Longbows and Short Knights

Errata – Day of Battle

By Chris Parker

I'd like to start by thanking Russ Lockwood and Rich Pichnararczk for one of the best-written rules reviews I ever had the pleasure to read let alone be involved in. I present here an errata sheet for readers of this revue.

Retainers: These are really free rolls and special rules. Much like the free roll counter in Napoleons Battle and the "Excuse me" rule in Warhammer. One of the popular retainer rules is the saving roll. Each retainer has a success number. Page 1-10, Squire 1-15 and Sergeant 1-19. If a leader fails a personal combat skill check he has two options. Use a retainer to ward off the blow or use the SPECIAL RESULTS table and risk fate. The final result of the possible damage is not known until after the choice is made. So the leader will not know if he is killed, wounded or unscathed until after the retainers have attempted to ward off the blow. I feel this is very much like history. The name means close men. These would always be around the great man ready to protect him at any cost! It should be pointed out that most leaders only have one of each and once they are gone, well the leaders are on their own.

Morale is usually dice less. The only time a die roll is called for is when a unit passes or fails by one point. The unit makes a saving roll. A single D20 is rolled and the result must be equal to or less than the unit's morale grade. These range from a low of 6 for levy to a high of 18 for better knights. It should be obvious that in this situation the knights have it. If the roll fails so does the unit. There are NO modifiers.

Leaders and skirmisher troops ignore proximity movement. Their movement is fast enough. Morale results do not use cards for determination. Instead when a unit fails a check the reason for the event is referenced on a MORALE EVENT table. This table will give the actual results of the morale failure. One that is more intune with the action than just a fall back etc.. One possible error in the play test was the use of the advance results in morale. In an errata sheet published on MagWeb (www.magweb.com) and the website (www.dayofbattle.com) it was stated that the supported modifier (+10) and battleline (+5) modifier were ignored if the results were advance. This way units are rarely drawn out of a supported position. These modifiers tend to push units out because it raises a healthy unit's morale. It takes other events such as falling back enemy, or a high morale grade to draw units out this way.

DoB uses a form of fatigue called uncontrolled actions. Each time a unit is forced to react out of turn a marker is placed on it's leader or hero. These actions include return fire, melee, and morale checks. These markers are penalties against the leaders next initiative roll, showing the fatigue and distraction factor. A new rule is called FIRST BLOOD. This modifier kicks in the turn two formed units enter into melee. From then the modifier increases each turn. This too adds a penalty to each L&H 's initiative check each turn. The steady advance of this penalty ensures that eventually the game will grind to a halt due to lack of command points. Hence exhaustion has set in.

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