Great War - Tallet-Syndicate Campaign

The Syndicate Campaign of the Tallet Empire refers to the decade-long battle during which Tallet forces slowly conquered the Bronze Syndicate. While the first few years were swimming successes for the Tallet, as the size of their armies guaranteed inevitable advancement, the joining of the Circle on the side of the Syndicate turned the eastern portions of the Syndicate lands into a quagmire for the Tallet.

## The Early Years

Initial conflicts with Syndicate forces resulted in incredibly high casualty rates for the Tallet. The mobile and adaptable infantry fielded by the Syndicate operated as skirmisher archers, the result being that under the slow advancement of Tallet war machines, arrows would blacken the sky and obliterate entire infantry formations. There was the additional issue of the Syndicate Scythe Chariots, specifically designed for harassing the flanks of phalanx formations, which meant that advancement by the Tallet came at a high price. This changed once Tallet forces were able to reach the unwalled cities of the Syndicate, where houses made perfect areas for cover of small units and shielded their numbers from the volley attacks of Syndicate troops, likewise rendering the chariots unusable.

After the first shocking losses, Tallet commanders began to devise creative solutions using the materials on hand. After a brief holding period in the first series of taken towns, the next march sported a number of changed tactics. Firstly the war machines were used as a front line to shield the infantry from the arrow barrages as these were no threat to the mighty turtles of the Tallet. Second each turtle was outfitted with looked like a massive sail of tight-knitted wicker across the top. These wicker sails actually performed excellently as arrow shields for the troops behind the turtles, providing enough space for the Tallet ballista and crossbowmen to shoot out, but thinning the distance-fired arrows of the Syndicate significantly. This also saw the first widespread use of the Tallet tangle-shot, not against charging infantry as initially thought but fired close range at the Sycthe Charriots, the corded wire tangling the horses and in the axles of the weapons to effectively halt them after no more than a few passes.

## A Plea for Help

Following the adaptation of the Tallet, Syndicate forces were even more hard pressed to hold their own against the huge armies facing them. Initially out-manned, they were now being out-manned and out-generaled by professional armies with experienced commanders. While the Syndicate were better outfitted and better trained, their commanders simply did not have the experience of having conquered most of the known world. The Syndicate Immortals, normally sending only a cursory representative to the Undying Council, instead sent a trio of their most persuasive to ask for aid from the other great nations. Their pleas were not only calling for aid for their nations, but aid for themselves. Six of the twenty-one Immortals had been lost, obviously not dead but captured by the Tallet who refused any negotiation for their return.

The meeting with the Undying Council was hosted at the Cathedral and went poorly to say the least. The Phoenix refused to allow her people leave their walls, citing rising concern of a Goran invasion as too great a threat to split their forces. Gor was absent, but all knew that the only response would be that the Syndicate was on Goran land and would have to submit to him for aid. A mortal nation may have considered this offer, but the fifteen remaining Immortals were loathe to enter eternal captivity under Gor's rule. The Faceless Emperor declined to attend, simply sent world that unconditional surrender would end the conflict immediately. The 14th offered Ashed assistance in the form of mercenary companies, but with the Syndicate already five years into the war they had nothing left with which to pay mercenaries; their bronze reserves now arming their troops and their miners now among their soldiers. The Truest King offered much the response he had always offered the unclaimed nations. That it was not his place to interfere in the fates of other peoples, that the Immortals had failed to properly culture and prepare their nations to withstand the test of time and that he was not interested in having them forever indebted to him. The Syndicate was however welcome to petition his people for a crusading force of volunteers. The Stargazer also attended this meeting, and it is believed that the fate of the six Immortals captured by the Tallet and the ever-growing aggression of the Tallet expansion are what caused her to force herself into centuries of torpor.

It was the Circle who stepped forward, pledging their aid to the Syndicate. The Syndicate withdrew, leaving behind Imerys the Fair to make her pleas to the people of the Broken Kingdom from the safety of the Cathedral.

## The Quagmire

The Encircled, having never been ones to value honorable combat, were an effective addition to the Syndicate. Quickly schooling the Syndicate into new tactics and refusing to meet the Tallet in the open fields of battle, they allowed the Tallet to pass, nipping at their heels, interfering with supplies, and attacking camps at night. Combined with Encircled marksmanship and assassination of Tallet officers, the Tallet armies ground to a halt and began to rack up large numbers of casualties. The Tallet commands eventually adapted again, making use of their Wild Legions in piece-meal, splintering down their armies and using their new kite technology to prepare better for the ambushes.

The resulting stalemate lasted for nearly six years before Imerys was able to gather enough volunteers to inspire a true crusade from the Kingdom rather than just a trickle of volunteers. The Syndicate Crusade as it became known came into its own after Imerys's fifth year and the return of the Companions to the Cathedral. Persuaded by the Immortal's pleas, the Companions joined her in stirring the people of the Kingdom to march against the Tallet. They were encouraged by the presence of the Companions and Imerys, who they had persuaded to don the armor of her people and pledge to ride at the fore. The result was that after a few short months a force of twenty four thousand volunteers flocked to the Cathedral and departed into the south, intending to strike into the rear of the Tallet. The intent was to break the stalemate.

## The Campaign Ends

The Syndicate Crusade marched into the the western reaches of the former Syndicate lands without challenge, reaching the aged battlefields in good order. The combined Syndicate and Encircled forces however, had simultaneously received word of a Goran assault on the Circle's eastern borders, a horde pouring over the mountains and seeking blood. Under faulty intelligence reports that the Crusade was Tallet reinforcements, the Syndicate Immortals had begun evacuating their people into the Circle's lands, their armies falling back while burning the lands behind them, surrendering the burnt husk of their nations to the Tallet. The Tallet, who were aware of the approaching army, kept a light harrying force to keep the withdraw of the Syndicate forces, and turned the bulk of their army onto the Crusaders.

The battle of the Syndicate Crusade was bloody and it was brief, surrounded and wrapped by the Tallet's superior numbers, the Crusades formed ranks and fought and all sides to the death. Tallet commanders remarked that their troops struggled to climb over their own dead as the battle wore on. The final attack by the Tallet was a final charge from the remaining Armored Riders, lead by the Companions themselves and Imerys. Infantry forces fell behind the horses as the remnant of the army tried to break through the Tallet lines and retreat. The core of the wedge was a number of young women astride pacing horses, who were to get through and ride their mounts into the ground to get word of the defeat to the Cathedral should the worst happen.

The plan was halfway successful. The attack succeeded in getting the messenger riders through the lines, and a number of them even made it back to the Kingdom. In the process, the remaining infantry and Riders were slain to a man, the three Immortals having their horses cut out from under them were eventually restrained in a press of bodies and captured for the Faceless Emperor. The Tallet tell the story that the Companions fought like banshees and accepted their fate with a stoic dignity when they were finally overcome, but that Imerys cried and howled like a mad animal and had to be kept caged during the journey back to the Tallet homeland.

The main Tallet army consolidated their hard-won land, their commanders under orders not to pursue into the Circle's lands as the Emperor wanted to take advantage of the Goran keeping those forces occupied to the east.