Rule Updates and Adjustments
Unit Battle Rolls
Proportional Rolling: Instead of the old system of opposed d6 + [unit strength] rolls, opposed combat rolls are now done a dX vs dY, where X is the strength of the first party and Y is the strength of the second party. This takes into account situational effects, as in the example combat below.
Adam is fighting Bill on an open grassy plain.
Adam has 2 units of Cavalry. [2 Base strength, +1 on plains or defending hills. 2hp.]
Bill has 1 unit of Infantry [1 Base strength. 1hp.] and 1 unit of Pikemen [1 Base strength, +3 vs cavalry. 1hp.]
The total strength of Adam's army is 6 (2+1 * 2) because they are fighting on plains.
The total strength of Bill's army is 5 (1 + 1+3) because they are fighting cavalry units.
Adam rolls a d6 and gets a 4.
Bill rolls a d5 and gets a 5.
One of Adam's cavalry units is wounded, bringing it from 2hp to 1hp. They exchange blows again.
Where the strength of units is fractional because of tactics or injury, or if the battle is literally 1 vs 1, the GM may scale up the roll to account for the fraction. Generally the GM must judge how much leeway to give to a 'draw'. In this case, the GM might say that anything less than 5 points difference (10% of Bill's total strength) counts as a draw. No injuries are taken on a draw.
Because one of Adam's cavalry is wounded, its strength is halved. It fights at 1.5 strength, making Adam's army strength 4.5 now.
Adam rolls a d45 and gets 41.
Bill rolls a d50 and gets 42.
The exchange is a draw, and no injuries are taken. They exchange blows again.
Adam rolls a d45 and gets 32.
Bill rolls a d50 and gets 28.
The exchange is a draw, and no injuries are taken. They exchange blows again.
Adam rolls a d45 and gets 45.
Bill rolls a d50 and gets 30.
Bill either loses or wounds a unit. Since none of his units can be wounded, he chooses to sacrifice his infantry. His new strength is 4.
On the loss of an exchange, the loser must wound or lose a unit. Only units with more than 1hp can be wounded. If there is more than one unit in the 'stack' under attack, the loser may choose the victim. Tactics may rob the victim of this choice, e.g. by splitting a single unit from the rest of the army and placing that under attack.
Bill and Adam keep fighting.
Adam rolls a d45 and gets a 1.
Bill rolls a d40 and gets a 31.
Adam has suffered critical losses and has to deduct 2hp in units or hitpoints from his army. Since his army of 2 cavalry only has 3hp between them, one of the cavalry units is destroyed.
A critical loss occurs when the victor beats the loser by at least three-quarters of the victor's total strength. When this happens the loser suffers two points of damage; wounding or killing up to two units.
Combat Stance
An army in general will either be on the offense/attack or the defense. This stance may be changed each round but generally sides pick a stance and stick to it for most of a battle. Two offensive armies may engage each other, but at least one army must take an offensive stance for a battle to happen. Two defensive armies may not engage each other until one attacks.
In the event both armies go on the defensive and are unwilling to flee, opposed rolls will be made to see whose will breaks first and attacks. Tactician bonuses will apply to the roll, so experienced tacticians have stronger nerves.
Defensive armies gain any unit bonuses to defense and lose any bonuses to attack. They gain bonuses from owned fortifications and from terrain. Defensive armies may not pursue a fleeing army. Fleeing armies are automatically defensive.
An archer unit fighting on walls on a hill defensively has a strength of 5 (1 base, +1 from walls, +1 from hill, +1 from defensive bonus, +0.5 from defending walls, +0.5 from fighting on hills). A berserker infantry unit in the same situation has a strength of 3 (1 base, +1 from walls, +1 from hill).
Offensive armies gain any unit bonuses to attack and lose any bonuses to defense. They do not gain bonuses from owned fortifications or from terrain. Offensive armies may pursue fleeing armies, and fleeing armies may not fight offensively (except in situations such as flanking).
An archer unit fighting on walls on a hill offensively has a strength of 1.5 (1 base, 0.5 from fighting on hills). A berserker infantry unit in the same situation has a strength of 2 (1 base, +1 from offensive bonus).
