Striking

A blow is three choices and a click. You choose the stroke, where it is aimed, and the ward it is thrown from, and then you choose who takes it. Before you click, the game tells you the chance of landing it and what it would do to each part it is likely to find, layer by layer, in joules.

Arming a stroke

The Strike group on the action bar has one button for each stroke the man's weapon has, with its cost in action points: Slash (4), Thrust (4), Half-sword (4). Every weapon's strokes, costs and joules are listed in Arms and armour.

The keys 1 to 9 arm the weapon's strokes in the order the weapon lists them. A stroke that leaves the hand is not a strike: a thrown hand axe or spear has T, and a bow's loose has F (see Missiles). So on a hand axe, 1 arms the chop and 2 does nothing.

A stroke button has three looks:

• Lit: armed, and waiting for you to choose who.
• Faint: nothing is in that stroke's measure. Hover over it and it says so. Walk, close in, or choose another stroke.
• Dead (it cannot be pressed): the stroke is shut. Hover over it for the reason: the man cannot wield a weapon any more, he has fewer action points than the stroke costs, or he is too winded (see Too winded to strike).

When your man is closed with someone, each stroke button also shows what fighting at that distance costs it, such as Slash (4) −15, or a dash when the stroke cannot be made in there at all. See Measure.

Press an armed stroke again to put it down. After a blow, the stroke stays armed if he can afford it again and someone is still in reach, so a second blow is one click.

Choosing who

With a stroke armed, every enemy it can reach is ringed in red on the map. Hover over one to read the forecast (see Reading the forecast), and click him to strike.

A click on anything that is not ringed only puts the stroke down. So do Escape and a right click on the map. Nothing is spent. This is a promise, not a courtesy: the game is tested against it with fifteen hundred random operations at a time, and a stray click has never been allowed to cost a point.

Aim

The Aim buttons are High, Body and Low, and A steps through them. The aim decides which parts the blow is likely to find, what it costs the chance to hit, and how much a shield counts against it.

The price has two parts, and the forecast shows each (see Reading the forecast):

• The smaller mark. The narrower the aim, the harder it is to make good. A blow at the body goes wherever the man is biggest and pays nothing for it; the high and low lines narrow it, and pay for how far. Each halving of the odds of finding a part costs about 7.
• His guarding his head. A man who can move puts his hands, his chin and his shoulders in the way of a blow at his head before anything else. The part of a blow bound for his head and neck is harder to land, by up to 25 for a blow bound for nothing else.

The side a blow comes from matters too. The arm and leg nearest the striker are offered to him and the far ones are half hidden behind the body. A blow from the front finds the groin more often, and one from behind finds the hips and buttocks. The forecast's three likeliest parts already take all of this into account, and so does the price.

Aiming low is how a man with no answer to a shield gets round one. A man lying senseless guards nothing: the high line costs him only its smaller mark.

Calling a part

Beside the three heights is a fourth button, Called. Choosing it lights every man a stroke can reach, as arming a stroke does, and every man a bow can call a shot at (see Calling a shot). Select one, and his wound chart opens in the middle of the screen: every part is shaded and numbered by the chance of landing a blow there, the strokes to call it with run along the top, each a point dearer than at a height, and the line beneath the doll tells what the part under the pointer costs and what armour is over it. Choose a part and the blow is struck there, landing on that part or not at all. Close or Escape steps back to choosing who, and nothing is spent until a part is chosen. With a stroke armed first, the chart opens with that stroke chosen.

The chart shows him as your man sees him, and says so beside his name: from in front, from behind, where his right arm is on the right of the chart, or in profile from either side, with the arm and leg nearest you drawn over the far ones and the far ones faintly outlined. A beast is always shown in profile, from its nearer side.

A comes round to Called after Low. A man keeps it, as he keeps a height, from one of his turns to the next; choosing Called again, or a height, puts it down.

A called blow costs more in three ways:

• To hit, by the same two parts as any aim: how rare the part is on the whole man, and whether it is his head or neck. On an ordinary man the chest costs about 16, a thigh 26, a hand 37, the head 55 and the neck 66. An arm on the far side, behind his body, costs far more than the near one.
• One more action point than the stroke: Slash (4) becomes Slash (5) while Called is chosen, on the action bar and on the chart (1 point).
• No help from the ward. What his ward adds to his own blows does not count toward a called blow. It still guards him, and the other man's ward still counts, at the height that finds the part most readily: the high line for the head, neck and chest, the low line for the legs.

Against a man lying senseless there is no guarding the head, so the head costs about 30 and the neck 41, which is only how small they are. A part that has been cut off is drawn dashed on the chart and cannot be chosen.

A throw cannot be called: with Called chosen, it goes at the body. A shot can be, close to or at a man lying senseless (see Calling a shot).

