-Sage Sama! We’ve got a problem here!-

Dwarves came across much more clearly in Marktell than in person. The quarter of my brain devoted to communication /responded instantly, -Go ahead, Captain!-

The Rockborn officer gave me a full view of the fight going on. As he was in the middle of it, that was a bit frantic, but since my brain worked several times faster than normal folks’, I had no problem.

The Warped were actually forcing themselves through the packed spear line of the dwarves, enduring cuts and thrusts that should have killed them, had them bleeding out, and yet they just kept coming. The front ranks were having to short their Spears or grab their katars to defend themselves in close combat, which only made it easier for the Warped soldiers to draw in closer.

My eyes narrowed. -Stab that one’s shoulder!- I /ordered the Captain, one Guerock by name.

His Spear flicked out, burning with Banefire, and drove deep into the thick shoulder of the one she had indicated. It should have immediately rendered the arm useless, but as he pulled his Spear back, the wound slowly began to seal up, and in six seconds was nothing more than a small bloody hole.

A small bloody hole that was reflected on the undamaged Warped behind him.

-Do they have a Banner up?- Captain Guerock looked around sharply, found the thing, adorned with carved horns, skulls, and symbols that made his eyes water. -They’re Bannerbound! They’re sharing wounds among themselves if they aren’t killed instantly! It’s a way of keeping more of them alive right up until the end!-

-How do we counter it?- the gratified Rockborn /demanded grimly.

-Shattering or Suppressing the Banner would do it. If not, concentrate on finishing them, and leaving spears in the wounds so they can’t be shunted away. Impale the heart or brain, or chop the head off. Or, you can boarstop one of them, and while he’s pinned and helpless, keep attacking him repeatedly while using him to block those behind him. Deep wounds, but not instant kills, so he can deliver them to those behind who still can’t reach you!-

The Rockborn roared mirthless laughter, giving out a series of clipped orders in Rockborn Battle Cant, cycled through the Marktell being used. Spears thrust out and held up the Warped in non-lethal thrusts into arms and legs... and then others began to drive repeatedly into torsos, staying away from the hearts.

The impaled Warped kicked and thrashed, trying to get out of the way, but couldn’t do so. The men behind tried to get them out of the way, dragging them back, but the dwarves just pressed in and gave them no room to work with.

A few Warped chopped into the heads of their own pinned men to get them out of the way, and then promptly volunteered themselves for the same treatment.

Wounds flashed into existence on the Warped, including the ones who weren’t in combat, weakening all of them even as very few of them were killed. The dwarves pinned them in walls of Spears, even drawing them in so an additional rank could join the fun of thrusting into those that were pinned.

Wounded, healed, wounded, healed. The accumulated damage spread across all of the Warped, until they were all staggering with bloody injuries, despite many of them never having been struck.

A volley of crossbow fire buzzed over the heads of the dwarves, and dozens of Warped men went down instantly, the bolts uncannily managing to find throats, skulls, and hearts. The Captain roared an order, and the Spear line surged, precise thrusts killing the hapless tools in the front, and then rapidly pressing forward to plunge into the gravely wounded men behind.

The entire line of Warped folded with incredible speed, not quite running away in time as the dwarven Spears rolled right over them. That magical Banner fell as half a dozen bolts found the man who was holding it high, and the Rockborn let out a low roar as they watched it drop.

The dwarves were not idle, calls going out as other lines found the strategy, and all of the units of this Warpband were so equipped. The only way to kill someone was basically a lucky hit or focused attacks to quickly bring individuals down, instead of wearing them down with successive shots. Anything less than instant death would be shared away within six seconds, giving the Warped in the units unprecedented staying power.

It wasn’t enough to give the Warped the victory, as the ranks of dwarven Spears were murderously hard to get past, and their unit coordination and responsiveness was much better. However, they lasted longer and inflicted more casualties on the Rockborn than any previous fight had.

-------------

The conference was virtual in Markspace, taking place in real time, but several times faster and clearer than any form of briefing. All the Warlords and Champions at work were brought in even as the Rockborn were fighting, watching the action, and analyzing everything.

-The Warp Gods are using a technique called Bannerbound. It introduces a shared Healing concept, similar to, but not the same as hivemind units like Legion Devils, if you are familiar with those,- I /told them. -It’s a powerful tool, combining an effective Health Buff with de facto Curing by sharing injuries. This is how it works...

-Unless you instantly kill a member of a Bannerbound unit - in other words, by reducing them to -10 Health - within six seconds the injury is sucked away and distributed among the surviving members of the units.

-Normally a being falls unconscious if reduced to -1 Health, and will bleed out or stabilize while unconscious. This Healing is basically a monstrously strong way of Healing a person all the way from -9 back to nearly full Health, every six seconds.

