Kit in the fight

A man can change what he holds in the middle of a fight. He can take up another weapon, strap on a shield, stow what he carries, let it fall, pick up what lies at his feet, and put on a helm or a piece of arm or leg harness. Every change costs action points, and a few cannot be made at all until the fighting is over.

Opening the kit

On your man's turn, press Kit (I) on the action bar, or I. Only men have a kit; a beast has nothing to change. Close, I, Escape, or a click outside the box shuts it again.

The kit screen is headed with his name, the action points he has left, and the weight he is carrying. It has three parts:

• Worn and held: the man himself, facing you, so that his right hand is on your left. His Weapon hand is beside his right hand, his Shield arm beside his left, and his Quiver at his waist; each holds one thing. A quiver is belted on and is not changed in a fight; what is in it is drawn by the bow (see Missiles). Every piece of armour sits on the part it covers: a helm on his head and a gorget at his neck, a rerebrace, a vambrace and a gauntlet down each arm, a cuisse, a greave and a sabaton down each leg. A piece that covers more than one part spans them, as a mail sleeve does the upper arm and forearm, and a mail chausse the whole leg. His chest carries two: Torso, the shirt or cuirass, and Underneath, the padding under it. So does his head: a mail coif goes Under the helm, the place beside his head, and a helm, cap or great helm goes over it. An empty place is drawn as an outline, so you can see what he is not wearing.
• Pack: a grid of 6 by 4 cells on his back.
• On the ground here: whatever lies on the hex he is standing on, and nothing farther off. It grows as more falls on it.

Every piece is drawn to its size in cells. A dagger is 1 cell by 2, an arming sword 1 by 4, a round shield 3 by 3.

Moving a piece

Drag a piece to where you want it. While you drag, the place under it is outlined green if it can go there and red if it cannot, and the line under the grids says what it would cost (Costs 4 action points, Free) or why it cannot be done. Let go to do it. A piece of harness goes on the side you let it go on, over the part it covers there, and it is that part that lights green: a vambrace dropped anywhere on his left arm goes on his left forearm. To turn a piece while you drag it, right-click, scroll, or press R.

Or click a piece to select it. The line beneath then shows what it is: its mass, its size in cells, and for a weapon its hands, each stroke with the joules it would carry in his hands, and how sharp its edge still is; for armour, its thickness and material, how sound it is, and what it covers. Beside that are the buttons that apply to it, each with its cost:

• Take in hand, Strap on or Put on, to wear it or hold it;
• To the pack;
• Drop, to let it fall at his feet;
• Turn, for a piece in the pack or on the ground, which costs nothing.

Ctrl-click a piece (Cmd-click on a Mac) to put it on or take it in hand, and Alt-click it to stow it in the pack, each for what the button or a drag would cost. A piece already where the click would send it is only selected, and one nobody wears, such as a loose arrow, stays where it is with the reason under the grids.

Left and right

Plate, gloves and footwear are made for one side, and say so in their names: a left steel vambrace, a right leather glove. A handed piece can be strapped to the other side, since a man in a hurry makes do, but it fits badly. The fan of a couter and the wing of a poleyn guard the outside of the joint, and worn reversed they guard its inside, where no blow comes. So on the wrong side it guards its part less, and takes half as long again to strap on. The line under the grids says so while you drag it there. A gauntlet or a glove does not go on the other hand at all.

Mail, leather sleeves, leather bracers, leather cuisses and leather greaves are the same either way round, and their names name no side. One goes on either limb, guarding it as well and for the same points. The Put on button, or a Ctrl-click, puts a piece on its own side. An unhanded one goes on the other side if its own is already covered or cut away and the other is not.

A greyed button says why when you hover over it. With the keyboard, Enter or Space selects the piece that has the focus.

What each change costs

A piece of harness costs its share of a whole turn's work. A whole arm or leg harness would be 9 points, and each piece is worth as much of that as the part of the limb it covers, but nothing takes fewer than 2 to put on or fewer than 1 to take off.

Putting armour from the ground into the pack costs what taking it off would, and 2 more.

Torso and Underneath are marked on the kit screen as fixed. A mail shirt or a gambeson goes on before the fight and comes off after it: There is no time to take that off in a fight. A piece of body armour in the pack is only weight.

