One observation I've made in my 20 years of being a wargamer is that most battles are of equal sized opponents. This holds true particularly in tournament games. Now as fair as this may be it can lead to very long and sometimes boring games. Boring because the challenge is to beat your opponent on equal footing. Though this is fun and fair how often do gamers have a chance to hold off or even beat a superior adversary? Usually a player army I made up from points, which are spent on an army list. This is the accepted norm. In turn a rule set or tournament referee will recommend a certain number of points to be used. I believe our editor held a 525-point tournament at Historicon 2000. What if a player could opt to use less points than those offered to him by the referee or rule set?

In Day of Battle II (small plug here) I use the Battle-Stance system. This is a very generic set of rules that could be modified and used in most other sets. Most battles in Day of Battle II (DoB) are based on an ongoing mini-campaign. The game is very biased towards the player-leader called a Warlord". The object of each game for each player is two fold. The first is to survive alive, a good thing. The second is to amass as many honor points as you can. Honor points are similar to any sort of scoring points used in most role playing games. In DoB a warlord is given these honor points whenever he perform a task on the battle field that suits his type of character. For example, if you were using a warlord who saw himself as heroic then you would gain the most points for defeating other bodies of knights and capturing enemy leaders.

So what has this to do with variations in army size? Well in DoB your army is generated each game in a fairly random way. As a warlord you have a fixed core army called your household. This is a small force that can always be counted on to be there. For example a warlord just starting out would be a baron and have a household army of 11 points. This would equal roughly 110 DBM army points. Next he would summon the balance of his army from his vassals. In the case of our warlord the number of points from his vassal's would range from a low of 3 to a high of 15 (30-150 DBM) army points. The size of an army increases as the power and standing of a warlord increases. Therefore his army can range from 14-26 (140-260 DBM) points. Not a very large army by most DBx standards. Once the warlord knows how may points he has he will decide what his battle-stance will be and then choose his army.

Note- in DoB troops are organized and based as for DBx rules. The cost of a stand of troops is 2 AP for knights, 1/2 AP or levy and foot skirmishers and 1 AP for all others.

FEUDAL FRENCH DOMAIN
UNIT	QT	Move	Cost	Stands
Warlord, Banner & Camp	-	30	0	1
Leader & Camp	-	30	1	0-2
Hero	-	30	0	0-2
Knights	E	9	2	6-18
Spearmen	A	5	1	5-6
Militia Spearmen	P	6	1	0-6
Crossbowmen	A	6	1	2-9
Archers	P	6	1	0-6

Notes:

Special Rules:

No more than 3 personalities allowed.
Terrain Features x1. Above is a basic army for DoB.
This rule allows armies of varying sizes to fight one another. It gives the outnumbered warlord a reason to fight and a chance to win. Each warlord determines his battle-stance secretly: raid, probe or invade. The battle-stance chosen may modify some aspects of the rules.

BATTLE – STANCE TABLE
-	Raid	Probe	Invade
Army	13-20	21-40	41+
Limits	No stand minimums for formed infantry, and 1/2 for formed, cavalry which may dismount.	Halve all minimums for formed infantry. Formed cavalry may dismount.	None.
Hold	4	6	8
Ambush	Up to the warlord's social rank.	1 skirmish unit.	No.

Limits- changes minimums in the warlord's army.
Hold- the minimum number of turns the warlord must remain alive, on the battlefield, to receive his full honor points (see Advanced Rules). If he fails to hold out the minimum number of turns his honor points are halved. This could be additionally modified by the honor point rules.
Ambush- this determines if the warlord may lay ambushes. Units placed in ambush must start the game in light or heavy cover or behind a slope that will mask them from all other enemy units that start the game deployed in the open. This position may be any place on the game table that is over 3" from an enemy unit and camp.

Once a warlord knows the size of his force in army points he must choose a battle-stance. The stance may be a higher one than his points with no loss of army points. Should he choose a lower stance he must reduce (send home) as many army points as it takes to bring his army within the stance he chooses.

What does this do? Well our blossoming warlord will no doubt decide to raid for his first few battles until he has gained enough honor points to increase his lands and his wealth. With these gains comes more troops and with more troops the chance of greater victory. It's a vicious circle that mirrors history.

This rule idea is easy to translate into other rule sets. In DBM the referee announces a tournament battle of up to 500 points. This would translate into 50 DoB points. One player might be fielding a lighter army that he feels is best for skirmishing and raiding. He could opt for a battle-stance of raid or probe. Each would reduce the number of points he could use but would also lighten his load as far as minimums. With raid comes the ability to do a number of ambushes. These are limited in DoB to the warlord's social rank. Our baron has a social rank of 3. It would be up to the players or referee to work out the balance of the details but this system presents the frame work for a whole new look in battle set up and play.

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