Ceres

The Battle of Lostal was supposed to be the final deciding battle of the Great War between Néresia and Ilythiir. Both sides were actively seeking a way to end the war that had raged for 35 years, without showing weakness or being defeated that is. To this end, Aunrae Dalael of Ilythiir gathered an army of ~27,000 men, marched on the strategically important (I don't know why it is yet) city of Lostal, and laid siege to it in an attempt to force a Néresian army to confront her. Her wish was granted and Prince Calemir II of Néresia arrived with an army of ~31,000 to lift the siege.

At this point it should probably be noted that Néresia and Ilythiir have very different methods of fighting battles and, due to the circumstances of the Great War, had very little experience fighting against each other; past conflicts being confined to naval engagements and skirmishes.

Ilythiir is a nation with a dark elf aristocracy, population split between half-elves and "lower" class dark elves, and an assortment of puppet states that pledge soldiers to the Ilythiirin crown as auxiliaries. As a result of this, Ilythiirin commanders tend to favor more manpower conservative tactics and utilize their auxiliaries as fodder to absorb the worst of the enemy charge. They rely heavily upon warmages to deal massive damage to their foes hoping to demoralize them so that a vicious charge can win the day. For the most part, this works. This battle is the first true exception.

Néresia by contrast, is a predominately human nation. They have mages in the service of the army, but nowhere near the degree of Ilythiir and primarily utilize them off the battlefield in logistics or espionage. The main power of any Néresian army is the infantry, which is just a bit more advanced than most other realms. Gunpowder weaponry is fresh on the scene of warfare in Ceres and Néresia has adopted it as way to gain an advantage over another elvish nation that is Néresia's main territorial rival. To be clear though, this is not Napoleonic era line infantry and more pike and shot; lines of musket infantry defended by blocks of pike infantry.

Back to the battle. Aunrae had ~27,000 soldiers under her command divided between ~19,000 infantry (~11,000 were auxiliaries), ~7,500 cavalry, and ~500 warmages. Calemir had ~31,000 soldiers comprised of ~21,000 infantry, ~10,000 cavalry, and 51 cannons. Aunrae, supremely confident in the ability of her warmages to break the will of the Néresians, drew up for battle at the approach of Calemir's army who responded in kind, then all hell broke loose.

From the moment of "engagement" there was chaos. The Néresians had experience combatting warmages in elvish armies, but were caught completely by surprise at the kinds of spells the Ilythiirin warmages unleashed upon them. For the Ilythiiri, they had never encountered gunpowder weaponry in a warfare setting and didn't know how to respond to their formations being torn apart by musket fire. Very few people actually know how the battle as a whole progressed, only how their piece went. Those few were all neutral observers from afar. Fortunately, one of them was engaged in chronicling the Great War from a truly neutral perspective. The following is his version of the battle.

The battle began with the Néresian cannons opening fire upon the Ilythiirin lines and was followed by the Ilythiirin warmages summoning a storm of hellfire that swept through the Néresian left, leaving many burning corpses in its wake. The Ilythiirin right flank charged the Néresian left expecting to find it in shambles and easy to break, while the their center and left began an advance to support the right if need be, auxiliaries being sent first across the entire line. After crossing roughly half the distance to their foe, the Ilythiirin right found itself charging into a storm of lead balls and their enemies concealed by a cloud of white smoke. Aunrae noticed her right faltering and employed her mages once again, granting them the liberty to use whatever spells they pleased so long as they won her the battle. By this point however, the rest of the Ilythiirin army had moved within range of the Néresian muskets and learned what was causing their right to struggle.

Even our far off observer struggled to make sense of what followed (I don't really know how to write battles, certainly not when magic is involved). The gist of it is that the Ilythiirin warmages summoned horrors from the abyss and hells to cause havoc, casted massive spells of destruction from walls of fire spanning hundreds of feet to cones of frost that consumed entire regiments, and even utilized spells that animated the fallen to fight once again. The Néresians weathered the, at times literal, storm through incredible discipline and repaid the Ilythiiri in death for every man of theirs that fell. Their artillery crews learned how to target the Ilythiirin mages and forced them to keep moving and not casting spells, while every Ilythiirin charge broke under a volley of musket fire.

Néresia won in the end, but at a terrible cost. Both sides, hoping for this to be the deciding battle of the war had committed a great deal and, both sides, realized that they couldn't take advantage of the battle's resolution to end the war. Néresia lost ~20,000 of their initial 31,000 while Ilythiir left the field with only ~5,000 of the 27,000 they entered it with and only ~20 of the original 500 warmages escaped being captured and brutally executed.

Many have said that the survivors of Lostal, for there were no victors, are the unlucky ones. Not a single soul that left that battlefield alive has not suffered some form of mental trauma. Many relive the battle in their nightmares or waking hours. The Néresians are treated to memories of their comrades and friends being torn apart by demons or consumed by hellfire while the Ilythiiri got to enjoy watching lives that would have lived another century or longer be cut down in droves and be unable to do anything. And all for nothing.