Swapping in one move

You do not need to empty a hand before filling it. Take up a weapon from the pack while holding another, and the one he held goes into the pack in its place (or falls at his feet if it will not fit), all for the 4 points of taking up the new one. Take one up from the ground, and the one he held falls at his feet. Put on a piece of armour over flesh another piece already covers, and the old one comes off in the same move, into the pack if the new one came from there, otherwise onto the ground.

So a spare in the pack is cheaper to reach for than it looks: 4 points, not 2 to stow and 4 to draw.

What the game refuses

The kit says why when it refuses, in these words:

• There is no time to take that off in a fight, or to put that on: body armour and padding.
• It needs both hands. Put the shield away first. and Both hands are on the weapon.: see below.
• The shield arm cannot bear it.: his left arm is too badly hurt, or he is already fighting left-handed.
• No arm can hold it.: neither arm will close on a weapon any more.
• It is wrecked.: armour worn through cannot be put back on.
• There is nothing left to put it on.: the limb it covers is gone.
• The pack has no room for it. and No room there.: turn it, or make room.
• Needs 4 action points, 2 left.: come back to it next turn.

Two hands and a shield

A longsword, a pitchfork, a great axe, a maul and a war bow each need both hands. A man holding one cannot also carry a shield, and a man carrying a shield cannot take one up: put the shield in the pack (2) or let it fall (free) first.

A shield goes on the left arm, which has to be sound enough to bear it, and he has to be fighting with his right.

If his weapon arm fails, whether cut off or ruined, whatever it held falls at his feet and he takes the other hand, if that one still works. A weapon taken up in his left hand drops the shield from it. Fighting with the off hand costs him on every blow, and a two-handed weapon swung with one working arm is far weaker; the wound chart lists both (see Wounds).

The fallen

When a man falls out of the fight or dies, his weapon, his shield if it is still whole, and everything in his pack fall onto the hex where he lay. His armour stays on him.

Hover over a hex to see what is lying there. To take any of it, a man has to stand on that hex: the kit only reaches the ground under his own feet. Then open the kit, and it is in On the ground here.

A limb cut off falls to the ground too, as a thing of its own with its weight in kilograms: a severed left forearm, say. Any piece of harness that covered nothing but that limb falls with it, so a gauntlet goes with the hand it was on, while a mail shirt stays on what is left of the man. A severed limb is of no use to anybody, but it can be moved about like anything else.

Taking up a weapon

A man whose weapon has left his hand, because he threw it, let it go, or his arm failed, fights with his bare hands until he takes up another. The wound chart says so: unarmed: fighting with bare hands until a weapon is taken up. Bare hands are a Punch (3) at close quarters that can lunge out to arm's length, and they turn nothing aside. Inside the measure he can still wrestle (see On the ground).

Taking up a weapon costs 4 points, from the pack or from the ground under him. If the nearest one is lying a few hexes off, walk onto its hex first. That walk may cost him the free blows of everyone he steps away from (see Measure), so count them before you go.

A man who can no longer hold a weapon at all, with both arms ruined, is marked disarmed, and nothing in the kit will change that.

The enemy does the same. A man of theirs who loses his weapon takes one from his pack, then from the ground under him, and will walk to one lying nearby if it would do him more good than the blows he would take on the way.

Spares from the muster

At the muster, each man's card has a Pack spares button. Once something is in it, it reads Pack: 1 spare, Pack: 2 spares. It opens his pack, the same 6 by 4 grid he will carry into the fight. Choose something from the list and press Add: any weapon in any make, a round shield of oak or metal, or any armour but a gambeson. A harness is sold whole and arrives as its pieces; if only some of them fit, the game says so. Drag to arrange, turn a piece with right-click, scroll, R or Turn, and Take out, refund to sell it back. Done closes it.

Spares are paid for from the purse like worn kit, and the card's price shows what the pack adds. They also weigh what they weigh: the load a man carries counts his pack, and load costs him wind and a later place in the order of the round (see A turn).

A spare is for the moment his first choice fails. A second weapon when a sword arm is hurt or a thrown axe is lying out of reach; a second shield when the first splits; a dagger for a man who means to get inside a spear's point (see Measure). And a spare is never wasted: when he falls, it falls with him, for whoever stands over him next.