Chapter 6

[irdeggman]

gazza666 is correct.

Chap 5 covers fortifications. References to costs of fortifications in other places that conflict are in error.

A fortified holding will also protect a non-landed regent from having his holdings destroyed by the landed regent via military force also.

Thus there are essentially only two ways to destroy a fortified holding:

Contest the holding

Eliminate the population to the point where it can't support a holding of that size.

[Cuchulainshound]

Hmmmm- there are several parts in the old rules that have fortifications/buildings collapse simply because people aren't living in/near them, or require a fortification to be destroyed before a province can be claimed - this makes no sense, as occupying abandonded fortifications, or over-running defenses and then holding them, are a big part of many military campaigns.

Perhaps, as with several other parts of the rules*, a "temporary" or "effective" (or limitted) reduction in the level of the fortification could be noted, but standard maintanance would return it to its full value after a period of time?

(* I'm thinking of some of the spells and effects that reduce a population or holding temporarily.)

Basically under the special training entry it should be:

Green, Standard and Veteran not green veteran and elite.

If you check the tables 6-1 the units called Infantry, Elite correspond to what a veteran unit would get.

In 2nd ed the units were called Elite and that is how the confusion came about.

"Elite" has a much better sound to it than does "Veteran".

"Elite" often(?) refers to training or equipping, rather than experience, tho' the two can become blurred (see below.) And, with time and tradition, officially favoured units often created a self-fulfilling reputation of high morale and fighting ability, out of sheer pride and determination to maintain that tradition, if nothing else. (thinking Ghurkas, Nappy's bear-hat regiment, etc, who were always fearsome, even the new recruits.)

You can have "elite" commandos who have never seen battle, and are thus effectively "green", but their training carries them through. Historically, of course, such units saw the most action, and quickly became Veteran (when they weren't wiped out entirely.)

Perhaps any unit given special abilities, above the standard, could be termed "Elite" (to distinguish Improved Infantry from the garden variety, off-the-shelf type)?

Thus, you could have a unit of light horse, or an "elite" unit of lt horse scouts; a unit of veteran pikemen, and an Elite Pike unit (with enhanced Toughness and Defense, or whatever). The only diff is the additional training. Either or both could be Standard, or Veteran (tho', with the rules as they stand, Green precludes any special training/equipment.)

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When "buying" units in game (not creating them OOC, but IC recruiting a new unit), it's counter-intuitive to be able to buy Veteran or even "Standard" units. A new unit is, by definition, Green- it's rare that enough seasoned soldiers would be standing around waiting to be hired, and even then tough to imagine them forming into a cohesive, efficient unit at the drop of a hat.

However, this creates a slight problem- one could not then recruit* any unit with special abilities (since Green units cannot gain abilites), but must "improve" an existing Standard unit.
(* When I say "recruit", I mean "create from scratch", not "go out and hire something pre-existing.")

Both approaches make some sense. Recruiting Scouts or Marines should be fairly routine- get some woodsy folk, get some salty folk; but creating/recruiting a unit of Beserkers or a Battle-magic unit is not something so easily achieved. Two units are created, but one has +2 offense... simply because they'll fight harder for the money? Maybe...

I'm tempted to suggest a re-working of Special Abilities, that any unit may take one or two, BUT lower experience units are not as effective. A simple chart with Green/Standard/Veteran vs 1 and 2 special abilities (and perhaps even 3?) as the axis, showing the penalties suffered by units without the experience to live up to the demands put upon them. Then, as these units gain experience (through combat, training or, slowest, just hanging out), those penalties will disappear.

The downside, obviously, is adding a small bit of complexity, tho the rule of "green-0, standard-1, veteran-2" would still hold as a rule of thumb. But the upside would be the natural progression of units, and the inability of a Regent to instantly create "elite" units out of thin air. (More emphasis would be put on Mercenaries and magically created units, for better or worse.)

To be honest, I don't know if this would work or not- just sort of went where my thoughts on the subject took me. Surely needs more study and discussion, but I like it on first glance.

[nagebenfro]

I find when defining the units that it was simplest to call a unit veteran if it was "veteran" with no or just one special training, and elite if it had two special trainings. Perhaps that is an overly simple way of looking at it, but it works well enough for me.

[ploesch]

"Elite" often(?) refers to training or equipping, rather than experience, tho' the two can become blurred (see below.) And, with time and tradition, officially favoured units often created a self-fulfilling reputation of high morale and fighting ability, out of sheer pride and determination to maintain that tradition, if nothing else. (thinking Ghurkas, Nappy's bear-hat regiment, etc, who were always fearsome, even the new recruits.)

What you describe here is a Unit of Reknown, which is in the 3ed rules.

As to recruiting a unit as Green, Standard or Veteran, which is how it seems it's supposed to be, the rules say that this level represents training AND/OR combat Experience in the case of Veterans. I can accept that, mechanicaly and as the rules are written, it makes total sense. It sounds to me, that for your campaign, it may make for sense to use the Variant for Building Musters. As Mustering a unit as Standard or Veteran will take longer, or you may want to create your own rules, such as adding one month to Muster Standard, and 2 months to muster Veterans.

Personally, I would like to see 4 levels of Training, an elite level added. It cannot be mustered and must be a battle tested Veteran unit. All Stats would be the same as Veteran, except it would have +6 Morale, Be allowed up to 3 special trainings. I think this would work well to make Elite Units Special, and the rules for training units take care of the extra time and cost of making a unit Elite. I wouldn't allow Beserk OR Scout to be taken as this additional training.

[Cuchulainshound]

That could work- I think I kinda forgot "mustering" somewhere in my rant. My bad.

In an agrarian society, "scouts" don't strike me as difficult to find as some other special skill sets, but I suppose it depends on your view of what exactly a "scout" unit it. I don't see them as highly trained as our current day Recon units, not at all. More, a Scout unit fills a role, one of Intell at the sacrifice of combat efficiency.

Often, they are ultimately expendable (and the relatively low cost of minimal Scout units reflects this!), and so I always envisioned them as country folk adapted to a military role.

Historically, scouts were exactly that- folk who weren't so good at fighting, but knew the land. Also, for game considerations, the value of scouts is such that not being able to buy them "off the shelf" is pretty painful.

I would suggest, if we go with the 4th, "Elite" level, that it NOT follow the standard arithmetic progress on cost/maintanance, but be MORE expensive, relatively. An Elite unit could be a real "nut-cracker" on the field, and the cost should deter Regents from acquiring too many of them, or too casually.