On another board I became engaged in a discussion about the size of the units in Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers book, where a system for playing army sized defenses of towns and castles is presented. He will be releasing a new book called Kingdoms & Warfare in the near future, which is promoted as clearing up the combat system, but I want to get a feel for how this works at present. As part of that discussion I decided I should run through a test case or two before I could use it in a campaign of my own.
Has anyone used the system and would you be willing to help me understand how it works?
In my first read I liked many of the concepts he presented, such as the requirement for levies to be defeated before the main units really lock horns. Infantry can not be attacked by infantry while levies are still in their army. Infantry and levies can't attack cavalry (mounted units). Archers can not be attacked by infantry or levies while infantry or levies are still in their army. And a few other such declarations. It isn't even clear if levies can attack anything, but I believe they can.
In another part of these rules it says that if another unit of the same type is added to an army, instead it is joined to the existing unit and that units size is increased accordingly. Since levies are raised from the local population, I would anticipate in many circumstances all levies would be the same, so that there would be only one unit of levies per army. But each of the "real" units could be differentiated by racial origin, type of equipment, level of experience, and so on so that there could be a number of units in each army.
Let's consider a "Stronghold" defended by the following units:
[A] A medium (d6) Regular Dwarven Heavy Infantry unit
[B] A small (d4) Regular Human Medium Archer unit
[C] A small (d4) Veteran Human Medium Cavalry unit
[D] Levies
The scouts report an army is approaching that appears hostile, containing:
[e] A medium (d6) Veteran Orc Medium Infantry unit
[f] A small (d4) Veteran Orc Medium Archer unit
[g] A Large (d8) unit of Orc Levies
How many levies should the defenders raise to have a fair chance of winning this battle if the defenders chose to fight in the open away from the town to preserve the town?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
So the most likely first move by the Orcs is to have their levies attack the defender's levies. The defender will respond in kind. However, the Orcs (assuming they have the initiative as the attacking force) could engage the defenders levies with any unit they choose, and the defenders could begin by attacking the Orc levies with any of their units. But both sides must attack the levies if they open with infantry or levies. Archers and Cavalry have the option to attack other units, but let's assume for now the right opening move is to get the levies out of the way.
The Orc infantry will likely attack the defenders levies. And the defender's Dwarven infantry will likely attack the Orc levies. The Orc archers may attack the defender's infantry, to begin the process of wearing them down, and the defender's archers may do the same to the Orc infantry. At this point, in round 1, the Orcs are fully engaged. The defender's cavalry charges the Orc archers and attacks them (because the archers may only attack the cavalry at disadvantage). Dice are rolled and results are determined.
This step gets more involved than I would like, but maybe after running through it I will see it is easier than I think.
Unit [A] has a cost of 320 and attributes of Atk +4 Pow +5 Def +6 Tough +3 Morale +3 [Stalwart] (d6)
Unit [B] has a cost of 230 and attributes of Atk +3 Pow +3 Def +2 Tough +1 Morale +3 [Courageous] (d4)
Unit [C] has a cost of 300 and attributes of Atk +4 Pow +3 Def +2 Tough +1 Morale +6 [Courageous] (d4)
Unit [D] is a (d4) levy unit with a cost of 90 and attributes of Atk +2 Pow +0 Def +0 Tough +0 Morale +0 [Courageous] (d4)
Unit [e] has a cost of 250 and attributes of Atk +3 Pow +4 Def +4 Tough +1 Morale +3 [Savage] (d6)
Unit [f] has a cost of 300 and attributes of Atk +3 Pow +4 Def +3 Tough +1 Morale +4 [Savage] (d4)
Unit [g] has a cost of 150 and attributes of Atk +2 Pow +1 Def +1 Tough +1 Morale +1 [Savage] (d8)
At this point my unit statistics don't look like Matt's. His unit card for the Dwarven Elite Heavy Infantry, the Rockbreakers, shows these values ...
Atk +6 Pow +6 Def 15 Tough 13 Morale +8 [Stalwart] (d6) and a cost of 440. When I add up the Rockbreakers I get ...
On another board I became engaged in a discussion about the size of the units in Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers book, where a system for playing army sized defenses of towns and castles is presented. He will be releasing a new book called Kingdoms & Warfare in the near future, which is promoted as clearing up the combat system, but I want to get a feel for how this works at present. As part of that discussion I decided I should run through a test case or two before I could use it in a campaign of my own.
