Hello everyone!

Spoilers

Do you see any flaws with Guthma's strategy? From what I've seen it's pretty solid. Targos was a sneeze away from being wiped off the face of Faerun, and there's no way he could realistically account for Targos finding a party of six kryptonians.

When you get to the officer's quarters in the goblin fortress, Sherincal is scalding Guthma for his incompetance. But I seriously doubt she could find a better commander. The only threat I see is infighting between the goblins and the other races, and that could easily be solved by having the goblins become food for the larger troops.

Prior to Shaengarn Bridge, I'd say that Guthma's strategy was sound. When compared against the alternative of just sacking Targos, it would incur far fewer casualties and only set back their timetable a season. With the Neverwinter and Luskan reinforcements guaranteed to be intercepted, Targos would never receive the expected outside help and Guthma was free to play it safe.

After Shaengarn Bridge... not so much. The casualties suffered there were pretty nasty, wiping out the Broken Tusk clan, the Malarites, and the contingent left at the bridge itself. If Guthma had simply committed all his forces to a single attack on the Targos Palisade he'd have almost certainly won with far fewer casualties than that. He was doubtlessly aware that any dumb warlord could have just pointed the horde at Targos and had things wrapped up by now with fewer casualties than he'd already suffered. So I'd say Sherincal's lecture was well justified. Yes, maybe he could still recover the situation and see his plan to fruition, but it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best; between the heavy casualties and long timetable his performance would have been considered atrocious and it's doubtful he would have been allowed to keep his command upon review.

But it was even worse than that. By the time this conversation occurs the party has been whittling away at Guthma's defenses for at least a few days. His forward defense is completely shattered, the goblin warrens have been bled dry of forces, and he's got maybe a few dozen soldiers left (if that) in his immediate command. It's unclear how many soldiers Guthma had in total, but his situation may have already been completely unrecoverable. His failure to reinforce and redeploy his own defenses is an indictment of his (lack of) leadership.

I completely overlooked that part about the Shaengarn. Thanks for bringing it up!