The battle screen
Across the top is the order bar. Under it is the map, and under the map the action bar, a line of hints, and the log. The panel stands to the right of all of it, or below it on a narrow screen.
The order bar
The bar begins with the round's number and then lists every man still on the field as a chip, in the order they act this round. Your men's chips are edged in verdigris green, the other side's in madder.
- The man acting now has a dark, filled chip.
- Those who have already acted this round are faded.
- The man shown in the panel has a brass outline.
- The short bar beside a name is his blood: it drains as he bleeds and is empty at half his blood, which is where a man bleeds to death.
Select a chip to show that man in the panel and keep him there (see Keeping a man in view). Hover over it to read his name and state.
The words under a name
Under each name are a few words saying what is wrong with him, in red; a man whose only word is confident has it in green. A man with none is fit to fight.
| Words | What they mean |
|---|---|
| confident, wavering, breaking, fleeing | His nerve, unless it is steady. See Nerve |
| bleeding, bleeding badly | How fast he is losing blood. See Wounds |
| disarmed | He cannot use a weapon: it is gone, or the hand that held it no longer works, or he is senseless |
| off hand | He is fighting with his left hand, usually because the right no longer works |
| lame, crawling | His legs make every step cost more; crawling costs the most |
| on one knee | One leg has failed below the knee, and he is down on that knee with the other foot planted. He fights on, and shuffles rather than walks. See On the ground |
| blind | Both eyes are gone |
| reeling | A blow has staggered or dazed him, and he will have fewer points when his turn comes |
| on the ground | He is down on the grass, by a throw, a knockdown, legs that gave, or senselessness. See On the ground |
| on guard (n) | He is holding n action points back to answer a blow with. See A turn |
There is no word for senseless: a senseless man reads as disarmed and on the ground. The panel says it outright, beside his shock.
Holding and Fallen
A man who holds steps out of the order and acts after everyone else. His chip appears a second time, with a dashed edge, after the word Holding. When the rest of the round is done, those who held act in their turn.
After the word Fallen come the men who are out of the fight: dead, down or fled. Their names are struck through. Select one to read what happened to him.
Back to the muster
The button at the end of the bar leaves the battle for the muster. See Leaving for the muster.
The map
How men are drawn
Each man is drawn as a figure wearing what he wears and holding what he holds, his armour in the colour of its metal, drawn to his own height and turned the way he faces. A limb that has been cut off is gone from the figure, and a stump is left where it hung. A man on one knee is drawn kneeling on the leg that failed, his shin laid back along the ground and his other foot planted before him. He stands on an oval plinth in his side's colour, and the ring round the plinth is his blood: pale while he has it, turning red as it goes, all red at half his blood.
A troll is drawn as a figure, since it has a man's shape. A wolf, a boar or a bear has no figure yet. It is a disc in its side's colour, lettered with the first two letters of its name, with the same ring of blood round it.
On your man's turn, and while forming up, a short stroke from the edge of each man's hex, in his side's colour, points the way he faces. A man on the ground has a faint line beneath him instead, since he faces nowhere.
Marks over a man's head:
- a red drop: he is bleeding, at the rate his chip calls bleeding or worse;
- a brass star: he is reeling;
- breaking: his nerve is about to go;
- runs, with a dashed ring round his plinth: his nerve has gone, and he is making for his own edge.
Whose turn it is
The man whose turn it is has his hex outlined in brass. The man shown in the panel, if he is someone else, has a dashed ring round him.
Walking
On your man's turn, with nothing armed, the hexes he can walk to with the points he has are lit pale. Hover over one: a dashed line shows the way he would go, and a label on the hex says what it costs in action points (AP). Click it to walk.
The line turns red when an enemy who can still strike is standing next to him. It is a warning, not a forecast: stepping out of a weapon's reach, or working round a man inside it, invites a free blow, and a spear two hexes off can take one too without the line saying so. Moving and facing has the rule.
