I think this question makes more sense if i just explain the situation were in. Our group is trying to stop a small horde of beastmen from destroying a local town. We as the adventuring party went to scout and attempt to slow them down. We got to the first village they had taken and they had fortified it. The area is dry brush and the buildings/palisade is made of wood. They also appear to just have one source of water the local well. We ended the session in planning mode and my plan was to wait for a big wind and set a fire as close to encircling the village as much as possible. My first question is how would we roll this out? My other question is i looked online and couldn’t find any examples of armies being destroyed by fire so im assuming theres some huge flaw to this plan that i don’t understand, what would that be? Because as i look at it now if we start a brushfire thar encircles the village i dont see how they survive? If it matters theres roughly 900 of the beastmem there. Thanks!
A few things come to mind.
- In the absence of magic, the fire will not spread swiftly enough to alight the entire palisade. Therefore the beastmen, once they realize the danger, will be able to flee through a point that has not been set alight.
- Even if the entire palisade is aflame, the beastmen might be able to put out the fires in one portion long enough to escape. Dirt can put out a fire as well as water, sometimes.
- If the entire palisade catches flame, it is likely to destroy the village too. “It was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it”. Are there any captives or hostages within?
ACKS Domains at War: Campaigns has rules for Arson during sieges. It’s available on DriveThruRPG.
Aa thank you for pointing to the arson rules. Yes the entire village and surrounding countryside have been executed and their corpses are about to be used in some necromantic rite destroying he village would probably be our best outcome at this point.
Rules aside, your campaign sounds awesome. You had me at “entire village executed and corpses used in a necromantic rite”. Fist bump.
Why, thank you Alex! (Saru is one of my players)
Amazing stuff, Susan! If you have a moment, it would be great to get a session report posted in our Actual Play forum. It sounds really coo.
We actually did something similar to a bandit camp in our ACKS game some time back; our Judge’s ruling was basically that it affected their deployment.
The fire itself didn’t actually kill anyone, but it let us split them up and fight them bit by bit. And after we had killed half of them, and the other half looked up from firefighting and realized they had lost half of their allies, their morale checks took care of the rest 
Another unintended side effect, assuming the brush is as dry and flammable as you say is an uncontrolled wildfire that could spread across fields. If you’ve ever lived in California during fire season, you’d know what I’m talking about.