So, officers.
Your orders?
>MARCH PHASE ONE--
Crassus Regulations Primer on Eyeballing Distances:
Operational Tempo is given by phases. Phases are temporally indistinct. If you march from A to D and nothing occurs inbetween, A to D is one phase. If you march from A to D and you are ambushed eight times on the way, eight Phases would occur.
The constraints you work under are the same as you have been assuming - horses are fleeter than men on foot, supplies do not last forever, and actions have consequences.
Orders can be given that account for this basic phase system, however, much like on the actual engagement field.
>We intend to move towards Elos and line up for battle when we encounter a large enemy formation.Perfectly acceptable.
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>>6006461A long sweep to the north, among placid estates and sprawling grounds owned by those with more coin than your entire formation will ever possess, multiplied together. Being outriders, and foreign besides, the gates are barred to you often and the few watchers on the walls glare down. Plantation grounds these, Cesteriphon mass culture grounds for crops. Good open terrain for riding, cultured by long decades of hard toil, broken up by adorable little gardens and small groups of trees planted simply to give shade to the hard workers.
There are no workers tending these fields now, most having fled far elsewhere or locked themselves in grounds you are not privy to reach.
Somewhat further north, you are forced to break off and veer hard to the east, away, away, as smoke lingers on the shifting wind and scores of riders attend to a specific task. This section of farmland? This section is burning, the dry harvest interrupted by the sudden arrival of the invaders and set to the torch.
They are containing the damage so far, to one single section. The plume of smoke rises for miles and takes long hours to grow distance as you return to the march camp.
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>Intelligence updated!>March posture assumed! 