Hi sorry for taking so long to respond, I had a whole thing written up, then just forgot to post it, so here it is now.
So since, as mentioned it is a fantasy story, I’ll avoid getting into minute details, and focus on big one which is pretty much relevant to any situation where people are fighting with medievalish levels of tech, and also the most plot relevant. Though I can also share some of the smaller stuff if you like, that I think still applies generally.
Basically the main thing for me, is that, battles aren’t so much individual soldiers fighting other individual soldiers, but rather formations of soldiers fighting formations of other soldiers. Even back in ancient times, battles could have thousands of soldiers and even if we’re only talking hundreds, the individual mattered a lot less than the whole. As a result, Callum’s plan doesn’t really hold up for me.
Basically, while I like the core idea of planting a bunch of magical bombs throughout the ranks disguised as helpful magic is a pretty good one, I think the execution is flawed. Mainly I don’t think with the plan in it’s current state, that a competent commander would agree to let him distribute the wards.
As mentioned fighting in formation is less about individual soldiers, so the individual prowess of each soldier is less important than their ability to work as part of formation. So while I could see the wards working if every soldier had one, since the front of the entire enemy line getting migranes would definitely make it easier to break, I don’t think they’d really do much on such a small scale, even assuming all of the wards were given to infantrymen at the front of the formation. And that’s before factoring in things like cavalry, archers and artillery. Like for an example more towards the extreme end, look at something like the Ride of the Rohirrim from return of the king, and imagine what 24 of the orcs having Callum’s wards would have on the outcome.
Now that in of itself is still not an issue; Callum wants to hand out a few wards, sure why not, they won’t do much but whatever. But the story also makes it clear that Callum doesn’t exactly have the best track record with these kind of things, so he’s effectively asking, “hey can I hand out these wards to a few people that probably won’t do much, I promise they won’t explode this time.” Which even if the MC trusts Callum’s word that they’re safer seems like a pretty big risk.
Off the top of my head, besides simply increasing the number of wards or like increasing their area of effect. What if he made something to specifically distribute to officers, realistically officers probably wouldn’t be at the front of a formation, so maybe they could be something like magic radios, so the MC can communicate better (they could also remain in their current state as migraine AOEs, depending on how concerned you are with realism). I think that would improve the plan both in the sense that, officers are more important as individuals, so giving them a magic item would definitely have more of an impact and be more worth the risk, without having to increase the quantity or power of the wards, plus it benefits Callum, as now instead of just random soldiers being affected, it’s all the officers.
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