I noticed there are quite a lot of stories where a modern army easily defeats a medieval fantasy army using machine guns, tanks, planes, etc. Some examples are The Salvation War series and Gate: Thus, the JSDF fought there.
But i cannot think of any where the reverse happens, where the medieval fantasy army easily defeats the modern one using magic, or even holds their ground. It's almost always about not-Romans (or whoever the author wants to be the punching bags) being curb stomped by tanks and artillery, etc.
I can think of some where magical monsters suddenly show up and cause havoc because modern weapons don't work, but those stories usually focus on a cast of super powered heroes that protect the earth from the monsters (e.g. Magical Girl series, Super Sentai shows, Power Rangers, etc). This is not what im looking for.
I'm looking for stories where the focus is on a modern army with tanks, artillery, planes, etc, fighting a medieval fantasy one with magic, monsters, gods, etc…and the medieval fantasy one either wins or at least puts up a fight.
It should show how modern tech simply cannot match what magic can do. For example, meteors might suddenly appear out of nowhere to destroy military bases, all the fuel used in vehicles may suddenly combust, generals might get mind controlled and send their troops into a trap, an armored division suddenly finds itself in quick sand, etc…problems that cannot simply be countered by "lol, we have machine guns and bombs, get rekt" (which is what most authors do).
Neither am I looking for stories where the magic is later revealed to be some form of hyper science. It has to be real magic, real divine miracles, etc.
Again, the focus should be on the war itself.
Can anyone think of anything like this? For example, maybe a modern army tries to invade a medieval fantasy world, and expects an easy victory because the locals fight most with swords and other medieval tech…then they discover that magic and gods are real, and are far more powerful than what they can handle.
by GlompSpark