As his Worg sank to the ground, the Orcs cried out in alarm. Some riders simply toppled headfirst onto the ground. These were the riders who lacked full Plate Armor; arrows had pierced the armor on their limbs and sunk into their flesh. The arrows might not kill them outright, but the poison on them could.
Soldiers struck by three or more arrows collapsed, unable to move. Even more Worgs fell, some crumpling onto their bellies, others onto their sides, throwing their riders off. Almost every Worg had been hit by poisoned arrows. Only a dozen or so remained standing, for the Orcs' Worgs lacked the protective barding worn by the mounts of human Heavy Cavalry.
The Orc Company Commander suddenly realized his riders' greatest weakness. Without their mounts, they were nothing but living targets for the Elves' Rain of Arrows. The battle was lost. Dejectedly, he lowered the hand he had raised to order a charge. It was over! Everything was over!
How could a dozen riders fight several hundred? If these despicable Elves had not used poison, if he still had a hundred unharmed riders, he might have been able to fight them to mutual destruction by coordinating with the Infernal. Unfortunately, those were only ifs. The Elves had used poison, and he did not have a hundred uninjured Wolf Riders.
Had Yu Lin Bloodhawk known what he was thinking, he would certainly have shouted in surprise, "You bastard, you actually know the elephant-and-puppy combo too?" The elephant-and-puppy combo was a common yet extremely powerful and effective Zerg attack tactic in the strategy game StarCraft. It was almost a perfect pairing, comparable to infantry-tank coordination in modern warfare, but far more lethal.
In StarCraft, Terran infantry-tank coordination was far stronger defensively than offensively. The Zerg elephant-and-puppy combo was