OK, here's another Ch. 6 issue: according to the current BRCS rules, it seems [though this remains somewhat ambiguous] that so long as one has a sufficiently high-level holding, a regent can muster units that are green, regular, or veteran, in addition to up to one or two special training options for regular and veteran units respectively.

I've been using this rule for the past year-and-a-half in my BRCS campaign, and here's the conclusion I came to.

The difference between a regular and veteran unit is pretty large. Veteran units are better than regular units in almost every respect. While this is fairly realistic, for only an extra 1 GB in muster cost, it's getting too much for too little. The result? Every regent in his right mind musters only veteran units. And it's not too hard when you only need a level 3 Law holding to muster veteran foot units (infantry, archers, and irregulars).

After a LOT of consideration, I would make the following adjustments:

1. Veteran units cost +2 GB more than regulars to muster.
2. Veteran units should NOT have a higher Move rating than regulars. This is an extremely powerful advantage, and should be accounted for by special training options like Scout training, rather than unit experience. If you don't believe me, playtest a few battles with the warcard rules [or my battlesystem, which is based on warcard rules but more detailed] and find out for yourself just how huge Move ratings are in a battle.

3. The only units normally available to muster are green and regular units. The only veteran units available to muster are the one type of culturally-favored unit in the region. This means Knights in Anuire, Marines in Brechtur, Light Cavalry or cavalry archers in Khinasi, Scout Irregulars [rangers] in Rjurik, and Irregular Berserkers(?) in Vosgaard.

This particular option works best if you adopt something like my War Academy, which with a few levels (level 2 minimum I'm thinking) would enable veteran units of any type to be mustered in the province in which it is built. But the idea is fairly broad: it takes special facilities, above and beyond basic holding types [regardless of their level], to simply raise veteran units from scratch.

4. Build in options for training regular units to veteran levels, but make it much harder than the current system in the BRCS [which playtesting has proven to be ridiculously easy in almost all cases].


I have some other ideas on all of this, but this is definitely the core changes I advocate.

Dan McSorley, I hear that you were revising the war rules, but until I see something substantial, well...feel free to jump in and let us know if any real progress has been made on this section of the revision.

Osprey