So, let's say that you are a Vampire in control of a small 11th century kingdom the size of Scotland with a population of about 1 million. Surrounding you are human kingdoms that quite naturally are not fond of an evil vampire kingdom filled with spooky skeletons. Your state religion is something evil that allows for necromancy, and let's assume that neither you nor your opponents have magical "I win"-buttons ready.
Since most of your living population are serfs, they should not be fighting. When it comes to evil clerics, you have about 1000 that can cast magic. In general, such an evil cleric is 1/1000. Of these 4% are powerful enough to turn dead corpses into skeletons or zombies.
Since the other kingdoms of the "British Isles" are more populous and have more arable land, you will always be outnumbered in terms of the living that can serve as an army. Your biggest advantage at the moment is that your Vampire Knights are by far the best heavy cavalry in the isles, but only in the dark.
Your last army got defeated by a coalition of the human kingdoms and you pretty much have to start from scratch this time around. How do you create a medieval undead army to beat the other guys?
>Some notes
Assume AD&D-ish magic
To be survivable against the forces of good, you really want a low level (1-2nd level) evil cleric to counter turning undead
With all of your magic-using clerics that are able casting it once a day, every day you can create 200-240 skeletons
Damn, this is going to turn out like Evil dead
Obligatory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6-ZGAGcJrk
The normal army you could muster to a given battlefield was between 10-15k
>>46329426
>Tombstone remix?
>not the original classic?
My spooky friend, you're just not doing it right...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XTgFtxHhCQ0
>>46329253
Religion
>>46329253
As a vampire, my greatest advantage over my opponents is not my magic, not my undead slaves, not my fashion sense - but my immortality.
Life in my kingdom will benefit from being as orderly as possible, and I would do everything I could to make the lives of the serfs comfortable, so long as they know not to oppose my rule. Low taxes, swift vengeance on bandits and so on.
The kingdom would be inward-looking and isolationist, but welcome moderate trade with out neighbours. My inner circle of vampiric nobles would ideally give the impression of a normal court to visiting dignitaries.
Every forty years or so, I would hold a closed-casket funeral for myself and pose as my own grieving son, allowing news of the old king's death to circulate through the neighbouring kingdoms.
The one thing I would mandate is that every funeral in my land must be presided over by a cleric of our faith - and the burial rites involve a ritual by which the corpse is animated, given a weapon - but ordered to remain still and then buried.
All this would hopefully give the impression of a peaceful, benevolent kingdom who have a dour, serious priesthood with no obviously threatening overtones.
But after a mere two hundred years, I would have an army of 14,610,000 skeletons waiting only for my word to claw their way out of the earth - and that's a low estimate.
>>46329722
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHVeyo4W18U
>>46329722
At this point, you have been found out as a vampire and animating the dead is regarded as evil magic.
What would you do if you had a time limit of one generation/30 years.
Also, my inspiration:
>I was just thinking back to my own experience of close-order drill, and how that would work out with skeletons. You would want some flunky evil cleric to command a squad (10-12) of them so that good clerics can't just rout them with impunity. And you need them to be at the head of their files so that they can lead their brainless squadmates. However, they are obvious targets, so I was thinking of different ways to deploy from a march column to best protect the low-level cleric.
>>46329722
"Now Vlad!" you might well ask, "That doesn't solve the problem of your neighbours hating undead enough to form a coaltion and BTFO your horde!"
And you'd be right. It doesn't stop them hating undead, just hides the gradual building of an undead army bigger than any the world has ever seen.
But ideally, we don't even want to fight a war of conquest against our neighbours. Over time, they may come to accept us as friends and allies - and it should not be impossible to play them off against one another while lending aid to those who see us as least threatening.
Sure, our army of the living is small compared to our neighbours, but to write it off entirely is a bad idea, especially if we use it to support someone else's.
If we work to help our ally take over the entirety of "Not-Britain," going so far as to swear fealty and pay taxes to them so long as we can still run our own lands as we see fit, then eventually our ally ought to see us as useful friends and our family as loyal vassals.
And then, when eventually all that's born to their king is a single, female heir? Well, then it's time to bust out the charm, give her the kiss, and inherit the realm peacefully.
>>46329912
Quest hook, lads.
In the sands of a desert land, a vampire did exactly that, but was slain in a conspiracy before he could assume total power.
Now, beneath the dunes is an undead army millions strong waiting silently for the command to march.
>>46329817
If I have to assume that i've been found out before I can plan a damn thing, then, well, I guess i'll make my enemies storm my castles. Even outnumbered, the kingdom's forces should hold out in a defensive war of attrition - especially when we can raise the dead and our opponents can't.