With nothing armed, any enemy your man could strike now has a faint dashed red outline, and a second, inner outline if the two of them are inside each other's measure (see Measure).
Targets
Arm a stroke or a verb from the action bar and the map speaks only of targets. The pale walking hexes go, and every man it could be spent on is ringed:
- in red for a stroke of the weapon in hand;
- in brass for Close in, Break away, Wrestle and a throw;
- in pale bone for a shot from a bow.
The ring under the pointer fills, and a man inside your man's measure is ringed twice. With a bow, anyone standing between the archer and the man under the pointer has a red arrow laid across him, pointing the way the shaft would fly: he may take it instead (see Shooting past your own). Click a ringed man to spend it. A click anywhere else, a right click, or Escape puts it down again and spends nothing.
Before the first turn the map lights your own ground in the same way, for standing your men on; see Forming up.
The ground
The field is grass, with patches of brush (darker, with tufts), stands of trees (dark round crowns), boulders (grey stones) and a couple of low hills (paler, with contour lines). Nobody can enter trees or boulders. Brush and hills change what a step costs and how a blow lands; hover over one to read how, and see Moving and facing.
What a blow leaves
When a man strikes, a word rises over the man he struck at: miss, blocked, or the part it found. His hex flashes red for a hit and pale for a blow taken on the shield.
Blood pools on the hexes where men bled. A man who falls leaves a shape on the hex where he fell, and whatever he was holding lies there, marked with a small blade and a count. Hover over it to read what lies there; a man standing on it can take it up through his kit (see Kit in the fight).
The action bar
On your man's turn the bar gives his name, his action points (how many are left of his full allowance; a reeling man starts below it, see A turn), any points he is holding back, and where he fights: at the distance his weapon wants, or closed with someone. Then come the groups:
- Strike: one button for each stroke of his weapon, with its cost in points. Inside someone's measure each stroke also shows what fighting there costs it, or a dash if it cannot be used there. After the strokes come a throw if his weapon can be thrown, and Loose and the choice of arrowhead if he has a bow. See Striking and Missiles.
- Ward and Aim: the guard he strikes from, and where the blow is aimed: high, body or low, or Called, at one part chosen on the man's own chart once he is selected. The ward he is in now is underlined in red; the one you choose is lit, and is taken with his next stroke, or at once with Take it (1). Each man remembers both from one of his turns to the next. See Striking.
- Measure: Close in, the two turning arrows (1 point each), Wrestle, Stand (4) for when he is on the ground, and Break away. See Measure and On the ground.
- Kit (I), Bind a wound (4), Hold (W) and End turn. See Kit in the fight, Wounds and A turn.
A lit button is armed. A faint one has nobody to be spent on; click it and the hint line says why. A greyed one cannot be used now; hover over it, and most will say why. Every key is in Keys.
When it is not your man's turn the bar says only who is acting. A man of yours whose nerve has gone is not yours to command: the bar says he has lost his nerve and runs, and the game moves him.
The hint line
The line under the action bar says what the game thinks you should know: advice for your man as he stands (on the ground, inside someone's measure, unable to hold a weapon), what an armed stroke is waiting for, or why something you asked for was refused. A refusal stays until you act again.
The tooltip
Hover over anything on the map and a box says what it is:
- a man, with nothing armed: his name and the words from his chip, his weapon and shield, his armour, and up to three of the things his wounds cost him;
- a ringed man, with a stroke armed: the blow told ahead of time, which Striking reads line by line;
- a ringed man, with another verb armed: what it costs and the chance it works;
- ground with something lying on it, or brush, a hill, trees or boulders.
The log
The log under the map is the battle written down, newest line at the bottom. It opens with who marched, what each of the other side is carrying, and the shape they are drawn up in. Each round begins with a heading.