Has anyone used the system and would you be willing to help me understand how it works?
In my first read I liked many of the concepts he presented, such as the requirement for levies to be defeated before the main units really lock horns. Infantry can not be attacked by infantry while levies are still in their army. Infantry and levies can't attack cavalry (mounted units). Archers can not be attacked by infantry or levies while infantry or levies are still in their army. And a few other such declarations. It isn't even clear if levies can attack anything, but I believe they can.
In another part of these rules it says that if another unit of the same type is added to an army, instead it is joined to the existing unit and that units size is increased accordingly. Since levies are raised from the local population, I would anticipate in many circumstances all levies would be the same, so that there would be only one unit of levies per army. But each of the "real" units could be differentiated by racial origin, type of equipment, level of experience, and so on so that there could be a number of units in each army.
Let's consider a "Stronghold" defended by the following units:
[A] A medium (d6) Regular Dwarven Heavy Infantry unit
[B] A small (d4) Regular Human Medium Archer unit
[C] A small (d4) Veteran Human Medium Cavalry unit
[D] Levies
The scouts report an army is approaching that appears hostile, containing:
[e] A medium (d6) Veteran Orc Medium Infantry unit
[f] A small (d4) Veteran Orc Medium Archer unit
[g] A Large (d8) unit of Orc Levies
How many levies should the defenders raise to have a fair chance of winning this battle if the defenders chose to fight in the open away from the town to preserve the town?
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
So the most likely first move by the Orcs is to have their levies attack the defender's levies. The defender will respond in kind. However, the Orcs (assuming they have the initiative as the attacking force) could engage the defenders levies with any unit they choose, and the defenders could begin by attacking the Orc levies with any of their units. But both sides must attack the levies if they open with infantry or levies. Archers and Cavalry have the option to attack other units, but let's assume for now the right opening move is to get the levies out of the way.
The Orc infantry will likely attack the defenders levies. And the defender's Dwarven infantry will likely attack the Orc levies. The Orc archers may attack the defender's infantry, to begin the process of wearing them down, and the defender's archers may do the same to the Orc infantry. At this point, in round 1, the Orcs are fully engaged. The defender's cavalry charges the Orc archers and attacks them (because the archers may only attack the cavalry at disadvantage). Dice are rolled and results are determined.
This step gets more involved than I would like, but maybe after running through it I will see it is easier than I think.
Unit [A] has a cost of 320 and attributes of Atk +4 Pow +5 Def +6 Tough +3 Morale +3 [Stalwart] (d6)
Unit [B] has a cost of 230 and attributes of Atk +3 Pow +3 Def +2 Tough +1 Morale +3 [Courageous] (d4)
Unit [C] has a cost of 300 and attributes of Atk +4 Pow +3 Def +2 Tough +1 Morale +6 [Courageous] (d4)
Unit [D] is a (d4) levy unit with a cost of 90 and attributes of Atk +2 Pow +0 Def +0 Tough +0 Morale +0 [Courageous] (d4)
Unit [e] has a cost of 250 and attributes of Atk +3 Pow +4 Def +4 Tough +1 Morale +3 [Savage] (d6)
Unit [f] has a cost of 300 and attributes of Atk +3 Pow +4 Def +3 Tough +1 Morale +4 [Savage] (d4)
Unit [g] has a cost of 150 and attributes of Atk +2 Pow +1 Def +1 Tough +1 Morale +1 [Savage] (d8)
At this point my unit statistics don't look like Matt's. His unit card for the Dwarven Elite Heavy Infantry, the Rockbreakers, shows these values ...
Atk +6 Pow +6 Def 15 Tough 13 Morale +8 [Stalwart] (d6) and a cost of 440. When I add up the Rockbreakers I get ...
Dwarf: Atk +3 Pow +1 Def +1 Tough +1 Morale +2 [Stalwart]
Elite: Atk +2 Pow +0 Def +0 Tough +2 Morale +4 (x1 medium size cost modifier)
Heavy: Atk +0 Pow +4 Def +4 Tough +0 Morale +0
Infantry: Atk +0 Pow +0 Def +1 Tough +1 Morale +0 (x1 Inf cost modifier)
Total for the Rockbreakers: Atk +5 Pow +5 Def +6 Tough +4 Morale +6 [Stalwart] (d6) and a cost of 400.
Can someone help me find my errors before I proceed to analyzing the chances for each side?
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt