A turn
A battle goes in rounds. In each round every man still in the fight gets one turn, and in his turn he spends two things: action points, which are time, and wind, which is breath. Time comes back in full at the start of each turn. Breath does not.
Action points
A man has 9 action points at the start of each of his turns. A wolf has 10, and a bear and a troll 12. The action bar shows what he has left against what he started with.
Everything he does is paid for from them:
| Act | Points |
|---|---|
| A stroke | what its button says, from 3 for a dagger to 6 for a maul |
| A step | 2 on open ground, more on bad ground or for a lame man (Moving and facing) |
| Turning one face | 1 |
| Taking a ward without striking | 1 |
| Close in, Break away | 4 each (Measure) |
| Wrestle, Stand | 4 each (On the ground) |
| Bind a wound (4) | 4 |
A step can cost a fraction of a point: a wolf's stride is cheaper than a man's, and a lame man's dearer. The fractions are kept, and the bar shows whole points, rounded down.
What takes them away
Some wounds cost him points at the start of every turn, and the wound chart lists each one: an injured lung takes one for each time it was hit, a torn bowel one, losing a quarter of his blood one, and heavy pain one for every 50 of it. However badly he is hurt, his wounds never leave him fewer than 3 a turn.
A blow that staggers him, or dazes him, costs him 3 points from his next turn, each, and a daze bad enough to concuss him costs 3 from each of his next two. Even then he always has at least 2.
Wind
The Wind bar in a man's panel shows three numbers: the wind in him now, today's ceiling, and his full wind. A man's full wind was rolled with him, between 88 and 107.
Every effort spends wind:
- A step costs 2, and 0.12 more for every kilogram he carries: weapon, shield, armour and pack.
- A stroke costs 6, and 3 more for every kilogram of the weapon, and 0.1 more for every kilogram he carries. Close in and Break away cost the same as a stroke.
- Wrestling costs 1.4 times the wind of a stroke. Standing up costs as much as two steps.
At the start of each of his turns he gets back 15% of his ceiling, but never more than the ceiling. An injured chest, lung or throat slows this down (Wounds).
The ceiling is what stops a long fight being fought fresh. Of every point of wind he spends, 35% comes off the ceiling and does not come back during the battle. The ceiling never falls below 25% of his full wind. A man built for speed, with more fast muscle than most, loses his ceiling a little faster and gets his breath back a little more slowly.
Winded
A man can strike only while he has in him at least 35% of the wind the stroke costs. Below that, the stroke buttons are shut and say he is too winded to strike: end the turn and let him breathe. He cannot start a walk with less wind than one step costs. A blow he gives outside his own turn (see Free blows) is not held back by his wind.
Long before he is winded, a tired man fights worse. These are measured against his full wind:
| Wind left | What it costs him |
|---|---|
| under 55% | −2 to hit |
| under 32% | −4 to hit, −3 guard, blows 15% weaker |
| under 15% | −8 to hit, −6 guard, blows 30% weaker |
Heavy armour is paid for here. It costs wind on every step and every stroke, and the ceiling it wears down stays down.
The order of a round
At the start of each round the men still standing are put in order, quickest first. The order bar across the top of the map shows it. A man's quickness is his own, rolled with him, less 1.2 for every kilogram he carries and a quarter of his pain, and up to 6 points of chance are added each round, rolled once for each man, so two men of nearly the same quickness can swap places from one round to the next. A man in full harness acts later than he would bare.
When his turn begins, his wounds bleed, his pain eases a little, his shock halves, his breath comes back and his action points are set afresh. A man lying senseless loses his turn, and the log says so. A man whose nerve has broken acts on his own, not at your order (Nerve).
When everyone has had a turn, the fallen bleed, each company's nerve is tested, and a new round begins (How a battle ends).
Holding
Hold (W) steps a man out of the order. He moves to the end of the order bar, under Holding, and the rest of the round goes on without him. When everyone else has had a turn, the men who held act, the slowest of them first and the quickest of them last. Quickness buys the first word in a round, and among the men who hold it buys the last.
A man can hold once a round.
Points held back
When he holds, up to 4 of his points are kept back to answer with. The button says how many (keep 4), and while he waits the order bar marks him on guard. They are spent the moment a blow comes at him that has at least a 15% chance of landing:
- He turns it aside. If he can wield his weapon, it reaches as far as the man striking him, and he still has 3 points held, he spends them and the blow's chance to hit falls by 14.
- He gives ground. Otherwise, if he has 2 points held, he spends them on his feet. The blow's chance is unchanged, but if it lands it lands badly, at 60% of the squareness it would have had.
Each blow is answered once, and he does not choose how. If his weapon reaches the man striking him, the blow is turned aside, which with four points held leaves one point that answers nothing more. If it does not reach, he gives ground, and four points give ground before two blows. If he gives a blow himself while he waits, the points it costs him to recover from it come from what he holds too (Striking).
When his held turn comes round, whatever survives becomes action points again. The rest of his points, the ones he did not keep back, wait with him, and he has them again as well.
A man who holds is also a point set and waiting. Anyone who steps closer to him inside his weapon's reach while he waits walks onto a blow (Moving and facing).
Holding is a way to parry. Hold a man who is about to be reached, and the first blow thrown at him meets a man who is ready for it.
Ending a turn
End turn (E) passes to the next man in the order. Any points he has not spent are lost: the next turn starts afresh, and nothing carries over.
Free blows
Each man has one blow a round to give outside his own turn. It is given when an enemy walks out of his reach or round to his flank, closes in on him, breaks away from him, gets up while he holds him, or walks onto him while he is holding, and in one ward it answers a blow that misses him (Striking). Once it is spent, he lets everything else by until the next round. That is why one man can draw the blow so that the next walks past for nothing. See Moving and facing and Measure.
Binding a wound
Bind a wound (4) (B) binds the worst of his open wounds that still bleeds, for 4 points. A wound that bleeds inside him cannot be bound. See Wounds.