Reading a blow
A blow is one line, told in the order the blow went in. It begins with who struck whom, where, and with what. The small grey figures after it are the roll and the chance it was made against, then the joules the blow carried, how fast it was moving in metres a second, and how many joules landed on the man, after the part it struck has recoiled from it. A blow caught on a shield gives the shield's own chance beside the chance to land: 70 vs 55+20 missed the man and was caught. Then the armour, outermost first: a gap found, with the chance of the whole way in so far after it (the chance to land, times the chance of every gap the blow has found), a layer shorn or punched through, a layer that held (with the joules it would have taken to cut) and passed the force on as a blunt blow, a plate that buckled. Then the flesh, and whatever the blow opened, broke or reached underneath. Last, if the blow staggered him, dazed him, knocked him off his feet, put him down or killed him, it says so, and why.
A miss gives the same roll and chance, and nothing after them. The chance of closing in, breaking away or wrestling is given after the line that says how it went, or what it needed. What a blow does explains the whole passage of a blow.
The kinds of line
| Line | What it is |
|---|---|
| Grey text | A miss, or something small: a turn, a hold, a ward taken, kit taken up or dropped |
| Words in red within a line | The worst of what a blow did: a vessel opened, a nerve severed, an organ reached, an eye or a limb lost, a man killed |
| A red bar down the left | A grave blow: it opened a vessel, severed a nerve, broke a bone past cracking, reached an organ, took an eye or a limb, tore, broke or put out a joint, or left him never to stand again, or on one knee for good. A man dropping senseless is marked the same way |
| A brass bar | A man goes down: out of the fight, not yet dead |
| A dark bar, in larger type | A man dies |
| A dotted bar | A man's nerve moves, up or down |
| A dotted brass bar, in dark text | A man breaks and runs, flees the field, or a whole company gives way |
| Set like a round heading | The last line: how the battle ended |
A grave blow is more than a line in red. The same fact tests the nerve of the man who took it; see Nerve.
The panel
The panel shows one man in full: whose he is, his skill, guard and strength, and his state; bars for his blood (in millilitres, with what he is losing each round), pain, shock, wind, build and nerve; the wound chart, a figure of his body you can pick a part from, with a tab for each of his body's systems; what his wounds cost him; his nerve; and his weapon, with what each of its strokes carries in joules, metres a second and momentum, his shield, his armour, and the weight he carries. Wounds reads all of it.
Keeping a man in view
The top of the panel says whether it is Following the action. While it is, the panel shows whoever is acting, and after a blow the man it landed on, with the part it found picked out.
Select any man, on the map or by his chip, to keep him in view. Clicking a man to strike him or to close with him keeps him in view too. The panel then says Kept in view and stays on him whatever happens, until you press Follow the action.
Taking hold of your men while forming up keeps the last of them in view into the battle. Press Follow the action once it begins if you want the panel to follow it.
Mouse and touch
With a mouse, hovering shows the tooltip and the path before you commit to anything, and a right click puts down whatever is armed.
A touch screen has no hovering. A tap acts at once, and the tooltip for the man or target you tapped comes afterwards. So a tap on a lit hex walks there without showing the path first, and a tap on a ringed man throws the blow: there is no way to read the forecast before the first stroke. If the stroke is still armed afterwards, the tooltip then shown is the forecast for the next one. A tap anywhere not lit puts an armed stroke down.
On a narrow screen the panel sits below the map, and selecting a chip scrolls down to it.
Leaving for the muster
Back to the muster, at the end of the order bar, takes you to the muster without ending the battle. The battle waits where it stands: whatever act is already under way finishes, and nothing after it happens until you return. No key you press on the muster reaches it.
The muster then has a button Back to the battle, round n, which returns you to it exactly as you left it. Changes you make on the muster meanwhile are for the next battle, not this one; the language is the exception, and follows you back (see Languages).
Marching from the muster again starts a new battle and abandons the one you left. It cannot be returned to.
After a battle has ended the same button reads Back to the field, and returns you to the field and the box that ended it; see How a battle ends.