"Despite the advances and development of new tactics and strategies, the battle line remained one of the oldest tactics in the books that were still in use even to this day and age.
It was a simple tactic, one where you simply line up your troops and clash against the enemy lines, and then hope that their lines break first before yours did. Morale, training, discipline, and equipment all played a role, while many supplementary tactics were often built around the idea itself.
Despite the modern variations, it remained the humble footsoldiers holding the lines with their lives that formed the core of most battles in this day and age." - Eldigan Schönberg, scholar of military history, circa 607 VA.
The first clash between the frontlines, where the waves of fanatical zealots threw their lives with reckless abandon against the dwarven shield wall, mostly went to the dwarves' favor. Where each of their strikes tend to cripple or kill, the weapons the zealots used often failed against their far thicker armor, barring a lucky strike.
Almost like a machine, the entire dwarven frontline fought with a steady rhythm. They braced their shields against their opponent's charge, waited a moment for them to stall, pushed them back, then swung the shields to the side in unison.
During that brief interval when the shields were turned aside, axes, spears, hammers, polearms, and other weapons struck out. The frontline struck with hand weapons, while the second line behind them struck with pole weapons in unison.
Then the dwarves planted their shields into the soil once more, and the cycle repeated.
Here and there, an unlucky dwarf was felled or injured by a lucky strike that found the gaps between their armor plating. Those behind them nonchalantly stepped forward to take their place, allowing those injured to retreat should they be able to do so.
The dwarven line held strong against the charge of the zealots, as they killed or injured five or more for every casualty they took. Even so, the archers from the zealot's side made life more difficult for them with the incessant rain of arrows.
Unlike the zealots and their bows, the crossbows favored by the dwarfs were not designed for arcing shots, and required a direct line of sight. Because of that, the dwarves had not been able to answer as much as they liked to the ranged harassment.
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Then, on a signal, the first four squares of light infantry moved to the sides, to the left and right of the line held by the heavies, while they remained a distance from the melee.
From behind the shields of their compatriots, the dwarven marksmen assigned to these units fired away with their repeating crossbows, towards the throng of zealots that pushed towards the battle line, as well as felling those who had started to move in their direction.
Over half of all the dwarven marksmen were concentrated in these four squares, a deliberate setup by the dwarven commanders to maximize their effectiveness, one that worked as zealots dropped one after another under the barrage of crossbow bolts.
The situation held for a while, as the zealots kept throwing themselves on the dwarven frontline. It was not as if they had not taken their toll, despite the horrific losses. On some parts of the line, Reinhardt noticed how the fourth or fifth dwarf had already taken the front.
Eventually though, the leaders on the Holy Kingdom's side grew tired of the stalemate which was costing them far more than the dwarves. Loud bugles were sounded from their formation, and shortly afterward, Hannah signaled from high above that the enemy cavalry had started to move.
The light cavalry came first, formed into small groups of a hundred or so each, as they executed slashing attacks and harassed the light infantry with thrown javelins as they passed.
While the dwarven marksmen took their toll on the enemy cavalry, the exchanges were relatively even. The cavalry never committed to a full strike, wary of the long spears carried by the dwarves, and mostly harassed from a distance with javelins.
It turned out the light cavalry were mere distraction and smokescreen for the real attack.
From the flanks, the Holy Kingdom's heavy cavalrymen crashed into the dwarven formation with their lances couched and lowered. Some fell to the spears that awaited them, but the rest proved their mettle and training as they charged through.
Even so, the charge slowed down somewhat due to the dogged resistance from the dwarven infantry, and that was when the dwarves committed their own cavalry into the fray.
Pound for pound, a dwarven light cavalryman was roughly an even match for most other nation's heavy cavalry. When they struck from the enemy's flank, with superior numbers, and spearheaded by their own version of heavy cavalry?
The results were devastating to say the least.
As the dwarven cavalry charge caught the enemy's heavy cavalry formation right in the middle, shortly after they fought their way through the dwarven infantry, knights and horses both were knocked airborne, as the rhinos of the dwarven heavies rammed them mercilessly.
What followed in their wake were the rest of the cavalry, as they rammed their way through the enemy's wedge formation from the side, cutting off the smaller front part as they enveloped the rest between their charge and the reforming infantry lines behind them.
Where it took a lot of training before a warhorse could be made to willingly charge into an enemy formation, the dwarves had no such issues with their rams and rhinos. Those animals instinctively rammed their enemies in the wild to begin with, and all they had to do was to steer them in the right direction.
With the cavalry from both sides in play, the battlefield instantly became more chaotic, especially as the zealots had also used the distraction to spread their lines in an attempt to envelop the dwarves, only to be met by the remaining dwarven light infantrymen.
It was in such a situation that Reinhardt noticed a situation nearby where his troops could be of help, and he led his men to battle.