Large army battle prep for the end

I am working toward the final battle that will help conclude the saga of this two-part story line. In contrast, the final battle in the first part had a few hundred at most involved, but I focused on the main characters and the support group with them. The second part spent a third of the story on gathering allies to build an army, while the dark side did the same.

On the light side with my MC, they gathered 10 clans and united them. The MC had to prove he deserved the spot of commander over the leaders of clans. He appointed five of the leaders to the position of General that were responsible for 200 warriors. To help manage such a force, the 200 were broken down into groups of 40 that answer to an Officer. Within the 40, they were broken down again into groups of 8 that answer to a Squad Leader.

This comes out to 1 Commander, 5 generals, 25 Officers, 125 Squad Leaders and 1000 warriors.

A 6th clan leader was assigned 48 personnel to keep the army supplied on the travel to the dark side’s location for the fight. Two more leaders were provided with 30 scouts to help keep the army safe. A ninth leader was given 80 noncombatants separated into groups of 16, one of which being the leader of the group, assigned to each of the five Generals to help maintain the camp.

Outside of the army structure is the main cast that the story has focused on. They were separated into 2 groups while recruiting but are together once more. This group of 11 will act as the special forces unit that can be deployed anywhere in the fight to tackle extra strong opponents.

I wanted to work out a way for an army this large to move around in a structured way. I created a collum for each General made up of 5 blocks of 40, 8 abreast and 5 deep with an Officer in front of each block with squad leaders lining both sides.

Looking at the army as a whole, I set it up with three collum’s in a line with the other two to the side of the middle collum. To keep everything fair, since position can matter in terms of danger, each General rotates between the 5 spots so every group can enjoy the benefit of being in the center of the formation every 5 days. At night, everyone merges into the center to set camp with the help of the 80 civilians.

I still need to come up with a battle line, but I am thinking about having 3 Generals take the frontal assault with the other 2 swinging around for the flank on each side so they can box in the enemy since they have their back to a town.

I haven’t come up with the exact number of the enemy force, but the majority will be hundreds of undead that can keep fighting longer than someone alive could if they aren’t dealt with properly. They make up the shock troops. The real danger comes from the mutated shadow beasts that are designed for speed and ferocity. The ultimate danger comes from the reaper variants that have bone swords for hands. The enemy has its own special forces unit led by a knight to the dark lord and hand-picked chosen fighters. They are all about death and chaos. It will be the mob of undead that charge with the shadow beasts let loose to rampage while the reapers and the special forces unit are more strategic.

For the two gods that will take part in this fight. The light side, who is away from their domain and the place they are strongest, will focus on blessing the army with light to give them a fighting chance. The dark side has home field advantage and the more death that occurs grants the dark lord more power to play with. It is a vicious cycle.

Chapter 20 will be the initial clash with the army showcasing the two large forces colliding with my MC acting as Commander and keeping his army from breaking up. Chapter 21 ups the stakes and involves the stronger combatants including the two special forces units clashing, ending with the two gods facing off. This is when significant characters start to die.

Chapter 22 The fight intensifies, causing the light god to decide to sacrifice himself and the shockwave of the act forces the dark god to retreat and kill/knock down a good chunk of the enemy forces. Chapter 23 introduces the new light army with new power granted by the death of a god that use their new power to defeat the dark army and destroy the mortal body that the dark lord possessed. (He lost the battle but won his objective of destroying the light god. this plot point becomes important in the series that follows this in the timeline with the first book called Windweaver)

Chapter 24 is the aftermath and final farewell putting a close to this story.