Arms and armour

Every table in this chapter comes from the game's own data. Nobody writes them by hand. Where a figure depends on the metal, it is given for iron, and where it depends on the man, it is given for the reference man: 172 cm, of average build, the man every number in the game was set against. Your own men hit harder or softer than he does, by their strength and by how well they know each weapon's art. The muster card and the kit screen show the figures for the man himself.

Weapons

Fights at is the distance a weapon wants (see Measure). A war bow is listed as closed because that is where it is swung as a stick; it looses from range. Turns a blow is how much the weapon helps to parry: a bow is a poor thing to parry with, and a sword a good one. The price is in crowns, for iron. Other metals change it (see Materials).

Strokes

Each stroke of each weapon, by the reference man. Points is what it costs in action points. To hit is added to his chance before anything else. Joules is the energy the stroke carries, before armour or the target's recoil takes any of it. A stroke that reaches out can be thrown from inside a longer weapon's measure. A thrown stroke has a range instead of a measure.

A bash, a smash or a hammer blow is blunt: it does not need to cut the armour, only to come through it. A cut needs an edge harder than what it meets. A point puts all of its joules behind a few square millimetres, which is why it is the stroke that argues with mail. What a blow does has the whole story.

Armour

Armour is worn in pieces, and each piece covers only part of what it is worn over. Covers is how often a blow that lands on that part meets the piece rather than the gap beside it, from the front. Blows from the flank and the rear find the gaps more often. Left and right pieces are separate, and only one side is shown here. Plate, gloves and footwear are made for their side; see Left and right. A mail coif is worn on its own or under any helm, as it was in the 13th century: a blow meets the helm first, then the coif, and every layer that gives lengthens the stop, so a helm over a coif shakes the head less than the helm alone. Thickness is the shell, with the padding sewn into a helm or coif beneath it.

The gambeson is worn under everything else, and the muster calls it the padding. Body armour and padding cannot be changed once the battle has begun (see Kit in the fight).

Shields

A shield cannot be carried with a two-handed weapon.

Arrows

A war bow comes with a quiver and a dozen arrows in it, and its price is the price of all three. The quiver holds two dozen. You choose which head to loose from the action bar (see Missiles). Loose, an arrow is 1 cell by 3; in a quiver it takes one cell of the quiver's own, so a full quiver takes 1 by 4 cells where two dozen loose arrows would take seventy-two. It weighs what its arrows weigh, and 0.3 kg for the quiver.

Materials

The same table the muster shows under How a blow is judged. Edge hardness decides what an edge can bite into. An edge softer than the armour it meets rolls over, and the cut costs far more. Cut resistance and dent resistance are what armour offers against edges and against hammers. Density decides weight: a denser head hits harder and tires the arm sooner. The price multiplies a metal piece's cost. Wood, leather and linen have fixed prices.