Wards

A ward is how a man holds his weapon between blows. It is not armour. It says which lines he has shut and which he is offering, and it makes some of his own blows easier.

The Ward group has four buttons. The ward he holds now is marked; the one you have picked to strike from is lit. R steps through them. Every man comes onto the field in Pflug, which shuts the body, where a blow goes when nobody has chosen otherwise. A beast, or a man fighting with his bare hands, keeps no ward. A man on the ground cannot pick one, and the one he holds counts for nothing until he is up.

In the table, his blows is what the ward adds to his own chance to hit at each aim. Blows at him is what it adds to his defence against a blow aimed at that line: a plus shuts the line, a minus offers it.

Favours is a bonus to hit for a stroke of that kind thrown from the ward: a slash or a chop is a swing, a stab or a thrust is a thrust. So a high slash from vom Tag is +15 on the ward alone, and a body thrust from Pflug is +13.

Changing ward

A stroke carries its own change of ward for nothing. Pick the ward, arm the stroke, click the man, and the blow is thrown from the new ward, which he then holds. To take a ward without striking, use Take it (1): it costs 1 action point. Each man keeps the ward you last picked for him, and his aim with it, from one of his turns to the next; until you pick one, the ward lit is the one he holds and the aim is Body. A new battle starts every man afresh.

A free blow, the one blow a man may give each round outside his own turn (see Measure), is thrown from whatever ward he already holds. There is no time to change it.

The chance the forecast shows is reckoned from the ward he holds now. If you have picked another to strike from, the blow itself will be thrown from the new one, so its real chance differs by what the two wards give at your aim.

Alber

Alber offers every line on purpose. When a stroke aimed at a man in Alber misses him outright, he answers at once with a free blow of his own, and the log says he had offered that opening, and takes it back. It needs what any free blow needs: he has not already given his one free blow this round, and his weapon reaches the man who missed. A blow caught on his shield is not a miss and is not answered, and neither is a free blow aimed at him.

Alber is a ward for a man who expects to be missed: a good fighter against a poor one, or a man standing where his friends make him hard to hit.

The chance to hit

The chance in the forecast is everything below, added up. It is never better than 95% nor worse than 5%.

For the striker:

• his skill at the art the stroke belongs to (a thrown axe is throwing, a sword's slash is the sword), which the muster card shows;
• the stroke itself: a spear's thrust is +10, a maul's smash −5;
• the aim and his ward, as above;
• the measure: −15 fighting one distance inside his own weapon's, −35 two inside, −10 for the few strokes that can lunge one distance beyond, and +7 for a short weapon once he is inside the point (see Measure);
• the side he comes from: +6 at the enemy's flank, +16 at his back (see Moving and facing);
• +5 for each other man of yours standing next to the enemy;
• +10 for each step of high ground he stands above the enemy, and −10 for each step below;
• his own wounds, pain, shock, wind and nerve, which the wound chart lists line by line (see Wounds);
• −20 if he is striking from the ground.

Against it, for the man struck:

• his guard, the defence the muster card shows;
• his weapon's parry, if it is one that turns blows aside: in full from the front, at 45% from the flank, not at all from behind. A weapon held inside its own measure turns nothing aside and counts against him instead, and a weapon that is poor at turning blows (a dagger, a bow) counts against him from every side. A man who can no longer wield a weapon, or has only his bare hands, turns nothing aside and counts 10 against himself;
• his ward, at the line you aimed at;
• his own wounds, pain, shock, wind and nerve, and a leg that will not carry him;
• brush underfoot, which costs him 5 of his guard;
• −15 if he is on the ground (see On the ground);
• his shield, below.

Two things change hands during the blow. If the man struck has points held back (see A turn), he spends them the moment the blow comes: 3 to turn it aside with his weapon, which takes 14 off the chance, if his weapon can reach the line; otherwise 2 to give ground so that it lands badly. The forecast cannot know whether he will, so a man who has held is harder to hit than the forecast says.

And a man who struck at your man and was left open (see After the stroke) is easier to hit for everyone, and easiest of all for the man he struck at, who is up to 10 better against him until his next turn.

A man lying senseless turns nothing aside, keeps no ward, and his shield is no use to him: in place of his whole defence, a blow is 20 easier. The same holds for a throw or a shot at him (see Missiles).

Shields

A shield in good order takes points off the chance to hit and turns them into a chance that the blow lands on the shield instead. Against a man aiming high or at the body it is worth 14%. It is worth half that against a low aim, less than half once someone is inside his measure, and less against a big beast, which bears it aside with its weight. A shield arm that is hurt catches fewer blows, in proportion to what is left of the arm.

A blow that is blocked is spent on the shield and the arm behind it. It can still shove the man, and it wears the shield. A shield worn through splits and is gone.

