An Introduction

Day Of Battle is a miniatures army-role-playing game set in Europe during the Feudal period. Think of your leader as a character out of a book or a movie. With some imagination, and a little luck, your leader and his army will pull through to do battle repeatedly.

This article is a first in a three part series on understanding and playing Day Of Battle. This first article deals with the leader and the command system. Both of which are radical departures from the traditional wargame.

DOB is not for everybody!

• DOB is for those that would like more to a command system than rolling a 6 sided dice to see how many units can move that turn or dropping down static order chits and flipping them over at the same time.
• DOB is for those who believe in the importance of the leader. In DOB he is much more than a piece of metal with a plus or minus modifier as in most games. He is possibly the most important piece on the battlefield.

I hope you enjoy reading this article and that you are able to come away with a better grasp of what DOB is trying to say. All rules covered in these articles are advanced when a basic and advanced version exists.

Game Conventions

Playing Cards

Day Of Battle (DOB) uses a deck of 54 playing cards, which is reshuffled at the beginning of each game turn. Unless modified by the rules they have the following values. Ace: 1, 2-10 value is as marked, Jack, Queen, King: 5, Joker: 1 or special depending on the rule itself.

Dice

DOB uses 20 sided dice numbered 1-20. You will need a dozen or so of these to play. At times a number may be rolled at once. They are never added together.

Part I – Leaders & Command

The Leader

To describe and capture the flavor of DOB I must first start with the leader. This man or in rare cases woman is the heart and soul of the army. In DOB a good leader with a mediocre army can beat or at least fight to a draw a mediocre leader with a larger or superior army.

As a game designer I felt that the attributes of the leader were very important. I decided to borrow from my role playing friends some of the character attributes that they use. I call these attributes "skills". In addition to skills I borrowed the idea of a reward system that I call "honor points". These honor points or HP for short give the player a reason to role play his leader in a fashion that I feel his historical counterpart would have acted.

In Day Of Battle each leader must be created. This can be done in about five minutes. Below is a sample leader profile card. Please note that the box labeled HMC are not covered in this article. They refer to Harassing Morale Checks. This will be covered in the third article.

Creating a Leader

To create a leader, perform these 4 steps. Write the information on some sort of score.

Step 1: The Leaders Social Rank (SR)

Draw a card and compare it to the SOCIAL RANK TABLE (page 4 of the rules, side bar). If a Joker is drawn pick another card. If the new card is a Face the leader is a Great King: (SR6). If it is a numbered card the leader is a Commoner (SR 0). Some other examples of SR levels are Ace: Knight (SR 1) 2-4: Noble (SR 2) and so on. You now know where your leader sits on the social ladder of life.

Example: We draw a 4, our leader is a Noble with a social rank of 2.

Step 2: The Leaders Esteem

Draw a new card. Add the leader's SR value to the value of the card. This final score is the applied to the chart below. A leader's esteem determines the minimum command necessary to maintain his standing in the eyes of his peers.

Example: Our leader draws a Jack (5). He adds his social rank of 2 for a final score of 7. His level of esteem is 2 making him a known leader.

Please note there is no esteem level of 3. Sorry.

Step 3: The Leaders Motivation In Life.

Draw a card. 1-4 the leader is a raider. Draw a 5 and the leader is mercenary. Finally a 6-10 makes him a leader chivalric. There are three types of motivation: chivalric, mercenary and raider. A leader's motivation represents his drive in life.

Some historical examples if motivation.

• King John: raider
• Richard the Lionheart: mercenary or chivalric
• William Duke of Normandy: Mercenary or raider.
• Bohemond: raider.
• Pope Urban II: chivalric.

These of course are my opinion. You are free to make your own.

4: The Leaders Skills

Draw 4 new cards and assign one card to each of these four skills.

• Initiative (IN): This is increased by 10 for a final value of 11-20. This skill determines which side moves first at the start of a battle. It also determines how many orders a leader can give in any given turn. More on this at another time.
  
• Morale (MB): This is a value of 1-10. This skill is a bonus the leader passes onto a unit that is forced to check it's morale. The leader must be attached to the unit.
  
• Combat (CB): This is a value of 1-10. This skill is a bonus the leader uses when he is attached to a unit that is in combat. More on this at another time.
  
• Personal Combat Skill (PCS): This is increased by 10 for a final value of 11-20. This is the value (or less) the leader needs to roll on a twenty sided die to survive in a combat that he took part in. More on this at another time.

