Fire

The event started out pretty fun, as vampire's the troops were very attuned to killing large monsters in the region as they often used them to drink blood.

Hence when they were faced with predators that would generally be dangerous to civilians at around tier1 strength, the troops would chase them throughout the woods like they were some small bunny. 

Max had cleverly demarcated them into 16 equal zones that created a circle around the bandit hideout, and while the troops hunted and worked on creating the demarcation line that Max asked them to, Max quietly scouted the bandit hideout. 

The bandit scouts had noticed that the army was going about some exercises in the vicinity, but looking at the joy and the happiness of the soldiers as they chopped up wood and hunted animals the scouts believed it to be some routing sporting activity and did not think much of it.