Reading the forecast

Hover over a ringed enemy with a stroke armed, and the forecast opens. It is what a fair blow of that stroke would do, read from the same rules the blow itself uses. Line by line:

1. The man's state, if there is anything to say: wavering, bleeding, reeling, on the ground.

2. The chance: 62% to hit, 14% shield. The first figure is the chance the blow lands on him. The second is the chance it lands on his shield. Whatever is left is a miss. After them come the stroke, the aim, and the distance between the two men: closed, arm's length or point range.

3. Notes, when they apply: what the measure costs (−15 fighting inside the measure, −10 reaching out past the blade), +7 inside the point, at their flank, +6 or at their back, +16, and ×1.5 to find a gap when the weapon is better than most at finding the joints of a harness from where it is. The aim's price, split in two: −5 for a smaller mark and −7 as the head is guarded.

4. The three likeliest parts, one to a line. Each begins with the part and its share of the blows that land, then walks its armour from the outside in:

   • cut, in green, with the joules it takes to cut through that layer;
   • holds, in red, with the joules it would have taken. From there on the edge is stopped and the blow goes on as blunt force;
   • for a blow that is blunt already, dents (the layer takes a set and presses into the flesh) or absorbs (it springs back);
   • bare when nothing covers the part.

   Then, in brackets, n% to slip a layer: how often the blow finds a gap beside at least one piece of armour instead of meeting it. The layer list above assumes it meets them all. Gaps are found more readily from the flank and behind, by a short blade or a half-sword point inside the measure, and against a man pressed by several enemies, still reeling, or on the ground.

   Last comes the arrow: 40 of the 120 J that lands, as blunt force. The second figure is the energy the part takes. A struck limb recoils, so only part of the swing lands in it (see What a blow does). The first figure is how much of that reaches the flesh through the armour, and the end says in what form: a cut, a stab, or blunt force.

With Called chosen, pointing at a man says only that selecting him opens his wound chart. A called blow's chance and price are read on the chart instead, part by part, in the same words, with called: no help from the ward after them; a called shot's are read the same way, without it. With Loose armed, pointing at a man the bow reaches but a called shot does not says why.

The forecast's joules are those of a fair blow, somewhat short of a perfect one. A real blow lands better or worse (see When the blow falls). Use the forecast to compare: this stroke against that, the high aim against the low, this man against the one beside him. A blow that arrives as a cut into the flesh is a different thing from one that arrives as 40 J of blunt force on mail.

When the blow falls

The blow is rolled against the chance and ends in one of three ways, which float over the man and go into the log:

• miss: it touched nothing;
• blocked: it landed on his shield;
• a hit: the float names the part it found.

A hit is also graded for how squarely it came home. Half of that is luck and a little is the striker's skill at the stroke's art. For a man of middling skill a blow carries somewhere between half and all of its joules; a master's blows come home square more often. A defender who gave ground before it takes it at 60% of that again.

Where it lands is drawn from the aim and the side it came from, the same weights the forecast showed. A called blow that lands, lands on the part called. Then the blow is resolved through armour, flesh, bone and organ, which is What a blow does. A blow that leaves a grave wound tests the man's nerve (see Nerve). A man struck from his flank or his back turns to face the man who did it, unless someone else already has his front or he is in no state to turn.

After the stroke

A blow does not end when it lands. Whatever it did not spend is still in the weapon, and the striker has to stop it before he can do anything else. Stopping it costs action points, paid at once from what he has left.

A miss leaves all of the blow in the weapon, and costs the most. A blow into a man's body leaves little, because his body takes it up. A limb cut clean through leaves almost all of it. A blow on a shield leaves some. The heavier the weapon and the more of himself a man put into it, the more there is to stop: for the reference man, a missed dagger slash costs about 0.5 of a point, a missed slash with an arming sword about 1.5, and a missed maul about 3, a third of a turn.

If he cannot pay it all, the rest leaves him open until his next turn, and the log says he is slow to recover from the blow, and left open. An open man's guard is worse against everyone, the man he swung at is better still against him, and blows find the gaps in his armour more readily. It is at its worst when 3 or more points went unpaid, which is as badly off as a stagger leaves him.

A free blow is paid for the same way, out of the points he was holding back. With none held, it leaves him open.

So do not spend a man's last points on a heavy swing unless you are content to have him open if it misses. A dagger can be used to the last point; a maul wants a few in hand.

Too winded to strike

Every stroke costs wind, more with a heavier weapon and a heavier load. When a man's wind has fallen below 35% of what one stroke costs him, the stroke buttons go dead and the reason is too winded to strike. End the turn to recover. He gets some wind back at the start of each turn (see A turn). He can still walk if he has the wind for it, and the gate does not stop a throw or a shot.