House Rules: Mass Combat - Sequence

Each round of a battle lasts 1 hour, and is split into several phases.

  1. Tactical Phase—At the start of each round of battle, the army commander can shift the overall strategy that all forces under her command will follow (see Strategy below).
    • Boons: The army commander and each unit leader can decide which boon to make active (see Boons below). These choices must be made bfore tactical initiative is determined.
    • Tactics: Each unit leader can decide what special tactics their unit will use to implement that strategy (see Tactics below). These choices must be made before tactical initiative is determined.
    • Tactical Initiative: Each commander rolls a Leadership check, and whichever commander rolls lowest on their check must reveal their strategy first. A commander with a higher check can change his strategy in response to his opponent’s, though moving strategy more than one step on Table: Strategy requires a Morale check to perform smoothly.
      • In addition to forcing his enemy to reveal his strategy first, if one commander’s check exceeds his opponent’s by 5 or more, he can either force his enemy to reveal one tactic or he can change one of his own unit’s tactics for every 5 points by which his check exceeds his opponent’s. The commander can choose which unit he wishes to learn about; if that unit has more than one tactic available, it must reveal the tactic it is using during this Action phase. Regardless of the result of your check, you can reveal only one tactic per enemy unit or change one tactic for each of your units; any excess is lost. Command boons and creature special abilities are not revealed by winning tactical initiative.
      • The commander in charge of each army rolls for the tactical initiative; the individual unit leaders do not. The commander that wins tactical initiative selects one unit to act during the Action phase, followed by the enemy selecting one unit to act. Actions alternate from each commander until all units have acted. If one side has more units than the other, when one side runs out of units to attack taking turns with its opponent, any leftover units from the larger army act in succession until all have acted.
  2. Action Phase—During this phase, each army commander chooses one unit to act in turn in the order determined by the Tactical Initiative. Army units have 2 acts to spend for battle actions. See Actions for a list of actions a unit can execute. Keep track of how many Casualties each unit receives, but do not deduct them from the unit's section just yet.
  3. Casualties Phase—After resolving Action phase for the round, each unit deducts their Casualties from their sections. The unit leader makes a Leadership check with the DC equal to 10 + the total number of casualties received; a successful check allows the leader to divide the damage between two sections, plus one additional section for every 5 above the DC (up to a total of 5 sections). You must apply the damage to the section with the lowest hp, then the second-lowest, and so on. Healing is applied during this phase, with sections being healed in order of highest to lowest. Healing spills over from section to section. Sections that remain at 0 hp by the end of this phase are considered to be killed, and cannot be healed. Units with all of their sections reduced to 0 are defeated (see Defeated, Destroyed, Disbanded below).
  4. Rout Phase—Each undefeated unit makes a Morale check to determine if it becomes fatigued and if it still has the will to fight; defeated units are automatically fatigue and routing. The Fatigue DC starts at 10, and increases by 5 for every hour the unit has been on the battlefield (see Fatigue below). The Rout DC starts at 10 plus 5 for each allied unit that has been defeated, destroyed, disbanded, or routed from the field. If this check succeeds, the unit continues to fight. If the check fails, the unit’s Morale score is reduced by 1d4. If this reduces the unit’s Morale to -11, the unit's leader must make a DC 10 Morale check. If successful, the unit remains intact with its Morale reset to -10 and the unit routs, fleeing from the battlefield. If that check fails, the unit disbands. A cumulative -2 penalty applies to the Leadership check each time the unit's Morale reaches -11 or lower during the battle.
    • Routed Units: A routed unit is forced to flee the battlefield and cannot attack. The routed unit can no longer use the Melee or Ranged Attack actions, and must do whatever it can to use the Retreat action. When using the Disengage or Retreat action, and the routed unit fails its Morale check for those actions, the free attack from the enemy unit gains a +1 bonus for every 10 feet of movement speed that the attacking unit has over the routing unit, and -1 penalty for every 10 feet below (making it advantageous to use cavalry or other fast units to attack routing units).
    • Mercenaries: When a mercenary army’s Morale drops to -10 or lower or when they have lost more than half of their sections, they must make a Morale check to avoid routing. A nation takes no penalties when a mercenary army disbands or is destroyed.
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