[centre][h1]The Republic of Bwca[/h1]

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[h3][u][i][b]The Border Guard[/b][/i][/u][/h3]

Boys. Too many boys.

When Commander Myn-Myn had went on his first expedition, he had lived with his men for six months before ever going into active combat, until they knew him and he knew them. Those before him were strangers - and there were too many boys.

When he had brought up their questionable age to the brass, he had been fobbed off with all the usual excuses: they would become men after the first battle. They had never known defeat. What they lacked in experience, they made up for in vigour. And when he continued to object, his general finally snapped at him. "They are ready to die for you! What more could you want?" But that was the kind of argument that came from someone who didn't understand war. The difference between victory and defeat wasn't whether your people were willing to die for your country, but whether you could make the other poor sap die for his.

But the Commander knew better than to allow his misgivings become known to the troops. It would destroy their morale. It seemed like every single one of them was a fresh-faced peasant boy or doe-eyed maiden, desperate for a life of adventure and the sense of camaraderie that military life was supposed to provide them. There wasn't a speck of dirt on their pressed uniforms, nor a scratch on their rosy cheeks. Myn-Myn was supposed to turn them into killers? The most they'd ever killed were the rats in the village storehouses. They were not ready for war, and Myn-Myn had no idea how long he'd have to prepare them.

But prepare them, he must. This would be Bwca's first major clash with an outside force since coming to prominence. If the army performed poorly, the minor goblins states would lose faith in Bwca's ability to protect them, and the position of dominance they had fought so hard to attain over them would hang in the balance. Even if Bwca itself was not the target of the invasion, their survival was at stake nonetheless. Victory was mandatory; defeat spelled certain death.

But while Myn-Myn had cursed the lack of experience of his recruits, he had been blessed with the skills they had outside of raw combat. Each one had some sort of useful profession he could leverage to his advantage. The miners could build tunnels while the hunters found fresh meat and berries. Carpenters made punji sticks while farmers dug furrows and moats. In fact, thanks to the Ty's doctrine of petty warfare, Myn-Myn had been given exactly what he needed: people with the skills needed to harass and slow the enemy, rather than overwhelm them.

But despite this stroke of fortune, Myn-Myn remained doubtful. His role was supportive, and the bulk of the fighting would be done by the Hobgoblins. That wasn't a problem in and of itself, since the Hobgoblins towered over friend and foe, but it also meant relying on the strategies of the Hobgoblin commanders. Hobgoblin strategies scarcely deserved the name. They had no time for unimportant affairs like maintaining a cohesive communication line or preventing enemy reinforcements, they were far too preoccupied with the best methods of killing. Occasionally, one would try something sneaky and have a cohesive order of battle, but the prevailing tactic among the Hobgoblin leadership was to raise an army big enough to embarrass the Surabhumi, send them screaming across the battlefield towards the enemy army and hope to kill more than be killed. Needless to say, that did not mesh well with Bwca's more careful approach.

And this was ultimately was the source of Myn-Myn's concerns. With every trap he set, he had to worry about some hobgoblin lout blundering into it and hurting himself. Where Myn-Myn would try to lure the enemy into unfavourable terrain, the hobbos would charge in and get themselves massacred. Any attempt at cleverness would be wasted with the Hobgoblins beside them, and Myn-Myn knew that no matter how fast, how strong or how tough he made his soldiers, the enemy would be faster, stronger and tougher, so facing them out in pitched battle would be a massacre for the tiny greenskins, but the hobgoblins knew no other way of fighting. They'd berate them for their so-called cowardice, and when things inevitably went poorly, they'd blame the Bwcans for not pulling their weight. Victory despite the Bwcan contribution would be almost as bad as defeat.

But what choice did he have? Stand back and allow a greenskin state to be invaded? Unthinkable. Try and renegotiate avoid war? Political suicide - even if news of how the Tushina negotiator had all but claimed responsibility for the attacks hadn't reached everyone who kept an eye on politics (and quite a few who didn't), refusing to commit to the path of war would be seen as weakness by Bwca's rivals. No, at this stage, the decision was out of Bwca's hands. One of the other two would have to back down, and until they did, the Ty's official stance was to prepare as though war could be declared tomorrow. That meant these recruits needed to be combat ready yesterday.

Myn-Myn had dealt with fresh recruits, reckless allies and stubborn enemies before, but never had he faced all three all at once, and certainly it had never been with the entire fate of Bwca on the line. He was going to have to throw everything he had into this just to survive. No excuse would fly. He would have to get these recruits [i]perfect.[/i]

If only he had been sent men instead of boys.