I apologize to you my readers for the long gap in between posts, but I've been very busy overseeing the slaughter of mine enemies, forcing me to fight a war on three fronts, which trust me, is never a good idea.
My southern neighbor decided to renege on our non aggression pact as I was campaigning westward and dealing with a minor insurrection to the North. None of these issues was a threat to my throne by itself, but combined they were making my life interesting. In the end I was forced to commit resources I was saving for future atrocities to stem the tide of war which, while not exactly turning in my opponents favor, was eating up small portions of my empire and, quite frankly, pissing me off.
As a result I had to make a few examples: hanging people from trees by their entrails and whatnot. I got grim on their asses. My torturers are exhausted and my shock troops smell like open bowels. Small price to pay I suppose.
I even had to unleash my Undead Dragon, Hershel, on the Southerners, just to make a point. Don't go back on our deals you sniveling cuntwipes. I have a Lich Serpent and you don't. I employ angry War-Magi and you don't. I have fucking Battle-Trolls for fuck's sake, what were you thinking?
After I had transformed their entire realm to a smoldering, de-populated wasteland, dotted with broken villages and shattered infrastructure, I went back through and razed everything I had skipped over on my first time through. Hershel had a blast, breathing death on all he surveyed, eating people indiscriminately and generally kicking up his heels, enjoying the lift he received from the thermal updrafts generated by wide swathes of burning civilization.
It was a nice day out for him.
I made a desert and called it peace, because it was. I find that reducing a hostile land's population by a factor of 10, really takes the fight out of them and ensures you at least 20 years of tranquility until they've bred enough to host an army again.
It slowed progress on my western front, but was great for morale in that I allowed my troops to engage in Total Warfare i.e. rape, kill and steal whatever you want. These enemies welshed on us and as a result, the normal boundaries for my army's atrocity levels were out the window.
Beat off with their internal organs. Cram stuff up their ass and use them for backpacks, I didn't care. For me a spirited attempt at genocide was the right solution for a country full of deal-breaking twat-puddles.
They got what was coming to them.
Now that's out of the way, let's talk about the merits of various frontline arrow fodder possibilities for your burgeoning army.
I'm going to stick to the basics here, in short, the traditional fantasy set up as defined by Earth's popular fantasy authors. Therefore I'm not going to mention mechs, 'aliens', power-armored humans, Jedi or any of that other nonsense. We're gonna stick to Tolkienism on this one.
So in this context, your choices are somewhat limited. Being evil of course, your basic grunts will likely be one or more of the following:
Goblins, kobolds, orcs, hobgoblins, demons, imps, ogres, humans, bugbears, duergar (evil fucking dwarves), and in some cases, bad elves. Because I am a thoughtful, caring Dark Lord, I'll itemize the above list and note some of the advantages and drawbacks of each of the listed races.
It's a lot to swallow.
Ready?
Kobolds: Their females have litters, not births, which typically consist of 6-20 offspring. They gestate the fuck out of their babies, able to have on average 3-4 litters a year. The only reason every planet hasn't been overrun with kobolds yet is because the breeding males tend to bludgeon their young to death participating in the closest thing they have to an organized sport. The all time leading scorer had only 7 surviving children out of 9,308 when one of them pushed a chicken bone through his eye and into what passed for his brain, ending his illustrious career.
As a frontline troop designed to die by missile fire, before taking on a shield wall, kobolds have some pros and cons.
On the plus side they're small and fast, which means your opponent's archers will only hit them by accident/default.*1 They don't care about their fellow kobold like most humans feel about their fellow man. When they see an arrow coming, they will gladly pick up their friend and tribemate, who's running ahead of them, by his balls and hoist them up as an arrow shield, hoping that the arrow doesn't go through the both of them.
On the minus side kobolds are insanely easy to kill even in large numbers, have evolved no martial skill in hundreds of generations, are tiny and shittily armed, and are likely to flee from battle if they're not more afraid of you than they are of your enemy.
Which means you have to be really fucking nasty with them. It's the only way they'll respect you. You can only whack it to the screams of tormented kobolds so many times before it becomes jejune however.
Goblins: Slightly more effective and slightly less embarrassing than kobolds. A Dark Lord who has kobolds for his grunts is a Dark Lord who can't afford a better hominid, i.e an amateur. Goblins however say to the world, "I've arrived at a mediocre level and have upgraded my kobolds to goblins, which are a bit bigger, less dumb and cowardly than kobolds." But to any major player, you're still just a pissant greenhorn.
Goblins are essentially the same as kobolds in that you have to treat them like shit. They don't respond well to kindness or equanimity and they understand and accept that their only purpose is to kill and die so that you can have nice things.
Still, they're cheap, breed like rabbits and are at least twice as effective in battle that your average kobold. Perfect ground troops for an early career Dark Lord.
