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Windhraver@aol.co
10-16-1997, 08:00 PM
- ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Does anybody have an idea on exactly how castles affect war card battles?
On p. 65 of the Rulebook, it says a province with a castle that is occupied
continuously with enough troops to neutralize the castle is considered to be
under siege. The next section states that if an attacker has an artillerist
unit in his army, he can assault the castle, which is run like a normal
battle "with some special rules."
Any idea where these special rules are? I haven't been able to find any, and
it's led to a few confusing situations in my campaign.
For instance, if you invade a province with a castle, do you fight a normal
battle, or do you have to wait until the castle is reduced by siege?
If you do fight a normal battle (with the Fortifications terrain card), and
the invading force wins, is the castle considered to be destroyed, captured,
or what?
What about the artillerists unit? Can a war card battle be fought in a
province with a castle without artillerists? Again, what happens to the
castle if the artillerists win?
And if artillerists are needed to fight a war card battle in a province with
a castle, what happens if the artillerist until is destroyed before the battle
is won?

I know it's a lot of questions, but these all came up in my last game, so I
would greatly appreciate any help by way of house rules, etc.

Thanks, Rob McCreary

I read the rulebook as such, if tropps attacks a castle without a artillerist
or with a leader that doesn't have seigecraft NWP, then a seige occurs, and
the invading army has to wait it out.

If the invading army enters a province with a castle with a artillerist or
with a leader with seigecraft NWP, then normal war card battle takes place.
the defender uses the fortification card "special rules" for his troops that
are in the castle.

as for what happens to the castle if it is captured? I dont know. I might
take a guess and say that it is captured, lossing 1 level during the fighting.
As castles in most fiction and history are defeated by the breach of one
point in the castle defenses, you can assume that the castle isn't leveled and
is still usefull. A cost of 1 level can be a resonable loss due to the breach
of the gatehouse or a walled section.

If the artillerist are destroyed during the war card battle before the castle
is taken, i would say that the artillerist gave the troops an opening to
attack, and once the war card battle started, it doesn't matter. I play that
as long as the artillerist make it into the province, the battle starts.
I also decided that artillerist can attack any unit on the board due to their
long range weapons. That also encouraged my players to purchase the units.

as always, these are just my game rules. use what you like or change what you
like. no Flames please. :)

Eric J.

'unsubscribe birthright' as the body of the message.

Glenn Robb
10-21-1997, 02:28 PM
I know that in *War Law* castles do affect war. Fortunately, *War Law* u=
ses
rules for ballistae and catapults, and even siege engines! The idea is t=
o tear a
hole in the castle for the army to get through.

=97 Elton Robb

Windhraver@aol.com wrote:

> Does anybody have an idea on exactly how castles affect war card battle=
s?
> On p. 65 of the Rulebook, it says a province with a castle that is occu=
pied
> continuously with enough troops to neutralize the castle is considered =
to be
> under siege. The next section states that if an attacker has an artille=
rist
> unit in his army, he can assault the castle, which is run like a normal
> battle "with some special rules."
> Any idea where these special rules are? I haven't been able to find any=
, and
> it's led to a few confusing situations in my campaign.
> For instance, if you invade a province with a castle, do you fight a no=
rmal
> battle, or do you have to wait until the castle is reduced by siege?
> If you do fight a normal battle (with the Fortifications terrain card),=
and
> the invading force wins, is the castle considered to be destroyed, capt=
ured,
> or what?
> What about the artillerists unit? Can a war card battle be fought in a
> province with a castle without artillerists? Again, what happens to the
> castle if the artillerists win?
> And if artillerists are needed to fight a war card battle in a province=
with
> a castle, what happens if the artillerist unti is destroyed before the =
battle
> is won?
>
> I know it's a lot of questions, but these all came up in my last game, =
so I
> would greatly appreciate any help by way of house rules, etc.
>
> Thanks, Rob McCreary
>

Neil Barnes
10-28-1997, 03:11 PM
On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Elton Robb wrote:
> I know that in *War Law* castles do affect war. Fortunately, *War Law* uses
> rules for ballistae and catapults, and even siege engines! The idea
> is to tear a hole in the castle for the army to get through.

Is this realistic? My understanding of medieval sieges (post Romans,
pre-cannon) was that most castles either fell to an initial rush by
troops with scaling ladders & possibly siege towers (which would only
happen if the castle was pretty crap), or to being starved
out. The best use for catapults is firing your corpses into the besieged
castle. :)

neil

RMoraza@aol.co
10-30-1997, 06:29 PM
In a message dated 97-10-28 21:19:54 EST, you write:

>
Page 65 of the rulebook has the rules for laying siege. Each domain turn a
castle remains neutralized it drops one level, so it takes 18 months to
successfully siege a level 6 castle. If the attacking army ever drops below
the minimum required to neutralize the castle, the castle bumps back up to
full strength.

Starvation isn't mentioned in this section, but that's what they're talking
about, and if you don't have enough units to neutralize, then the enemy can
manage to break through your lines to get more supplies. That's how I
interprete it, anyway.

Alison
RMoraza@aol.com

prtr02@scorpion.nspco.co
10-30-1997, 08:53 PM
Howdy,

It's Thursday and I haven't read all the posts. I hope this isn't a repeat
when I say a rule already exists for starving out castles/fortified holdings.

They're reduced one level per domain turn until they're gone.

Dax