Dryads and other traps
The woods of the Tautha are sacred places where animals and spirits live in harmony
with each other. With the arival of the Aryidannan and their hunger for wood to build
and to burn, the trees have become angered and taken the form of Dryads; Women of
the Wood.
Dryads; women of the woods (from Shadowforge)
Invisible in the trun and canopy of their trees, the Dryads have put fear into the
heart of the Aryidannan maidens, who now have no courage to be near trees in the dark
of night or to march through a forest unless in great strength. Terrifying stories
abound of lone maidens wandering too close to the trees or off a track, lured deeper
into the heart of the wood by the brief glimpses of the spirits, the prospect of a
fine catch but not for the maiden; she who is never heard of again and around the
tree she was lured too the grass grows longer and the flowers blossom brighter.
Dryads defend a Faerie Gate from Cleo slingers.
Women of the Wood
Dryads are Item and Magic choices available to Tautha armies and are cheap at only
5 points making one or two worthwhile the Meadow of Glamour will have a lot of trees.
Dryads are used to block part of the Meadow to the enemy, to secure a flank or, as
they preferred to be used, to lure the enemy into their influence where they can lead
maidens astray and back to their trees where they are snared and slowly drained to
feed the tree and its deep roots.
To be effective as a lure a wood has to be seen by the enemy as a way to victory,
offering an undefended flank for example that the enemy's quick moving maidens can
exploit.
And if the woods are numerous enough a canny Damsel can drive her foes into the waiting
vines and roots of the Dryads.
In addition to getting the enemy to move her maidens into the Dryad's zone, the Damsel
should try to get as many foes into the zone as possible. No matter how many maidens
come into the Dryad's wood her chances of snaring some or all of them are not diminished.
The more maidens, the greater the opportunity for the Dryad's tree to grow tall and
strong.
However, Dryads are not game winners, no matter how they are used. Each Dryad can
only be used once in a game and the chances of luring maidens to their doom is in
the maidens' favour.
A Unit of Slingers enters a wood, not knowing that it
is home to a hungry dryad.
The Dryad strikes when all the Slingers are in her
wood.
Two of the young maidens are lost to the Dryad's
calls. Sated she leaves the rest, who terrified, want
to get away from the trees as quickly as possible.
Snares and Pits and other traps
The Tautha aren't the only race who have clever traps for their enemies. The Tentac
use many different kinds of snares and traps to capture lone maidens, or in battle
to take many by sowing the traps in under the mud marshes or in the reeds they force
the Tir to retreat through. Nuraehil, a dark Fae, hides her Trap Spiders over the
Meadow, they ready to leap out and devour the unwary. The Aryidannan sometimes
have traps of their own, pits of stakes covered with light earth, behind which the
Hoplites stand waiting for the charge of the Sidhe or Fae.
No matter the kind of trap, all can be used like the Dryads. Either to
-
deny part of the Meadow to the enemy
-
to protect the flank of the army
-
to destroy enemy Stands
The first to are quite easy to accomplish and if the enemy is clever they will be
wary if they know your army has traps (which means that if you didn't take any you
can still try and bluff your opponent).
The third is the most difficult as it involved forcing the enemy to move into the
zone of the trap. If it is too obivious (such as only one wood on the Meadow
for Dryads to be in) the enemy will avoid the area - so use the trap as part of your
plan but don't rely on it. Coordination is required by the Units of the army to make
the enemy think that they only way they are going to win the battle is to have to
brave the trap, or foolishly allow themselves to enter it (preferrably against their
own will).
An example is using missile fire to drive a Unit into a trap with push backs, or deploying
behind one and the enemy has to cross (hopefully they don't have missile weapon superiority).
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