Siege warfare against unliving targets simply doesn't work, because they just don't starve - and the vampires can raid their siege camps every night, picking off targets of opportunity, gathering wolves and bats to attack their supply trains, trying to go after and mind-control important enemy nobles to spread dissension in the enemy ranks...
Over time, it'd be too costly for them to defeat us in a defensive war, especially if we're entrenched in a country as mountainous and defensible as Scotland.
>>46330087
That's step one anon, but then you take it to 11.
Sure you'll win the defensive war, but the best part of the undead is that they're very good at being wherever you need them to be. Send them out in groups of ten or so in every direction, walking over mountains, through rivers, unerringly through the vast forests. They don't need food and they don't fear the elements.
If you can spare them send some of the clerics. Lots of graveyards conveniently located near villages. Sure they wouldn't be worth anything against soldiers or clerics, but you're not here for that, you're hear to kill farmers.
Even if they keep clerics at home to protect themselves how many would they have? Definitely not enough to protect every farming hamlet and trade caravan.
See how long they last when people back home are too scared to plant and harvest because there's undead roaming the night picking off farmers. See how long they last when you're forcing them to choose between besieging your lands or protecting their own kin back home.
TL;DR: Spooky Scary Skeleton Terrorists attack the enemies homeland.
you thrash the living hell out of your enemies.
no baggage train, no logistics of food supply?
that means your army can comprise entirely of the dead, your living peasantry can focus entirely on the manufacture or growth of foodstuffs without needing significant logistical overheads to the military.
the lack of baggage trains means forces can move faster, further, and over tougher terrain. your armies can in essence, attack before any warning, and in places they were never expected.
that, is if anything, more significant than your knights' military prowess.
>>46330376
You still need some baggage for the few hundred antipaladin and evil cleric NCOs and officers
>>46329253
Haven't I already won in this instance?
As far as I remember, the norma conquests and fighting in the British isle involved 2 armies of ca. 15000 each? Let's assume I'm surrounded by these enemy kingdoms and that all their forces work together. Thirty thousand or so enemy soldiers?
At 200 a day it takes me 150 days to match that number in skeletons. That's less than half a year. Over the fall-winter break where armies commonly cannot fight in the 11th century because of lack of supplies and harsh conditions, I can raise an army of skeletons than can singlehandedly outfight every other kingdom around.
Even if they utterly suck (And they likely do) and even if our industry is not all equipped to produce arms for a horde this vast (and it likely isn't) we still end up outnumbering anyone else by a magnitude factor by just waiting a little bit.
>>46329817
Wait, I have 30 years to do this?
2.1 million skeletons under my command is literally 2.1 million skeletons to the enemies 30k troopers. And I seemingly have vampiric knights as well?
I sequester 90% of these skeletons in the ground all over the kingdom, ready to spring up and attack any invaders. The othe 10% I order to help the serfs and the living in their daily task. Organize work-crews of clerics+10-12 skeletons to handle larger projects and use this untiring brigade of productivity to overhaul our agricultural system, mass produce cheap arms and armor, erect tiny forts near the border and modernize the road system. They're skeletons, so they don't even eat into our food surplus. In five years and a few harvests, our living people are the most well fed in the land, there's no need for serfs so they can all become free vassals (with option to join the clergy if they or their kin study) and our production is absolutely off the charts.
I send a polite missive to the neighbouring kingdoms about them maybe getting some of my grain surplus?
>With all of your magic-using clerics that are able casting it once a day, every day you can create 200-240 skeletons
So a bit under two months for an army similar in size to those that fought at Hastings.
The guys who want to smash us have better move damn fast.
Even better, the skeletons shouldn't be very worried about food, water, shelter, disease, and so on. So we can happily go for every stalling tactic in the book. Scorched Earth for example is limited by the fact that your own army needs to get out of the area or it too starves, we can just sit in the middle and twiddle our thumbs, or scorch both coming and going on the offence. Winter camp? Screw that. And sieges are just about the best thing ever.
>>46330575
I feel like the real issue would be command and control for your skeleton army, though you do have essentially endless reserves
>>46330580
>Fling rotting cows over walls to spread disease
>Dead cows also get up and start goring people
>>46330702
>"Bessie? Bessie, how can you do this?"
>"Can't you see that vampire isn't good for you?"
>"I raised you! We've been to harvest festivals together!"
>"Fight him, Bess, I know you're still in there!"
>"Moooooo!
