“People often say that no plan survives contact with the enemy. That is not strictly correct. Sometimes plans do survive and do as expected even after direct contact with the enemy.

Sometimes.” - Kevan Lasendi El-Geroulaz, Baron of Gerouz circa 27 FP.

Reinhardt directed the Free Lances to follow after the movements of Griselda and her Second Legion directly to their front. At the moment, the two armies had basically engaged each other in massive, tight-knit formation. The battle between them was more a race on who would manage to disrupt their opponent’s cohesion on a large scale first, which would in turn cause openings to be exploited.

Formation warfare like that was the norm in most of the world still, at least amongst humans and dwarves. Individual prowess mattered less in such a setting, while unit cohesion and discipline became the key. It was thus more beneficial when one considered that most human armies tend to be heavily bulked up by levies and conscripts.

Training a conscripted peasant to be able to match a seasoned, well trained professional soldier in a one on one battle was something that would take a lot of time and effort. In contrast, training a group of such peasants to adhere to a formation and listen to the commands of their unit commander took far less time. As was often the case, practicalities often dictated the tactics used on the battlefield.

Though in the case of the dwarves, it was their penchant for heavy armor and almost ingrained sense of unity and discipline that made them favor this style of warfare, rather than the practical necessities the humans ascribed to.

At the moment, the Kolitscheian had a slight advantage to their morale as their Warforged had technically won the proxy battle so “rudely” interrupted by the coalition forces’ advance. Their frontlines also held well against the coalition frontline, with their right flank – where the Warforged had been concentrated – pushing hard against the First Legion of Algenverr under Nestor’s direct command.

The rain of arrows from the Kolitscheian rear, where their much-vaunted archers were stationed, did not help either. The coalition soldiers behind the frontlines were forced to raise their shields to cover themselves, which made it harder for them to support those ahead of them using their bodies and mass. At the moment, the lines still held, however.

Griselda initiated the maneuver they had planned for since the day before at that moment, as she swung part of the coalition army’s left flank in a wide, swooping maneuver, intended to strike at the Kolitscheian lines from its side. Their opponents noticed the maneuver, and before the Second Legion could complete it, multiple layers of Warforged units had peeled off from the back of the enemy formation and turned to face them.

With a loud clash of spears and shields, the Second Legion collided with the Warforged that shifted to defend against their maneuver. The trained soldiers actually held their own reasonably well, as they fearlessly pushed the long pikes of the Warforged aside using their shields and shorter spears. They managed to push close enough to the Warforged formation that the Blademasters assigned to those units were sent out in defense.

That was when Griselda gave Reinhardt the agreed-upon signal and ordered the Second Legion to part to the sides.

The sudden disengagement surprised the Warforged as they had not expected it. It took a moment before their equally surprised commanders ordered for them to pounce on the opening in the enemy formation, and they had just moved to obey said commands when they realized that it was too late to do so. The Free Lances had rapidly flooded into the opened gap and charged straight at them by then.

While the Warforged were highly skilled, they still had a gap in their training. They were a local force of Posuin, and as such, had been trained entirely to fight against other human opponents given the nation’s racial policy in its past centuries. To say that they were not well-prepared to face down a charge from a decidedly inhuman opposition would be an understatement.

Much less when said charge was led by a group of therians that each stood at least three meters tall and weighed more than half a ton, wielding massive door-sized metal tower shields that were impervious to their pikes.

The long, sturdy pikes they relied on to keep their enemies at bay bounced off harmlessly against the thick metal slabs that the shieldbearers called a shield, and were either pushed aside, or in the case of those who braced and anchored the other end of their spear to the ground, snapped in twain. The shieldbearers of the Warforged, all chosen for their large, sturdy physiques which allowed them to wield the massive tower shields they carried, were pushed aside like they were children trying to block an adult.

Some of the warforged were forced to step back. Others stumbled and fell on their rears from the sudden push. The most unfortunate ones lost their footing in front of the onrushing wall of steel and were directly trampled to a meat paste by the heavy boots and footpads of the therian shieldbearers of the Free Lances.

Neither did they stop there.

The shieldbearers formed the point of the spearhead as the Free Lances in its entirety forced their way through the Warforged formation. Their target was to strike at the Warforged that were engaged with the First Legion at the frontlines from behind, and they needed to carve their way through a good part of the Warforged to do so.

The shieldbearers managed to rely on their mass and momentum to bully their way through three layers of the Warforged’s lines, but ground to a halt at the fourth. They knew what to do in such a situation however, and the shieldbearers themselves in turn parted to both sides, like a beast’s jaw opening wide. From the opening they created, Reinhardt led the best of the shock troopers of the Free Lances directly into the fray as they took up the role of opening the way for the rest.