Aloria Story Progression The Disaster Of Altaqq

The Regalian war offensive in Farah’deen truly knew no stopping, as many independent army and navy movements occurred at the opening of the month June. The first to act was Percival Kade’s Nebenmark army which attacked the city of Diernali. Similarly to Ulric Typhonus’s last victory, Diernali had no army garrison, and as such surrendered very quickly to the invading army. There was barely even a battle and as such, none of the retinues met any fighting. The city’s inhabitants were mostly left in peace, the Emperor chose not to intervene about some sort of mass-slaughter as he felt the progression of the war was satisfactory enough not to resort to civil terrorism.

The next up to move was the Frontier Armada, now also reinforced with five Drache Family ships, which utterly crushed the Bou Gasagou Songaskian fleet which was left there in the wake of Count Nathaniel Bigge’s failure. The firepower of the Frontier Armada was simply too great for the Songaskians to even be able to do anything and most of the sailors and men on the Frontier Armada barely saw any combat. In total, the fleet’s firepower outranked that of the Songaskian fleet by almost seven times the factor. As such, even just the Nautknight were able to sink all Songaskian vessels in less than an hour, giving way for the Ostmark army to besiege the city of Bou Gasagou under the command of Vasily Ostrovski. The city of Bou Gasagou had no garrison inside of it though, and the fortifications were still destroyed by Bigge’s abortive attempt to shell the city, thus the city surrendered immediately.

The Logistic Minister shuffled some army troops, mostly switching out infantry regiments for more skilled cavalry and artillery regiments, but not much changed in the logistical field. A recent massive hike in Colonial Tariffs however, had proven to become extremely unpopular. The Finance Minister had hiked Colonial Tariffs up to 50% in New Ceardia particularly and only given token extra expenditure for the Colonial Guard. With too little law enforcement to keep the colonies in check, numerous colonies in practically every theatre experienced violence, with the riots being worst in New Ceardia. The Colonial Guard Command petitioned the government to triple their budget as they were unable to meet the security requirements, and raised the alarm that inaction and lack of assistance could lead to the total collapse of colonial authority.

In Regalia, numerous levies and mercenary groups shuffled their positions. The Drache levy was mobilized in Dragenthal to the number of 5,000 troops, joined by the Rosendahl levy of 1,000. Additionally, Peirgarten, Wodenstaff, Norrvakt, Typhonus, de Santigo and every single Mercenary Organization signed up to the Mercenary Charter signed up together under one Typhonus Banner, mobilizing to attack a fort east of Shaaq-Turnaal to deny the Songaskians the initiative for the counteroffensive, marching into the Songaskian desert without any form of intelligence or scouting. The dry spell of lacking battles in Farah’deen had yet to turn, and turn now it would, for before the Typhonus Mark was able to make it to the fort of Altaqq, it was faced with a much larger Songaskian force that had sallied forth from the Songaskian Capital to retake Shaaq-Turnaal at the same time. The Typhonus Mark counted 19,000 troops, which were staring down an almost twice as large 30,000 Songaskian force, a signal that the Songaskian Massya had finally mobilized the slave armies and moved them out against the invading Regalians. The Typhonus Army had no other option than to entrench as they had just started crossing the desert, and so the battle of Altaqq would commence.

The Typhonus positioned the army while Einarr Norrvakt and Jared Kade led columns in a desperate defense, but the Songaskian army was so overbearing that they literally blackened the desert sand. The battle itself was barely a battle, the envelopment was so large that the Typhonus Mark just collapsed within the hour and turned into a messy route. The casualties were as such, also massive. The Trollstigel Blackmarks lost their entire army in the front line, with only the commander escaping. Both the Nilroom Sellswords and the Ironwolf Legion lost up to eighty percent of their troops, while the Tiger’s Fang lost fifty percent.

Jared Kade was able to turn around some troops with the assistance of Einarr Norrvakt and numerous Wodenstaff Levy troops, turning the killing on the Songaskians, but elsewhere the levies simply evaporated. The Santigo levy lost half their levies, the Typhonus levy lost up to ninety percent, while both de Santigo and Peirgarten’s levies were halved. Finally by the time the Wodenstaff levy was able to retreat after having inflicted enough casualties to deny the Songaskians the means to chase, they also had lost a third of their army. The total casualty count for the Typhonus Mark was 9,300 troops, most were killed in the battle and some lost in the desert. As a silver lining, the Songaskians lost 15,500 troops, halving their army, but the Typhonus Mark did not halt their retreat until they ran into friendly forces in Massolagui. The remainder 14,500 Songaskian troops re-took Shaaq-Turnaal which was empty and abandoned, rebuilding some of the fortifications. This was referred to as yet another unnecessary defeat due to a lack of proper intelligence scouting and lack of preparation, in the same vein as the loss of Nathaniel Bigge. Unfortunately for the Military Leadership, Levy Mark movements are not part of the Military structure, and as such, no Court Martials could be levied against anyone.

On the bright side. The intelligence Minister successfully discovered that there are in fact no Rebel armies in Drixagh. And the intelligence Minister managed to siphon some money from the Songaskian Masaya.