Honor Points

As you see, a leader has a number of attributes and skills. Now you need a reason for the leader to exist and the means by which he may prosper. These means are honor points.

A leader receives honor points whenever a unit he commands perform an action that rewards his particular motivation. For example, if a leader has a chivalric motivation he would gain 50 honor points (the most) for defeating in close combat a unit of enemy knights. If the same leader had a motivation of raider he would only gain 20 honor points. Honor points are doubled to 100 if he personally led the attack. The chivalric leader would gain 0 honor points (the least) for defeating a unit of archers. The raider would gain 10. At the end of each battle each leader adds up the honor points he gained. His level of esteem then multiplies this score.

As noted in Step 2, each leader has a level of esteem. These rank from a low of 1 to a high of 6. This level of esteem represents his standing in the eyes of those around him. As a leader accumulates his honor points something happens. He gains esteem. Each level of esteem has a top value. When this is crossed the leader is raised to the next level of esteem.

For example a leader with an unknown level of esteem (level 1) has between 1 and 1000 honor points. When he reaches 1001 honor points his level of esteem raises to known (level 2). To cross from this level to the next he must bring his honor points up to 2001. Leaders always start off with the lowest number of honor points in their level of esteem.

Example: Our known noble has 2001 honor points when he starts the battle.

At the end of each battle that a leader crosses a 1000 honor point level and/or enters a new level of esteem he may increase any skill one point.

Example: In the case of our known noble he multiplies the honor points gained in this battle by his level of esteem. In our example he led an attack against a unit of enemy knights and defeated them. This doubled his honor points from 100 to 200 honor points.

Let me add that balances are carried forward from one battle to the next and that each time a leader goes up a level of esteem there is also chance his social rank increases. This is easy to accomplish when a leader is a commoner, knight or noble, social ranks 0, 1 or 2. It gets much more difficult as a leader becomes an earl or duke, for obvious reasons I think.

Command

This part of DOB is very different from other card driven games. At the start of his game turn the leader rolls a D20 and compares it to his initiative skill rating. If (after any modifiers) the roll is equal to or less than his initiative skill the leader draws as many cards as his social rank.

Example: Our known leader is a noble with a social rank of two. He would draw two cards.

Command Points - It's In the Cards

Each card is worth a certain number of command points. Numbered cards, 2-10 and jokers are worth 1 command point each. A jack, queen, or king is worth 2 command points and an ace is worth 3 command points. A leader must usually play a card to issue a command to a unit. Multi-command point cards allow a unit to either do multiple or expensive commands. These multi command cards may not be used on more than one unit. Cards may be saved from one turn to another but partially used cards are lost. Finally a leader may never have more cards in his hand than his social rank value.

The Cost of Command

Most commands cost 1 command point. The price of a command may however go up depending on circumstances. For instance, if a unit is in disorder it raises the cost of command by 1 point. So it takes 2 command points to reorder a unit. If within 15 inches of an enemy a unit is ordered to do any command other than fire or charge it increases the cost of command by 1 point.

Example: A missile unit is within 15" of an enemy unit. It is commanded to move by its leader. This takes 2 command points. It could have fired for 1 command point.

Example: Let's say this missile unit was disorder within 15" of an enemy and it was commanded to reorder. How many command points would this take? Three. One for the command, 1 for disordered and 1 for an action other than fire or charge within 15" of an enemy.

Example: In the above example the command cost 3 command points. This could have been paid for with 3, 1 command point cards, a 2 and a 1 command point card or a 3 command point card.

A Leaders Personal Command Point

A leader may issue a single command point to a unit he is attached to. He may give this command point out once per game turn. He may use it either on a unit he started the turn attached to or one that he rode up to and ended the turn attached to. This command point may be combined with commands that are paid for with cards.

Issuing Multiple Commands

There are three groups of commands in DOB. A unit may perform each one in a turn. No command type may be replicated. When a command is issued it is carried out to completion. The leader may not issue any other commands until the first one is completed. These command groups are…

1. Maneuver (any combination of these)
   Move
   Charge
   Change Frontage or Formation
2. Fire
3. Reorder-Rally

Transferring Command Points

Finally the army commander may transfer one card to each leader per game turn. This transfer may allow a leader's total number of cards to raise above his social rank level.