-This is effectively giving every member of a Bannerbound unit +10 Health.

-As a result, you can see that it increases the staying power of the Bannerbound unit tremendously... because they won’t die unless instantly killed, meaning they stay in the fight longer. You can’t kill a single individual by attrition, they stay near their cap, and they won’t have deep wounds, only a growing collection of light ones. You’re effectively being forced to wear down most of the unit before they suffer any impediment to their own fighting prowess... very dangerous!-

There were murmurs of understanding from those around.

-How to fight this? The first way... shatter or Dispel the Banner! Easier said than done, of course, and a Dispel will naturally only work for a short period of time... although, if it is time for a charge they expect to be able to live through, you could give them a lethal surprise.- The Warlords all understood the implications and timing that was necessary, but since it effectively could do tremendous amounts of damage to a lot of troops, it basically turned a defensive Dispel into an effective fireball of sorts when it thwarted the tactic!

-Another way to exploit it is to keep one of them alive, and simply keep Not Killing them. Attack, attack, attack, but don’t kill. The Rockborn did this by impaling those in front, and then stabbing them repeatedly. They even let them come in closer, so instead of the default three ranks, four ranks of Spears were attacking!- They murmured among themselves as they watched the tactic on both current views and replay from memory.

-A variant on this is to simply bring one member down, pin them, and simply have your back lines keep hacking on them. As long as the target is close to its Banner, you are effectively going to turn targeting one soldier into targeting the whole unit, doing damage to those who aren’t even in the fight with your own back line troops.

-Third solution, focus fire and instant-kill your target. This is probably going to be necessary for missile troops. Wolfpacking individual targets works the same way, heaping on the damage before it is Healed away.

-The truly murderous solution is to grab and pin and subject multiple members of the unit to continuous damage, such as throwing them into a fiery pit. The whole unit will burn to death unless they manage to flee far enough away. Granted, this will be very slow unless you are doing this to multiple bodies at one time, but is a known tactic for dealing with Legion Devils, and so should work well here.-

Dwarves were grabbing fighting Warped, heaving them into the back lines as they fought, and then clusters of dwarves were punching them with katars like practice dummies, making the wounds non-killing, just repeated over and over. Scars and bloody wounds began to ripple into existence on every single member of those Bannerbound at impressive speed, group attacks on a mere half-dozen of them rapidly doing damage to the entire unit.

-Sage Sama, can we do this... Bannerbound... with our own companies?- General Moonriver /spoke up quickly.

I mentally pointed at him. -Yes! And oddly enough, the very Banners that are used to power the effect for the Warped hold enough Mana to make Banners for yourself. You only need the components and to craft them!-

There was a /hum of interest all around. This tactic would severely cut into their casualties, spreading out damage to survivors, keeping the injured alive.

-In addition, you may not have noticed, but the Warped have little to no access to Healing magic, other than Potions that are generally restricted to officers. Thus, it is not obvious that Healing magic can also be directed into such a Banner, and flow out to the unit. This is not likely to be substantially effective, unless someone spends a Valence V... but it means that one Healer with the Reserve can simply grasp the Banner, and eventually Heal up an entire unit. Or, the Bannerbound can traipse across a Healing Trap, and any excess Healing is redistributed among the other Bannerbound, as well.

-Thus, the Banner speeds recovery times!

-The downside of this? Bannerbound cannot be higher than Six, and there is a Level Cap on what a Banner can handle. Powerful Banners can handle one to two thousand Levels, with Legendary ones possibly reaching four thousand. If you are thinking that this is remarkably similar to how a Warlord Aura works, you are absolutely correct!

-I do not have the Ritual for Bannerbound. That is a Divine Ritual, and can only be enacted among those with shared Faith and backgrounds. Thus, it won’t work for mixed-race units, even among my Ironblood. A great deal of solidarity and unit identity is required, which I’m sure you will understand and allocate accordingly. It requires those so Bound to remain close to their Banner, which imposes some limits on flexibility and versatility. Thankfully, if you leave the area of the Banner, you can re-enter and realign without much difficulty.

-A Banner that can do something like this is a twenty goldweight item that can only be forged by a company fighting on a battlefield, and can only be harvested by the Banner of those that defeat it. As building such a Banner would require the entire company to give up their ability to Invest or Infuse for that day; it is not a great option when trying to rapidly build offensive power.

-However, if the enemy is going to allow us to build our own... then I expect everyone here to bring out their company colors and set them up on the field! If the Warp Gods want some pageantry, stick it down their throats!-

There were /shouts from the Warlords there. The raising of these Banners would massively cut casualties among their people... if they won. The Warped were delivering such things right to them... now that they knew the effect, they could plan around it, and punish the Warped for using it.

The Grind had just entered a newer, bloodier stage...