Pony Battle: War, Troops and Other Ideas for Combat In Equestria.

Note: This will be long and if you aren't into war and tactics as such, it may alienate you.

Units, Strengths and Weakness Evaluation

First, Biological Considerations for Ponies

For starters, horses can run at a pace of 35 MPH (Compare this to the human pace of about a max speed of 25 MPH, but interestingly, we we are better at marathons than any known animal, thanks to our persistence-hunting tailored bodies), and considering all races of pony are at their core horses, this means you have very fast, compared to human, troops. Also, since your army consists of entirely cavalry that is mount-less and sentient, it means carrying supplies like medical supplies and food becomes easier. Even more so, since this is an army of herbivores, so long as their is sufficient forage or pasture, your army might not even NEED to have supplies shipped in. This is an added bonus to the cost of an army. Also, if one had unicorns or alicorns on their side of sufficient magical talent, healing spells, magical explosion spells, shield spells, the possibilities so long as your magic-users had the proper training, are nearly endless. But I fear I am nearly about to digress.
First of all, there are four pony types we must select for our hypothetical warriors, the Earth, Pegasus, Unicorn and Alicorn landraces. These all have their own special weaknesses and strengths in the offensive and defensive arena. Let's further break them down, shall we?

A. Earth Pony

An Earth pony, for all intents and purposes, is often the least popular race of pony to select for an OC. This, I feel, is because an Earth pony is hand-waved away for being just a typical horse, albeit a sentient one with a predisposition for a more technicolor coat than most human-world ponies have, but let's really examine how effective even this somewhat brushed-aside race could be in the war zone. For starters, a horse is an enormously powerful animal, and Earth ponies are praised for their great strength, necessary in their role as caretakers of the land and the bearers of much of Equestria's agricultural goods. In this way, I'd imagine a typical Earth pony to be roughly the stature of about 12-18 hands high, or for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, about 4.5 to 6 feet at the withers (the shoulder of a horse).

This means that in a war situation, Earth ponies would make excellent units for nearly any non-mage or flight-required task. Need a trench dug out? Earth Pony on the task. Have some unicorn fire specialists who need a distraction from the enemy while they prepare some balefire for a blast? Earth ponies can attack and harry well. Calvary charge? Earth ponies would be excellent to use.

There is, of course, a couple of drawbacks to the Earth pony as opposed to other landraces of pony. For one, they can only manipulate objects with their mouths and by clasping something with their fetlocks, or by balancing it on their hooves. This means the five-digit grab needed for say, a sword, or even the telepathic magic of a unicorn or alicorn is lost. This can be avoided, however, if we think of more practical weaponry. In the excellent story The Age of Wings and Steel, specialized mace-horseshoes, called "hoof maces", are used by our quadrupedal friends as devastating melee weaponry. If one also, say, made blades or spiked horseshoes, this could also prove highly effective, and when such weapons as swords must be used, a pony must grasp them in their jaws, or perhaps for a quick parry or slice in a fetlock joint. This may at first sound stupid to us, but when you think of how highly mobile and long a pony's neck is, this makes a properly trained Equestrian war pony a devastating force.

B. Unicorn

The biggest trouble and yet greatest thing the unicorn race has to its powers is magic. With magic, you can swing an ax, light a fire, find hidden enemies with some version of a detect life spell, ETC. This means that essentially, a well-tutored unicorn in a war zone could be excellent as a scout, a caster of spells, a medic, nearly anything. Troubles only begin when you realize that ponies, unicorns especially, are often only keyed in with what they do as an occupation, or what their Cutie Mark is said to represent. This means if you want a bunch of Lightning channeled and striking the flying rivals in the clouds, you need ponies who either studied the spells necessary, or have an innate "instinct" for the task. This means also you need specialized unicorns for certain tasks, or at least ones who can properly cast a spell necessary for the time at hoof. Unicorns, however as I stated before, have their absolutely race-wide ability to manipulate objects with their magic. This means that they can sling projectiles with a thought and some magicka, swing a melee weapons, fling enemy units away, etc. This makes them nearly like fighting an army of Jean Greys and Professor Xaviers. This is no fun prospect.