Dividing The Army: It is acceptable to divide up your own army into two or more parts, though without a successful split check you will still have to face the enemy as one army - unless they intentionally divide their army as well. The divided army may fight in separate stances. This may be advisable, for example, if defending a keep during a siege. Each round in which the siege engines are not destroyed, the walls deteriorate, but moving the whole army out of the keep would be suicide. The defending army splits off a section consisting entirely of cavalry and that army sallies forth on the offensive to destroy the siege engines while the rest of the army remains defensive back in the keep.
Tactics
Tactician Units and Tactician Generals: Units no longer convey direct bonuses to tactics rolls. Only the commanding general conveys his tactical bonus to tactics performed by his side (see Leader Bonuses below). Units such as cavalry, tactician units and ambushers now reduce the cost or difficulty of specific tactics.
Cavalry units increase the difficulty of an enemy split attempt that involves that unit by 1 (split resist 1). When involved in a flanking attempt they do not count their own score. Cavalry with the tactician upgrade decrease the difficulty of flanking by -2 and increase the resistance to splitting by 2.
Tactician units have split resistance 1, and do not count toward flanking difficulty. They may make reveal attempts.
Ambusher units do not count toward ambush difficulty and partially discount concealment difficulty (full discount out of combat, half cost in combat). They may make reveal attempts. They no longer have their old general terrain bonus.
Scout units partially discount concealment difficulty (full discount out of combat, half cost in combat), and may make reveal attempts with a +1 to success.
Tactician Generals convey a bonus to Tactics for all units under their command equal to their skill. The unit the general is fighting as part of may make reveal checks if they cannot already do so.
Specific Tactics
The effects of some tactics have changed.
Tactics Rolls: You roll d6 against the difficulty of the tactic attempted. Multiple tactics are rolled separately; you no longer have to attempt to beat the combined difficulty. You succeed if you roll equal to or greater than the difficulty.
Caveat: If the difficulty is 0 or 1, you must roll greater than 1.
Caveat to the caveat: If the difficulty would be -1 or less (due to the general's Tactics skill) the gambit automatically succeeds.
Split The Enemy: Attempt to split off part of the enemy army to fight them separately. The difficulty of this tactic is equal to the strength of all the enemy units you are attempting to split, plus their split resistance. You must decide which units will attempt to fight the split unit(s) in advance, as this will determine failure penalties and the adjusted strength of the target units. e.g. Splitting pikemen with an infantry unit is only difficulty 1 (base strength), but splitting pikemen that will face a cavalry unit is difficulty 4 (from the pikemen special).
You cannot send all of your units to fight the split units; at least one of your units must still engage the 'main' army. If there are only two units in the enemy army, you automatically attempt to split whichever unit is harder. e.g. If the army consists of only 1 cavalry and 1 infantry, you cannot attempt to split the infantry unit - you must try to split the cavalry. If there is 1 cavalry and 2 infantry, you may attempt to split one of the infantry away.
Caveat: You may attempt to send all of your units to fight the split units, but only if the entire army consists of cavalry.
On a success, the targetted units are engaged separately from the main battle by the units allocated to split them.
If you fail to split the enemy, all units that would have engaged the split forces suffer a -25% penalty to strength and must engage the main army as normal (unless they themselves are split away).
You may split the enemy into as many parts as you like, but the caveat on splitting two-unit armies applies. The split does not persist beyond one round; you must split the enemy again each round.
Flank: Send part of your forces against the enemy flank for greater advantage. The difficulty of this tactic is equal to 1 (one) plus the number of friendly units engaging in the flank. That is number, not strength (so 3 regular infantry have the same chance as three heavy infantry or archers).
On a success, all units that are part of the flank enjoy a +25% strength bonus to combat. Flanking is an offensive tactic, so all flanking units fight as if on the attack (gaining any offensive bonuses and losing any defensive) even if the main army stance is defensive.
On a failure, all units that are part of the flank suffer a -25% strength bonus to combat. Their combat stance is not changed.
Flanking must be attempted fresh each round. Flanking may only be done once per enemy army engaged (to prevent players doing separate rolls for 20 heavy units), but split armies may have a separate flanking attempt for each faction of the enemy army engaged. e.g. If a split was successful and the enemy divided in two, both friendly armies may make separate flanking checks.