Hobgoblins: A Dark Lord military constant, hobgoblins are a feature of virtually every Evil Army I've ever heard of or read about. They're bigger, stronger and much smarter than their goblin cousins, surprisingly adept at small unit tactics and coordinated actions. Their clan structures make them easy to direct since their's is a strictly organized hierarchal society. Despite their brutality and creative use of violence, there's a respect for the chain of command within each tribe. This makes them far more effective than goblins or kobolds.
Hobgoblins don't breed at anywhere near the rate of the lesser goblinoids. Fortunately for them they don't make a sport of killing their offspring, either.
If you have the opportunity to add some hobgoblins to your forces, do it immediately.
Imps: So you decided to go the demon route, huh? Good luck, boyo, you're gonna need it. That being said, imps, homonculi and assorted lesser devils can be a great asset to your war machine when used selectively in niche roles. They are excellent on stealth missions, superb in darkness and are generally pretty resistant to magic.
But relying on an army of them for the main body of your military is foolish. In large packs they fight like wild animals, extremely savage but inherently disorganized. They're a horde, not an army. In a battle where the difference between victory and defeat could very well depend on the discipline of your troops, demons of any sort rate at the bottom of my list. Rather have kobolds.
Orcs: Classic. No evil army in the world would dare call itself "evil" without at least a few orcs in the mix. They're been the mainstay of every diabolical legion since the dawn of time. Less dangerous than a hobgoblin, but more numerous and cheaper to operate, orcs combine a number of desirable militaristic traits into what is essentially the frontline troops of choice for those of the evil persuasion.
Traits like, Available in large numbers, Sometimes able to kill an enemy before they themselves are killed, Cheaper to employ because they aren't clever enough to negotiate good mercenary contracts AND because a lot more of them will perish in combat than better quality troops.
The perfect blend of economy, effectiveness and ease of use.
Bugbears: Honestly, for most midrange Dark Lords, bugbears would be considered more of a shock troop than a standard grunt. They can be pretty bright, but there aren't hordes of them like goblins, kobolds or orcs. They're big, normally around seven feet tall, but despite this are known for stealthy movement, even in complete darkness.
So it's a rare Wicked Tyrant that has the wherewithal to round up enough of these elusive creatures to make anything but a very small army, albeit likely a very effective one.
I myself have a company of bugbears that I normally use for nighttime terror attacks, often in conjunction with a wyvern or two. I instruct them to capture a sentry or three and eat them where the rest of the good guys can hear the screams and crunching. Puts me right to sleep.
Humans: What can you say? I'd guess that a fair majority of the readers of this blog are human and so I'm not gonna get into it. Not a huge fan of humans in general. Even if they're exceptionally horrible humans, I'd rather have orcs.
Duergar: Malevolent, creepy looking dwarves, with all that entails. Listen, let's talk plainly. No one really likes dwarves. They're greedy, unimaginative little peckers who charge too much for everything and worship lawyer-gods. If they lived above ground, they'd be knocking at your door at all hours wanting to know if "You'd Heard The Good News? There's a class action lawsuit against the wheat industry for allowing to a naturally occurring substance to be in all baked goods."
"Have you eaten bread lately?"
But enough about your traditional dwarves' obsession with law and regulation, we're talking about Duergar here. Nasty, hairy little freaks that they are.
If you're a Dark Lord of any stripe and have managed to amass a sizable army of duergar, then if you play your cards right, (only attack at night unless you're underground) you should find a lot of success. These "bad" dwarve's are sneaky, remorseless and extremely well disciplined and regimented. Their arms and armor are always superior to virtually any foe (except 'good' dwarves) and if you're talking underground warfare, then they are bona fide sons of bitches, terror in the blackness. You also can't find better sappers.
That being documented, they are fucking useless in daylight. Can't see a damn thing, agoraphobic, sunburn easily. Therefore if you're not an idiot, you'll do well with them.
"Evil" Elves: I use "evil" in quotes because who the hell knows what sort of fucked up motivations a magic using creature that can live for two millenia might have. Chances are if you possess an army of 'White-Trash' elves, you're probably an elf too because they won't follow any human, much less one of the goblin races.
So if you ARE an elf, just let me pause my narrative for a moment to say, 'fuck you you pointy-eared badger clit. I'm gonna make asspaper out of your holy trees for what you did at that one poker game. YOU know the one I'm talking about.'
'Yeah, that one. Fuck your maples.'
All elves are self entitled, arrogant tree-humpers, but all that aside, they're the best archers in the world and if you have to face them in battle, lots and lots of your troops are going to die long before they're in shouting distance. So try to have some sort of plan in place to deal with them.
From personal experience I find an Undead Dragon to be ideal when dealing with ranked lines of lightly armored arrow-pussies.
Go Hershel!
I sincerely hope this helps one or more of you to choose the best grunts possible within your budget and style of warfare. I always welcome your questions, comments and criticisms.
Your 9th Favorite Bad Guy,
-Lord Hurderoth
*1 This doesn't apply to Elven archers. If at all possible, never get into an archery battle with any breed of Elf. They're better at it than you, because you're evil.