C. Pegasus

The pegasus, as a unit, is essentially an Earth pony with wings. This makes them something we humans have no concept of, much like mages, but instead of the combat use of magic, instead one has WINGED infantry. This is unheard of and unprecedented among humans, who have to have aircraft to experience aerial combat. What's more, let's go ahead and assume a typical pegasi can fly a bit faster that they can run on the ground, and cap their general on the wing speed at about 55 MPH max, with some being slower or faster (Sonic Rainbooms are caused less by the wing speed, but rather the dive and the success at keeping the pace... HEADCANON.). Also, as shown by their need to use goggles, pegasus lack the nictating membranes of birds, or other flying races seen in the world, like griffons or dragons. This means that sandstorms, severe icy winds or other inclement weather, could put a pegasus brigade to their hooves on solid ground or a cloud until they could either manipulate the weather into a more favorable condition for flight or wait for it to pass on. But the advantages of flight are numerous. You can position them behind an entrenched position of your enemy, and have them ambush after flying behind and then attacking them, giving the distraction needed by the harrying to attack from the fore. The could quickly place explosive or incendiary munitions into encampments, and with either unicorn or self-made flame, cause a maximum amount of damage while beating a retreat. They could scout from the air, and report positions, casualties, wounded in need of assistance, etc. They can swoop from above to rain down on enemies, and could even whip up directed weather patterns, like hurricanes if next to the ocean or vicious tornadoes, if given enough time and with enough wing power, to utterly throw the rival army into disarray.

D. Alicorn

Alicorns have all the advantages afforded to nearly all three races; power of body, power of flight and power of magic. This is only unfortunate that there are only four known alicorns, and as a result, this makes their use in combat probably only necessary if one was fighting an extraordinarily powerful opponent, such a dragon flight or another "god". But if one was to consider typical power levels to the magnitude of the alicorn, it would nearly be impossible to defeat one to the point where the alicorn in question was to succumb to death. Even Chrysalis, when she magically blasted Celestia, merely stunned her long enough to encase her in changeling victim cocoon. Now let's assume a typical alicorn has about roughly the strength of a powerful pegasus in flight, a powerful Earth pony in strength potential and the level of a powerful unicorn magician at their beck and call. Now let's up that for Celestia and Luna to roughly ten times that. That means you have a near-immortal, a powerful super-being, on your side. Healing units, blasting things with magical showers of death, launching bolt after bolt of devastating spells, flying like a great bird of prey onto the enemy, the alicorn would be a terrible thing to face in combat. Once again, thank goodness for whatever forces challenges Equestria that there is only four of them.

E. Other Species

Any sort of equine, zebra, donkey, mule, onager, khiang, etcetera, let's assume them to be roughly of the same caliber as an Earth pony. They could deployed in much the same way as the Earth pony troops are. For griffins, they hold an advantage over their equine compatriots, they have a mobile set of talons, with which they can grab and manipulate objects. Take also into account that griffins may be able to manipulate weather like pegasi can, and you essentially will have an army of 300 to 900 pound sentient eagle-lions who can possibly whip up a hell of a beating for your troops. They also have sharp talons on their forelegs, retracting claws of a lion in their hind paws, and a sharp flesh-tearing beak. This is wonderful natural armament, but then you also have to consider they most likely have good access to steel, for armor and weaponry, and since they have their prehensile fore-digits, they can use a spear, bow and arrow, sword or what have you much like a human could, albeit in a four-limbed stature or flying arena.

Diamond Dogs would be powerful beasts to face in combat, sharp jaws with powerful muscles and sharp claws. Add in their armor-making and weapon-making abilities to their natural digging talent, they could move behind your camp underground, burst into cover behind your troops and begin to attack them by surprise. Dragons would be a near-alicorn, except with less defensive capabilities and more offensive capabilities. Hard scales render armor only a necessity if facing hard resistance or similar enemies to yourself as a dragon. Your breath, which is pure fire, will roast your enemies alive. Your tail can swipe, smash and kill many enemies. Claws and jaws can be used to slash, crush and devour your enemies, like a wolf among an army of voles you'd be. The only thing limiting your tactics are your size and cleverness as a dragon. Changelings, I'd imagine, wouldn't be incredibly different from have pegasus infantry, but with a better than A Song of Ice and Fire's Faceless Men ability to change their appearance, infiltration is nearly beyond simple. But unless they're trained for war, changelings would be essentially useless except for the infamous idea of the "Zerg Rush"; an utter wave of combatants that just statistically and psychically over-come the opposition.

Whatever Scorpan and Tirek are, (Centaur-Demon thing and Baboon-Lion-Demon thing?) Tirek has shown an ability to vampirically ingest and then utilize powers from his prey. As a result, he grows in stature, power and magical ability. As we don't know much about how these mysterious creatures do this, or what they eat, it's hard to make estimates beyond them being very powerful, on par with a large dragon or alicorn master in strength.