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"IMTIMLOLZERSDRAGONS"

WHAT

You need a new gag, in more ways than one.

Tim, you are a retard, and should feel bad.

:(

I don't even provide any criticism. Unless, you know, I actually know what I'm talking about.

I don't just say "I am Tim" and leave at that.

... you can express a sentiment or general feeling without being the guy that loudly announces his presence when he walks into a room.

EDIT: Full truth, you come you off as the kind of guy that you want to like, but you just make it very, very hard.

... Thanks?

Tim, one of these guys is an inanimate deer skull and the other is tied to a chair. Plus, the glass of your monitor provides adequate protection. You don't actually have to do anything they say.

But if I DO, will that make me more enjoyable as a person?

Oh, short answer "yes" with an "if." Long answer "no" with a "but"

I don't actually mind your posts, but I suppose I do sort of picture you as being very, very blonde, or possibly as an adorable Labrador puppy someone will occasionally set down on a keyboard for some reason.

Since you asked, I'm of the opinion your posts would be better if they had more content or were about more often about writery things. (Then again I feel that way about most of the Lounge population so eh.)

But whatever you took to get yourself in this mental state, feel free to take more.

 

... Hm. Okay. I guess I'll try not being myself so much.

As for that... thing that happened, I think I'm just really good at worldbuilding.

 

Actually, it's almost Christmas and I need to finish something I've been working on.

Would a large group of bandits be a horde or an army?

By all means be you. Just don't make posts where the content consists of, "My name is Tim, good-day."

Possibly neither?

Armies tend to be organized military units with a distinct hierarchy and leadership tiers. Hordes tend to be general masses of warriors with less structure.

You probably have a band (e.g. a coalition) of bandits lead by a generally charismatic or ruthless figure.

I don't indiscriminately say "I am Tim" left and right. I save it for certain situations.

 

I am talking at least ten thousand bandits.

Horde, multitude, swarm, throng, legion. Though legion sounds a bit too organized for bandits.

That's... a lot of bandits.

Quick logistics and scale lesson. Writers are notorious for lacking a sense of scale. I'M LOOKING AT YOU G.R.R.M.

Anyway, a band of 10,000 bandits is likely implausible in your world, unless you're dealing with a planet that can sustain a greater number of people per square mile than our medieval Earth could.

Most European armies topped out around 20,000 strong in the middle ages. Much bigger than that, and you're talking about a colossal army. It takes a considerable number of resources and manpower to feed, supply, and support an army of that size. Bandits would have greater difficulty doing all of these things since they'd have to operate on at least some level of secrecy. And the amount of resources any semi-organized grouping of men and women would consume is quite large. Attrition has won and lost many wars.

Now, some east Asian armies got larger, but they were more along the lines of hordes than proper armies and essentially picked their way clean.

When you think bandit, think more along the lines of a Viking raiding party. They're skirmish fighters, in and out, plunder and set sail. These are not troops equipped or even interested in engaging in full-scale combat. If the group of soldiers in your work is interested in full-scale warfare instead of plundering and looting, there's likely a better term for them than bandits.

History has shown that large masses of lightly armored infantry will get massacred by a smaller organized body of heavy foot or really any manner of cavalry. But that's why bandits and looters play the raiding game, so they never have to fight large organized battles.

Yes, large number armies and cities sound interesting on paper, but realistically, they're often ridiculously silly and impossible to achieve or sustain. This lack of realism will drag down your writing, as once a reader comes to this realization, the sacred trust is broken.

Still, armies, hordes, and bands are more based on structure than size.

^^^ Bucky, fuck off. Stop copying me. :[

 

They're not really bandits at that point, they're a horde of raiders or something. Suppose you could call it an army if they've got a structured leadership.

Keep in mind it'd be very, very difficult for a group that size to keep themselves supplied (I can't recall the exact number right now but there's actually a hard limit to the number of troops on the move it was realistic to support IRL, before railroads became a thing. I know it was quite a bit more than 10,000, but that was with an organized chain of supply wagons feeding disciplined armies) so realistically your raiders will need to be constantly stripping the countryside bare and sacking villages as they go, or settled in somewhere with the kind of infrastructure that supports an actual town. 

Well, ten thousand is just an estimate. I mean, they've been gathering for a few months as well.

How many bandits do you think would pose a challenge for a well armed large group of about 1,000 in a fort?

5,000 bandits?

I guess it would depend on their supplies and weapons. I'd like to say 1,500 - 2,000 bandits.

5 bandits.

Again, if we're talking wily outlaws who've been living on the run, and not an actual army, a small group infiltrating and doing sneaky underhanded things might be more fun to read about, and more practical. It only takes one guy to poison the beer, or open some gates and let all his buddies in, for instance.

Laying siege to a fort is a whole nother matter (and one I'd recommend you do a little independent reading on because there'd be a lot of different factors in play--such as the siege being broken by another army marching in to help the ones in the fort, for one, and again the issue of keeping everyone supplied and happy/intimidated enough to prevent desertion for however many weeks or months) but I'd be willing to bet 1000 armed and trained soldiers could rout a disorganized mob five times their size.

And at some point during those months I'm sure the soldiers would at least notice 5000 bandits moving into the neighborhood.

Oh, and relavent, from Bucky's post above:

History has shown that large masses of lightly armored infantry will get massacred by a smaller organized body of heavy foot or really any manner of cavalry. But that's why bandits and looters play the raiding game, so they never have to fight large organized battles.

Fuck it, just make it one ninja to wipe out the entire fort.

That sounds like it would be fun to write.

But I already did a lot of bandit siege foreshadowing!

Fuck it.

~Three thousand bandits with siege weapons and mounted beasts.

I read that as mounted breasts and thought you were finally doing something right with your story idea.

They all die of dysentery.

There's a bunch of reasons why an army of 20 thousand is not twice as effective as an army of 10 thousand. And the main one, especially in a defensive situation, is that there's only so much space for them to fit, so much room for them to maneuver, so much for them to actually do which wouldn't hinder more then help.

Visual cue, the Battle of Bastards in the latest Game of Thrones season. There were some skirmishes, some maneuvers, and they all required room to move. Even the idiotic lone charge by Snow required room, if he'd have been cheek to jowl in the mess he could barely have started to walk out of sync, let alone run.

Picture a warehouse, with a large roller door. Sure, you could have 10 people walk through it holding hands, side by side. Now throw some pallets in the middle so it's not level, stacks of wood to make the doorway smaller, have a fire alarm going off, with smoke from the fire. Situation like that, not unlike a pitched battle, you'd be lucky to get 3 people through at the same time, and they'd certainly not be a problem for a small group of defenders to pick off with spears.

Back to GoT, remember when a large fraction of the Northerner force is trapped in the middle of a circle of shields? And how the character routinely acknowledged as the best swordsmen around, highly trained in personal combat, a very important and noticeable character, nearly dies smothered by corpses, without a single blade touching him? When 3000 of your troops are Joe Muggins, recently retired from dung farmer, he's not going to fare well either, when push comes to shove.

5000? 5000 bandits (defining bandits as "lightly armed, lightly armoured, lightly trained, lightly cohesive raiders who want easy loot, not to attack a solid defense) would be eviscerated. 1000 defenders could sally forth, and annihilate them. Rome Total War is a good demonstration of this, Roman heavy infantry vs gaellic light infantry, even a 5:1 ratio on open plains easily results in a Roman victory. Add in confusion, boredom, sitting outside the castle walls starving for a few weeks (unless they routinely carry around a month of food for each person, they'll be on bark rations quickly. And, go to the fridge and pull out what you'd like to eat for a month. And a fridge to keep it fresh in. And a generator). Increase the numbers, just makes it messier for the attacker. 50 thousand versus 1 thousand? Yeah, if they throw 30 thousand away on constant attacks. You ever signed up for a job where to get a paycheque, you had a 60% chance of dying in a field?

Not least, the biggest problem, is the biggest problem. A force of 5000, isn't a bandit force, it's not raiders, or reavers, or nothing. It's an army. And when an army of 5000 comes knocking, they don't move fast, and they telegraph where they are going. And then, the defenders friends with 15000 meets them at a bridge.

In short, you *might* get away with being a bandit company of 100. Provided you keep in mountainous areas, or forest, anywhere where it'd be too much of a pain to send in the troops, and no idea if they'd get you. After all, the best defence in this situation, is to not be where the enemy army is - they kinda take an axe to problems like bandits. And bandits want to have a good chance of good treasure, good drink, some excitement, and to live to do it again tomorrow. If they don't know and respect (or fear) their leader, and think there's a good chance he's watching at any given moment for deserters, then why would they stick around?

God damn, my descriptive skill sucks.

I'm not talking about run-of-the-mill super weak evil mercenary bandits. I'm talking about bandits like the Forsworn from Skyrim, who may not be as well armed or armored as mercenaries, but usually rely on magic, nature, and ferocity to kill people. Like beastmasters, or shamans, or just plain barbarians. They're basically born into the trade, like a tribe of sorts.

I did not take actual facts into account.

This is a lot harder than expected.

 

Edit:

... I just can't do this now, because it sounds boring as shit.

They've still got to live in the world. 5000, is a huge number of people. That's, crowds in large stadiums of people, type numbers. When they come within weeks of places, they're going to be known, from travellers, from neighbours, from bunches of news sources. If they can keep themselves hidden, or cloaked, then they might as well knock over the chessboard, because an army that can appear on a doorstop of an unwitting castle? Is enough to form an empire in the length of time it takes them to march to enough towns to plant a flag.

Making them more powerful (and yes, mercenaries is a better description then bandits in this case), makes some things worse. Suddenly, you've got to keep together large numbers of people who could at will, disappear from the camp and carve out a nice chunk of land themselves. You might keep a hundred or so together, by dint of personality, by relations, by curiousity, by something shared. More then that, and you'll have three people get together, decide they could do it better, and knock the head off the army and run it themselves. And this would happen several times a week, until you did have a manageable number.

Big numbers are wonderful things. But they come with responsibility. If you want to say  they have an army of 5 thousand, say they have an army of 5 thousand. But they need a good reason to be together, and that's a challenge for the writer to overcome, not a valid reason to throw up hands, shout TOO HARD and go back to tanks.

I can barely sustain 5 cannibals in a game like rimworld let alone 5000 bandits.

5 pink cannibals, malnutritioning

Step by step it is increasing.

One thought up such a wonderful stunt

And he called up another cannibal.

 

4 pink cannibals, malnutritioning....

 

Just make it 5 Necromancers with 5000 undead bandits.

The dead don't require shit save for the Necromancers staying alive.

What if the undead bandits make a union and demand some affordable healthcare incase of lost limbs along with a good retirement plan in a fancy tomb.

They shouldn't be intelligent enough to do anything except what the necromancers are telling them what to do. Presumably these are just mindless skeletons and zombies we're talking about about.

When you have necromancy, every problems looks like a future corpse waiting to be raised. Re-raised, in this case.

This brings me to a question: can Necromancers raise their undead when the undead die? (For a second time)

Sure, unless the corpse has just been rendered completely unusable.

Don't give up on an idea if you like it, you may just have to get more creative if you want it to be believable. (or saying screw it and doing what you think is cool regardless is also always a possibility. I mean, I find it annoying, but implausibly large armies sustained on pure evil are a staple of the fantasy genre.)

Is this straight up and army, or is more of a nomadic society with people in non-combat roles supporting them?  Maybe some of the beastmasters are in charge of goats. Goats are tasty and provide milk and can graze just about anywhere. Magic opens up a lot of possibilities as well, though I'd recommend not overusing it.

This is a fun thread. This is exactly the kind of details I like to get into in depth for a setting. 'But what do the eat?' remains the eternal question that separates the well thought out settings from the fluff.

I've decided to cut out the part about numbers, I'm just going to say it's a LOT of bandits.