Conceal: The first part of an ambush strategy, units may attempt to conceal themselves in battle. The difficulty is equal to the number of units to be concealed multiplied by two.
If an army reaches the battlefield first, either by it being home ground or through a successful Logistics check, they may make a conceal check at half difficulty, i.e. difficulty equal to the number of units. Ambusher or scout units are not counted toward the difficulty when concealing before combat, and during combat they only add 1 to the difficulty each.
Units attempting concealment are automatically counted as being split from the main army (unless the whole army attempts to conceal). They may not attack other units while attempting concealment, and if they win any exchanges with units attacking them they do no damage.
On a success, the units cannot be attacked by the enemy on subsequent turns until revealed. If concealed before battle, their presence on the battlefield will not be revealed except on a successful reveal check at or before the start of battle.
On a failure the units remain split for that round and do not conceal themselves. They still may not attack, so any exchanges they win will do no damage.
Reveal: Attempts to reveal hidden foes. Only certain units may attempt a reveal check. The check is an opposed roll vs the hidden party. Each unit attempting to reveal makes a separate roll vs the hidden units; each successful roll reveals one unit, robbing them of concealment. Scout units get a +1 bonus to their checks. If a Tactician general is hidden among the concealed units, he adds his Tactics bonus to the opposed check for all concealed units.
Full success is achieved by beating an opposed roll with the hidden parties. Partial success is achieved on a draw; the existence of a hidden unit is made known to the revealer, but the unit itself is not revealed.
On a failure, the hidden foe remains hidden and the revealer takes a -25% penalty to strength during their next exchange.
Reveal attempts may be followed by standard attacks or other tactics attempts.
Ambush: Surprises a foe from hiding. Units attempting ambushing must first be concealed. Reveal checks are made before ambush checks, so if ambushing units fail an opposed reveal check they automatically fail the ambush check.
On a success, ambushers emerging from hiding gain a +50% strength bonus on their attack. As ambushing is inherently offensive, any ambushing units count as fighting in an offensive stance.
On a failure, the ambushers are revealed and suffer a -25% strength penalty for exposing themselves.
Only one attempt may be made per round to reveal ambushers (who may then subsequently try and split the enemy). Not all hidden units need to engage in the ambush, but as only one attempt may be made a certain amount of discretion is advised.
Logistics
Logistics is a new skill for generals and admirals. Logistics rolls involve army speed and supply lines. The speed of an army is rolled when a general must get to a certain place before a certain date, or catch up with an army, or take besiegers from behind during a siege... At any moment where the army must get somewhere quickly. This can be used for guerilla tactics, defeating enemy armies in detail, gaining a terrain advantage just before a battle (being the first army to get on the hill, for example), or catching up with enemy troops.
Supply is never rolled as long as an army's supply line is secure. A supply line is in theory always secure, unless someone starts messing with it by raiding it or blocking the only way for it to get there. The supply roll determines how long an army can spend without its supply line without starving, in weeks (4 = 4 weeks, 1 = 1 week, etc). An admiral's rolls are calculated in months if he has only a battle fleet, but the roll is divided by two if half of his ships carry troops, and by three if more than three quarters of them are carrying regiments (so a one, in a fleet carrying as many regiment as it can, would result in about ten days of supply without starving).
Logistics rolls can also apply to events of the GM's choosing; an admiral with a bonus in logistics will endure a storm without taking as much damage, and his fleet won't be as scattered, a general's forces won't be as affected by a nasty disease, etc.
If an army is constituted only cavalry, it gets +1 to speed but -1 to supply. Armies with siege weapons suffer a -1 to speed.
A well organized command can have a general good with logistics taking an army where it needs to be, then letting a good tactician lead a battle. The disadvantage to this, of course, is that it means the two generals have to travel together, which can mean other forces will have less experienced officers.
Leader Bonuses
Armies, or particular sections or wings of armies, may be led by a player general. That general conveys bonuses from his skills to the whole army, or to any troops under his command. These bonuses do not nest; if one master general is leading the whole army but a separate local general is commanding a wing of troops under the first general, the commanded wing will either receive the master general's bonuses or the local general's bonuses.
e.g. Alan is leading the army as a whole. He is a tier 1 Tactician, so he gives a +1 bonus to all Tactics rolls within the army.
