Fighting a Battle

Fighting a Battle

No two battles are the same. Deployment zones, objectives – even the composition of the Armies themselves – can vary wildly. To represent this, we use a selection of Scenarios, each of which alters the form and scope of the battle. This rulebook includes three Scenarios, but you should feel free to invent your own!

Choosing a Scenario

The best way to choose a Scenario – whether contained within this volume or taken from elsewhere – is to agree upon one with your opponent. However, if you’d rather determine your Scenario randomly, roll a die and consult the following table.

Once you’ve chosen a Scenario, perform the following steps: Choose Forces, Set Up Battlefield, Deploy Forces, Secondary Objectives, and – at last! – Fight the Battle.

Choose Forces

First, you have to create an Army from your collection of Models. Each Scenario tells you how many points you can spend on your Army, as well as any restrictions, under the Forces heading. For more information on Choosing Forces, see Appendix Three – Army Lists.

Set Up Battlefield

The Scenario’s Battlefield heading tells you how to set up your gaming table for the battle to come – including any special Terrain features you’ll need to place. The most important thing, however, is that your Battlefield looks great! An attractive, evocative Battlefield makes victory all the sweeter.

Scenarios invariably call upon players to agree on the amount of Terrain to be placed. However, as a guideline, we recommend that you normally place only a single piece of Garrison Terrain in each table quarter, and make sure that no piece of Garrison Terrain is within 6” of another or the Battlefield edge.

Assign Characters

Each Character in your Army must join a Regiment before Deployment begins. The best way to do this is to set your entire Army out beside the Battlefield, with your Characters already in the Regiments that they’ll be fighting from at the start of the battle. Once you and your opponent have done this, you can start deploying your Regiments.

Also, if any of your Regiments are to be assigned to Regiments with the Transport special rule, you’ll need to do it at this point.

Reinforcements

Deployment will often tell you to keep one or more Regiments back as Reinforcements. Reinforcement Regiments are not deployed at the start of the game. They’re held to one side, and arrive later in the battle, as described on pages 138 and 148.

Note that if a Regiment is held back as Reinforcements, so is any Character that has joined it – the Character cannot move to another Regiment until its initial Regiment has entered the Battlefield.

Secondary Objectives

Battles are primarily decided by seizing ground and slaughtering the opposition. However, as the fight goes on, opportunities unfold for one side or the other to claim an advantage. These are referred to as Secondary Objectives.

Each Faction has its own deck of Secondary Objective cards, representing the goals it considers pivotal to victory. While some Secondary Objective decks share cards – certain goals being common to all – no two decks are exactly the same. A player who adheres closely to the martial and ideological goals of the warriors under his command is that much more likely to achieve victory!

Note that some characters instruct you to add a new Secondary Objective card to your deck. Such cards are only added if that character is included in your army, and do not displace other cards from your Secondary Objective deck – they merely increase the variety of tasks you may be called upon to perform.

Drawing Secondary Objectives

Shuffle your Secondary Objective deck, and draw the top three cards. Your opponent does the same with his Secondary Objective deck. Keep your cards hidden from your opponent! They aren’t revealed until the game has ended. Secondary Objectives are seldom enough to win the battle outright, but they can tip a close-run engagement in your favour.

Scoring Secondary Objectives

Each Secondary Objective card gives you the conditions for completing it. Once you complete a Secondary Objective, make a note of the Turn number on your roster. Note that some decks contain multiple cards of the same Secondary Objective. You cannot complete a Secondary Objective card more than once. However, if you have two or more identical Secondary Objective cards, you can complete each in turn.

Fight the Battle

With preliminaries complete, it’s time to fight! The Game Length header tells you how many Turns to play, and the Victory Points header gives you the information you need to know when you’ve won a mighty triumph, or cravenly plunged into the depths of defeat.

Earning Victory Points

Battlefield dominance is determined from Turn to Turn. At the end of each Turn, consult the Victory Conditions to work out how many Victory Points you’ve scored that turn – your opponent does the same. Keep a running total of your Victory Points as the game goes on. Once the game is finished, these will be used to determine the winner!

Seizing Territory

Victory Points are often earned for seizing territory – battlefield quarters, centre of the battlefield, objective markers and so on. A Regiment can only earn one such set of Victory Points each turn – e.g. it can claim the Victory Points for either a battlefield quarter or the battlefield’s centre. The Player with the most Stands in range of an Objective, claims that Objective Note that only Medium and Heavy Regiments can seize territory – Light Regiments can only Contest. The purpose of Light Regiments is to scout and secure the battlefield, preparing the way for those who follow them into the fray. Therefore, when you determine Victory Points for seizing territory, all Light Stands are ignored – they only count for denying Victory Points from your opponent.

Determine Victor

Obviously, if you’re wiped out, or you choose to concede, victory goes to your opponent. Otherwise, each Scenario has its own unique conditions for scoring points and securing victory which you will have to follow to come out victorious.

SOURCES

Source Materials