, armies stop moving.

Probably not economic. Consider this: Wizards don't get that many spellslots per day. Sure, for adventuring its fine, but for supporting an with mending spells, it's a pitiful amount.
A 1st level Transmuter who dedicates his entire spells for the day to mending could fix 6 boots per day. Yeah, his magic will not have an impact on the logistics at large.

Much depends on the education and training of wizards. Can anyone pick up a spellbook and become a 1st level wizard withing a week? Sure, then you can run your army logistics with magic. But it begs the question why the army is composed of warriors, then.

Either magic is a luxury resource (you use mendig to fix the general's boots). In this case you still need mundane logistics to run the army. Or magic is so easy to come by, wars wouldn't be fought with traditional armies in the first place.

[Vinyadan]

It is somewhat hard to tell what is magic and what is not in Tolkien's work, but:


Lorien was a magically empowered fortress, which could not be overcome until Sauron would get there, because of Galadriel and her Ring of Power.
The One Ring would make the single commander much more powerful, and make people bend to his will. I suppose it's quite a morale boost for an army.
Gondolin was destroyed by Balrogs and metal-made dragons. Some have seen in these dragons a reinterpretation of the first battle-tanks in WWI, but, unless Morgoth's engineering was absurdly developed, it is thinkable that they were magic-powered.
As already said, it isn't easy to tell what is magic and what not. Are the Maiar's powers magic? In this case, a big part of the army who fought in the War of Wrath was magically empowered. The elves are quite magic, too, because of their glowing swords.


Anyway, magic in Tolkien is hard to track - I think it's what makes his books fascinating. And even Galadriel noticed that definitions of magic are very different.

[cabbagesquirrel]

In Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel. Both are Magicians around the Napoleonic Wars era. Strange tries to use magic to better help the English army, but not being a military strategist or general thinker of the morale of the troops or just general logistics, he screws it up a lot.

Without giving any of the plot away, people generally have spheres of knowledge, in this case, Strange is a pretty darn good Magic user, having devoted time to becoming so. That doesn't mean he's instantly good in a war type environment, nor know what to do to help an army.

[Coat]

I meant to mention Dancing Lights as well. Very powerful in a military context.

I think the Undead are under-represented as a military force in literature. Unless there are serious limits to them built into the magic system, they're pretty much game-breakingly powerful.

Most real-world armies - particularly in a medieval era - lose more soldiers travelling to the battle than during the battle itself. Undead don't starve, they don't get sick, they don't desert, and they can (depending on setting) march all day and all night without stopping. And they can travel much faster than a real army, because they don't need tents, and food, and cooks, and...

Battles that are fought to extinction are a rarity. Most battles end when one side routs or retreats. Undead don't check morale, and they don't retreat. And that's without considering the Fear factor - everyone who runs away you don't need to fight.

I used to play Undead in Warhammer Fantasy Battles for that reason alone - they're the most ethical army possible. I mean, just by choosing to field Undead you've chosen to halve casualties, and anyone who fails a fear check and runs is another life saved, right?

But if you're not coming from the shallow end of the alignment spectrum, there's the ability to recruit en-route. Typically, impressing the locals on the way to the battle doesn't work out well - necromancy seriously changes that equation.

So yeah. Undead=win, unless mechanics is introduced to prevent it.

[ikosaeder]

I wonder why nobody mentioned classic D&D novels, for they make extensive use of Magic in large battles.
Especially in the Forgotten Realms Books are a lot of things, for instance the drow army marching on Mithril Hall.

1. Divination
Intelligence is one of the most important part in warfare, (Know your enemy and know yourself and you don't have to fear the outcome of a thousand battles , SunTzu)

2. Transport
Better Movement (Teleport, Windwalk etc.) will give more tactic and strategic options.
Also supply chains are improved.

3. Concealment
In modern armies, camouflage and stealth technology is used where possible.
In a fantasy setting this is done by magical created fog/darkness or even invisibility and counter by magic light or true seeing.

4. Sniping
A caster can use spells to target enemies that are otherwise out of reach ( eg. enemy commander)

5. Counter common tactics
A single spell caster can severly disrupt the charge of cavalary with an earthquake.
He can neutralise a group of archers with a windwall.

These are just a few examples how spellcasters can empower a typical medieval type army.

[Everyl]

So yeah. Undead=win, unless mechanics is introduced to prevent it.

I think D&D already has mechanics to prevent it. There are limits on the number of undead a single caster can control at a time, so raising a large army of undead would call for a small army of level 5+ clerics. Also, if your enemy has corresponding numbers of clerics, they get to mess with your army using their own turn/rebuke undead efforts.

Undead do make for an interesting element in fantasy warfare, though. We usually think of human undead for the horror factor, but who says that only humanoids can be reanimated? Why isn't it common practice for the bones of slaughtered livestock to be reanimated as tireless draft animals that never need to be fed? Particularly for an army - not needing to pack food or water for the animals pulling your supply carts would be a major logistical advantage. And if you do have enough necromantically-inclined casters on hand to raise an undead army, using animals as raw materials makes more sense on many other levels, too. If nothing else, a human needs roughly 15 years to grow big enough to make a full-sized zombie or skeleton out of them while a bull only needs a year or two, and would still look pretty intimidating on the battlefield. And if you're making skeletons, you still get the leather and meat products.

Back on topic, IIRC the Deathgate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman has magic-influenced battles in the text and backstory. I'm pretty fuzzy on the details now, since I haven't read the series in nearly 15 years, but I seem to recall there being low-powered wizards who were fairly common and (literally) world-shatteringly powerful casters involved at various points in the series. Also, the necromancy in the series has an answer to the "why not use animals" question - even the lowliest zombies are made by re-binding the soul to the body as it attempts to depart. I don't think that's typical in D&D settings, though.

[Giscard76]

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever have lots of magic enhanced armies. Especially in the Illearth War we see magic used both as a battering ram (energy blasts and so forth) but also to heal, boost moral and if memory serves for recon.

there is a scene were one Wizard and a body guard basically hold up the enemy army for an hour (or something like that) in narrow space.

I agree with the observations about magic in Tolkien's battles it subtle and hard to pin down. Is the shift of the wind that happens just as the Rohirim arrive chance, divine favor or magic hard to say.

[pendell]

Another great advantage of magic is situational awareness and communication. While modern commanders have real-time battle maps, these don't necessarily show what is really happening, the so-called "ground truth". Those maps are updated due to situation reports and observations which may be confusing, misleading, or active misdirection.

A significant part of current military thought is the OODA loop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop). Orient-observe-decide-act. Military actions are taken in response to fluid changing battlefield conditions. Observations generate a picture of the battlespace, resulting in decisions , resulting in actions, which loops back around for more observations.

The winner in a battle is typically the guy who is inside the other guy's OODA loop. The person who can build an accurate picture of the battlefield , generate orders, and have his army carry them out in seconds has a really significant advantage over someone who takes minutes or hours to reach the same conclusion. It also means a general can command a much larger army over a much larger area. If meaningful command and control is that which must take place in an hour or less , a commander who has invested heavily in sending scrolls has a great advantage over someone who must rely on messengers. If the ford 30 miles away is unguarded, a commander using sending can be apprised and issue new orders in less than 3 minutes. If that message must be carried on horseback, you're looking at 3 hours before the first report even comes in, and another 3 hours for a reply to go back.

Thus an army commander using instantaneous communication can control armies across an entire continent in real time, while a nonmagical commander operates under the same restrictions Napolean did, "commanding" very little outside his own personal field of vision.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Coat]

Another great advantage of magic is situational awareness and communication.

Hence Dancing Lights (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0512.html). I love that strip.

For settings where Necromancers have some kind of direct sensory link with their shambling abominations, this is another big bonus for Undead. Low-level mages with Familiars could also be very helpful.

Applications of obscuring mist/fog/whatever are fun too. Particularly if you have troops that are not blinded by it.

When defending a choke point, obscuring mist to hide what you're doing, plus hidden Undead flank attacks to pin the enemy in place, plus Cloudkill is a whole load of fun.

EDIT: Love the Undead animals idea. May have to use that.

[Vinyadan]

the Fear factor - everyone who runs away you don't need to fight

That adds another Tolkien example: the Dead Men of Dunharrow, who make the Umbar Corsairs run away just by showing up.

[Benthesquid]

In Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell, magic is used in the Napoleonic Wars for just about every purpose except direct combat, (with one brief exception). Strange conjures up roads to bring the armies where they need to go, tangles up other roads and paths to deny the French free movement, scries to gather intelligence, rescues a captured intelligence officer by exchanging him with a dummy, creates illusionary ships to frighten the French from leaving their horror, sends eerie prophetic dreams warning Napoleon's allies to desert him, and at one point moves a city that Napoleon is about to attack to the Americas, giving the defenders time to rally.

[stsasser]

From the #919 thread:

Anyway, can people provide other examples? (Preferably of stuff that's also worth reading for its own sake!)

The Bible, particularly the Book of Joshua. The Iliad, with deities in the ranks alongside mortals. Or are you only referring to non-divine magic, so just wizards/sorcerers effects on environment and armies?

[Obscure Blade]

The rebels in Touched by the Gods by Lawrence Watt-Evans have an intelligent form of undead called nightwalkers as their main force; the humans are there in large part to guard them during the day, when they fall over senseless. There are also wizards who use sunlight-powered magic; they serve as fire support and message carriers in battles, among other things. The two are actually related; the Sun in the setting is kept alight by the power of the gods. Its divine emanations render the spirits that control the nightwalkers insensate, and the wizards tap into and store that divine power for their magic.

Also historically the gods have guided their Chosen People to victory, but the gods have stopped talking just recently (an important plot point). And (major spoilers):

The main villain is actually one of the gods, who at a crucial point arranges for the Sun to go out for several days so that the wizard's magic runs out, and the nightwalkers can march unstoppably to the capital city.

[M.A.D]

In The Inheritance Cycle, magicians are the minority. But armies do make use of them. Each division usually has a magician who cast a protection ward on them. They must design the spells themselves to cover any angles that an enemy caster could exploit. The context specifically mentioned that most magic battles between casters of the same level focuses on looking for any exploitable hole that a magician has overlooked, but since magic is cast using their own life once, it drains them quickly. Same reason why magicians cannot protect the soldiers from physical wounds or carry out mass healing, because that kind of spell is going to drain the life out of them.

[gerryq]

There's some very nice applications of magic to 18th C warfare in Strange and Norrell (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jonathan-Strange-Norrell-Susanna-Clarke/dp/0747579881). Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but I loved it.

Indeed, I had forgotten that book.

[Calimehter]

Its hard to believe that nobody has mentioned Warhammer Fantasy Battles and the various novels and battle reports that it has spawned. Its basically a fantasy world built around army-scale combat with magic involved.

Of course, the magic in that world is far harder to access in a reliable and everyday sort of fashion than it is in D&D, what with magic being tied to the fickle winds of magic and the various corrupting influences of the powers of Chaos.

[Nxd6+!?]

This isn't literature, but since people have been discussing TES, I figure games are fair ground too.

In Spiderweb Software's Geneforge series, almost all serious battles are conducted by troops composed entirely of magical constructs called creations. It's an unlucky human who has to be a soldier at all, because the majority of his foes will be monsters of various violent capacity.

Field spellcasters are very rare, because a spellcaster's real value in war is to create and buff the soldiers beforehand. Putting them on the field as a battlemage is one of the great follies of war in Geneforge, because they will almost certainly die.

Anyway. Carry on. - SH

[snikrept]

I thought that Dragon Age: Origins game had a pretty realistic take on what would happen if magic existed in the general populace alongside organized government. Namely, anyone with potentially dangerous magical talent gets corralled into a prison and used as state military assets, or becomes an outlaw with a sentence of death if caught.

Would not be as effective in a setting where anyone can learn to use magic by studying, though. Then you'd probably see aggressive classified-information-stomping campaigns by governments as well.