Bill is leading a wing of 3 cavalry units. He is a tier 1 Offensive Strategist and a tier 1 Logistician. He will give a +1 to logistics rolls for those 3 cavalry units and +10% to the strength of all three units when using an offensive combat stance.
By default, Bill gives his offensive and logistics bonus to the 3 cavaliers he leads, but Alan does not give his tactics bonus. If Bill elects to be subordinate to Alan, his troops will receive the Tactics bonus but not the Logistics or offensive bonus.
Four skills come to mind for generals; Tactics, Logistics, Offensive Strategy and Defensive Strategy.
Tactics: Each tier of this skill provides a +1 to Tactics checks.
Logistics: Each tier of this skill provides a +1 to Logistics checks.
Offensive Strategy: Each tier of this skill provides a +10% strength bonus to led units while in the Offensive combat stance.
Defensive Strategy: Each tier of this skill provides a +10% strength bonus to led units while in the Defensive combat stance.
For balance reasons, it is very likely that certain players with skills like this that are overpowered may find themselves nerfed.
Siege Warfare and Fortifications
Fortifications such as keeps and walls take many seasons or even years to build, and breached fortifications take a season to repair. They are generally worth it, as they convey a bonus to any friendly unit in the Defensive combat stance during battle and are a good way to protect valuable locations such as cities and strategic points such as bridges. Archers in particular become vastly more powerful behind fortifications.
Overcoming fortifications is not easy. One may bypass them by throwing enough bodies at the wall; if you vastly outnumber your enemy, you can just accept the losses and win. Another is to destroy the fortifications with siege weapons.
Every fortification has a certain number of hit points (generally 5 multiplied by the defensive bonus it grants). Siege weapons such as catapults and ballistae will reduce hit points by 1 each round that they are around. They tend to be poorly defended and easy to destroy, but unless split attackers will have to take on the whole army. If battle ends before the fort is reduced to 0 hit points, it is repaired to full hit points by the next battle. If the fort is reduced to 0 hit points it is breached, losing all its defensive bonuses and may be freely attacked. This includes bonuses to fighting within or on fortifications.
Siege weapons cost 3d, have a defensive strength of 2 (they cannot destroy units and must be defended by standard units - on winning an exchange they are just not damaged) and have an upkeep of 1d/year. They take one season to build.
Unit Upgrade Adjustments
Heavy I: +1 Base Strength. +1 hp.
Heavy II requires Iron, Heavy III requires Arms. Both stack with Heavy I, adding a further +1 Str and +1 hp.
Cost: +1d. Upkeep: +1d/yr.
Cavalry: +1 Base Strength. +1 Strength fighting on open plains, or fighting defensively on hills (unless defending a fortification). Flanking cost 0, Split resist 1. +1 hp.
Cost: +2d. Upkeep: +2d/yr. Requires Horses.
Tactician: Flanking cost 0, Split resist 1, may reveal. Stacks with cavalry for flanking cost -1, split resist 2, reveal.
Cost: +0.5d. Upkeep: +0.5d/yr.
Ambush: Concealment cost 0, ambush cost 0. May reveal.
Cost: +1d. Upkeep: +1d/yr.
Scout: Concealment cost 0, may reveal, reveal +1. Confers a +1 bonus to logistics checks to reveal or locate enemy armies (does not stack).
Cost: +0.5d. Upkeep: +0.5d/yr.
Archer I (Shortbow): +1 Str in defensive stance. +0.5 Str when fighting on hills or mountains. +0.5 Str when defending fortifications. Can fight at sea. Ranged.
Cost: +1d. Upkeep: +0.5d/yr.
Archer II (Longbow): +1 Str in defensive stance. +0.5 Str when fighting on hills/mountains. +0.5 Str when defending fortifications. Stacks with archer II.
Cost: +1d. Upkeep: +0.5d/yr. Requires Timber.
Archer III (Recurve): +1 Str in defensive stance. +0.5 Str when fighting on hills/mountains. +0.5 Str when defending fortifications. +1 if unit is also mounted (cavalry or other). Stacks with archer III.
Cost: +1d. Upkeep: +0.5d/yr. Requires Timber.
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