This is one of those contrived situations that plays out in an unreasonably favorable way. Even overlooking the experience he should have after a thousand years, charging in was a tactic mistake, and the guerilla warfare tactic alternative he decided not to use would have been as well. The key point here is the hostages. He didn't know the state of them, and even if he did, charging in would have been a great risk for a few reasons. First, the obvious hostage sacrifice card. Hostages are put at risk and they either die or the troops retreat, or the mc magics it away(which would have been better than this). Second, moral. He claimed that he would let none of them die, but even the sight of hostages could have caused them to falter and take a fatal wound. I could go a bit further, but I'll leave it at that.
